Grazed from MobileBloom.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Microsoft’s current thrust in the cloud computing sector is believed to have helped Microsoft compete better with market leaders Apple and Google. However, it is speculated that a dipping profit margin will act as a deterrent and restrict this expansion. Microsoft’s cloud computing services lets corporates manage spread sheets and websites stored on Microsoft’s server in return for a subscription payment. Recently expanding its offerings, the services now allow customers to edit photos online and stream TV shows.

Though highly customer friendly, the cost of maintaining the software in its own data centre and server costs along with other expenses have resulted in the company missing its profits estimate for 2012, warns Goldman Sachs’ analysts Heather Bellini. Jason Maynard from Wells Fargo Securities said that Microsoft may not be able to produce outsized margins like before. This change in the profit scenarios arises from CEO Steve Ballmer’s decision to capitalize new investments like increasing Xbox features and most recently, acquiring Skype for over $8 billion…

Grazed from InfoWorld.  Author: Charles Babcock.

Cloud computing has become so broadly accepted that it won’t rank as an exciting development for 2012. Instead, you will see a more organized, concerted application of resources to further the cloud’s use in conjunction with central IT. Let’s take a look at the top things we can expect from the cloud over the next year.

1. 2012: Year Of The Hybrid Cloud
The most obvious expression of the trend is the serious interest in private cloud computing, where more of the enterprise data center is given over to virtualized and automated operations, including end-user self service. Why? Because the public cloud, if still not fully trusted, is understood to be a long-term player on the landscape. The movement to internal cloud computing isn’t in opposition to the public cloud. Rather, it reflects the growing sense within IT that its own environment will need to be as efficient and compatible as possible…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Roger Strukhoff.

"Cloud computing is expected to mature and become a mainstream technology for businesses in Asia-Pacific by 2015," according to a new forecast from Frost & Sullivan.

Meanwhile, Joe McKendrick writes in Forbes that "’cloud’ will begin to fade as a differentiating term – because it will just be the way we do things."

I believe that 2011 will be viewed in retrospect as Year Zero of cloud computing, with 2012 seen as Year One. Yet I also agree with the opinions above, primarily because they relate to my first theme of 2012…

Grazed from ZDNet.  Author: Rachel King.

Talking about the social enterprise is changing the entire focus of cloud computing from just reorganizing IT to revolutionizing businesses, according to Peter Coffee, vice president and head of platform research at Salesforce.com.

Coffee recently spoke candidly with me about his predictions for what will be the major trends in enterprise technology in 2012 and how they will pan out.

Like many other companies, Coffee’s remarks pointed toward the “SoCoMo” trifecta: social, cloud, and mobile. But it’s not as simple as tossing these three categories out as examples — it’s about making sure that these three trends work together seamlessly while standing strong as their own pillars as well…

Grazed from InfoWorld.  Author:  Eric Knorr.

If I had to sum up in one word the most exciting thing that happened to cloud computing in 2011, I’d have to say it’s OpenStack [1]. This open source project, launched by Rackspace [2] and NASA in late 2010, is assembling a private cloud [3] "operating system" for the data center that promises vast increases in operational efficiency. The momentum behind it is phenomenal; at last count, 144 companies back the project, including Cisco, Citrix, Dell, HP, and Intel.

But at the same time, the public cloud is surging — and not just Amazon and Salesforce, though those two remain the largest public cloud service providers. The telcos (notably Verizon) are gearing up to deliver IaaS (infrastructure as a service) at a larger scale than ever before. Microsoft, HP, and others are also building out huge public cloud capacities…

Grazed from Forbes.  Author: Joe McKendrick.

Just as cloud computing is a game-changer for many companies, it is also changing the nature of jobs – not only within the information technology department, but in other parts of the enterprise as well.

For senior-level executives, especially chief information officers, the changes reflect the more strategic role IT plays in the direction of businesses. For the business, it introduces more reliable and predictable supporting technology.

“For a long period of time, IT was in that Wild West mode,” Greg Shields, partner and principal technologist with Concentrated Technology, recently told Jason Helmick of Interface Technical Training. “We were making up the rules as we go.” But companies and their IT leaders recognize that the best and most cost-effective solutions are those that may have been built and tested elsewhere. “You don’t grow your own food. You don’t raise your own cows anymore for meat. You go to the grocery store because somebody’s figured out that I can create this experience that is the grocery store, and I can do it at a lower cost, both in time and in dollar cost.”…

Grazed from CloudTweaks.  Author: Sourya Biswas.

Sometime back I had written about how Australian cloud computing company Ninefold was trying to drum up fear that data residing on Amazon’s servers in Australia were under the jurisdiction on the US PATRIOT Act, and thereby, subject to search and seizure (See: Your Data in Australia is subject to the US PATRIOT Act ).

Thus, even data on an offshore location would have no privacy from American investigators, a situation unwelcome to many businesses. While Ninefold had its own selfish reasons in highlighting this issue, it being a rival of Amazon Down Under, this is not the first time that cloud privacy under the PATRIOT Act has been in the news. Indeed, I had covered it as well (See: Is Cloud Computing a Threat to Consumer Rights?)…

Grazed from MediaCity.  Author: Shahid Shah.

As most of my regular readers know, I work as a technology strategy advisor for several different government agencies; in that role I get to spend quality time with folks from NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology), what I consider one of the government’s most prominent think tanks. They’re doing yeoman’s work trying to get the massive federal government’s different agencies working in common directions and the technology folks I’ve met seem cognizant of the influence (good and bad) they have; they seem to try to wield that power as carefully as they know how. Since most of you are in the technology industry, albeit specific to healthcare, I recommend that you learn more about NIST and the role it plays ’ they can make your life easier because of the coordination and consensus building work they do for us all. I, for one, was thrilled when NIST was picked as the governing body for the MU certification criteria. These guys know what they’re doing and I wish they got more involved in driving healthcare standards…

Grazed from Stuff.co.nz.  Author:  Editorial Staff.

I need to become more technology savvy and would like to invest in some good cloud computing software to store our company’s data. How should I go about this?”

A: Cloud computing is an IT innovation gaining momentum world-wide. Cloud computing effectively outsources parts of your IT structure and has a number of benefits including allowing IT to focus on providing solutions and innovation to your business. Another benefit is that costs associated with cloud-based IT services are operational in nature so there’s no need for capital investment and fixed cost structures. Added to this data volumes continue to grow exponentially creating problems for data back-ups and archiving. 

So how to go about moving to cloud-computing?…

Grazed from Times Live.  Author: Greg Gordan.

MICROSOFT and Nokia are once again in the ascendancy, Apple is on the cusp of more great things and BlackBerry is on the wane. That, in a nutshell, is what will be the state of the tech world in 2012.

But the tech stars and black holes will be obscured by the cloud which will cover just about everything next year.

The building blocks that will turn cloud computing into a reality for South Africans in 2012 are just about in place.

Cheaper, faster ubiquitous bandwidth, a willingness by businesses and consumers to trust cloud-based systems and a growing number of devices that use the cloud to provide services mean its time has come…