Category: News

Grazed from MSPMentor. Author: Michael Brown.

There is no denying that cloud technology has afforded the business world with countless innovations and brand-new opportunities. But could it be that things are just getting started? This article from EnterpriseTech.com, reporting on research on the future of cloud computing, expands on the notion that the cloud still has plenty up its sleeve. Managed service providers that are currently capitalizing on cloud file sync or sharing, or MSPs that hope to in the future, may very well have even more opportunities to consider down the road.

Technology plus Technology Equals Exciting Opportunities

“When combined with other emerging technologies like 3-D printing, the survey echoes previous academic surveys predicting that cloud computing could even help usher in a new era of design and manufacturing,” states the EnterpriseTech article on the survey. The combination of cloud technology and other new technologies in many different industries is creating opportunities that couldn’t have even been imagined before…

Grazed from CIO-Today. Author: Jennifer LeClaire.

Despite their recent alignment in some areas, Microsoft now seems to be aiming square for Salesforce Relevant Products/Services.com’s jawline with its latest CRM Relevant Products/Services software Relevant Products/Services release. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft is hoping to gain major momentum among U.S. government agencies with its new cloud computing solutions. The well-rounded infrastructure Relevant Products/Services includes Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform, its Office 365 productivity apps, and now Dynamics CRM for customer Relevant Products/Services, or in this case, constituent relationship management.

In a Thursday blog post, Microsoft’s VP for the U.S. Public Sector Curt Kolcun announced updates to Microsoft’s cloud offerings, spanning infrastructure, data Relevant Products/Services, productivity, mobility, and more. The crux of the announcement is that Dynamics CRM Online will be joining Office 365 and Azure in servicing U.S. federal, state, and local governments agency…

Grazed from WallStreet and Tech. Author: Kevin McPartland.

Security and compliance are certainly concerns for buy-side firms looking to use the cloud, but it shouldn’t hold everyone back from cloud-based technology. Cloud computing has been discussed on Wall Street since the early days of Salesforce.com circa 1990. Depending on how it is defined, the “original cloud” could date back even further, to the founding of Bloomberg and the widespread use of mainframe computers in the 1980s. But despite those early beginnings, Wall Street today is underutilizing this resource and its potential competitive advantage.

Greenwich Associates research shows that 80% of buy-side firms utilize vendor hosted execution management systems (EMS). Web-delivered applications, often referred to as software-as-a-service (SaaS), are also common, ranging from customer relationship management (CRM) to email to market data terminals. For the largest firms, internally built applications delivered in this way often consist of a pretty front end hooked up to a legacy back end. The cost and ease-of-use benefits of these approaches cannot be understated; however the capabilities of these approaches only scratch the cloud’s surface…

Grazed from CNet. Author: Donna Tam.

Amazon Web Services, Amazon’s cloud computing arm, on Thursday launched a new cloud storage and sharing service, signaling the company’s first steps into territory dominated by tech titans Google and Microsoft. The service, called Zocalo, allows users to share files between desktop and mobile devices, and collaborate by highlighting content and adding notes.

It’s also integrated into Amazon Workspaces, a virtual desktop Amazon launched in March. These are enterprise cloud tools a company implements for its employees. Cloud storage and collaboration have become popular services in recent years, with startups like Box and Dropbox leading the charge for working in the cloud, often painting Microsoft as a dinosaur with outdated office tools…

Grazed from New York Times. Author: Quentin Hardy.

Cloud computing and mobile technologies change more things than you think. Besides connecting people and devices, or making software operate together more efficiently, they give companies new ways to seek dominance. On Thursday, Concur, which sells expense-accounting software for business, said it had entered a partnership with United Airlines to enable direct travel bookings on United’s website. Book a flight for work, and it will automatically be entered on your expense form.

Any corporate travel site that connects to United’s system also will offer whatever preferred rates the company has negotiated, and not United’s published fares. It is the kind of thing Concur and other cloud-based expense systems, like Oracle’s PeopleSoft product, already do when an employee makes a purchase on a corporate credit card…

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

NephoScale is excited to announce its new SSD/10 Gbps Hybrid Compute™ cloud service. This service is breaking new ground in IaaS with a combination of higher levels of performance and lower pricing than currently offered by competitors. "With the addition of this new innovative cloud service NephoScale is changing the game in IaaS cloud computing with an unmatched combination of price and performance," said Bruce Templeton, CEO of NephoScale.

"By developing our own advanced software-defined-networking (SDN) and Hybrid Compute™ technology, and extensively leveraging open source software and commodity hardware, NephoScale is continually pushing performance levels up while driving costs down, thus giving our customers the best of both worlds in cloud computing," Templeton adds…

Grazed from Neptune. Author: PR Announcement.

In the first Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) "Amazon City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge," Neptune Technology Group Inc. (Neptune) has been named as a grand prize winner for its N_SIGHT™ IQ intelligent analytics software for utilities, which runs on the Amazon Web Services cloud computing network.

The Cloud Innovation Challenge recognizes applications that contribute to helping solve local government challenges. Accordingly, N_SIGHT IQ provides water utilities with the ability to store and analyze up to 10 years of homeowners’ consumption data, along with advanced analytics based on historical trends and flagged consumption events…

Grazed from TheStreet. Author: Kathryn Myklesseth.

IBM is pumping $3 billion into hardware innovation – trying to jump ahead of the pack in cloud and cognitive computing. Serving as a testament to Big Blue’s commitment to get on the leading side of cloud innovation, the company announced it will invest $3 billion over the next five years in two broad research and early stage development programs for chip technology.

The research focuses on making semiconductors more efficient for cloud computing and Big Data systems. IBM is taking the first in a series of steps in changing up the hardware. The areas focused on in the funded studies include, carbon nanoelectronics, silicon photonics, new memory technologies, and architectures that support quantum and, no surprise here, cognitive computing…

Grazed from IBM. Author: PR Announcement.

IBM has announced it is investing $3 billion over the next five years in two broad research and early stage development programs to push the limits of chip technology needed to meet the emerging demands of cloud computing and Big Data systems. These investments are intended to push IBM’s semiconductor innovations from today’s breakthroughs into the advanced technology leadership required for the future.

The first research program is aimed at so-called “7 nanometer and beyond” silicon technology that will address serious physical challenges that are threatening current semiconductor scaling techniques and will impede the ability to manufacture such chips. The second is focused on developing alternative technologies for post-silicon era chips using entirely different approaches, which IBM scientists and other experts say are required because of the physical limitations of silicon based semiconductors…

Grazed from BibeyPost. Author: Chris Bibey.

Microsoft Corporation is always looking for ways to fly past the competition, and it may have found its ride: the cloud. At the upcoming 2014 Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft will have the chance to discuss a variety of new cloud based services and technologies, all of which are going to make life much easier on its partners.

As the shift to cloud computing continues to ramp up, some companies will find themselves in position to provide their customers with the infrastructure and technology necessary to stay in the game. Microsoft Corporation is definitely one of these companies…