Flexera Software, the leading provider of Application Usage Management solutions for application producers and enterprises, announced today the unveiling of a cloud-based version of its market-leading Software License Optimization solution, FlexNet Manager Suite for Enterprises. FlexNet Manager Suite On-Demand provides software license management functionality to enterprises seeking to reduce software spend and maintain license compliance through a low overhead software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering.

"While on-premises applications will always be part of the IT mix, many organizations see operating expense (OPEX) and capital expense (CAPEX) benefits in purchasing software through a SaaS-based delivery model," said Alan Swahn, Vice President of Product Management at Flexera Software. "FlexNet Manager Suite On-Demand will enable these organizations to implement best-in-class Software License Optimization, while enjoying the benefits of reduced infrastructure requirements, accelerated deployment times, lower learning curves, and a lower initial investment."

OpTier, a pioneer in analytics-driven, SaaS-based Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and transaction-based Big Data Analytics, announced today financial results from its 2013 fiscal second quarter which saw the company net a year-over-year growth rate of more than 400%.

The company’s aggressive growth is attributed to increased customer demand for simple-to-use, fast-to-deploy application monitoring that transcends silos and provides end-to-end application visibility. Earlier this year the company launched OpTier SaaS, a cloud-based version of its award-winning APM solution, which has resulted in increased market awareness and amplified customer demand.

Today at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) announced it would team with Microsoft to accelerate the deployment of private and hybrid cloud infrastructure worldwide. The companies will invest in initiatives to align sales teams and channel partners, while helping customers modernize their data centers with private cloud solutions.

Over the past two years, Cisco and Microsoft have invested significant development resources to integrate best-in-class data center technologies. By combining the innovative Cisco® Unified Data Center architecture with Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and System Center 2012, Cisco and Microsoft are helping customers simplify data center operations, boost IT productivity and improve data center economics.

Today at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) announced that it is investing up to $15 million in new ecosystem sales collaboration and continued technology integration with Microsoft Corp. to accelerate the adoption of enterprise cloud deployments.

The NetApp Partner Program complements existing offerings in the Microsoft Cloud OS Accelerate program, which provides funds to help customers offset the services cost of deploying Microsoft private and hybrid cloud solutions, accelerates deals, and drives competitive wins. The NetApp Partner Program includes a range of offerings, such as sales enablement, training, and incentives for NetApp reselling partners who are assisting customers with their cloud transition. Through the combination of NetApp^® storage, data management, and converged infrastructure solutions with Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and System Center 2012, customers can reduce costs, increase agility, and improve efficiency.

Box today announced new product advancements that transform the way customers collaborate and access business critical content in the cloud. Box Embed, a robust HTML5 framework that makes it easy to embed the entire Box experience anywhere people work, is now supported in Salesforce, the industry’s #1 CRM platform.

"Customer companies turn to the AppExchange as the world’s leading business apps marketplace to stay innovative and transform the way their organizations connect with customers, partners and employees," said Ron Huddleston, senior vice president, ISV and Channel, salesforce.com. "As a part of our partner ecosystem, Box is leveraging the power of the Salesforce Platform to help customers be more connected, collaborative and productive."

Idera, a leading provider of application and server management solutions, announced today the acquisition of CopperEgg, a provider of cloud monitoring for applications, websites, and servers. This acquisition expands the company’s application performance management offerings.

Grazed from PRWeb.  Author: PR Announcement.

Cloud vendor, Giva, today announced a significant new standalone cloud product release for ITIL change management for Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) compliance for IT service management.

With all of the demands imposed by SOX compliance and other industry specific compliance policies such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), there is a very high demand for IT change management software in the cloud. Giva is the only vendor that provides standalone cloud IT change management software. Many vendors provide IT change management software, but they are highly integrated with IT service desk incident and problem management modules. The problem is that many organizations already have such systems in place and only need the functionality of IT change management. Also, these integrated systems are expensive, difficult to customize and very complex to use…

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., today announced a joint initiative with Microsoft and select channel and systems integrator partners to transform the data center and accelerate hybrid and private cloud adoption by offering substantial incentives for customers who deploy new Hitachi Unified Compute Platform (UCP) Select for Microsoft Private Cloud. This new program runs from July 1, 2013 to July 1, 2014, and aligns with Microsoft’s Cloud OS Accelerate program, which provides funds to help customers offset the services cost of deploying Microsoft private and hybrid cloud solutions, accelerates deals, and helps drive competitive wins.

As announced earlier this year at MMS 2013, Hitachi UCP Select for Microsoft Private Cloud solutions have been validated for Microsoft’s Private Cloud Fast Track architecture, version 3. The Hitachi converged infrastructure for Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track, version 3, ships pre-configured from Hitachi distribution centers and is architected for Windows Server 2012, System Center 2012 SP1 and the associated monitoring packs – PowerShell cmdlets (pronounced “command-lets”) and Orchestration integrations. The Hitachi converged infrastructure combines Hitachi compute and Hitachi storage with industry-leading virtualization capabilities and best-of-breed networking.

Grazed from eWeek.  Author: Darryl K. Taft.

At its Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) 2013 here, Microsoft announced a series of new programs and services designed to help its partners and customers embrace the challenges and opportunities associated with cloud computing and big data.

Both onstage during a keynote address and in a blog post, Satya Nadella, president of the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft described the new programs, including Cloud OS Accelerate, which is a program in which Microsoft and key partners such as Cisco, NetApp, Hitachi Data Systems, HP and Dell will invest more than $100 million to help put thousands of new private and hybrid cloud solutions into the hands of customers, Nadella said…