Grazed from The New York Times.  Author:  Quentin Hardy.

Amazon Web Services, the company’s computing-for-hire division, announced new products on Tuesday that make it easier to run workflow-based applications, both on Amazon’s computers and on corporate machines that are connected to Amazon’s giant computing cloud. This is a cheap (and probably easy) way for in-house engineers to build and deploy software that does tasks like analytics and billing, or internal financial operations and decision-making. It can even aid in the design logic of multiplayer games, Amazon says…

Grazed from V3.co.uk.  Author: Dan Worth.

SAP has unveiled the roadmap for its human capital management (HCM) services that will integrate with the cloud-based tools it acquired with its $3.4bn purchase of SuccessFactors late last year.

Chief among these developments is SAP’s intention to offer all of its HCM products as cloud-based services, alongside its traditional on-premise offerings, to meet the growing demand for cloud services…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

The Cloud Council of 7 (CCO7), a non-profit association of business users, policy makers, technology and service providers, and academics working with Cloud technology, today announced it has launched operations. The organization, formed to benefit users of Cloud technology, is open to IT executives, enterprise end-users, and technology and service providers of Cloud technologies, services and products.

"Many experts say Cloud computing is the number one priority for CIOs, yet few CIOs can link current definitions of Cloud computing’s with business value. To help eliminate this confusion, the Cloud Council of 7 was created," said Carole Gunst, Executive Director, Cloud Council of 7. "Our diverse community is collaborating to drive consensus to help enterprises make informed decisions when specifying and selecting Cloud technologies and services. All discoveries and recommendations are shared with the CCO7 community."…

Grazed from Forbes.  Author: Joe McKendrick.

There’s no question that most businesses have been trying out cloud computing in one form or another in recent times.  A new report from The Economist Intelligence Unit and IBM fiinds that among 572 business leaders surveyed, almost three-fourths indicate their companies have piloted, adopted or substantially implemented cloud in their organizations – and 90% expect to have done so in three years. And the number of respondents whose companies have “substantially implemented” cloud is expected to grow from 13% today to 41% in three years.

However, most companies have not yet recognized cloud’s full potential. “Although cloud is widely recognized as a technology game changer, its potential for driving business innovation remains virtually untapped,” the report observes. “Interestingly, while our research clearly reveals organizations intend to rely on cloud to enhance their business capabilities, only 38% cite cloud as a leading priority for the entire company. Rather, cloud is still viewed by many as an IT solution, with 62% citing cloud as a leading priority for their IT organizations.”…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Today, Siemens Healthcare, has announced two new solutions for image management and radiology workflow that will be hosted from the Siemens Healthcare Cloud Computing Center (HCCC), in Malvern, Pa. In a first of its kind strategic alliance with Dell, Round Rock, Texas, Siemens will deliver a cloud-based vendor-agnostic Image Sharing & Archiving (ISA(1)) solution. The ISA offering will be primarily hosted out of Siemens HCCC, using Dell’s clinical data management software. Additionally, Siemens and Dell will securely federate their respective healthcare clouds, providing customers an additional form of redundancy for this key clinical content.

The solution will help healthcare providers reduce the ongoing capital expenditure of maintaining on-site image archives. Additionally, Siemens is announcing a new implementation approach for its proven syngo Workflow radiology information system (RIS), which can be completely hosted from Siemens HCCC.(2) These solutions will be presented in Siemens booth #2423 at the Healthcare Information & Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2012 Annual Conference and Exposition at the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas, from February 20-24…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Members of IEEE – the world’s largest technical professional association – are working around the globe to deliver on the promise of cloud computing by helping enterprises of all sizes address the barriers that can potentially reduce the adoption rates of this game-changing technology.

The prospective benefits of cloud-based systems are widely discussed and hard to ignore: significant cost reductions in the operations and maintenance of the IT infrastructure; extreme scalability and accessibility; fewer concerns about overloading servers or lack of storage space; and rapid deployment. Conversely, challenges and perceived risks prevail, with lingering concerns about cloud security and privacy, performance unpredictability, and if the ultimate return on investment makes cloud adoption a fit for a given enterprise…

Grazed from Geek Sailor.  Author: Liviu Anca.

The cloud is very important to Microsoft for the obvious reasons – first of them being the fact that cloud computing brings a lot of money to the Redmond firm, however, the company is very annoyed by Google. As a result, the Windows Phone 7 maker launched an never-seen attack at Google saying that its Google Apps aren’t very helpful for the customers who also receive little support if they somehow get into trouble.

After Microsoft demonstrated that Google is violating privacy policies with Google Search on Internet Explorer. The Redmond firm showed that Google bypassing Internet Explorer’s policies and it’s tracking IE users through cookies…

Grazed from Forbes.  Author: Eric Savitz.

A CIO’s nightmare may be realized if several seemingly-plausible assumptions regarding “cloud” computing and storage turn out to be untrue. These may include the assumption 1) that it is safe to put “everything” my company has in the cloud; 2) that my company’s trade secrets will remain protectable “secrets” in the cloud, even after an accidental leak or an intentional hack is stopped; and 3) in the event of leaks or hacks, the cloud service providers are liable for our losses under our cloud-service agreements. Unfortunately, these assumptions may not be correct…

Grazed from Forbes.  Author: Victoria Barrett.

Oracle for years has seemed impervious to cloud computing. First Larry Ellison dismissed it. Then he sort of touted it, his version at least. But all along, Oracle was growing nicely. The industry chatter didn’t seem to matter. Big companies buy big software systems.

Something changed this winter.  

Oracle’s software license sales limped up just 2% in December, and the company blamed customer budget cuts and fears over the European debt crisis. Sales to Europe, Africa and the Middle East make up a third of Oracle’s revenues. The stock took an instant 8% hit, but perhaps more tellingly is 22% off its May 2011 high. Investors appear to be signalling that Oracle‘s recent woes are due to more than just stingy customers. Could it be true that big, hulking IT organizations are changing buying patterns?…

Grazed from Reuters.  Author: Doug Palmer.

The Business Software Alliance, which represents U.S. industry heavyweights such as Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), said Brazil finished last in its survey of 24 countries, earning only 35.1 points out a possible 100 because of its policies in areas such free trade, security, data privacy and cybercrime.

India, which has the world’s second-largest software industry after the United States, and China, whose information and communications technology sector is expected to nearly double to $389 billion by 2015, also were in the bottom six, with scores of 50.0 and 47.5, respectively…