Avaya, a global leader in business communications software, systems and services, today announced its first complete, multichannel unified communications and contact center cloud offers targeted for the midmarket. Avaya Midmarket Cloud solutions are two flexible deployment options, enabling Avaya channel partners to seamlessly evolve midsize companies to the advanced capabilities needed for digital business. Both options, Powered by Avaya IP Office™ and OnAvaya™ – Google™ Cloud Platform, can enable true, hybrid clouds that allow customers to maximize their investments in more than 1 million Avaya systems worldwide.

Based on the world-class, Avaya IP Office™ Platform, Avaya Midmarket Cloud Solutions are the only unified communications and contact center cloud offers for midsize businesses in the market that utilize the same code base as those installed on premises. The benefits of a single code base for deploying hybrid clouds cannot be understated:

Grazed from TechnologyReview. Author: Editorial Staff.

The airy Berkeley office space of startup Rigetti Computing boasts three refrigerators–but only one of them stores food. The other two use liquid helium to cool experimental computer chips to a fraction of a degree from absolute zero. The two-year-old company is trying to build the hardware needed to power a quantum computer, which could trounce any conventional machine by tapping into quantum mechanics.

The company aims to produce a prototype chip by the end of 2017 that is significantly more complex than those built by other groups working on fully programmable quantum computers. The following generation of chips should be able to accelerate some kinds of machine learning and run highly accurate chemistry simulations that might unlock new kinds of industrial processes, says Chad Rigetti, the startup’s founder and CEO…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Larry Dignan.

The cloud needs to become more transparent especially since the industry is scaling to dominate enterprise technology. In a recent research note, Gartner argued that the revenue claims of cloud vendors are increasingly hard to digest. Gartner said enterprises shouldn’t take vendor cloud revenue claims at face value and evaluate them based on strategy and services (naturally using tools from the research firm).

A week ago, I argued that Google should provide some kind of cloud run rate just so customers can get a feel for scale and how it compares to Amazon Web Services, Microsoft’s Azure and IBM. Oh well. Unlike Gartner, I think the revenue figures matter somewhat, but are far from the deciding factor…

 Grazed from ManilaTimes.  Author: KIM BERNARDO-LOKIN.

“From white hat to Red Hat,” was the joke a senior executive of Red Hat quipped to Alessandro Perilli, after hearing excerpts from The Manila Times interview with him, to which Perilli answered back with a wink, and a seemingly knowing smile.

In the vast world of technology, a “white hat” is an internet slang, which refers to an ethical computer hacker or a computer security expert who hacks with the intention of improving security systems.  Perilli is currently the general manager for Cloud Management Strategy for Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions. The technology company recently hosted a full-house Red Hat Forum Asia Pacific in Manila, where key senior executives were in attendance…

Grazed from TechTimes.  Author: Horia Ungureanu.

IBM told the media that it is expanding its portfolio of Cloud Data Services with more than 25 services, and all can be accessed on the IBM Cloud.  At least two IT groups will benefit from the new services. Coders will be able to craft, deploy and manage apps for mobile gadgets and Web services, while marketing specialists can look at hidden trends in the online environment by consulting data analytics in the cloud.

Grazed from CorpNews.  Author: Tonya May.

 While revenue in the "Intelligent Cloud" segment grew 5 percent from the previous year to $6.3 billion. This figure was down two percent on the same period past year, but up three percent in "constant currency" figures when currency fluctuations are taken into account, Microsoft said.

Grazed from ChannelInsider.  Author: Gina Roos.

Moving to cloud-based services doesn’t mean increased security risks and threats if the right policies are in place, concludes a new survey from Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), sponsored by Skyhigh Networks. "The Cloud Balancing Act for IT" survey report indicates that IT and security professionals across the globe are growing more confident in their cloud security measures and are moving more systems of record to the cloud.

This translates into a change in the role of IT and its relationship with line of businesses, said CSA. Chief information security officers (CISOs) play an important role in security, added CSA, with 60.8 percent of the companies surveyed having a CISO in place…

Grazed from Forbes.  Author: Janakiram.

 VMware is facing an uphill battle in driving vCloud Air’s adoption among enterprise customers. Launched with much fanfare in 2013 as vCloud Hybrid Service (vCHS), the platform failed to take off. It’s quickly turning into a liability for VMware. The recent developments in the company clearly indicate that all is not well with the vCloud Air business.  The first sign came in the form of departures of vCloud Air’s top executives. Some of the well-known faces that championed VMware’s hybrid cloud strategy are no more with the company.

 Grazed from Forbes.  Author: Joe McKendrick.

New Q4 data from Synergy Research Group shows that Amazon Web Services (AWS) continues to dominate the cloud infrastructure services market, achieving a worldwide market share of over 31% in the quarter. Microsoft and Google have by far the highest growth rates among the market leaders but are making little impact on AWS, which continues to grow strongly and to increase its market share. IBM meanwhile continues to lead within the private and hybrid services segment.