Grazed from ArsTechnica. Author: Peter Bright.

Microsoft posted revenue of $23.8 billion in the second quarter of its 2016 financial year, down 10 percent from the same quarter a year ago. Operating income was $6.0 billion, a 23 percent drop, and net income was $5.0 billion, a 15 percent fall. Earnings per share were $0.78, representing a 13 percent decline.

Just as it has done for the past few quarters, and mirroring Apple’s earnings release earlier this week, Microsoft attributed a substantial part of the decline to the strong dollar. With prices outside the US being increased to preserve their dollar value, non-US sales are becoming decreasingly valuable to Microsoft. This depressed revenue by an estimated $1.2 billion. The company also reports that there was a further $1.9 billion impact from revenue deferrals related to Windows 10 and bundled software…

 Grazed from CIO.  Author: Paul Mah.

Grazed from CMSWire.  Author: David Roe.

 Sony is building up its Internet of Things (IoT) muscle with the $212 million acquisition of Altair, an Israel-based chip maker focused on Internet-enabled devices. It also provides software relating to the LTE (Long Term Evolution) 4G cellular mobile phones standard.  According to a statement from Sony, it will capitalize on Altair’s technologies and image sensors to develop new cellular chipsets as well as access to network services that take advantage of cloud computing.

Grazed from ITProPortal.  Author: Barry Phillips.

 What is hybrid cloud? That’s part of the problem – there’s confusion about what it is, and what it isn’t. A search for “hybrid cloud solutions” turns up a mix of private cloud platforms, virtualisation software, enterprise hardware solutions, managed service providers, and system integrators.  Vendor hype says it means you have two clouds, maybe public and private, so you have hybrid. But they’re not connected. What’s hybrid about that?

Let’s start with a definition of hybrid cloud. This one is from TechTarget, so it’s independent of any vendor marketing: “Hybrid cloud is a cloud computing environment which uses a mix of on-premises, private cloud and third-party, public cloud services with orchestration between the two platforms…

The event will be co-hosted by IBM VP of Storage, Bina Hallman, and Catalogic Software CEO, Ed Walsh. 

The session will demonstrate how Catalogic’s data management software platform leverages IBM storage to deliver key functionality like self-service provisioning and automation–fundamental attributes of a modern, dynamic infrastructure. This powerful combination allows IT to easily deploy resources and move data in support of operations in the Cloud or in support of DevOps processes. 

"In order to provide a secure network, a security manager must be able to effectively see and control all communications in and out of that network," said John Mutch, CEO, iSheriff. "iSheriff Complete provides superior malware protection and complete control of Web, email and endpoint vectors, providing the only integrated, cloud-based security platform available today. We deliver complete cyber security through the cloud, all controlled by a single, easy to use interface. iSheriff Complete implements security policies and schedules reports in minutes, so our customers can get back to running their business."

With these components, Aryaka’s SD-WAN ULTRA addresses the Achilles’ heel of SD-WAN solutions — inconsistent latencies and jitter, associated with their dependence on the public Internet for transport of mission-critical voice, video, data and application traffic that is vital to business execution. The public Internet is a shared medium of communication, and due to congestion and packet loss, lacks the performance required for transferring business-critical voice, video and data, and accessing cloud services or SaaS applications globally.

Pivot3, a pioneer and innovator in the development of hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), today announced that it will acquire NexGen Storage, a privately held leading provider of hybrid storage appliances, dynamic all-flash arrays and Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities. By adding NexGen’s portfolio of products, Pivot3 will deliver the industry’s most complete set of dynamic hyper-converged solutions. For the first time ever, enterprise and mid-market companies will have access to a suite of solutions that will allow them to apply the right infrastructure and priority to each workload, application or business service according to business value.

By adding NexGen’s strengths in accelerated all-flash and hybrid storage, Pivot3 is uniquely expanding the traditional notion of hyper-convergence. Now, customers have complete implementation flexibility and QoS management, so IT no longer has to overprovision for peak workloads, but instead can use just-in-time dynamic provisioning of resources and scale as the business grows. Pivot3 intends to market and enhance all current and planned NexGen products.

StoneFly, Inc., a wholly owned business unit of Dynamic Network Factory and a VMware technology partner is rolling out the third generation of its Unified Storage and Server (USS) series of appliances which allows users to consolidate all data center needs into one redundant and highly available appliance. This next generation product redefines simplicity by delivering virtualization, compute and storage in an agile, scalable, easy to manage hyper-converged infrastructure solution.

Available as a single easy-to-manage appliance, the hyper-converged infrastructure greatly accelerates time to market by enabling customers to go from power-on to virtual machine conception within a few minutes. By using a virtualized framework, users can completely utilize their entire hardware and thus be rewarded with reduction in power and cooling costs.

CloudBolt, a leader in cloud management technology, today announced that the company’s cloud management platform has earned the 2016 Modern Infrastructure Impact Award for Best Private/Hybrid Cloud Management Product. CloudBolt was recognized for its ease of use, comprehensive features, compatibility, and ability to be deployed as part of a new private cloud build or easily integrated with existing infrastructure.

Now in its third year, The Modern Infrastructure Impact Awards are judged by the Modern Infrastructure e-zine editorial staff in conjunction with users, readers, and industry experts. They recognize tools that help enterprise businesses to run with efficiency and insight.