Grazed from CloudTech. Author: Sharon Florentine.

The cloud is the perfect companion for startups. No, really. There are as many reasons for startups to embrace cloud computing technology as there are for enterprises. As Janakiram Mocherla, cloud-technology consultant, evangelist and author outlines, there are ten main reasons why startups should consider going to the cloud.

10. Self service: For startups, the ability to provision and de-provision resources all by yourself, without relying on a third party, is very powerful.

Most cloud platforms include a dashboard or management console that you can use to acquire and launch resources as you need them. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have a trusted cloud provider in your corner…

Grazed from PCAdvisor. Author: Michael Cooney.

Trying to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to IT issues is not a job for the faint of heart. That point was driven home at Gartner’s IT annual IT Symposium fest here where analyst David Cappuccio outlined what he called "new forces that are not easily controlled by IT are pushing themselves to the forefront of IT spending."

The forces of cloud computing, social media/networking, mobility and information management are all evolving at a rapid pace. These evolutions are largely happening despite the controls that IT normally places on the use of technologies, Cappuccio stated. "IT was forced to support tablets, and end users forced them to support IM and wireless networks a few years ago. And more such technologies are on the horizon," he said…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Linthicum.

It’s that time of the year again: Ghost shows and monster movies are constantly on TV, there’s plenty of candy in the office, and memos are issued on appropriate costumes for the workplace. I love Halloween.

Not much scares me this time of year — except in the world of cloud computing. In fact, certain developments in cloud computing strike fear in my heart. Be afraid — very afraid — of these three things.

1. The lack of security planning in cloud deployments. You’d think security is at the top of the list for those who deploy systems on public clouds. Sadly, I’ve noticed that security is typically an afterthought, very much like in internal deployments…

Grazed from CIO. Author: Bernard Golden.

Analyst firm IHS published an important study last week. It predicts that, for the first time ever, PC shipments would drop year-over-year; for 2012, total shipments will drop 1.2 percent. IDC and Gartner agree, noting that third quarter PC shipments fell 8 percent. It’s the steepest drop since 2001.

While it’s clear that use of new form factors such as smartphones and tablets has been skyrocketing over the past few years, this study is the first that indicates that this growth, far from incremental, is taking share from the previously dominant form factor. Of course, some may not accept the study’s findings, feeling that rumors of the death of the PC have been overstated. It may be the case, too, that the total number of PCs sold in 2012 won’t really shrink but may, instead, end up showing modest growth…

Grazed from BBC. Author: Editorial Staff.

Users could cut 30% off their bills for on-demand computer services by working out what sort of chip is on the servers they are renting, research suggests. On-demand, or cloud, services are built around what are advertised as clusters of generic computer servers.

But analysis reveals that some clusters are 40% faster than supposedly identical groups of machines. The statistics were gathered by working out which processors were used in the hardware behind the cloud service…

Grazed from Talkincloud. Author: Joe Panatierri.

As Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and SAP (NYSE: SAP) continue to expand their cloud computing platforms, entrenched rival Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) CEO Marc Benioff insists all the competitive moves further validate his company’s cloud strategy. Moreover, Benioff believes a new generation of executives is calling the shots in Corporate America, opening the door even wider for Salesforce.com.

“What I’ve always said is we need that validation [from rivals],” said Benioff last week during CloudForce New York…

Grazed from FierceEnterpriseCommunications. Author: Fred Donovon.

Removing barriers to cloud computing could more than double spending on cloud services in Europe, from €35.2 billion currently to €77.8 billion by 2020, according to a study by IDC on behalf of the European Union (EU).

IDC identified five main barriers to cloud adoption in the EU:

• uncertainty about legal jurisdiction and location of data in the cloud
• concern about the level of cloud security and assessing the trustworthiness of suppliers
• uncertainty about the business case of adopting the cloud model
• fear of lock-in with proprietary systems
• insufficient local support…

Grazed from Application Development Trends. Author: Jeffrey Shwartz.

IBM emphasized Platform as a Service (PaaS) as the next frontier for enterprise cloud computing at its annual Cloud Innovation Forum in New York last week.

IBM spent much of the one-day event, attended by 100 customers and 200 other stakeholders including business partners, talking up PaaS. The company’s PaaS offering, called SmartCloud Application Services (SCAS), is available in pre-release form for customers of IBM’s existing infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offering, SmartCloud Enterprise (SCE) and it will be generally available later this quarter…

Grazed from All Things Digital. Author: Arik Hesseldahl.

Worldwide spending on information technology will break through the $3.7 trillion level in 2013, propelled in large part by an increase in spending on big-data technology and on cloud computing, according to the latest prediction by the research firm Gartner.

Gartner made its latest prediction at its annual Symposium and ITxpo in Orlando today. If that number feels a little familiar, it’s not your imagination. It was just this April when Gartner said IT spending in 2012 would be exactly that same figure: $3.7 trillion. Turns out it was $3.6 trillion. So what’s a $100 billion between friends?…

Grazed from eWeek. Author: Jeffrey Burt.

David Meyer will leave Cisco after 15 years to become CTO and chief scientist at Brocade, overseeing the companies SDN efforts with service providers. Brocade is bulking up its software-defined networking and cloud computing strategies at the expense of rival Cisco Systems.

Brocade has hired David Meyer, a 15-year veteran at Cisco who had been a Distinguished Engineer with the networking giant focused on SDNs and the OpenFlow protocol, to head its service provider business as its CTO and chief scientist…