S-Cloud

Platform as a service moves into the data center

Early discussion of cloud computing focused on the public option. In fact, the economic concept of computing delivered as a sort of utility by mega service providers such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft was at the core of the original cloud-computing concept.

As it turns out though, these public clouds are hardly the only form that cloud computing has taken. Computing is more complicated than a true utility like electricity. For this and other reasons, private and hybrid clouds -- which use computers and other IT resources controlled by a single organization -- have evolved to become an important part … Read more

Why Box.com is king of enterprise cloud storage

LOS ALTOS, Calif.--It may be known to some as the Dropbox-for-the-enterprise, but Box.com could be forgiven for insisting on its own identity.

With more than 120,000 customers, including 82 percent of the Fortune 500, the company has made a name for itself as one of the leaders in the enterprise cloud storage and data management space. And though Box.com has Microsoft, and more recently, Google breathing down its neck, CEO Aaron Levie doesn't appear the least bit nervous.

That may be because the company has spent seven years building its business and solidifying a technology … Read more

Samsung readying iCloud competitor for May 3?

Samsung already has its sights set on Apple for May 3 when it will unveil the Galaxy S III smartphone, but it might also be ready to target iCloud, according to a new report.

Korean news outlet Maeil Business is reporting today (Translate), citing a leaked Samsung "consolidation plan," that Samsung will unveil an iCloud competitor, called S-Cloud, at its May 3 event in London. As with iCloud, S-Cloud will allow users to send content up to the cloud and sync that across multiple devices. However, the news outlet says that S-Cloud won't come with the content-uploading … Read more

Serial acquisitions vs. serial innovation

Gaining market share by buying up smaller companies in key tech sectors is an established practice in the software industry and has been for years. But is it the future?

In the past three years Oracle, CA, and Hewlett-Packard have been on acquisition sprees, buying their way into markets that they felt rounded out their product portfolios.

CA spent almost $1 billion rounding out its cloud computing capabilities in a series of buying sprees in 2009 and 2010. HP dropped a bomb on the software world with its hotly debated $12 billion purchase of Autonomy this August. And Oracle has … Read more

Opera Solutions nabs $84M for 'big data' analytics

This week Opera Solutions, a provider of "big data" analytics tools, announced that the company has taken in an $84 million investment to expand its rapidly growing business. The investment round, the company's first, was led by Silver Lake Sumeru, with participation from Accel-KKR, Invus Financial Advisors, JGE Capital Management, and Tola Capital.

Founded in 2004, Opera has grown from 10 people to more than 600 staffers globally with development locations in New York, Shanghai, and New Delhi. The staff includes 180 scientists working to solve data-oriented challenges.

I spoke with CEO and founder Arnab Gupta today … Read more

BMC's vision for the cloud

For a company with an $8 billion market cap, we really don't hear too much about BMC. And yet, when I met CTO Kia Behnia this week, I couldn't help but be very impressed by the company's focus on the cloud and its vision for where much of enterprise IT is likely to be heading.

According to Behnia, BMC currently has more than 85 customers for its cloud services products, primarily large companies looking into both public and private clouds as ways to enhance their environments.

From Behnia's perspective, the primary opportunity for the private cloud … Read more

A field guide to the cloud

A gargantuan new GigaOm Pro report titled "A field guide to the cloud: current trends and future opportunities" (subscription only) was released today as part of the Structure 2011 conference in San Francisco.

The report examines the cloud-computing landscape with a focus on five specific areas: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS), cloud storage, and private/internal clouds. And despite the relative newness of the cloud market, there is quite a bit going on.

According to the report, IaaS is driving the cloud-computing discussion but has yet to reach … Read more

Online word processors: Awesome and primitive

I love that you can now write full, rich, graphical applications for the Web--even for core tools like word processors. As Stephen Shankland recently noted, Google Docs has evolved into something surprisingly useful, even for a professional writer. I second that opinion, and add that competitors like Zoho Writer are similarly powerful, usable, and useful--as are other "Office 2.0" apps for spreadsheets, presentations, project management, and other tasks. Cloud apps have come a long way, baby!

Online editors let you move your work easily to just about any connected computer, and they enormously facilitate live, real-time collaboration. … Read more

If virtual desktops great, why not used more?

Virtualization analyst Brian Madden asks an excellent question:

If VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) is so great, then why aren't you using it?

It's a really good question, isn't it? Brian observes that however encouraged we are by the progress VDI has made, and however enthused we may be about extending the wins of server virtualization over into the desktop realm, we, personally, are not using desktop virtualization. You don't see analysts and developers doing so. And even the folks you meet from Citrix, Microsoft, Quest, VMware, and Wyse--the people selling VDI, for goodness' sake!--use traditional &… Read more

Marketing becoming more immediate, social

This year will be a transitional year for marketing as we move toward an era that is "more immediate, more personal, more social, and more engaging," according to recently released survey data from marketing software developer Unica.

Really what this means is that marketers have to be much more vigilant about managing their various presences, online and off, in order to stay on top of their brand.

While there are more tools and channels for marketers than ever before, marketing budgets haven't risen dramatically. This means that marketers will need to use technology to leverage fast, cheap marketing channels.

However, the survey data shows that marketers believe that IT support of their efforts is the No. 1 bottleneck and hindrance to success. Personally, I think it's a weak argument to suggest that IT can hold your marketing back considering all of the SaaS and cloud-based marketing services available, but we'll take this data (as we do all other statistics) with a grain of salt. … Read more