Cloud storage vendor Nirvanix will use $25 million in in Series C funding round led by new investor Khosla Ventures to add to its engineering staff and expand global sales and marketing coverage. Read more »
Data warehouse veteran Teradata announced on Wednesday it is buying German software company eCircle in an attempt to gain a stronger presence in fast-growing world of marketing data. The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but this is the second marketing-specific acquisition Teradata has made in […] Read more »
Cloud computing and big data are in the enterprise to stay, but making the most of them presents challenges for IT decision makers. The future belongs to those companies who can work through legacy tools, ongoing security issues and the data scientist shortage. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
If you parse Amazon’s first quarter earnings, you could be forgiven for thinking that Amazon Web Services (AWS) is now a $2 billion-a-year business. Revenue from Amazon’s “other” category was $500 million for the quarter, although “other” does include revenue from other things. Read more »
There are now more than half a dozen commercial Hadoop distributions in the market, and almost every enterprise with big data challenges is tinkering with the Apache Foundation-licensed software. A new report examines the key disruptive trends shaping the Hadoop platform market. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
IBM’s big data platform will support the Cloudera Hadoop distribution, a surprising decision given the reservations the two companies had expressed about each other before. That gives IBM and rival Oracle at least one thing in common: Oracle’s Big Data Appliance runs Cloudera too. Read more »
It’s beginning to look like there will be no free-standing analytics companies left. IBM is buying Vivisimo for the “discovery and navigation” expertise that companies use to access and analyze (what else?) big data. The news come a week after IBM bought Varicent, another analytics company. Read more »
The rumor mill is adamant that storage giant EMC is in serious talks to buy Israeli flash-storage startup XtremIO, a move that could trigger an avalanche of flash acquisitions rivaling the scale-out-file-system feeding frenzy a couple years ago. Here’s who might get bought. Read more »
As tech companies–both vendors that build product — and integrators that customize and integrate that product into larger solutions — strive for scale there’s growing opportunity for cross-border mergers. That’s why martinwolf M&A Advisors of San Ramon, Calif. is opening an office in Bangalore. Read more »
If a breakthrough air-breathing battery design, created by none other than IBM, ever makes it out of the lab, the world could one day see an electric car with a whopping 500-mile range — about five times what the current electric cars today are offering. Read more »
This quarter saw Amazon Web Services finally relaxing its public-cloud-only stance and launching services to support hybrid-cloud deployments. Meanwhile, Hadoop players moved to make their platforms more accessible to mainstream BI analysts and database administrators. A new quarterly report analyzes these trends and provides a near-term outlook. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The new AWS Partner Network targets ISVs, SaaS companies, tool and platform providers as well as consultative partners like systems integrators and agencies. The goal is to provide them with the technology information they need, according to a post to the AWS blog. Read more »
Cloud platform provider Eucalyptus will use $30 million in new Series C funding to build its engineering and sales staffs, said CEO Marten Mickos.
The round was led by Institutional Venture Partners with contributions from Benchmark Capital, BV Capital and New Enterprise Associates. Read more »
Customers can now get early access to Rackspace’s OpenStack-based public cloud, slated to come online May 1. The news comes as the OpenStack Spring Conference kicks off in San Francisco. The company also unveiled OpenStack-based Cloud Block Storage and MySQL-based database services. Read more »
This quarter the EV market struggled to find its footing. Meanwhile, the smart-grid sector solidified and low-power technology proved itself important in the data center. Read more to learn what these news pieces and others mean for the larger space over the next few months. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The desire for more and increasingly specific analytics continues with IBM’s acquisition of Varicent Software. Banks, insurance companies, and retailers use Varicent software to look at data across finance, sales, human resources and IT departments to determine how to boost sales, according to IBM. Read more »
Jeff Jonas is now an IBM Fellow, according to a post on The Smarter Planet blog. We obviously think the world of him — Jonas has been a featured speaker at our Structure Data events twice. Read more »
OpenStack filled in some important checkmarks this week by adding IBM and Red Hat to its roster of corporate backers. Eighteen companies are slated to become members of the evolving OpenStack Foundation which is expected to come online in the third quarter. Read more »
Whatever you do, don’t compare IBM’s new PureSystems to Oracle Exadata or Cisco’s Unified Compute System. The company said it’s spent three years and $2 billion to get these systems just right for cloud computing and other workloads. Read more »
After years of beating around the bush, SAP declares that it is a database company and will take on the biggest kid on the block. It’s about time. It’s funding startups to build applications for Hana and Sybase. But beating Oracle won’t be easy. Read more »
Two major tech players — IBM and Red Hat — are ready to sign on the dotted line to join OpenStack, sources said. That should go a long way to ease the pain of Citrix’s decision to set up CloudStack as an OpenStack rival. Read more »
Cloud computing is at the top of virtually every CIO’s interest list and is expected to grow 126.5 percent over the next two years. A new report on GigaOM Pro details each sector of cloud computing and forecasts a shift toward hybrid models in the enterprise community. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Three fast-moving trends are altering the landscape for business IT: cloud computing, mobile computing and the consumerization of IT. This report presents actionable strategies to respond to the new realities of corporate computing, including a redesign of the IT organization. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The fact that perennial PC power Dell is buying Wyse Technologies for its thin client and desktop virtualization smarts shows just how much the power equation has shifted from low-margin PCs to cloud computing and other services in recent years. Read more »
An effort to build a telescope that can see back 13 billion years to the creation of the universe is prompting a five year €32 million ($42.7 million) effort to create a low-power supercomputer and networks to handle the data the new telescope will generate. Read more »
By pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into big data research and development, the Obama administration thinks it can push the current state of the art well beyond what’s possible today, and into entirely new research areas. It’s a noble goal, but also a necessary one. Read more »
Five key technology sectors are enabling the smart city: smart grids, smart transport, smart water and waste management, smart building systems, and the enabling ICT platforms for the smart city. Key players like IT companies, telcos and utilities must learn how to harness those technologies, and quickly. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Key to understanding big data is to move beyond simply examining the technology for data storage and analytics engines. Organizations preparing for a data-centric economy should also examine the roles of data quality, data obesity and data markets in the future of modern enterprises. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The technological hurdles to embracing big data are well-known at this point, but strong anti-data corporate culture might be an even bigger obstacle. The changes required to listen to the data and, possibly, to transform a company’s business model take a lot of work. Read more »
Cloud computing, mobile computing and the consumerization of IT combine to create another force that overwhelms IT departments: complexity, including complexity of devices and applications, physical and virtual computing environments, and related challenges for IT staff. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Configuration management player Opscode nets $19.5 million in new Series C funding led by Ignition Partners and names Ignition’s John Connors, former Microsoft CFO, to the board. With its cash infusion, Opscode hopes to build its engineering staff and enterprise business. Read more »
One solution to the big data skills shortage has been consulting firms that specialize in deploying big data systems companies need to make sense of their information. These companies will continue to play a vital role in helping us make sense of the the data deluge. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
If IBM Distinguished Engineer Jeff Jonas ever invites you for a friendly game of puzzle, be prepared: Jonas likes to leave out half of the pieces, or introduce false positives from other puzzle sets. These kinds of experiments have taught him a lot about data analytics. Read more »
Big data now touches everything from enterprises to smart-meter startups, while Hadoop is fast becoming the leading tool to analyze that data, and debates around privacy abound. GigaOM Pro analysts offer insights on what to consider when it comes to big data decisions for your business. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
As Salesforce.com trots out the integration of its social networking-oriented HR tools into CRM and Chatter, Microsoft is touting new research about why companies need to have workplace-oriented social tools. One problem: Some of these tools are more annoying than useful. Read more »
Amazon Web Services is indisputably the largest cloud service provider by far, and by all accounts. So what rivals could be No. 2 and maybe even give AWS a run for its money? Some of these names might surprise you. Read more »
Many have predicted a “big data tsunami” that will transform the energy sector and open an entirely new market for smart-grid data analytics. Stepping into the fray is the next generation of smart-grid companies poised to use data to change energy consumption. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Boston and Cambridge are battling it out to be the site of Google’s proposed expansion in the Hub. Google’s current local headquarters is in Kendall Square, but it’s unclear if it can expand there. Boston is pitching its Innovation District to the search giant. Read more »
IBM’s Jeopardy-playing supercomputer Watson is now getting a gig in the retail banking sector as part of an IBM partnership with Citi. The many careers of Watson illustrate a very big technological and business opportunity — the rendering of big data into human scale. Read more »
The ongoing imperative to lower power consumption in the data center drove another key acquisition last week. AMD, a company that has fought a decades-long losing war with Intel over building the best CPU, acquired low-power server maker SeaMicro in a move that says a lot ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
