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Joyent to Amazon: It’s on
Joyent isn’t being coy about it: It wants to compete head on with Amazon and that means it will offer many more options including some, it says, are cheaper than analogous AWS services. Read more »
Dell backs away from OpenStack public cloud, steps up to Enstratius
So, remember that Openstack-based public cloud Dell promised for this year? It ain’t gonna happen. Instead Dell will sell public cloud options from Joyent, ScaleMatrix and ZeroLag. Read more »
Cloud providers seek to become “arms dealers” to telco, carrier clouds
photo: Flickr / roberthuffstutter
Tier 3, Dell, Rackspace — all would very much like to sell their cloud wares to telcos, carriers, managed service providers and are rolling out packages to attract those companies. Read more »
Dell snaps up Enstratius to build cloud momentum
With Enstratius, Dell gets enterprise-class cloud management capabilities, says Enstratius CTO George Reese. Read more »
First Dell, now BMC: Which legacy IT company will go private next?
Who is willing to bet that Dell and BMC taking themselves private is the end of a trend? Right, me neither. Read more »
The week in cloud: the argument for lots of clouds; mobility rules; catching up with Dell
photo: Shutterstock Brian A Jackson
RightScale research says one cloud won’t fit all; mobile development landgrab continues with Facebook-Parse deal; Michael Dell talks up cloud opportunity. Read more »
Dell mistakenly sees hope in Windows RT where others don’t
Among Microsoft’s hardware partners few are publicly backing Windows RT after low sales and demand. Dell is standing out from the crowd here, likely in an attempt at relevancy in the mobile market. But it’s not a good bet on Dell’s part. Read more »
Serious question: Is it too late for HP Project Moonshot to disrupt anything?
If you want an HP Project Moonshot server, you can get one today. The question is many of the big, webscale companies HP is targeting are already building their own servers. Read more »
Applied Micro’s cloud chip is an ARM-based, switch-killing machine
photo: Stacey Higginbotham
Applied Micro, a chip company with a market cap of $500 million, is set to take on Intel and AMD with the first 64-bit, ARM-based server part that mimics an entire rack on a chip. Read more »
Dell proxy lays out damned-if-we-do, damned-if-we-don’t quandary
Dell’s proxy filing paints a morose picture of the company’s future with or without increased investment in key business technology segments. Read more »
FWIW, Mark Hurd squelches Dell rumors
Oracle co-president Mark Hurd, in response to a question, indicates zero interest in becoming Dell CEO. Blackstone Group reportedly had Hurd on its short list of prospective picks should it win the Dell deal. Read more »
Dell acknowledges two more bids
photo: Getty Images
Dell’s future remains up in the air, with now not one but three potential deals officially on the table. The board’s special committee deemed both the new Blackstone Group and Carl Icahn bids worthy of consideration. Read more »
Hurd? Capellas? Let’s be bold. How about Gerstner, Bradley, Bartz, Otellini as new Dell chief?
photo: HP
Blackstone reportedly reached out to Oracle co-prez Mark Hurd to gauge his interest in being Dell CEO should Blackstone’s buyout bid succeed. Here are a few much more interesting options. Read more »
Reports: Blackstone and Icahn jumping into fight for Dell
It looks like the Blackstone Group and Carl Icahn will be in the mix to take control of Dell — coming up with offers to rival the bid from Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners. Read more »
How the mega data center is changing the hardware and data center markets
photo: Facebook
Mega data centers’ innovations in serviceability, automatically detecting and recovering from failures, procurement practices, and so forth will become standard practice in all modern data centers. Read more »
Dell, Cisco looking at vendor-led SDN consortiums, but is it too late?
As startups sign up more customers, legacy network vendors are talking about starting groups to form their own standards for software-defined networking. But there are already standards, and it could be too late. Read more »
How fourth-quarter 2012 will affect IT spending in 2013
Worldwide IT spending finished out 2012 with a growth rate of 3.8 percent over 2011, the lowest growth rate since 2009. Fourth-quarter 2012 earnings reports and guidance were notable in their lack of any decisively positive news to raise 2013 spending expectations much. Those optimistic about […] Read more »
Dell buyout just got (much) more complicated
photo: Getty Images
Uh oh. Carl Icahn thinks the deal crafted by Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners to take Dell private for $24 billion woefully underestimates the company’s worth. Stay tuned… Read more »
HP’s off-and-on romance with its PC business is on again
photo: HP
Revenue for Hewlett-Packard’s personal systems was off 8 percent year over year, but Meg Whitman reiterated that the company is devoted to this margin-stretched business. Read more »
Dell leads $51.6M investment in flash storage startup Skyera
Flash storage startup Skyera has scored $51.6 million in second round funding led by Dell Ventures. With Dell, Skyera gets a potential sales channel and Dell gets tech to sell to its cloud and webscale customers. Read more »
After bashing Ballmer, former Microsoft exec outlines turnaround plan for the company
photo: Flickr / ToddABishop
Joachim Kempin is the former Microsoft exec who handled the company’s interesting relationships with OEM partners. Now he’s weighing in with ideas to bring Microsoft back to power. Read more »
This week in cloud: Amazon upsets Apple; NTT backs Cloud Foundry; cloud taxes in dispute
photo: Shutterstock / Gena96
Amazon is numero uno in consumer appeal, beating out even Apple and Google, according to Harris Interactive. Also, Cloud Foundry gets big backer in NTT and states reconsider sales taxes on cloud services. Read more »
How Dell should go big now that it has gone private
photo: Shutterstock / Dusit
Free from the scrutiny of public markets, Dell should let its freak flag fly and take some real risks to distinguish itself from the server-vendor pack. I think that means doubling down on next-generation software and server design. Read more »
The Dell deal is done: Company goes private in $24.4B transaction
After a week of whispers, it’s official: Silver Lake Partners and Michael Dell are taking his eponymous PC company private. Read more »
Morphlabs’ OpenStack cloud to arm service providers against Amazon
photo: Shutterstock / Oleksiy Mark
For big service providers that feel “disrupted” by Amazon’s prodigious cloud, Morphlabs is pitching mCloud Osmium as a way to get up to snuff. Read more »
Dell buyout deal is reportedly near
The notion of a privately-held Dell, partly owned by Microsoft, is getting closer to reality, according to published reports. A deal in which Microsoft owns a big stake in a PC company shows just how drastically times have changed. Read more »
Shhh, DataGravity gets $30M from Andreessen Horowitz et al to democratize info analytics
Stealthy startup founded by EqualLogics’ team now has more funding to simplify data analytics the way their former company streamlined storage. Read more »
Microsoft gets a (little) boost from Windows 8, but profits fall
photo: Flickr / ToddABishop
For its second quarter, Microsoft’s profits sagged to $6.4 billion or 76 cents per share from $6.6 billion (79 cents per share) compared to last year’s comparable period. Read more »
A Microsoft investment in Dell would show how vulnerable both IT giants are
Both Microsoft and Dell face lagging stock prices and the perception that they both missed the boat in mobile. But the two companies also face very real threats to their core enterprise IT businesses. Read more »
Why Microsoft would want a piece of Dell
If Microsoft takes a big stake in Dell it could sway operating system and software loaded on Dell PCs, servers and potentially other devices. Read more »
Rackspace will build its own servers just like Facebook and Google do
photo: Rackspace
Rackspace’s bet on Open Compute has been taken to a new level as the hosting provider has decided to build its own servers — a move it hopes will save it up to 30 percent in costs. Read more »
Sorry Windows RT, Windows 8 on an Atom has your number
Microsoft’s Windows RT software had an opportunity to bring limited Windows 8 functionality to low-cost tablets, but that window may already be closing. Intel Atom-based slates with full Windows 8 and long run-times on a single charge have fewer restrictions and cost about the same. Read more »
Dell, Intel and WestSummit back Mirantis’ OpenStack effort with $10M
Mirantis CEO Adrian Ionel says the fact that it’s getting financing from Dell and Intel, along with WestSummit Capital, does not negate it’s ability to deliver vendor-agnostic OpenStack clouds. Read more »
Want a sub-$500 Windows 8 tablet? Look to Dell.
Looking for a Windows 8 slate on the cheap? Dell removed the active digitizer and swappable battery from its Latitude 10 tablet for an Essentials model that starts at $499. Aimed at educators and students, the tablet is much less than Microsoft’s $899 Surface Pro. Read more »
This week in cloud: Amazon gets mobile, HP reopens old wound; Dell delays
photo: Shutterstock / winui
Amazon brings its AWS management console to Android, but not iOS, devices; Hewlett-Packard SEC filing opens up an old can of worms; and Dell will wait for OpenStack to mature before bringing out its public cloud implementation Read more »
All computing isn’t equal: Here are the four types
photo: Flickr user Keith Ellwood
Despite the idea that a server is a server, the needs of different computing customers differ widely. For those thinking about selling infrastructure, software or even services understanding the difference in computing and IT styles will help you hone your pitch and find your buyer. Read more »
Subscriber Content
Cleantech and investment in 2013
In 2013 cleantech investing will move toward companies serving unsubsidized markets where software plays a role in reducing power consumption. In many ways this is a return to plays for energy efficiency, and there’s still money to be made from business models built around saving energy. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
SaaS valuation boom slowed but remained strong in 2012
The hypergrowth that the SaaS category saw last year has leveled off, but these companies are still outperforming traditional software rivals and legacy IT providers who are mired in a hardware-oriented world, according to new research from martinwolf Global M&A Advisors. Read more »
This week in cloud: Rackspace and Cloudant team; OpenNebula updates
photo: Shutterstock / winui
Cloudant aims for cloud ubiquity with Rackspace partnership; OpenNebula offers private testing cloud inside Amazon Web Services; and Dell vows (late) OpenStack-based public cloud, partners with Inktank on Ceph storage. Read more »
Gamers rejoice: New screen-shifting tech coming to high-end phones
photo: Silicon Image
Silicon Image has developed a new, smaller WirelessHD chip to let mobile gamers project their games from their smartphones or gaming devices onto their TVs. Will the same company that pushed HDMI be able to popularize a new wireless standard? Read more »
