Grazed from Business Cloud9.  Author: Stuart Lauchlan.

It’s not that long – in IT industry terms – since Microsoft wasn’t all that keen on talking about Cloud Computing in front of its channel partners in case their concern about potential disintermediation took vocal effectt.

But that was then and this is now – and with Microsoft now full-square behind the Cloud, this year’s Convergence gathering saw no such reticence from Kirill Tatarinov, President, Microsoft Business Solutions as he announced upgrades to the firm’s Cloud CRM offering and the fulfilment of a commitment to move ERP alongside it…

Grazed from CloudTweaks.  Author: Sourya Biswas.

Of course, the explanation behind the price decrease may be as simple as economies of scale. After all, the amount of data stored in S3 did triple in 2011, marking its fastest year of growth since 2006. At the same time, the challenge posed by smaller, yet rapidly growing rivals cannot be discounted. Hence, this move may also have been to leverage its first-mover advantage to stave off competition. Even with the more recent EC2 price decreases, Amazon has described it as passing on cost savings to its customers.

Amazon’s Jeff Barr wrote: “As we continue to find ways to lower our own cost structure, we will continue to pass these savings back to our customers in the form of lower prices. Some companies work hard to lower their costs so they can pocket more margin. That’s a strategy that a lot of the traditional technology companies have employed for years, and it’s a reasonable business model. It’s just not ours….”…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Maureen O’Gara.

Windows 8-based PCs and tablets will start coming out around October ahead of the Christmas rush, according to Bloomberg.  Work on the new operating system, which will run on both Intel and ARM chips, is supposed to wrap up this summer.

Unidentified sources told the news service there would be less than five ARM devices at the debut, three of them tablets, and more than 40 Intel machines.  Microsoft has tightly controlled the number of ARM widgets and set rigorous quality-control standards for its first mass market push outside Intel’s orbit, it says it was told…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Piston Cloud Computing, Inc., the enterprise OpenStack company, today announced they have earned a spot on the AlwaysOn OnDemand Top 100 winners list. Inclusion in the OnDemand 100 signifies market leadership and game-changing approaches and technologies that are likely to disrupt existing markets and entrenched players. Piston Cloud was selected by the AlwaysOn editorial team and industry experts based on a set of five criteria: innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value, and media buzz.

"The last year has been a whirlwind for Piston Cloud. Taking Piston Enterprise OS from conception through development and now to general availability has been exciting, and it is an honor for the team to be recognized," said Joshua McKenty, CEO and co-founder of Piston Cloud. "Over the next year we look forward to working with the OpenStack Foundation to make OpenStack the world’s leading cloud framework, and innovating on solutions that allow enterprise businesses to take advantage of this groundbreaking new technology."…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Maureen O’Gara.

After Apple said early Monday that it would start paying a $10.60-a-year dividend and buy back stock to spend down its massive cash horde – something some people say Steve Jobs would never have done – and after its stock closed at over $600 for the first time ever – you watching this up there, Steve – the company put a figure on the initial sales of the new iPad, something it wouldn’t do during the dividend call. It said it sold three million of the slabs since they went on sale Friday.

Worldwide marketing chief Philip Schiller called it a "blockbuster – the strongest iPad launch yet."

The thing is currently available in 11 major markets from the US to Hong Kong and Germany and will be available in 24 other countries by this Friday…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Etherios, a leading enterprise cloud computing services company, today announced it is expanding to serve a growing base of customers in North America and worldwide. Fueled by an investment from salesforce.com and a private investment from the energy industry, the company will accelerate the expansion of its practices that focus on salesforce.com’s social, mobile and open cloud technologies.

“The shift to the social enterprise is a positive disruptive force for businesses around the world,” says Mike Dannenfeldt, founder and CEO, Etherios. “With our expanded services, we can help more companies transform themselves into social enterprises and place customers at the heart of their business through social, mobile and open cloud computing technologies. Best of all, we have only just begun to realize the benefits and capabilities this transformation can deliver to our customers.”…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

After years of rumors about cloud computing going mainstream around the world, the cloud computing boom is now finally here. The National Inflation Association believes that by the year 2013, cloud computing could become a bigger boom on Wall Street than the dot-com boom was in the year 2000. Cloud computing is currently a $74 billion industry that accounts for 3% of global IT spending, but in 2013 cloud computing is expected to become a $150 billion market.

2012 will be remembered as the year in which cloud computing started to become widely adopted worldwide. Cloud computing is expected to create 14 million new jobs globally by year 2015. In the consumer space, Gartner is predicting that cloud services will be on 90% of personal consumer devices by year 2015 so that consumers can store, connect, stream, and synchronize content across multiple platforms at different locations…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Callidus Software Inc., the leader in sales effectiveness and cloud computing, announced today that the CallidusCloud(TM) Sales Effectiveness suite has been selected as a finalist for the prestigious CODiE(TM) Awards in the "Best Cloud Application/Service," "Best Human Capital Management Solution," and "Best Financial Management Solution" categories. Established by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), the CODiEs recognize excellence and achievement in the business software, digital content, and education technology industries.

"I am thrilled that CallidusCloud sales effectiveness SaaS platform has been named a finalist in the 2012 CODiE Awards," said Lorna Heynike, Senior Vice President, Marketing, CallidusCloud. "Callidus is dedicated to building innovative cloud solutions that help our customers optimize their investment in the sales force, leveraging the latest social, mobile, and analytics technology to drive sales performance throughout the buying cycle. We continue to redefine the sales performance market and exploit new technologies to find new ways to drive superior selling practices and maximize cost efficiencies. This recognition in three distinct categories is a testament to the value our solutions offer at a time when they are seeing unprecedented global momentum."…

Grazed from ComputerWorld.  Author: Bill Claybrook.

Mobile devices will soon be driving cloud computing — and vice versa. Here’s why: It’s very sensible to use a private cloud for security, management and other aspects of mobile applications. But getting there will require planning and investment by IT.

Some have already moved in this direction. In a December 2011 survey of 3,645 IT decision-makers in eight countries, a third of the respondents said that providing information access to multiple devices was their top reason for implementing cloud computing. The survey, fielded by researcher TNS and funded by service provider CSC, said that cutting costs was the third most popular reason for implementing cloud, with only 17% of respondents choosing that option…

Grazed from Backup Technology.  Author: Editorial Staff.

There are obvious advantages of Cloud Computing such as the huge savings in staff salaries, software licensing and power charges.

However close attention must be paid to risk management. Principally it is critical to recognise that data being hosted in the Cloud does not necessarily replace the necessity of a solid Business Continuity plan.  It is crucial to ensure that companies establish how responsibility for their data is being handled.

To be competitive in the market Cloud providers must therefore be open to probing questions ranging from queries over access controls to data encryption…