Microsoft cites three basic flaws with Google’s Office Cloud Connect plug-in
Microsoft fired back at Google last week, reacting to a recently released Google plug-in for Microsoft Office that enables document sharing and collaboration.
Load Balancing in the Cloud
The beauty of the cloud is that it puts an end to IT’s constant struggle to provide adequate resources to meet current and expected data loads.
But since data has a way of spiking with little or no notice, even the most state-of-the-art cloud environment will be of little use without a highly robust, automated load balancing component.
Virtualization And The Cloud: The Trouble Is Troubleshooting
More companies are taking advantage of cloud computing and virtualization technologies to streamline their network operations, but significant management challenges remain, according to Network Instruments’ State of the Network Global Study.
The company’s fourth annual study surveyed 265 network engineers, IT directors and CIOs, located in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, South America and Australia. Respondents were asked about the extent to which their companies take advantage of cloud computing, video conferencing and virtualization technologies, as well as the challenges they face in managing the virtual infrastructure.
NetSuite, Informatica team up on two-tier ERP
NetSuite and Informatica have announced a partnership that seeks to exploit the concept of "two-tier ERP" (enterprise resource planning) deployments.
The companies are co-developing a connector, which will be available in the second quarter, that will tie departmental or divisional implementations of NetSuite’s cloud-based OneWorld suite with a core on-premises ERP system from the likes of SAP or Oracle.
Apple should be the saviour of cloud computing
Courtesy of a software developer friend, I had a chance over the weekend to play with the Mac OS X 10.7 preview release. As with previous versions, I felt that Apple is spending a lot of time solving problems people don’t have. You can now quickly revert to older versions of files, for example, but how many times have you wanted to do that?
What’s astonishing is how little attention Apple is paying to the cloud. That’s a shame, because Apple could deliver a kick up the derriere that cloud computing really needs right now.
Citrix invests in content tracking service Primadesk
Citrix Systems has invested in Primadesk, a company that is developing a free, web-based application to help users keep track of content stored in different cloud-based services, the company said on Monday.
It is the first investment commitment made by Citrix Startup Accelerator, a seed investment initiative launched in December 2010. Details of the amount of the investment were not announced.
Java Enterprise Edition 7 to get cloud support
Work on the next enterprise edition of Java is proceeding at Oracle, with the company eyeing improvements for cloud computing, REST web services, and other capabilities, an Oracle representative confirmed on Friday.
Java EE (Java Platform, Enterprise Edition) 7 is due in 2012. Capabilities for deploying cloud computing applications and infrastructures will be key to the upgrade.
Business intelligence in the cloud
Shifting business intelligence and analytics off-premise can make financial sense, as it does with other applications. Instead of buying servers and software licenses up front as a large, sunk capital cost, paying monthly fees from operating budgets can be less expensive over the life of the application.
But doing BI in the cloud also carries some particular challenges, one of which is that it can be hard to define in advance every type of report you want to run using cloud-based data.
Data management tools ‘aid network security’
Businesses looking to keep on top of their corporate information should consider investing in proven data management tools.
According to Andy McFarlane, head of marketing for Vodafone Global Enterprise, there are a "wealth" of solutions that can help companies deal with issues such as the security challenges presented by giving staff real-time access to enterprise records.
He told the InfoSecurity website that there are a wide range of areas which the data management tools can address.