Software giant Oracle is acquiring RightNow Technologies Inc. for $43 a share, or a total of about $1.5 billion, to expand its Internet-based offerings and offer a challenge to customer relationship management powerhouse Salesforce.com.

Oracle said in a press release that RightNow’s customer service cloud approach helps organizations work across its call centers, the Web, and social networks…

Use of cloud computing has generated a permanent shift in the field of data management, new survey results indicate.

A poll of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) by CIO magazine has revealed that 83 per cent of firms are using some form of virtualized network…

The issue of success or failure in moving your company data, IT storage, servers or software to the cloud is often driven by technical issues, including performance, bandwidth, security and total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) considerations. While many of these factors are key criteria for selecting cloud solutions, they usually don’t align with the bigger picture that C-level executives must consider when adding new IT solutions…

Massive security flaws at Amazon Web Services discovered and remedied

Researchers from Ruhr-University Bochum have found a massive security gap at Amazon Cloud Services. Using different methods of attack (signature wrapping and cross site scripting) they tested the system which was deemed "safe". "Based on our research results, Amazon confirmed the security gaps and closed them immediately", said Prof. Dr. Jörg Schwenk, chair for network and data security at the RUB. Amazon Webservices (AWS) offers its customers cloud computing services and hosts, among others, services like Twitter, Second Life and 4Square…

They say that security begins at the firewall. Whether that is actually true depends upon the security posture of a business. However, if you do rely on a firewall, especially a software firewall or one integrated into an operating system, you have to make sure that it is configured and managed properly–something that is getting harder to do as firewall policies, threats and intrusions become more complex. Add to that the fact that services and data are starting to exist more and more in the cloud and are becoming virtual, and you have a potential recipe for data leakage, account compromises and unauthorized access…

To achieve our goal of making Canada a leader in the global Cloud computing market, we need to create an innovation program that outputs the IP required to underpin new ventures capable of real impact in the sector.

This needs to be combined with an international business development program, so that these startups can be involved in bids like the $100m UK G-Cloud project…

Today at Citrix Synergy(TM) Barcelona, the event where virtualization, networking and cloud computing meet, Citrix Systems announced it is expanding its market effort across Western Europe with new localized versions of its popular cloud services products GoToManage(R) and GoToMeeting(R), while also continuing to invest in its business presence in the region. Citrix GoToManage, the market-leading cloud-based IT support and monitoring service is now available in localized versions for French and German speakers. The company also announced Italian and Spanish -language versions of its award-winning Citrix GoToMeeting online meeting service to meet growing market demand in Europe for easy-to-use and affordable web collaboration services…

That cloud computing is of use in academic and corporate research spheres is in little doubt.

Research funding doesn’t scale very well – in academia, one of the main functions of professors and department heads is to identify opportunities, build the necessary relationships and then bid for pockets of finance. Meanwhile, even for the largest companies, the days of unfettered research into whatever takes a scientist or engineer’s fancy are long since over. Is cloud computing signalling a new dawn in research circles, however?…

One-quarter of the government’s $80 billion information technology spending in fiscal 2012 is a potential target for cloud computing, which can supports agencies’ efforts to consolidate their IT footprint and cut spending while improving efficiencies…