Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Ted Samson.

Signaling Amazon Web Services’ steady rise toward enterprise acceptance, Alfresco today unveiled three versions of its open source ECM (enterprise content management) platform for AWS, ranging from fully hosted to a hybrid-cloud version. Alfresco joins the ranks of such companies as CloudStack, F5, Eucalyptus, and SAP that have released offerings and support for the Amazon cloud — despite high-profile outages AWS has suffered this past year. The more vendors that hop aboard the AWS wagon, the more difficult it will be for AWS rivals like Oracle, Rackspace, and Microsoft to gain traction.

Alfresco’s ECM, designed for secure collaboration and file-sharing, will be available in three AWS flavors. Customers can opt for the full SaaS application, which Alfresco described as a delivering "simple, business-class collaboration with mobile access and file sharing."…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Fernanda Aspe.

If we’ve learned anything since the emergence of cloud computing, it’s that cloud is not going away. And news from 2012 is proof of that. Discussions sprung up around cloud computing, from how it’s transforming enterprise IT — both easing admin’s workloads and raising concerns about security and data privacy — to how cloud services are attracting the eyes of other industry sectors with money to spend.

The bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend was hotly debated, and the future of cloud service providers such as OpenStack and Oracle was thoroughly scrutinized. This top-five list of cloud computing 2012 news stories features our most popular articles covering the cloud market in 2012, as chosen by our readers…

Grazed from Globe and Mail. Author: Jody White.

Companies set to profit from the growth of cloud computing. While the idea of access to software and services delivered via an online network has been around since the 1960s, it wasn’t until the launch of Salesforce.com in the late ninties that tech companies began to provide useful products via the cloud.

More recently, we have seen tremendous growth in cloud computing offerings – which allow people and organizations to store digital data offsite – from Internet giants such as Amazon, Google and Facebook. This has created a market for large-scale storage services to handle the vast amount of documents, social media posts and shared photos that are uploaded to the cloud millions of times per day…

Worried About the Cloud? Always Plan Ahead

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Paul Korzeniowski.

When evaluating cloud computing, corporations are thinking more strategically and less tactically, according to an IDC survey of U.K.-based cloud managers. "Just about all corporations are now searching for ways to leverage cloud computing," said Juergen Urbanski, vice president of cloud architectures at Deutsche Telekom. In fact, the survey found that three quarters of corporations that responded view the cloud as a way to solve key business issues.

But the reasons why companies opt for cloud services are changing. Reducing IT costs is still a main driver, mentioned by about 40% of businesses. A few years ago, almost all respondents cited lower costs as the cloud’s No. 1 benefit. However, the focus is moving away from simply cost…

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) has agreed to buy Eloqua Inc. for about $871 million to further expand into cloud computing amid competition from SAP AG and Salesforce.com Inc. Oracle said Thursday that buying Eloqua will bolster its "cloud" technology for helping companies make decisions on their marketing, sales and customer support. Cloud computing refers to the concept of making software available for anyone with an Internet-connected device, rather than installing it on company computers.

The $23.50-per-share offer is more than twice Eloqua’s initial public offering price in August and 31 percent higher than the close Wednesday. The board of Eloqua, whose Internet-based software is used in marketing and revenue-performance management, approved the deal, according to a statement…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Caitlin White.

As past years have been more about whether cloud computing will infiltrate IT or not, 2012 has been rife with thoughtful analysis of the pros and cons of cloud services. Enterprise IT has been steadfast in its data security concerns, and IT administrators have worried about job security with the introduction of cloud. But many companies are finally seeing how cloud can innovate and advance their missions and business plans.

SearchCloudComputing.com had the opportunity in 2012 to speak with experts from all walks of cloud — CEOs, cloud security directors and open source pros, among others. These eight best cloud computing Q&As put industry authorities in the hot seat for their takes on the cloud market…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Abdul Salam.

2012 has been a takeoff year for cloud computing, there have been no real major breakthroughs yet no setbacks as well, but that is not to say that the field has been asleep overall, we have seen a continued growth in terms of support and adoption including the emergence of new types of services on offer. There have been a lot of improvements in the technology and also a lot of new directions taken that we have yet to see if they will lead to success or not. Let us take a look back a whole year at the state of cloud computing so far.

Wide adoption in media and entertainment – the cloud has proven its potential for the storage and delivery of media and entertainment elements mainly because of the introduction of high speed data communication standards like 4G and LTE. It has become easier to store, retrieve, and deliver media from the cloud. We are seeing a trend in consumer adoption of services like Dropbox, Box, Microsoft SkyDrive, Google Drive, iCloud, Netflix and Spotify. This may also be the reason why a lot of smartphone manufacturers chose to remove the expandable memory options from their devices like Google’s Nexus 4 by LG and the Nexus 7 tablet by Asus. HTC also did not include expandable storage on their new Droid DNA…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Caitlin White.

As cloud computing makes its way from testing to production environments, discussion around the real-world details of investing in cloud intensifies. We’ve pinpointed the rising cloud computing trends for the New Year. These keyword topics may not have been the hottest of the year, but as 2012 draws to a close, interest has been heating up — signaling some of the cloud issues and themes we’ll be facing in 2013.

‘Big data analytics’

This year has established the power of crunching big data and the competitive advantages it can bring to companies. According to Gartner, and after research into Web searches, it seems that in 2013 big data’s influence will only amplify. Since many enterprises have yet to choose a side, cloud computing standards will likely be a contentious issue moving into 2013…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Joe McKendrick.

Cloud computing may introduce new processes and technology challenges, but organizations appear to be ready to handle them, a new survey suggests. An overwhelming majority of IT executives, in fact, say they’re having no problems finding the skills they need to move forward with cloud engagements. But will this confidence be sustainable as organizations move deeper into cloud?

This is one of the results of a new survey of 327 CIOs, business executives and other stakeholders, conducted by Dimensional Research and sponsored by Host Analytics. More than eight out of 10 CIOs (81%) and IT managers (81%) in the survey say they are “easily able to find employees or contractors” who can help customize Software-as-a-Service applications…