Category: News

Grazed from FoxBusiness. Author: Adam Samson.

Big Blue has been singing the blues a lot lately. As other tech names woo Wall Street with shiny gadgets and myriad online services, IBM (IBM) sputters. IBM, perhaps the biggest player in the “Old Tech” space, saw its stock dip 2.1% last year just as the broad markets posted a blockbuster performance that included stellar results by a wide variety of technology stocks.

This year hasn’t been much better for the Armonk, NY-based heavyweight, as the firm nurses a year-to-date loss of 3.4% against 6% gains for U.S. equities. In fact, the stock has underperformed the S&P 500 every year since 2012 after beating the benchmark barometer by a wide margin in 2011, according to data from FactSet…

Read more from the source @ http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2014/06/24/ibms-not-so-secret-weapon-hybrid-cloud-computing/

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

As organizations use the power of mobility to transform business operations, Verizon Enterprise Solutions and VMware today announced an expansion of their strategic relationship to include mobile security and enterprise mobility management solutions. Driven by a shared vision for how enterprises will enable the mobile cloud era, Verizon will now provide its enterprise clients in the U.S. greater choice by offering the comprehensive AirWatch(R) by VMware Enterprise Mobility Management Platform as part of Verizon’s mobile device management portfolio for on premise deployments.

The mobile cloud era represents one of the greatest tectonic shifts for IT in the past decade. VMware and Verizon share the vision that organizations need the right solutions delivered by trusted technology partners to enable the modern workforce to work at the speed of life. These solutions will be designed to allow employees to access all of their personal and corporate applications and information securely across any device, virtually anywhere at any time, while enabling businesses to run more effectively by providing unprecedented device choice and flexibility…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Danny Walker.

Running all your IT in-house: the old approach… Until recently, most businesses have had to manage their own IT systems. This has either meant employing a team of technical experts or paying for expensive consultants. The reliance on computer hardware and software means that any problems which crop up need to be addressed swiftly in order to keep day-to-day business running smoothly.

As programs become more advanced, regular office PCs can start struggling and taking longer to boot and leading to lost productivity. A good example of this issue is highlighted in a tweet by the government’s new COO in 2013, Stephen Kelly -but constantly upgrading your hardware to cater for the latest software can be a drain on expenses…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Colin Barker.

If your company is struggling to find the right cloud solution for your business, you are not alone – it appears an awful lot of companies are in exactly the same position. That was one of the principle conclusions from some new research by the cloud computing company iland, in conjunction with VMware, which found that the average company is using not one but at least three Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) companies for their cloud development. According to the research there are a number of reasons why organisations are casting around trying to find a cloud solution including:

• An ongoing effort to find the ‘right’ solution.
• A fragmentation of requirements at the departmental level.
• An unwillingness by IT to standardise on one vendor.
• A requirement for diverse suppliers because, amongst other reasons, of liability issues.
• A general urge by cloud providers to continually try new ideas that might meet their needs…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

Regulatory pressure is likely to keep private cloud alive and growing within the overall cloud computing market, according to Rob Lloyd, president of Development and Sales at Cisco Systems (CSCO). ZDNet recently noted that Lloyd said "private cloud is not going away." Lloyd was quoted as speaking to a group of Australian media about Intercloud, the company’s global cloud network that it hopes will play a significant role in the cloud space.

But Lloyd also seemed to go against common belief that as enterprises become more confident and comfortable with cloud services, they will increasingly turn to the public cloud. Lloyd seems to believe the opposite—that as regulatory issues continue to put pressure on enterprises and cloud services providers that enterprises will focus more and more on implementing private cloud solutions…

Grazed from Bizjournals. Author: Mike W. Thomas.

Rackspace Hosting Inc. is still generating buzz in the technology industry about a potential takeover. The San Antonio-based managed hosting and cloud computing company announced earlier this year that it was looking at “strategic proposals” and had retained the services of investment banker Morgan Stanley to evaluate the proposals and explore any other alternatives.

The latest company to be touted as a potential buyer is Monroe, La.-based CenturyLink, a multinational communications company that provides services to residential, business, governmental and wholesale customers. Analyst David Phipps tells Motley Fool that a merger with Rackspace would double CenturyLink’s service revenue and increase overall revenue growth for both companies…

Read more from the source @ http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/blog/morning-edition/2014/06/rackspace-eyed-by-another-suitor.html

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

InfinityQS International, Inc., the global authority on real-time quality and Manufacturing Intelligence , today announces the release of its eBook, "Cloud Mythbusters: Dispelling the Myths of Manufacturing in the Cloud." In this eBook, InfinityQS experts combat cloud computing fiction with fact, and encourage quality and IT professionals to consider cloud-based tools as a solution for enabling supply chain-wide quality, efficiency and productivity. To download the eBook, visit: http://www.infinityqs.com/cloud-mythbusters-pr .

Throughout "Cloud Mythbusters," InfinityQS reveals truths to common misconceptions of using cloud-based technology in manufacturing, citing real-life examples along the way. Readers will learn:

• The cloud is not only for consumers , it can also help manufacturers standardize processes and automate data collection across an enterprise, while reducing the burden on IT.
• Cloud deployment is cost-effective and eliminates many of the expenses associated with on-premise solutions such as installation, recurring maintenance and infrastructure costs.
• Storing data on the cloud is more secure than on-site computing…

Grazed from Cloud Computing Today. Author: Editorial Staff.

Amazon’s announcement of details of its Amazon Fire Phone on June 18 promises to disrupt not only the economics of the smartphone industry, but also the use of cloud computing for backup and archival purposes more generally. In Wednesday’s unveiling of Amazon’s first phone, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos noted that the Amazon Fire Phone will offer unlimited, cloud-based photo storage for pictures taken from the phone’s 13 MP camera.

As noted by MG Siegler, the Amazon Fire Phone’s offer of unlimited photo storage outstrips its contemporaries because Apple’s iPhone cloud storage limits are capped in conjunction with a customer’s limits on iCloud. Whereas Android offers unlimited photo uploads to Google+, it does so at lower resolutions than that of the original image…

Grazed from InfoSec Island. Author: Michael Higashi.

Now that the cloud is sweeping the enterprise, it’s time to reevaluate your security strategy. A secure cloud deployment depends in large part on data security, which demands a different set of skills and solutions than traditional, on-premises infrastructure security. Here are two signs you should invest in cloud computing data security.

1. You’re using, or planning to use, the public cloud

When it comes to addressing cloud security concerns and implementing a secure cloud deployment, there are those within the tech industry who advocate private clouds for the enterprise. Private clouds allow organizations to enjoy many of the benefits of the cloud, such as anytime, anywhere data and application accessibility, without incurring the security risks associated with the public cloud. A private cloud is a secure cloud…

Grazed from NewYork Times. Author: Editorial Staff.

Oracle’s $5.3 billion deal for Micros Systems provides an uncertain forecast for shareholders in the database giant. Even if it’s the start of a new deal binge by Oracle’s chief, Lawrence J. Ellison, it’s not at a crazy valuation. But Mircos, a longtime partner, is more of an add-on than a way to supercharge Oracle’s effort in cloud computing.

Oracle is paying $68 a share in cash for the Micros, a maker of hotel and restaurant business technology systems. At a 24 percent premium to the undisturbed share price, it’s at about half the premium Priceline recently agreed to pay for the restaurant reservations site OpenTable, as one example…