Grazed from NetworkWorld. Author: Brandon Butler.

A few weeks ago HP’s Meg Whitman braced tech watchers with sobering warnings that earnings for one of the pioneering companies of Silicon Valley may fall 10% next year, and may not grow for another two years. But HP’s head of cloud computing says don’t let that talk fool you: HP will be a big player in the cloud, says Zorawar Biri Singh. "I wouldn’t confuse the last couple of weeks with any statement on the cloud," he says. "It’s a big deal for us."

Singh acknowledges that HP has "made a mess of" its cloud marketing strategy in the past two or three years. But in recent months HP has worked to unify its message around the HP Converged Cloud strategy, including reportedly naming the company’s former networking CTO Saar Gillai to help lead its cloud segment with Singh. "I have a big part in that, Meg [Whitman] is directly on top of it, the board members are integrally involved in it," he says. "This is a top-down strategy that is pretty well understood."…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Gregory Musungu.

Cloud computing has been called a saint and other great names by friends and foe. It promises great benefits, cost cuts and efficiencies at individual and enterprise level. However, even as momentum grows, uptake figures have not been at all impressive. In fact, experts indicate that the confidence in the cloud and what it can do is waning. This trend is negative. In this article, we look at some of the factors that hurt cloud computing confidence, especially among would be users.

Insecurity in the cloud

Security is one of the hottest cloud computing topics. It worries so many people. Depending on the application whose service you use with the cloud, security cannot be guaranteed. And because of the fact that cloud computing is entirely constructed on the precepts of the internet, it’s hard to convince one security is taken care of. Moreover, more and more companies are attached in the cloud by malicious hackers. These security threats deem user confidence because people love to back up their data, feel it and see it-as is the case with traditional techniques…

Grazed from HealthTech Zone. Author: Editorial Staff.

A recent report finds that the fun is just beginning for healthcare in the cloud.

The cloud computing market is poised to expand by an estimated 20.5 percent over the next five years to become a $5.4 billion market by 2017, according to “Healthcare Cloud Computing Market – Global Trends, Challenges, Opportunities & Forecasts.” Healthcare spending on the cloud hovers around $1.8 billion as of 2011 despite market penetration of only four percent.

“The market is witnessing a surge in the adoption of technology, and cloud computing is expected to bring about a revolution in the healthcare IT market,” MarketsandMarkets said in the report. It noted that healthcare organizations (HCOs) are expected to deliver more with fewer resources, which is helping to fuel the growth in cloud usage…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Ryan Galloway.

Like so many technical terms that seem to creep into our everyday lexicon, “cloud computing” is a term we hear often, even though its actual definition may be unclear.

There was a time — not too long ago — when words like “server,” “hosting,” and even “blog” crept to ubiquity while still baffling many casual users of the early Web. For many, “cloud computing” is equally mysterious. But there’s a very good chance that you’re already using cloud computing in your daily life. Whether at work or at home, cloud computing is everywhere, even if you don’t realize it.

Here are some common ways you may already be using the cloud:…

Grazed from MSPAlliance. Author: Ed Silverton.

Corent Technology continues to win industry awards and other recognition as its products allow software vendors to transition to Software- as- a- Service (SaaS (News – Alert)).

The company just won an award from the West Coast Wall Street Conference, which follows Corent’s SaaS Enablement Platform being named the “2012 Cloud Product of the Year” at the TechAmerica’s High-Tech Innovations Awards. It was also a finalist in the Cloud Computing/SaaS category for the national 2012 American Technology (News – Alert) Awards. Last year, Corent was named the first IBM certified technology provider partner to IBM cloud…

Grazed from ComputerWeekly. Author: Archana Venkatraman.

Cloud computing services must become more federated and automated to help enterprise IT use them to deliver more for less, according to Intel.

“At a time when IT budgets are tight and when the IT teams are expected to deliver more for less, they need cloud computing services that are more flexible and responsive,” said Alan Priestley, Intel’s strategic marketing manager involved in the Cloud Builders programme – a cross-industry initiative aimed to help users build and operate cloud infrastructure more easily…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Barb Darrow.

10gen, the proprietor of MongoDB, signs on a raft of senior execs from Cloudera and Oracle to accelerate its NoSQL push worldwide. 10gen, the company behind MongoDB, the NoSQL database used by companies from Craigslist to Foursquare to Disney to Thrillist, is adding some serious enterprise and open-source software talent to its executive roster to help build momentum worldwide.

The new faces include Ed Albanese, who headed business development for super-hot Hadoop startup Cloudera and is now VP of business development for 10Gen. Albanese also spent time at VMware, Microsoft and Keane…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Barb Darrow.

Google Apps for Business users need to be protected from their own downloaded apps, according to Waltham, MA-based CloudLock, which on Monday launched a firewall for just that purpose. The Google Apps ecosystem continues to grow. CloudLock, a company that already offers PCI scanning for Google Apps, is now adding a firewall to help companies control what information in employee Google Apps accounts can be accessed by third-party applications.

The beauty of cloud is that users can easily download and install lots of cool applications — from a variety of app stores. The danger of cloud… is also that users can easily download and install lots of cool applications from a variety of app stores. That freedom of choice is a nightmare for IT shops in this bring-your-own-device (BYOD) era…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Joe McKendrick.

Imagine being at a business tech conference in 2017. Where will we be? What will speakers be saying about the whole cloud phenomenon of 2012?

My ZDNet colleague Phil Wainewright just posted his predictions for cloud computing, as it will look five years from now, and I couldn’t agree more with his predictions, listed below (a couple of my own predictions follow as well):

• Cloud is delivered on mobile, includes social: Business will get the cloud even more tha the tech folks, and it will endure, "not as a technology buzzword but as a layman’s term for connected automation," Phil says.
• Many businesses will thrive because of cloud: "Cloud, in its widest sense of being connected to a global network of on-demand resources, is transforming entire industries.
• Many businesses will falter because of cloud: There’s also a dark side, since the disruption cloud creates will put many established companies out of business.
• Government will impede the progress of cloud: Am interesting prediction by Phil: "Policy makers want to regulate the cloud — and that’s when they see it as a force for good. When they discover the disruptive impact on those established industries that are past masters at political lobbying, it’s all too easy to see how governments will be tempted to clip the wings of cloud. Many governments across the globe are already curtailing their citizens’ access to cloud resources. As economic pressures intensify, this will get worse, not better."…

Grazed from GigaOM.  Author: Barb Darrow.

Dilbert’s boss (he of the awesome two-point hairdo) tells Dilbert to move some of the company’s functions to the Internet but to call the Internet “cloud.”  Why? Because no one “will take us seriously unless we’re doing something in the cloud,” says Mr. Two-Points, aka PHB or Pointy-headed Boss. The remedy is to apply mindless jargon to what they’re already doing.  This has  been the practice of 95 percent of software companies for the past few years –put out an update and call it “cloud.”…