Grazed from CIO.  Author: Tony Pagliarulo.

As we began the New Year, industry prognosticators and research firms published their lists of major technology predictions and trends that could have a major impact on organizations in 2015.  We continued to hear about the growing impact of “big data”, the “Internet of things”, cloud computing, and the increasing impact of emerging technologies such as 3D printing, wearables and smart machines.

My research and discussions with dozens of CIOs and line of business executives over the past year indicate that the strategic importance of IT and the role of the CIO continue to grow in importance.  Organizations are willing to invest more in technology; however they are expecting a significant increase in business results and at a much faster speed…

Grazed from TopTechNews.  Author: Shirley Siluk.

With such a variety of unified communications (UC) services now available, enterprise Relevant Products/Services IT managers and telecom directors need to consider a whole host of factors to choose the best option. Let’s take a look first at what unified communications can do for your enterprise, and then consider some of the key decision points you may need to address when selecting a UC system or provider.

Starting with the Basics

Unified communications technology enables users to communicate in either real time or non-real time, switching seamlessly from one form of communications to another — for example, sending an instant message to someone who just left a voicemail. Systems for unified communications also enable users to collaborate more easily across an organization, from department to department, and from one location to multiple others…

Grazed from TechTimes.  Author: Christian de Looper

Amazon Web Services, the e-tailer’s cloud business, has been holding tight to a leadership position but all that could change as the Internet of Things, with all its data, arrives like a gale force into the consumer and enterprise environments.

One industry watcher is questioning whether Amazon will survive as a cloud services provider given the e-tailer has a short window to re-strategize its cloud business model due to the Internet of Things (IoT), which is the interconnection of uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices collecting data from every point possible…

Grazed from BusinessTimes.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Microsoft agreed to buy startup Revolution Analytics, which makes tools to sift through data, to help the company build up its cloud-services business.  Terms weren’t disclosed. The deal was driven by the growing volumes of data that companies are contending with and the need for more software that can help analyze the information, Microsoft said in a blog post on Friday. Revolution Analytics, based in Mountain View, California, makes a statistics programming language called R that helps analyze data.

Microsoft is competing with companies such as Google and Amazon.com Inc. to provide computer services over the Internet, which is known as cloud computing. Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella has made the cloud a priority as he tries to reinvigorate the Redmond, Washington-based software company…

Read more from the source @ http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/technology/microsoft-agrees-to-buy-revolution-analytics-to-boost-cloud

Grazed from Business2Community.  Author: Lance Wright.

As cyber security becomes a larger focal point in the media and minds of online shoppers, consumers understandably have increasing concerns when it comes to what protections are offered by retailers. Across channels, only 55% of shoppers think retailers use security systems that adequately protect their data, and not surprisingly so.

In fact, Trustwave reports that data breaches increased by 53.6% from 2012 to 2013, with more than half of thosebreaches targeting ecommerce sites. Of special concern is highly sensitive data, including credit card numbers andpersonally identifiable information. But with customer expectations on the rise and IT budgets commonly on thefall, how can retailers meet the security needs of today’s digital environment? For many organizations, turning to cloud-based commerce solutions helps fill the gap…

Grazed from HuffingtonPost.  Author: Matt Sheehan.

A year ago, few outside of China knew the name Jack Ma. Today, he’s the most sought after man at Davos. The founder and face of Alibaba Group, “the Steve Jobs of China,” the richest man in Asia — Ma’s appellations are as numerous as the industries he is conquering.

Alibaba Group is a sprawling Internet empire that took on some of America’s leading online titans — and won. Its consumer-to-consumer platform (Taobao) routed then-goliath Ebay, and its business-to-consumer megastore (Tmall.com) dominates Amazon. Alibaba has ventured into mobile payments, cloud computing, social media, and is now testing streaming international content. The company is second only to Walmart in global transactions, and its $25 billion initial public stock offering last fall was the largest in history…

Grazed from BizJournals. Author: Mike W. Thomas.

The National Science Foundation is funding a partnership between the University of Texas at San Antonio and other universities that will work with open cloud technology to develop advanced computing systems for scientists and engineers. The participating universities, along with other scientific institutions, will share $6.6 million grant money.

UTSA’s Cloud and Big Data Laboratory will participate in the project known as Jetstream — which will be based at Indiana University’s Pervasive Technology Institute and the University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Advanced Computing Center…

Grazed from Nasdaq.  Author: Editorial Staff.

A new wrinkle in federal rules this year aims to urge more hospitals and other medical providers into the 21st century.  Those expectations have helped lift a handful of companies in IBD’s Computer Software-Medical group, a group at the intersection of health care and Internet technology — and key suppliers to the health industry’s conversion from paper to digital electronic records.

Cerner, Athenahealth, and Veeva Systems are at the head of that list. All three have seen benefits from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus bill. All have also seen their share of recent ups and downs…

Grazed from CIOToday.  Author: Dan Heilman.

In its initial public offering, shares in online file storage company Box were trading at $24.24 on Friday afternoon, 73 percent higher than its IPO price of $14 a share. With that impressive opening morning, the start-up company caught up to the $2.4 billion valuation that it garnered in its most recent private financing round last summer, possibly allaying concerns among investors that the company had been overvalued.

In a video presentation to investors Friday, Box co-founder and CEO, Aaron Levie, said that his company was at the forefront of "a once-in-a-generation shift" in storage. Among the company’s clients are General Electric and the drug maker AstraZeneca…

Grazed from ODCA. Author: Editorial Staff.

While the segregation of infrastructure resources into these three components is useful to a degree, they are more appropriately considered as a cohesive set of aggregate resources that can be purchased, provisioned, and managed as a whole. This is especially important as the lines between software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and IaaS blur.

SaaS offerings continue to add options and flexibility (thereby delving into PaaS); recently, the industry introduced the concept of IaaS+, which blurs the line between IaaS and PaaS by adding modular services on top of infrastructure services…

Read more from the source @ https://www.opendatacenteralliance.org/advanced-search-and-tools/advanced-search/infrastructure-workgroup/cloud-infrastructure