Apple should be the saviour of cloud computing
Courtesy of a software developer friend, I had a chance over the weekend to play with the Mac OS X 10.7 preview release. As with previous versions, I felt that Apple is spending a lot of time solving problems people don’t have. You can now quickly revert to older versions of files, for example, but how many times have you wanted to do that?
What’s astonishing is how little attention Apple is paying to the cloud. That’s a shame, because Apple could deliver a kick up the derriere that cloud computing really needs right now.
Citrix invests in content tracking service Primadesk
Citrix Systems has invested in Primadesk, a company that is developing a free, web-based application to help users keep track of content stored in different cloud-based services, the company said on Monday.
It is the first investment commitment made by Citrix Startup Accelerator, a seed investment initiative launched in December 2010. Details of the amount of the investment were not announced.
Java Enterprise Edition 7 to get cloud support
Work on the next enterprise edition of Java is proceeding at Oracle, with the company eyeing improvements for cloud computing, REST web services, and other capabilities, an Oracle representative confirmed on Friday.
Java EE (Java Platform, Enterprise Edition) 7 is due in 2012. Capabilities for deploying cloud computing applications and infrastructures will be key to the upgrade.
Business intelligence in the cloud
Shifting business intelligence and analytics off-premise can make financial sense, as it does with other applications. Instead of buying servers and software licenses up front as a large, sunk capital cost, paying monthly fees from operating budgets can be less expensive over the life of the application.
But doing BI in the cloud also carries some particular challenges, one of which is that it can be hard to define in advance every type of report you want to run using cloud-based data.
Data management tools ‘aid network security’
Businesses looking to keep on top of their corporate information should consider investing in proven data management tools.
According to Andy McFarlane, head of marketing for Vodafone Global Enterprise, there are a "wealth" of solutions that can help companies deal with issues such as the security challenges presented by giving staff real-time access to enterprise records.
He told the InfoSecurity website that there are a wide range of areas which the data management tools can address.
Local Governments Less Cautious on Cloud than Feds
Way back in 2007 I wrote a post about how small businesses often outpace their larger counterparts in adopting new technologies. I don’t think it’s because SMBs are naturally less risk averse than the big guys, or more innovative. I credit it largely to the fact SMBs don’t have to jump through as many bureaucratic hoops as large companies.
Amazon Web Services Launches AWS CloudFormation
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced AWS CloudFormation, a new way for developers and businesses to create collections of related AWS resources and provision them in an orderly and predictable fashion.
Where Does the Cloud Go from Here?
Even as many enterprises continue to struggle to determine what, exactly, the cloud is, there is perhaps an even more important question to ponder: "Where, exactly, is the cloud going?"
Degrees of Hybrid Cloud Computing
Although there is a lot of debate about the merits of hybrid cloud computing, there does seem to be a building consensus that says a hybrid cloud will be necessary to one degree or another either as the dominant form of cloud computing or as some transitory state of enterprise IT on the way to cloud computing nirvana.
If you accept that premise, then the next logical concern becomes how quickly can your organization set up a hybrid cloud environment? As any IT executive will tell you, replicating all the application and network settings in the enterprise on a third-party cloud computing service is not especially easy.
Security top cloud for APAC SMBs
Released Thursday, the Worldwide SMB Cloud Services Study revealed that the region’s SMBs are more keen on adopting software-as-a-service (SaaS) security solutions, than counterparts in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and Australia, which have already adopted these applications.
In addition, Asia-Pacific and Southeast Asian countries are also more likely to invest in a remotely-managed security service than the leading advanced countries, said AMI-Partners.