Computerworld UK Cloud Computing

Updated: Oracle buying Taleo for £1.3bn in direct hit at SAP

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Chris Kanaracus) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:35:00 GMT

Oracle is buying cloud-based talent management and employee recruitment software vendor Taleo for roughly $1.9 billion (£1.26 billion).

Salesforce.com shakes up Standard support plan features

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Chris Kanaracus) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:31:00 GMT

Salesforce.com has made a series of changes to its support services that include the removal of certain features from the Standard tier, but which the company says overall will provide a better experience for customers.

VMware adds Cloud Integration Manager for service wholesalers

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Tim Greene) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:05:00 GMT

VMware has introduced a new software platform that makes it easier for service providers to wholesale their cloud-services infrastructure to other providers.

How to avoid cloud customer support worst practices

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (David Taber) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:24:00 GMT

Customer support organisations were the earliest of adopters for CRM systems. Thanks to call centre software and the need to drive cost reductions and faster service turn-around cycles, the customer support organisation developed solid business processes, comprehensive measurement and good discipline. But that's all so last century.

Amazon Web Services drops price of cloud storage

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Mikael Ricknäs) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:30:00 GMT

Amazon Web Services has cut the cost of storing data using its Simple Storage Service (S3), saving users with 50 TB stored on the service around 12 percent on their monthly bill, the company said.

Alfresco 4.0 heads for the cloud with open source CMS

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Joab Jackson) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Alfresco has upgraded its namesake product to work with multiple clients and to interact with a wider range of form factors in anticipation of offering its open source content management software as a service, the company announced this morning.

2012, the year storage becomes a celebrity

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Lucas Mearian) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:10:00 GMT

While data storage has always been a necessary building block for technology, it's rarely garnered as much attention as it has in the past two years. The reason: Corporate and retail consumers are being forced to store greater amounts of data and they need to make that data more useful - and accessible.

Salesforce unveils Desk.com support tools

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Chris Kanaracus) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:28:00 GMT

Salesforce.com has unveiled a new SaaS (software as a service) help desk application called Desk.com that can reach end users through social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

CloudPassage offers firewall and authentication for public clouds

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Jeremy Kirk) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:43:00 GMT

CloudPassage is launching a new security product for virtual servers in public clouds such as Amazon Web Services that it says takes care of the all-important need for security when using services from infrastructure providers.

Harvester restaurant owner Mitchells & Butlers serves up cloud computing

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Leo King) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:30:00 GMT

Mitchells & Butlers, which owns the Harvester, O'Neills and Toby Carvery chains, is rolling out group-wide cloud computing.

Cancer Research looks to the cloud for fundraising

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Antony Savvas) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:40:00 GMT

Cancer Research is using a cloud-based fund raising platform which is now available to UK charities for the first time.

Ex-NASA OpenStack engineers launch private cloud OS

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Colin Neagle) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:57:00 GMT

Piston Cloud Computing recently released the first private cloud operating system based on OpenStack, the open source infrastructure-as-a-service framework that was first designed by a group of researchers at NASA.

Cloud office firm Zoho taken out by power outage

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Sharon Gaudin) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:12:00 GMT

The website and office tools of online services company Zoho were knocked offline Friday by a power outage in its data centre.

Cloud computing adoption to explode this year

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Tom Henderson) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:25:00 GMT

First, application developers fall in love with cloud-based disposable infrastructure and/or ready-built app development platforms that circumvent long purchasing cycles and capital asset growth limitations. Then other attractions, like commodity rentable infrastructure, or expansive platforms, become attractive. Sometimes applications are either extended to the cloud as private growth areas, or moved totally off premises.

Unilever packages global private cloud

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Leo King) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:55:00 GMT

Unilever has built a private cloud computing setup for its key basic applications, using the new Microsoft System Center 2012 platform.

Amazon Web Services launches DynamoDB NoSQL managed database service

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Nancy Gohring) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:37:00 GMT

Amazon Web Services launched a managed NoSQL database service yesterday that lets users easily launch a database and scale it up or down as needed.

Microsoft revises private cloud service with System Center 2012

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Hafizah Osman) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:29:00 GMT

Microsoft announced yesterday that System Center 2012, the software companies use to manage their cloud services, is now available.

World Tech Update, January 12, 2012

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Nick Barber) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:30:00 GMT

Coming up on World Tech Update this week we’re at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show where Microsoft talked about the future of Kinect, Intel pushed Ultrabooks, Samsung showed off TVs with motion and voice control, Sony packed its press conferences with celebrities like Kelly Clarkson and Will Smith, a 10,000 watt iPod dock pumped out music and a hard drive survived 1,000,000 volts.

Windows Server runs for free in Amazon's cloud

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Mikael Ricknäs) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 08:30:00 GMT

Enterprises can now run Windows Server in Amazon's cloud for up to 750 hours per month at no charge, using the AWS (Amazon Web Services) Free Usage Tier, the company said on Sunday.

Honda UK moves website into public cloud

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Antony Savvas) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:37:00 GMT

Honda UK has put its website into the public cloud through a two-year deal hosting deal with ICM.

Cisco to unveil integrated WAN routing for clouds

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Jim Duffy) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:27:00 GMT

In an effort to accommodate enterprise users looking to implement private and hybrid clouds, Cisco in the coming months will unveil an "integrated" WAN routing system of existing, but enhanced, products.

Amazon adds four global Direct Connect gateways to its cloud

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Mikael Ricknäs) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:45:00 GMT

Amazon Web Services has added four locations where enterprises can use its Direct Connect network service to communicate with its cloud, the company said on Tuesday.

Dell: Cloud computing drives vendor lock-in

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Sophie Curtis) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:30:00 GMT

The move to cloud computing is undoing a lot of the good work that IT managers have done over the past decade to enable solutions based on open standards that can be built, supported and replaced, regardless of vendor.

Banking giant BBVA moves internal apps to Google cloud

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (Leo King) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:44:00 GMT

BBVA, one of Spain's largest banks, is moving desktop applications to Google Apps' cloud computing systems.

CES: Acer to offer free cloud service

cwukfeedback@idg.co.uk (James Niccolai) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:02:00 GMT

Acer kicked off the Consumer Electronics Show on Sunday by previewing a free cloud service for storing images and other documents online, and showing a novel ultrabook that hides its I/O ports in a hidden pop-up section at the back.