Over-allocation kills cloud savings
When it comes to the cloud and Amazon Web Services, IT administrators often buy far more than they need and fail to adjust to realities once they have a good understanding of their deployment's needs. These are the findings of Cloudyn, a cloud cost management provider.
Cloudyn estimates that some cloud adopters are wasting on average 40 percent of their annual expense on AWS resources they don't use. The reasons why vary: resources are often over-allocated, instances are left running after they are no longer needed, or even failing to take advantage of Amazon's own cost-cutting offerings.
Box cozies up to large scale users, debuts new admin tools
Enterprise cloud-based file sharing service Box strengthened its offering on Thursday, announcing new features that will simplify management for IT administrators. The new functionality allows for greater control over security, and the ability to enable enterprise-wide search.
The company also debuted new pricing structures that enable larger companies to adopt its services with more predictable pricing. This is a move away from the traditional per-seat model of the past, and makes cloud storage more cost-effective for large enterprises.
HP reports better-than-expected quarter, but cuts 27,000 jobs amid restructuring
HP released better than expected results after the close of the markets Wednesday, and the company overall shows signs of a long-awaited turnaround. But the big story tonight surrounds the 27,000 workers who will lose their jobs as part of a "multi-year" restructuring plan announced by CEO Meg Whitman.
The cuts amount to about eight percent of the workforce and are expected to save HP between $3 and $3.5 billion annually by 2015. It will be phased in gradually though 2014, and involves an early retirement package to be offered by the company. In a conference call with analysts, Whitman described the quarter's results as positive, but added "we have a lot of work to do".
Oracle gains stake in social CRM with $300 million Vitrue buy
A day after competitor SAP acquired Ariba to bolster its cloud portfolio, Oracle announced a significant buy of its own, acquiring cloud-based social, marketing company Vitrue on Wednesday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, although TechCrunch reports it was worth some $300 million.
Oracle's purchase of Vitrue gives the Redwood Shores, Calif. company a foothold in the social CRM segment, an initiative Gartner says companies will spend some $2.1 billion on this year alone. With the rise of social networks, companies need methods to quantify the results of their social marketing. Virtue's platform allows customers to "centrally create, publish, moderate, manage, measure and report on their social marketing campaigns and activities", Oracle says.
SAP acquires Ariba for $4.3 billion in bid to challenge Oracle in the cloud
SAP made a major play for the cloud Tuesday as its American arm announced acquisition of Ariba, a German cloud computing applications maker. The transaction is worth some $4.3 billion, and is expected to close this summer.
Ariba is the world's second largest-cloud vendor by revenue, SAP says. With the addition of the German company, SAP now looks to challenge rival Oracle, which also has made a play for the cloud segment as of late.
Open source software comes of age
More than half of all software acquired by IT in the next five years will be open source, according to a new study, and open source software (OSS) leads in the areas of cloud, big data, mobile apps and enterprise mobility.
"Taken together with applications like mobile and enabled by cloud, we are entering an exciting new era of 'Open Innovation on Demand,' where not only can OSS innovate faster, it can be deployed immediately and consumed as a service from the cloud", says Michael Skok, general partner at North Bridge Venture Partners, one of the sponsors of the survey.
GitHub for Windows released, developers rejoice
Code sharing site GitHub announced a client for Windows on Monday, aimed at making it easier to search for code on the platform. The move is an obvious nod to Microsoft's dominance in computing, and done more out of necessity than anything.
GitHub is built on top of the command line Git application, and has quickly begun to change the way software is developed. It makes the process of managing an open-source project a whole lot easier, and allows work on code by many developers versus a few "gatekeepers" who control what gets into daily builds.
Can Google and Europe settle their differences?
Today, the European Union's Competition Commission set the stage for an antitrust showdown with Google by offering settlement ahead of four pending violations. Proposal would come from the search giant, which initial response suggests resolution won't be easy.
The case revolves around a nearly two-year old effort to determine if Google abuses its dominant position in search. Some of these concerns involve the Mountain View, Calif. company's near-stranglehold of the web advertising market, of which the European Commission received several complaints.
IT embraces bring your own device in corporate deployment, despite risks
While the bring-your-own-device phenomenon in IT presents a fair amount of risk to enterprise security, most companies are warming up to the idea anyway. A Cisco-sponsored survey of 600 IT and business leaders found that 95 percent of their companies allow employee-owned devices on the corporate network.
Of all companies surveyed, 36 percent support all BYOD devices, while 48 percent support a select list of devices. An additional 11 percent tolerate employee-owned devices on enterprise networks, but will offer no IT support.
Comcast ditches data caps, but charges heavy users overage fees
Comcast said Thursday it plans to make changes to its pricing structure to start billing for the amount of data customers use, versus the capped method in place today. The cable company will test two different pricing structures in some markets, while hard enforcement of the 250GB cap put into place in 2008 would end.
Both piloted pricing structures give users 300GB of data at a flat rate. Where they differ is in how this allotment is treated: one solution places this cap across all of Comcast's tiers, while the other carries the 300GB allotment for the Internet Essentials, Economy, and Performance tier and higher allotments for faster tiers above that.
Earthlink debuts hosted desktop services, adds cloud expert to executive team
Earthlink this week strengthened its cloud services offerings, debuting a hosted desktop solution that allows customers access regardless of device and via both the Internet and secure MPLS connections. Over 250 applications are supported, and customers may also install their own custom applications.
Since the middle of last year, EarthLink has been transforming its business from an ISP to cloud services provider. In July, the company promoted Brian Fink to executive vice president of managed and cloud services. Fink brought with him two decades of experience in managed services. Since then, the company has continued to make some high profile cloud hires, including the appointment Thursday of former Concentric Cloud president Michael Toplisek to vice president of IT services.
Enterprise IT turns to cloud storage to fight data loss
If you're worried about data loss, turn to the cloud. That's what a new survey commissioned by CA suggests. Fifty-five percent of all US businesses expect usage of the cloud to increase to meet continuity objectives. That's an important statistic considering every one of the 300 businesses participating in the study experienced some type of data loss event in the past year.
Among the most common reasons for data loss are IT system failures (76 percent); human error (41 percent); and external threats and attacks (35 percent). An earlier CA study suggests that data loss events cost companies an average $160,000 every year.
Get ready for Commerce-as-a-Service: NetSuite takes selling to the cloud
You've heard of Platform-as-a-Service, and Infrastructure-as-a-Service; maybe even Gaming-as-a-Service, too, from BetaNews' reporting on Tuesday. Get ready for the latest X-as-a-Service, thanks to a new Commerce-as-a-Service (CaaS) initiative from NetSuite.
The company debuted the initiative on Wednesday, saying CaaS will help partners manage both business-to-business and business-to-consumer transactions regardless of device.
Nvidia's GPUs in the cloud will shake up virtualization, gaming industries
GPUs first revolutionized visual computing, and now may revolutionize cloud computing as well. Nvidia introduced its GPUs for the cloud Tuesday at the annual GPU Technology Conference, an innovation it calls the third important milestone for the industry since the introduction of the GPU in 1993.
Nvidia's cloud GPUs are based on the company's Kepler architecture and has been in development for the past five years. The virtualization capabilities of Kepler make it ideal for use in large datacenters, and allows it to be shared by multiple users at the same time. Lag is reduced by built-in streaming capabilities, and Nvidia claims power efficiency and processing density enhancements will keep costs down.
As Red Hat Enterprise Linux turns 10, focus shifts to the cloud
Red Hat celebrated the 10th anniversary of its flagship Enterprise Linux product, but reaffirmed the decision to shift focus to cloud computing, pledging that open-source roots would be key to success in the new business venture.
The company plans to release Enterprise Linux 7 in in late 2013, but offered little during a Tuesday press conference on what to expect. What may play a large part in the new release is a focus on the cloud. For all intents and purposes, Red Hat believes Linux is in the past and the cloud is the future.