Grazed from RedmondMag. Author: Jeffrey Schwartz.

Microsoft’s next desktop operating system will be available this summer, the company announced on Tuesday, a surprising change from the fall timeline forecasted by Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner back in December. Microsoft announced the unexpectedly early delivery date at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), taking place in Shenzhen, China, this week. In a blog post announcing the new release timeframe, Terry Myerson, executive vice president for the Windows platform group at Microsoft, said Windows 10 will be available in 190 countries and 111 languages when it launches.

The new summer timeframe is a wide window, giving Microsoft anywhere between June 21 and Sept. 20 to launch Windows 10. The expedited release may suggest that Microsoft doesn’t want to miss this year’s back-to-school season, a time when many students buy new systems. If that’s the case, Windows 10 will need to be released in June or July, rather than late September…

Read more from the source @ http://rcpmag.com/articles/2015/03/18/windows-10-will-arrive-summer.aspx

Grazed from NetworkComputing. Author: Thomas LaRock.

Many database administrators and other IT pros fear cloud adoption, but setting aside emotions and understanding how cloud computing impacts your infrastructure is key to overcoming your anxiety. Humans fear the unknown and other things that make us feel less safe and secure. The darkness of a bedroom at night is a good example.

No matter how old you are, the fear that something may be under your bed likely gets you once in a while. Don’t believe me? Try this tonight: Lay on top of your bed, let your leg dangle off the side, and then try not thinking about what’s not under your bed. You’ll see what I mean…

Grazed from MSPMentor.net. Author: Michael Brown.

Even as more organizations adopt cloud solutions, other organizations are resistant to the idea. With the benefits of using cloud tools and cloud-based file sharing already well-documented, what is holding these organizations back? And how can managed service providers (MSPs) alleviate concerns?

A recent report from CloudTweaks.com suggests that there isn’t so much a single reason why organizations are hesitant to adopt cloud solutions, but, rather, an over-arching fear. Many companies still don’t really understand cloud computing, and instead focus on outdated perceptions of how the cloud can negatively impact a company…

Grazed from BusinessWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Today, March 17, Microsoft disclosed that the former Vice President & Principal Analyst at Forrester Research: James Staten, was elected as chief strategist for its Cloud & Enterprise group. Staten will report to Corporate VP and Cloud Chief Scott Guthrie. As stated in his LinkedIn profile, James Staten is a veteran in the market, with over 30 years experience in marketing, business development and corporate strategy with large tech companies and start ups.

At Forrester, his main focus was to track, trend and forecast the technology evolutions and usage trends of data center and server technologies. His main areas of concentration were Cloud Computing & Adaptive Intelligence (collaborative business intelligence). According to one of his tweets, the cloud forecaster is not going to relocate to Redmond, where he was living while at Forrester, he will instead remain based in Silicon Valley where he is going to create connections between the cloud and other Microsoft products, focused on improving the Azure cloud business.

Grazed from BusinessStandard. Author: Shivani Shinde Nadhe.

With three data centres being set up by Microsoft in India the Redmond-based company is expected to have a leg-up in having a bigger pie of the Indian cloud computing business. Microsoft globally has spent over $4.5 billion to set up 19 data centres (DCs) across the globe as it accelerates its strategy to be a Mobile First, Cloud First company.

In the last 12 months the company has expanded its DCs from eight countries to 19. These includes in countries like Australia, Japan, China and India. In India, many believe, that this will allow Microsoft to target the government sector which so far has been vary of adopting to public cloud from third party players…

Grazed from CIO.  Author: Thor Olavsrud.

Adobe took the wraps off its new Adobe Document Cloud todayy in an effort to create a seamless and unified document experience across desktop, mobile and the Web while also looking to pave the way for more mainstream use of e-signatures.  "Just like the Creative Cloud and Marketing Cloud where we transformed those businesses, we’re looking to take our heritage in the document space and transform it," says Mark Grilli, vice president of Product Marketing at Adobe.

That transformation starts with an all-new Acrobat, which Grilli says Adobe reimagined from the ground up to be fully touch-enabled and with easy-to-discover tools, including e-signing, at the heart. To play well in the enterprise, Adobe has added integrated document management capabilities that allow you to manage, track and control documents. You can see who has opened documents and when, and features allow you to protect sensitive information, both inside and outside the firewall…

Grazed from SmarterComputing.  Author: Will Padman.

As a product manager within the IBM Global Technology Services organization, I am tasked with creating solutions that appeal to a broad cross section of the marketplace, are technically robust and deliver increased value to our clients. The challenge that presents itself is that innovation is constantly driving technological change and our services and products need to adapt accordingly.

Greek statue An observation I have made and a philosophy I have adopted throughout my life is that “change is the only constant.” This statement is apparently attributed to Heraclitus, but to be honest what he actually said would have been more akin to,
 “Η αλλαγή είναι η μόνη σταθερά στη ζωή.”…

Grazed from NetworkWorld. Author: Brandon Butler.

The cloud computing market is typically broken into three buckets: IaaS, SaaS and PaaS. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) represents on-demand compute and storage; Software as a Service (SaaS) vendors host applications in the cloud; and Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a cloud-based application development platform.

But a recent Forrester’s Wave report throws those buckets out the window. “The popular wisdom that cloud computing comes in three flavors — SaaS, IaaS and PaaS — no longer describes reality,” say some of Forrester’s top cloud analysts, including John Rymer and James Staten (Staten now works at Microsoft)…

Grazed from FierceWireless. Author: Phil Goldstein.

Around three months after Ford Motor Co. chose BlackBerry subsidiary QNX’s technology to power its Sync 3 in-car technology platform, and not technology from longtime partner Microsoft, Ford is now returning to Microsoft. Ford has contracted with Microsoft for the software giant to deliver cloud-based wireless updates to its connected cars.

When Ford chose QNX for Sync 3 in February, the company stressed it would continue working with Microsoft, including on older versions of Sync. Thus, the companies’ new partnership is an indication that there is no bad blood between the car maker and software giant–or at least not enough to derail their partnership…

Grazed from ComputerWeekly. Author: Cliff Saran.

The use of cloud applications for desktop IT is gaining ground. IT decision-makers are spending more on cloud, while hardware and software investments are decreasing. The growing acceptance of cloud applications will influence future desktop strategies as businesses move away from traditional Windows-based PC upgrades.

The TechTarget IT Priorities 2015 survey reported that IT spending on cloud computing ranked third (39%) behind spending on hardware (45%) and software (48%). When asked which areas of their IT budgets would decrease, 63% of IT decision-makers said they would spend less on hardware and 49% said they would spend less on software…

Read more from the source @ http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240242447/IT-priorities-2015-Desktop-IT-investments-shifts-to-the-cloud