It’s all Docker, containers and the cloud on the Structure Show
And about that Rocket...
It’s safe to say that Docker has had a momentous year with the container-management startup gaining a lot of developer interest and…
Cloud services
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Microsoft open sources cloud framework that powers Halo
Keepin tab on gamer stats
Microsoft is continuing its open-source push, this time announcing that it will open source its Project Orleans cloud computing web framework. The…
Bitcasa CEO: Unlimited storage “a wildly money-losing proposition”
In an interview with Gigaom, Bitcasa CEO Brian Taptich explained that removing unlimited storage was not a pleasant experience but necessary for the company to get back on track financially. Bitcasa simply could not afford to keep unlimited-storage users as customers.
UK seeks to shutter Russian site streaming video from webcams
If you feel like someone’s watching you, you might be right. A mega peeping Tom site out of Russia is collecting video and images from poorly secured webcams, closed-circuit TV cameras, even baby monitors worldwide and is streaming the results.
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Microsoft rolls out unlimited OneDrive storage to its Office 365 subscribers
Let’s see whether Microsoft can lure new customers to its cloud now that Office 365 subscribers have unlimited OneDrive storage.
Google for Work now has better customer service
Just a week after several of Google’s cloud services went offline, Google is rolling out better customer support, including a chat interface and easier access to support phone numbers.
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IBM highlights a growing Watson ecosystem and API collection
IBM has announced a long list of new Watson customers and startup partners, ranging from standby industries such as health care to new ones such as cybersecurity and nonprofits. Perhaps more importantly, the company also gave developers a handful of new Watson-powered APIs.
New Relic acquires Ducksboard and rolls out a bunch of new data products
New Relic bought out a small Barcelona-based startup that specializes in dashboards for business users and is enabling non-coders to build internal apps that can analyze and interpret data.
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Slack buys small, two-man work-collaboration startup Spaces
Slack, one of the many startups making a name for itself in the work-collaboration space, today said it acquired the two-man, bootstrapped…
Ping Identity lands $35M to make sure the right people are on your network
The security startup emphasizes mobile for its identity management platform by hooking into a user’s smart phone as a means to ensure that the right person is accessing the right part of the network.
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Why Zapier thinks there’s a big (but hard) business in stitching together cloud services
A Mountain View, California-based startup called Zapier is trying to make those dozens of cloud services your company uses more intelligent by automating the interactions between them. On our latest podcast, CEO Bryan Helmig discuss how it works and how the company came to be.
Elastica launches with $6.3M to secure your SaaS footprint
A security startup called Elastica came out of stealth mode on Tuesday, and brought with it $6.3 million in venture capital from…
In the Empowered Enterprise 2.0, startups have the inside track to success
Madrona Venture Group’s Matt McIlwain takes a look at how the latest era of employee-empowering technologies are different than the personal computers of 30 years ago — including who’s building them and who’s using them.
A database for the internet of things, TempoDB raises $3.2M
Time-series data is proliferating like mad in the era of the internet of things and the industrial internet, and Chicago-based startup TempoDB wants to capture it all. The company has $3.2 million to help it try to pull this off.
Ericsson CTO: For mobile networks to keep up, they need to embrace the cloud
The innovation in the cloud has far exceeded the pace of innovation in the mobile network, according to Ericsson CTO Ulf Ewaldsson. One way to catch up is to move the mobile network into the cloud.
How to protect your company against vanishing cloud services
If startup history tells us anything, it’s that the majority of cloud services launched in the past few years won’t be around forever. The fact that they just vanish into the ether makes the problem quite perplexing.
Statwing wants to make your data — and armchair quarterback — dreams come true
Many of us yell at the TV while watching our favorite sports teams. Many of us also want to get better at working with data. Statwing thinks it can help with both.
Not so fast: Budget cut wipes out €7bn European broadband fund
In a massive blow to Europe’s plans of getting everyone – even in rural areas – on at least 30 Mbps by 2020, a $9.36 billion fund for stimulating broadband deployment has been axed.
Data for dummies: 6 data-analysis tools anyone can use
Not everyone is drowning in big data or has the know-how to deal with it if they were. Here are six free web services that help mere mortals analyze and visualize their own data.
Funambol gets $5.75M to fuel mobile carriers’ cloud services
Funambol’s first round of funding in four years comes just as mobile operators are mounting a challenge against the cloud storage services offered by Google, Microsoft and Apple. Funambol provides a white-label cross-platform service, which several of the big carriers have already tapped.
Scoop: GoDaddy quietly kills its cloud computing business
GoDaddy has decided to close its Cloud Servers cloud computing product. The offering had been around for less than a year, although the company is attempting to integrate some of the technology into the next generation of its flagship hosting service.
1010data builds a big data bartering platform in the cloud
1010data has launched a new service called the Analytical Dataspace, which is essentially a marketplace for buying and selling data and accessing analytics applications. 1010data has been providing a cloud-based analytics service for years, but this is a chance to add value by adding data.
The new opportunity for PaaS vendors: cloud services curation
As the PaaS market transitions from nascent to mature, a new opportunity is emerging: cloud services curation. Peter Sonsini, general partner at NEA, predicts that cloud services curation will help PaaS players broaden their reach and amplify their strategic impact within the technology landscape.
Google brings BigQuery down to earth with Excel connector
Google designed BigQuery as a cloud service for running fast queries against massive datasets, but with lofty ambitions there’s always room to take a step back. Now, users that don’t require super speed can run batch queries, and can connect to the service using Microsoft Excel.
Splunk targets cloud-server data with Storm
Splunk is taking its machine data show to the cloud with a new SaaS offering called Storm. It’s essentially Splunk’s flagship software tuned for cloud-generated data, but it plays into a big opportunity for fusing cloud computing with big data.
The great challenge—and opportunity—of cloud: interoperability
Cloud computing and distributed applications are part of a greater shift to building out an ecosystem with inter-dependent parts. This may seem obvious, but what is less obvious is how the industry will interoperate and develop systems that let information flow through the ecosystem.
HP earnings: 6 lowlights
It’s slow going for the HP turnaround Meg Whitman is trying to engineer. There’s softness in the PC business, in printers, in servers — just more bad news atop the $8 billion write-down of enterprise services that HP pre-announced. Not a pretty picture.
Infochimps makes its big-data-for-developers platform real-time
Infochimps has released version 1.1. of its platform that the company has described as Heroku for Hadoop. The new version takes things a step further, though, turning the platform into an engine for easily creating streaming workflows that don’t require using Hadoop at all.
Flurry buys Trestle to get into mobile backend market
Flurry, which has helped developers measure and monetize their mobile apps, is now poised to help them build their apps too. The company announced it has bought Seattle-based Trestle, a provider of mobile backend services, and will offer a set of cloud services for developers.
How to organize your team for cloud success
Managing clouds requires human capital, which will dictate new roles in your organization. Rodrigo Flores, a cloud enterprise architect at Cisco Intelligent Automation, argues that cloud builders who pay particular attention to the people part of the equation will emerge as the true winners.
Cloud computing for the people? It’s called SaaS.
Cloud-based servers simple enough to be at the beck and call of every Joe Schmo are a compelling vision, but presently not a realistic one. At this point, in fact, one could argue that the holy grail of the consumer cloud has already been realized.
Is the Internet going down the Tubes?
In this brief video, Andrew Blum, the author of Tubes: The Journey to the center of the Internet, addresses some of the things he discovered in his global tour of the physical components that are part of the vast, unseen infrastructure that underlie the Internet.
Will using Dropbox put your CEO in jail?
With everything moving to the cloud, companies suddenly find themselves confronted with a whole new set of challenges. For example: Is that stuff even legal? And who calls the shots when companies move to the cloud – IT, or the people that actually need things to work?
Datahero aims to turn us all into analytics stars
A startup called Datahero launched on Thursday with a new cloud service that makes visualizing data as simple as a few mouse clicks, and $1 million in seed funding. The company’s ultimate goal is to make big data something you or I could do.
Huddle raises another $24m to ‘really go for it’
Cloud collaboration startup Huddle is gearing up for a significant push, with a $24 million round of funding that CEO Alastair Mitchell says can help turn the company into a billion dollar business.
EMC buys Syncplicity to serve as Dropbox for business
Storage giant EMC has acquired cloud-storage startup Syncplicity in an attempt to compete with consumer-focused offerings such as Dropbox and for storing business users’ files. Cloud-based storage has become the primary villain in the move toward BYOD , but is also an area of strong growth.
Your data has a secret, but you — yes, you — can make it talk
Who needs a Ph.D. in statistics when you have the cloud? Machine learning is high data science, and it’s fast becoming something that anyone leverage to sell more handbags, or solve a research problem, or build the next LinkedIn or Facebook.
How Google is growing up into a real IT company
Of the dozens of meeting requests I received for this year’s Interop conference, the one I least expected came from Google. Interop is all about enterprise IT — networks, security, servers, stuff with gravitas. But in its own way, Google is becoming a serious IT company.
How the cloud could bring big data to your local deli
The headline might sound like buzzword stew, but it couldn’t be any truer. For companies willing to make the leap to cloud services, there will be a lot of companies willing to make big data as easy as paying your bill every month.
Fileboard adds Box support to cloud file-management iPad app
From a single app, Fileboard lets users manage documents on a number of cloud services, including Gmail, Microsoft Exchange, Dropbox, SharePoint and Salesforce. The newest partner to get added to the list is Box, which has also integrated some key Fileboard capabilities into its own app.
Gartner to IT: Get a grip on cloud services, or else
A new Gartner list of cloud computing trends shows how nervous the burgeoning use of cloud makes IT departments, which traditionally controlled what applications and data ran and on what devices. That’s all changed and now IT has to change too.
Cloud lets small businesses catch up on big data
Cloud technologies still lag behind on-premise tools in some key ways, but are unbeatable in enabling “one single guy” to complete large BI projects, We Are Cloud’s Rachel Delacour said at Structure:Data today.
Tracky wants to be your one-stop collaboration shop
If you’ve ever found yourself frustrated over the need to constantly switch between collaboration apps, Tracky wants to be your savior. The Las Vegas-based company, which just raised $1 million in angel funding, is opening its platform to the public later this month.
HP earnings: top 3 takeaways
Hewlett-Packard continues to be rocked by a flood-induced hard drive shortage; its go-to printing business is sputtering; the company as a whole continues to spend too much on too many products; and it needs to get its design-and-execution mojo back.
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Let the battle for the smart thermostat begin
The often-ignored and hardly ever programmed humble thermostat is morphing into a unique and undercover gateway into the smart home — that is, the dream of the fully connected house where all the objects can talk to one another and be controlled remotely. In 2012 there will be a growing number of companies across sectors — from device makers to analytics firms to utilities to telcos — that are now suddenly looking at the networked, digital thermostat as an important way to connect with consumers. Here are the players and what you need to know about working with them.
Who knew? Data center segment is hot, hot, hot!
People think of data centers as a big, clunky category, but in the cloud computing era it shouldn’t be a surprise that the sector has been hot, with more hotness to come. As more cloud services come online, demand for webscale data centers will keep growing.
The secret behind all those shiny CES gadgets? Cloud computing
As usual, a big chunk of the news out of the Consumer Electronics Show this year revolves around bright-and-shiny devices. But this time out, those devices are acting as the Trojan horses for the hardware makers’ cloud vision. The battle’s all about cloud services now.
More cloud computing M&A ahead
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.
5 New Year’s perils and perks for IBM’s new CEO
On New Year’s Day, Ginny Rometty took the reins at IBM. Big Blue is on a roll: its stock outperformed Google and Apple this year, and Warren Buffett is a fan. But the IT giant faces perils as well as opportunities going into 2012.
Amazon makes its VPCs more agile
With its new Elastic Network Interfaces, created by separating IP addresses and some key attributes from EC2 storage instances, Amazon is making its Virtual Private Cloud more flexible for companies that want to bring legacy applications to Amazon’s cloud computing infrastructure.
Why cloud storage is passé and collaboration is king
Ask Box.net CEO Aaron Levie about his company’s cloud storage business, and you’ll hear a long, excited answer that probably won’t include the word “storage” at all. He’ll talk about sharing, collaboration and universal access — anything but the core storage infrastructure that makes Box’s service possible.
Should mobile operators give up on voicemail?
Rural mobile operator Viaero Wireless is preloading YouMail’s visual voicemail application into all Android phones, giving customers a compelling alternative to its standard network mailbox services. This could be the beginning of a trend that sees the mobile carriers abandoning voicemail to independent cloud providers.
How to set up iCloud on your iPhone or iPad
Setting up iCloud on your iOS 5 device is actually pretty easy, especially because Apple gives you the option to either use your existing Apple ID or set up an entirely new account to get the process started. Here’s how it works, from beginning to end.
Fjord sees personal info as tomorrow’s connected currency
On Monday at GigaOM’s Mobilize 2011 event, Fjord CEO Olof Schybergson discussed the thin line between love and hate that smart services tread when dealing with a customer’s personal data. How much shared info is too much, and how can we change where that line lies?
Can cloud computing spur ubiquitous broadband?
Buried in the talk about security, privacy and transnational data laws, it looks like the federal government’s cloud computing push also could bring progress on broadband accessibility. If Congress actually does push more, faster broadband, I think the promise of economic growth will drive it.
VMware tackles task management with Strides
The Socialcast team at VMware has introduced a beta version of a new product called Strides, which aims to make task management an interactive experience. Think Basecamp, but more social, and with more visibility into what your colleagues are working on.
Andreessen leads $15M investment in GoodData
Software-as-a-Service startup GoodData has raised a $15 million Series B funding round for its cloud-based business intelligence product. Andreessen Horowitz led the round, along with other existing investors General Catalyst Partners, Fidelity Growth Partners and Windcrest Partners. GoodData has now raised $28.5 million overall.
Monster.com melds SaaS, big data for job searches
Monster.com is getting into the cloud-computing mix with a new “semantic search and analytics platform” service called SeeMore. Merging two hot capabilities — cloud-based delivery and analytics — makes a lot of sense for Monster, which no doubt supplies many companies with a lot of data.
Has Dropbox set the stage for a privacy revolution?
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.
Meet Cloudability, ‘Mint.com for the cloud’
We’ve all heard stories about cloud-service fees run amok, only spotted when the bill comes due. Cloudability, part of Structure 2011 LaunchPad, wants to keep companies abreast of what they’re spending in the cloud with a free app that shows them what’s being spent and where.
Microsoft takes on Google Apps, finally launches Office 365
Microsoft has now launched Office 365, its suite of collaboration and office tools that aims to take on Google Apps for Business. But with a product that costs more than Google’s offering and is coming much later to market, will Office 365 be a success?
HPCC Systems promises Big Data as a Service
Being able to crunch terabytes of data is great, but having someone else do it for you is even better. HPCC Systems, which launched last week to challenge Hadoop’s big data dominance, is planning to do just that with a cloud service for big data processing.
NetApp founder: Confusion about the cloud is ‘bogus’
Enterprises that express unwillingness to use cloud services are probably already using the cloud — they just don’t realize it, said Netflix founder Dave Hitz at Structure today. But instead of avoiding creating policies around new services, they need to embrace them for the future.
Xeround enters GA, tests the SQL-in-the-cloud water
Xeround’s cloud-based MySQL service enters general availability today, becoming the first cloud-based third-party MySQL distribution that actually requires customers to pay for the service. If it’s successful, there are plenty of other cloud database startups waiting in the wings to ride the SQL-in-the-cloud wave.
Papertrail cloud logging service opens for public consumption
Web service creator Seven Scale today opened its Papertrail cloud-based log-management service to the general public. Log files have always been important for troubleshooting, but are seeing increased interest with the advent of big data because companies can draw business-level insights from the data, too.
iCloud Is for Developers, Too
iCloud is mostly being looked at as a potentially ground-breaking consumer cloud service suite. But Apple is introducing it at WWDC, where it shows off new tools for developers to use in their apps. iCloud, then, could be a huge deal for developers, too.
What We Know About iCloud, and What We Don’t
Apple is now the confirmed owner of iCloud.com, as originally reported by GigaOM. Trademark applications are also underway, and reports of what’s in store for Apple’s cloud service are gearing up ahead of Monday’s announcement. Here’s what might be in store for consumers.
ScaleXtreme Opens for Early Access
Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup ScaleXtreme’s cloud-based server management service is now available for early access users. We covered the company in February when the final product was still being built, but it has come a long way since then.
ServerDensity Launches App Store for Server Monitoring
Server monitoring startup ServerDensity will launch an app store for plugins to its popular cloud-based service. Like many SaaS startups, ServerDensity provides a collection of core components, but is hoping to rely on its user community to address the longtail needs of certain customer segments.
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Strategic Implications of the Microsoft/Skype Deal
Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Skype is the largest the company has ever made, and it’s raised many questions in the process. This research note examines Skype’s overall value and where it fits strategically into the world of Microsoft. From Office 365 and Bing to Xbox Kinect and Windows Phone, there are numerous ways in which Microsoft can leverage the functionality of its newest addition — and numerous risks it could incur in the process. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Cisco, Panasonic and Google. For a full list of companies and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial.
Report: Sony Onboard With Apple Cloud Music Service, Too
Apple is very close indeed to locking up every major music label in advance of launching its own cloud music service, according to Bloomberg. Sony Music is reportedly on board, leaving just Universal Music Group to join up before a service can be unveiled.
New Relic Now Monitors User Experience in Real Time
Software-as-a-Service startup New Relic has added a new, and free, capability to its application-performance management product that lets customers monitor their users’ experiences in real time. The bigger picture is how New Relic continues to show the way to do SaaS in a cloud-computing world.
Apple’s iCloud Referenced in Mac OS X Lion
Apple does indeed appear to be planning big changes to its cloud services package, according to references found in the latest developer preview of Mac OS X Lion. French blog Consomac discovered code referring to something codenamed “Castle,” described as an upgrade to MobileMe.
What Should Apple’s iCloud Look Like?
Friday morning, John Paczkowski of Digital Daily confirmed Om’s report earlier this week that Apple acquired the domain name iCloud.com. Apple has acquired and not used domain names in the past, but if Cupertino is planning to use the iCloud brand, what should that trademark encompass?
Does Apple Even Have a Cloud Strategy?
Despite building a massive data center and the expected launch of cloud-based music storage, the troubled history of Apple’s online services suggests the company has yet to come up with a plan for the cloud. How can Apple provide the kind of experience its customers expect?
How To Upgrade Your MobileMe Calendar Safely
Since my business runs on iCal, I approached the CalDAV upgrade for MobileMe Calendar users (which becomes mandatory May 5) with reluctance and some healthy fear. Here are my recommendations and a walkthrough of the process that should hopefully make the task less daunting for you.
Updates Loom as Apple Ends MobileMe and iWork Rebate Program
The $30 rebate on MobileMe and iWork for new Mac purchasers is now discontinued, according to a leaked internal memo provided from “a source within Apple.” If true, the end of these rebate programs is a good sign that updates are on the way.
Why Microsoft and Google Are Fighting Over Uncle Sam
Microsoft today accused Google of lying about its Google Apps for Government offering being certified for use by federal agencies, which is just the latest salvo in an ongoing war to be the premier provider in the lucrative market for cloud-based collaboration tools.
Microsoft Plans $8.6B in Cloud R&D, but Where Should It Go?
According to a post on Bloomberg this morning, Microsoft plans to spend 90 percent, or $8.64 billion, of its $9.6 billion annual R&D budget on cloud computing, which begs the question of where that money will land within Microsoft’s very broad definition of cloud.
Incapsula Launches Cloud-Based Web App Firewall
Incapsula is trying to democratize web site security and performance by utilizing the distributed, yet centralized, nature of cloud computing. In some ways, its namesake product is the epitome of a cloud service because it utilizes both crowdsourcing and centralization to create the best-possible experience.
Google Search Appliance Grows Up and Reaches Out
In the battle for collaboration domination, Google has struck another blow with its suite of new features for the Google Search Appliance that let users search their Google cloud services as well as traditional data stores.
New Relic Gets Another $10M, Proves SaaS Profitability
SaaS startup New Relic has received an additional $10 million in funding for its application performance management offering that targets both data centers and the cloud. That brings its total to $20 million, which the company says is far more than it needs to be profitable.
Putting the Cloud to Use for Video Encoding
Device proliferation combined with the desire to deliver clean video is giving rise to a new market for hosted video encoding. The goal is simple: provide the right format to the right screen at the right time without requiring content producers to invest in infrastructure.
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Opportunities Abound as the “Rules of Work” are Broken
Easy access to broadband, mobile computing and cloud-based software is impacting the way that we work and the way that we think about building companies. How, then, do we migrate the established “rules of work” to this new scenario? How do we ensure that everyone has the same advocacy, the same protection from abusive employers that traditional employees have? And how can employers make sure that they attract and retain the best talent? These questions were among those pondered at today’s “Future of Work” GigaOM Bunker Series event. None of them have easy answers. However there are plenty of opportunities for companies that can help facilitate this shift.
