Author: David

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Kirill Bensonoff.

There’s usually nothing very complicated about paying sales taxes. You go to the store to buy an Xbox game and, at least in most states, you pay a few extra bucks.

When you start talking about the cloud, things get more complicated very quickly. After all, the whole point of cloud computing is that your software and storage space is remote—often in a different state or even a different country. Maybe your data is duplicated in two different places with wholly different tax laws.

The issue is so complicated, and so new, that most states don’t have clear rules yet about how to levy taxes in the cloud…

Grazed from Channelnomics. Author: Justin Crotty.

Enterprises have been dabbling with cloud computing and IT outsourcing services for years. Many have reached the point where they’re either comfortable with the functionality and reliability, or see that the economic benefits certainly outweigh the potential risks. This move to mainstream acceptance of cloud and IT outsourcing marks a significant evolution from “the dev/test period” to the “mission-critical era” and brings a great opportunity to the channel.

For one, this new era pushes IT needs and services beyond your block and tackle hosted e-mail and cloud-based backup. Rather than replacing or adding servers to their data centers, enterprises are looking to move application servers into hosted environments, or replace them with software services. In an effort to achieve this, many businesses are turning to systems integrators (SIs) for software, infrastructure, platform and professional services needed to support their cloud environments…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Walter Bailey.

1 – SalesForce

SalesForce is a very strong market leader, having developed 105,000 cloud computing applications that run in real time. The aim of the company is to develop applications that allow running the social media communication in real time.

Why? The Ruby platform developed by SalesForce is deemed impenetrable by most of the corporate giants. Apart from that, the company has successfully integrated enterprise CRM solutions over the cloud platform…

Grazed from TheStreet. Author: Chris Ciaccia.

Expectations for the high-flying Salesforce.com’s second-quarter earnings release, which takes place after the close of the stock market Thursday, are particularly lofty this time around. The shares have rocketed 45 percent this year.

Led by CEO Marc Benioff, Salesforce has become a leader in the cloud computing (learn more) industry, providing software-as-a-service (SaaS) to companies. Salesforce has expanded its social-media offerings, buying Radian6 and recently purchasing Buddy Media for $689 million, as it takes on rivals Oracle [ORCL 31.585 -0.115 (-0.36%) ] and SAP [SAP 64.52 -0.51 (-0.78%) ]. That acquisition closed Aug. 13…

Grazed from CRN. Author: Rob Wright.

As more applications move to the cloud and software publishers embrace the SaaS model, software piracy will decline and eventually become a thing of the past.

Or, maybe it won’t. Maybe users will simply find new ways — trading SaaS account login credentials, or setting up "dark clouds" — to get around paying for software.

A debate has been sparked by new data from the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which surveyed nearly 15,000 PC users in 33 countries; the study did not include smartphones or tablets. The survey shows that 42 percent of respondents say they share login credentials for paid cloud services inside their organizations…

National cloud and data center solutions provider Peak 10 is undergoing a multi-phase expansion on its Atlanta technology campus. Phase 1 includes a new cloud cluster as well as 2,500 square feet of additional premium data center space, bringing the total Atlanta footprint to 30,000 square feet. Phase 2 will involve the build-out of a third Peak 10 data center in the Greater Atlanta region. Details of the third data center will be released later this year.

The new cloud cluster combines new network infrastructure to improve scalability, performance, and enhance redundancy and replication capabilities. It also allows customers to easily manage Virtual Machines (VMs) and maximize cloud server resources.

Dell is unveiling new and expanded cloud services to enable customers to select solutions that will help drive business results, whether they need strict security and compliance, large or small workload capabilities, real-time storage and retrieval, or quick and easy online access for configuring their cloud services.

Dell Cloud Dedicated Delivers Private Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service

Building on the success of Dell’s public and hybrid cloud offerings, the company is now launching Dell Cloud Dedicated Services to deliver managed private cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) from a secure Dell data center. Dell Cloud Dedicated offers the rapid deployment, self-service access, scalability and metered usage benefits of cloud computing while meeting the security and compliance requirements of the most sensitive or highly regulated data.

Grazed from Ixia.  Author: PR Announcement
 

Ixia, the leading global provider of converged IP and wireless network test solutions, today announced that it will demonstrate the most comprehensive test solution for next-generation virtualized data center infrastructures in Ixia booth #413 at VMworld 2012 in San Francisco from August 26-30. Ixia will also demonstrate a proof of concept where Ixia virtual ports (IxVM) are being used to test an OpenStack (Cloud OS) environment.

Application virtualization in a cloud environment is a compelling solution with economic, flexibility, and capacity benefits for enterprises of all sizes. The shared and distributed nature of cloud computing components, however, makes it extremely difficult to predict requirements and optimize performance. A new, more specialized testing approach is required in order to measure the true capacity and quality of virtualized applications and infrastructures.a

Grazed from Reuters. Author: Editorial Staff.

Microsoft Corp unveiled its first new logo in 25 years on Thursday as it looks to unify its branding ahead of a clutch of new product releases this year.

The world’s largest software company is introducing a dash of color in its first logo redesign since 1987, using a new multi-colored square next to a plain rendering of its name, replacing its well-worn italic style logo.

Microsoft is rolling out its new Windows 8 operating system along with new Office and phone software this autumn, and is hoping the new logo unifies customers’ experience of the company, much like rival Apple Inc’s distinctive logo has for its consumers…

Grazed from The DataCenter Journal. Author: Greg Schulz.

The Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA) has announced and published more documents for data center customers of cloud usage. These new cloud usage models for to address customer demands for interoperability of various clouds and services before for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) among other topics which are now joined by the new Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and foundational document for cloud interoperability.

Unlike most industry trade groups or alliances that are vendor driven or centric, ODCA is consortium of global IT leaders (e.g. customers) that is vendor independent and comprises as 12 member steering committee from member companies (e.g. customers), learn more about ODCA here…