Author: David

Oracle Corp. ORCL +1.15% agreed to acquire text-mining and analytics software maker Collective Intellect as the business-software company continues its buying spree aimed at web-based software.

Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

Collective Intellect’s cloud-based software monitors, understands and responds to consumers’ conversations on social-media platforms such as Facebook Inc. (FB) and Twitter. The company’s customers include Hasbro Inc. (HAS), Nestle S.A.’s (NSRGY, NESN.VX) Nestle Purina PetCare Co., and PepsiCo Inc. (PEP)…

However, I can clue you in on what to consider through self-assessments to get you closer to the right answer for your situation.

First, think about people. The core issue hindering the movement to cloud computing is the people in the organization. This means talent and attitude. The best way to test the cloud attitude in your organization is to go into a staff meeting and at some point say you want to talk about "cloud computing." You’ll quickly see the scale of your people problem:..

During the first week of March, two tech giants dropped their cloud computing prices within two days of each other. First, Amazon Web Services, the market pioneer in infrastructure-as-a-service, dropped prices on its core EC2 service and slashed the hourly rate for long-term contracts. Two days later, Microsoft dropped prices on its Windows Azure compute and storage services, including a 50% cut for entry- level servers. AWS and Microsoft are up against new competitors as well as each other, a promising sign for would-be cloud buyers hoping to see prices fall further.

AWS is angling for more big customers. For example, it cut the price of a small on-demand Windows server by 4%, from $0.12 to $0.115 an hour. But it cut the price of Reserved Instances (requiring a one-year commitment) as much as 33%. Under the new deal, a Windows Server can be had for a year with an up-front payment of $2,400 and $0.264 per hour, compared with $0.92 per hour on demand. Amazon promises bigger volume discounts. If you intend to spend $5 million or more this year, "give us a call. …We look forward to speaking with you," wrote AWS chief evangelist Jeff Barr in a blog post…

Adaptive Computing, managers of the world’s largest supercomputing systems and experts in HPC workload management and Cloud management solutions and NICE Software, a visualization software and services company, today announced their joint solution to deliver a Technical Visualization Private Cloud with Adaptive’s Moab HPC Suite and NICE Desktop Cloud Visualization (NICE DCV) and EnginFrame products. This solution makes it possible to view and manipulate complex 3D simulations remotely on PCs and mobile devices by centralizing physical or virtual visualization workstations to the data center and transferring pixels instead of data allowing a reduction in capital and management costs, an improvement in data processing, security, workforce collaboration and productivity and a reduction in network congestion. This complete solution will be demonstrated at ISC ’12 in Hamburg, Germany, June 18-20, 2012 in booth # 147…

The computer market has gone through significant changes over the past decade and GPU market leader NVIDIA has been pursuing new opportunities in mobile processors for the smartphone and tablet markets, addressing the challenges of cloud computing while also providing innovative solutions in the high-performance computing (HPC) space. However, if you ask NVIDIA how it views itself, the company will tell you that computer graphics remain at the center of everything it does, with the focus now being on making graphics performance more efficient.

Qualcomm Atheros Inc., the networking and connectivity subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated QCOM +0.56% , today introduced its Wake-on-Wireless(TM) (WoW) Cloud solution for computing platforms, debuting in the new Acer Aspire S5 Ultrabook at COMPUTEX TAIPEI in Taiwan. WoW Cloud-enabled Acer Ultrabooks are equipped to wake up remotely, connect to the AcerCloud while the system is in idle or sleep mode, transfer content remotely, and go back to sleep, to deliver instant-on and always-connected capability. Qualcomm Atheros’ WoW Cloud-enabled AR9462 chip is the market’s first solution capable of both PCIe offload and remote cloud connectivity on a WLAN product.

These features will enable the Acer S5 Ultrabook and future WoW Cloud-enabled devices to keep content and applications constantly up to date and extend battery life. A new feature supported in Qualcomm Atheros’ dual-band (2.4/5 GHz), 2-stream 802.11n and Bluetooth 4.0 single-chip combo solution, WoW Cloud offers remote wake-up capability for cloud-connected Ultrabooks. This new capability enables Qualcomm Atheros to help usher in a new era of cloud-connected computing platforms…

The National Resource Conservation Service was faced with some staggering figures: more than 100 scientific modeling tools deployed to each and every one of its 12,500 planners, who were spread out in more than 2,000 offices.

Each NRCS employee needs access to those applications as they travel into the field to help farmers and ranchers determine how best to handle the critical issues that affect their businesses and livelihoods.

But the NRCS, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, realized it had an increasingly costly and ineffective system on its hands…

Over half a century of dynamic growth in the semiconductor industry, Advantest has played a key role in supporting the industry’s rapid technological progress with cutting-edge test solutions. The speed of technological advance shows no signs of slackening, while device manufacturers continue to hone the efficiency of their R&D operations. Advantest’s new CTS is a revolutionary new concept in test, targeted precisely to these customer needs…