Articles about Cloud

Finally techdom is talking about something other than Apple, and probably it's more important.

When dinosaurs ruled the earth, what creature then could have imagined that someday mammals, which were smaller and eventually smarter, would replace them? Fast-forward to the present. For all the talk about the handsome or the beautiful, it's the geeks, not the athletes, that people listen to. Right now techdom is incessantly chattering about Google+. There's simply no way to turn down the volume.

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On this day, 235 years ago, the Second Continental Congress voted for a Declaration of Independence. From that perspective, July 2nd is America's independence day, but the document wasn't ready for another two days. So it's perhaps appropriate timing to discuss the declaration I made on April 4th to free myself from Google. At the time I asked: "Can you give up Google?" Maybe you can, but I couldn't.

Google's antitrust troubles motivated me. In December, the European Commission opened an "antitrust investigation into allegations that Google Inc. has abused a dominant position in online search". An investigation loomed in the United States and, as of late last month, is underway. The Federal Trade Commission is reviewing Google's business practices.

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Well, hell, maybe Google is serious about all this open stuff, after all. As part of the massive Google sites makeover now underway -- of which the + social service and gmail clutter cleanup are part -- there is a new utility for sucking all your precious data out of the search and information giant's services. Hey, it's your data. Shouldn't you be able to take it anywhere?

The Data Liberation Front video above introduces this new thing -- Google Takeout. It's more than a utility. Google Takeout is a movement. I mean that. This whole data portability thing clearly stems from Google's so-called "Open Principles". There is a Data Liberation Front website, blog and Twitter feed.

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My whole Google experience is changing around me. Today I started using Google+, which brings a fresh -- and I'd say quite attractive -- look to the default search page. It's as functional as pleasing. Looks like the makeover just starts there. Google is freshening up other services, too, including Gmail. For the first time ever, I want to use this service in a browser.

"We're embarking on a series of interface updates to help strip out unnecessary clutter and make Gmail as beautiful as it is powerful", Jason Cornwell, Google user experience designer, writes in a blog posted late this evening Eastern Time. Changes will occur gradually over a few months.

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Today, Twitter revealed the 200 millon figure via its official blog. It's an amazing feat, up from 2 million in January 2009 and 65 million a year ago. But what if more people tweeted?

I've had my Twitter account since sometime in mid 2006. Most techies I know tweet. But we're a minority, at least in the United States. According to Pew Internet, fifty-nine percent of US Internet users, or 47 percent of all adults, have used a social networking service, like Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. Among that number only 13 percent use Twitter compared to 92 percent for Facebook.

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There's no question that I like what I see in the demos of Office 365. A little research makes me want it even more. But I'm cheap, and so are a lot of the small businesses it supposedly targets. I think it can be competitive for small business and also end up selling a bunch of Windows phones. But can it compete with free?

Office 365 really does look better, richer, and cooler that Google Apps for Business, but it can be much more expensive. Many businesses will be willing to pay for the nice stuff, at least for a while, but most small businesses don't spend a lot more money than they need to on these things. I like to think of myself (and my domain which is both for my business and personal use) as one of those cheap small businesses.

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Spending on public and private clouds will generate $3.6 billion and $5.8 billion, respectively, in server spending by 2015, IDC forecasts. While there has been much written about public clouds, many IT organizations are setting up their own infrastructure to provide employees with access to their data anytime, anywhere and on anything.

No matter which cloud, many businesses today face huge security and privacy risks because of the volume of data taken outside on laptops, smartphones and other mobile devices. What's the point spending thousands, even millions of dollars, on network security, only to let crown jewels of information roam freely on mobile devices?

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It's the question I'm asking after watching the six videos embedded in this analysis and reading the blog post by Vic Gundotra, Google senior vice president of Engineering.

To be clear, I've read no other posts about Google+, not even the news story by colleague Tim Conneally (well, I did write the headline -- but that was all). That's typical of my writing. I prefer to have a fresh perspective, uninfluenced by others' opinions as much as possible. All observations I make here are solely my own.

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Yesterday in the cleverly titled "365 reasons to consider Google Apps" blog post, Shan Sinha, Google Apps product manager, gave just four why his company's cloud suite is better than Microsoft. Motivation: Today's global launch of Office 365.

I observed that four is a long way from 365. Apparently someone at Google was listening. Last night the GoogleAtWork Twitter account tweeted: "Help us to 365! Many asked for all 365 reasons to consider GoogleApps. Add yours here http://t.co/DTjLZZu or tweet #apps365". About three hours ago, Google issued the "Final call! Many asked for 365 reasons to consider GoogleApps".

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When Microsoft's Office group formed in the early 1980s, something was missing from the DNA. Simplicity. Today's Office 365 plans -- seven of them -- are anything but simple. While Microsoft offers a stunning range of hosted apps capabilities, Office 365 pricing, or its feature set, is nowhere as straightforward as Google Apps. Nor as cheap.

Little more than two months after opening the public beta, Microsoft's hosted productivity apps service debuted today in 40 countries. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced Office 365 during a live New York event late this morning.

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Today, Microsoft made official its most important push into the cloud, ever, with release of Office 365. The software giant took off the beta moniker and released final pricing ahead of a New York launch event with CEO Steve Ballmer.

Office 365 combines Microsoft Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Lync Online into a single cloud-based package that is scalable from small businesses to large enterprises, with a per-user license cost depending upon the volume of users. The new service is available immediately in 40 countries.

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Tomorrow morning, in New York City, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will break out the band and play tribute to Office 365 -- the company's hosted app companion to its PC productivity suite. It's not rocket science understanding Microsoft's motivations, fending off competition from Google Apps among small businesses and enterprises and providing customers with what they really need -- anytime, anywhere access to their stuff on anything.

Google's cleverly titled "365 reasons to consider Google Apps" blog post gives anything but 365 reasons. If Google can't find 365, Microsoft should do so for its cloud suite launch. That would be great counter-marketing tactic.

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While I was busy working and not paying attention to nag mail, my Skype number expired this week. I could reactivate and get another three months service for about 12 bucks after a 33-percent discount. But it's Whopper Wednesday. That $12 would feed the family, with enough change left over for some cool vanilla cones at the Rite Aid.

I've had a Skype number since April 2006 -- back when it cost just $38 a year. There's sentimental value having the number for so long, and it's the having not the number itself. The Skype # is not so memorable or well-known to be worth porting anywhere. My Skype is mostly used for calls I need to record, for reporting purposes. Oh, yeah, it buzzes the front gate to our apartment complex, too.

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Microsoft this week is upgrading its free consumer cloud storage and collaboration service SkyDrive, making it faster, cleaner, and more competitive with services such as Amazon Cloud Drive, Apple iCloud, and Dropbox.

"While we have always focused on improving the performance of our websites, it was clear that we had reached a point where the kinds of performance gains we were hoping for would not come without an assessment of our entire experience from the ground up," Omar Shahine wrote in the Windows Live Blog yesterday. "SkyDrive has been around since 2007 and was simply not built for the modern web."

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If your business isn't spending big on cloud computing perhaps it should, or will. Today, IDC forecast that public IT cloud spending would reach $72.9 billion in four years, up from $21.5 billion in 2010. That works out to 27.6 percent compound annual growth rate, which the analyst firm applied to five categories.

Those categories -- applications, application development and deployment, systems infrastructure software, basic storage and servers -- will account for nearly 50 percent in new net growth on IT spending, not just cloud computing, IDC claims. Software-as-a-service will account for about three quarters of public IT cloud spending.

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