Grazed from AirVM.  Author: Press Release.

AirVM, one of the fastest growing infrastructure as a service (IaaS) providers, is announcing the launch of it’s partner program designed to enable partners to be cloud server providers in seconds.

Grazed from Virtual Bridges.  Author: Press Release.

 

Grazed from TEKsystems.  Author: Press Release.
 

Grazed from IT Business Edge.  Author: Michael Vizard.

As it becomes clearer that mobile computing and the cloud are two ends of the same spectrum, IT organizations are increasingly coupling these technologies. Most IT organizations have little experience with creating mobile applications that need to be constantly updated. By developing and then hosting them in the cloud, IT organizations can not only minimize the risks associated with developing these applications, they can also more easily introduce new agile development methodologies.

To address the specific challenge, IBM recently moved to acquire Worklight, a provider of application development tools that allow IT organizations to create these applications and offers tools for managing them. At the same time, IBM also announced that its BigFix managed services platform includes support for a range of tablet PC devices in addition to smartphones…

Grazed from The Wall Street Journal.  Author: Jeremy Jerzemsky.

Amazon.com Inc. lowered rates on computer storage it rents over the Internet, as the company applies its strategy of aggressive pricing to cloud computing.

The Seattle-based company cut its price plans by more than 10% for the first 500 terabytes of data that customers store in Amazon’s Internet-based S3 service, which is used for hosting media, backing up files and storing data for businesses to analyze. A terabyte is double the amount of space on a typical laptop computer’s hard drive.

“High volume/low margin businesses are in our DNA,” an Amazon spokeswoman said in an email. “Driving cost efficiencies is an area we’re going to continue to focus on.”…

Grazed from Information Week.  Author:  J. Nicholas Hoover.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s IT Laboratory, which works on IT standards and metrics as well as federal cybersecurity programs, will be placing a new focus on big data and mobility technologies this year and will continue its work on cybersecurity and cloud computing, according to IT Lab Director Chuck Romine.

Romine, who took over for retiring IT Lab director Cita Furlani last fall, told InformationWeek that NIST will be increasing its work on standards, interoperability, reliability, and usability of big data technologies. Government and the private sector continue to amass huge data sets to help facilitate everything from more targeted marketing to improved government oversight.

"NIST can have a lot of impact on the big data question," Romine said, noting that the agency has been involved for years in analysis of how the federal government and private sector can better harness the power of large quantities of data. In 2009, for example, NIST helped publish a report called "Harnessing the Power of Digital Data."…

Grazed from The Daily Disruption.  Author: PR Announcement.

Deloitte announced today it is entering into a global alliance with salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing company, to provide multinational and international companies with the software, mobile and open cloud computing technologies for the social enterprise.  Paul Clemmons, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP and leader of Deloitte’s cloud market offering and emerging solutions service line, will lead the global alliance.  He is based in San Francisco.

“Companies in general, but specifically our clients are looking to work more effectively and more efficiently. The inherent benefits and possibilities via cloud computing and salesforce.com can represent a solution catalyst.  It’s an exciting time to be at the frontier of this domain with a pioneer like salesforce.com,” said Bill Allison, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP and global technology leader.  “And Paul has a long history leading our efforts in this market, giving us the experience and global network we need to drive this alliance.”

Grazed from PipeLine.  Author: Tim Young

The thing about hype is that, sooner or later, it’s time to put-up or shut-up. That time, it seems, has come for the cloud.

Here in the U.S., the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) has published its final, official definition of cloud computing, after 15 previous iterations. This "model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources" is more than just web-apps and off-site storage. It’s a definition that characterizes a baseline for cloud computing against which agencies and potential cloud adopters can judge so-called "cloud" services.

By having this standard against which to measure services, according to NIST computer scientist Peter Mell, "They are more likely to reap the promised benefits of cloud—cost savings, energy savings, rapid deployment and customer empowerment." …

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

Paul Maritz has been chief executive of VMWare since July 2008. VMWare’s server virtualization has made possible a vast consolidation of the computer business toward commodity chips and open-source software. It was also critical in the shift to “cloud” computing. A native of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Mr. Maritz joined Intel in 1981. From 1986 to 2000 he was at Microsoft serving on its executive committee and overseeing Microsoft’s expansion into client-server corporate computing. He then founded a computing company which in 2008 was acquired by EMC, which also owns VMWare. The following is an edited version of an interview with Mr. Maritz:

What is your most interesting business opportunity?

Fifty percent of the world’s computer applications now run on virtualized servers. We are deliberately trying to make a transition with this company, from a server transformation proposition to overall information technology transformation…