Hewlett-Packard is building on the HP Converged Cloud portfolio that it announced in April 2012 with new offerings aimed at helping customers drive adoption and usage of hybrid cloud environments. Saar Gillai, senior vice president and general manager, Converged Cloud at HP, offered first-hand perspectives to Talkin’ Cloud.

The vendor introduced the new and updated solutions at its HP Discover conference in Frankfurt, Germany. HP also says more than 100 channel partners and ISVs (independent software vendors) now back the HP Cloud effort. Included in the announcement are new versions of HP CloudSystem, HP Cloud Service Automation and HP Continuous Delivery Automation — each of which got an incremental update. HP also unveiled new and enhanced public cloud services under the HP Cloud Services portfolio…

As cloud computing continues to mature, the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, has become a popular software option for firms of all sizes and across all industries. A newer entrant to the cloud family – known simply as the "community cloud" – is now catching the eye of companies interested in connecting with business partners, vendors, customers, and even competitors via the Internet.

This idea of forming close ties and alliances across industries isn’t new. Companies have been connecting with one another in the offline world – and via network-based, industry-focused buying and selling communities that formed during the dot-com era (and some of which eventually faded) – for decades. Now some of them are using the same concept in the cloud…

The Australian cloud computing market was worth US$ 882.4 million in 2012 and is expected to reach US$ 3.33 billion in 2016. Frost & Sullivan expects this market to grow at a CAGR of 40.3% from 2011-2016.  According to Andrew Milroy, Vice President, ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific, cloud computing is witnessing growing traction in Australia. Indeed, Australia is leading cloud adoption in the Asia Pacific region.

"Almost a third of businesses in Asia Pacific today use cloud computing. In Australia, 43% of businesses have adopted cloud computing, the highest in the region," said Milroy at Frost & Sullivan’s ICT outlook briefing 2013 held in Sydney today.  The increasing use of cloud computing together with mobility, big data and social media are transforming the ways in which organizations and individuals engage with one another. They are also transforming the way business is conducted. Key changes include a reduction in the size of IT departments and much greater cross industry convergence…
 

Now that we’re nearing the end of the year, there is one key takeaway from the cloud computing industry: enterprise use has finally arrived. The use of Cloud Computing is no longer hidden from plain sight and IT departments are now very upfront about their company use, resulting in legitimate cloud budgeting taking place. In fact, the latest Forrsights Surveys state that half of all enterprises in North America and Europe are planning to create budgets for cloud related investments in 2013.

This means that cloud usage will finally get real in 2013. It marks the end for all the speculation and the cloudwashing, as corporations and organizations start getting down to the real business of incorporating cloud technology into their formal IT portfolios. Some of the most important predictions about cloud technology in the coming year include:…

As with their user forum last year, EMC’s Forum Boston 2012 on Friday emphasized cloud infrastructure technology, big data and business intelligence products.  This year, however, EMC made it clear to its customers that there should be a sense of urgency about deploying IT as a service via a cloud infrastructure, a sentiment not supported by everyone at the conference.

During a keynote speech, EMC CIO Sanjay Mirchandani said cloud computing and big data is experiencing uptake faster than any past technology.  Mirchandani cited a recent Gartner survey that showed 78% of companies plan to pursue a private cloud strategy by 2014, while another 17% indicated they might pursue a cloud strategy and 5% said they would not.  "And cloud computing transforms us — IT," Mirchandani said. "We become more consultative as opposed to classic IT management."…

Reports that rPath, the source code automation start-up founded in 2005 by ex-Red Hat technical folk, was looking for a buyer proved true.  Business analytics software shop SAS Institute has acquired its code and some of its staff expecting to expand its ability to automate and manage IT operations on multiple platforms and environments, including on-demand and in the private and public cloud.

It said it would better automate the set-up and management of SAS solutions in any virtual environment and is thought to give SAS a more direct path to support public, private and hybrid clouds than building the widgetry itself.  rPath employees have formed a new Platform Deployment Technologies Group within SAS R&D…

The new E-book 5 Cloud Computing Facts Every Business Owner Must Know Before Moving Their Network To The Cloud published by Mobilitechs.com takes a thorough look into the state of the cloud computing industry by looking at five critical areas of knowledge about cloud computing. The 14 page PDF is available for free download and is packed with helpful insights for business owners in Reading, Lancaster, Wyomissing, and Allentown, PA.

The research firm IDC estimates that by the year 2014, the cloud services market will top $55 billion. Today’s businesses and their employees already use an estimated $100 million in cloud computing services – but many business owners don’t understand what the cloud is, how their businesses can benefit from cloud computing, and what their ROI would be from investing in cloud technology…

When IBM unveiled SmartCloud Docs this week, Ed Brill’s fingerprints were all over the announcement. As director of product line management for IBM Collaboration Solutions, Brill wants to compete aggressively against Google Docs, Office 2013 and other productivity suites.

But take a closer look and you’ll see that Brill and IBM have a much larger strategy in mind. It includes a complete cloud suite plus continued investments in on-premises software and appliances — backed by channel partners. "We believe in the cloud but we also believe in [on premises] software and appliances. We’re not allergic to software like Salesforce.com, and we’re not like Google saying everything should be delivered as a service."…