Alleged pirate Kim Dotcom’s latest venture, Mega, tackles cloud storage. Whatever Dotcom’s motives, Andy Manoske, of GGV Capital, says his startup is bringing a much-needed upgrade to security standards for the cloud storage business. Read more »
Cloud storage provider Box experienced a snafu early today, as some users reported via Twitter that they could not access their stored documents. The company acknowledged that some customers experienced difficulty getting to their Box-stored files for about two hours early Tuesday. Read more »
Well that didn’t take long. Cloud storage security firms such as Boxcryptor, who were all about Dropbox and Box.net, are suddenly racing to add support for Google and Microsoft’s heavyweight offerings. Read more »
Google’s much awaited Drive has arrived. Sign-up and get 5 GB free. While they are a competitor for the likes of Dropbox and Box.net, the real target for Google might be Microsoft and its Sharepoint service, as company is harping on collaboration-and-sharing as its core features. Read more »
German service Boxcryptor allows you to protect sensitive data on popular cloud services — and now tweaks made to its Android client pave the way for the app to support Box.net as well as Dropbox. Read more »
It seems like every cloud storage company really, really want to be the Dropbox of the enterprise when it grows up. It’ s easy to see why. Dropbox, which now claims 50 million users, is the sweetheart of the cloud storage, file-share-and-sync world. Read more »
Cloud storage player Box is beefing up its Android clients with collaboration and batch upload support. It also seems to be favoring Android devices even over popular IPhones and iPads and is definitely backing them at the expense of Windows Phone. Read more »
VC power player Kleiner Perkins is reportedly considering a new fund that will be dedicated to cloud computing companies. Whether or not it follows through, KPCB has already backed big-time cloud plays including Zynga and brought a former Twitter exec in as senior partner. Read more »
App developer Readdle has been busy lately. A big update arrived recently for its PDF Expert software for iPad, and now the company is also launching a new note-taking and PDF annotation app called Remarks. Here’s a hands on look at what the app offers users. Read more »
It’s not surprising that Box CEO Aaron Levie says CIOs are ready to approve big corporate cloud storage deals. But it is somewhat surprising that outside experts with no dog in this fight agree that cloud storage is coming to the enterprise. Read more »
The fourth quarter may have lacked a dominating big-event product announcement like Q3’s Facebook platform extension or Q2’s unveiling of Google+, but the NewNet world continued to buzz along. In the battle for mind share, everyone wanted to be a platform. Meanwhile, consumer and social technologies continued to gain momentum, and new vehicles for content and service discovery presented both challenges and opportunities for NewNet companies. And it is hard to ignore the overcrowded but growing world of daily deals. This quarterly report analyzes these trends and others, and it also provides a near-term outlook of trends, technologies and companies to watch in 2012. Companies mentioned in the report include Amazon, Facebook and Socialcast. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Last year, venture capital investment in “true” cloud computing companies constituted more than a quarter of overall Internet deal volume and more than a third of Internet investment dollars, according to new research from CB Insights. Read more »
As usual, a big chunk of the news out of the Consumer Electronics Show this year revolves around bright-and-shiny devices. But this time out, those devices are acting as the Trojan horses for the hardware makers’ cloud vision. The battle’s all about cloud services now. Read more »
Ask Box.net CEO Aaron Levie about his company’s cloud storage business, and you’ll hear a long, excited answer that probably won’t include the word “storage” at all. He’ll talk about sharing, collaboration and universal access — anything but the core storage infrastructure that makes Box’s service possible. Read more »
In the latest salvo in the ever-hotter cloud storage battle, YouSendIt added iPad and Android client apps to its cloud-based document sync, transfer and storage service, as well as updated iPhone and Windows desktop apps. A new Mac desktop version is in beta. Read more »
Box.net’s CEO Aaron Levie told the Net:Work conference that the key to making better enterprise software is to learn from consumer software and service companies, and make tools that are easy for users instead of just trying to lock them in to a specific platform. Read more »
Box has debuted the Box Innovation Network, also branded as “/bin,” a platform to make it easy for third-party developers to make apps with Box’s APIs. The company also announced a $2 million fund aimed at supporting developers building the most promising apps on /bin. Read more »
If it’s possible to make “unlimited” more unlimited, Backblaze says it has done so with the latest release of its online storage service. Users can now store bigger files than ever or whole VMs, for the same $5 per computer per month price Backblaze charged before. Read more »
In a weird way, the lack of enthusiasm around this week’s CTIA Enterprise and Applications show demonstrates just how consumer-driven the mo… Read more at paidContent »
Box.net just closed additional Series D funding, netting new money from SAP Ventures–the VC arm of enterprise software giant SAP AG, as well as Salesforce.com, Bessemer Venture Partners and NEA. This brings the total from the overall Series D round of funding to $81 million. Read more »
Online CRM pioneer Salesforce.com continues to back up its ecosystem with its checkbook, this time with an investment in cloud storage provider Box.net. In the past few months, Salesforce.com has made a series of outright acquisitions of Assistly, Radian6, and Heroku. Read more »
Social media is playing an increasing role in enterprise IT, with companies like Jive Software and Telligent jockeying with IBM, Microsoft and Cisco to tap into corporate IT spending. Today, they build social platforms customers use for both employee collaboration and consumer marketing objectives. Vendors need ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
In the world of Software as a Service, integration is critical. It gets small SaaS providers in front of new potential customers already predisposed to buying cloud-based services, and it gives individual SaaS vendors a fighting chance against large software vendors with lots of products and salespeople. Read more »
It’s been clear for years now that cloud storage technology is hot — even Amazon, Google and Apple have made big moves into the area. But judging by the latest funding news out of storage startup CX, heavyweight investors are still bullish about newcomers to the space. Read more »
Big data and Platform-as-a-Service offerings highlighted the second quarter, suggesting that we can expect to see a shift in enterprise IT practices around application development and analytics very soon. On the PaaS front, we saw new projects like DotCloud and Cloud Foundry gain incredible momentum in just a few short months. The big-data activity ranged from major new Hadoop vendors to heavy investment in flash storage that will speed the serving of data to processing engines. In other areas, we saw an uptick in cloud-computing plans from large vendors, OpenStack continued to mature and pick up both contributors and users, and Facebook caught our eye by launching an open-source project around the designs for its specialized servers and data centers. Additional companies mentioned in this report include VMware, Salesforce.com, IBM, Heroku and Calxeda. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
For sending, sharing and collaborating on files, there are a huge number of file sharing apps available, including Dropbox, Box.net, Minus, FileShareHQ and Accellion. Another option in this very crowded market that is billed as being “exclusively focused on small business/enterprise features” is ShareFile Read more »
Cloud computing has grown from a pie-in-the-sky vision to a major IT movement over the past few years. As its promise has grown, though, so too has its scope. This report covers six key sectors in cloud computing: commodity Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), enterprise IaaS, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), cloud storage and private clouds. We highlight the current state of each and provide informed insights into where they — and cloud computing in general — are headed. Much like any market in a still-evolving state, the infrastructure of the cloud-computing transition is still being built by startups, practitioners and even a big-name company or two. Companies mentioned in this report include VMware, Amazon, Nasuni, Terremark and Heroku. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
File sharing and collaboration company Box.net’s SimpleShare is a great little desktop app for Windows and Mac that makes taking and sharing screenshots and screencasts seamless. Take a screenshot, or record a screencast, using the app and it will automatically be uploaded to your Box.net account. Read more »
Working remotely means not having the easy access to the machines and systems you used to when you were cubicle-bound. Here’s a list of five basic categories of tools you should have at the ready, and a variety of options to consider for each category. Read more »
Two markets stand out above all else when looking at the first quarter of 2011: infrastructure as a service (IaaS) — the epitome of cloud computing — and big data. Amazon Web Services continues to lead the IaaS space in terms of customers and innovation, while Rackspace, buoyed by momentum around OpenStack, will be its primary competitor for mainstream customers. In the big data space, there are so many players and terms floating about it’s difficult for outsiders to get a handle on who’s who and what’s what, though such activity validates the technologies. Other developments this quarter included HP’s impending presence in the cloud computing and big data spaces and the realization that Intel won’t be left to die if low-power servers based on x86 processors catch on like the buzz late last year suggests they will. Additional companies mentioned in this report include VMware, Microsoft, Cloudera, SeaMicro and Facebook. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Accellion, a provider of secure file transfer solutions, has announced Accellion Secure Collaboration, a new product that aims to bring easy Dropbox-style file sharing and collaboration to the enterprise, while also providing IT departments with controls to ensure data security and demonstrate regulatory compliance. Read more »
If you’re like me, you probably have files spread across a number of different cloud services, so you might be interested to hear about Joukuu, a Windows desktop app that can browse and manage files from Box.net, Dropbox and Google Docs. Read more »
Technological advancements have minimized the need for employees to be as physically present in a traditional office setting, and employee relationships now extend across different time zones and geographies. This paper discusses the future of work and the workplace in that context. We examine the shifting nature of actual workspaces, from four office walls to the online world; the emergence of new flexible hours that no longer require a nine-to-five mindset; the role of consumer-grade technologies such as iPads, smartphones and notebooks in the workplace; and what role cloud-based services such as Box.net, Huddle and Dropbox play. Companies mentioned in this report include Facebook, Apple, Google and Skype. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Many collaboration tools have very similar feature sets. But to find a really good app, you need to look beyond the basic features of a particular tool and delve more deeply into the value, experience and knowledge that its vendor brings to the table. Read more »
The enterprise collaboration space has entered an exciting new phase of collaboration. New software and applications are coming to market, as are new concepts for how to work and communicate in the knowledge age. From consumer-grade apps like those from Box.net and Huddle to software from long-established players like Microsoft and Oracle, these tools are taking collaboration technology past the traditional IT decision-making process and changing the way we approach the workday. Additional companies in this report include Skype, Huddle, Jive, Moxie and Yammer. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Box.net today unveiled the latest version of its cloud-based, file-sharing software. The service, which enables Box users to view and collaborate on files, has been rebuilt from the ground up with a greatly simplified UI, as well as offering new collaboration and real-time notification features. Read more »
There are thousands of startups trying to offer collaboration software but four of them onstage today at our Net:Work event explained how virality, openness with other applications through an API, and simplicity will help startups succeed against their enterprise rivals, especially those like Microsoft SharePoint. Read more »
The convergence of cloud computing, more empowered employees and on-demand infrastructure is driving adoption of technologies — from workspaces like Box.net, Huddle and Cetnral Desktop to customer-powered support communities like Get Satisfaction — that foster high-impact collaboration and with that, innovation. Read more »
In the last decade, the web has brought us countless technologies which enable consumers to get things done simply and without fuss. So why, at a typical large company, are the applications so bloated and complex? Bring on simplified software and deployment: the consumerization of IT. Read more »
No single strategy guarantees social media success. Twitter’s recent relaunch mirrors some of Digg’s tactics, but social services from the likes of Google and Apple take entirely different approaches. Which is all to say that with multiple strategies, there’s more than one way to win the ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
