Grazed from CIO. Author: David Taber.

The promise of cloud computing is that you, the customer, don’t ever have to buy another server, back up another disk drive or worry about another software upgrade. All those promises are true-and now there are multimillion-dollar companies without a single server closet. Cool.

Unfortunately, too often cloud applications and services are bought by people who really shouldn’t be buying. Sure, they may have the budget-did you hear Gartner’s prediction that the CMO will spend more on tech than the CIO by 2017?-but that doesn’t mean they necessarily have the training to make good IT decisions, let alone the discipline or skills in their underlings to actually execute a coordinated technology strategy…

Grazed from Investors Daily. Author: Reinhardt Krause.

Rackspace Hosting (RAX) late Tuesday reported fourth-quarter sales below estimates, as cloud computing growth slowed, sending shares down in after-hours trading. Rackspace said Q4 revenue rose 24.5% to $352.9 million. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected sales of $355.4 million. Rackspace posted Q4 profit, minus items, of 21 cents a share, up 17% from a year earlier, in-line with estimates.

Rackspace garnered 24.7% of Q4 sales from cloud computing products, up from 20.6% in the year-earlier period. Rackspace said cloud sales rose to $87.3 million in Q4, up 49% from the year-earlier quarter. But Q4 marked more slowing in cloud growth. Cloud revenue rose 69% in Q2 and 57% in Q3 year over year. Adjusted earnings rose 27% to $130 million, Rackspace said…

Grazed from Insider Monkey. Author: Editorial Staff.

Want your mind blown? The Motley Fool Rulebreakers released this report revealing the significance of what has now become referred to as “the cloud.” Give it a read. What is the cloud?

To be clear, the definition of cloud computing is sometimes still debated among investing and technological professionals. In short, though, cloud computing is a new industry where services are offered and delivered via a network, primarily the internet. Most all firms providing cloud computing services utilize rental or pay as you models for charging users.

Following are 3 of some of the most utilized services:

• Software (like accounting, information systems, or HR)
• Storage (benefits of data storehouses without owning the necessary tools)
• Infrastructure (benefits of hardware and structure without owning the assets)…

Grazed from PRCarbon. Author: Editorial Staff.

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) displayed a poor performance at stocks market last year. The stock that touched the peak of $8.35 dropped to as low as $1.81 – a net 78% implosion, due to the fact of slowing down PC business. Advanced Micro Devices is also expected to be non profitable in the initial time frame of 2013.

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. currently doesn’t make the cheapest or fastest and most powerful micro processors; that honor is still with the Intel. But AMD does make a micro processing server chip with amazingly fast speed and energy-efficient and when these machines are arranged to work alongside, they can be more effective as faster and more powerful than Intel chips and still consumer less power…

Grazed from MarketWire. Author: PR Announcement.

AltiGen Communications, Inc. (OTCQX: ATGN), the leading provider of integrated Microsoft-based Unified Communications solutions, today announced that Auxilion (www.auxilion.com) has deployed AltiGen’s MaxACD contact center solution for Microsoft Lync. Auxilion is an innovative virtual support services provider that uses Microsoft cloud technology and a virtual workforce to deliver affordable, enterprise-quality business outsourcing solutions in the areas of IT support services, customer support and project support.

Auxilion recently replaced its aging Nortel Meridian phone system with Microsoft Lync, which provides a complete unified communications solution encompassing voice, video, IM, conferencing and desktop sharing. In addition, Auxilion needed a turn-key Microsoft certified contact center solution that included advanced call routing, agent monitoring/management, call recording and reporting for its virtual support services…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Vanessa James.

There is little argument today that cloud-based computing has taken the IT world by storm and continues to gain in popularity, including within the realm of nonprofit organizations. Unlike the usual small-business-style enterprises, nonprofit organizations are generally not resource rich and usually not terribly fluent in the IT business. We’ll walk through some of the cloud computing basics in this first of a two-part series devoted to the particular cloud-based computing needs of small to medium-sized nonprofit agencies.

Funds are stretched pretty thinly, especially in today’s economic climate — where giving has markedly decreased or is limited to grant-mandated specific uses. In turn, budgets for nonprofit organization IT expenditures are often small. Choosing the right technology and using IT budgets effectively is crucial to an organization’s health and allows CIOs and executive directors to focus on membership and the mission…

Grazed from American Banker. Author: Penny Crosman.

The PCI Data Security Standard Cloud Computing Guidelines are detailed and spell out who — client or cloud service provider — has responsibility for what types of security precautions. For instance, installing and maintaining a firewall to protect cardholder data would be a shared responsibility between client and provider under infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service cloud configurations. But for software-as-a-service, in which the cloud provider hosts software delivered over the web, the firewall would be the sole responsibility of the provider, the PCI Council has decided.

An overarching theme of the guidelines is that users of cloud services should not lean on their cloud providers for security. "Cloud security is a shared responsibility between the cloud service provider and its clients," the report states. "As they should, the rules put some onus on the cloud service provider and some on the client," observes Anton Chuvakin, research director at Gartner. "In general, a client has more responsibilities and the document reflects that correctly."…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

Gravitant is expanding the governance capabilities on its cloudMatrix cloud brokerage and management platform. The new capabilities will first roll out for Amazon Web Services (NASDAQ:AMZN), but Gravitant plans to roll it out for other cloud platforms over time.

The two main enhancements to the platform include:

• Continuous cloud asset discovery and sync, which will begin with Amazon Web Services and roll out to other providers over time. According to Gravitant, the new discovery and sync capabilities enhance internal governance capabilities to discover and control shadow IT and provide an alternate sourcing option.
• The integration of government-certified cloud providers into the cloudMatrix electronic services catalog, which is designed to enhance external governance capabilities through secure clouds…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Jeffrey M. Kaplan.

While industry pundits continue to debate the merits of public versus private clouds, most business technology decision-makers are trying to determine the best way to manage a mixed environment. But it’s proving difficult for a number of reasons. Most mid-size and large organizations have never gained full control over their on-premises IT operations and business applications. For many IT groups, legacy network and systems management software has been far too complicated and costly, much like ERP systems, which most businesses still haven’t been able to implement fully.

The way in which companies adopt cloud services and the various ways in which cloud service providers support their offerings compound the IT department’s challenges. The consumerization of IT lets business units and end users acquire software-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service and even infrastructure-as-a-service alternatives without IT’s help or approval. This end-run can strain networks, trigger security alerts and create additional integration requirements, putting another layer of complexity on top of the existing data center chaos…

Grazed from Investors Daily. Author: Reinhardt Krause.

Amazon.com (AMZN) is likely to spin off its cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services, says Oppenheimer. In a report on the cloud industry released Monday, Oppenheimer analyst Tim Horan says Amazon’s cloud computing unit would be better off as a publicly traded subsidiary. "We believe an ultimate spinoff of AWS is inevitable due to its channel conflicts and the need to gain scale," Horan wrote. " We see the business as extremely valuable on a stand-alone basis, possibly even operating as a REIT (real estate investment trust).

"To date, public cloud users, including online retailers, have had few alternatives when utilizing the cloud, other than to fund one of its biggest competitors. New competition will change the dynamic, and with more credible options from which to choose, an increase in the number of defections and/or a loss or pause in market share will pressure Amazon to create two separate companies that are more horizontally segmented."…