EMC follows VMware, rest of world into OpenStack
With the storage leader now formally aboard the OpenStack Foundation, it’s almost easier to count the IT vendors who have not climbed aboard this open-source cloud bandwagon. Read more »
Power and dumb machines are the biggest challenges for big data
photo: Shutterstock / mkabakov
IBM has just hired a former Assistant Secretary of Defense as a VP for research strategy. With an expertise in cybersecurity and big data, Zachary Lemnios has some predictions and thoughts about big data and machine learning worth hearing. Read more »
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Health care and big data in 2012
Opportunities for big data and data-analytics firms in health care are likely to expand dramatically in the coming years. Driving this are trends such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the use of data to address inefficient processes, and the rapid growth of mobile health. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Faster networks anyone? IBM pops optics on conventional silicon chips.
photo: IBM
Figuring out how to bring the speed of light to communications on chips, between chips and everywhere has been an overarching goal of semiconductor research. IBM says it is ready to bring a technology that puts optics and electronics on a chip using conventional manufacturing methods. Read more »
Wait, Google Apps for Business is a “real” business?
Updated: Google reportedly earned $1 billion from Google Apps for Business last year. While that pales in comparison to Microsoft Office numbers, it’s still not chump change. Read more »
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IT spending update, fourth quarter 2012
Many factors have driven the recent high demand for IT products and services. However, relentless global economic weakness and uncertainty have resulted in a deterioration of worldwide IT spending through the third quarter and will continue to be an anchor in the fourth quarter. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Why VMware is spinning off Cloud Foundry and SpringSource
The decision by VMware and parent EMC to spin out VMware’s “tier 2″ technologies into a separate subsidiary shows that they’re under pressure to compete with massive cloud providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft in the enterprise. Read more »
For data warehousing startups, Amazon is both friend and rival
photo: Barb Darrow
Coopetition lives on as Amazon Web Services partners build atop Amazon infrastructure but then watch as Amazon brings out rival products. It’s the cost of doing business, they say. Read more »
Hang on, maybe Facebook did drive Black Friday sales after all
A study of Black Friday cyber-shopping said that social media advertising was a big bust with few people buying things in response to an ad from Facebook. The story is very different if you use other metrics to define “responded.” Read more »
Amazon’s new data warehousing service takes aim at “old guard” IT giants
Oracle, IBM, Teradata take note: Amazon has you in its crosshairs with new Redshift data warehousing services that are in preview now and slated to be broadly available next year. Read more »
Amazon’s dead serious about the enterprise cloud
photo: Amazon
All the talk about big companies not wanting to put workloads on Amazon Web Services is hot air. The biggest companies already deploy workloads beyond test-and-dev on AWS. The question is: can AWS sustain that momentum as new options come online? Read more »
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How search can unlock the power of big data
Big data tools such as Cassandra and Hadoop are transforming how data is stored and exploited at scale. But without similarly capable search technologies, enterprise adopters face challenges when it comes to gaining insights from that data. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
What HP’s cloud chief wants you to know about HP’s cloud
photo: HP
Zorawar Biri Singh, who leads HP’s cloud effort, says the company’s vision aligns nicely with what enterprises want. HP will fill in check marks to its OpenStack-based game plan next month but the big question is whether HP’s brand still carries weight. Read more »
What supercomputers and Schrodinger’s cat can teach the electronics industry
photo: Oak Ridge National Labs
In the near term companies are eking more performance out of chips without using too much power by using co-processors taking a cue from the supercomputer industry. In the long term, though making faster and more efficient chips will take place at the subatomic scale. Read more »
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The future of India’s IT services
India’s major tech firms have become competitive enterprise outsourcers and systems integrators on a global scale. Firms such as Cognizant and Tata Consultancy Services are looking for technology to provide the next competitive advantages in the market. The cloud provides that opportunity on several levels. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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The promise of SDNs in the enterprise
The growth of public and private cloud services places new demands on the IT organization, particularly when it comes to the scale, agility and management of the data center. SDNs are a response to those demands, providing opportunities for IT managers to improve their network operations. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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The state of cross-platform media measurement
Brand advertising’s focus on cross-platform media measurement has grown dramatically in the past five years. Within the next 36 months cross-platform digital video advertising will standardize, driven by the shift in media dollars to online viewing and the adoption of the Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) initiative. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
What “unbelievable” new services does Amazon have on tap?
photo: JULIADEBOER PHOTOGRAPHY
What sort of amazing cloud services could Amazon have up its sleeve? Werner Vogels ain’t saying anything in detail but here are five things to watch out for where the public cloud services giant is concerned. Read more »
Getting to grips with big data’s challenges
photo: JULIADEBOER PHOTOGRAPHY
Analytics is not a new field, but its evolution into ‘big data’ shows how much of a growth industry it is. That means facing up to issues such as the need for talent and good models. Read more »
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Cloud and data third-quarter 2012
The usual suspects Amazon and VMware made significant announcements in cloud in the third quarter, while Hadoop remained the talk of the town in big data. Emerging trends in software-defined networking and flash storage stirred up lots of M&A and venture investment in the quarter. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Top 8 questions for the OpenStack Summit
photo: Flickr / karindalziel
If the OpenStack Summit is anywhere near as dramatic as the events leading up to it, it will be a really good show. As the open-source cloud effort transitions from a Rackspace-dominated move to a true community effort, here are 8 big questions. Read more »
Does big data really need custom hardware?
photo: Shutterstock / z0w
IBM and Cisco have both launched specialized hardware designed to securely and efficiently handle big data, but is there a large market for specialized big data gear? If there is such a market, are these the boxes that will fill it? Read more »
Zenoss taps $25M to monitor the IT universe
photo: Zenoss
Zenoss will use its new-found cash to staff up its international operations, better support global partners, and improve the real-time analytics of its IT monitoring system, said CEO Bill Karpovich. Read more »
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Metered IT: the path to utility computing
Agility is increasingly recognized as one of the main advantages of cloud computing, but an important aspect of agility is choice: the choice to run computing jobs in house, in a private cloud, or on public cloud services from the likes of Amazon, Rackspace, and a growing number of other providers. To exercise choice, customers require information and the ability to compare the costs and benefits of competing solutions. This report explores opportunities for accurately measuring computing resources and their use, simplifying the comparison of competing cloud offerings and opening the door to charging models based more closely on actual consumption. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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Continuous delivery and the world of devops
Thanks to the rise of online business, companies must now get their products and services to market as fast as they can, and releasing software now means small releases that occur very frequently. Enter devops, which is disrupting traditional assumptions about the roles of development and operations. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The dark side of OpenStack
photo: Flickr / karindalziel
Buyer beware when it comes to adopting OpenStack — or any open-source cloud — according to a newly released Gartner report. Long story short: evaluate OpenStack just like you’d assess a commercial offering, cautions analyst Lydia Leong. Read more »
Why Japan is building an exam-taking robot at laptop scale
photo: Shutterstock / Palto
The Todai Robot project has received attention because of its goal to build a system capable of passing a college entrance exam — a tough test for a supercomputer that’s all the more difficult when confined to a single laptop computer. Read more »
Rometty to succeed Palmisano as IBM chairman
In the latest phase of a well-organized succession plan at IBM, Virginia Rometty will become chairman of the IT giant on October 1. Sam Palmisano will stay on as advisor until December 1, the company said. Read more »
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Work media tools in 2012 and beyond
Welcome to the fast-growing world of work media, a class of social tools oriented toward the needs of enterprises. Their emergence is due to the shifting expectations of an increasingly social workforce and the sense that older approaches to work like email are arguably approaching obsolescence. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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Listening platforms: finding the value in social media data
Listening platforms — or social media monitoring, analysis, and engagement tools — are bringing massive amounts of new information to businesses’ marketing departments. These tools are also leading the way in the growth of social media information and access throughout organizations so that customers’ wants and needs can be better understood and, presumably, satisfied. This report analyzes how the adoption of listening platforms is transforming marketing departments, their relationships with central IT, and the core systems that run the enterprise. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
IBM’s new imaging technique could lead to new and better chips
IBM has developed a microscopy technique that lets it see the bonds between molecules. While that’s pretty esoteric for most of us, the tool could help develop graphene-based semiconductors that would result in better batteries, faster chips, nicer displays and more efficient solar panels. Read more »
Managing sewage like traffic thanks to data
South Bend, Ind., is using a sensor network and IBM software to prevent its sewer system from dumping sewage into rivers or backing up into citizens’ home, but it’s just a microcosm of global trend toward solving urban maladies using big data. Read more »
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IT spending update, third quarter 2012
While cloud, mobility, social, and analytics have been driving demand for IT products and services in 2012, the worldwide IT spending picture has become dimmer as the year has progressed: We’re looking at 5.1 percent worldwide IT spending growth in 2012. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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How emerging technologies will influence collaboration
Already, workplaces are changing because of trends like BYOD and gamification. But other emerging technologies are also altering what our workspace looks like and how we collaborate. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
IBM pays $1.3B for HR software provider Kenexa
photo: Kenexa
IBM is paying $1.3 billion for HR management software provider Kenexa in a deal that will help it keep pace with Oracle and SAP, which have also made big acquisitions in the talent and recruiting software space. Read more »
Pure Storage fleshes out flash pitch
If you wanted to use Pure Storage’s FlashArrays but weren’t a Fibre Channel shop, you were out of luck. Untill now. The startup has added 10GbE and iSCSi support — as well as snapshotting capabilities — to its solid state storage arrays. Read more »
IBM squeezes more power from new solar cell
The more sunlight a solar cell can convert into electricity, the cheaper the solar power. Companies like IBM are turning to new materials to try to break efficiency barriers for solar cells. Read more »
Vicarious gets $15M to search for the key to artificial intelligence
Founders Fund and Dustin Moskovitz’s Good Ventures have led a $15 million round in a company that is trying to replicate the intelligence of the human brain in software. Vicarious’ goal is to help humanity thrive by inventing the algorithm to create to intelligent machines. Read more »
NetApp brings Fusion-io server flash storage into the fold
NetApp is working with Fusion-io to make server-side flash a resource for storing “hot” data. The company said its Flash Accel software can boost application performance up to 90 percent in some cases. Read more »
Software-defined networking is hot and Big Switch has data to prove it
In the wake of a $1 billion acquisition of Nicira, BigSwitch said that it has seen 6,000 downloads of its SDN controller software. Big Switch is the likely the next big buy for software defined networking, but who will be the suitor? Read more »
