Long-time competitors Microsoft Corp and Oracle recently announced they would collaborate with Oracle software on its cloud-based platforms, permitting bits of Oracle’s software to interface with Microsoft’s software and online services.

This effort is aimed at improving the rivals’ chances as new competitors emerge selling less expensive services based in remote data centers.

BMC Software responds in a blog by Lilac Schoenbeck in Cloud Computing.

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Joe McKendrick.

Is the cloud computing marketplace becoming the domain of a few big vendors? With large players including Amazon, Microsoft, Google and IBM coming online with similar types of services, we may be starting to see a consolidation of the primary cloud computing market into the hands of a few powerful vendors.

This may herald the emergence of an IT oligopoly, Owen Rogers, senior analyst at 451 Research, suggests in a recent research note. Actually, he goes further to say what is emerging is both an oligopoly and monopoly at the same time. With identical services comes commoditization, and only big vendors that can deliver huge economies of scale with margins will survive in this space…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: James Bourne.

Companies are failing to update their software, meaning that because of the strain being put on old data centres, they suffer debilitating network outages on a weekly basis. That’s the verdict from Brocade, whose latest research found that one in three businesses suffer “multiple” network downtime instances per week. Further, more than nine in 10 (91%) of IT decision makers admit that they have to ‘substantially’ upgrade their infrastructure in order to keep up with the demand of cloud computing. Shockingly, 16% of those surveyed said they experienced daily outages.

On average these outages last around 20 minutes – according to the research 2% of those polled say they’ve encountered downtime of more than an hour. And in terms of the consequences, more than one in three said that these outages meant their SLA wasn’t hit, which in some cases led to customers looking for reimbursement…

Grazed from ComputerWeekly. Author: Archana Venkatraman.

An industry and government IT team in the US is conducting a test on the use of open cloud computing infrastructure to respond to emergencies and national disasters such as the Haiti earthquake of 2010. The team is testing how cloud computing platforms can help in collecting, storing and sharing geospatial information to assist emergency responders in a disaster situation through simulation.

The US non-profit organisation, Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC), has collaborated with six enterprises including The Aerospace Corp., Boeing, NJVC, Raytheon, Telos and Winthrop for the open source cloud concept project. These companies represent the response teams necessary during natural disasters such as healthcare, traffic control, aerospace and telecommunications, NCOIC said…

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Cloud computing is regarded as the future model for IT by nearly nine of ten respondents, according to a mid-market business survey conducted by Evolve IP. The survey also shows that while companies in the cloud are experiencing benefits like disaster avoidance, scalability and flexibility, IT managers are less enthusiastic about deploying than executives and IT directors. Executives and IT directors believe more deeply in the value of the cloud, feel more educated on cloud services and expect to spend more on them than IT managers.

The survey of more than 1,100 individuals involved with IT at mid-Market companies in North America revealed insight into cloud adoption trends as well as current cloud deployment. For a full synopsis and analysis of results, a complimentary white paper, "Cloud of Dreams – Adoption of the Cloud by North American Mid-Market Businesses," can be downloaded at www.evolveip.net/Cloud-Survey…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Editorial Staff.

There’s little doubt that the cloud has reenergized the software sector with exciting new companies, high-profile IPOs and compelling services. Less certain is whether the cloud is good for the software industry’s giants. Software has been a high-growth, profitable sector for years, and disruptive changes are rarely kind to incumbents. How should software leaders interpret the changes in their business landscape, and what should they do to make sure they’re not left behind by the software as a service (SaaS) wave?

We believe the rules of the game that create leaders in the sector today will endure. Platform power will continue to be paramount. When other developers build applications that work on top of yours, longevity is an inevitable consequence. Just ask Salesforce.com and the thousands of developers that build apps on top of its Force.com platform…

Grazed from Cloud Pro. Author: Jane McCallion.

Organisations need to move beyond thinking about public and private Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offerings when considering cloud and think more about what it is they want their application to do. This was the message from Nigel Beighton, international vice president of technology at Rackspace, during his keynote speech at the IaaS company’s Unlocked: The Hybrid Cloud event in central London earlier today.

“Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service [have been] a revolution,” Beighton said. The technology revolution of cloud, which Beighton described as “treating infrastructure as if it is software”, has changed how organisations deliver services, as well as how they exploit and use technology…

Grazed from CMO. Author: Editorial Staff.

No discussion of cloud computing goes far before the topic of security crops up. Putting vital corporate data ‘out there’ into the cloud can make any CIO nervous. Fortunately there is no shortage of advice on how to cloud compute securely. However, according to BitCloud CEO, Bennett Oprysa, ultimately the ‘security challenge’ comes down to the customer’s understanding of their business needs and any associated risks. “There are a number of government organisations willing to provide information on cloud security, but growing and mid-size companies often lack the internal resources to adequately assess the risks associated with cloud computing,” he said.

“This leads to fear and inertia in relation to cloud adoption. We understand these dilemmas. We also believe that from day one all cloud providers should focus on security and risk management, secure their own systems and have default settings to keep their infrastructure protected from internal attacks. This applies to all offerings: public, private and hybrid cloud.”…

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

Blue Ridge announced today that it has been selected by Supply & Demand Chain, Executive magazine as a 2013 “Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100” award winner. In the 11th annual listing, Supply & Demand Chain Executive recognized Blue Ridge for driving significant bottom-line results by implementing the company’s SaaS demand forecasting, replenishment and analytics solutions at Swedish retailer Procurator.

Procurator, omni-channel retailer of industrial safety supplies, sought a more precise solution to predict the influence of their demand-shaping activities and to ensure inventory was positioned where the company drove demand. Less than a year after implementing the Blue Ridge demand forecasting, replenishment and analytics solutions, Procurator increased in-stock performance from 89 percent to 97 percent, cut inventory by a total of 25 percent, and more than doubled inventory to 6.5…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: RJ Burgess.

There comes a point in the ERP selection process when it is time to take deployment model into consideration. There are several reasons why SaaS ERP often comes out on top based around the positive perceptions businesses have of its overall effectiveness. Specifically, a study conducted by The Aberdeen Group in October of last year (2012 ERP Benchmark survey) found six points that organizations consistently named as deciding factors in choosing SaaS ERP.

1. Lower Total Cost of Ownership
The top reason companies opted for SaaS ERP (cited by 82% of the 363 respondents) was a reduction in the total cost of ownership (TOC). While this was mainly because most SaaS ERP cloud hosting services are paid for on a subscription basis, there are other cost savings involved in this method of deployment that many businesses many not have considered…