Category: News

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Karin Wilson.

As a software reseller you know that the number of enterprise software solutions being offered in a cloud environment is only getting bigger. Maintaining a product portfolio composed of only on-premise solutions is eventually going to wipe out your business. Research organizations are predicting that ‘the cloud’ will dominate every facet of the software industry; no matter how concerned customers are with security, access and customization, the Software as a Service (SaaS) market is guaranteed to grow.

Will you be the business that misses out on this opportunity?

Making the transition from marketing on-premise to marketing cloud solutions isn’t easy and won’t be accomplished overnight. What you need to keep in mind is that your customers are now in complete control. In the past prospects came to you to find out information early in the decision making process, whereas now they will be researching online and on your website, only picking up the phone when they are close to purchasing. Use the change in buying behavior to your advantage and create a website marketing cloud solutions that makes it easy for prospects to learn how you can solve their challenges…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Joe Panettieri.

Each time Google Apps faces off against Microsoft Office 365 for a big customer deployment, Google shifts the cloud conversation to price, according to several Microsoft channel partners. Instead of battling on Google’s terms, it’s time for Microsoft to more aggressively promote the value of Office 365, those channel partners say.

Price wars are nothing new in the cloud computing and cloud services market. The showdown occurs in the SaaS wars (Office 365 vs. Google Apps) and in the IaaS and PaaS wars (Microsoft Windows Azure vs. Amazon Web Services and soon, Google Compute Engine)…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Narendra S Sahoo.

In a cloud setup, the cloud computing architecture’s design is of supreme importance for optimum performance and scalability. Any slip-ups or shortcuts in the initial definition, and you are building the proverbial house on sand—with potential impact on cloud security as well. Once you have established the need for a cloud in your organization and defined its objectives and scope, the next steps involve defining the cloud computing architecture, formulating the bill of materials, and layout of the cloud.

Overestimation or underestimation at this stage can prove costly. If you estimate capacity below what you need immediately or in the near future, it could lead to an “evolutionary patch based approach” that is less than optimal. On the other hand, many an enthusiastic CIO with money to spend but very short timelines makes the mistake of overestimation—perhaps buying much more than what would be needed even three years down the line, or making the infrastructure too complex to be of any productive use…

Grazed from ITWeb. Author: Admire Moyo.

The Protection of Personal Information (PPI) Bill, which will soon become law, poses complex challenges to all businesses using cloud computing services. This is according to consultancy firm Deloitte, which notes that cloud computing is a particular concern because it is more pervasive than many companies realise.

SA is set to enact the PPI Bill this year. The Bill, in its seventh version, has already been submitted to the justice minister and aims to protect personal information processed by public and private bodies.

According to Deloitte, all indications are that the Bill will be promulgated in its current state. It adds that the fact that using a cloud solution is likely to mean data will cross SA’s borders immediately introduces PPI challenges…

Grazed from MarketWatch. Author: PR Announcement.

Sonata Software today announced that it has expanded its Cloud based services offerings through alliances with Salesforce.com and Amazon Web Services. Sonata’s Cloud Computing Center of Excellence (CoE) will creatively bring together Sonata’s product & platform engineering expertise, combined with leading Cloud technology platforms Windows Azure, Force.com & Amazon Web Services (AWS) – to help transform its customers’ business on the cloud.

In the April 2011 report "Sizing the Cloud", Forrester Research, Inc., estimated that the global market for Cloud Computing will grow to more than $241 billion in 2020. The same report also says that by 2016, SaaS will have total revenues of $92.8 billion, which accounts for nearly 26% of the total packaged software market. This further validates the growing demand for Cloud Computing services…

Grazed from MarketWatch. Author: PR Announcement.

Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions, a business segment of Arrow Electronics Inc. [NYSE: ARW], today unveiled ArrowSphere, a cloud services aggregation and brokerage platform for the European solution provider community, system integrators, independent software vendors and service providers.

Through ArrowSphere, Arrow ECS is adding new growth opportunities for enterprise and midmarket business solutions for the channel. ArrowSphere will enable the Arrow ECS European channel network to resell aggregated cloud services, such as infrastructure-, platform-, storage- and software-as-a-service solutions, from industry leaders around the world. ArrowSphere brings new dimensions to cloud delivery by facilitating access to more than 60 leading-edge cloud services, in addition to adding flexibility with white-label webstores; increasing simplicity by centralizing billing and provisioning; and improving reliability through trusted single-sign-on solutions…

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

Curaçao Technology Exchange (CTEX), in collaboration with VCE and Zuora, have established a strategic alliance. Targeted for September 2012, CTEX, which is building the region’s most advanced Tier-IV designed data centers, will launch a unique portfolio of ‘infrastructure as a service’ (IAAS), ‘backup as a service’ (BAAS) and ‘software as a service’ (SAAS) offerings to the Caribbean and Latin America markets. HyperCloud_Express(sm) and HyperCloud_Enterprise(sm) will be the first advanced cloud computing offerings launched in the intended market.

VCE’s Vblock™ platform leverages best-in-class technology and integrates computing, network, storage, virtualization, and management components from trusted, industry-leading vendors (Cisco, EMC, and VMware) to deliver a world-class unified computing infrastructure. CTEX’s HyperCloud(sm) services will be further powered by Zuora’s subscription commerce platform to manage real-time billing and settlement of global transactions…

Grazed from Management Today. Author: Editorial Staff.

Since the term ‘cloud computing’ was first introduced in 2006, it’s become (albeit rather reluctantly) one of the buzzwords in technology.

For the consumer, the idea is that documents and photo albums can be stored online, or ‘in the cloud’, making them accessible from any machine or mobile. And anyone who accesses their work emails from home are regular users of the ‘cloud’, as they log into a web mail account remotely instead of having the email programme installed on the computer.

Google and Amazon were the two biggest companies behind the vision that computing will increasingly be delivered as a service over the internet, taking away the need for installing large amounts of software. The concept grew out of the idea of renting spare server capacity – which the the two internet giant’s have in spades – and thus providing a useful service and generating some handy extra revenue…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Ellen Phneah.

Cloud contracts significantly differ from the past, which used to ensure customer stickiness for a pre-defined period of time, Mayank Kapoor, data center and cloud computing industry analyst of Frost & Sullivan’s ICT practice observed.

Cloud contracts are still gaining maturity, with the main change around service delivery, or the "relationship" between the customer and the cloud service provider, she explained. However, the main themes still are security, privacy, service level, scalability, data retirement and compliance with regulations, she noted.

For one, cloud service provider Avaya, told ZDNet Asia that it now works with customers in defining and fully understanding their business needs in order to offer an appropriate solution…