Articles about Cloud

Announcing a raft of additions to its Flex System range, IBM aims to help companies consolidate their IT infrastructures and reduce operating costs. The new systems combine the latest server technology with updated virtualization, network and management tools. They will allow the fast deployment of increasingly large clouds without needing to boost the size of the data center.

IBM quotes Morgan Stanley's Cloud Perspective survey which has found that by 2014 businesses will have migrated at least 62 percent of their database workloads to the cloud.

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I've long been a believer that a judgement gap, influenced largely by negative media coverage, is what continues to hold back cloud adoption among small organizations. And judging from the results of a recent study completed by comScore, my intuition has been fairly on track. The biggest issue surrounding cloud uptake, at least for small businesses worldwide, seems to be none other than an issue of perception.

How so? The study, which surveyed companies with between 25 to 499 computers in the USA, Germany, France, and the UK, found that 42 percent of small businesses which had yet to adopt cloud technologies were concerned about reliability/uptime. Likewise, a full 60 percent had cited issues with data security as reasoning for staying cloud-free.

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Cloud-based analytics supplier Tidemark has announced its latest set of results which show 250 percent year-on-year growth. This is driven by businesses moving away from legacy suppliers as they seek to unlock the power of their data.

Christian Gheorghe, Founder and CEO of Tidemark says, "Legacy vendors, such as Oracle Hyperion, SAP and IBM Cognos are suffocating customers with archaic technology that prohibits getting the right people involved in actively managing the performance of the company. The velocity of business and increasing importance of data outside a company's walls have created new challenges that can't be solved by focusing on a few power users who act as the gatekeepers to information".

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Microsoft's CEO is serious about reinventing the tech giant as a "devices and services" company -- the recent reorganization is for real. Today's launch of Office for Android can mean nothing else; okay, he wants to preserve revenues for the most profitable division, but the two objectives are intertwined.

Office for Android is a gutsy, risky move. Bets are on the table, and Ballmer puts his biggest stakes on one number. Google chief exec Larry Page sits opposite. Who wins the gamble? Is it winner takes all? Or will both take home booty? The answers are likely a fiscal year of earnings -- perhaps half-a-gin more -- away.

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Microsoft introduced its SkyDrive cloud storage service to the world back in 2007, almost six years ago to the day, in fact. The service may have started slow, but with Windows 8 and Office 2013 the momentum has increased, with better integration. Now the software maker rolls out even more options to the storage site.

The company wishes to support the new HD and Retina displays contained within today's devices, and has added such support directly into its latest iteration of the cloud service. Microsoft's Omar Shahine announces that SkyDrive supports these high DPI displays by "measuring the DPI scale of your device. When your screen supports it, we show higher resolution photos and thumbnails. So you see more of your real photo instead of a thumbnail that gets up-scaled (note: not all browsers support high DPI yet)". This illustrates the service's ability to process such photos as those captured in RAW format.

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Thailand has ruled that use of the online currency Bitcoin is illegal. Bitcoin Co Ltd was going through the process of registering with the necessary government agencies in order to operate legally. Having initially ruled that Bitcoin is not a currency, Bank of Thailand now says that due to a lack of existing applicable laws, numerous Bitcoin activities are now illegal.

A statement on the Thai Bitcoin website explains that it now illegal to buy and sell Bitcoins within the country. In addition to this, the buying and selling of goods and services for Bitcoins is outlawed, as is sending and receiving Bitcoins from anyone outside of Thailand.

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UK-based company Managed Connections has launched its new platform as a service (PaaS) offering to provide an easy way for private and public sector organisations to set up their own wireless hotspots.

Derek Williamson, Managed Connections' Commercial Director says, "Our research shows that offering Wi-Fi hotspots will increase customer loyalty, footfall and sales which is a huge benefit to people using our services. The official Managed Connections launch comes after almost four years of research and development and on the back of this we have some really exciting additions planned for the upcoming months. We have made getting 100 percent legally compliant and highly controlled Wi-Fi and wireless broadband into a variety of venues really simple, and we can show clients how to use our platform and services as tools to bring in more customers and how to make money from them. We’re really excited by this aspect of our offering and with our systems, there is now a choice of fully managed Wi-Fi hotspot and ISP packages to suit any sized commercial venue".

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Nothing has changed the way I use computers in the last few years more than Dropbox. The ability to get at my files from anywhere has made a huge difference. But it’s the cloud -- not Dropbox specifically -- that has made the difference. Any cloud storage service that also supported all the platforms I need would do as well… wouldn’t it?

There are a few biggies in the market, but Dropbox is the biggest, best-known name. My opinion is that it got this good reputation for a simple reason: It has the best software. I’ve tried a bunch of these services in the past: Box, Google Drive and Microsoft SkyDrive. There are others, like SugarSync, but I’ve never paid much attention to them.

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Why type it when you can write it? Google Translate users can now scribble symbols using a new handwriting input tool. While this is unlikely to be a faster option for translating a lot of languages, it does prove useful for inputting certain foreign characters. Want to find out what that Russian or Chinese phrase means? Don’t bother trying to work out how to input these characters via your keyboard, just draw them.

This is an option that has been available to users of the Google Translate Android app for a little while, but it's now also available to desktop users. Things are a great deal easier if you have access to a graphics tablet, but the onscreen handwriting input panel can also be used in conjunction with a mouse.

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Google has updated its Cloud Print service, adding full support for Windows (XP, Vista and 7, anyway) and making it easier to share printers.

Cloud Print was first made available in 2011, and essentially allows you to access your printers from phones, tablets, PCs and more, wherever you happen to be. The service has previously been accessible via Chrome, but this new release makes it available to any Windows desktop application.

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Typing is just so passé; swiping is very much where it's at these days. SwiftKey's latest Android beta adds interesting new cloud features that can be tested for free during the beta phase. What’s new? Backup and sync options mean that dictionaries can be synchronized between multiple devices, and upgrading your phone need not result in having to start from scratch.

But perhaps the most interesting feature is the introduction of trending phrases. Whether you're writing in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese, SwiftKey analyzes trending topics on the likes of Twitter to help bolster its dictionary and provide better suggestions.

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Forecasting enterprise cloud costs can be hard to do well but is essential to businesses who want to implement cloud solutions effectively. RightScale announces today that its PlanForCloud product has helped companies forecast $1 billion in cloud spending since its launch last year.

By analyzing data from more than 9,500 cloud deployments, PlanForCloud has revealed a number of interesting trends. For example 70 percent of cloud spending goes on servers, 18 percent on storage and only 6 percent on data transfer, with a further 6 percent accounted for by other costs such as transaction charges and support.

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The release of Windows 8.1, complete with the more tightly interwoven SkyDrive, brings Microsoft's cloud storage service to the fore. In a new blog post, Mona Akmal from the SkyDrive team explains how the service is able to make files available on all of your devices without eating up too much bandwidth. How is this done? It's largely down to "placeholder" files.

The obvious solution to making all SkyDrive files available on all of your devices would be to simply sync everything. But when it comes to tablets and phones, it is entirely possible that the amount of available local storage is far lower than the amount of cloud storage space that has been used. Placeholders are essentially "ghost" files that take up a fraction of the space of the original.

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Tableau Software has launched a SaaS version of its Tableau Server business analytics product. The software allows users to explore and share corporate data in a reliable and secure way without the need for specialist support.

"Tableau Online will allow people to get their analytics up and running in minutes and add users in a few clicks," says Chris Stolte, Chief Development Officer and co-founder of Tableau Software. "It's completely scalable and secure and requires no infrastructure. It's the fastest way to get everyone in your company using powerful analytics to make better decisions today".

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As if moving to shiny new headquarters in Austin, Texas, wasn’t enough to keep the firm busy, Spanning Cloud Apps has just added a raft of features to Spanning Backup for Google Apps, its enterprise-class data protection solution.

The Spanning Backup Summer ’13 Release adds functions designed to help large organizations protect, manage and repair their Google Apps data, handle large user bases, and comply with complex regulatory and policy requirements.

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