Category: News

Grazed from TheNation. Author: Ekaraj Panjavinin.

Technology empowers people to do great things. In our early history, Microsoft’s mission was to put a personal computer on every desk and in every home. Today we have 1.5 billion people using Windows in 190 countries around the world, and over 200 million devices are running the best Windows. The launch of Windows 10 marked the first step to an era of more personal computing. With an ever-growing network of connected devices in today’s digital world, we believe experiences should be mobile – not just devices.

Apps, services and content should move with you across devices, seamlessly and easily. In our connected and transparent world, we are also aware that people care deeply about the privacy and security of their personal information. We also believe that interacting with technology should be as natural as interacting with people – using touch, voice, pen, gestures and even facial recognition…

Read more from the source @ http://www.nationmultimedia.com/technology/Creating-more-personal-computing-in-a-mobile-first-30277850.html

Grazed from CIO. Author: John Riberio.

VMware is cutting about 800 jobs as it transitions from its traditional products to newer, emerging technologies. The company expects 2016 will be a key transition year as "we expect the effect of our new products to outweigh the decline in our compute products," CEO Pat Gelsinger said in an earnings conference call Tuesday.

The company has been facing challenges in its software business as its customers are increasingly using public cloud providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. "Public cloud providers do provide VMware, but for many of the newer, cloud workloads, many are opting for containers or even OpenStack which doesn’t require what’s considered expensive VMware licenses," wrote Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, in an email…

Grazed from AFR. Author: Editorial Staff.

Telstra’s ventures subsidiary has made a strategic investment in Chinese cloud services provider, Qiniu, for an undisclosed sum. The telecom giant said Qiniu offers data hosting and processing for companies in China and across Asia. Telstra Ventures managing director Matthew Koertge said the deal builds on the company’s momentum in Asia.

Telstra has made five venture investments in the region in just over a year, and acquired Asian telecommunications services provider Pacnet in 2015. "The opportunities created by the digital explosion underway across Asia, particularly in the Chinese market, underpin this latest investment," Mr Koertge said….

Read more from the source @ http://www.afr.com/technology/telstra-invests-in-chinese-cloud-computing-firm-qiniu-20160127-gmf6x2#ixzz3ySsob5Sx

Grazed from CCI. Author: Andrew Murphy.

Cloud has brought both benefits and downsides. Yes, it can reduce capital expenditure and make it easier and faster to update software, without taking months of internal work on hardware and software. On the other hand, many organisations are concerned about the loss of control and visibility over what is happening to their data and systems in the cloud.

Plus, dare I say that we have gone backwards: the ability to buy off-the-shelf cloud applications has its advantages, but it does tend to give users a pre-set choice of options, rather than technology that is created to fit their precise needs. However, cloud has also been the catalyst for totally new way of creating apps and one which removes the limitations of the ‘one size fits all’ approach: the growth of the low-code/no-code movement…

Grazed from MarketRealist. Author: Editorial Staff.

Previously in this series, we discussed how Amazon (AMZN) had started 2016 with its decade-old strategy of price cuts, and Microsoft (MSFT) has followed its lead, by cutting prices for Azure. Amazon is, unquestionably, the leader in the overall cloud space. However, Microsoft is catching up fast in the cloud and holds the second position after Amazon.

According to research company FBR & Co., Microsoft Azure is likely to reach an annual run rate of $8 billion in 2016, compared with AWS’s (Amazon Web Services) annual run rate of $7 billion in 2015. Wall Street also believes Amazon’s AWS is likely to face stiff competition from Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, Azure, in 2016…

Grazed from NetworkWorld. Author: John Dix.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) changed a rule in December that will make it harder to capitalize the cost of cloud set-up and implementations expenses, a change that may encourage some enterprises to opt instead for traditional on-premise software.

The FASB Accounting Standards Update to “Intangibles – Goodwill and Other – Internal-use Software (Subtopic 350-40)” addresses “Customer’s accounting for fees paid in a cloud computing arrangement.” And while the update didn’t set out to address how to account for cloud migration costs, the new rules, combined with the FASB’s decision “not to provide additional guidance on the accounting for upfront costs,” will mean enterprise shops can no longer depreciate some fees involved in a cloud migration…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Michael Cusanelli.

If you’re worried about how secure your Microsoft Office 365 deployment is, Barracuda Networks (CUDA) might have a solution for you. The network security provider recently announced the launch of Barracuda Essentials, a cloud services suite for Office 365 that contains three of the company’s enterprise security solutions.

While Office 365 already comes equipped with its own assortment of security solutions to protect enterprise assets, Barracuda essentials acts as an add-on product, and is designed to be attractive to those who are particularly security-conscious, according to the company. The suite includes Barracuda Email Security Service, Barracuda Cloud Archiving Service and Barracuda Cloud Backup…

Grazed from NoJitter.  Author: Vadym Fedorov.

Among the Google results for "cloud trends 2016," spotting a repeatedly mentioned prediction for this year doesn’t take long: the growing popularity of the so-called "cloud-first strategy, which, in turn, is expected to accelerate enterprise cloud adoption. So what is this cloud-first strategy about, and what is its role in the cloud market?

Grazed from Trak.in.  Author: Arnand Karwa.

The cloud computing industry is getting more and more competitive day by day. It has become a race between the leading cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, and IBM SoftLayer.

Grazed from eWeek.  Author: Darryl K. Taft.

 IBM’s strategic initiative led the way in 2015, with cloud now a $10 billion business and security a $2 billion unit. Systems and analytics also grew.  Despite another quarterly revenue slide, IBM sees a silver lining in its strategic imperatives as these key focus areas—cloud, analytics, mobile, social and security—show significant growth and indicate Big Blue is committed to succeeding in its transformation.

In the fourth quarter of 2015, IBM saw its revenue decline 9 percent to $22.1 billion; however the company’s strategic imperatives revenue grew 26 percent (adjusting for currency and the System x divestiture) to $28.9 billion and now represents 35 percent of the company’s overall revenue…