A recent survey suggests that “mobile computing appears to be a driving force behind cloud adoption in enterprises.” While the cloud clearly plays a role in making mobile devices as valuable to the enterprise as they are, it may be too much to suggest that mobiles ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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 »
The race for market share among cloud storage providers continues with some HP PCs now offering an easy on-ramp to Box.net’s cloud storage. But how much traction can a PC bundle get when most business users rely more and more on their mobile devices? Read more »
When it comes to the promise of data as the currency of the web, the current state of affairs has privacy advocates and many consumers up in arms. But it doesn’t have to be the one-sided affair it is today, in which companies have all the data and all the rights, and we shouldn’t have to be afraid of who’s doing what with our information. With laws, products, practices and education, data can become a far more valuable currency than cash ever was. Keeping that in mind, this research note examines five issues that must be addressed by policy makers and entrepreneurs so that they can deliver on our data-driven digital future. Companies mentioned in this report include Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
PogoPlug continues to pivot from simple hardware for remote file access to true web storage. The new PogoPlug Cloud blends locally stored files and online content for easy streaming, sharing and storage. Think Dropbox, but with added access to a home hard-drive with near-limitless capacity. Read more »
With 45 million users, Dropbox is a popular cloud storage service. Consumers use it for photos, documents and other material so they can access it from PCs, phones or other devices. But it’s much more than that, said Drew Houston, founder and CEO of the company. Read more »
Connectivity changes everything. That’s the credo driving just about every corner of our day-to-day lives. As human beings, we are now connected to one another through not just our social networks but also our cars, the books we read, the albums we download and even our own health and wellness habits (to name just a few areas). With that in mind, GigaOM Pro has singled out certain areas in the technology industry where we see this shift to constant connectivity taking place most drastically. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
It already has a reputation as Europe’s top investor in startups, but now Index Ventures is adding more firepower with the announcement of a €500m new growth fund aimed at making big bets on rapidly-expanding companies on both sides of the Atlantic. Read more »
As more and more of our ‘computational’ needs that span from work to entertainment transition to the cloud, is it time to start writing the obituary for local storage? With a 100 Mbps connection, local storage is going the way of the dodo for me. Read more »
We are adding two new speakers — Andy Bechtolsheim and Drew Houston — to our lineup for the GigaOM RoadMap, our conference that will look at how connectedness changes everything from how we live, work, create and consume. It is being held on November 10 in San Francisco. 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 »
Cloud-storage startup Dropbox has its eyes set on being the foundation of a future where we’re never without our data. Phone, tablet, TV, car, you name it. Dropbox wants integration into everything, with its icon becoming to file access what Facebook’s icon is to sharing. Read more »
Last quarter’s big headline in social media and real-time technologies came from Google, which launched Google+, its first social tech product that seems legit. In the third quarter, things were back to normal. Google+ is still growing, but Facebook’s platform update dominated the news. And as Google+ passed 25 million users and won some raves from the digerati, its competition with Facebook intensified. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Zynga, Salesforce, BranchOut and Foursquare. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
New HTC users will get a taste of expanded Dropbox cloud storage as part of a partnership between the two companies. The handset maker confirmed Thursday to Pocket-lint that it is partnering with Dropbox to offer 3 GB of free storage to users of Sense 3.5. Read more »
There are an increasing number of apps that not only support both the iPhone and iPad, but also have an OS X version available. Here’s how three devs behind WriteRoom, TextExpander and DropBox have teamed up to make cross-platform writing as painless as possible. Read more »
During VMworld this week, VMware introduced a new Dropbox-like application called Project Octopus that will let users safely store, access and share corporate documents. It all so sounded so promising, and then someone asked me whether it will actually get used. Read more »
If you want to use your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to go paperless, these apps have many basic business needs covered, helping you take notes, scan documents, sign contracts, send faxes, convert business cards to Address Book contacts and even process payments. Read more »
Norman McLean was haunted by waters. I’m haunted by iOS text editors. I usually switch between Pages, PlainText and Elements. Elements, recently updated to version 2, stands a chance at having the biggest impact on my writing workflow, thanks to new sharing and publishing features. 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 »
Android owners using Dropbox should take a look at Dropsync, a third-party client that offers more features than the native Dropbox software. Offering true, two-way sync, the app can be configured to sync at certain times, on Wi-Fi only or depending on the phone’s battery level. 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 »
When the smoke clears, Dropbox’s newfound focus on transparency could turn out to be a great thing. Especially if it triggers an avalanche of other web-service providers following in its footsteps, making life easier for consumers and getting the federal government off their backs. Read more »
Today I stumbled across a nifty Windows app: Dropbox Screen Grabber. It allows you to take screenshots using a predefined hotkey combination and then instantly uploads them to your Dropbox public folder; the URL of the uploaded file is placed on your clipboard. Read more »
If I were a cloud-service provider, I’d consider investing in television advertising. If I didn’t know better, TV, and the media, in general, the cloud is a fairly useless and highly insecure place to store my data. Perhaps worse, I might think it’s a joke. Read more »
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 »
GoDropBox is a third-party add-on for Google Apps that adds a public mailbox to your Google Docs account, enabling anyone with the appropriate link to upload files to your account. This is handy for web workers who would like to accept files too big to email. Read more »
A few weeks ago, electronic mail, or email as it’s now affectionately known, hit the respectable age of 40. Four decades since the first message – believed to be “QWERTYUIOP” – email seems to be going strong. But is it about to hit a midlife crisis? Read more »
PARC is working on a new networking technology that would make it possible for end users to connect with each other through “a Facebook without Facebook.com.” With Content-Centric Networking, data would self-organize, benefiting both end users and enterprises. First commercial applications could emerge within 18 months. 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 »
Egnyte, the file management, sharing and backup system that I wrote about last fall, has been updated, and has added several ways to simplify accessing and sharing files in the cloud, directly from Windows Explorer, the Mac OS X Finder and Outlook. Read more »
Tablets have gone mainstream, and now those devices — from the iPad to Research in Motion’s new PlayBook — are headed to the enterprise. This trend is largely driven by end users who prefer to bring their own devices to work, which is creating a fruitful marketplace for both hardware manufacturers and app developers. This report examines the current state of tablets in the enterprise, from use cases to market drivers, and analyzes which players will be worth watching in the coming months. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Apple, Google, Samsung and Nokia. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Not long after Steve Jobs’s keynote, a lament went out about apps and services iOS 5 and iCloud will render obsolete. However, after reviewing early reports of iOS 5, I’d argue that many “threatened” apps will still hold a place in the hearts of users. Read more »
So far, tablet computers have been more useful as “data consuming” tools, rather than genuine work devices. One stumbling block is the inability to easily edit documents stored in the cloud. Soonr is the first service to offer integrated editing of Office documents for the iPad. Read more »
Chatbox is an OSX app that adds simple collaboration features to popular cloud file sharing and storage service Dropbox. It allows you to post status updates and comment on the files stored within your Dropbox account, and even chat in real-time with other Chatbox users. Read more »
Although popular cloud file sync service Dropbox does encrypt files that are uploaded using it, if you want to be completely sure that your files are secure, you should encrypt them yourself. SecretSync is a transparent client-side encryption tool that works on the fly. Read more »
OfficeDrop, an application for scanning, accessing and sharing paper and digital files via the cloud has been rolling out onto a variety of platforms. OfficeDrop Paper-to-Go app for Android is now available, in addition to applications for Mac, PC and iPad. 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 »
Xobni, a popular productivity add-on for Outlook that automatically displays additional information about email contacts, has announced that it is making available “gadgets,” third-party additions to Xobni that will let well-known collaboration tools like Yammer, Chatter and Dropbox become an integral part of the Outlook interface. Read more »
Ever wished you could send email attachments to your Dropbox account just by forwarding them to a special address? With Send to Dropbox, you can do just that. Any emails that you forward to it will be processed and their attachments saved to your Dropbox account Read more »
