Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

The Cloud. Can it really be avoided? The cloud market is expected to grow to $121 billion dollars in 2015, a 26% compound annual growth rate from 2010’s $37 billion (i). Such growth is set to continue, with research showing that 81% of organizations forecast a move to the cloud for 50% of their future transactions.

So what are the drivers for the growth in the cloud market? With 60% of CIOs stating that their number one priority is cloud computing (ii), a major driver has been the adoption of Software as a Service (SaaS) technology. By 2017, SaaS is set to generate almost 60% of cloud revenues (iii). The move to SaaS is primarily driven by its ability to offer greater scalability, higher efficiencies with no loss of functionality, and reduced application costs, with a move to the cloud offering annual savings of over 20% (v)…

Grazed from PR NewsWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Identacor – a unique cloud based access and management solution provider – announced availability of real-time Active Directory (AD) integration capabilities for its enterprise users to ensure swift and secure access control across disparate cloud-based enterprise apps and software. The robust integration features 360-degree access management for all connected software, including software as a service (SaaS), desktop and mobile phone applications, in an instant with just a few simple configuration steps!

“Our strategy is to help enterprises do more with compelling apps and showcase the best of cloud computing and business instinct in a secure environment.” said Sandy Dalal, CEO at Identacor. “Today, we are excited to announce the integration between Active Directory and our cloud-based identity and access management service that will let enterprise users to access all apps, be it on-premises or over the cloud, with just a centralized network username and password.”…
 

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Eileen Yu.

China is planning to rate the trustworthiness of cloud computing vendors, allowing only those with full security clearance to partake in government projects. The move could leave foreign companies out of government procurement contracts, according to a report by China Daily.

Zuo Xiaodong, vice-president of industry group China Information Security Research Institute, said: "The basic idea of the security rating mechanism is to find trustworthy hardware, software, and service providers to ensure the government has total control of the entire ecosystem."…

Grazed from Gadget.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Technology has come a long way since IBM announced the System/360 mainframe in 1964. But how did the connectivity we take for granted now come about? MARK WALKER attempts to answer this and gives his opinion on where to next.  It’s April 7, 1964, and while the Beatles are telling the world that ‘Money Can’t Buy Me Love’, IBM is attempting to convince the business community that it can at least buy you a decent mainframe.

The IBM System/360 – touted as the Big Blue’s most innovative iteration to date – had just been announced, and since then the technology industry has changed in extraordinary ways, shaping the way we live, work, and play. The impact on Africa has been profound, with the continent and its people now connected with each other and the rest of the world in ways that couldn’t possibly have been imagined only a decade or so ago. But how did the connectivity we now all take for granted first come about?…

Grazed from GeekWire.  Author: John Cook.

Netflix and Amazon.com are going old-school in their attempts to gain viewers for their Web TV series, with both companies taking out full page ads in The New York Times on Saturday. The ads were spotted by venture capitalist Chris Fralic, and they indicate just how far Netflix and Amazon will go to gain viewers.

Amazon is promoting its dark comedy “Mozart in the Jungle,” which debuts on Dec. 23. Meanwhile, Netflix is getting the word out on its 10-part highly-rated “Marco Polo” series, which is now streaming…

Read more from the source @ http://www.geekwire.com/2014/amazon-netflix-buy-full-page-ads-nyt-promote-web-tv-series/

Grazed from SysConMedia.  Author: David H. Deans.

As this year comes to a close, let’s take one last look at the most pervasive cloud computing trends — including increased usage across the different cloud service models, the key business drivers and the impact of agile innovation strategies.



Cloud computing adoption has matured, with 69 percent of survey respondents stating that at least a portion of their computing infrastructure is in the cloud. However, 56 percent of companies are still identifying IT operations that could potentially move to the cloud, according to the latest market study by IDG Enterprise...

Grazed from IBTimes.  Author: Thomas Halleck.

Sales of Sony’s PlayStation 4 have been underwhelming since its release last year, but one executive says the company is already planning for the PlayStation 5. Whether it is a physical home console or not, Sony says that the PlayStation 5 will be focused on games.

Some have speculated that the release of the PS4 and Xbox One could be the “last generation” of home consoles, as computing increasingly moves to the cloud, with processing done remotely and then streamed to home devices. Sony Computer Entertainment’s executive vice president Masayasu Ito said that gamers should expect a “next generation” of gaming consoles, including the PlayStation 5, but said he was not sure whether the next PlayStation would be a console or not…

Grazed from TheVarGuy.  Author: Elliot Markowitz.

Going forward, every company must look at taking whatever IT functions they have—whatever customer communications, whatever support, whatever data access abilities—and bringing them to the Web.  It’s that clear. And the only way for businesses to get there is with the help of solution providers.

SPs need to help their clients bring their business to the Web and into the digital age quickly, or those companies risk being irrelevant.  “The era of Digital Business has arrived, in which successful companies are defined by their ability to respond quickly and effectively to transient business moments,” according to a recent report by Gartner…

Grazed from TechCrunch.  Author: Frederic Lardinois.

Canonical’s stripped down “Snappy” edition of Ubuntu Core is now available on Amazon’s AWS cloud computing platform.  If you’ve followed along over the last few weeks, that’s not a major surprise. Snappy first launched on Microsoft Azure at the beginning of this month and then arrived on Google’s Compute Engine platform earlier this week. It was pretty obvious that AWS’s EC2 would be next.

snappyIf you’re a developer on AWS, you can now use Canonical’s Ubuntu Core machine image to quickly launch a new Snappy instance. Because of the way Snappy works, it only supports hardware virtual machines (HVMs) on EC2…

Grazed from TheStreet.  Author:  Laurie Kulikowski.

Shares of Red Hat (RHT) , an open-source software company, surged on Friday after earnings for its latest fiscal quarter topped analysts’ estimates.  The Raleigh, N.C.-based company reported third-quarter GAAP net income of $48 million, or 26 cents a share, compared with $52 million, or 27 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter.

Adjusted earnings per share of 42 cents came in higher than analysts’ expectations of 40 cents. Revenue jumped 15% to $456 million.  "Our strong Q3 results marked the eleventh straight quarter of mid-to-high teens revenue growth as we continued to reinforce and expand our strategic relationship with our customers," Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst said in the company’s earnings release…