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…

Grazed from Wired.  Author: Eric Johnson.

Cloud computing holds great promise as one of the key methods available to IT professionals to enable cost reduction in operations for enterprises; large, small and medium sized business across nearly every market vertical. However, as it is currently being implemented, the cloud is in danger of establishing constructs that will cause it to fail to meet its potential.

This could subsequently cause it to fail to deliver on productivity increases and profit margin contributions to the levels that cloud computing should natively attain. For cloud service providers to attain service delivery levels for which enterprises will continue to subscribe in ever increasing amounts, and for service which yields increasingly profitable transactions, cloud service providers will need to make a fundamental change in their current strategies…

Grazed from Investors Business Daily.  Author: Amy Alexander.

Want to innovate tomorrow? Put your head in the cloud today.

• What is it? Cloud computing is the online storage of information within a network of data centers. A decade ago, businesses had to buy and maintain a block of their own in-house servers. The process was expensive and tough to plan.

Now firms can get as much or as little computer storage as they need from Internet companies such as Amazon (AMZN) that have built banks of servers to rent out streaming data processing power. Software can run off-site…

Grazed from Bloomberg.  Author: Kenneth Wong.

SAP AG (SAP), the largest business- management software maker, agreed to buy Ariba Inc. (ARBA) to add a cloud-computing applications maker in a transaction valued at about $4.3 billion.

SAP offered $45 a share for Ariba, whose board of directors has unanimously approved the deal, Walldorf, Germany-based SAP said in a statement today. The transaction will probably be completed in the third quarter subject to approval by Ariba shareholders and regulators, it said…

Grazed from The Huffington Post.  Author: Willo O’Brien.

We take our jobs everywhere these days. With laptops, we can file sales reports from home, conference from a hotel room, and (regrettably) update spreadsheets on vacation. What’s becoming increasingly common, however, is that many of these tasks can be accomplished from your smart phone.

Grazed from NetworkComputing.  Author: Mike Fratto.

When EMC talks about cloud computing, it isn’t necessarily referring to the same kind of cloud the rest of IT is talking about. EMC’s cloud is focused on the company’s products that reside in your data centers, or in its cloud partner data centers like Peer 1 or Terremark, and integrated with VMware. That’s EMC’s cloud.

If you’re an EMC customer (and you’re likely a VMware customer), then your organization experiences some potential benefits of using a cloud storage provider that used Atmos for its infrastructure. Storage admins are a conservative bunch, and rather than adding a cloud storage gateway like Panzura or TwinStrata to their existing storage strategy, it might seem safer to stick with EMC’s storage in your cloud provider’s network. EMC certainly seems to be making an integrated storage system attractive…

Grazed from MarketWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Coraid Inc., a leading developer of Ethernet SAN solutions with more than 1,500 customers worldwide, today announced it has been recognized in CRN’s 2012 Virtualization 100 list. Featuring the top 100 vendors in the virtualization space, the Virtualization 100 is an annual list published by UBM Channel’s CRN that helps solution providers identify and evaluate virtualization products and programs. CRN lists are considered the de facto resource solution providers use to make strategic technology decisions to support their businesses.

Companies on the 2012 Virtualization 100 list were selected by CRN editors based on their innovative and forward-thinking approach to selling products and services through the IT Channel. Vendors on the list were selected for their ability to help VARs transform themselves into true service providers that help organizations take advantage of the ease, flexibility, scalability, elasticity and cost savings that virtualization has to offer…

Grazed from InfoWorld.  Author: David Linthicum.

You’re in IT and have yet to create a cloud computing strategy for your business. Now what?

You can wing it, which is what most IT shops do. You can wait to see which way the wind blows, then create strategy around what works. But lack of planning means there will be a lot of expensive retrofitting and rework. Your risk of failure skyrockets.

For those of you who hate to plan, let me provide you with three easy steps to create a cloud computing strategy. It’s less painful than you think…

Grazed from ITWeb.  Author:  Tessa Reed.

Cloud computing and big data are some of the biggest changes that are transforming the IT landscape.  This is according to Joe Tucci, chairman and CEO of EMC.

Speaking at EMC World, in Las Vegas, on Monday, Tucci said transformation is not new to the IT industry. However, he stressed that the big changes facing the industry present opportunities. For example, companies that are able to leverage and monetise the benefits of big data will enjoy new revenue streams.

Pat Gelsinger, president and COO of EMC Information Infrastructure, said big data and cloud computing informed the three themes underlying this year’s conference and indeed EMC’s strategy. These were: Transform IT, Transform Business and Transform Yourself…