Grazed from CNet.  Author: Gordon Haff.

Most discussions about where computing is and where it’s going end up touching on three big themes: mobility, big data, and cloud computing. Yesterday’s MIT Sloan CIO Symposium was no exception, whether those precise terms were used or not.

Perhaps the most striking example of just how rapidly mobile devices are forcing IT organizations to adapt came from Scott Griffith, the CEO of Zipcar, who said that "60 percent of interactions are now through an Android or an iPhone." He also noted that essentially BlackBerry’s entire share had shifted to Android over a period of about two and a half years…

Grazed from Economic Times.  Author: Editorial Staff.

"The start-ups will have access to our resources such as BizSpark programme and $60,000 in Azure credit through BizSpark Plus programme to take advantage of the cloud," Microsoft India (R&D) Managing Director Amit Chatterjee told reporters here unveiling the programme in the Indian sub-continent.

Start-ups that can build any application using the company’s cloud platform and operate in any business or market segment will be eligible to apply for the programme, being launched simultaneously in Beijing (China), Tel Aviv (Israel), Seattle (US) and Bangalore…

Grazed from Network Computing.  Author:  George Lawton.

Virtualization and cloud computing are hot topics at EMC World–but how do you deliver speed and data center resiliency, as well as scalability, in virtual and cloud environments? Ciena is focusing on tackling all three issues with its demonstrations at this week’s conference in Las Vegas.

Jim Morin, product line director, managed services and enterprise at Ciena, says the company’s technology platform for a virtual WAN will facilitate the deployment of ultra-low latency stock market applications and ease the distribution of synchronous virtual machine architectures. In the long run, it will allow the development of bandwidth-on-demand services for data -intensive cloud applications…

Grazed from PCWorld.  Author: Grant Gross.

An often-repeated concern that the U.S. Patriot Act gives the U.S. government unequaled access to personal data stored on cloud services is incorrect, with several other nations enjoying similar access to cloud data, according to a study released Wednesday.

The governments of several other countries, including the U.K., Germany, France, Japan and Canada, have laws in place allowing them to obtain personal data stored on cloud computing services, said the study, by Hogan Lovells, an international law firm that focuses on government regulations and other topics.

The Patriot Act, passed as an anti-terrorism measure in 2001, is "invoked as a kind shorthand to express the belief that the United States government has greater powers of access to personal data in the cloud than governments elsewhere," wrote study co-authors Christopher Wolf, based in Washington, D.C., and Winston Maxwell, based in Paris. "However, our survey finds that even European countries with strict privacy laws also have anti-terrorism laws that allow expedited government access to cloud data."…

Grazed from PRWeb.  Author: PR Announcement.

iSpaces launches its new cloud storage solution today, FileSpace, offering the first and only service allowing users to seamlessly access their favorite online storage providers all together in one place. Users can simply drag and drop files between Dropbox, Box, iSpaces storage and their local hard drive from one easy to use interface.

"With so many cloud storage providers available, people tend to have multiple accounts with documents in various places," said Sunne Justice, president and co-founder of iSpaces. "FileSpace makes it infinitely easier to manage your files from one easy location. Think of iSpaces as your portal into the cloud."…

Grazed from Data Center Knowledge.  Author: Rich Miller.

Chuck Price has been a CIO, and has spoken with many other chief information officers about cloud computing. So when he began building his own cloud computing operation, he and his team set out to create an IT infrastructure offering “for CIOs, by CIOs,” Price says.

Price is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Ajubeo, a Boulder-based cloud provider which is launching today, with a focus that seeks to bring together enterprise hardware, software and networking technology packaged for either direct sales to end users or as a private-label Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud platform for channel partners. Ajubeo is backed by Grey Mountain Partners, a Boulder-based private equity firm with more than $400 million in assets under management…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Wyse, the global leader in cloud client computing, today announced its participation in the eLearning Africa conference and exhibition. As the event’s platinum sponsor for the second year running, Wyse will discuss how advanced cloud client computing can help African educators meet their goals for widening access to technology-enhanced education, development and training. eLearning Africa runs from 23rd – 25th May 2012 in Cotonou, Benin, under the patronage of the Government of Benin.

Working across the continent with its local technology partners, Wyse has developed and deployed a range of solutions that are ideally suited to widening access to IT-enhanced education and training in Africa. The technologies involved are tailored to the continent’s requirements for classroom ICT that is exceptionally reliable, affordable and energy efficient while not compromising on access to the latest applications and data for teaching and learning…

Grazed from Bloomberg.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Cloud computing company Salesforce.com said Tuesday that it will add more than 750 employees in Europe to boost growth in that region.

The company provides remote computer processing services — also known as cloud computing services — to businesses in Europe including Burberry and BMW Group. Salesforce.com said its business in Europe has increased 32 percent on a year-over-year basis, and it now has about 20,000 customers in the region.

The company said it will hire employees in its sales, marketing, and IT support divisions across Europe.

A call to the company to find how many workers it currently had in Europe was not immediately returned.

Shares of Salesforce.com rose 33 cents to $149.38 in late afternoon trading. The stock has traded between $94.09 and $164.75 over the last year.

Grazed from MSPMentor.  Author: Joe Panettieri.

Sophos, the security software company, is preparing to promote cloud solutions to managed services providers (MSPs) later this year, according to Emmanuelle Skala, VP of global channels and sales operations as Sophos. It’s the latest example of a potential MSP land grab among anti-virus and endpoint security companies.

Skala briefly mentioned Sophos’s MSP partner strategy today during the Sophos Partner Connections 2012 conference in Las Vegas. Toward the end of this year, as Sophos begins to more aggressively promote cloud-oriented security services, the MSP strategy will also become clearer, Skala told attendees. (Skala succeeded former Sophos Channel Chief Steve Hale about a month ago.)…

Grazed from Business2Community.  Author: Shreesha Ramdas.

Cloud computing is a very trendy term nowadays in the marketing world. It’s useful to review the definition of the term and to understand its significance for our profession.

Although cloud computing broadly encompasses many types of services delivered from the Internet, I’m only discussing those that automate business functions in an immediate and scalable manner. All the other good services we often hear about (e.g., infrastructure as a service, platform as a service) are useful but not relevant in this context.

There are five critical things a marketer needs to understand about cloud computing…