Articles about Cloud

Microsoft's big release of the day may be Windows 8.1, but it doesn't end there. The desktop operating system may have stolen the headlines today, but Microsoft also recognizes the importance of mobile devices. The company is not only concerned with its own devices, realizing that Apple and Android still dominate the mobile arena. But this does not mean that mobile users do not need access to Windows PCs -- hence the release of Microsoft Remote Desktop for iOS and Android.

The prospect of running Windows on an Android or iOS device may be a little way off yet, but it can be achieved via remote access -- which has the handy side effects of making it possible to access files, apps and anything else that might be needed whilst away from your computer. There is no shortage of remote desktop apps in the App Store, but Microsoft's offering aims to keep things simple. As you would expect, this is an app -- free of course -- that can be used to control a Windows PC from an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Android device.

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Business automation specialist Automation Anywhere has launched a new application aimed at helping businesses identify tasks and prioritize them based on the crowd-sourced wisdom of their user community.

Called Cumulus (could this possibly be using the cloud?) the application is launching via the Yammer enterprise social network. It will be available as a featured application via Yammer's app directory. Using Cumulus, anyone in an organization will be able to suggest a task to be automated, vote on the tasks that seem most valuable, contribute suggestions to existing initiatives, and track any active automation projects.

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We've looked at Huddle's drive to create a connected desktop environment allowing people to collaborate via the cloud before, but now the company is aiming to take things a step beyond. Announcing a collaboration with TIBCO Software's enterprise social network tibbr it aims to further streamline the sharing process.

This will allow users to socialize, share and manage content in the cloud in a seamless way. From within the tibbr environment, users will be able to quickly and easily attach Huddle files to their updates for information and feedback. The files remain stored within Huddle's secure cloud and retain all of their security, permissions, and versions. The end result is a unified work environment bringing together people and information in real time.

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My friend Nikola Bozinovic (say that three times fast) is a very sharp software developer originally from Serbia who has, over the years, worked for most of the usual suspect American software companies. He is also the guy who restored from a grotty old VHS tape my film Steve Jobs — The Lost Interview. And as of this week he’s the CEO of Mainframe2, an exciting startup strutting its stuff at the DEMO conference in Santa Clara.

Mainframe2 claims it can put almost any Windows application into the cloud, making apps usable from any device that can run a web browser supporting html5. We’re talking Photoshop and AutoCAD on your iPad. This is a big deal.

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Online storage services are a great way to make your most important files available everywhere, but they can be expensive. Those monthly fees soon mount up, particularly if you need a high capacity account.

If you’re looking for low prices, though, hubiC will appeal right away. You get 25GB for free; 100GB is around $18 a year, 500GB is about $82, and 1TB is an annual $136 (all prices plus tax). You can even expand this to 100TB, if you really must. Not bad at all.

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Steve Ballmer's departure from Microsoft will be a series of epitaphs written over the coming months. Many arm-chair pundits and analysts will scrutinize his 13-year tenure as chief executive, and you can expect him to be the scapegoat for all things wrong with Microsoft. Most assuredly, Ballmer could have done many things better, but he also contended with forces out of his control: government oversight for anti-competitive practices conducted under predecessor Bill Gates' leadership; maturing PC software market; and rise of the Internet as the new computing hub, among others.

For all Microsoft's CEO might have done wrong, he was right about something dismissed by many -- and I among them: Google. Ballmer started treating the search and information company as a competitive threat about a decade ago. Google as Microsoft competitor seemed simply nuts in 2003. How could search threaten Windows, particularly when anyone could type a new web address to change providers? Ballmer was obsessed, chasing every Google maneuver, often to a fault. Execution could have been better, but his perception was right.

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Cloud vendors must establish one definition for cloud to protect buyers falling foul of multiple interpretations of the technology, so says a panel of technology experts brought together by hosting company UK Fast.

With more and more providers joining the cloud market and confusion still reigning over what the term actually means, baffled buyers are at risk of paying over the odds for technology that isn't technically cloud, or worse entrusting their business data to unsuitable cloud solutions.

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The technology community is abuzz with excitement over the next-generation of Chromebooks. Yesterday, my colleague Joe Wilcox reviewed the sexy $279 Chromebook 11 by Hewlett-Packard. Sadly, while HP's Chromebook looks great, it is very much under-powered. After all, the specs are the same as last year's Samsung model -- ARM processor and a paltry 2GB of RAM.

Today, Acer announces the C720 which undercuts the HP variant in price and trumps it in specifications.

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Presentations are loved and loathed in just about equal measure. A great presentation helps to drive a message home; a bad one makes a meeting drag on forever. PowerPoint may be the king of presentations, but the online office tools that are available in Google Drive also have a good following. Now Google has recognized the fact that monitors are almost universally widescreen these days, adding the ability to create widescreen format slides in presentations.

The change in aspect ratio may seem like a minor feature, but it is immensely useful. Be gone foul borders! Presentations can now make use of every pixel of your display, or give a full cinema experience when projected to a larger audience. Widescreen slides have not just been introduced, they have been made the default setting -- and there are 16:9 and 16:10 formats to choose from.

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As a growing number of businesses migrate to the cloud to manage their most important information, and an increasing number of cyber vulnerabilities are identified on a daily basis, the integrity of cloud security has become an important and ubiquitous concern.

However, smart companies are putting panic mode on hold in favor of educating themselves on how best to protect their vital data. No solution by itself can make your business hacker-proof, but there are several precautionary measures that help to minimize risk. One important step is backing up your cloud data.

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In response to an increasingly competitive digital marketplace, companies all over the world are moving their operations from local servers to the cloud. The ubiquitous access offered by cloud computing allows employees to access their files when and where they need, and lets businesses focus on what they do best, instead of devoting precious resources to IT maintenance.

But what about your business? Is making the transition to cloud computing right for you?

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Microsoft has announced a number of new products to help companies embrace cloud computing. Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 will be released on October 18. These will use Hyper-V for high-scale virtualization, offer high-performance storage at dramatically lower costs, have built-in, software-defined networking and hybrid business continuity. The new Windows Azure Pack runs on top of Windows Server and System Center, enabling enterprises and service providers to deliver self-service infrastructure and platforms from their data centers.

Visual Studio 2013 and .NET 4.5.1 will launch at the same time allowing enterprises to take advantage of the new platforms. Recognizing that customers may want to take a hybrid approach to introducing cloud services, from November 1, Microsoft will offer Enterprise Agreement customers access to discounted Windows Azure prices, regardless of upfront commitment, without overuse penalties and with the flexibility of annual payments.

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VMware's recent release of a new version of its flagship server virtualization product vSphere 5.5 means that many businesses will be planning to upgrade to the new software. However, as with all major upgrades there's a degree of risk involved, especially if the software is part of your enterprise's core infrastructure.

Operations management specialist CloudPhysics rides to the rescue of hard-pressed system admins with a number of tools to streamline the upgrade. The software as a service offering performs a number of checks to help ensure that the vSphere upgrade goes smoothly.

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In a blog post that looks forwards as well as backwards, Skype lays out details of planned improvements for the desktop and mobile versions of the app. Mark Gillett applauds the technological improvements that have been made over the past year and also gives a glimpse of the changes we can expect to see in the year to come. The post acknowledges that a large proportion of Skype usage is on mobile devices, and a number of mobile-friendly changes are revealed.

One particularly noteworthy feature specific to mobile users is the promise that chat synchronization across devices will be improved. This is something that anyone who used Skype on multiple devices will have noticed can be a problem. Send a large number of text based messages from the desktop version of Skype and when you launch Skype on another computer or a phone, you'll currently find that there can be quite a delay as message history is downloaded. While no details are provided, Gillet says:

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It is no secret that with the introduction of Windows 8.1, SkyDrive, the Microsoft cloud-based storage solution, will get much deeper integration. But now the company is detailing a bit more than what had already been gleaned from the RTM, announcing a new Smart Files feature, incorporating Bing with it.

Smart Files has been merged into SkyDrive in version 8.1 of Windows, but the company has revealed more details about how it will work and what customers can expect.

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