Hewlett-Packard continues to struggle with fallout from the decision to nix its webOS-based tablets, a less-than-stellar mix of IT services, and its newly completed acquisition of Autonomy. The question is how long those reverberations will impact the company’s profitability and growth prospects. Read more »
In the latest indication that Node.js support is table stakes for all Platform-as-a-Service players, Engine Yard is adding support for the popular server-side framework as part of a trial program. Developers like to use Node.js because it supports JavaScript and is fast and scalable. Read more »
The launch of Amazon’s new “Kindle lending” feature means another form of content is becoming something that we rent, Netflix-style, rather than owning. But moving to a rental rather than an ownership model changes our relationship to content, and not always in a good way. Read more »
Siri went down on Thursday for its first extended outage — around five hours, according to most counts. Five hours is hardly three days (like another noteworthy recent mobile service blackout), but the reaction of media and users show Apple’s personal assistant is making its presence felt. Read more »
Apple doesn’t willingly telegraph its plans, but thanks to the filing of its 10-K, we get a peek into where the company plans to invest. Based on the reported capital expenditures for 2012, it looks like it’s doubling down on its retail stores and cloud infrastructure. Read more »
The rapid growth in storage and processing power will put a big strain on the capabilities of the cloud and our wireless networks. But Jeff Belk of ICT168 Capital believes that there is opportunity to be found if we look both forward and backward. Read more »
Scott Noteboom, the man who has been in charge of Yahoo’s data center operations since 2005, has joined Apple as the iconic consumer electronics maker expands into the cloud. This follows Apple’s hiring of Microsoft data center guru Kevin Timmons a few months back. Read more »
The cloud is a killer. Other than the microprocessor, OutSystems’ Mike Jones believes we would be hard-pressed to find another technological innovation that has so effectively killed off its predecessors. Though SaaS had once been the savior of businesses, XaaSes are rapidly stealing the spotlight. Read more »
For the Internet of Things to achieve its full potential, Alex Salkever of Joyent believes that operators must fundamentally change the way they build and run clouds. In particular, they need to update the decades-old infrastructure technology and create more flexible APIs. Read more »
Data is changing computing and the Internet, and centers can combine advances in database architecture with commodity server and storage technology. Dr. John Busch, the founder, Chairman, and CTO of Schooner, explains how to achieve the high availability imperative without sacrificing performance, scalability or cost-effectiveness. Read more »
After years of focusing on desktop software, Adobe has finally gotten the memo that the future is in cloud storage, web-friendly technology, and mobile apps — and launched a “transformation” to address those markets. But Adobe’s bold new direction will almost certainly come with growing pains. Read more »
While the computing side of history is well known, the storage side remains hidden from common view. Ed Lee, of Tintri, Inc., takes a look at the state of storage today and compares it with the radically different environment that existed back in 1984. Read more »
Much like everyone has some product or strategy to optimize on “the cloud,” momentum is already gathering around the next big technology trend to drive buzzzwords — big data. VMware is no exception, so I spoke with Steve Herrod, the company’s CTO to find out more. Read more »
Enterprises spend $270B on software every year, yet some don’t yet some can’t even calculate the number of employees in their organizations. Rudimentary challenges like this plague every enterprise in the world. When deriving anything beyond enterprise software basics, most corporations are out of luck. Read more »
Two weeks ago, Google announced a significant price increase for use of its App Engine Platform-as-a-Service. With vendor lock-in comes vulnerability to price increases. And for developers and app makers, this drastic shift may have been a “bet-the-company” decision without ever realizing it. Read more »
If Hewlett-Packard really ousts CEO Leo Apotheker barely a year into his tenure, no one can say the move—however drastic—was unexpected. Apotheker presided over a disastrous period for the venerable computing giant, but many say the HP board should follow him out the door. Read more »
Dome9, a stealth company that aims to create the equivalent of a firewall for public and private clouds, launched the company and its product Monday. The company, which was founded last year, is just one of several cloud security companies coming out of stealth mode. Read more »
A decade ago, tech executives had no concept of the magnitude of attacks that could take place on our own soil. In the aftermath of 9/11, we became more aware of our vulnerabilities — at our homes, in our country and within our IT infrastructure. Read more »
Lately, we’re read a lot about the end of the computer age. It isn’t over. The computer is simply hiding in the clouds behind commonplace devices. As it should – and should have long ago, had we been able to figure how sooner. Read more »
Incumbent wireless service providers and a chorus of experts have warned of a looming spectrum crisis, which could threaten the success of cloud-based and other high-bandwidth offerings. A silver lining is on the horizon, however, in the form of policy and technological innovations. Read more »
Are defined hours of work an anachronism that’s holding us back from becoming more efficient? Or is the freedom to work whenever we want something still reserved for a select few, and/or a trap that causes us to work more rather than less? Read more »
OpenStack has attracted tremendous developer and partner support since launching a year ago. But according to Netflix’s chief cloud architect, Adrian Cockcroft, the open-source cloud project has its work cut out for it if it hopes to attract major clients like Netflix. Read more »
The open source movement has the potential to empower developing countries to use IT to communicate to its citizenry, expand its educational platform and address national disasters. But for many nations, software is not enough, and Silicon Valley companies need to pitch in. Read more »
After developing databases for Namibian non-governmental organizations while in the Peace Corps, Jay Haase moved back to Minnesota, moving the databases he created to the cloud and offering fractions of his time so the organizations could afford to keep him. Read more »
The recent decision in the copyright case against Mp3Tunes is only the latest skirmish in a battle founder Michael Robertson has been fighting with the music industry for over a decade. Without him, we might not have many of the things we take for granted today. Read more »
StackMob, a mobile backend provider for developers, is integrating with cloud platform Heroku, extending its services to Heroku’s Ruby developers. The partnership allows StackMob to expand the languages it supports beyond Java, Scala and Clojure to include Ruby and later, Node.js. Read more »
Web applications that are deployed in one or a few data centers can watch their bandwidth costs exceed their server and hosting costs as their applications scale up, according to a paper looking at what telecommunications companies can offer as cloud providers. Read more »
Encoding.com’s Vid.ly universal URL service is now ready for professional users, with features and pricing designed to provide a turnkey solution for video delivery on any device. Vid.ly Pro is rolling out to users today, in an effort to capture more of the cloud-encoding market. Read more »
Mu Dynamics new service allows developers building in the cloud to load test their apps for as little as a $1. The company has a product for ISPs that shows how 1 million people playing FarmVille might affect their networks, is branching out into the cloud. Read more »
Apple no longer allows e-book sellers to link out to their stores, which is likely why Amazon introduced a new web-based app that works outside of Apple’s official software distribution channel on Wednesday. Here’s a look at the new Kindle Cloud Reader, and its integrated store. Read more »
Four out of five people are aware of the terms “personal cloud” or “digital locker” according to a new survey. But consumers want such services to be secure, convenient and they don’t want to pay a lot for them. Surprised? Read more »
Okta, a startup that makes identity and access management software for enterprises, has closed $16.5 million in new funding. Okta’s software enables multiple people within an enterprise to sign in to the company’s web-based applications, whether they’re in the cloud or behind a firewall. Read more »
Todd Papaioannou, VP and chief cloud architect at Yahoo, has left the company for a role as entrepreneur in residence at Battery Ventures. At Yahoo, he drove the strategic directions for both the cloud computing and Hadoop teams and helped define the company’s overall IT strategy. Read more »
Apple released a preview version of its upcoming iCloud web apps late Monday afternoon, alongside new pricing info for iCloud storage space upgrades. Here’s a look at how the iCloud.com contact and calendar management apps work, along with a peek inside other aspects of the beta. Read more »
IBM shares were trading up Tuesday morning after it reported strong second-quarter results yesterday. While Big Blue got a profit boost from recently released mainframe products, it also gave us some indications for the future growth of the cloud and big data. Read more »
New research seems to show that our memories are less accurate when we know the information is stored somewhere else. Some feel this is going to make us less human in some way, but I for one am glad to outsource parts of my brain. Read more »
The cautionary tales around broadband caps are trickling in and as I read them I wonder if amid these caps the web ecosystem is failing consumers (and maybe teleworkers) when it comes to broadband and cloud services.Here’s how and where things are breaking down. Read more »
Enterprise employees have shifted from the gray and controlled world of corporate IT to the colorful Oz of consumer technologies, but according to data from an IDC/Unisys survey, everyone is in need of some kind of wizard to sort things out. Read more »
Cloud file sync and backup company Soonr has now launched Soonr Teaming to add team-based collaborative features to its service. Users can form project teams to work together virtually and access and edit files from anywhere, on Mac, PC or a number of mobile devices. Read more »
The world is becoming a giant computer comprised of data centers, networks and devices on the fringe, but that’s not good enough. Datacenters need custom multi-core processors, improved memory and better software before we can gain the rich, immersive services that some computer scientists envision. Read more »
