Author: David

Grazed from ChannelPartners.  Author: Kelly Teal.

Cloud computing is forcing change throughout the telecom industry. For many service providers, it’s pushing them to rethink their data center strategies. After mostly abandoning their hosting businesses in the early 2000s, many are reinvesting with renewed vigor. In the last year, CenturyLink snapped up SAVVIS; Windstream got about a dozen more data centers with the PAETEC purchase; and EarthLink added to its holdings with Business Vitals. Verizon also bought Terremark but it, along with AT&T, has been investing in data centers for some time, analysts say. Still, the reason for the renewed spending is clear: cloud. And channel partners that want one-stop shopping for their customers will benefit from access to ready-made platforms once some wrinkles are ironed out…

Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Virtualization as the technology foundation of cloud computing has ushered in new challenges, new day-to-day responsibilities and, now, new roles for IT professionals as business leaders within their organizations. A recent survey by SolarWinds(R) Inc. /quotes/zigman/505205/quotes/nls/swi SWI +0.50% , a leading provider of powerful and affordable IT management software, indicates that IT departments plan to invest in key areas of business in order to play a more competitive role.

"IT’s role of creating and maintaining infrastructure is transforming to act as more of an intermediary or broker in addition to those traditional roles," said Jonathan Reeve, SolarWinds’ senior director of product management. "IT professionals will need to demonstrate their expertise by identifying and implementing the most appropriate virtualization and cloud tools that fit their company’s needs. Investing in areas such as competitive analysis, marketing and product management will help them on their way to becoming successful business leaders."…

Grazed from PR.com.  Author: PR Announcement.

The premier Cloud Computing event of 2012 is almost here.  In less than a week IDGA’s 3rd Annual Cloud Computing for DoD & Government will take place in Washington DC. The event could not have come at a better time because the global cloud computing market is expected to grow at 6.7% CAGR within the next eight years according to Market Research Media.

With an ever-increasing number of companies now buying computing, storage, and networking power on-demand from the Cloud, there has never been a greater need for a one-stop event that brings together players from the main layers of the Cloud ecosystem – the infrastructure players, the platform providers, and those offering applications. You can get a copy of the agenda by visiting the website at http://www.CloudComputingEvent.com…

Grazed from ITPro.  Author: Maggie Holland.

Smaller businesses are leading the charge when it comes to embracing cloud computing, with the market expected to top $68 billion worldwide over the next two years.  So claims research conducted by Parallels and unveiled this week at the company’s partner summit in Orlando.  Between now and 2014, small businesses are set to double the number of paid cloud applications they use.

The good news? There’s a trillion dollars waiting for us if we can solve this problem of serving these very diverse needs.

“There are 148 million small businesses out there waiting to be served. The challenge we all have is that it’s such a diverse market,” said Parallel’s CEO Birger Steen during his keynote speech at the event…

Grazed from ChannelBuzz.ca.   Author: Chris Talbot.

As the world continues to make what could arguably be called the biggest IT transition in history, it will be channel partners that drive the adoption. At VMware Partner Exchange, cloud computing was clearly top-of-mind, and executives from the virtualization vendor assured the more than 4,300 partners in attendance that they were going to continue to be a partner-led organization, particularly as it begins to add more focus to the emerging SMB market.

Virtualization is the underlying technology that is helping to drive adoption of cloud computing technologies, and that begins at the desktop level. During a partner panel in front of media and analysts, Steve Kaplan, vice president of the data center virtualization practice at Presidio, desktop virtualization is the entry way to the cloud…

Grazed from Information Week.  Author: Charles Babcock.

Cloud Connect, a UBM/TechWeb event, always generates a lot of news of interest to IT pros, developers, and cloud providers. As the third day of meetings are set to kick off in Santa Clara, Calif., that tradition is holding true. Here are the four topics that have already caught my eye.

Telecommunications Companies Show Cloud Aspirations

The telco service providers are thinking out loud about how they’d like to join the ranks of cloud service providers. CenturyLink and Verizon are already there, with their purchases of Savvis and Terremark cloud service suppliers, respectively, last year. More would like to get into the business…

Grazed from Dynamic Business.  Author: Editorial Staff.

As technology moves more towards a subscriber model you might see the “aaS” suffix placed after a variety of letters.

The most common terms currently utilised under the “cloud” banner are:

–       Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): servers, networks, disk space and other IT infrastructure

–       Platform as a Service (PaaS): environments where software companies can build applications without the need for infrastructure

–       Software as a Service (SaaS): applications and software solutions that are ready for immediate use

Recently I was asked the question about whether a website classifies as SaaS. The answer is both yes and no – as it comes down to perspectives…

Grazed from Techgoondu.  Author: Aaron Tan.

The market for cloud computing services among small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) is expected to swell to US$68 billion by 2014, a new study has found.

According to Parallels’ SMB Cloud Insights report, SMBs will continue to lead the cloud computing wave, with small businesses three times more likely than large enterprises to choose cloud services over on-premise software.

SMBs surveyed in the study also plan to double the number of cloud applications they purchase over the next three years.

The new study, which details hosting, cloud services and applications that appeal to SMBs, follows similar surveys conducted in countries such as Brazil, Mexico, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Japan and Australia…

Grazed from TheNextWeb.  Author: Matthew Panzarino.

Today at a Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook gave a keynote presentation in which he addressed working conditions at Apple’s factories in China, as well as the product philosophy of Apple.

He also announced that its syncing service iCloud now has over 100M users. Just last month, Cook said that the service had 85M users, making this a growth of 15M users in 21 days.

Cook also reiterated that iCloud was a ‘long-game’ strategy that Apple would continue to pursue over many years. He said that it wasn’t just a product, but a “strategy for the next decade” of Apple’s business. Cook mentioned that the way that iCloud took a household with multiple Macs or iDevices and simplified the interchange of information as the primary drive behind the introduction of iCloud…