Category: News

Grazed from SysCon Media. Author: David H. Deans.

Some people are never satisfied. These fearless agents of change are everywhere. They’re informed, confident and willing to experiment. They seek out the best business technology solution for the job at hand. They act on instinct. Yes, you could say that they’re driven. However, they’re also at risk of being labeled as "rogue employees" because they ordered a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering and perhaps expensed it without prior approval.

Sometimes they’re the champion of progressive projects that are referred to as Shadow IT — intentionally bypassing their company’s formal evaluation and procurement process. How can this happen? Is it just because their activities are tolerated, or are they being encouraged? If so, by whom?…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Dan Kobialka.

Cloud-based voice and data communications provider NetFortris yesterday unveiled new services for mid-sized, multi-location enterprises. NetFortris, previously known as Telekenex, is offering a Cloud Communications Platform (CCP) that manages application and network resources.

"The NetFortris CCP is a powerful platform upon which organizations can grow their business," NetFortris CEO Grant Evans said in a prepared statement. "We’ve built a world-class support infrastructure, giving companies the support they need as they build their IT infrastructure on the NetFortris platform."…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Thomas Landstreet.

When you read that IT spending is weak, as Gartner announced recently, don’t let it spook you – that’s the whole point of cloud computing. It dramatically lowers the cost of owning information technology. As more and more firms adopt cloud computing, legacy IT companies are left with bloated infrastructures and stale business models. I view cloud computing as a classic case of creative destruction with fat legacy software, hardware and IT services margins as the only victim.

As we approach earnings season, I want to highlight three companies that I think will report weak results driving their share prices lower. IBM IBM +2.05% and SAP report earnings tomorrow and CapGemini reports on July 31st. They’re all in the same boat but for slightly different reasons…

Grazed from IT Pro Portal. Author: Editorial Staff.

According to research from the European Commission, on-demand cloud computing could generate up to €250 billion (£197 billion) to European Union GDP in 2020, as well as 3.8 million jobs. This HP whitepaper charts the development of the cloud on-demand computing concept and shows how important it is for addressing the demand for business agility and growth.

The generally accepted definition of cloud computing comes from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which says that the cloud model should enable convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources – such as networks, servers, storage, applications and services…

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Doug Bonderud.

Own something valuable? Then it should be insured. Homes, cars and even office equipment is typically insured against destruction or theft. But what about data? For many midsize companies, mission-critical data does not reside on a single stack or even with a single cloud provider. Often, data of varying importance is distributed across multiple networks to help lower cost and improve efficiency. If information goes missing, however, or is accidentally destroyed or stolen by malicious actors, are companies simply out of luck? Maybe not. Cloud computing insurance offers the promise of a new safety net for IT.

High Risk

According to a recent Information Journal article, Swiss Re’s new SONAR report "New Emerging Risk Insights" describes cloud computing security as an emerging high-risk theme. The global reinsurance company contends that the shared access inherent in cloud computing deployments "fuels risks such as data leakage, data loss and hijacking of computer resources"…

Software piracy in business is a major issue — one that is costing both software developers and businesses millions of dollars in losses and fines every year. According to the Business Software Alliance, an astonishing 43 percent of all software installed on business computers worldwide is pirated or not properly licensed. In some cases, that pirated software is simply the result of a poor purchase; often, users install pirated software without even realizing it, having purchased the software from an unauthorized retailer. 

Grazed from ITBusinessEdge. Author: Arthur Cole.

Of all the benefits that cloud computing brings to knowledge workers, none is more intriguing than self service. Sure, scalability, flexibility and lower costs are great for the enterprise, but if you are a data consumer, nothing compares to the feeling that you can get whatever you want, whenever you want it, with no questions asked other than “What is your credit card number?”

For DevOps teams in particular, self-service is one of the primary drivers of both public and private cloud infrastructure, say Red Hat’s Malcolm Herbert and Roger Nunn. Under the old regime, resource provisioning was slow, complicated and rarely met project requirements…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Ben Kepes.

As infrastructure becomes more and more commoditized by cloud computing vendors like Amazon Web Services and DigitalOcean, those legacy vendors whose bread and butter relates to infrastructure provision are scrambling to find product offerings to fill the revenue gap left by dwindling sales. I’ve written at length about Cisco’s attempts to staunch the flow but another company in a similar situation is VMware. Long the king of virtualization, VMware VMW -0.73% still has great revenues, but these are being threatened as more and more organizations forego virtualization to move “up the stack”.

VMware hasn’t stood still however, it has invested in other solutions – from its hybrid cloud offering, VCHS, to multiple end user tools rolled out by its end user computing group – VMware has been full throttle on innovative revenue streams. It is this same quest for new and interesting products that has led the virtualization juggernaut to invest in JFrog, the bizarrely named startup that delivers tools to ease software management and distribution…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Editorial Staff.

It’s no secret that Cloud Computing is more than just a buzz term as that ship has sailed off a long time ago. More and more companies are adopting and accepting the uses and benefits of cloud computing and aggressively factoring cloud services spending into their budget. Included is an excellent infographic discovered over at Flexiant, which provides a number of interesting cloud-related fast facts.

To see infographic and read more from the source, visit http://cloudtweaks.com/2014/07/cloud-infographic-cloud-fast-facts/

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Robert Sheldon.

As I’ve already noted, rumors abound regarding Windows 9 development at Microsoft. There are Windows 9 features to consider beyond the possible release date, subscription cost and whether the older Start menu will be fully restored. What kind of apps will Windows 9 run, and how much will it integrate with cloud computing?

Windows 9 applications

Microsoft has great hopes for Windows 9 applications. The company is aiming for a common development platform, which enables a developer to create a single app that can run on Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox One. These unified apps would rely on a common Windows runtime that spans all devices to deliver a consistent experience on each device, while still accounting for the differences in the devices themselves, just like the operating system is supposed to do…