Grazed from CBROnline.  Author: James Nunns.

Centrix Software has revealed the results of its latest end-user report detailing cloud-based application usage. The research shows that cloud-based apps have flooded organisations, with nearly 90% of UK companies using them.  The survey states that 78% of organisations have created a pro-active plan for cloud adoption in 2015. A third of all CIO’s named the growing cost of cloud subscriptions, managing the increasing number of cloud apps in use, and duplication of app functionality as their top three concerns.

Amongst other concerns were shadow IT (53%) and tracking and measuring usage. Perhaps surprising the survey reveals that the financial services and government sectors are the furthest behind in cloud app adoption…

Grazed from BusinessInsider.  Author: Julie Bort.

With the long-awaited IPO of cloud storage company Box now a bona fide success, what’s next for the hot cloud computing industry?  We talked to early Box investor Byron Deeter, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners who created BVP’s index of public cloud companies.

Since creating that index in 2013, the market cap of public cloud companies has grown from $100 billion to $165 billion, and there are now 25 cloud companies with valuations over $1 billion…

Grazed from CIO.  Author: Kenneth Corbin.

 The top technology officer at the Department of Defense (DoD) wants to work more closely with cloud service providers, saying yesterday that he expects to enhance collaboration with the private sector as the Pentagon, like the rest of the federal government, looks to trim IT costs and improve efficiencies.  Speaking at a cloud event geared for private-sector firms, Terry Halvorsen, acting CIO at DoD, outlined his vision "to form an interactive partnership between all of the government players involved within DoD and industry to get it right."

"We are going to continue to move more into the commercial space," Halvorsen says. "One of the questions that we’re wrestling with today inside the DoD technology is what businesses should we be in, and how much of any business should we be in."…

Grazed from NetworkWorld.  Author: Brandon Butler.

While reporting its year-end financial results, Amazon.com CFO Tom Szkutak also announced something that will make cloud-watchers giddy: The company plans to officially break out the financial results for its Amazon Web Services cloud computing division beginning next quarter.

AWS has been anointed the leader of the IaaS cloud market for its breadth and depth of products and services, plus its massive scale – Gartner estimated last year that its cloud was five times larger than all of its competitors at the time, combined! Given that lead, AWS is also thought to be the leading revenue generator in the IaaS market. But no one knows for sure…

Grazed from FierceGovernmentIT.  Author: Molly Bernhart Walker.

On a small scale, the Defense Department is allowing commercial cloud providers to operate in Defense-owned and operated facilities, but Acting DoD Chief Information Officer Terry Halvorsen would like to take that model a step further.

Halvorsen said he already has the blessing of DoD Undersecretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall in pursuing a scenario that would allow commercial cloud providers to operate in DoD facilities and serve non-federal government clients…

Grazed from Microsoft.  Author: Dervish Tayyip.

For the past eight years, the annual International Computers, Privacy & Data Protection Conferencehas gathered together expert academics, computer scientists, lawyers, and policymakers to debate the latest legal, regulatory, academic and technological developments in privacy and data protection.

I was honored to be asked this year to contribute some remarks during a panel discussion on “Cross-Border Flows of Personal Information for Financial Services”. My fellow panelists included Jan-Willem Verheijden, Policy Officer at the European Commission; Steve Wood, Head of Policy Delivery at the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office; and Nohyoung Park, Professor of Law at Korea University…

Grazed from Fortune.  Author: Kirk Kardasian.

When people talk about cloud computing, it’s usually understood that the cloud is a metaphor for groups of remote, networked servers. But when Lance Parker talks about “space computing,” he’s not taking poetic license. He means it literally: physical servers operating in outer space. Parker is the CEO of ConnectX, a startup company based in Los Angeles that’s working on a way to take corporations’ data out of the cloud and into the final frontier. If his company succeeds, it could revolutionize the way we store, transmit, and analyze information.

As metaphors go, “cloud computing” sounds nice but is misleading. Clouds are in the sky; server farms are decidedly earthbound. Clouds are aesthetic and amorphous, a Rorschach test in the atmosphere; data warehouses are boxy and don’t leave much room for interpretation. But the bigger problem with cloud computing is that, according to Parker, it’s simply unsustainable…

Grazed from MarketWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Vaultive, the leader in cloud data encryption, today announced it has earned recognition on The Channel Company’s CRN 100 Coolest Cloud Computing Vendors of 2015. This annual list recognizes some of the most innovative cloud companies supporting the IT channel today.

The 100 Coolest Cloud Computing Vendors honor is presented to companies based on their approach to creating innovative products, services or partner programs that have helped channel partners transform into true solution providers, ultimately helping customers take advantage of the ease of use, flexibility, scalability and savings that cloud computing offers…

Grazed from BetaNews.  Author: Lee Marsden.

The growth in high-speed internet connectivity across Europe, the increasing adoption of cloud services, the consumerization of IT and the move towards mobile working are all trends that, in theory, play to the strengths of SMBs — allowing them to compete more effectively.

The proliferation towards cloud-based services such as Skype, Google Drive and Salesforce is also making life easier for employees — allowing staff to access content from anywhere and work collaboratively. However, research of 2,500 European office-based workers recently conducted by ZyXEL, has found that while SMBs are starting to make the most of new technologies and services, there are inconsistencies with the progress being made in each country…

Grazed from Oracle.  Author: Debra Lilley.

Cloud has proven to be the adoption platform of choice for Oracle Applications customers. Companies can still implement them on-premises, but CIOs really need to think hard as to why they wouldn’t choose cloud, as the benefits are so compelling.    Here are some trends I’m seeing in relation to Oracle Cloud Applications:

Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud has been really popular, and that will continue. The simplified user interface of Oracle HCM Cloud means that users get to their information easily. Managers can take the formality out of managing talent—for instance, using a tablet to record appraisal comments whilst sitting next to an employee during a performance review rather than going back to their PC to enter them afterwards or even worse sitting behind a PC during the review…