Category: News

Grazed from NetworkWorld. Author: Linda Musthaler.

In the 2013 version of the annual Gartner Executive Program survey, more than 2,000 CIOs in 41 countries identified their top 10 technology priorities for the year. The survey showed that analytics and business intelligence ranks No.1, with mobile technologies and cloud computing (SaaS, IaaS, PaaS) coming in at Nos. 2 and 3. CIOs are looking to these digital technologies to help their companies achieve business results.

While the focus of these technologies is on how to use them to boost business, the underlying IT concerns are still there. How will we secure our data on mobile devices and in the cloud? How will we know who is using our resources? How can we manage these diverse technologies effectively and efficiently? They are the same questions companies ask themselves over and over again as they grapple with increasingly complex and disparate infrastructures and a multitude of mobile devices accessing applications on-premise and in the cloud…

Grazed from WSJ. Author: Drew Fitzgerald.

Rackspace RAX -0.80% Hosting bet its future on the cloud last year. It has spent most of the past six months losing altitude. The company’s second quarter earnings report next Thursday will show whether the one-time high flyer is turning things around.

It turns out the business of renting computer power over the Internet is more cutthroat than thought, with fast growth tempered by regular price declines. Rackspace’s stock soared 73% last year until its earnings reports showed its original business of running private data centers stalling out. That troubling sign caused shares to tumble this spring even as the broader market rallied. Rackspace is now off 38% this year…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

Adobe may have upset a segment of its user base by shifting to a SaaS-only software model, but the company known mostly for what was formerly known as the Creative Suite of products may have gained some brownie points—not only with customers but also with its reseller partners.

A change in licensing will make single Creative Cloud applications (Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, InDesign CC, etc.) available for a subscription fee, whereas things have been a little more complicated since launch. Adobe now has two team pricing plans for Creative Cloud—the complete package of 14 applications or a single app plan that comes equipped with 20GB of cloud storage and access to the Behance creative community…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

BetterCloud, which focuses on evangelizing and selling apps on the Google (GOOG) Apps platform, released the results of its quarterly customer survey. Based on 1,537 responses from the nearly 25,000 Google Apps for Business administrators the company deals with, the survey has come up with a Google Apps customer profile, as well as data that shows Google Apps has become the critical foundation of the cloud application stack.

Keep in mind that BetterCloud has bet its livelihood on Google Apps, so the company is gaining data from those who are already sold on the platform. But still, its survey came up with a few highlights worth examining. The typical BetterCloud customer, which uses BetterCloud’s FlashPanel and Google Apps, is an IT director or system administrator who manages a domain with an average of 631 users…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Salman Ul Haq.

Cloud initially started off as a cost-effect and convenient way to get small and medium business up and running on the web but with the exponential growth both within SME and large enterprises, other domains within computing have also started to integrate Cloud within their own equations. First it was PaaS and IaaS then SaaS and now we’ve seen phenomenal growth and adoption of GaaS which is short for Gaming as a Service. It is one of the most useful and powerful Cloud services which are being used for online Cloud based interactive gaming and there are numerous consoles that are being launched based on this technology.

For the gaming console leaders in the computing industry, it’s practically impossible to resist the augmented usability of the Cloud managed libraries of content with stream-anywhere capability. ‘Any device gaming’ and ‘click to play’ experiences have equipped the users to stream and play the games anywhere using the Cloud just like they stream the HD media on different web outlets like Netflix, YouTube, Pandora and Spotify…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Thomas Claburn.

Ethan Oberman has a problem with cloud computing. "A person should be able to use cloud technologies without relinquishing his or her privacy," explained Oberman, CEO of cloud storage service SpiderOak, in a phone interview. Given Internet companies that rely on mining data about users for revenue, government agencies that have the capability to monitor online activities and read personal communications, businesses seeking competitive intelligence, and hackers hammering at the data piggy banks, maintaining a comfortable degree of privacy isn’t easy.

The problem is that cryptography isn’t easy. Cryptography doesn’t ensure security. It’s merely an element of a broader security strategy. But it has become a necessary element, given the inadequacy of perimeter-based protection. Because barriers can be penetrated or bypassed, data deserves additional protection…

Grazed from Ferret. Author: Brent Balinski.

LAST year an interview with Autodesk’s CEO in Tech Crunch magazine got a lot of attention from those who follow CAD news. "I’d say two to three years from now, every one of our products will be used online," Carl Bass said in April 2012. "The only way to use them will be online."

Whether or not he was speaking literally was argued on many a message board, and whether or not he was, there’s no doubting the company’s focus on cloud computing as both massively useful for its users and of huge importance to its own future…

Grazed from IT Business Edge. Author: Michael Vizard.

Rather than building its own cloud computing platforms, Accenture is maneuvering to position itself as a broker of cloud computing services that are delivered via multiple cloud service providers. The global IT services and business consulting giant today announced that an update to the Accenture Cloud Platform now includes cloud computing services delivered via a variety of third-party infrastructure-as-a-service providers including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Windows Azure, Verizon Terremark and NTT Communications.

In addition, Accenture announced an investment in Apigee, a provider of an application programming interface (API) management platform that is widely used to integrate applications across the cloud. According to Michael Liebow, managing director and global lead for Accenture Cloud Platform, the Accenture cloud strategy is anchored around the ability to provide a single pane of glass through which its customers will be able to manage multiple cloud computing services…

Grazed from Business Daily News. Author: Ryan Goodrich.

Cloud computing continues to change the way businesses work. It creates a new way to facilitate collaboration and information access across great geographic distances while reducing the overhead associated with maintaining what was once an expensive series of resources. As a result, software companies are more flexible and cost-effective and allow consumers to purchase only what they use rather than off the shelf as a large initial investment.

Despite how many companies regularly use cloud-based services, many individuals don’t fully grasp the terminology associated. The jargon that comes with the cloud is understandably confusing, so here’s a quick breakdown of common terms…

Grazed from ITWire. Author: Graeme Philipson.

SaaS is an ‘industry darling’ with massive growth, but that growth needs to be properly managed. There are many challenges posed by the wholesale shift to mobile applications. US digital investment consultancy Siemer & Associates has published a report into the global SaaS (software as a service) market. The report focusses on opportunities and challenges for vendors and financiers, in keeping with Siemer’s client base, but it is also of relevance to the user community.

The report finds that the SaaS business model continues to be an ‘industry darling’ in recurring revenue, in the venture capital and private equity worlds, and on stock markets, but growth needs to be managed appropriately with the shift to mobile…