Category: News

Grazed from FCW. Author: Zach Noble.

Sometimes less is more. Sometimes more is more. Sometimes you just don’t know which will be which ahead of time – and flexibility is king. Producing 20 terabytes of data every day, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is a prime example of the need for flexibility.

And through its Big Data Project, NOAA’s bringing private-sector ingenuity to bear on the age-old problem: How can government get its work into the hands of the people who want it? Making data public is embedded in NOAA’s history, but that doesn’t mean the organization is fully equipped to disseminate that data on its own, Alan Steremberg, NOAA’s big data-focused Presidential Innovation Fellow, said at AFCEA Bethesda’s June 30 Data Symposium. Steremberg would know…

Read more from the source @ http://fcw.com/articles/2015/07/02/flexible-cloud-computing.aspx

Grazed from Bloomberg. Author: Virginia Postrel.

Starting a technology company has become much cheaper and easier in recent years. Businesses can contract out functions, from cloud computing to e-mail list management, that once would have required in-house equipment and expertise. Amazon Web Services, for instance, boasts that more than “a million active customers in more than 190 countries” are using its hosting services instead of relying on their own servers.

Now some of those customers suddenly can’t pay their bills — not because they don’t have the funds but because the Greek government won’t let their money leave the country. Just as individual Greeks are losing access to Apple’s iCloud, as the Athens staff of Bloomberg News recently discovered, so companies are finding themselves cut off from services critical to their ongoing operations…

Read more from the source @ http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-07-02/greece-s-problems-extend-to-the-cloud

Grazed from AboveTheLaw. Author: Nicole Black.

Cloud computing used to be a foreign concept to many lawyers, but these days most lawyers are working in the cloud whether they know it or not. Cloud computing offers so many advantages over traditional on-premises software — including convenience, mobility, flexibility, affordability, and 24/7 access — that it’s hard to avoid using cloud computing for work-related purposes.

That’s why so many lawyers start using cloud computing services like Dropbox to share documents — oftentimes after being prompted to by other lawyers involved in a case — without even realizing they’re collaborating on documents in the cloud. But not all lawyers stumble into the cloud unknowingly…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Nishant Kadian.

Cloud Computing is the hottest issue among IT intellects of Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs). Like any other computer-orientated technology, Cloud Computing has some misconceptions and myths that often kick-start arguments among the two opposing groups: Cloud Supporters and Cloud Opponents. Both of these groups have their own ideology and reasons for their stand on this issue. Within those ideologies remain some serious myths that are miles apart from practical facts, but which have an effect on their overall business.

For SMBs aiming to grow, making smart decisions is crucial and that demands factual thinking. So, if you are in a dilemma over Cloud adoption, you must consider all perspectives before choosing to use Cloud technology or not.. To reach the correct conclusion, decision-makers for SMBs must stay away from these myths…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: James Bourne.

Cloud usage is rocketing amongst UK business users – but the final decision making falls to the head of IT or the chief information officer in almost three in five (59%) cases, according to latest research. The research, from cloud hosting provider Cobweb Solutions, shows more organisations are turning to cloud for all their business needs, with UK cloud penetration reaching a high of 84%.

78% of businesses are using more than one cloud-based service, figures which correlate with a recent Forrester survey showing 84% of UK companies rely on two or more cloud providers, compared to Singapore (76%) and the US (62%). Half of respondents expect to eventually move their entire IT estate to the cloud…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: James Bourne.

Everyone is looking for that silver bullet which makes their cloud implementations a success. It’s little wonder that events such as Cloud World Forum and Cloud Expo are at the forefront of executives’ minds. At Cloud World Forum in London last week, MongoDB VP strategy Kelly Stirman spoke of five directions in which the industry is changing, and how companies can make their cloud success a reality: embrace failure, double down on ops, and pick your partners wisely.

Rule number one, Stirman argued, was to embrace failure. To be able to embrace failure, you need to iterate quicker. “Today, customers expect applications faster,” he tells CloudTech. “When you wake up in the morning, you look for apps to have been installed on your phone, and to do that people need to embrace a more iterative project development lifecycle…

Grazed from Bloomberg. Author: Aaron Ricadela.

Salesforce.com Inc. plans to invest more than $1 billion in Germany over the next five years as the company seeks to add customers in industries including automobile manufacturing and machine building, Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff said. “There’s no more exciting technology market in the world than Germany,” Benioff said in a keynote address at the company’s customer conference in Munich on Thursday.

Manufacturers need to transform “otherwise they will be Uberized out of this world,” he said, referring to Uber Technologies Inc., whose car-hailing application has disrupted transportation markets around the world. As the technology industry undergoes a once-a-decade shift in how companies buy computing power, Benioff’s software company has attracted takeover interest, fueling a 19 percent rise in the San Francisco-based company’s market value this year…

Grazed from Fortune. Author: Jonathan Vanian.

Hewlett-Packard is officially set to split in two. The tech giant filed regulatory documents Wednesday that confirmed its long discussed plans to spin off its printer and personal computer business in November. “Today, I’m more convinced than ever that this separation will create two compelling companies well positioned to win in the marketplace and to drive value for our stockholders,” HP CEO Meg Whitman said in a statement. “Since we announced our plan to separate in October, we’ve made significant progress and remain on track to complete the separation by the end of the fiscal year 2015.”

HP HPQ 1.11% , along with legacy tech companies like IBM IBM 0.29% , has seen its business slump over the past few years as the market for personal computers continues to decrease. Additionally, new rivals like Amazon AMZN -0.58% dominate emerging enterprise technologies like cloud computing…

Read more from the source @ http://fortune.com/2015/07/01/hewlett-packard-filing-split/

Grazed from GeekZone. Author: Editorial Staff.

Oracle has hired more than 800 new salespeople in Asia Pacific as part of its enterprise cloud strategy. This positive momentum occurs just three months after the company launched a campaign to increase its sales workforce by 1,000 in an effort to capitalize on the growth of cloud computing across APAC.

Oracle’s fiscal fourth-quarter results announced on June 17th showed that the company overachieved in cloud, with cloud revenue already above a $2.3 billion annual run rate. Oracle sold $426 million in new Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) business this quarter, more than any cloud services company has ever sold in a single quarter…

Grazed from Consumerist. Author: Kate Cox.

There used to be a whole world of brick-and-mortar retail stores and transactions a city could gather some sales tax from and build into a revenue stream. As more and more goods instead become online services, though, those streams have dried up. Now one city wants to go back to gathering its cash… from your transactions in the cloud.

The Verge reports that residents of the Windy City are about to have to start paying a premium on Netflix and their other streaming services, as a new “cloud tax” takes effect in Chicago today. The logic goes something like this: In the long-gone ancient era of “twenty whole years ago,” when you went down to your corner video store for some rentals and some popcorn, you’d leave a few cents of sales tax behind with your purchase…