Articles about Cloud

In the United States, unemployment and the scarcity of new jobs is continually a hot-button issue, especially now in the Presidential primary season. But job creation is a topic of special importance all over the world and residents of countries like Nigeria, South Africa, Canada, Ireland, and Singapore are all doing far more searches on "job creation" than U.S. residents.

So is a global shift to the cloud a good thing for job creation? Market intelligence company IDC on Monday released the results of a four-year, Microsoft-commisssioned study (.pdf here,) that says it is. The study predicts the number of jobs that will be created by a widespread shift to cloud computing, and where those jobs will be created.

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Panda Antivirus has announced a maintenance release for Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.5.2, promising better performance, a new search engine for its toolbar add-on and a wide number of bug fixes.

Panda Cloud Antivirus is designed to minimize its impact on system resources by tapping into cloud-based processing power to do much of the security tool’s leg work in analyzing, blocking and attempting to remove malware infections. This makes it especially suitable for deployment on low-spec and older PCs.

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AVAST Software has released the final builds of its avast! 7 Free, Pro Antivirus and Internet Security packages, each of which include some interesting and welcome new features.

The first you’re likely to notice is the ability to install the programs in Compatibility Mode, which aims to ensure that you can run them alongside other security tools. We’ve yet to test this to see how well it works, but any attempt to address these conflicts is a step in the right direction.

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There is some truth to Microsoft's "Googlighting" video -- that somehow every Google product feels like a work unfinished. Good Example: Google Docs for Android, which today got some features that should have been there in the first place. Collaboration is one of Google Docs headline features. But that feature lacked for something on Android phones or tablets. Today's update essentially brings more parity between the desktop and mobile clients.

"We want to give everyone the chance to be productive no matter where they are, so today we’re releasing a new update to the Google Docs app for Android", Vadim Gerasimov, Google software engineer explains. "We've brought the collaborative experience from Google Docs on the desktop to your Android device. You'll see updates in real time as others type on their computers, tablets and phones, and you can just tap the document to join in". Well it's about time.

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Back in November, we took a quick look at the Tout "e-mail as a service" platform for small businesses and individuals.

The startup provides a web-based email analytics platform that lets users track the status of their messages from any email provider in real time, to see whether they were viewed and clicked through, so they can be effectively tailored for optimum engagement.

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Over the past year, we've witnessed a convergence of social, mobile and cloud computing prompting organizations around the globe to evaluate how they embrace the growing social business market. "Social" has become essential for organizations that want to remain competitive.

Reflecting on the clients I've met across 66 countries, five things surprised me about companies embarking on the social business journey.

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Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC acquired cloud services provider Dashwire in August for approximately $18.5 million with the outward intention of integrating the company's cloud services into its still-in-beta HTCSense.com mobile backup, storage, and content management service.

For over four years, Dashwire has run a service that allowed mobile users of various operating systems to back up their photos, videos, contacts, settings, and messages to the Dashwire cloud.

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On February 16, Apple unexpectedly released the OS X 10.8 developer preview and announced the software's availability some time in "late summer". Apple highlights 10 new features in Mountain Lion, the majority of which inherit capabilities from iOS 5 on iPad: AirPlay Mirroring, Game Center, Gatekeeper, iCloud, Messages, Notes, Notification Center, Reminders, Share Sheets and Twitter.

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Acomba UG has released BoxCryptor 1.2, its free and paid-for encryption tool for those using certain cloud-based backup services. BoxCryptor is designed for those who wish to encrypt their data locally prior to uploading it to services like Dropbox where the encryption is handled remotely, thereby adding an extra layer of privacy and security to the user’s files.

Version 1.2 adds support for unlimited encrypted folders to those using the paid-for, unlimited version ($39.99 personal, $99.99 business), plus adds a new Advanced mode for more experienced users alongside a new wizard for creating and opening encrypted folders for beginners.

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Amazon on Tuesday reduced the price of its Simple Storage Service (S3) cloud-based storage platform by between 12 and 13.5 percent for U.S. customers. With the reduction, the retailer-turned-cloud-services-provider is attempting to draw the attention of businesses utilizing on-premises storage solutions with a more affordable and scalable cloud platform.

As a bonus, current customers also get a nice reduction in their monthly bill. It applies to both private enterprise and users of AWS GovCloud.

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Salesforce, the gold standard of cloud-based CRM, launched on Tuesday a new customer support application called Desk.com, which gives small and medium-sized businesses a "social help desk" designed so ultraconnected, smartphone-toting employees can appropriately connect with the ultraconnected, smartphone-toting customer.

Desk.com grew out of Salesforce's 50 million dollar acquisition of Assistly just five months ago. The Assistly application was notable because it took customer relationships on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and then integrated them with "traditional" support channels such as e-mail and telephone, making social network relationships among the most important methods of communication for companies.

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Usage of Amazon's cloud services skyrocketed in 2011, with the company reporting that its cloud storage service Amazon S3 played host to 762 million objects as of the fourth quarter of 2011. This was up by 500 million objects over last year, year-over-year growth of 192 percent and the biggest expansion in the service's five year history.

Amazon credits the large jump in making it easier for users to get data into the system via a host of new features introduced over the past year. It also says the jump in cloud usage requires manpower, and it is hiring for software engineers, product managers, and other management postions for the S3 team.

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Not since Office 2003 has Microsoft taken such an "ambitious undertaking" to reinvent the productivity suite. Today, PJ Hough, CVP of development for Microsoft's Office division, announced the "technical preview" for the suite's next version and then rudely announced it's "already full". Oh yeah? Why the frak tell us about it then?

It's that ambitious undertaking thing: "First time ever, we will simultaneously update our cloud services, servers, and mobile and PC clients for Office, Office 365, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, Project and Visio", Hough claims. There's more to that boast than marketing. Microsoft is prepping Office for the cloud-connected, post-PC era. Suddenly Office 15 is going to be a big release.

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The iPad has been touted as a replacement for the laptop, but if this is to happen a serious office suite is needed to allow everyday tasks such as word processing and number crunching to be carried out. In this area there are a number of mobile office suites to choose from, including Apple’s own iWork apps Pages, Keynote and Numbers as well as the likes of Documents To Go, Quickoffice and a few others.

While all of these are capable of producing and working with Microsoft Office compatible files, there is no getting away from the fact that none of them is Microsoft Office. This is something that CloudOn for iPad aims to address, bringing you fully functional versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint to your tablet.

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Another major breach is in the headlines. Zappos, an online shoe and apparel retailer owned by Amazon, disclosed Sunday night that more than 24 million of its customer accounts had been compromised. Hackers accessed customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, the last four digits of credit card numbers and cryptographically scrambled passwords.

To its credit, Zappos moved quickly, resetting the passwords for all the affected accounts. But it was cold comfort for those who may still be in danger of having their data exposed if they used the same or similar credentials on other websites. This concern prompted Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh to warn customers of possible phishing scam exposures in an email to affected customers. It’s another reminder of the sad state of security today.

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