Microsoft Azure, The Cloud for the Rest of Us

Be warned, while Amazon’s headline prices are a little lower than Azure, there’s a danger you’ll get nickel and dimed to the point where you could easily end up spending more money. There’s barely any free customer support, but Amazon will sell you a support plan and so on. Little handholding from Amazon (source infra)

Microsoft Azure: Cloud for the rest of us
Bill Bennett
Cloud computing is great. Yet anything beyond Dropbox, OneDrive or iCloud can be daunting for those of us who aren't IT professionals....(read more at the link above)

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Apple iCloud Miss (video)

Apple’s Stock Price at All-Time High: Is It Deserved?: Video - Bloomberg:
(Allow video to load after clicking play or go to link above)
Elevation Partners Co-Founder Roger McNamee discusses Apple’s stock price, innovation and the company’s cloud product. He speaks on “Bloomberg West.” Aug. 20 (Bloomberg)

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Google Drive versus SkyDrive versus iCloud

Google Drive Versus SkyDrive Versus iCloud: Cloud Storage Battle Hotting up
Mobile & Apps
By Johnny Wills | April 29, 2012 11:16 AM EDT Cloud computing became popular in 2008, after the launch of Dropbox. Realizing the demand for cloud backup solutions, world's top tech giants like Apple, Microsoft and Google have stepped into the cloud ...

Mobile & Apps

Storm blows over about your rights on cloud storage
The News Journal
AP FILE AP SAN FRANCISCO -- Google is already facing spasms of suspicion and confusion as it tries to persuade people to entrust their personal documents, photos and other digital content to the company's new online storage service.

Google Drive Competitors Upgrade Their Offerings
eWeek
The launch of Google's new cloud storage and collaboration service this week has convinced several competing companies to upgrade their own services -- and not simply with more capacity at the same or lower price. On April 24, after more than six years ...

Cloud computing co Gizmox raises $3.5m
Globes
Cloud computing company Gizmox Ltd. has raised $3.5 million at a company value of $26 million. Gizmox shareholder Maayan Ventures Ltd. (TASE:MAYN), which owns 30.4% of the company, announced that investment funds IVIC and CIG invested $2.5 million, ...

Cloud and the evolution of the enterprise architect
GigaOM
Enter cloud computing. As I've discussed before, cloud computing is creating an environment in which software components and data collections intertwine to create a complex adaptive system. What this means is that “control” over the design parameters ...

GigaOM

Cloud Computing and its Effects on the CAD Industry
IT News Online
Cloud Computing is the new talk of the technology town. Will it stay or be rejected and slip away as fast as it came? Like every product, and technology, cloud computing has its own pros and cons. In this article, we will try to understand the pros and ...

Cloud computing startup deal offered
Radio New Zealand
Icehouse business incubator manager Nick Egerton says cloud computing is becoming an increasingly important tool of the trade for startups, and a new corporate partnership should help up-and-coming businesses get to market faster.

Clarifying mysteries of the Cloud
Seacoastonline.com
By MJ Shoer I've written a lot about the Cloud lately. Mostly because I continue to get a lot of questions about just what is the Cloud. I've been searching for a good explanation and I think I have found it, so I want to share that with you this week.

Say goodbye to April with one of these 36 downloads
BetaNews
By Mark Wilson Cloud was the big news this past week, and there were exciting developments in the world of online storage. After what seems like years of waiting, Google Drive 1.0 finally released, extending the idea of Docs and providing users with ...

BetaNews

Time To Buy This $10 Cloud Computing Stock
Seeking Alpha
The move to cloud computing has enabled significant data center growth and demand for virtual services as well as storage solutions. This trend should continue for the foreseeable future. One stock poised to benefit from this theme that looks ...

Google Drive: Why one competitor believes it has an edge
Washington Post
Box CEO Aaron Levie just can't stop cracking jokes about Google Drive, even as the new service's existence threatens Levie's fast-growing cloud storage business. At small dinner I attended last night with Levie, CloudOn CEO Milind Gadekar, ...

Condensing a new growth strategy
Hindu Business Line
With Azure, Microsoft is hoping to replicate its desktop success in the enterprises business through cloud computing. However, it faces an uphill task as competition from Salesforce.com and to some extent Amazon and Google intensify in the Indian...

Hindu Business Line

SkyDrive for Windows
ZDNet UK (blog)
By First Take , 29 April, 2012 01:07 Just before Google finally released Google Drive cloud storage and sync (see our First Take here), Microsoft made some improvements to its owncloud sync and storage service, SkyDrive, including releasing preview ...

7 Easy Ways to Speed Up Your Business Computers
Mashable
The company is founded on the premise that cloud computing and crowd-sourced applications will revolutionize the performance of personal computing. Few activities are more frustrating than staring at your old computer, helplessly willing it to move ...

Voice of the Free Press: Revenue creator or job decimator?
BurlingtonFreePress.com
This is the trouble with the mystical tax on cloud computing. Sen. Tim Ashe, a bright legislator from Burlington, put it perfectly at a Finance Committee meeting when he said, “We act like we know what we are talking about, but despite being the ...

O'Brien: Now that Google Drive has landed, I ask: 'What took so long?'
San Jose Mercury News
"The market needed to transition to the point where personal cloud services could appeal to mainstream consumers and not just enthusiasts or business users," he wrote in an email. That said, the battle is on. And that means we are in the first scenes ...

Top Tech News: Dropbox Improvements End a Cloudy Week
NewsFactor Network
With cloud services moving quickly, veteran service Dropbox has unveiled several updates. The enhancements come on the heels of announcements in recent days about the launch of Google Drive, a new API for Box.com, and a new version of Microsoft's ...

Google Drive Support Looks Promising For Chrome OS
Hot Hardware
But surely, surely Chrome OS is on the list to get a pinch of the company's cloud storage service, right? Right. This week, Google pushed out the first developer build of Chrome OS 20, and yes, there's support for Google Drive in there.

Hot Hardware

Google Drive Officially Launches with 5GB Free!
Waleg.com
The awaited cloud storage by Google is finally available! Launched last week, Google Drive safekeeping as well as convenient sharing of you valuable documents! You can also edit documents, reply to comments, receive notifications and as mentioned you ...

Waleg.com

Supply Chain Canada conference keynote speaker to focus on crime, terror and ...
Canadian Transportation & Logistics
Allstream's conference exhibit will demonstrate how the services it delivers through its robust and reliable national IP network – in particular IT Security and Cloud Services – address some of the key challenges faced by the industry today,” Allstream ...

Big Data: The billable project angle
ZDNet (blog)
Sure, Tellago's work with cloud computing and mobility solutions still represents the majority of its revenue and pipeline, but Big Data is becoming an important part of the mix. Tellago is working on real Big Data engagements right now and is seeing ...

Tablets expected to oust PCs, report says
SunHerald.com
As a result, the tablet will replace the PC as the user's digital hub, connecting devices such as smartphones, desktop computers and content stored in personal cloud services -- remote servers that can be accessed from anywhere with an Internet ...

HelloFax integrates with Google Drive, makes it a fax machine
AGBeat
by Marti Trewe in Tech News - April 28, 2012 · 11 Comments HelloFax already challenged the traditional fax machine by going totally paperless, and even adding digital signatures, but now, documents in the newly launched Google Drive cloud storage, ...

Google Drive
ZDNet UK (blog)
Once your Google Docs account has been upgraded to Google Drive, you get 5GB of online storage, and a new user interface for your cloud documents. The web isn't all, and Google Drive installs a sync-client on PCs and phones (Android only at this point, ...

Google Drive Signaling the End of Microsoft Office? Umm No.
DecryptedTech
To add some additional items to the mix, larger (enterprise class) corporations do not like the use of cloud storage as it leaves their data in someone else's hands. They are going to maintain this internally and use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) or ...

Burlington legislator sees silver lining to marathon debate
BurlingtonFreePress.com
TAXES: Negotiators on the tax bill, named Saturday, face a challenge trying to find middle ground on whether the state should declare cloud computing subject to sales tax.The Senate's view iscloud computing should never have been taxed while the House ...

COMEX commences today
Oman Daily Observer
This section enables business enterprises to showcase the latest in ICT technology namely 4G technologies, Cloud Computing solutions, Social Commerce tools and much more and will put the spotlight on those flexible communication and collaboration tools ...

Telco sues KPA for Sh1.2bn over fibre optic cuts
Business Daily Africa
The government and local telecom operators that include Safaricom, Jamii Telecom, Wananchi, Essar, Kenya Data Networks, Access Kenya, Telkom Orange and Bandwidth & Cloud Services own the TEAMs cable under a Public Private Partnership model.

Business Daily Africa

Will Samsung Use Galaxy S3's Specs For its Windows Phone 8 Device?
IBTimes.co.uk
The specs also include Near Field Communication (NFC) capabilities, dedicated camera button, Samsung's cloud storage service and enhanced Photo Studio. The company appears to offer support for its new cloud storage service S-Cloud which is expected to ...

IBTimes.co.uk

Google Drive – Another Option for Cloud Storage — The Gadgeteer
By Ian Lim
Another option for those who need more Cloud storage, Google has just released Google Drive. 5GB is available to all Google users free, and plans allow you to upgrade to up to 16TB. With Google Drive, you'll be able to create and ...
The Gadgeteer

Google Drive launch: Another decent option for (free) cloud storage ...
By Dejan Levi
With the launch of Google Drive last week, there's now plenty of very reliable and attractive options for people looking for cloud-based storage to back up.
EtonDigital

[Weekend Poll] Have You Switched Your Primary Cloud Storage ...
By Aaron Gingrich - rss.feedsportal
This is the latest in our Weekend Poll series. For last week's, see Do You Use Cloud StorageWith Your Android?Google's much-anticipated cloud storage.
Android Headlines

Who Needs Cloud Computing? | Tech Please
By jeff
With all of the chatter around Google Drive and the like, you may be wondering whether you should have a cloud drive somewhere. Some people live blissful digitally disconnected lives — free of smartphones, free of Facebook, devoid of a ...
Tech Please

Comparison of the 5 Biggest Cloud Services for Ad Agency New ...
By Michael Gass
cloud storage, cloud computing, icloud, ad agencies, new business, online storage. The best advice on where you ... plans but the dollar-for-dollar value. Pocket-lint's ranking of each of the 5cloud services in six primary usage categories: ...
FUEL LINES Fueling Ad Agency...

Building a Dynamic Enterprise App Store in the Cloud at Cloud Expo ...
He has over 13 years of experience in operating systems and middleware, specializing in SaaS platforms, cloud computing and virtualization. Prior to co-founding UShareSoft, Weir held several software development positions at Sun ...
Latest News from Cloud Computing Journal

Time To Buy This $10 Cloud Computing Stock - All VoIP News
By AllVoIPNews
The move to cloud computing has enabled significant data center growth and demand for virtual services as so then as storage solutions. This trend should continue for the foreseeable future. One stock poised to benefit from this theme that ...
All VoIP News

Celebrity Gossip » Blog Archive » Do You Know About Cloud Storage
By onecelebrity.com
Ooh Sunday what will you bring? I can hardly wait too find out! (currently sitting in pants reorganising my cloud storage). monkey. 29/04/2012. Dropbox eller Google Drive? Svaret. rebeca. 29/04/2012. Newegg – Western Digital 1TB My Book ...
Celebrity Gossip

Great Cloud Storage Resources | Jake Ruston
By Jake Ruston
Great Cloud Storage Resources. Author: Jake Ruston. 29 Apr. Gone are the days when computers took up entire rooms. I've heard stories about those times, but when looking at a smartphone I find it hard to believe that at any time it took (literally ) ... world. Dell cloud storageoffers large companies access to store large amounts of information on the cloud. By usingcloud services, along with Dell virtualization, companies are able to help employees save time by not having to save files ...
Jake Ruston

Cloud Computing Startups Raise Big Money: UPDATE 12 ...
Cloud Computing Startups Raise Big Money: UPDATE 12 This is the thirteenth in a continuing series on startups raising funding. You can read the latest in the.
www.cloudtweaks.com/.../cloud-computing-startups-raise-big-...

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OS X Mountain Lion Pounces on the Cloud

OS X Mountain Lion Pounces on the Cloud
Wired News
Apple's upcoming Mountain Lion release of OS X is sure to be a hit with the Mac faithful, but for cloud watchers it has an even bigger wow-factor: iCloud integration. Sure, iOS features large in Mountain Lion, but the bigger underlying shift of note ...

Cloud Services Provider Intermedia Powers Over 1/3 of Top 100 MSPs
MarketWatch (press release)
NEW YORK, NY, Feb 17, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- Intermedia, a global leader in cloudservices and the world's largest Microsoft Exchange hosting provider, is the business cloud powering elite VARs and MSPs through the company's partner program.

Brightcove Advances as Cloud-Based Video Hoster Raises $55 Million in IPO
Bloomberg
Brightcove Inc. (BCOV), a provider of cloud-based video hosting and publishing services, advanced 30 percent in its trading debut after raising $55 million in its initial public offering. The stock rose to $14.30 at the close in New York, after listing ...

Time For State And Local Govs To Head To The Cloud
Forbes
Sensing a convergence of business, social and technology trends, the TechAmerica Foundation recently formed a group of experts to develop guidance for helping state and local governments evaluate, adopt and implement cloud computing-centric business ...

TechAmerica Foundation: Governments Need to Get Into the Cloud
CIO
By Paul Krill Cloud computing presents opportunities for governments to modernize and improve cost efficiency, public officials stressed Thursday at the introduction of a report advising state and local governments on cloud adoption.

The Cloud, Day 24: Backing Up Your Cloud
Computerworld
Backupify is a cloud-based backup service that automates the process of backing up my online identities. It offers a variety of social media backup plans that can store all of your data from Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Zoho, Picasa, LinkedIn, and more.

Cloud Computing Hides Big Issues In Corporate Data Sharing
Forbes
To many enterprise organizations cloud computing looks – appropriately enough – heaven sent. When a company has a business opportunity that demands more processing capacity, or new applications, or adding hundreds of new users, they can dial it up ...

Salesforce.com: 'Cloud Computing Debate Is Over' in Washington
Computerworld
By Kenneth Corbin CIO - WASHINGTON -- In the federal government, which carries a roughly $80 billion annual IT budget, the question of cloud computing is no longer a question of "if," but rather "how," and "how soon." "The cloud computing debate is ...

CenturyLink Targets Cloud Services With M&As
Investor's Business Daily
By REINHARDT KRAUSE, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted 05:10 PM ET It isn't AT&T nor Verizon Communications that pulled off the biggest cloud acquisition yet by a telecom company. That distinction belongs to Louisiana-based CenturyLink, which purchased ...

Rackspace Adds Private Edition Cloud, Acquires SharePoint911
Data Center Knowledge
Rackspace Hosting (RAX) announced a partnership for building private edition clouds and an acquisition of solutions provider SharePoint911. Rackspace and solution provider Redapt announced that the two companies have joined together to deliver ...

Citrix, VMware duel over cloud visions
ZDNet (blog)
By Larry Dignan | February 17, 2012, 4:56am PST Summary: Sameer Dholakia, group vice president and general manager of cloud platforms at Citrix, said VMware is gunning to be a cloudinfrastructure monopoly. A Citrix executive this week took direct aim ...

Sign documents digitally in the cloud
ZDNet (blog)
By Heather Clancy | February 17, 2012, 7:15am PST Summary: Cloud storage service provider SurDoc is giving out a digital pen to help user execute contracts in the cloud without having to print them out and rescan them. How do you compete with hugely ...

iCloud integration with Mountain Lion OS spotlights how Apple is still failing ...
Washington Post
As much as I commend Apple for prioritizing the cloud by integrating iCloud into Mountain Lion, Apple has instead only spotlighted how it is still way behind the competition when it comes to cloudservices. Competitors such as Dropbox, Box, ...

Brightcove stock surges in first day of trading
BusinessWeek
The company, which provides cloud-based video publishing services, raised $55 million in an initial public offering. It priced 5 million shares at $11 each, within its expected range of $10 to $12 for each share. Brightcove plans to use the proceeds to ...

Brightcove Stock Jumps 37% In Cloud IPO
Investor's Business Daily
By BRIAN DEAGON, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted 01:50 PM ET Brightcove provides services that customers use to publish videos online, using a cloud-based platform. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company raised $55 million by selling 5 million shares at ...

Consistent Federal IT Rules May Ease State and Local Cloud Adoption
Government Technology
It may not be long before the federal government becomes a power user of cloudcomputing, potentially diffusing its reputation as a slow adopter of cutting-edge technologies. The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is just a ...

Government Technology

Cloud Privacy: An Unreasonable Expectation?
Channel Partners (blog)
This is a threat to individuals and also to the commercial interests of cloud computing. A survey found that 70 percent of businesses expect their data to be kept private and secure when usingcloud-computing services. This is important for hosted ...

How the cloud reboots your business
Vancouver Sun
There's been plenty of talk about "the cloud" when it comes to technology and information technology in the past few years. It's a revolution as big as the advent of the microprocessor and just as relevant as the desktop computer.

Rackspace Acquires SharePoint911 to Provide Industry Leading SharePoint Expertise
EON: Enhanced Online News (press release)
SAN ANTONIO--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Rackspace ® Hosting, the service leader in cloudcomputing, today announced its acquisition of SharePoint911, an industry leader in SharePoint consulting, training, and "JumpStart" services within SharePoint.

Cloud Security: No Guarantees!
NetworkComputing.com
The decision about whether to shift storage and compute resources to the cloud is about more than the bottom line, and it's almost never a slam dunk, but it can pay big dividends, according to a new IW report, Fundamentals: Cloud vs.

Government Cloud Adoption: TechAmerica Releases Best-Practices Report
CIO Insight
Government agencies at the federal and state levels talk a good game about wanting to refresh legacy data center systems by moving as many of them to cloud services as possible. Instantly realized cost-savings, ease of use and increased data safety and ...

Friday Cloud News Roundup | GMO Cloud America
By miccilopez
Cloud Computing News Highlights: MLB 12 The Show, VMWare Solution Exchange, Digital Menu Me, Persistent Systems and Indiana University Students, Army Private Cloud.
GMO Cloud America

Cloud's Growing Influence in Backup & Recovery | SiliconANGLE
By Maria Deutscher
The cloud is one of the major trends doing a rather successful job at disrupting today's IT environments from end-to-end, and backup and recovery is no exception. The latest testimony of that is SunGuard's latest announcement: the launch of a ...
SiliconANGLE

Barriers to cloud adoption for healthcare practitioners | TechRepublic
By Aditi Roy Ghatak
Aditi Roy Ghatak discusses the primary issues that complicate cloud technology use in the healthcare industry and the compelling reasons to overcome t.
on TechRepublic

New Cloud Cost Management Tool uptimeCloud Predicts AWS ...
By Nicole Henderson
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Management software provider Uptime Software announced on Monday that it has released uptimeCloud, its real-time cloud cost monitoring software as a service tool for Amazon Web Serivces users.
theWHIR.com - Daily Web Hosting News

GreenPages Leads CA's Cloud Partner Pack | Channelnomics
By Marie Lingblom
CA's newest cloud “accelerator” solution holds infrastructure-as-a-service opportunities for solution providers. GreenPages Technology Solutions is CA's first U.S. partner out of the gate with it.
Channelnomics

Atos, EMC, VMware Start Cloud Company | Cloud Computing Journal
EMC and VMware are going into the cloud business with Atos, the big, publicly owned, Paris-based global IT services firm, intending to take an equity position in Canopy, an end-to-end cloud company Atos is setting up using EMC and ...
Latest News from Cloud Computing Journal

Runa Capital and Parallels plan to accelerate cloud startups
By Natasha Starkell
The trend in the startup acceleration industry is specialization. There are accelerators focused on health (Rock Health, Healthbox, Blueprint Health and SXSW Health) ...
TechCrunch Europe

Zenny's Weekly Cloud Links #46 by @tbalinas via @Zenoss
By Travis Balinas
Cloud computing has gone from being a promising technology to a reality that brings a unique set of challenges along with benefits. To fully leverage the disruptive potential of cloud without getting trapped in a web of integration complexity, ...
The Cloud Management Blog

International workshop on Cloud Computing: Services and ...
By cfptech
Cloud computing helps enterprises transform business and technology. Companies have begun to look for solutions that would help reduce their infrastructures costs and improve profitability. Cloudcomputing is becoming a foundation for ...
techcfp

Cloud Commission Advises State and Local Governments to ...
TechAmerica announces new recommendations for state and local government cloud computing deployments strategies at a Mountain View, Calif., press conference. State and local government IT officials share their successes and ...
Government Technology News

J2 Global Excelling At Cloud-Based Services
J2 Global has impressively maintained an edge over many larger, deep-pocketed rivals.
Investopedia.com Headlines

Enterprise Search Giants Keep Focus on Cloud and Social ...
By emily
In addition, IBM showcased their much anticipated cloud-based document collaboration and editing software called IBM Docs. But critics have been quick to point out that any system can become a document graveyard without the right people ...
Beyond Search

Cloud Luminary: Sage advice from Vivek Kundra - The CA Cloud ...
By Katherine Demacopoulos
Truth be told, I was a little star-struck when I had the opportunity at CA World in November to interview Vivek Kundra, former CIO of the US government (who is now at Salesforce.com), for the Cloud Luminaries thought leadership series.
CA Community

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