More than a Third of IT Leaders Expect IT Hiring to Increase
TEKsystems, a leading provider of IT staffing solutions, human capital management expertise and IT services, today announced findings from its quarterly IT Executive Outlook survey, conducted in partnership with the Inavero Institute.
While nearly half of IT leaders anticipate their temporary (55%) and permanent (57%) IT headcount to stay the same in the first quarter of 2012, more than a third also expect to hire temporary (34%) and permanent (35%) IT workers during the first three months of the year. Approximately 30% of those respondents expecting to increase hiring in the first quarter anticipate 10% increases to temporary and permanent IT headcount.
Cloud Computing: Mobile Computing and Mitigating Risk
As it becomes clearer that mobile computing and the cloud are two ends of the same spectrum, IT organizations are increasingly coupling these technologies. Most IT organizations have little experience with creating mobile applications that need to be constantly updated. By developing and then hosting them in the cloud, IT organizations can not only minimize the risks associated with developing these applications, they can also more easily introduce new agile development methodologies.
To address the specific challenge, IBM recently moved to acquire Worklight, a provider of application development tools that allow IT organizations to create these applications and offers tools for managing them. At the same time, IBM also announced that its BigFix managed services platform includes support for a range of tablet PC devices in addition to smartphones…
Amazon.com Lures Businesses to the Cloud With Rate Cut
Amazon.com Inc. lowered rates on computer storage it rents over the Internet, as the company applies its strategy of aggressive pricing to cloud computing.
The Seattle-based company cut its price plans by more than 10% for the first 500 terabytes of data that customers store in Amazon’s Internet-based S3 service, which is used for hosting media, backing up files and storing data for businesses to analyze. A terabyte is double the amount of space on a typical laptop computer’s hard drive.
“High volume/low margin businesses are in our DNA,” an Amazon spokeswoman said in an email. “Driving cost efficiencies is an area we’re going to continue to focus on.”…
Federal Standards Body Focuses On Big Data, Cloud
The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s IT Laboratory, which works on IT standards and metrics as well as federal cybersecurity programs, will be placing a new focus on big data and mobility technologies this year and will continue its work on cybersecurity and cloud computing, according to IT Lab Director Chuck Romine.
Romine, who took over for retiring IT Lab director Cita Furlani last fall, told InformationWeek that NIST will be increasing its work on standards, interoperability, reliability, and usability of big data technologies. Government and the private sector continue to amass huge data sets to help facilitate everything from more targeted marketing to improved government oversight.
"NIST can have a lot of impact on the big data question," Romine said, noting that the agency has been involved for years in analysis of how the federal government and private sector can better harness the power of large quantities of data. In 2009, for example, NIST helped publish a report called "Harnessing the Power of Digital Data."…
Cloud Computing: Deloitte Entering Into a Global Alliance with Salesforce.com
Deloitte announced today it is entering into a global alliance with salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing company, to provide multinational and international companies with the software, mobile and open cloud computing technologies for the social enterprise. Paul Clemmons, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP and leader of Deloitte’s cloud market offering and emerging solutions service line, will lead the global alliance. He is based in San Francisco.
“Companies in general, but specifically our clients are looking to work more effectively and more efficiently. The inherent benefits and possibilities via cloud computing and salesforce.com can represent a solution catalyst. It’s an exciting time to be at the frontier of this domain with a pioneer like salesforce.com,” said Bill Allison, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP and global technology leader. “And Paul has a long history leading our efforts in this market, giving us the experience and global network we need to drive this alliance.”
Safe and Sound: Cloud Security and Reliability
The thing about hype is that, sooner or later, it’s time to put-up or shut-up. That time, it seems, has come for the cloud.
Here in the U.S., the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) has published its final, official definition of cloud computing, after 15 previous iterations. This "model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources" is more than just web-apps and off-site storage. It’s a definition that characterizes a baseline for cloud computing against which agencies and potential cloud adopters can judge so-called "cloud" services.
By having this standard against which to measure services, according to NIST computer scientist Peter Mell, "They are more likely to reap the promised benefits of cloud—cost savings, energy savings, rapid deployment and customer empowerment." …
Cloud Computing: One on One with Paul Maritz, VMWare Chief Executive
Paul Maritz has been chief executive of VMWare since July 2008. VMWare’s server virtualization has made possible a vast consolidation of the computer business toward commodity chips and open-source software. It was also critical in the shift to “cloud” computing. A native of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Mr. Maritz joined Intel in 1981. From 1986 to 2000 he was at Microsoft serving on its executive committee and overseeing Microsoft’s expansion into client-server corporate computing. He then founded a computing company which in 2008 was acquired by EMC, which also owns VMWare. The following is an edited version of an interview with Mr. Maritz:
What is your most interesting business opportunity?
Fifty percent of the world’s computer applications now run on virtualized servers. We are deliberately trying to make a transition with this company, from a server transformation proposition to overall information technology transformation…
Oracle to SAP: ‘See You Back in Court’
As predictably as the sun rising in the east, Oracle Monday rejected the slashed $272 million award for damages that the presiding federal court judge decided it should get from SAP for its admitted copyright infringement rather than the $1.3 billion the jury awarded Oracle in late 2010 following a captivating and highly publicized trial.
Oracle told the court it wants the new trial it was offered to "vindicate" the jury and its property rights as well as to avoid risking its right to appeal the court’s decision.
SAP, which agreed to pay a $20 million fine to the US government to avoid criminal prosecution, said it was "disappointed."…
Cloud Computing Startups Raise Big Money: UPDATE 7
This is the eighth in a continuing series on startups raising funding. You can read the first six in the series here: Cloud Computing Startups Raise Big Money: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Today, there are two startups in focus – Symplified and Tidemark.
Tidemark (http://www.tidemark.net/)
California startup Tidemark, which promises to provide “Enterprise Performance Management Built for the Cloud,” raised $24 million in Series C funding led by Redpoint Ventures, with Greylock Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, and entrepreneur Dave Duffield participating. Earlier, it had raised $6.3 million in Series A and $5 million in Series B rounds…
Telx and Appcore Team Up for Private Hosted Cloud Services
Telx(R) today announced that it has entered a strategic alliance with Appcore, a leading global provider of enterprise private hosted cloud services. Under the terms of the partnership, Telx is now providing its 1,000+ colocation customers across 17 C3 Cloud Connection Centers direct, dedicated access to Appcore’s turnkey private hosted cloud solution via the Telx Cloud Xchange.
"The partnership between Appcore and Telx is an important strategic alliance for enterprise and service providers wanting to deliver the benefits of private cloud to their customers. Telx is a world-class data center operator ideal for the Appcore Onsite Private Cloud solution. Through this alliance, we are able to bring a customer’s branded, private, dedicated cloud service online in 30 days or less with gold global support, enabling them to reap the rewards of cloud computing without the headaches of building it themselves," said Brian Donaghy, Appcore CEO…