Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Dan Kuznetsky.

Floyd Strimling, VP Community, Technical Evangelist for Zenoss, stopped by a while ago to speak about his opinions on the topics of OpenStack, Google App Engine versus Amazon Web Service, and different approaches to open source projects he’s seen companies adopt. Our conversation started by focusing on cloud computing frameworks and the approaches organizations are using to deploy their applications. I’m not going to attempt to capture all of the thoughts that were discussed. Here is a short summary:

1. Often cloud computing services are being selected based upon the the expected costs rather than what the service will do for the organization. These perceptions often are developed by business decision makers without the help of IT support…

Grazed from Daily Commerical News. Author: Peter Kenter.

Cloud computing is an esoteric name for a simple concept. Instead of relying on one’s own hardware and software for a suite of services, users rely on software, information storage and computing resources accessed over the Internet.

Construction companies, however, have been slow to make use of cloud technology, says James Benham, founder and president of JB Knowledge Technologies, Inc., a Texas-based information technology services provider, focusing on the construction, real estate, risk and insurance industries. “With cloud computing, you can access the digital information you need from anywhere, any time through any device — from mobile devices to the computer at home, to the computer at your desk,” says Benham…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Linthicum

Although federal agencies have expanded their use of cloud services, many challenges remain for full implementation, says Citizens Against Government Waste in its 2012 review of the federal cloud efforts.

There is some good news. According to a 2012 survey of federal civilian and defense personnel, $5.5 billion had been saved through the use of cloud computing technology. However, the survey respondents also stated that wider cloud adoption could have saved as much as $12 billion…

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Maureen O’Gara.

Apple reportedly wants to buy Waze to help fix its giant maps gaffe but according to what TechCrunch heard it doesn’t want to spend the $750 million asking price. It’s reportedly offering $400 million plus $100 million in incentives.

The three-year-old Israeli-born Waze uses crowdsourcing to plot routes around traffic jams and in the process create real-time maps.
It’s said to have shaved five minute off the daily commute in Israel…

Grazed from Five9. Author: PR Announcement.

Five9, the leader in cloud contact center software, was honored with a Cloud Computing Excellence Award. Cloud Computing Magazine recognized the Five9 Virtual Contact Center solution for helping advance a significant, growing technology market.

Five9 pioneered the cloud contact center software market and continues to grow and enhance its solutions to deliver scalable cloud contact centers quickly, at a cost of ownership far lower than traditional premise-based solutions. The Five9 Virtual Contact Center, built on a fully multi-tenant cloud platform, has all of the features necessary to effectively run contact center operations, including inbound, outbound and blended call center capabilities, interactive voice response with speech recognition and workforce management.  "It’s exciting to see Five9 recognized for innovation in the cloud. Five9 delivers next generation cloud contact center solutions that help organizations eliminate the hassle and expense of outdated premise-based solutions."

Grazed from NetworkWorld. Author: Ellen Messmer.

Gartner Thursday held forth on what it expects to be the top security trends for 2013, citing the rise of cloud computing, social media and employees bringing their own devices to work as among the forces likely to produce radical changes in how enterprises manage IT security. The market research firm also says the "major shift" expected in IT security in 2013 will shake up established IT security vendors as newer players in cloud and mobile challenge them.

Earl Perkins, Gartner research vice president, said during a webinar with clients that the forces cited above, as well as an "information explosion" in the enterprise, are putting enormous pressure on enterprise IT professionals and vendors by "making some of the existing IT infrastructures obsolete." He added: "Will the major providers of security technology be the same ones in three to five years? The answer is probably not."…

Grazed from NFCNews. Author: Emil Bonaduce.

Let’s get to the point: plastic ID cards used for transactions are going to be around for a long time. Sure, smart phones are amazing. We’ve seen phones utilizing NFC technology buy sodas in ultra-tech environments. Just bump your phone and transfer personal data. It’s so cool and easy, why don’t we just do it, now, today!

Don’t get me wrong, the penetration of the transaction market via smart phones has only just begun, and its use as a percentage of the total market including cash, prepaid, credit card and other, will increase exponentially. However, the expanding transaction market will continue to drive plastic card growth as well. Of all things, the major credit card processors plan to push chip cards in the U.S., the last bastion of mag stripe cards in the developed world. The growth of plastic cards will grow at a decreasing rate, but not halt and decline…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Robert Shaw.

Cloud computing wasn’t always cloud computing. Depending on who you ask, first it was either time sharing or grid computing. Strangely, nobody actually claims to know how cloud computing got its name. To this day, no one claims credit for coining the phrase. (Maybe I shouldn’t have said that…)

The phrase “cloud computing” is rather poetic for a field that’s not known for its literary devices. It’s certainly not typical of utilitarian terms like social networking, Internet, voice over IP, and distributed computing.Perhaps that’s why marketing pros love it so much — and why it grates on so many old-school IT pros…

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Maureen O’Gara.

Imation, the storage and data security outfit, has bought Nexsan, the privately held disk-based and solid-state storage systems shop, for $105 million in cash and $15 million in stock.  Imation said Nexsan, which has raised about $36.5 million in venture funding and twice abandoned the idea of going public, had 2011 revenues of $82 million and is still growing.

It reportedly has gross margins in the 40% range. The deal is expected to be immediately accretive although Nexsan’s profitability is questionable. Imation means to use Nexsan to focus on the SMB market with purpose-built storage systems and appliances…

Grazed from FierceGovernmentIT. Author: Greg Slabodkin.

While federal agencies have made progress expanding their use of cloud services, many challenges remain for full implementation, Citizens Against Government Waste says in its 2012 review of the federal cloud.

As part of the Obama administration’s "cloud ?rst" strategy for IT procurement, federal agencies are moving various services, including email, legacy software, archival services, public website hosting and infrastructure services to the cloud. CAGW says federal spending on cloud computing, include public, private and shared service models, is expected to total $11.2 billion between 2012 and 2017…