Grazed from InfoWorld.  Author: David Linthicum.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in late October, would allow the Department of Justice and copyright holders to seek court orders to block payment processors and online advertising networks from doing business with foreign sites accused of infringing copyright.

If this thing passes, we could see court orders that bar search engines from linking to the allegedly infringing sites. Or most interesting, it would require domain name registrars to stop resolving queries that direct traffic to those sites — and even require Internet service providers to block subscriber access to sites accused of infringing.

As you may expect, nobody likes this act due to the potential for abuse. Indeed, in the last 30 days we’ve seen the Internet in an uproar. This includes a movement to boycott Go Daddy, which has now changed its tune on SOPA from supporting to not supporting…

Grazed from CloudPro.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Grazed from CompuTeach.  Author:  Derek Oldman.

New titles for IT jobs are emerging as more companies adopt cloud computing on a large scale, industry experts have claimed.

Al Delattre, global industry lead for technology at recruitment firm Korn/Ferry International, told Computerworld.com that firms are starting to hire professionals who can oversee a complete cloud strategy.

This has led to the creation of new job titles such as cloud transformation officer and director of cloud transformation…

Grazed from ExpertClick.  Author: Allen Falcon.

In response to the growing number of small and mid-size businesses frustrated with "Big Tech" solutions, Cumulus Global announced it is formally and actively supporting the Occupy Google Apps Movement. Small businesses throughout New England and across the United States are joining a new branch of the Occupy movement focused on protesting against "Big Tech". Big Tech vendors burden small and mid-size businesses with extra features and extra costs without delivering additional value. Occupy Google Apps encourages small and mid-size businesses to shed their "Big Tech" burden and move to Google Apps for Business and other cloud computing solutions.

"Small and mid-size businesses drive the economy and job creation, yet the big IT vendors treat small business like unwanted pets", notes Allen Falcon, CEO of Cumulus Global and support of the Occupy Google Apps movement. "These vendors punish SMBs with unnecessary complexity and costs." …

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Cloud Ventures.

Another of our upcoming webinars is ‘Cloud BCP‘ – Next Generation Business Continuity Planning.

This is one of the more immediate and powerful business benefits of Cloud Computing, and also it highlights one of its most significant upcoming milestones, the shift to an era ‘Cloud Aware Applications‘.

As the name suggests this refers to applications that are now engineered for Cloud environments, rather than hardware platforms, more specifically swapping ‘PaaS’ for ‘Platform’. Rather than engineering your apps for running on a Unix XYZ for example, you now design them to run on Amazon or Azure…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Dave Jilk.

Despite my shaky prediction performance in 2011, I’m going to try again.

Last year, my best predictions were based on some sort of specialized knowledge or insight, and the worst came from looking into the macro environment and making guesses. So, this year’s predictions emphasize the former approach, yet hopefully avoid sounding like claims such as "the market will fluctuate."

1. 2012 will be the Year of the Storefront in the cloud.
Admittedly, this is a somewhat self-serving prediction, since Standing Cloud is (among other things) a storefront. But based on the variety of offerings, rumors, customer behaviors, and other sources I have, it seems that the confluence of forces that helped drive the popularity of App Stores in the mobile world are now propelling the storefront concept ahead in the cloud world…

Grazed from Investors.com.  Author:  Donna Howell.

Companies expect a continuing data deluge, yet no rainmaking for their IT budgets. So to cope and save, some are considering cloud backup and archiving.

That’s a good trend for backup-software providers such as CommVault Systems (CVLT), EMC (EMC), Symantec (SYMC) and IBM (IBM).

These firms and others have been tailoring their software to work with the cloud, and courting cloud-oriented customers…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Callidus Software Inc. CALD +0.93% , the leader in sales effectiveness and cloud computing, today announced it has acquired the leader in next-generation marketing automation and lead management, LeadFormix.

"Every CEO on the planet wants more, faster, and better quality sales leads. Investment in the best, most innovative sales and marketing tools is a number one priority for all businesses. More qualified leads means more deals, and more deals means better Sales Performance," said Leslie Stretch, President and CEO, CallidusCloud…

Grazed from SeekingAlpha.  Author: Editorial Staff.

There are two things we know will happen during the coming year. First, the sun will come up in the morning and next, the media drumbeat will continue for a Facebook IPO. But there are some happy clouds floating in the IPO skies that are being overlooked.

They are called cloud-computing companies.

This industrial sector has been hot – ultra hot – in the Land of IPOs…

Grazed from PR NewsWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

With the New Year upon us, Skygone reflects on 2011, a year full of accomplishments, awards and a prelude to an even brighter 2012.   The growth and technological advances that Skygone experienced in 2011 has solidified Skygone as a thought-leader and fast-mover in the cloud computing and geospatial markets.

"Customers that we started talking to and educating years ago are coming back to us now and acting on their cloud initiatives in an aggressive manner," says Ryan Hughes, co-founder of Skygone.  "I think everyone wanted to make sure this cloud movement wasn’t another dot com-like bubble. We’ve been successful putting even extremely complex enterprise applications in the cloud for about five years now, so most customers are past that fear.” …