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Too Cloud-Averse or Too Cloud-Eager: Either Way, You’re Fired

June 13, 2011 No Comments

I thought CIO magazine’s Bernard Golden did a great job of highlighting the threats and opportunities for cloud computing for both the rank-and-file workers in enterprises, as well as IT executives: “CIOs and senior IT managers are not immune from the employment risks that cloud computing poses to lower-level infrastructure and operations workers. Failing to rethink the delivery of IT services — and the new organizational structures that will be needed to deliver them–poses a threat to their job security.”

IBM Building Security Into Cloud Fabric

June 13, 2011 No Comments

Tweet IBM executives said this week that the company is looking to many of its existing tools, from the Tivoli management system to Cognos business intelligence software, to secure private and IBM-hosted hybrid clouds as customers migrate to these new computing setups. Steve Robinson, general manager for IBM security solutions, told Network World during this […]

Infinita adds speed and intelligence to networks

June 10, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Blog by Dan Kusnetzky Large data centers are finding managing the environment to accommodate an ever-increasing demand for network bandwidth very difficult. Network routing and virtualization equipment often don’t offer enough speed to be effective. So, the usual approach is to install racks of these little guys and spread the network traffic over several […]

Apple’s OS X and virtualization: A missed opportunity

June 9, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Blog by Jason Perlow I noted in my original 2009 article where Apple disclosed their plans for their 500,000 square foot North Carolina datacenter – which we now know is going to be the central hub of iCloud — that without virtualization in Mac OS X, they wouldn’t be able to pull off sufficient […]

The Late Great Virtual CPU Debate

June 9, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Blog post by Ken Hess Do you ever have the situation where you have a sluggish virtual machine (VM) and in trying to find the bottleneck, you raise the number of vCPUs? Did it work? If your VM experiences a slowdown, then the problem is the extra vCPU(s). It’s counterintuitive to see this occur […]

Dell Desktop Virtualization

June 7, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Blog by Dan Kusnetzky The good folks from Dell reached out to me recently to let me know about the newest happenings in their desktop virtualization efforts including new thin client devices and a new version of their Dell Virtual Labs 2.0. In the end, Dell is offering its own hardware devices and virtualization […]

Oracle and OpenOffice: The Linux Perspective

June 7, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Things are never dull here in the Linux blogosphere, but there’s no doubt they would be a whole lot less entertaining without Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL). How else, after all, would we get the opportunity to ride on a thrilling emotional roller coaster such as the one Oracle’s had us on since it acquired Sun? […]

Soffront Talks Mobile CRM – In the Cloud

June 3, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Mobility. CRM these days is all about mobility – oh, and social networking. Mobility and social networking. And cloud. Can’t forget cloud. Imagine somebody checking their Facebook from an iPhone or iPad on the subway and you have seen the future of CRM, and it works. More and more businesses are taking their CRM […]

Are Banks Using The Cloud?

June 2, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Ever since 2009 when NIST published its first definition of cloud computing there has been a promise of community clouds, and now we finally have a second one in the financial services market, thanks to NYSE Technologies. The IT arm of NYSE Euronext announced beta of Capital Markets Community Platform, its cloud computing offering this […]

What’s the Deal With MicroSkype?

May 31, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Well, that was interesting. Just weeks after Microsoft announced it’s shelling out billions to acquire Skype, the VoIP provider drops support for the open source Asterisk telephony system. Skype insists the parting of ways was underway well before Microsoft made its move, but suspicion still fills the air. Read more…

Microsoft’s Brad Wilson on the Future of CRM

May 26, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Blog Post bu Geoffrey James I don’t write much about CRM in this blog, but I recently had a conversation with Brad Wilson, who is the general manager of Microsoft CRM. Brad knows the CRM business up and down, so I thought it would worthwhile to post some highlights of our conversation. Click here […]

Where in the World Is the Linux Desktop Thriving?

May 26, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Just how much market share can the Linux Desktop claim? The debate’s a familiar one, perhaps even a tired one. But recently Pingdom published a list of the 20 countries in which the Linux desktop enjoys the most popularity. Naturally, that list was quickly criticized from multiple angles. So what’s Linux’s true penetration? “In […]

The three layers of cloud computing

May 24, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Cloud computing is made up of a variety of layered elements, starting at the most basic physical layer of storage and server infrastructure and working up through the application and network layers. The cloud can be further divided into different implementation models based on whether it’s created internally, outsourced or a combination of the […]

Batteries and VM Tools Not Included

May 23, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Remember as a kid when you opened a present–some new gizmo with flashing lights, cool sounds and maybe a little action–only to find those three little words that extracted every bit of wind from your fully inflated sails? Batteries Not Included. And, remember how frustrating it was to find D-cell batteries on a Sunday? […]

When FOSS Became Mainstream

May 23, 2011 No Comments

Tweet With so much turbulence going on in the FOSS world these days — let’s not even mention the “U” word this week, shall we? — it’s always nice when a straightforward and unambiguous piece of good news comes along. That, fortunately, was just what happened last week during the Open Source Business Conference in […]

Should Microsoft Be Losing Sleep Over Chrome OS?

May 19, 2011 No Comments

Tweet So Google’s Chromebooks finally made their long-awaited debut last week, complete with interesting leasing options for the business, government and educational markets. As Samsung and Acer put the finishing touches on their devices, the question on many tongues now is how these new machines will fit into the already-competitive mobile computing market. Read more […]

Microsoft chases Amazon in taking SAP to the cloud

May 18, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Blog by Mary Jo Foley On May 18, both Microsoft and its cloud rival Amazon made dueling announcements involving SAP and their respective cloud strategies. The difference? Microsoft’s SAP announcement is full of “future plans,” while Amazon is offering certain SAP wares today via the Amazon Web Services platform. Amazon and SAP announced at […]

Yammer Expands Social In Enterprise With New Products

May 18, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Yammer Tuesday announced three new products to integrate its service more fully with other enterprise applications. The company, which has 2 million verified users, 19% of which are paying customers, launched a feature called Activity Stream API which connects Yammer to third-party enterprise applications in CRM, finance, sales, and the like. With the API, […]

NetSuite SuiteWorld 2011: Low Key, High Class, Big Hopes

May 16, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Blog post by Paul Greenberg I’ve known NetSuite for many, many years. ‘Twas back in 2004, I met Mei Li, their ultra-dynamic SVP of Corporate Marketing, who has become one of my closest friends. She introduced me at that time to Zach Nelson, the very charismatic and always well liked NetSuite CEO and co-founder, […]

Parallels releases server virtualization for Apple’s Mac Mini

May 16, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Parallels recently launched a new version of its popular Parallels server virtualization software for Apple hardware, but this latest update is designed to work with Mac Mini servers. With this release, Parallels still claims the title of having the only server virtualization solution optimized for Apple server hardware. Click here to read more of […]

Google’s Chromebook for business: Interesting math, but your mileage will vary

May 12, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Google’s big pitch for enterprise adoption of its Chromebook revolves around labor savings, easy implementation and cloud-based processes, but your mileage—and the math to get there—will vary. At Google’s I/O conference Wednesday all the talk was about the Chromebook and the company’s browser-based Chrome OS. I’d argue that the Chromebook will have a rough […]

The Linux vs. Windows Security Mystery

May 12, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Of all the many winning advantages Linux has in its favor, security is surely one of the more widely known examples. Why else, indeed, would we see security experts in mainstream publications recommending it over Windows for online banking purposes? That, indeed, is part of the reason it was so disappointing to see Linux […]

Vendor Influencers: The New Category on the Block

May 10, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Blog by Paul Greenberg I wrote this sitting at the Toronto airport about a month ago. I had just spent the day before on one of the best panels I ever sat on at the launch of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 in Canada. Not only was it run by Frank Falcone, Microsoft’s CRM lead […]

Into the Virtual Frenzy

May 10, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Blog post by Ken Hess As a system administrator and long-time user, administrator and manager of virtual machines of all types, I know firsthand how difficult it is to manage a virtual infrastructure. I feel your pain. Users nipping at you constantly for more resources, management nipping at you for more automation and family […]

CEOs Gone Wild: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

May 10, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Opinion by Rob Enderle Some days I just sit back and watch some of this stuff go on and wonder what the hell folks are thinking. The Cisco Flip thing was bad, Oracle just seems to have a death wish all of a sudden, and Sony’s actions make the other two firms look sane […]

Open Group cloud survey shows a lack of IT preparedness, especially on measuring cloud’s true costs and benefits

May 10, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Blog post by Dana Gardner While more than 90 percent of companies are using — or plan to use — cloud computing, the cloud model is raising some concerns, as well as some paradoxes. Unsurprisingly, security is the leading concern, while integration and governance issues are close behind. The paradox arises because industry executives […]

The case for public-first cloud computing

May 6, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Blog by Dave Linthicum I’ve previously talked about the move to private cloud computing as corporate America’s first-generation cloud attempt. After all, you control it completely, you don’t have to worry about security, and you can laugh at all those cloud outages. However, private clouds are very much like traditional computing: You have to […]

Worth It? The ‘Cloud’ at Home.

May 6, 2011 No Comments

Tweet Recent predictions from research firms Forrester and Gartner imply the “cloud” is hardly a fluffy thing, with the global market for cloud computing expected to grow six-fold in the next ten years. That’s great news, for people who understand what the cloud is. Turns out, you probably do know what the cloud is – […]

Cloud Computing R.I.P?

May 6, 2011 No Comments

Tweet In the commentary about the recent catastrophic crash of Amazon’s cloud computing network, it was hard to miss both an elevated level of harshness and a barely suppressed exultation. Just to quickly summarize what happened: the East Coast wing of Amazon’s massive cloud server network, EC2, which handles the operations of many high tech […]

The Secret to Cloud Success Is Actually a Secret

May 5, 2011 No Comments

There are way more cloud success stories out there than you realize. You won’t read about them, because some consultant gave his word not to reveal the details, or perhaps he signed an NDA. That said, I can state that cloud computing is having huge amounts of success out there, but you would not know it because those who are successful with the cloud are not talking.

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