Author: David

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Chrissie Klinger.

A lot of businesses are using cloud services in an effort to save money. Some businesses, though, are starting to realize how much money cloud computing could cost them if the government started taxing everything they were doing in the cloud. WBUR reported that Massachusetts’ top tax official, Amy Pitter, stated the ‘cloud’ is an "evolving area of the law." A recent public letter signed by Pitter described the state’s policies on which cloud services are taxable and which are not. Fortunately for businesses, storing data in the cloud on services like iCloud and Google Docs, is currently not considered taxable in Massachusetts, but what about other states?

Last year at this time only a handful of states were even looking at taxing any cloud related product or service, now more than half of the 50 U.S. states are exploring how to tax cloud services, including SaaS. At this time, the U.S. government expects cloud services to fall under current tax laws, allowing each state to determine tax implications and guidelines. Unfortunately, as states start to develop guidelines they are beginning to realize this might lead to new federal laws and regulations due to the complexity of cloud computing…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Jamie Yap.

The increasing adoption of cloud computing, which has led to the growing deluge of data, devices and apps, calls for a new server operating system (OS) that is designed for the cloud in order for companies to realize the true benefits of scalability, agility and availability, said Microsoft executives.

Michael Park, corporate vice president for Windows Server and Microsoft’s management marketing group, told ZDNet Asia in an interview Tuesday that the role of the sever OS is expanding, driven by the exponential growth of data, devices and apps as well as cloud computing…

Grazed from CallidusCloud. Author: PR Announcement.

CallidusCloud® (www.calliduscloud.com) today announced that it will be a Gold sponsor of salesforce.com’s Dreamforce 2012 conference (www.dreamforce.com). The conference will be held September 18-21, 2012, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

CallidusCloud is the leader in sales effectiveness and cloud computing, providing companies with a suite of SaaS solutions to help improve performance at every stage of the sales cycle from hiring the right talent, motivating and coaching the right behaviors, enabling sales with simple learning and sales tools, automating quote generation and providing lead management. With CallidusCloud, companies of all sizes enjoy larger deal sizes, shorter sales cycles and higher win rates. CallidusCloud will be in booth 1412 in the Cloud Expo…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) and EMC (NYSE: EMC) have aligned their channel incentives in their “three paths to the cloud” strategy. The goal? To help partners increase their profitability no matter how they decide to play in the cloud computing space — as cloud services providers, cloud aggregators or cloud integrators.

As part of the announcement made at VMworld 2012 in San Francisco, the two companies unveiled new joint reference architectures and integrated customer support, as well as new offerings to support the VCE Vblock appliance. For customers, it means more flexibility and choice, the companies stated, but for partners, it hopefully means some more ease in providing cloud computing infrastructures and services — and, of course, better margins…

Grazed from BankSecurity Info. Author: Tracy Kitten.

Last year, federal regulators issued FFIEC authentication guidance for online transactions. But, unfortunately, regulators apparently don’t plan to issue additional guidance on the security issues involved in mobile banking and cloud computing.

Larger institutions don’t really need guidance on these topics. Most are addressing risks out of necessity. Higher transaction volumes expose them to more fraud. Besides, they have the staff and budgets in place to help mitigate risks…

Grazed from RealWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Interoute, owner operator of Europe’s largest cloud services platform, is partnering with worldwide IT solutions and services provider Unisys to help businesses to realise both immediate and long-term business value through with a simpler, more straightforward and more disciplined approach to cloud computing.

The initiative will combine Interoute’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) capability, including its Virtual Data Centre (VDC), with Unisys cloud advisory, implementation and management services portfolio…

Grazed from ITProPortal. Author: Clive Grayson.

The benefits of removing the capital investment and the day to day management of hardware and software to leverage an on-demand, metered computing service, charged on a consumption basis, are now widely accepted. The rise in cloud computing is indicative of our need to make the most efficient use of resources and minimise costs by accessing computing resources and infrastructure when, and as, it is needed.

This business model has drawn many comparisons between the cloud and what we think of as more traditional, public ‘utility services’ such as gas, electricity and water. Yet, to what extent are these comparisons valid? Are we at the stage where cloud services can be accessed and delivered in the same way as any other utility service; where we can activate the service quickly and easily, switch the service on and off, and easily move between different providers?…

Grazed from BizTech2. Author: Editorial Staff.

Technology vendors, including CloudBees, Cloudsoft Corporation, Huawei, Oracle, Rackspace, Red Hat, and Software AG, have announced Cloud Application Management for Platforms (CAMP), a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) management Application Programming Interface (API) specification.

Designed for managing both public and private cloud applications, including packaging and deployment of the applications, CAMP will be submitted to Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) for development of an industry standard, in an effort to help ensure interoperability for deploying and managing applications across cloud environments…

Grazed from Washington Post. Author: Editorial Staff.

Baidu Inc., which operates China’s most popular search engine, has released a mobile browser and says it will invest in a cloud computing center as growth in Internet use shifts to mobile phones.

Baidu dominates China’s Internet search market but has been slower than some competitors such as Tencent and UCWeb to expand in mobile Web access. China has the world’s most populous Internet market and the number of people who go online via mobile phones and tablet computers is growing twice as fast as the overall market…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Rick Blaisdell.

Europe has been at the forefront of global development, having led the colonization of a huge portion of the world. Economic and social empowerment has been on an upward scale, making it a developed country. Surprisingly, a huge proportion of the population is yet to venture into cloud computing. Considering that, there is only one Europe, and most of us would not expect such slow uptake of a game-changing innovation, let me state that again.

A study by BSA, 34% of Europeans were aware of cloud computing service and had actually consumed such. In the study, over 4000 individuals were interviewed from across Europe, with the aim of assessing their views regarding cloud computing. Reponses to questions regarding what cloud computing is ranged from ‘I have no idea what it is’ to ‘I have never heard of it’…