Grazed from ReadWriteWeb.  Author:  Audrey Watters.

According to the PC Games Digital Downloads Analyst Report, during the first six months of 2010, more video games were purchased online and downloaded digitally than were bought at retail stores.

This marks the first time that digital downloads comprised the majority of total PC game sales. And although retails sales still make up a greater share of dollar revenue, it was simply because games that come with a CD or DVD in a box sell for a higher price…

Grazed from ComputerWorld.  Author:  Anuradha Shukla.

HP, Intel and Yahoo have announced that four organisations are to join the existing group already participating in Open Cirrus, the global open-source test bed organised to fuel advancements in cloud computing research.

Cloud computing test bed

These four organisations – Georgia Tech University’s Center for Experimental Research in Computer Systems (CERCS), China Telecom Corporation, the China Mobile Research Institute (CMRI), and the Supercomputing Center of Galicia (CESGA) – have brought the number of locations participating in Open Cirrus to 14, thus making Open Cirrus the most widespread and diverse cloud computing test bed.

Grazed from CRN.  Author: Andrew R. Hickey.

Cloud computing will be a necessary component as power and energy management systems continue to converge.

"When you think of this space and energy management, you have to think about what’s going on in the cloud," said Barry Coflan, senior vice president of offer development in Schneider Electric’s Buildings Business. Coflan was speaking at Schneider’s EcoStruxure In Action event in Chicago on Tuesday.

Grazed from ZDNet.  Author:  Jack Clark.

The alliance will offer a private cloud that can be deployed either on customers’ sites or on Orange Business Services’s (OBS) network, along with data backup, security-as-a-service and unified communications services. Cisco, EMC and VMware already have links as part of their tripartite Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) coalition, which offers Vblock infrastructure services and products to enterprises.

Grazed from IT Wire.  Author: Stephen Withers.

HP announced earlier this month that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire 3PAR following a bidding war with Dell.

At the time, HP expected the transaction to be completed by the end of the year, but it took less than a month.

Almost 88% of 3PAR’s shares were tendered to HP, and the takeover was completed by exercising the ‘top-up’ provision in the agreement. 3PAR is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of HP.

Grazed from ServerWatch.  Author:  Michael Kerner.

The cloud is getting an infusion of color thanks to a new global alliance among Cisco, EMC, VMware and Orange Business Services. Orange, a global IT service provider, is a unit of France Telecom.

With the new alliance, Orange is aiming to deliver a turnkey managed private cloud approach to users around the world, leveraging technologies from Cisco, EMC and VMware. The new Flexible 4 Business alliance builds on the Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) coalition that Cisco, EMC and VMware forged in 2009.

Grazed from IT Wire.  Author: Stephen Withers.

While cloud computing appeals to startups and small businesses due to its responsiveness and the way it avoids capital expenditure, larger organisations need to blend it with their existing IT practices, Herb VanHook, vice president of strategy at BMC, told iTWire.

Such organisations want to adopt the dynamic, self-service, agile model that cloud offers, while retaining their existing request management, change management and software release management systems. For example, a self-service request for a particular function should generate a change ticket which is automatically closed when the function is delivered.

Grazed from MIT Technology Review.  Author: Tom Simonite.

Grazed from IT Business Edge.  Author: Arthur Cole.

Grazed from GigaOM.  Author: Om Malik.