Midsize Insider is a valuable repository of expert content tailored for small-to-midsized business owners and IT decision makers. Expert insights and perspectives in the Midsize Insider are gleaned from actionable business experiences and will assist readers in creating efficiencies, cutting costs and delivering results.
More companies, especially midsize firms, are comfortable using the cloud compared to just a year-and-a-half ago. With that new level of familiarity, organizations are utilizing all kinds of versions of the cloud from hybrid and public to private to successfully ...
Canonical has released a stable version of Ubuntu Server 13.04, a.k.a. Raring Ringtail, promising graphical user interface (GUI) improvements and better performance. This server version of the popular Linux distribution is not a long term support (LTS) release, and comes ...
A growing number of midsize companies are adopting cloud solutions. These firms are taking advantage of benefits such as lower operating costs and decreases in the many challenges that IT departments have traditionally faced. Research on cloud computing has been ...
Many Small and Mid-sized Businesses (SMB’s) have moved to the cloud for a portion or in some instances, all, of their IT application needs. Most transitions to the cloud that I’ve been a part of started with moving websites from ...
The world of cloud computing gets more complicated with each passing year. What was once just an extension of centralized computing is now a collection of all kinds of virtualized and remotely delivered services, including a number of minor offerings ...
Whether or not a private, public, or hybrid model is considered, cloud-based business models are becoming more popular for midsize businesses. Security, shared resources, cost savings, flexibility, and accessibility are among the reasons that businesses are utilizing the cloud for ...
When you think of high cloud energy consumption, the image of the crowded and stuffy data center likely comes to mind. However, new research from AT&T's Bell Labs and the University of Melbourne has revealed that traditional data centers only ...
Educational institutions in ten K-12 school districts have decided to deploy Windows 8 solutions as a means of encouraging literacy and providing students with advanced digital learning tools. In addition, Windows 8 provides a convenient way of accessing proprietary educational ...
The cloud may be one of the longest running buzzwords in the IT industry, but it's with good reason. The power and flexibility that the cloud can offer far outshines what most midsize businesses can accomplish with their own internal ...
Reliable data storage has long been a necessity of IT groups everywhere. Over the past decade, innovation in storage has taken us from the old familiar tape backups (still in use with some companies) to the explosion of cloud storage. ...
Working with cloud servers offers performance and affordability to a business, and it takes away a lot of the maintenance and overhead for IT managers. A cloud server can be provided by an outside host, or IT managers can choose ...
Increasingly complex and expensive network infrastructure striking up the blues? As SaaS and IaaS solutions gain popularity, cloud computing is no longer viewed as the province of resource-strapped small businesses. Midsize businesses are also reaping the many benefits of moving ...
As midsize companies continue to shift their reliance from desktop applications to web-based technologies, it is now vital for IT teams in midsize companies of all types to familiarize themselves with cloud development technologies.Although cloud technologies come in many forms, ...
Cloud computing is known for saving on IT costs, but a new study shows that it's helping companies save money on office rent. The cloud is helping firms become more mobile, and this is of great interest to midsize firms ...
Organizations all over the globe are increasingly turning to cloud applications. The flexibility, scalability, and adaptability these services offer are among the major influences leading IT managers to embrace could apps as integral parts of the corporate infrastructure. Available in ...
When midsize IT professionals think about traditional services floating in the cloud, they typically conjure thoughts of storage and software solutions. One of the many services that don't usually come to mind is the processing of big data. The cloud's ...
IT professionals are a diverse bunch but often come together around certain standards. Though the browser landscape is vast, IT professionals only chose a select few to work with and often make these decisions based on two factors: speed and ...
In a constantly changing market, the only way for midsize businesses to survive - and thrive - is to optimize business operations and become more agile. Agile businesses can respond to change quickly and also create change, according to recent ...
Workload optimization is all about closing the gap between the demand for and availability of resources. This is a complex issue involving many factors, including the nature of which services are requesting resources and the software and operating systems being ...
Most IT managers have heard of cloud hosting, but managed cloud hosting offers a business a little more of a relaxed environment, so the IT manager can focus on the technology in-house and less on the security and maintenance of ...
Managing databases used to be a difficult task requiring specialized teams working around the clock to keep everything running smoothly. Thanks to modern advances in technology, however, database administration has become much easier. In particular, the invention of cloud database ...
It's no secret that mobile devices, personal and otherwise, are infiltrating the workplace at increasing rates. These devices often take advantage of personal cloud services that quietly push the user's data into the cloud, providing painless data security and resiliency. ...
Imagine a cloud network as a stack of layers, each of which is akin to a consumption and delivery model for various IT needs. Those needs may be accommodated by solutions that range from software applications to physical hardware that ...
The benefits of cloud computing are not always evident to midsize enterprises; yet there are significant business advantages they can gain from the cloud. The following is a list that IT administrators can use to help the enterprises they serve ...
When it comes to cloud computing, security is a necessity. According to new research, that very need will help the cloud market grow over the next few years. Midsize firms are in the position to implement new security offerings as ...
Midsize firms may have overcome the period of uncertainty of their startup days, but they now have bigger challenges to deal with. Among them is the dire need to share an increasingly large volume of files while still limited to ...
Many SaaS companies offer what at a glance look like ideal software solutions. Hassle-free deployments, unmatched scalability, and flexible payment structures often appear irresistible to the resource-strained midsize business; but not everything is always what it seems on the surface, ...
Integration of on-site and cloud resources can be a troubling prospect. In fact, a recent survey by KPMG (PDF) showed that 31% of business execs noted that integration of cloud based services with on-site applications was proving much more difficult ...
Understanding cloud computing fundamentals is crucial for any midsize company that wants to take advantage of what is arguably the biggest trend in IT. For many, it starts with realizing that the cloud is not some alien space technology, but ...
Today, cloud technology has become one of the hottest terms within the IT sphere, but what does it mean for midsize companies? Aside from giving IT teams access to virtually unlimited resources, which are provided on demand without a long-term ...
As the cloud continues to expand, more companies are reconsidering where they store their data. Cloud computing storage is particularly ideal for midsize businesses with strained technical resources. Why? It offers a quick deployment that makes life easier for the ...
Companies planning to move to the cloud have several options, but which cloud architecture meets midsize business requirements is hard to determine if the IT manager is new to cloud computing. Many cloud hosts assume the IT manager knows the ...
A cloud solution for your offsite backups can increase reliability and accessibility. Some companies are still using legacy methods, with employees taking home tape backups. Others have switched from tape to optical disks, external hard drives, or external solid state ...
Midsize IT professionals are inundated with details about the cloud and why it's essential to their companies' success. Large and small providers alike have a vested interest in pushing the cloud agenda, and by all accounts, adoption is skyrocketing across ...
A leading vendor of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software has chosen the IBM SmartCloud platform as launch vehicle for the latest version of its ERP toolkit. The ability to deploy into a full range of public, private, and hybrid cloud ...
Cloud computing technology delivers improved performance at reduced cost, but only for specific applications with characteristics that match its strengths. If you're an IT department at a midsize business, cloud computing can reduce capital costs and increase flexibility, but for ...
Cloud computing has become a powerful technology that allows midsize organizations to experience enterprise-class features at a significantly decreased cost. Comprehensive cloud monitoring can help convince those companies that aren't so easily persuaded into successful cloud migrations to adopt the ...
The revenue for cloud technology is in the billions, with software-as-a-service (SaaS) taking a significant market lead. Lowered costs and greater agility are the most commonly cited benefits of a cloud app, and their broad backing - from both startups ...
Today cloud technologies have emerged as vital systems for virtually any midsize company doing business in today's environment, because such platforms can be used to cut IT costs while also increasing revenue. As discussed in an article from Midsize Insider, ...
The popular app for Quickoffice is now available for both iPhone and Android users. Google released the new mobile versions of the application, which is widely used by midsize businesses today. The expansion of its availability will help employees share ...
IT administrators in midsize firms have a tough balancing act to pull off. Though not on the level of a major corporation, the company is usually on an explosive growth path that forces it to juggle sizable chunks of data, ...
Not every company has the storage capacity of an online backup cloud data center. Full backups for servers and user desktops require several gigabytes - and even terabytes - of data storage. For this reason, midsize businesses can cut costs ...
The concept of the cloud seems to be everywhere in the business world these days, and it can be intimidating for those who have yet to fully embrace it. Many midsize businesses simply didn't have any major IT changes planned ...
Cloud technology with its disruptive nature has set a new paradigm for enterprise tech. Many IT executives are now looking beyond the hype surrounding cloud and virtualization, and putting in motion plans to effectively leverage the technology in practical ways.Venturing ...
According to IDC, the software-defined data center (SDDC) is big business. The research firm estimates the SDDC market will be worth over $3.7 billion by 2016. As a result, technology providers are racing to remove physical barriers from all aspects ...
Microsoft released its Windows 8 operating system in October of last year, and since then, multiple manufacturers have released a number of tablets and hybrid tablet/PCs. Since the latest version of Windows is designed for maximum efficiency on a tablet, ...
With the recent rise of cloud technologies in the workplace, IT teams in midsize companies need to know how to implement a secure cloud computing strategy into their standard operating procedures to ensure it fully enhances operations. Although there are ...
As an IT manager at a midsize firm, you may be toying with the idea of adapting a data backup regimen in the cloud - that is, if your business has not already done so. Organizations in the midsize market ...
Java VulnerabilitiesThanks to its platform independence and robust nature, Java development has seen continued growth as the tool of choice for many IT professionals looking to develop custom applications. As a direct correlation, it has become an equally popular target ...
Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud is one option for midsize businesses looking to build on their information infrastructure in the cloud. The company behind it, UK-based Canonical, touts it as closing the gap between the PC and the web.Popular ChoiceBesides being one ...
IBM has an impressive set of credentials in the world of open source: Apache, Linux, and Eclipse all owe much of their success to support from Big Blue. Now, the technology mainstay is putting substantial resources behind cloud platform OpenStack ...
High performance computing and hosting used to be available only to enterprises with deep pockets. However, thanks to the advent of cloud hosting, midsize companies today are able to literally pay for only the resources they need without having to ...
IBM's SmartCloud is a comprehensive set of cloud-based solutions from an industry leader in innovation. Providing midsize IT professionals with proven tools, this product has been enabling smooth transitions of existing resources to the cloud with fantastic success. IBM's cloud ...
Virtual hosts allow the company to support several applications while saving money on hardware. Virtual servers use minimal hardware on the computer, but it allows the company to still use the resources of a fully configured machine. Virtual machines can ...
When it comes to cloud computing, security rises to the top of the worry list, but is worth the risk. A new survey shows that most IT decision makers believe both that the cloud is a proven technology and that ...
For midmarket companies, Cloud-based Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) is an essential need to protect from user-error data losses, power outages, natural disasters, and cyberattacks. Every company needs it, the same as they need liability insurance. It’s because of this ...
Ohio has chosen technology mainstay IBM to develop a private cloud for its State of Ohio Cloud Computing Center (SOCC). The 10-year, $267 million contract includes hardware, software, and consulting services from Big Blue, and aims to significantly reduce the ...
IBM's PureSystems product line expands their cloud computing portfolio in an important way and can help solve a problem with which many midsize IT professionals are struggling. The problem revolves around the same aspect of cloud computing that has made ...
Businesses need reliability and security from cloud hosts. Advanced cloud management tools help the business secure the website, manage resources, remove and add servers, and watch traffic as it's routed to the internal and public cloud. The type of tools ...
The challenge for most midsize businesses in today's global economy is remaining agile. Cloud computing offers great advantages for achieving the nimble flexibility required to maintain a global competitive advantage, but only when implemented properly. Infrastructure considerations are critical in ...
Recently I was asked to define the role of a CIO in medium-sized businesses so I thought I would share my thoughts and research on the topic. There are many definitions of the CIO’s role. Traditionally the CIO role is ...
Personal mobile cloud computing is in demand. That's according to a new survey that shows significant growth in the popularity and usage of cloud services like data back-up and content sharing. Midsize businesses are following this fast growing area of ...
This week I’ll be leading a webinar discussing Cloud and security for SMB’s. My point of view is that computing can be done securely in the cloud, but there are things you need to do in order to successfully accomplish ...
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has become the rock star of cloud computing, the most recognizable face of a phenomenon that is literally taking the world by storm. By partnering with a third-party service provider, midsize organizations can leverage the infrastructure, hardware, and ...
Computing resources have been a quickly changing and ever-improving facet of modern business for many years. Innovations stream at breakneck pace. The rise of cloud computing has, in recent years, combined PaaS and SaaS (Platform and Software as a service) ...
The need for reliable server hosting has kept pace with the rising importance of "big data." Information is now invaluable, and midsize companies need not only reliable ways to mine this resource for actionable data, but also ways to ensure ...
Software as a service (SaaS) architecture is an excellent consideration for midsize companies today. Many times, for an SaaS implementation to be a success, IT managers must first must figure out the right path to getting their data that lives ...
According to a new report that focuses on cloud Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), several basic factors must be assessed within a company's IT information infrastructure in order to garner the total benefits of the cloud. IT managers at midsize ...
In the past, servers used to be one of the biggest expenses for midsize companies due to their extensive resource costs and high setup fees. Fortunately, cloud server technology is now allowing midsize firms to slash IT overhead costs while ...
Cloud computing is established. And it has been proven by small and large businesses alike. Over the past 5 or so years, I have seen all types of companies adopting cloud computing as both primary and secondary sets of on-demand ...
Cloud computing has enabled IT departments across the world to streamline operations, consolidate services, and reduce management overhead. Software as a service applications (SaaS) have specifically helped midsize IT professionals leverage the enterprise class capabilities of major software products at ...
The IBM Voices activity stream promises to tap into the wisdom of the crowd by delivering insight not only about ...
IT’s Magic? No. It’s Cloud Computing’s ability to hide complexity! I hate complexity. My life is complex enough with the kids, my dog and the latest smart phone apps. Did you ever think that hiding from your clients could be ...
Utilizing the cloud isn't always as easy as commercial hype makes it seem. Midsize admins, tasked with lowering costs and increasing productivity, are bombarded by promises of lower capital expenses and substantial returns on their investment; but the often fragmented ...
A recent study from CDW about business cloud adoption has uncovered a less-than-surprising fact: home users are the driving force behind the industry trend. While marketing companies and big providers continue to leverage standard advertising techniques as a way to ...
The secret is out. IT managers are fully aware of the benefits cloud computing offers to the midsize market. However, what remains a mystery to some is what separates one cloud platform from another. While this powerful computing technology is ...
In the cloud computing era, the operating environments that IT workers at midsize firms must deal with are far more complex than they once were. At one time, no one even used terms such as "operating environment." There were simply ...
Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) is here and will only increase its presence in medium-sized businesses. iPhone users store company information, including files and emails, in their personal iCloud account. Staff utilize Dropbox and Evernote to manage confidential business information, ...
The technology market is shifting away from in-house software deployments to cloud-based apps, which provide not only ease of access but improved flexibility across platforms. With the rise of mobile devices and wireless connections, midsize companies can no longer rely ...
It can be daunting, at first, to think about migrating data from a local server to one that resides in the cloud. Whether or not a publicly or privately owned cloud space is being considered, the idea of moving data ...
It took the explosion of mobile devices and their so-called "apps" to remind the general public of how useful software technology is. However, midsize firms that develop and distribute these applications to customers of their own have long understood the ...
A new study found there's a big need to standardize the cloud in order to exploit its fullest potential. And midsize firms can benefit should the appropriate frameworks come to fruition.Standard CloudsBooz & Company recently released its paper on the ...
Although gaining popularity among midsize business users, the cloud lacks a uniform definition. It is best thought of as a way to access IT resources via a network, rather than directly from local server stacks. This has led to the ...
IT research firm Ovum has released a report forecasting cloud computing trends in 2013. The report predicts an emergence of the cloud ecosystem in 2013, by analyzing how cloud vendors and consumers adapt to the technology both on their own ...
Deploying a public, private, or hybrid cloud requires not only robust infrastructure, but a reliable cloud service provider. For midsize business IT departments, it's crucial to carefully choose who will manage their company's cloud services, and under what conditions. Laying ...
For midsize business IT admins, making best use of the cloud means understanding which basic "type" suits the needs of their company and the capability of IT department staff. Software-as-a-servce (SaaS), while easy to deploy, may provide more oversight than ...
The cloud is a term often heard, but rarely understood. In large part, this is because of significant market hype associated with the technology, which has providers of every stripe claiming their solution not only fits a cloud model but ...
Dedicated server hosting has long been a useful service for small to midsize businesses looking to develop a sustainable IT infrastructure without the large capital that typically comes with it. The ultimate goal of such projects usually involves moving those ...
A wide array of cloud services are being adopted by midsize firms. That's according to a recent survey that predicts a significant increase in the amount of midsize companies looking to adopt cloud computing over the next few years.Cloud AdoptionThe ...
Cloud apps are a vital part of business for midsize firms today. These applications provide efficient, scalable solutions that don't require a steep financial burden. These useful tools are delivered online, hosted off-site, and can even be charged on a ...
IT departments everywhere share the burden of carrying the organization's budding and often complex web presence. Things are especially challenging for the midsize firm, which has greater traffic and resource demands than smaller business, yet lacks the infrastructure and total ...
Cloud computing has become a rich and varied environment, far more complex than the singular term "the cloud" might suggest. For example, alongside the public cloud there are now private and hybrid clouds. Furthermore, cloud computing as a whole can ...
Industries that require significant amounts of data compliance and regulation to effectively function--for example the payment card industry (PCI) or health care--have been notoriously slow to adopt cloud computing in any form. A new guideline released by the PCI Security ...
There is a lot of talk about cloud computing and how it is makes perfect sense for small businesses. After all, these organizations are the smallest of the bunch, so naturally, being able to leverage a platform that provides immediate ...
Midsize firms and large enterprises alike have widely come to regard enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems as the go-to source for basic, up-to-date information about their customers. Typically these ERP systems have been on-premises solutions.Some industry observers, however, argue that ...
A not so subtle undertone of CES 2013 was the expanding presence of the cloud, smartphone and tablet apps that connect consumer products with online user data and services. IT organizations of mid-sized businesses are already familiar with consumer devices, ...
Along with the basic cloud computing types: public, private and hybrid, there are also three common cloud computing layers. These are infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS,) and software as a service (SaaS). Midsize business can ...
Midsize businesses today turn to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to create the optimum cloud computing environment. IaaS provides for managing and controlling the provisioning, configuration, and deployment of virtual machines. As a result, midsize firms can focus on the ...
Most businesses that have made the move to cloud computing likely did so without much thought about the difference between public and private cloud hosting. The jump to the cloud has been a logical move for many midsize businesses. Not ...
In today's ever-changing IT climate, the cloud has quickly become a commonly used solution to typical IT headaches. So what is the cloud doing to shape IT? As the technology continues to penetrate new areas of the IT sphere, professionals ...
The wealth of public, private, and hybrid cloud options available to midsize businesses means choice is not a problem. Instead, midsize admins face a new challenge: effectively handling resources. Cloud management tools have now emerged to help streamline use and ...
As web technologies have become more stable and web development has increased in popularity, more companies are turning to the cloud for affordable software solutions. Software as a service, or SaaS, is especially beneficial for small and midsize IT leaders ...
The appeal behind cloud computing is abundantly clear: Offload your data storage responsibilities onto a third-party better equipped to handle them, position your organization to reap the benefits of increased agility, superior scalability, and lower operating expenses. Despite what look ...
DevOps has been generating quite the buzz as of late. Sure, the IT sector is stocked with more than its fair share of buzzwords and industry terminology, but this is one concept with substance that far exceeds the hype. In ...
In concept, a computer is an elegantly simple device. Given a handful of registers, a few dozen instructions, a memory store, and some means of input and output, a computer can perform any clearly definable task. It can keep a ...
Platform as a Service (PaaS) is one of the subtler aspects of the cloud computing revolution to have emerged in the past few years. It can be tricky even to define: PaaS falls into the intermediate portion of the conceptual ...
A recent TechNavio study predicts a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for global cloud computing of 6.2 percent between 2012 and 2016, informed in large part by the decreasing costs of cloud ownership, but tempered by potential security and legal ...
Many midsize companies face an awkward problem in managing their Web browser technology. They want to run the latest browser versions, faster and more secure than their predecessors. But they also have legacy applications that only run on older browsers.To ...
IBM today accelerated its strategy to drive big data and cloud computing adoption with the addition of new Power Systems ...
IT managers have fallen head over heels for the SaaS model. After all, it's typically faster to deploy than traditional on-premises software, and enables organizations to start reaping the rewards much quicker. Larger companies are enjoying excellent results, but as ...
Cloud computing security is top of mind at midsize companies today. More firms are embracing this flexible and cost effective way to address growth and data issues, and they understand that securing it is the best way to reap its ...
When it comes to technology, more and more midsize business IT professionals are looking for ways in which to store and retrieve their data and information as well as that of their clients and consumers. As these businesses go online ...
What is the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA)? With the emerging changes, increasing interest, and security questions surrounding cloud technology, the CSA, a nonprofit organization formed with the purpose of promoting research into securing cloud computing and cloud technology, was born, ...
A newly released study found that cloud platforms reduce development time by more than 10 percent. The Evans Data Cloud Development Survey, which is conducted twice a year, surveyed 400 developers who found that "cloud development streamlines the development process, ...
The term "cloud computing" has been applied liberally to many computing solutions - everything from services and platforms to infrastructure - but as the market has evolved, the term has narrowed to three common models for business use: public, hybrid, ...
The cloud brings immense economies of scale to computing and delivers resources on-demand. As a result, enterprise cloud computing is a part of the information infrastructure at many companies today as it strategically cuts costs and drives innovation. It also ...
The UK government has pledged over $5 million to support cloud research and development projects in the new year, hoping to address some of the challenges businesses face when trying to make the leap.A Growing MarketAccording to a January 2nd ...
The city of Chicago just announced that it would be converting all of its employees to desktop and email applications based on Office 365, Microsoft's cloud-based productivity suite. With even security-conscious organizations taking the plunge into cloud computing, midsize businesses ...
The evolution of cloud computing has resulted in three distinct solution types - public, hybrid and private - each with their own set of benefits and drawbacks. For midsize businesses just starting out in the cloud, or those who need ...
For midsize organizations, the public cloud is a true game changer. It is the lowest-cost share computing service available that helps them work more efficiently, save money, and improve business operations.A Public OptionAll companies seek the best technologies to improve ...
In railroading practice, the signal that research firm Gartner is sending about cloud storage would be a yellow light: Proceed but with caution. According to Gartner, the cloud has become a viable alternative to traditional on-premises data storage. Caution is ...
The idea of a paperless office is alluring to business professionals, especially IT professionals at midsize businesses, who dream of foregoing paper documents for instant file transfers online and through the cloud. The idea gained traction among banks and financial ...
Cobalt Iron, a new entry in the data protection market, seeks to give customers the flexibility to mix and match ...
The research firm Forrester has released its top cloud technology predictions for 2013. In the latest results of its Forrsights Surveys, Forrester claims at least 50 percent of firms in Europe and America are planning budgets that include cloud investments ...
The current economic climate is forcing companies to remain flexible and avoid long-term commitments. This is especially true for IT at midsize businesses where data volumes are growing exponentially but resources for investing in IT technology are scarce. Cloud computing ...
Open-source enterprise content management (ECM) vendor Alfresco has become the latest to sign on board with Amazon's cloud services. For the IT community at midsize firms, this marks another step in Amazon's establishment in the enterprise cloud space. It also ...
Some customers watching Netflix on Christmas Eve saw their service deteriorate as their devices started to buffer the signal, trying to keep the video feed fluid. Eventually many screens froze due to cloud outages in the Amazon Web Services data ...
Google has earned recognition in the enterprise industry through its Google Apps software, a series of cloud-based applications that permit collaborative document writing, slide show construction, and text and video messaging. When the program began six years ago, Google anticipated ...
The Software as a Service (SaaS) sector seems to have gotten past its hype as the economic downturn that once sparked the SaaS boom is now forcing businesses to cut cloud spending. A recent report by tech research firm MartinWolf ...
The unstoppable migration toward cloud computing is creating a massive demand for IT workers trained in cloud computing and related technologies, such as virtualization, according to a new report issued by IDC and Microsoft. The report also shows that there ...
New findings show that more businesses are utilizing a public cloud server to deploy external applications as security concerns subside.Public Cloud GrowthThe survey, recently conducted by leading cloud security provider CloudPassage, found that 41 percent of IT professionals across 50 ...
Cloud computing may be one of the hottest terms floating around the tech world these days, but its takeover is far from complete. Despite the ease and cost-efficiency of cloud backup, the market for dedicated backup appliances is still fairly ...
Cloud data storage is, first and foremost, about renting storage capacity rather than buying it. And renting in the cloud is becoming more and more popular as firms see advantages in renting capacity rather than keeping their data on-site. The ...
When the cloud finally matures, many expect that its focus shift from the basic benefits of cloud computing to effectively management of the technology, and recent events seem to signal that the shift is now underway. Red Hat's latest acquisition ...
One key consideration when moving from local server stacks to an off-site solution is what kind of cloud - public, private or hybrid - offers the best combination of security, resources, and cost. The private cloud vs. public cloud debate ...
Oracle's second quarter sales in 2012 not only topped analysts' predictions, they also put the company on track for $1 billion in cloud revenue by year's end. In large part, this upward movement comes thanks to acquisitions like Right Now ...
The industry has a couple of open secrets that midmarket decision makers would be wise to acknowledge. They are security and data protection. For some reason, decision makers don't insist that these crucial components of the organization's IT strategy are ...
To maximize IT dollar values, many midsize companies are choosing a move to the cloud--in whole or in part--to take advantage of off-site storage, data redundancy, and the cost benefits that come with multi-tenant hosting. When choosing a cloud provider, ...
Midsize businesses are increasingly eager to try their luck in the cloud. What's not to like about redundancy, agility, and lowered expenses for storing data? One deterrent to widespread adoption, however, is cloud security. There are questions about who's responsible ...
Once upon a time - not so long ago - "the cloud" was one vast entity somewhere out there where companies could store data and find applications. All too often it was pitched to the C-suite as a way to ...
VMware's Cloud Foundry gained fame as a way for companies to build open source platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solutions. Now, the virtualization leader - along with storage provider EMC - has announced a spinoff of this ecosystem into a new effort known ...
Software as a Service (SaaS) has proven to deliver results for midsize businesses. SaaS defines software that is delivered over the Internet, which is exactly how it enables companies to work in a smarter and more cost-effective way.Midsize NeedsMidsize companies ...
Adobe has launched Creative Cloud For Teams (CCT), expanding its subscription cloud service to support collaborative features. For the IT community at midsize firms, this move once again underlines vendors' eagerness to court midsize businesses.Cloud vendors are offering a growing ...
The original aim of service-oriented architecture (SOA) was to prevent vendor monopoly, whether in software or underlying hardware, allowing greater user freedom when choosing applications for various business or personal applications. However, many vendors try to tie users to their ...
Research company IDC has released a technology forecast for the next 12 months and says cloud computing--specifically, mobile cloud computing--will underpin IT's "third platform." What does this mean for midsize IT?Big Money in Mobile Only a few years ago, mobile ...
Many businesses today aren't deciding whether they should opt for the cloud--rather the question is whether they should go for public or private cloud computing. The fact is, online file sharing and storage is a necessity for many companies and ...
With new innovations coming into the world of cloud computing every day, it's easy to sometimes get lost is a sea of acronyms, even if some of these acronyms, like SaaS, are as old as the cloud itself. Over the ...
Companies of all sizes are examining cloud computing and the cloud services that suppliers can offer. Cost, security, integration with existing company operations, and impact on bring-your-own-device (BYOD) programs are major factors. Many businesses are looking beyond mere cost savings ...
Infrastructure as a Service is one of the key cloud computing developments. If you are still asking, "What is IaaS," you are probably still spending a lot of money maintaining and constantly expanding your data center. Management Information Systems, Customer ...
The cloud has been dominant force in technology for the past few years, and Gartner, a major tech research firm, expects that trend to continue into the future. The prediction also highlights the growing importance of security in the clouds ...
Giants like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon offer a variety of data center-based cloud storage options. Now, developer Sysform is making the case for peer-to-peer (P2P) data storage, hoping to take advantage of spare computing cycles and underutilized servers. But can ...
Google has unveiled a spate of new Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) services while slashing prices significantly in a bid to take on the cloud computing kingpin Amazon. Amazon is currently leading the public cloud services market with its popular Elastic Compute 2 ...
According to a recent Capgemini study, corporate cloud adoption is on the rise. But there's a concern for IT departments: The study also found that business, not IT decision-makers, often controls cloud strategy. With the fight for every dollar, what ...
There is no denying that benefits exist for small and midsize companies that are prepared to invest in cloud-based solutions, as there are obvious cost advantages in out-sourcing certain processes, reducing hardware spend, and allowing flexible scaling as the need ...
Companies embracing cloud computing are taking advantage of buying Software as a Service (SaaS) from external vendors and are moving some of their infrastructure requirements to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) suppliers. But Platform as a Service (PaaS) is less ...
Companies used to get competitive advantages from IT through installing superior infrastructure, running better software, and improving integration of their solutions. Cloud computing and the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) concept have disrupted this model. With infrastructure supplied as an external service and ...
VMware, and parent EMC, have confirmed rumors by announcing that their big data and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) operations will be spun off internally into a separate business unit. For the IT community at midsize firms, the move underlines the expansion and ...
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) hopes that its new AMD Opteron 4300 and 3300 chips will be coming to a cloud (virtually) near you. For IT communities at midsize firms this is yet another reminder of how strong interest in the ...
Although interest rates are low, the uncertain economic climate includes risks that make long-term planning difficult. In this environment, companies tend to favor solutions that require a minimum of capital investment. Of the cloud solutions available, software as a service ...
The advent of cloud computing has ushered in a wide variety of "as a service" offerings. Platform as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service, Data as a Service, Software as a Service--the list seemingly grows on a daily basis! Pay ...
SaaS vendors sometimes struggle when it comes to integration, and that has an effect on the rising cloud computing market and the companies that seek its benefits.The results of a recent study conducted by THINK Strategies, a consulting services firm, ...
Software as a service (SaaS) is widely sought by companies today. Now one analyst firm is pushing for something unique, a clear bill of rights for them.According to Constellation Research, most enterprise software is deployed through SaaS or the cloud ...
The future of cloud computing will have much to do with cloud federation, according to a new report by CloudNOW, a non-profit worldwide association that recently announced its top predictions for cloud trends in the next year. The large use ...
We have heard so much about the cloud for so long now that it is really percolating in the mid-market. ...
Many businesses are still struggling to resume regular activities weeks after hurricane sandy wreaked havoc on the Northeast U.S. The lack of emergency preparedness that led to immobilized business activity has cost firms billions of dollars in revenues. With an ...
Amazon has dropped prices on its popular cloud database servers and added a range of rentable hardware that customers can use to host cloud technology and related platforms. The cloud computing juggernaut lost some popularity in the wake of power ...
Mobile devices have changed the way midsize businesses work. Recently, the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) made this clear when it released a report called "Security Guidance for Critical Areas of Mobile Computing," which details security insights for critical areas of ...
SaaS demand is on the rise. Over the past few years, businesses are realizing its value and are using it to replace traditional on-premises software.The findings come from a recent report by Gartner that takes a closer look at global ...
Spending in the platform as a service market, also known as PaaS, will hit the $1.2 billion revenue mark this year, up from $900 million last year.This prediction from analyst firm Gartner was featured in a recent Computerworld article. Gartner ...
One facet of cloud computing that appeals to many midsize IT admins is cloud storage. It also appeals to managers and executives, who may jump at the chance to move away from local server stacks and no longer pay for ...
Gmail users who want to send large attachments - as in up to 10 gigabytes - are getting some help from the cloud. To be specific, such giga-attachments are supported by the integration of Google's cloud storage service, Google Drive, ...
Red Hat has thrown its hat into the ring of the platform-as-a-service (PaaS) market. It claims that its OpenShift PaaS service is equally suitable for private clouds running on a firm's own premises or for a cloud provider's data center.From ...
Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a solid public cloud foundation. So solid, in fact, that they've seen strong adoption by small and midsize IT pros looking for a simple way into the cloud. Despite growing success among smaller businesses, however, ...
According to Simon Wardley, a UK scientist turned technology thinker, cloud computing has passed from the "growth" stage of its development to "war," where tech giants struggle with rapid change and start-ups plant their flags on virtual battlegrounds. If war ...
In the past, most midsize businesses bought and ran their own IT infrastructure. These installations needed extensive IT departments to handle these systems. But most companies don't buy and maintain office towers so they can have offices or buy and ...
Once cloud security replaced things like cost and feasibility a few years ago as the major barrier to cloud adoption, it has reigned as the largest inhibitor ever since. New thoughts on the matter highlight why security may not be ...
In 2006, a group of MIT students started the cloud networking company Meraki, which catered to midsize business needs. Now tech giant Cisco has swept in, $1.2 billion in hand, to purchase the start-up, and this isn't the only cloud ...
Ask IT pros about the cloud and you'll hear an earful about potential benefits like remote storage and computing. Ask tech consumers, executives, or the "man on the street," and oddly, you'll hear many of the same things. Thanks to ...
It's hard to find any modern technology news that doesn't, in some way, touch upon the cloud. This pervasive new way of thinking about business technology is understandable, but some new thoughts on the matter suggest that jumping in feet ...
Lawmakers at the Vermont statehouse will discuss the viability of implementing a cloud computing tax for the state on November 19, 2012, according to a recent article on Boston.com. This will have far reaching implications for all providers of cloud ...
Facing a fiercely competitive environment, Microsoft is aiming to beef up the feature set of its SkyDrive personal-level cloud storage service. In its latest update, Redmond added features ranging from selective syncing to expanded mobile capabilities for both Android and ...
Dropbox now has 100 million users. Founder Drew Houston noted the benchmark in a blog post, and the company celebrated by giving away a gigabyte of storage space. The sheer number of users indicates that most of them are consumers, ...
New research reveals that there's a lack of IT policies when it comes to the topic of cloud security among businesses today.The survey found that while 20 percent of businesses have no clear security standards around employee use of "cloud," ...
New data privacy regulations in both the EU and US could impose additional security management and privacy protection standards for cloud computing. And for IT managers at midsize firms the new rules could end up being a good thing.Yes, the ...
Google's innovative Cloud SQL database has received several upgrades, most notably to storage, speed, and location choice. The upgrades include enhancements for speedier read and writes, more storage, and the choice of running instances in either the U.S. or Europe, ...
Cloud and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) technologies will continue to be hot sectors for investment in the next 18 to 24 months. A recent research study finds that demand for SaaS is growing at a faster pace than IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) models.According to ...
Google has cranked up the speed and storage capacity of its Cloud SQL database solution and made some other tweaks. And the story behind the story is that competition in the cloud database space is hot and getting hotter.For IT ...
As cloud computing becomes a ubiquitous part of IT business life, administrator confidence grows--at least according to VMware. The virtualization giant's third annual Cloud Index says that many Asia-Pacific IT pros now believe they "strongly understand the cloud." But despite ...
A Google search for "cloud computing" will produce millions of possible results and goes to prove just how popular the subject is for modern computer users. However, cloud computing is still very much in its infancy and can be compared ...
Cloud computing is a paradox for providers like OpenStack and VMware; savvy midsize business IT pros want not only agility and redundancy but assurances that data lock-in won't be a part of any contract. Jonathan Bryce, OpenStack's new executive director, ...
According to a new survey, small and midsize businesses think that cloud services are only for the enterprise and one-in-three smaller companies do not understand the cloud at all.SMBs in the CloudThe research, conducted by AVG Technologies, found that small ...
Although it is quite natural to hope that a business will remain a going concern for decades, failure is an inevitable part of the business cycle. And when a modern company fails, there is often a large amount of orphaned ...
After only a few years in the mainstream consciousness, cloud computing and virtualization have become the future of IT. CIOs and IT managers are beginning to understand how to effectively leverage these technologies as they look beyond the hype. Virtualization ...
SMB stands for Small and Medium-sized Business. Today I want to talk to the small businesses. I’ve written a lot about cloud computing, backup strategies and disaster recovery .These are important topics for larger organizations. For smaller organizations, they are ...
The cloud is often touted as the solution to so many IT problems, or if nothing else, the future of IT. While these statements may only be slightly exaggeratory, more and more companies are getting disillusioned by their cloud experiences. ...
The cloud is all the rage these days–and not just for newfangled startups. Even mature enterprise vendors are on board. Case in point: Microsoft’s latest version of its flagship Office doesn’t require CDs and 20-digit registration codes. You just go ...
Could cloud computing help midsize businesses avert the worst effects of disaster? Hurricane Sandy is only the latest in a long list of storms destined to wreak havoc on the U.S., and it raises an issue that businesses should be ...
Two things are ineviabe, the old saying goes--"death and taxes." But for the technology market and midsize business in particular, it may be time to add another to the list: cloud computing. Some indications? That customer relationship management (CRM) powerhouse ...
New research shows cloud computing is not always ecologically efficient for small and midsize businesses.A new study by WSP Environment & Energy and the Natural Resource Defense Council on this topic was recently featured in CloudTimes. The results confirmed that ...
The cloud can have a gray lining when an Internet outage brings down a cloud service. That was the lesson of last Friday's outages that took out Dropbox, along with Google App Engine and the popular Tumblr website. For the ...
A year ago, Gartner forecasted that tablets, mobile device apps, and social user experience would lead the strategic technology trends for 2012, and did so pretty accurately. Next year might not be much different as Gartner outlined the top 10 ...
I don’t often blog on specific products or services but I when I recently saw the new partnership between IBM and Cloudshare for agile development I had an epiphany. What caught my attention was not the specific features of the individual products ...
Application development is often tedious, painstaking work, especially when multiple teams collaborate in different areas of the application's lifecycle. But growth of the agile software development concept is looking to change all of that. IBM and CloudShare have combined resources ...
A new website offers a surprisingly open view into Google's data centers. For IT analysts at midsize companies who want to see what a massive cloud storage and computing infrastructure really look like, Google has assembled a rich photo walk-through ...
October 25, 2012 – Interview with Ed Abrams, Vice President of Marketing for IBM Mid Market Business. In this 20 minute podcast, Ed and I discuss IBM’s global initiative around its MSP partner program and what it means to small ...
I’m a firm believer that cloud computing helps companies innovate. It provides resources, services and infrastructure at a fraction of ...
IBM recently announced its partnership with CloudShare enhancing the world of cloud application development. The partnership provides advanced application lifecycle management capabilities for agile development in a single virtual package. IBM and CloudShare provide you with a complete development environment ...
Cloud applications are must for IT pros looking to leverage the true power of off-site computing. Unfortunately, these apps don't always play nicely with storage, existing server structures, or even each other, leaving admins in the difficult position of worrying ...
The weather may have been pleasant in Northern Virginia on Monday, October 22, but for Amazon cloud services, things were stormy indeed. The company suffered the fifth outage of one of its data centers in the past year and a ...
The technology research firm IHS Inc. (Information Handling Service) has released a study that predicts cloud-based storage subscription figures will skyrocket to 500 million users by the end of this year as major vendors like Apple, Google, and Microsoft push ...
Rackspace has handed over the control of its cloud technology open-source project "OpenStack," to a newly formed independent governing body, the OpenStack Foundation. The Foundation will be responsible for all the financial, legal, and operational management of the project from ...
Ask IT pros about cloud benefits and they'll probably say not having to do "everything" makes their life easier. Ask them about the downside and chances are they'll cite a lack of control. These are two sides of the same ...
New parents are often amazed by the progress of their children. One day, they're tiny, quivering creatures who flail and scream; the next, they're walking and talking. These same parents are often overwhelmed by the sheer amount of energy a ...
Cloud computing is often seen as bringing massive cost savings to midsized businesses and others, but what's not talked about so much is the strain this may be putting on IT networks. Companies need robust networks to deliver the increasing ...
Salesforce.com is an enterprise leader in cloud computing and customer relationship management (CRM). Dreamforce--its massive vendor technology conference--already draws huge crowds. Now, CEO Marc Benioff has announced Cloudforce in New York city, taking place October 19 at the Javits Center. ...
Many companies already offer cloud-based services. Now another company is jumping into the field and offering its own content management service-as-a-software (SaaS) package for free. The company--Alfresco--has recently teamed up with Salesforce.com to release its Connector application. IT managers at ...
Rackspace Inc. has taken the wraps off its new public cloud monitoring platform that enables IT managers keep tabs on the health of their cloud infrastructure irrespective of where it is located. Rackspace Cloud Monitoring service helps IT admins spot ...
If transitioning to cloud computing has become overwhelming or too much of a pain, join our Twitter Chat session #SMBCloudPain on Thursday October 18, 2012, 2pm Eastern. Connect with IBM Cloud experts who can speak to your problems, concerns and ...
Despite the overall importance and use of digital documents in the IT departments of midsize firms, IT personnel still need to print forms, diagrams, or PowerPoint documents. At times, IT managers might need to print a large number of technical ...
By now the advantages of cloud solutions are well known in our industry. The cloud offers immense advantages in terms of agility and flexibility, making it easier, and if automation is employed, almost transparent to make assets available in real ...
Microsoft is currently preparing to launch two of its most important products in recent memory, Windows 8 and its family of Surface tablets. However, almost forgotten in the hype of these two products is Microsoft's Office 2013.According to TechSpot, one ...
Most computer-savvy users are aware that, in order to communicate and work in the modern world, they need to maintain what can amount to dozens of different email, social media and cloud storage accounts. Having a Facebook profile is not ...
Low-power ARM chips could be coming to a data center near you, courtesy of a newly funded effort by chipmaker Calxeda. ARM chips are typically used in mobile devices and similar applications for which reduced power consumption is critical. But ...
I think that perhaps all of this cloud hype is doing businesses a disservice. It’s everywhere. Even people on the ...
Google Play's search feature was down briefly Friday, October 5. The problem was quickly fixed but is a good example of the growing pains of any Web-based store. After all, the services were only bundled and given the new name ...
There is a lot to like about GoDaddy, and it has continued to gain popularity with small and midsize businesses for web hosting. However, a recent event has left some midsize businesses worried. The company has decided to eliminate their ...
On September 26, 2012, IBM launched a global cloud initiative focused on providing technical expertise to Managed Service Providers (MSPs)*. But, expertise isn’t the only thing IBM offers up for MSPs; it enables organizations to explore cloud computing on IBM ...
Business adoption of cloud computing is happening fast. This sector alone is predicted to outpace growth in the overall IT industry fivefold. But this brings challenges for hardware and software vendors and for the IT administrators who are using their ...
A recent survey found that most small and midsize businesses are lacking knowledge about cloud computing and that they are losing out. The survey found that small and midsize businesses that have embraced the cloud saw a revenue increase in ...
If there is one thing we learned at the recent Dreamforce conference, it's that total integration is the new black when it comes to SaaS. Now, Oracle is looking to show off its own strategic brand of cloud dynamism at ...
Faced with increasing debt, international pressure, and rising unemployment, the European Union (EU) needs a new strategy to right its economic ship. According to Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes, cloud computing will pave the way for European futures, bolstering its ...
Many small and midsize businesses believe the private cloud is the safest choice but they still aim to tackle data vulnerability and security concerns with extra backup.In a press release posted on CIO, ioSafe announced a new product to meet ...
The Web, social media, and other recent trends and effects have created a world where, variety, and speeds of creation and dissemination of data and information have grown beyond any previous expectations and show no signs of abating. This data ...
Most companies have a few basic requirements for their data backup system and apply those to possible cloud backup solutions. Backup has to function without disrupting operations. It must be reliable, and you have to be able to check the ...
Mid-market business decision makers are being inundated cloud computing messages from just about every direction. Their technology suppliers want them to transform their IT infrastructure into an on-premise cloud computing environment. Cloud service providers are trying to persuade them to ...
There are many myths and misunderstandings about cloud computing, says Ping! Zine. While Gartner predicts a huge increase in takeup of cloud services this year and in the future, others are not so sure. Matthew Finnie, chief technology officer of ...
Public cloud services are forecasted to grow faster than top industry analysts expected. According to IT researcher Gartner, the subscription Web services market is set to increase by 19.6 percent in 2012 to a total of $109 billion worldwide.The new ...
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has introduced a simpler configuration model for enterprises using their virtual private cloud (VPC). Users are now able to use a static routing system to connect to the company's VPC, and SQL servers also will be ...
Now that the iPhone 5 media tidal wave is starting to subside, other tech companies are taking the opportunity to get a word in edgewise. One of them is cloud CRM vendor Salesforce.com. It is ramping up for the debut ...
All's fair in love and clouds. This seems to be the mandate of most cloud providers as the industry heats up and the race to secure IT dollars becomes one not based simply on performance, but great cloud marketing. Small ...
Businesses of all sizes are expected to implement cloud storage as the industry experiences amazing growth. According to a recent survey, cloud subscriptions will reach 500 million in 2012 compared with 300 million in 2011. Small and midsize businesses will ...
Small and midsize businesses are expected to go big on the cloud as cloud spending is set to grow by $100 billion in four years.Analyst firm International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts that global spending will reach $40 billion as the ...
Cloud storage firm Box is hoping to muscle past larger rivals such as Dropbox and Google Drive by putting on a burst of speed. According to the company, its home-built Box Accelerator technology makes transfers to and from cloud storage ...
Personal cloud storage is on the rise. In fact, there could be a half a billion subscriptions by the end of the year. That's according to an article featured recently in Network World, which predicts double-digit growth for at least ...
The private cloud is many things, say its champions: a way to move data off a local server stack but still retain the benefits of being "alone"; a way to reduce costs and a way to improve agility. But amid ...
Microsoft has officially launched Windows Server 2012, dubbed "Cloud OS" because of its cloud-centric features. The new server platform cloud-optimizes IT departments to build and deploy applications on-premise, on the cloud, and even helps build a private cloud to give ...
There's plenty of tongue-in-cheek cloud computing forecast options: partly cloudy, rainy, stormy, clear skies. But a new report from IDC predicts one outcome of the booming cloud services industry: growth, on a large scale.The report, titled "Worldwide and Regional Public ...
A recent survey shows that small and midsize businesses in Singapore are turning to public rather than private clouds. The findings provide insight into worldwide trends around this choice.ZDNet published a story detailing an IDC survey on small and midsize ...
Websites belonging to small and midsize businesses are more susceptible to hacking incidents which are happening more frequently.That's according to an article recently published by Cloud Times, which cites a WhiteHat website security study. The study found that more than ...
A recent study by the Ponemon Institute and computer security specialist Thales shows that more than half of the companies in the world keep their most sensitive data in the cloud and many do so without the proper knowledge about ...
Google and Apple don't like each other very much. But that has not kept Google from courting iPhone and iPad users. Google's cloud service, Google Drive, now has an updated app for Apple's iOS mobile operating system.In case you were ...
The Microsoft Office suite has dominated both the home market and enterprise space for many years, with few inroads made by competitors such as OpenOffice and Google Docs. Microsoft's continued dominance of the desktop is finally being tested, however, as ...
It's easy to talk about cloud computing, but often more difficult to realize this technology's long-term benefits. Despite aggressive marketing by both tech giants and start-up companies, a recent market study found that small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) are by ...
All major industries are finding ways to integrate the cloud and save money in the process, so it only makes sense that the automobile industry should be doing the same. A recent CloudTweaks article claimed that "cloud computing is bound ...
In a recent study conducted by the Linux Foundation and the International Data Corp., researchers found that both users and businesses desired open solutions for cloud computing. The demand for APIs, software, and operating standards are part of an overall ...
Despite the growing success of cloud computing and big data service, they are relatively new factors in the enterprise technology market and thus come with their share of unfolding concerns. For businesses, security and privacy-protection concerns could be as big ...
It's hard to miss the hype of cloud computing if you're a midsize IT pro; upper management types often hear the glories of the cloud extolled by both employees and outside agencies that want to provide always-on, super redundant, streamlined ...
Businesses talk about the cloud. Providers talk about the cloud. The public--understandably--is curious about the cloud. A new study commissioned by Citrix shows that while Joe Public may not know all the ins and outs of cloud computing, they use ...
A recent survey shows that although more small and midsize businesses are moving more services off-site to the cloud, mission critical functions like CRM are being left behind.An article published by Channel Pro SMB highlights research by IT management vendor ...
Code-named Alamo, a free private cloud software recently released by Rackspace is designed to assist enterprise IT in deploying OpenStack-powered clouds. Engineers at Rackspace say they designed the software with ideas from their company's own experiences in deploying and operating ...
Mat Honan, a writer for publications and websites such as Wired and Gizmodo, recently discovered how easy it is for hackers to completely obliterate his digital life. Through some simple social engineering, they were able to not only compromise his ...
The eventual goal of cloud computing is a virtual IT environment accessed through a universal virtual desktop. While VMware recently introduced a completely virtual data center, the more immediate IT configuration, especially for midsize businesses, is likely to continue to ...
VMware is known for their virtualization software that is available for desktops and servers, and they have a strong presence in the market of cloud computing software. Nicira, however, is a leader in cloud computing software. Their networking prowess has ...
Facebook has joined the Oregon data center rush, recently announcing plans to build a third data center even before their second facility is fully finished. But it is the company's open architecture that is getting the most notice. As part ...
AppSense recently announced a new service called DataNow Essentials, which helps businesses keep control over their data in an increasingly mobile world. The solution is just part of a larger trend as companies, many in the midmarket, struggle with the ...
Apple Inc., perhaps the most popular brand in consumer electronics, is pushing even harder to emerge as a leading vendor in the corporate sector. The company is expanding its already vast empire by building a new data center in Maiden, ...
Despite increasing security measures, electronic transactions and purchases are, at times, successfully targeted by modern-day hackers who seem capable of penetrating even the most advanced security systems. Major vendors offering these services upgrade security regularly to prevent security breaches and ...
Large cloud centers are perfect for smaller businesses just starting out, but midsize businesses need more privacy, dedicated resources, and speed to run a growing organization. Dell, which is widely known to offer affordable business computers, has announced that it ...
The growing movement toward cloud application development got a boost earlier this month with the announcement of a partnership between ...
Cost continues to be the largest factor driving the adoption of cloud services by midsize businesses, but business agility benefits ...
Chief among cloud computing's benefits is its redundancy. Companies are often enamored with the ability of a cloud solution to backup data across multiple servers and ensure that under power loss or other disaster conditions no information is lost. While ...
John Borkenhagen takes time out from the XChange 2012 conference in Dallas to explain what's new and cool about the ...
You can't buy an IBM router at the local electronic store, but with its 2010 acquisition of Blade Network Technologies, ...
Hardware supplier Dell Inc. continues to shift its focus to enterprise software with the recent launch of its business intelligence solution, Quickstart Data Warehouse Appliance 1000. According to the company, the solution includes software, hardware, and implementation services that can ...
Leaders at midsize companies are excited about cloud computing’s potential to give them a leg up on larger competitors. “Midsize ...
Oracle is offering updated industry-specific CRM (customer relationship management) services with the version 20 of its CRM On Demand software. As reported in PCWorld, these new features are specific to the insurance, automotive, financial services, and life sciences industries. According ...
Online cloud storage has gained significant traction among consumers, spurred in part by free accounts from vendors such as Dropbox, Microsoft's SkyDrive, and Google Drive. Enterprise users, however, have been slower to adopt due mostly to concerns about data security ...
Amazon already sits at the head of the pack when it comes to cloud storage, with its S3 solution still dominating the market share, but Amazon still hasn't found a way to convince companies to use the cloud for archival ...
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has added Python to its cloud services Elastic Beanstalk. The platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offers a number of programming languages for users to create and operate cloud services from Beanstalk, with Python being the latest language addition, alongside ...
By Andy Monshaw (left), General Manager for IBM Midmarket Business, & Mike Ritsema (right), President & Partner, i3 Business Solutions, LLC. Marketing executives have a tremendous challenge ahead of them. Many see this sophisticated and complex world of ...
Midsize admins and executives have heard the siren call of cloud computing time and time again. "Come to the cloud," it says. "We have savings!" For the better part of the last decade this has been the main selling point ...
There's little doubt that the cloud has been one of the most interesting parts of IT over the past few years, and not without reason. A new Gartner report looking at the most hyped aspects of technology shows that some ...
Recent research from Gartner reveals that the cloud computing sector has many over-hyped terms. But that doesn't mean that the sector is all hype. The report points out that the cloud sector includes a range of different terms and technologies, ...
Midsize IT professionals are finding their cloud budgets on the rise as managers green-light more spending and CEOs get more comfortable with having some or all of a company's data stored off-site. A new Australian study has found that over ...
As Enterprises of all kinds make the move to cloud, IBM is focusing on its mid-market partners and their specific requirements to expand offerings, increase capabilities and deliver a secure cloud environment. “We see mid-market clients evolving from worrying ...
When you think about earth-bound items, you think of things that are landlocked, tethered to a solid object or constrained ...
The trend of governments moving to the cloud isn't new; Britain recently introduced its G-cloud version 2.0 and the US government is starting to screen cloud providers to deliver services to a number of federal agencies. Now, India has chosen ...
When Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak speaks, many people listen. Unfortunately, what he had to say about cloud computing a few days ago in Washington, was not something most people wanted to hear. According to an ITWorld article, Wozniak said, "I ...
One of the first questions midsize businesses have when they are considering setting up a cloud-based network is "How much will it cost?" Unfortunately, this is a hard question to answer, as nearly every company that offers cloud services has ...
On Monday, August 6, 2012, NASA's Curiosity rover touched down on Mars, beginning the first astrobiology mission since the Viking probes of the 1970s. Initial reports indicated that all systems were go on Curiosity, and the small craft sent back ...
In the BYOD environment, small and midsize businesses know that mobility is an increasingly vital component of a strong, competitive, forward-thinking company. Verizon and Microsoft are looking to leverage this, which is why the two respective industry-leading corporations have teamed ...
A recent survey of eight hundred CFOs shows that a large percentage of them believe that computing through the cloud saves money, reduces costs, and improves overall efficiency. Venture Beat reported that a Vanson Bourne study concluded that 96 percent ...
Open source cloud computing has quickly become a buzzword, even among the hype-laden world of virtual servers and the promises many providers are making about the cloud's agility and efficiency. Companies like Rackspace have embraced the notion of going open ...
Many midsize businesses are comfortable putting their email online and using the cloud for storage, but there are barriers to going beyond that. Ready-made cloud computing solutions are expensive, and IT departments are concerned about vendor lock-in. If the purchased ...
It has certainly been an interesting few weeks for cloud-based storage companies, with Dropbox facing security questions after an embarrassing breach and Box securing a new round of funding that values the company at over a billion dollars. These two ...
Last week a journalist with Wired named Mat Honan was a victim of hacking on his Apple iCloud account. Hackers were able to gain entry into Honan's iCloud account using security flaws at both Amazon and Apple. As if this ...
The cloud was to be all things to all admins. At least, that's how it was sold five years ago when the "revolution" began. Data was supposed to move away from the local server to central facilities, where professionals managed ...
The cloud seems to be becoming a polarizing force within the technology industry. Its proponents are lauding its virtues while its detractors lament the loss of the way things were and warn of dangerous times ahead. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak ...
The benefits and perks of using cloud services are appealing to midsize businesses for several reasons. Operating costs are lower since the virtual application is maintained and administered by the cloud provider. Having the provider company responsible for managing the ...
As cloud computing has evolved into an adolescent technology, so too has its market, with competitors large and small fighting for their piece of the virtual pie. But the expanding options for companies means greater pressure from providers outside American ...
On July 25, 2012, tech giant Symantec changed CEOs, replacing Enrique Salem with Steve Bennett, a move that has many Wall Street analysts voicing their approval. While the move comes amid a number of earnings issues, the new Symantec CEO ...
Knowledge Tree is raising $4.75 million to capitalize on social and enterprise-focused cloud document management services. A leading vendor in the SaaS (Software-as-a-service) market, Knowledge Tree announced its Series B round of venture capital investment, which includes River Cities Capital ...
CliQr Technologies has launched a new cloud platform-as-a-service (PaaS) to facilitate the transition of business applications from the on-premise servers to the cloud. According to a TechCrunch article, the company announced its CloudCenter service, which allows organizations to fluidly move ...
Reliability is more a concern than ever for business cloud users, as the late June Amazon Web Services (AWS) failures demonstrate. Although public cloud providers tout their redundancy as one significant benefit for business users, it's clear that in extreme ...
Samsung is expected to join the fast-growing enterprise cloud services market to extend the appeal of its Android-based consumer smartphones, tablets, and other devices to enterprises. According to a recent CloudTimes article, the technology giant is considering hosting its own ...
Carnegie Mellon University researchers have found a way to bring big data analytics to a laptop, a move that may make it possible to do large-scale data crunching without the need for cloud-based computing horsepower or supercomputer solutions. The software, ...
It's been a rough few days for cloud backup provider DropBox, with a potential hack (which they deny) and a high-profile characterization of their product as unfit for businesses (to which they have yet to respond). These incidents bring up ...
Amazon Web Services has expanded its level of support for its Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) users by increasing the scalability of its rentable servers to host up to 30 Elastic IP Addresses per instance, according to a ZDNet article. Amazon ...
Microsoft has released the System Center 2012 private cloud platform, a comprehensive management platform that enables enterprise IT to manage IT environments, including client devices and server infrastructure. According to The Register, the most recent Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) 2012, ...
Dropbox storage saw an automatic increase on Tuesday, July 10, with Dropbox Pro accounts receiving doubled storage capacity, without a corresponding increase in service fees. The $10 per month plans, which previously received 50GB of storage, were ramped up to ...
In recent years, cloud computing initiatives have been on the rise with more enterprises and organizations realizing benefits in terms of cost and efficiency. Although cloud adoption has become a more common trend within organizations, the average CIO and IT ...
There are tremors of economic uncertainty reverberating throughout almost every segment of IT. Through it all, cloud computing continues to grow as strong as ever. With performance and management benefits that non-cloud solutions have difficulty matching, it's little wonder that ...
Software start-up GitHub has received a $100 million investment from one of Silicon Valley's leading venture capital (VC) firms. It is the first investment for the four-year-old company, which has grown to nearly 2 million users and more than 3 ...
Every vendor wants to lock its customers into its own ecosystem. Coke wants you to look down your nose at Pepsi. But VMware is taking a step in the other direction. Its acquisition of cloud management firm DynamicOps sends a ...
On July 27th, 2012, the Summer Olympics get underway in London and for two weeks the eyes of the world will be on Britain's capital, watching as elite athletes from around the world compete for gold. For IT professionals watching ...
Recent East Coast storms have brought to light a number of cloud vulnerabilities that may be tied more to technology's intrinsic structure than to anything IT pros can correct. For midsize IT admins, this raises questions of how much data ...
The hype surrounding cloud computing has started to taper off, which means one of two things: the technology has either gone under or it's going mainstream. With no shortage of cloud providers (both public and private), it's safe to say ...
At the beginning of the weekend of June 30, 2012, a large and intense line of thunderstorms advanced from the Great Lakes over the Eastern Seaboard. The whole area suffered from power disruptions, and three days later, millions were still ...
Rapid communication and collaboration are crucial for a midsize business to respond to customers and market conditions. However, as your fellow employees travel, they may not have continual connection to wireless or cellular data networks. To combat this, Google has ...
By Andy Monshaw (left), General Manager for IBM Midmarket Business, & Shahin Pirooz (right), Chief Technology Officer, CenterBeam, Inc. Major advances in security around platform authentication, authorization, data security, and auditing over the past few years have significantly accelerated the ...
Dropbox, the popular online file storage and sharing service, is now in a contest with cloud giant Google, in the form of the Google Drive storage service. A feature-by-feature comparison of the two makes for a fairly detailed comparison shopping ...
Google announced at its annual I/O developer conference that its Chrome browser how has more than 310 million users worldwide. Since its release in 2008, Chrome has exploded from its comic book-like introduction to surpass all other products, including Microsoft's ...
Technology titan Oracle has announced a new business unit and focused set of technology services to help life and health science organizations. Oracle Health Sciences was formed in 2011 but has recently begun announcing new products and services that leverage ...
To all the potential advantages of the cloud, add a feature that cloud vendors won't be advertising: Cyber criminals are using it for flexibility and greater processing power. Cloud cyber crime is taking off.For IT managers at midsize firms, this ...
Powerful storms rolled through a number of states, including Virginia, on Friday evening, knocking out power to one of Amazon's cloud computing data centers. The resulting outages present another stain on Amazon's record and, by association, the record of public ...
Google has developed a network of data centers around the world to power its search, ad-serving, web mail, and application service functions. At the recent Google I/O conference, Google announced that it will start offering direct access to this infrastructure ...
Security, compliance, ease-of-use are some of many standard cloud barriers to adoption still exist, and they are giving companies pause before they make the upward jump. But recent survey data indicates that while old standbys are still putting fear into ...
Tensions in the war of the virtualization titans is escalating, both in marketing and in the marketplace, as Microsoft and VMWare compete for new server and cloud computing clients. While the battle is not new, the vigor and intensity are ...
Cloud computing seems to be everywhere these days, and with good reason, as the benefits that the public cloud has to offer can truly revolutionize a data center. Despite these benefits, a new survey on cloud storage shows that many ...
As a midsized company, you may have accepted the fact that some or all of your IT presence will eventually ...
Proprietary models for cloud computing are a major barrier for midsize businesses considering moving data and applications to the cloud. It takes substantial resources to configure business functions to work in a cloud-based environment and companies must be able to ...
Google is expected to introduce an expanded infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering at its current developer conference. Could Google succeed in providing an offering that fits the practical needs of IT managers at midsize firms? One industry analyst argues that it might. ...
It's easy to say that a technology will revolutionize the IT world; almost every company that produces software, hardware, or peripheral products has made this exact claim. The cloud, however, appears to be an exception to long-held rules about hype ...
A new report takes a look at cloud provider outages over the past few years and makes some remarkable conclusions about the cost associated with these outages. However, some issues with the report's methodology should give IT managers pause before ...
The cloud isn't as reliable as some researchers would like it to be. New reserch found that cloud failures cost more than $70 million dollars over the past five years, along with more than 500 hours of downtime. This has ...
As the cloud matures into a part of everyday business life for thousands of companies around the world, the issue of interoperability is finally getting some serious attention. Recent comments from heavyweights like Rackspace, Microsoft, and Amazon all point to ...
Among the cloud's list of benefits, always-on storage often ranks near the top. Providers make much about their cloud storage, offering companies the ability to store document and media files from any device with the proper permissions at any time ...
Lowered costs have always been at the center of cloud computing's benefit structure; the technology supposedly makes a company more agile, less prone to complete data loss, and makes it easier to upgrade services, but the underlying theme has always ...
Salesforce.com has recently updated its cloud platform to make support for mobile app development a priority. This means that developers can use the platform to create customized apps based on their own business needs. According to ZDNet, this event supports ...
When companies talk about cloud computing risk, they typically center the discussion around things like security, stability, and price. Despite some inherent unknowns in the great cloudy wild, however, midsize business IT professionals and managers are quickly getting more comfortable ...
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a document, entitled Cloud Computing Synopsis and Recommendations, that aims to cut some of the confusion that chief information officers (CIOs) feel around the issue of cloud business, says a ...
Google Apps has introduced Google Maps Coordinate, a mobile app that provides real-time location updates for workers in the field. The check-in app is something of an on-the-job counterpart of Foursquare. Field employees can check in, automatically updating their location, ...
While cloud computing as a technology favors forward thinking, provisions in a "standard" cloud contract often border on Draconian. Stuck in a pre-virtualized rut, some providers want to hedge their bets by heavily weighting contracts in their favor, and many ...
Recent research shows that enterprises are less resistant to cloud computing. In fact, the idea of running critical business applications in the cloud is gaining more acceptance. The data comes from the 2012 Future of Cloud Survey via a GigaOM ...
Dell, IBM, and now even Oracle are among the big players trying to make their move in the cloud--often by assimilating smaller companies and rolling their specific services into one larger, more generic package. Enterprise software provider Quest has been ...
New research from Alcatel-Lucent has found that security, while still being an issue with consumers, is not the biggest issue when it comes to cloud computing. Surprisingly, customers across the globe are more concerned over the poor performance of cloud ...
The Amazon outage at the company's U.S. East (Virginia) data center has reignited the fears of many regarding the reliability of the cloud. Amazon Web Services (AWS) was down from 8:50 pm on Thursday June 14, 2012, from the Virginia ...
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has done a 180-dgree turn on cloud computing, as he unveils the company's new cloud offerings, boasting that they will be the "the most comprehensive cloud on the planet Earth." Ellison has previously been heard mocking ...
Remote computing continues to gain business acceptance, as more companies understand and accept the benefits and risks. Although remote computing, commonly called cloud computing, has many definitions, all bear similar themes.Many elements are driving the options of remote computing, as ...
Reliability has long been a supposedly stalwart benefit of cloud technology--the ability to offer always-on service for midsize and enterprise companies. But while 99.9-percent cloud computing uptime sounds like a great number, recent studies show that the costs associated with ...
While midsize companies are understandably focused on cloud computing providers and what they have to offer, they are often unsure if a public or private option is right for their needs. Public clouds may mean lower costs but shared resources, ...
Imagine that it’s 1997 for a moment and you’re the CIO of a medium-sized company. The Internet has arrived–sort of. Your organization has started an ERP project. Mainframes are being replaced with a client-server setup. Some employees are using laptops ...
Disaster recovery planning means developing a strategy that governs a company's actions when it loses the use of its principal place of business. It includes assigning roles for key employees and their backups, keeping track of important contact information, backing ...
Government clouds are quickly becoming popular options for over-budget federal organizations looking for ways to streamline costs. Instead of supporting a myriad of agency e-mail applications, collaborative standards, and security protocols, a cloud solution offers unification across systems and lets ...
Cloud computing is revolutionizing how businesses operate. Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and software-as-a-service (SaaS) enable organizations to rent resources required to perform specific tasks, thus reducing operational and support costs. And according to researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, ...
IBM storage systems have moved to the cloud, offering efficiency and automation and reliable performance for midsize businesses. Our June ...
Apple has officially unveiled iOS 6. And while the newest iteration of the iGadgets operating system has its share of nifty features, it has little to rock Google and Microsoft back on their heels. But could Cupertino have any surprises ...
Microsoft is promoting Windows Server 2012 as a centerpiece of what it calls "the era of the cloud OS." Windows Azure also got heavy play at the TechEd North America conference, along with SQL Server 2012 and other offerings aimed ...
There are few other areas of the world as ripe for cloud development as India. Established tech nations such as the United States, Great Britain, or Japan have years of legacy systems and non-cloud standards to clear out while other, ...
The latest update to Mozilla's popular Firefox browser offers a mix of minor improvements and more substantive ones. Most significant from an IT perspective, the Firefox update provides support for Google's SPDY protocol. By adding SPDY support for a second ...
The cloud is inevitable, or at least that's what you hear if you are a midsize business looking to beef up current IT options. Providers across the globe will tell you that the cloud computing forecast not only calls for ...
At a pre-Computex press release event, technology developer Asus announced their version of a unified cloud-computing solution, called Asus Open Cloud Computing (AOCC). Described as a "total solution for the ubiquitous cloud computing era," the Asus cloud offering appears to ...
The US government and its General Services Administration (GSA) has set its sights on cloud computing in recent years, hoping to both standardize security protocols for government contractors and provide a "do once, use many times" approach that will allow ...
Expect the next version of the Oracle database to be released at the end of 2012, and expect it to show its strong commitment to the cloud. In remarks at the AllThingsD conference in London, Oracle founder and CEO Larry ...
It would be reasonable to assume that the driving force behind cloud adoption in businesses would be the IT department, but apparently a more powerful force is at work where the cloud is concerned: money.CFOs are taking the initiative where ...
Cloud computing jobs are set to rise in the next three years, according to new research from analysts at IDC. The massive job growth in the cloud sector, estimated to be in the area of 14 million jobs across the ...
If you can't beat them, join them. That seems to be Microsoft's new way of thinking when it comes to Linux. For years, Redmond regarded Linux as the devil's work. But now Linux will now be supported by Microsoft's Azure ...
A recent study of disaster planning from AT&T shows that companies are including cloud computing in their disaster preparedness and business continuity plans for the coming year. The telecom company's disaster planning study surveyed 504 IT executives and found that ...
Is one hour in Amazon's cloud worth the same as one with HP, Dell, IBM, or Microsoft? It's hard to tell, since there isn't yet a single, defined unit of "cloud computing" that midsize businesses can use for ease of ...
HP has seen significant movement away from the device market to an infrastructure-centric model over the past few years, thanks to falling PC use and the rise of "as-a-service" products. In an effort to catch up with other big players ...
There is almost universal agreement that cloud computing is a good thing. It can simplify administration, help control cost, and even expand the capacity of technology teams to deliver services. However, even with all the many benefits of cloud computing, ...
My name is Alan Berkson and I’m a cloud-aholic. I Dropboxed my SkyDrive and CRM’ed my Evernote into my Google Apps mailbox. I’m a victim of cloud sprawl. Are you with me on this one? I am experiencing cloud application overload. ...
It seems like the cloud data services market is fast becoming saturated. The key question is: do we need more cloud providers and if we do, how should the new ones tailor their services to suit the needs of SMBs? ...
A government agency has published new guidance for managing risk and assuring security for cloud-computing based systems. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released Special Publication 800-146: Cloud Computing Synopsis and Recommendations. The publication can help technology and ...
The 2012 Cloud Slam conference in San Fransisco and online ran from May 30 to June 1st and offered a survey and discussions of important issues facing companies that plan to migrate data and applications to the cloud. Cloud computing ...
It seems that a new cloud storage provider is popping up every week. Dropbox, Box.net, Microsoft, Apple, Google, and even vendors like Rackspace and VMWare have introduced solutions for storing content in the cloud. Many of these vendors offer free ...
Forbes released a contributed article discussing whether interest in cloud computing has recently peaked among IT users. All in all, it's beyond doubt that with this recent survey of IT users, cloud computing is one of the best customer relationship ...
When it comes to finding a cloud computing service, everyone has heard of NetSuite, but now cloud computing enthusiasts will hear a new name in the cloud industry--Blytheco. Blytheco, a leading provider in business management software for mid-market businesses has ...
Cloud computing is now the concept of choice for start-ups and midsize businesses that want to overhaul and streamline the performance of their IT infrastructure. Despite the apparent benefits, cloud computing risks are now becoming clearer.The increased rate of uptake ...
Increased take-up of cloud computing in business may herald the end of some traditional IT jobs. The information comes from Gartner's 2011 CIO Agenda Survey, reported in Tech Republic. The survey predicts that by 2020, most organizations will run more ...
Co-authored by Andy Monshaw, General Manager, IBM Midmarket and Tom Bruno, CEO, Velocity Technology Solutions Our mobile devices are pivotal in keeping us connected at all times. We look to our devices for everything from simple text message to instant ...
Podcast with Jason Perlow, Senior Editor and Blogger at ZDNet. We discuss Data Centers past, present and future with our ...
Concerns about security have become less prevalent as cloud adoption has grown more common, but it remains an important topic for technology leaders--especially in highly regulated industries. Because of Google's awareness of this concern, the company has taken another step ...
Facebook is taking a beating, not only in the stock market but in the tech media as well. But it remains a gigantic player. News that it might be considering acquiring the Opera browser was enough to trigger an Opera ...
As mobile phones and smartphones become prominent in business processes, text messaging is also a way for business employees to communicate. Just like monitoring email messages is necessary for company protection, businesses have also needed a way to monitor text ...
When evaluating the worth of a cloud computing service, IT admins must always consider their bottom line and be on the lookout for promised cost savings that come with the switch to non-local service provision. But even as new competitors ...
In the marketplace today, one of the essential features of any business model is having at least one facet pertaining to the use of a social relationship platform. The majority of the Internet population use some form of social media--whether ...
A new and faster generation of Chromebooks may "unshackle" Google's Chrome OS for users working primarily in the cloud. The broader underlying trend: We are moving toward a continuum of devices, from the most powerful work stations to portable and ...
Research from Wanted Analytics shows significant job growth in the cloud computing sector. The figures show that more than 12,000 jobs were advertised online, which represent a 49% increase over the previous year. And the increase is even more striking ...
As a midsized company, you have probably either looked seriously as virtualization and cloud computing as options, or have already ...
More than one-third of small and midsize businesses are moving to the cloud based on the need for better data backup.According to an article published by ZDNet recently, these companies are demanding better data protection. Symantec conducted the research among ...
Oracle announced the acquisition of Vitrue, a provider of cloud-based social relationship platforms. Terms of the deal were not made public. Atlanta-based Vitrue helps the enterprise software company extend its portfolio of cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings. The company has recently ...
Security costs can be reduced by using the cloud; so says a study of small and mid-market businesses (SMB) by software company Microsoft. The study was conducted by the Trustworthy Computing Division of the company, and looked at small and ...
On May 22, 2012, the newest SAP deal came to light; the company purchased cloud developer Ariba for $4.3 billion in an effort to stay competitive with Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM, which are all making significant strides in the cloud. ...
Rumor has it that Amazon EC2 may have a run for its money in the not-too-distant future. According to GigaOM, both Google and Microsoft are preparing to throw their hats into the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) ring. The tech news site predicts ...
The cloud is growing, and if that's not something you know about, you may have been in the dark, developing in-house applications, for just a bit too long. It's not cloud growth itself that's of real concern to midsize business ...
Most businesses are aware of the advantages of cloud computing in terms of data recovery and storage, but not how the cloud saves money. Microsoft reported in a recent Information Week post that cloud computing can save significant money for ...
You've heard it before, and you'll hear it again: Making the best use of big data is the only way your company will survive in a world of zettabytes and yottabytes, all being generated at a breakneck pace. The trouble ...
If midsize businesses have the ability to store their funds offshore, why can't they also store their data there as well? Such is the thinking of a small handful of service providers who are offering American companies the option of ...
Apache. Ubuntu. WordPress. Name your favorite open source platform or application and it probably conjures up an image of agility, robustness, and most of all, freedom from proprietary technologies and single sources. All good, right? But can open source cloud ...
The cloud is, supposedly, all things to all people. It's been around for years, says the hype--just look at things like Facebook or Hotmail. It'll change the way businesses conduct their business, the way IT interacts with the world; on ...
No one can accuse SAP of sitting on its laurels. At the recent Sapphire Conference held in Orlando, Florida, the enterprise software company debuted a whole slew of mobility applications as well as a plan to play hardball with leading ...
Saying it now has more than one million enterprise application users working on its cloud platforms, IBM on Thursday unveiled advancements to its SmartCloud Services offerings and announced several new customers and partners. On the new product front, IBM ...
A Microsoft cloud survey of 187 businesses that included 94 small and midsize businesses that used cloud services found that the small and midsize businesses see the cloud as a way to save money and increase their security. Further, businesses ...
While many IT departments at midsize businesses have been quick to adopt the cloud, it's still a relatively new utility that isn't 100-percent reliable and secure. The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), a nonprofit organization devoted to ensuring security and best ...
There's a "tipping point" for cloud adoption, according to Google CIO Ben Fried, and it's rapidly approaching. Once that point arrives and companies are over the hump and into the world of cloud computing, there's no going back--it will become ...
Read anything about cloud computing, and you'll get hype--hype if you're a consumer ("the cloud lets you store photos, talk to anyone, anywhere and there's never a chance anything could be lost!") and certainly hype if you're a manager or ...
The Information and Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) has released a new set of cloud guidelines meant to help business IT adopt this technology quickly and effectively. Although this guide is only one of many available in the burgeoning ...
Microsoft is trying to persuade users of Office for Mac to use its own SkyDrive for cloud storage rather than Apple's iCloud. On one level, this is just another corporate battle for market share. But these battles are now taking ...
The Oracle Fusion Applications suite is available in two versions, hosted (and thus in the cloud) and on-site. So far, Fusion customers are showing a marked preference for the hosted version. Their experience may offer insights to IT managers at ...
Discussion of cloud computing is likely to move away from whether to adopt it to questions how to management it. That's the view of Michael Vizard, writing for IT Business Edge. Mr Vizard believes that the adoption debate is largely ...
What is software as a service (SaaS) and how does it relate to cloud computing? SaaS describes a way of using and delivering software applications over the Internet. In many ways, this is not so different from computing's early days, ...
More small and midsize businesses worldwide are taking their technology to the next level by implementing new cloud-based business intelligence solutions, according to a recent survey published on the Techaisle Web site. Techaisle, a market research and technology industry analyst ...
The cloud offers businesses a way to avoid fees for the local storage of information and skip the cost of power use in their data centers, instead relying on providers to handle technology upgrades and maintenance. But as midsize IT ...
A new survey focusing on the mid-market takes a look at how midsize businesses are preparing for the future in these troubled economic waters. While the survey found that mid-market executives had some natural fears about the state of the ...
Do you know where your data is? For some businesses, the answer is, "No." Cloud suppliers have to handle the data that customers store on their systems securely, but some don't follow basic practices for a secure cloud operation. The ...
Green cloud computing seems a natural extension of the technology--what could be more efficient than moving big data centers out of thousands upon thousands of businesses and storing them in a central location? Instead of each midsize or enterprise business ...
The role of a chief information officer (CIO) has altered significantly over the last few years, especially for midsize businesses. While enterprise companies have long histories of CIO management, many smaller firms have just recently seen their IT budgets and ...
Printing is almost obsolete with cloud computing. Documents and important paperwork can be scanned and stored on a cloud storage drive, so no paper is needed. However, there are still times when a midsize business needs a hardcopy, and that's ...
More than simply trying to understand the cloud, many midsize businesses are trying to predict where it will go and decide if they should jump on board or wait until the next iteration of the cloud cruise ship. Recently, IT ...
Google's cloud service, Google Drive, is an obvious challenge to competitor cloud services, such as Dropbox and Microsoft SkyDrive. But Google's thrown gauntlet to Microsoft could be much broader in its implications, targeting the core of Microsoft's business computing model, ...
The battle for dominance in the area known as "big data" is on. It is being driven by an increasing need for insights, discoveries, and answer that lie hidden in large electronic warehouses of information. According to InformationWeek, Google recently ...
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), recently passed in the House of Representatives, has drawn much criticism from civil libertarians. They are concerned about its impact on personal privacy. But privacy and confidentiality are also concerns for midsize ...
If you're talking about the cloud market, there are a few players who always get mentioned. The big guys, like Microsoft, IBM, and Citrix, are there, along with virtualization market leaders like VMware, but no discussion is complete without talking ...
Google Drive is now being integrated with Google's lighweight, essentially mobile-oriented Chrome operating system. This could be crucial to the future of both products. But more important, it underlines the symbiotic relationship between mobility and the cloud.Talk about "thin clients" ...
Cloud storage is the hottest trend in cloud computing, because the technology offers large amounts of storage space for low costs. The new Google Drive has been rumored to exist for months, and Google has recently released the new Google ...
With the release of Google Drive, it's no surprise that other cloud storage services are upping their game. In a bid to entice midsize business IT decision makers, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced the CloudFormation template, in which IT ...
Cloud myths abound, thanks to marketing hype by a wide range of providers, including Microsoft, Dell, and Oracle. As a result, many IT admins at midsize business are reluctant to make the upward jump, afraid that everything they've heard about ...
Rackspace, in partnership with NASA, began its efforts to create an open source platform for the cloud back in 2010. Unlike other standards efforts that were already underway, OpenStack provided actual software providers with the ability to create their own ...
Microsoft's SkyDrive and Google's much anticipate Google Drive are offering free cloud storage to entice small and midsize businesses. While anything free can perk up immediate interest, it never comes without a catch. According to InfoWorld, these two public storage ...
While the cloud has managed to embed itself in the consumer consciousness, legal jargon has not been so quick to catch up with the ways providers do business and companies store their data. The result? A kind of "Wild West" ...
Google Drive is here, and it is big. It has been described as the 800-pound gorilla of cloud services. Will smaller competitors such as Dropbox be able to survive going head to head with Google? And what are the implications, ...
When most IT pros think of the cloud, the images called to mind include always-on computing, apps of every type imaginable, and a giant, glowing data center in the sky that is never at risk of crashing. But despite the ...
One major issue that raises midsize firms' worries about cloud computing is how to secure and verify identities and access in a cloud environment. Okta, founded by former executives from Salesforce.com, is one of the firms stepping in to offer ...
Are you using cloud computing yet? If so, that’s great. If not, what is holding you back? Do you know enough about it? Do its capabilities confuse you? Have you not found a good use for it? I would guess ...
Outsourcing is hardly a new idea in the technology industry, and the burgeoning tech market in India has seen the rise of everything from call centers to IT administration and now, cloud computing. Predictions show the emerging cloud market in ...
The first iteration of the UK's G-Cloud launched in February of 2012, but while big names like Google were willing get behind the computing initiative and serve government needs for storage and hosted computing, others like Salesforce and Amazon weren't ...
Are Big Data, mobility, and the cloud converging to reshape the IT environment at a fundamental level? Red Hat's "cloud evangelist" says that they are. True, his job is to say things like that. But in fact, these IT trends ...
The benefits of cloud computing have been presented and discussed in every venue available to the IT and business communities. ...
It looks like Amazon Web Service (AWS) is taking a cue from Amazon.com. The cloud service platform announced that it is offering a new online marketplace. According to ComputerWorld, AWS's new one-stop shop is set to offer software and services ...
HP Cloud computing services are set to enter the hotly competitive cloud services space with HP announcing the launch of its new cloud services on Tuesday, April 10, 2012. The services, aimed at smaller start-ups and larger companies alike, offer ...
GoGrid Big Data Solutions is the latest offering from cloud infrastructure company GoGrid. While GoGrid has previously focused on cloud hosting and servers, this foray into big data analysis is consistent with the growing trend of moving big data queries ...
The lack of secure cloud computing has been one of the biggest issues facing companies that want to move their operations into the cloud, but which are concerned about the deployment of sensitive data into the perceived unsecure environment of ...
Big data is usually thought of as analyzed on systems supported by in-house infrastructure; however, Google has revealed a game-changing service that will bring big data analysis into the cloud. BigQuery was unveiled at the New York GigaOM data conference. ...
The explosion of cloud computing over the past few years has brought a true revolution to the world of IT, especially for businesses that previously lacked the resources to take advantage of the latest trends in computing. However, this explosion ...
Twenty-five years ago, programmer Richard Stallman created the GNU public licence and helped introduce the concept of "free" software. Now, free and open source (FOSS) options are found everywhere in the industry, from Apache to MySQL and, of course, Linux. ...
The IT landscape is currently dominated by a single albeit misunderstood revolutionary force--cloud computing. Experts agree that cloud solutions are the likely future of the market and that the function of IT professionals will be altered at a fundamental level ...
The IT departments of many companies are juggling the security issues that arise with employee requests for remote access to data, increasing data volumes, and cost reductions in an uncertain business environment. Suppliers are offering solutions, but with an emphasis ...
In the competitive world of cloud computing, companies are constantly trying to woo customers with price cuts and new services. Amazon Web Services announced recently that they will now offer Amazon CloudSearch, a search functionality for an enterprise's applications that ...
In 2011, IBM put Watson to the test on the game show Jeopardy, pitting the supercomputer against record-winning champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Watson bested its opponents in all three rounds.Later that year, the tech giant opened Watson up ...
The debut of the HP cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering gave the company a chance to offer its vision of the cloud future: A few giant, interoperable public clouds. The subtext, not deeply buried, is that HP sees itself as providing ...
Easy and continually available access to stored files and information is what makes cloud computing such a valuable tool for any organization. But when it comes to putting information into cloud storage, how much control do you keep? That control ...
Chief Information Officers who are poised to build their next internal network have some serious decisions to make. With cloud computing and virtual machines changing the way we utilize networks and deploy solutions, the next generation of networks will be ...
The results of a new study show that cloud computing, even though it has only been in the mainstream consciousness for a few years, is quickly taking over the budgets of IT department of all kinds of businesses. These new ...
When midsized businesses talk about moving to the cloud or adopting cloud services, they're typically focused on the immediate benefits such a move offers: lowered data storage costs, increased agility, and a ready-made backup solution. But what many companies don't ...
Although cloud adoption has become a common occurrence in the enterprise, the technology is still evolving and new trends are continuing to emerge. Almost everyone agrees the cloud has great potential to drive improvements and savings across the business, but ...
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) has been steadily growing in popularity over the past few years, and new information shows that both midsized and enterprise businesses are taking advantage of the offering, although in slightly different ways. As IaaS providers bring the technology ...
IT professionals increasingly find that when working with cloud based networks, they must find ways to verify authorized users and make sure that the correct user is getting access to the correct information. One method that identity firms have started ...
It's no secret that IT costs and expenses are going through the roof. As cloud computing continues to grow, so will the initial costs of labor, products, and services. Businesses know the high expenditure now will pay off years down ...
Not long ago, cloud adoption was relegated to a few technology-savvy organizations comfortable with being on the cutting edge, but this has changed rapidly. Cloud computing's ability to lower technical adoption complexity and costs and decrease time frames has made ...
Midsize businesses that are considering the transition from Windows to Linux might want to take a look at the results of a recent user survey from Canonical.Canonical, responsible for products such as Ubuntu and Launchpad, polled over 15,000 English speakers ...
Telecoms like Verizon and CenturyLink have joined Time Warner Cable in what's turning out to be a highly competitive cloud computing market. These popular domestic telecommunications services have snapped up cloud service and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) providers like NaviSite, Qwest, and ...
A new survey from online backup services StorageCraft and Symform shows that while many companies look favorably upon the benefits of cloud backup, the upfront costs associated with that type of cloud solution appear to be a sticking point in ...
Google has released version 1.0 of its Go language, intended as a stable, portable general purpose programming language. But Go is not the only language that Google is launching into the world. It is also pushing Dart as an alternative ...
After successfully pressuring the FBI to shut down cloud storage company MegaUpload, the movie industry wants more criminal indictments. Where the music industry used civil suits to put free music file sharing services like Napster out of business, the anti-piracy ...
For businesses of all sizes, deploying the cloud is a serious undertaking as it can change the shape of an IT budget and the IT personnel group needed moving forward. In the end, it means overall innovation in IT and ...
A new survey shows more companies are planning to spend more when it comes to cloud computing. While there are security concerns about cloud implementation, it's an important step for business growth and productivity, especially for any small and midsized ...
Pressure from Google Apps played a major role in Microsoft's decision to cut prices on its cloud-based Office 365 productivity suite. Price reductions have been a prominent theme in cloud computing of late, as vendors court customers, but the Office ...
A recent survey BMC Software and Forrester Research commissioned should give IT professionals cause for concern. The survey details the booming popularity of cloud computing and how it's being used recklessly by businesses--much to the chagrin of IT. In fact, ...
While typical cloud computing use lies in enhancing network efficiency, maximizing storage, and analyzing Big Data, a new band of researchers are now looking at ways to make robotics a real part of the cloud technology market. These cloud robots ...
A new Android-Linux alliance is being established by the technology merge of the Android and its open source Linux roots. In the short term, the consumer market may scarcely notice. But the merge is welcome news to developers, for whom ...
As mobile computing continues to evolve, businesses should expect to see major improvements in cloud services and other enterprise technologies designed for smartphone and tablet use.According to a report from Appcelerator and IDC, the mobile market is maturing and will ...
Virtually all metrics and studies confirm the acceptance of the cloud by midmarket companies as well as larger enterprises. Adoption ...
Midmarket companies have the same needs for collaborative software solutions as do larger firms. The challenge they face is that ...
The AMD Opteron 3200 chip is intended to make some rain for the company from cloud computing and steal some thunder from rival Intel. The chip, in three variations, is optimized for low-end, inexpensive servers. And the new chip is ...
Microsoft recently slashed their Office 365 prices on almost all services. Since Microsoft released Office 365 last summer, the majority of their customers have been small businesses, while the company had hoped to draw in midsize and large businesses as ...
CA Technologies recently announced its first five Mainframe Academy scholarships, which will help the selected recipients enhance their mainframe programming skills. As more and more computer systems move toward a distributed architecture, IT students are woefully unprepared for managing mainframe ...
The cloud is growing up; moving from the crawl of private options to the walk of hybrids and now the full-on run of public solutions, growing cloud technologies have proven their worth. Many midsized businesses see these options as ways ...
Microsoft has cut prices on its Office 365 cloud-based productivity suite. This is good news for midsized firms, which are being targeted for the price reductions. But Microsoft isn't just being nice. It is pushing back against growing competition from ...
The time for a new acronym may have arrived--the PC of "personal computer" may soon be "personal cloud" if current technology trends continue, and predictions are for large-scale replacement as early as 2014. This new PC speaks volumes for IT ...
Cloud computing is no longer the stuff of buzz words and disjointed terminology; Microsoft, IBM, Dell, and most notably Amazon have managed to not only commercialize the cloud but offer its services on a massive scale. Competition, however, is beginning ...
Amazon is enhancing business users' ability to look inside the Amazon cloud and see how their cloud resources are being utilized. The move responds to a leading criticism of the cloud: poor visibility.This move comes on top of a spate ...
In development for over a year, the HP cloud is gearing up for release--and within two months, according to senior officials. The cloud will go head to head with Amazon Web Services (AWS) but isn't intended to reinvent the cloud ...
Cloud computing is hot. How hot? Companies in the space, including Amazon, Dell, IBM, Rackspace, and Salesforce, are all stating strong demand for hosted systems. Amazon and Google announced lower prices to attract new clients. IT analyst groups including Gartner ...
The Coast Guard is launching its advanced command control, communication, and computers (C4) technologies, with plans to continue upgrading IT systems to gain maximum IT efficiency throughout their domain. The current IT advancements are ship-based sensor capabilities and will enhance ...
The cost to take it to the cloud just got a little bit cheaper. Both Google and Amazon recently lowered their prices, and Microsoft Azure has quickly followed suit. Why the sudden burst of discount public cloud hosting? Infoworld seems ...
Microsoft has accused cloud hosting provider OnLive of failing to properly license its technology. Beyond the specific ins and outs of the Microsoft-OnLive dispute, the case highlights the complexities and hidden pitfalls of licensing.Like the closely related issue of patents ...
Google and Microsoft are battling once again, this time between their business productivity tools. The cloud-based Google Apps is striving to be the biggest competitor of Microsoft Office, with the productivity suite comprising Google Docs (document, spreadsheet, and presentation capabilities), ...
I speak with 7 to 10 technology suppliers every week. Each of them believes that it is offering something new ...
In 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) was introduced as part of the U.S. federal economic stimulus package. It focused on providing hospitals and other public health care facilities incentives for IT adoption. ...
Google is making a big push for games utilizing Google Chrome's native client. One motive is catching and keeping the interest of fickle consumers. At a time when mobile apps are getting most of the buzz, Google wants to remind ...
There's a great deal of talk in the technology industry about the cloud--about its cost benefits, agility, and role in improving big data analytics. There is less talk about exactly how small and midsized IT departments are to make the ...
Information technology research giant Gartner predicts that 90% of consumer computing devices will be connected in a seamless manner into what they are calling "personal clouds" in the next three years. Speaking at a conference in Singapore, Gartner managing vice ...
It’s no surprise that I’m writing about clouds and iPads and applications. If you do a search on my site, you will see that I write about all 3 of these topics, just never at the same time. When I ...
Apple's new iPad 3 is out. And the absence of Steve Jobs is not even slowing down the media hype. (Confusion over the tablet's official name merely generates yet more buzz. Apple simply calls it "the new iPad.") Once again ...
Google is cutting prices on its Cloud Storage hosted service. Needless to say this is good news for firms looking for a deal on their cloud computing needs. And it might presage more price cutting to come. The cloud is ...
Businesses looking for cloud services are finding themselves courted by cloud providers. Why all the flowers and candy? Vendors are eager to associate themselves with the next hot start-up. But start-ups are not the only ones feeling the love. Providers ...
AMD has acquired SeaMicro, a server vendor, in a clear challenge to Intel. First of all, SeaMicro currently uses Intel chips. It will now certainly shift to AMD chips as soon as possible. But beyond that, AMD is looking to ...
Cloud computing allows companies to add capabilities and capacity without investing in new equipment, adding employees or licensing new software. Organizations might start by storing non-critical data in the cloud and then adding some communications and productivity applications. Now CERN, ...
Remember the Internet? It was, among other things, an engine for pulling things together, a network of links. But the post-PC era is dominated by apps. And the world of apps is deeply fragmented. Most mobile apps are stand-alone tools, ...
Cloud computing is often heralded as the "next big thing," but what's often skirted is the discussion of cloud computing jobs. In part, this avoidance can be attributed to a concern that increased outsourcing will lead to fewer positions in ...
Microsoft's cloud service Windows Azure was out of service for more than seven hours last week, according to a report by The Register. Problems in the service management system function began to appear just before 9 PM EDT on Monday. ...
Google Drive, long anticipated, may finally be set to arrive. There has been talk of Google entering the cloud provider space since 2006, but the rumor traffic is spiking. This time it may really happen.But the real story is the ...
Microsoft has hired former FTC attorney Randall Long, a vocal critic of Google. During his time at the FTC, Long pressed investigations of Google, particularly regarding its acquisitions of DoubleClick and AdMob. The software giant did not detail what Long's ...
I have multiple personalities. No, I’m not schizophrenic but I do have alter egos. During the day, I live and breathe cloud computing with my job as Technology Evangelist at GoGrid, a cloud infrastructure provider. And then the rest of ...
Cloud computing is changing the way that midsize enterprises do business, says John Engates. In a recent interview on BBC News, Mr. Engates described some of the ways in which small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) have used this technology to ...
With the popularity of cloud computing growing on a daily basis, a few service providers are looking to stand out from the crowd, by targeting specific industries with community cloud options. Microsoft announced in a blog post, that it will ...
The term "cloud computing" comes with a certain nebulous quality (aside from the obvious)--an inability to define exactly what it is or how it works. In part, this is what's kept midsize businesses away from cloud solutions, even as enterprise-level ...
Communications manufacturer Ciena Corporation announced new devices that will be capable of providing terabit-level computer networking speeds. The new WaveLogic 3 chipset will use new software controlled chips that will be capable of providing 400 gigabit per second (Gbps) network ...
At the 2012 RSA Conference, Symantec CEO and president Enrique Salem spoke about the future of business practices. He talks of the "digital natives," a term used to describe anyone born in the 1990s or later. More significantly, digital natives ...
As server virtualization becomes the norm, a new study has come out proving that the practice is worth the price. The move to greener practices being embraced by many IT departments is cutting costs in tough economic times. Now CDW-G ...
Industry executives are warning IT managers to reconsider their approach to cloud security. While the warning is aimed at the enterprises, small and midsized businesses should also take heed, as they are reaping the benefits of cloud computing as well.According ...
Tourism used to be a business that relied heavily on advertising and word of mouth. Hearing stories about your friends' recent trip to Mexico or seeing the beautiful lights of France on the cover of a magazine used to get ...
The cloud is a hot topic in IT. There are a lot of applications and definitions. A less talked-of application of cloud backup, in particular, is using it for system redundancies. You remember those, right? Technology evolves at an exciting ...
The Metro Ethernet Forum introduced Carrier Ethernet 2.0 (C.E. 2.0), a new set of standards that promises to provide services to keep up with the ever-changing technological landscape. Internet quality has many companies hesitant about switching over to cloud technology ...
An integral part of the RSA Conference, held February 27, 2012 was the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) summit. The CSA is a nonprofit organization made up of many leading members of the technology community that looks to identify best practices ...
IBM recently announced a new iPad application designed to help customers understand just what the company and its partners can do for them when it comes to cloud computing. The IBM Cloud for Midsize Businesses application is now available for ...
Are countries ready for computing in the cloud? The answer is not simple, says a recent Reuters report. According to the results of the Global Cloud Computing Scorecard, recently released by the Business Software Alliance, there are wide variations in ...
Cloud computing is getting quite a bit of media attention and suppliers of all sizes are rushing to present their ...
Recent predictions indicate strong growth for the cloud over the next five years, meaning businesses of all sizes will have to create cloud computing jobs and then find IT pros with the right kind of expertise. While many universities and ...
Adobe's Flash player and its technology have taken a beating in recent years. Steve Jobs hated Flash, and so Apple made an ostentatious point of leaving it off the iPhone and iPad. It has been accused of being a major ...
Tech industry developments have a way of sneaking up on you. The latest example may be Connectria. The cloud hosting company is not a household name, even within the tech world. But a leading financial site has pegged it as ...
Microsoft filed a formal complaint in Europe, accusing Motorola Mobility of patent abuses. But the real target is Google, which has acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. In taking on Google, Microsoft signals that the patent wars are only going ...
The cloud is now an essential part of doing business for many companies, from massive international firms to small and midsize businesses. Surveys for 2012 show a continued increase in cloud adoption, despite continuing security risks and confusion over exactly ...
The Internet is now an inescapable aspect of business, linked to both productivity and the lack thereof for everyone from the lowest levels of the company to the corner office. Whether your company's users are downloading software updates, researching for ...
Many popular apps are now selling better through the Amazon Appstore than the Android store. The news underlines the fast--and unpredictable--evolution of the mobile app marketplace.For firms that are marketing mobile apps to consumers, the implications are direct: Don't ignore ...
The race for the best cloud computing service is heating up. Last week Apple revealed details on the newest version of OS X, the Mountain Lion, which boasts a more integrated iCloud feature. Not to be outdone, Microsoft caused a ...
Currently, Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud service is a fairly bare-bones approach to cloud storage. But planned developments could push it to the front of this growing category. Cloud storage is no longer something an enterprise IT division negotiates with Amazon. It ...
The recent cloud explosion has certainly changed the way that business IT is done, but cloud computing may now be changing the healthcare industry as well. Cloud proponents have long claimed that the true power of the technology would be ...
In 2011, the TechAmerica Foundation put together a group of experts in the hopes of establishing guidance for local and state governments to adopt cloud computing. The vision was to help use the cloud to increase collaboration and effectiveness while ...
A year ago, supercomputer Watson--created by IBM--faced two former Jeopardy champions in a contest of man and machine. It was a contest that the machine handily won. Now, the software designer responsible for Watson's development says that intelligent, evolving computers ...
Google has gotten US and EU approval for its acquisition of Motorola Mobility. Now it is waiting on China. In the background lurks a Google-China relationship that has had its tensions. And in the background of the background lurks the ...
The cloud is everywhere--not just enterprise-level IT firms but small and midsize businesses of all types are moving some of their data into the cloud. Now, the health care industry looks to do the same thing with UnitedHealth Group's Optum ...
The launch of Facebook Timeline late last year was accompanied by a great deal of hoopla and no small amount of controversy. But the first month of Timeline has turned out to have some interesting results. Among other things, it ...
Both the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the European Union have given a green light to Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility. For Google, which has been hitting heavy weather of late, approval of the Google-Motorola deal is a welcome ...
Finally a "mature" technology, cloud computing is rapidly becoming a battlefield for large and small companies alike. No longer the province of enterprise-level businesses that need massive storage space, the cloud offers benefits both to consumers in the form of ...
By now you've heard "the cloud" all over the place, and as a senior IT professional, you've probably come to understand its varied definitions. Using a cloud service to replace data centers is perhaps the hottest topic. A lot of ...
Google and Bing both registered gains in search volume last month. The Google-Bing rivalry has been all but forgotten in all the buzz over social search and mobile apps. But traditional search remains alive and well.The one clear search loser ...
One of the biggest criticisms of cloud storage is that it doesn't offer robust security in the most traditional sense. Locking down sensitive content when it is stored off-site can be a huge challenge for both IT professionals and their ...
Massive providers with huge data centers are no longer the only ones who can play in the cloud. Not only are start-ups generating more money than ever for public and private cloud provision but recent price drops in options such ...
Cloud computing has grown from buzzword to a range of real-world applications over the last four years, and many midsized businesses are now using at least one cloud service in their day-to-day IT admin. But while surveys show that clouds ...
By giving more prominent display to its HTML5 mobile app platform, Facebook may give the platform a boost. In the process, it might also give the markup language itself a leg up. The effects will be felt by everyone who ...
For small- and midsize-business (SMB) IT managers, the thought of moving a single service to a public or private cloud is often full of worry--what if data is lost or compromised? What if the provider goes under or refuses to ...
One of the surest signs of cloud computing's advancement is the number of service providers now in the market. Diversification means the technology is accessible enough that start-ups across the US are dipping their toes in virtual water, in turn ...
Cloud computing can be very confusing. It can be abstractly discussed but also detailed to intricate levels. A few years ago, part of the reason why people weren’t adopting cloud computing was because they simply didn’t understand it and what ...
As the pace of cloud technology adoption increases, predictions for how small and midsize businesses (SMBs) will adapt their technology practices are also on the rise. While the quick pace of virtual server evolution and proliferation mean a broader pool ...
Apple and Google are usually seen as fierce rivals in the current tech industry landscape. But a federal judge is calling them into court. Along with several other major firms, they face accusations of agreeing not to "poach" each other's ...
Cloud computing--it's been the buzzword around technology markets of all types for the past several years and is finally starting to deliver on promises made. In many ways a more efficient reworking of the centralized data concept, cloud computing promises ...
A key working group for Internet standards is favoring Google's SPDY technology. If implemented, the new technology could speed up the World Wide Web by up to 55 percent.The implications for IT are sweeping. A faster Web would speed up ...
Cloud computing has been having as many ups and downs as a roller coaster. News that cloud firm Joyent is getting $75 million to go global is definitely an upswing.The cloud is evolving, to the point that the term the ...
In 2012, cloud computing can finally be described as a force in IT rather than an upcoming trend, and opinions on the subject are changing accordingly. In a new survey of small and midsize businesses, the changing face of the ...
The concept of using quantum mechanics to drive computing engines is not a new one, but recent advances in the field have shown that quantum computers may be inherently more secure than modern servers. This security could transform the discussion ...
IBM announced that it will rebrand LotusLive to become SmartCloud for Social Business. In an effort to rejuvenate the Lotus brand and perhaps as a way to entice more small and midsize businesses (SMBs) to embrace social business cloud solutions, ...
Cloud computing may be something that business and IT professionals look to for storage solutions, but it looks like it is being used increasingly as a content delivery system, according to a new report. Market Watch is reporting that the ...
So you have heard about cloud computing but are not really sure what you can do with it. Or maybe, your only exposure to the cloud is what you have seen in ads or heard in the media. Let me ...
Cloud computing has long been the technology of hype, the "new" way of doing business that saw its origins in centralized data centers. While large companies and early adopters have been reaping some of the cloud's benefits for the last ...
Because cloud computing is a force even the federal government can't ignore, last month the Obama administration rolled out the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), meant to replace the older Federal Information Security Management Act (FIMSA). New FedRAMP ...
Cloud computing is making broad strides across the technology industry as more small and midsize businesses (SMBs) find benefit in having their data stored off-site and in getting infrastructure, software, and even platforms delivered on demand. While the concept of ...
Toshiba is promoting the thin form factor and light weight of its new Excite X10 tablet device. But its price adds up to a thick wad, ranging from $530 to $600. This hefty price tag raises a question of how ...
As demand for cloud computing infrastructure increases, giving standbys like IBM, Dell, and Microsoft a new market to tap, the need for IT professionals with cloud computing skills and experience is also on the rise. Often, virtualized and cloud systems ...
A judge's ruling on the Android Java patent battle between Google and Oracle has given both battling companies some wins and some losses. A potentially embarrassing email by a Google engineer has been allowed in as evidence. On the other ...
Microsoft, along with AT&T and OEM partners Nokia and Samsung, are planning to spend $200 million over the next few months to promote Windows Phone technology. Microsoft's mobile offering will be given a full-court press, including financial incentives for salespeople ...
The era of compact mobile devices and apps was supposed to make technology simpler, at least for the user. But one leading tech commentator, Farhad Manjoo, notes that the trend last year went in just the other direction. Consumer tech ...
Electronics giant Sony recently announced that it was lowering the price on its Tablet S devices by $100. The price reduction follows similar price decreases by other Android tablet manufacturers, and could have a serious effect on small and midsize ...
A few weeks ago, I laid out my predictions for 2012, casting seeds into the wind to see where clouds and businesses may crop up. But there are still skeptics out there, people who believe that cloud computing is just ...
Intel recently gave MIT's Technology Review a chance to try out a few demo devices that run on the company's new Medfield chips. These chips are just the opening salvo as Intel tries to expand its business into the increasingly ...
Midsize companies have faced very difficult times over the past few years. Although there certainly was a need to offer ...
Making predictions for Cloud Computing is like casting seeds into the wind to see what grows and what gets eaten by the birds. Sometimes something magical will sprout, and other times it simply gets consumed by something else. So, as ...