Grazed from CloudTweaks.  Author:  Muz Ismail.

Crime Mapping is basically visualizing where crime happens on a map so that people can either avoid it or factor it in when calculating risk management. With big data such as crime and mapping predicted to be a major focus for Cloud computing in 2012, it offers great promise for many a startup in 2012. As such we have listed three of the more promising Crime Mapping Startups to watch for in 2012 which includes Crimedar, Mapacrime and Sgo (SureteGlobale.Org).

Grazed from Commerce Times.  Author: Razi Sharir.

With the evolution and proliferation of cloud computing, as more and more applications are being migrated to the cloud, many organizations are considering moving their database to the cloud as well.

Two main concerns on users’ minds are database scalability and availability. How scalable/elastic is a database in the cloud, and will the data be highly available?

Scalability in the Cloud

In terms of scalability, there are several things users need to think about when choosing the right solution, most importantly questions and priorities around capacity and throughput…

Grazed from CloudTweaks.  Author:  Sourya Biswas.

There’s an old Texas saying – “Everything’s bigger in Texas”; now, it seems that Texan firm PersonalWeb (www.personalweb.com) has taken it to heart considering its suing the biggest names in the cloud computing business – Google, Amazon, VMware, EMC, NetApp and NEC. Additionally, there are some smaller players named as respondents as well, such as Dropbox and Caringo. They have been accused of using Tyler-based PersonalWeb’s patented technology as part of their distributed computing products or systems, including content addressable storage and/or distributed search engine technologies.

“PersonalWeb protects its proprietary business applications and operations through a portfolio of patents that it owns, and we are actively pursuing licensing and participation in the operation of businesses that use these patents,” states Michael Weiss, CEO and President of PersonalWeb. The lawsuits were filed in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Texas…

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?)…