HP Expands Low-Priced Mini-Laptop Family
The consumer-centric Mini 110 is available with Windows XP or Linux, while the business-focused Mini 1101 gives buyers the choice of Windows XP Home, XP Pro, or Vista, each for less than $350.
New Amazon Cloud Service Says Forget Internet, Go Snail-Mail
If it's true that everyone likes newspapers and sausages but no one wants to see either one being made, then perhaps we'll have to add Amazon Web Services into that mix: for uploading very large data files, a new AWS service lets clients bypass the Internet and transfer the data to AWS the old-fashioned way: a physical package moving through the physical world. Who knew?
Interop Raises CIO-Level Interest In Cloud, Virtualization: Video
While last week's Interop event in Las Vegas showcased a wide range of innovative enterprise technologies including mobility, WAN optimization, security, storage, smartphones, data center infrastructure, servers, and more, the biggest CIO-level activity was centered around cloud computing, whose acceptance and potential are growing rapidly, and virtualization, which has already become a cornerstone in 21st-century enterprise IT strategy.
RightNow, Salesforce Offer Services To Track Customer Complaints On Twitter, YouTube
So you buy a new smartphone, and the touch pad stinks. You post on your Twitter or Facebook account, "Should've known better than to buy a phone from XYZ Corp. Their stuff is junk." You expect a few sympathetic replies from friends. Instead, you get this surprising, and maybe a bit creepy, message from XYZ Corp.: "Are you having a problem with your new phone? Please contact us--we'd like to help!" Welcome to the world of cloud monitoring services, brought to you by RightNow and Salesforce.com.
Capcom Plans Gaming Blitz For iPhone
Support from the maker of Street Fighter and Resident Evil is a strong indicator that Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch platform is a force in the mobile gaming market.
Microsoft's Beginner's Guide To Cloud Computing
Microsoft VP and its former CIO Ron Markezich is participating in a panel discussion on cloud computing today at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's CIO Symposium. Markezich will share five tips on how to get started in the cloud, based on the experiences of Microsoft's early cloud customers.
Google Outages Spark Cloud Questions
It's an accepted fact that computers and networks go down from time to time, either through hardware or software failures, or in the case of the Google outage, human error. We might as well get over that, and any expectations that cloud computing will make things worse, or better, should be tossed aside...
Interop: Vendors Still Confuse With Cloud Computing Definitions
The afternoon keynotes at Interop saw IBM, HP and SAP giving their visions of cloud computing. While the companies had a number of real deliverables to talk about, the keynotes also showed that vendors continue to confound and confuse with their various conflicting definitions.
Microsoft Opens My Phone For All
Similar to Apple's MobileMe, the free wireless data backup service lets Windows Mobile users store contacts, photos, videos, and text messages on a password-protected Web account.
Should Google's Outage Scare CIOs From Cloud Computing?
How much - or how little - should CIOs be concerned about whether Google's recent outage reveals fundamental weaknesses with the cloud computing model? Jeff Kaplan of ThinkStrategies offers a couple of sharp perspectives on why the sky's not falling (nor the clouds), and promises to keep the discussion going this week at Interop in Las Vegas.
Ubuntu One: Canonical's Cloud
Canonical calls it "Ubuntu One". The goal is, according to Stefano Forenza, to build a full-blown online platform -- Canonical's version of Windows Live, or MobileMe / .Mac / iTools. But can they do it without having their intended userbase siphoned away?
EMC Chases Amazon Into The Cloud
EMC launches a new online storage service based on Atmos, its cloud storage platform. AT&T also announces it will sell online storage using Atmos.
Cloud Computing And More With IBM's Dr. Angel Luis Diaz
What exactly is IBM's BPM BlueWorks? At IBM's IMPACT 2009, Dr. Angel Luis Diaz and I talked about BPM working in the cloud and how he sees Business Event Processing (BEP) differ from traditional Complex Event Processing (CEP).
Google Glitch A Warning To Uncle Sam
This week started with news that the U.S. government is ramping up plans to adopt cloud computing services. It ended with a post mortem on why Google's cloud went kaput for more than an hour on Thursday. Government IT managers should pay close attention to what went wrong at Google as they plot their cloud strategy.
SaaS/Cloud Audit Demands Could be Costly
"Cloud computing providers require strong audits," according to SC Magazine's Angela Moscaritolo, who focuses on security in the world of SaaS and cloud computing. In reading through this article I kept returning to the fact that the cost of security, together with audits, could make cloud computing, including SaaS, cost prohibitive.
Linux Distros For Netbooks
Our Linux expert tries out netbook-ready Puppy Linux, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, Xubuntu, gOS, and Moblin, and reports on how they stack up.
Fujitsu Unveils Blade System
The Primergy BX900 is dubbed the "Dynamic Cube" to promote the server enclosure's power, cooling, redundancy, and scalability features.
Obama's Cloud Computing Strategy Takes Shape
When President Obama nominated Vivek Kundra to the position of Federal CIO, it was seen as a signal that the U.S. government would begin to incorporate cloud computing into its IT policies and strategy. The pieces are falling into place quickly.
U.S. Armed Forces Look To Second Life For Training
The Second Life role-playing and gaming communities are home to dozens of make-believe armies and navies. But you can find the real thing in virtual worlds too. The Air Force, National Guard, and Navy are using Second Life and other virtual world technology for collaboration and training. The armed forces are looking to virtual worlds to reduce the time and costs associated with travel, and create more realistic exper
McKinsey Cloud Report's Popularity Disproves Its Own Analysis
The sudden spike of interest in McKinsey's cloud computing report, ironically, demonstrates why the consulting company got its cost analysis wrong. Since the report focused on Amazon EC2, I thought I'd use Amazon's own Alexa web monitoring service to provide data that proves why that's so.
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