GigaOM’s Structure event this week reminds me of the well-documented relationship between economic crises and technological innovation: Hard times bring out the best in entrepreneurs, precipitating a creative destruction that resets the technology infrastructure and transforms business. From my vantage point here in the Silicon Valley, […] Read more »
If there were any doubts that the gulf between consumery social networking sites and the stodgier world of enterprise software is narrowing, Oracle’s plan to buy Collective Intellect should erase them. Collective Intellect’s social intelligence solutions monitor consumer conversations on Facebook and Twitter. Read more »
Just when you thought Oracle might be done buying stuff, it buys something else. Today the database giant said it is purchasing Vitrue, a company that offers a SaaS service that lets companies better utilize social networking for their branding and marketing efforts. Read more »
Farmeron isn’t your typical software-as-a-service business — it’s based in a small town in Croatia, and its customers are dairy farmers, not tech-savvy startups. Still, founder Matija Kopic’s just raised another $1.4 million to help take its big data services to farms around the world. Read more »
Let it never be said that the cloud computing wars are boring. Within hours of being blasted for locking developers into its ever-rising cloud stack, Amazon announced new managed database services and Elastic Beanstalk support for thousands of Microsoft-centric developers. Read more »
With more and more business leaders now turning to this topic, the questions — and confusion — are multiplying. With so much to consider, we’ve broken down the cloud discussion to help companies decide which strategy is right for their business. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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 »
UK-based Notion Capital has announced a new fund focused on European cloud and software-as-a-service startups. So what will happen to it? We found out where — and how — that money is likely to be spent. 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 recruiting ecosystem is changing, led by professional social networks like LinkedIn and Viadeo and companies like Jobvite and BranchOut, which are building Facebook apps for hiring and career development. The bottom line is that technology enables the recruiting process to be more streamlined, scientific and democratic. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
Appirio, which built its systems integration business in part by knitting software-as-a-service and legacy on-premises software together, netted $60 million in Series D funding led by General Atlantic, bringing total investment to $80 million. Read more »
When enterprise software giant SAP announced its HANA big data analytics for midmarket businesses Tuesday, one of the first questions on the call was whether smaller businesses need to bother with big data. The short answer: Yes they do. Read more »
As more companies put workloads on Amazon Web Services or other public cloud platforms, many are paying for more cloud than they need. That overprovisioning is the problem Cloudyn, an Israeli startup, is taking on with its new software as a service. Read more »
Just thirty years ago, innovation in almost any category was measured in years, but today it’s measured in weeks or months. That cycle will continue to accelerate, especially in IT. So here’s how to build an IT ecosystem that can keep up. Read more »
It looks like some of the bloom is off the SaaS rose. New numbers show the booming growth in valuations of SaaS companies is slowing after a long run-up as pure-play SaaS companies face more competition from legacy players. Read more »
There are currently well over 2,000 SaaS vendors by some counts, and according to Gartner over 95 percent of companies have expressed interest in maintaining or increasing their current SaaS usage. The success of this first generation of SaaS and cloud vendors has sparked a “Cloud […] Read more »
In what is probably not a shocker, new research shows more companies are turning to SaaS-based business intelligence over traditional on-premises BI. About a third of IT managers surveyed said they plan to use at least some SaaS-based BI in the next year. Read more »
Cloud collaboration service Huddle is targeting huge corporate customers, bringing them a new tier of service that allows an unlimited number of users for no extra charge. Can it help win new business and take on the industry’s biggest beasts? Read more »
The fourth quarter may have lacked a dominating big-event product announcement like Q3’s Facebook platform extension or Q2’s unveiling of Google+, but the NewNet world continued to buzz along. In the battle for mind share, everyone wanted to be a platform. Meanwhile, consumer and social technologies continued to gain momentum, and new vehicles for content and service discovery presented both challenges and opportunities for NewNet companies. And it is hard to ignore the overcrowded but growing world of daily deals. This quarterly report analyzes these trends and others, and it also provides a near-term outlook of trends, technologies and companies to watch in 2012. Companies mentioned in the report include Amazon, Facebook and Socialcast. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The wave of M&A activity swelling the cloud services sector won’t stop with in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) arena. Internap’s $30 million purchase of Voxel, announced early this week, signals a land rush for cloud services, with many smaller, capable cloud providers now in play. Read more »
Lithium Technologies has raised a $53.4 million funding round led by New Enterprise Associates and SAP Ventures. The round includes existing investors Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Emergence Capital, Greenspring Associates, Shasta Ventures and Tenaya Capital, and brings total funding to more than $100 million. Read more »
Demand for cloud computing continues to increase exponentially as consumers, businesses and government agencies seek to defer the expense of acquiring, operating and maintaining infrastructure and applications to third-party service providers. Likewise, software publishers are finding the cloud computing model an efficient and effective mechanism for delivering their products as a service and as an operational expense to their customers. For independent software vendors, cloud computing is opening up new markets and making their applications more accessible and affordable to scores of new customers. For a multitude of reasons, many ISVs are choosing to forego data center development and are partnering with hosting providers that have the infrastructure, resources and expertise in managing and delivering cloud services. This report provides ISVs with guidance on partnering with hosting companies, establishing criteria for selecting a hosting service, metrics for measuring hosting performance as it relates to cloud services delivered and an understanding of the responsibilities they retain even when outsourcing a large part of their services functions to a third party. Companies mentioned in this report include Microsoft, Google and Salesforce.com. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Salesforce.com’s plan to purchase Rypple shows the importance of human capital management to the new cloud-savvy enterprise. The game plan calls for a new Salesforce.com HCM business unit and the relabeling of Rypple’s offerings as “Successforce.” The effort will be directed by industry vet John Wookey. Read more »
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 »
If your company has a cloud application with a predictable audience size or one that is costing you more than $25,000 a month to host, you may want to consider maintaining a private cloud. This paper provides an overview of the factors that decision makers who are developing a public-to-private cloud-migration strategy should consider, recognizing that public versus private cloud strategy is not an all-or-nothing proposition. It also details pitfalls that must be avoided along the way and provides a case study of Zynga, a company that has found a way to use both the private and public clouds to create a hybrid solution. Companies mentioned in this report include Akamai, Foursquare, Nimbula and ARM. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
If you’re a Software-as-a-Service provider and want to wring the richest rewards out of what is already a lucrative gig, you should “verticalize” your services. That’s according to a newly published report from Forrester Research analyst Liz Herbert. Read more »
New research shows that software-as-a-service companies, which have been valued (much) higher than legacy software players, will continue to reap price premiums over the next 12 to 24 months. The numbers come from Martin Wolf’s M&A Advisors’ MW Index. Read more »
This week UK Ministry of Justice official Martin Bellamy addressed concerns that the UK government has become less enthusiastic about a government cloud, saying, ”We are expecting to be able to demonstrate that moving to a cloud model is going to allow us to save substantial amounts ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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 »
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 »
Get Satisfaction, the company that builds web-based community support tools, has closed on $10 million in series B funding. This round brings the company’s total venture capital investment to $21 million. The San Francisco-based company will put the money toward growth, CEO Wendy Lea says. Read more »
Janrain, the Portland, Oregon-based software-as-a-service company, has closed on $15.5 million in funding. Janrain, which makes a social log-in platform, plans to put the money toward general growth initiatives such as hiring and product development, CEO Larry Drebes said in an interview. Read more »
Amazon Web Services announced on Tuesday afternoon that its Simple Storage Service (S3) now houses more than 449 billion objects. The rapid pace of S3′s growth is a microcosm of both AWS’ overall business as well as cloud computing in general. Read more »
Small- to mid-sized companies need the ability to edit, share and collaborate on files while keeping teams updated with the latest versions. Alfresco Team is an open-source, professional tool for content collaboration that offers enterprise-oriented social and security features not found in some Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products. Read more »
Clearvale is a cloud-based, Software-as-a-Service, enterprise solution for Social Customer Relationship Management (Social CRM) that includes interconnected internal and external social networks, which allow customers and employees to collaborate and communicate directly, for customer support, idea management, and other customer engagement needs. Read more »
This week’s announcement of VMware’s Horizon App Manager is the latest addition to the company’s increasingly rich portfolio, but the company is not alone in wanting to strengthen its market position by expanding far beyond its original offering. Where, then, does that leave the competition? Read more »
