July 9, 2012
Volume XL, Issue 2
DCIA—CCA Strategic Alliance Backs CCW:2012
The Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) and the Cloud Computing Association (CCA) have forged a strategic alliance to better serve expanding industry needs driven by the explosive growth of cloud computing in the software sector.
The trade organizations are now busy preparing for their first jointly sponsored event, the CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2012 (CCW:2012) business leadership summit, which will take place November 8th—9th in Santa Monica, CA.
CCW: 2012 will feature three co-located conferences focusing on the impact of cloud-based solutions in the industry's fastest-moving and most strategically important areas: entertainment, broadband, and venture financing.
The DCIA is an international trade organization, established in 2003, with more than one-hundred industry-leading member companies, including software developers, broadband network operators, and content providers. The DCIA conducts working groups, oversees political initiatives, and publishes the weekly online newsletter DCINFO.
The CCA is an independent membership organization, founded in 2012, dedicated to building a community of end-users and service providers of cloud-based solutions and products through individual professional memberships and industry conferences. The CCA has quickly amassed a contact list of three-hundred thousand industry participants.
As part of the strategic alliance, DCIA member company employees will be offered the opportunity to become CCA professional members. And CCA individual members will be offered opportunities to participate in DCIA member company activities.
The DCIA most recently presented the CLOUD COMPUTING CONFERENCE within the 2012 NAB Show, focusing on cloud solutions for broadcasting. On the same date at a different location, the CCA presented hCLOUD and PublicCLOUD, focusing on cloud solutions for healthcare and government.
CCW:2012 registration enables delegates to participate in any session at the three conferences being presented at CCW:2012 — ENTERTAINMENT CONTENT DELIVERY, NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE, and INVESTING IN THE CLOUD.
CCW:2012 features one common exhibit hall and all networking functions (e.g., luncheon, refreshment breaks, evening cocktail reception, etc.) are open to all attendees at no additional cost.
Online Video Cause for Celebration this Week
Excerpted from TV Blog Report by David Goetzl
What a superb week for networks seeking to build stronger online streaming businesses. There were indications on both the content and distribution fronts that growth opportunities are exceedingly ripe.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said the company had a record-setting, billion-plus hours of viewing in June. Hastings may have as good a read on consumer hunger and trends as anyone, so while some of the Netflix's growth may have been fueled by international expansion, the signs of heightened demand are surely there.
Netflix set its record even as it specializes in library content, and networks are also increasingly careful about what they license to it. But, Netflix's emphasis on original content is increasing and Hastings hyped new home-cooked programs as likely generators of more records.
Meanwhile, reports started to drop that Apple is developing a mini-iPad. Apple's continued innovation in the tablet space is a boon for programmers. The more its devices hit the market, the more hours of online video will be watched.
Tablets offer a viewing opportunity on a screen larger than a smart-phone, but one that's still mobile. The viewing experience can also resemble or top the HD sets improving the traditional living-room experience.
And, networks can sit back and happily watch as seemingly just about every consumer electronics — and software — giant wants to chop into Apple's tablet dominance. The list continues to grow and the brainpower on the challenge front is extraordinary.
Google is introducing the Nexus 7. Microsoft recently launched its Surface. Media visionary John Malone's Liberty Media owns Barnes & Noble and the Nook. New Kindle Fires should keep coming out.
In a content-distribution mix, networks could also become increasingly intrigued by partnerships with Facebook, where the social networking giant could serve as a mega-distribution video platform. The New York Post reported Facebook is looking to make deals to push deeper into online video, where it receives a cut of the ad revenue and an agreement is in place with Turner.
Networks may still struggle to derive the type of revenue from online streams they seek. But the axiom is that money follows traffic, and indications are that will continue to speed up.
Important Note to DCINFO Readers
The web is increasingly the center of communication, commerce, and content. It's all the more disturbing, then, that the medium can also be a very dangerous place for consumers.
On July 9th, hundreds of thousands of people worldwide could reportedly lose Internet access after the FBI shuts down temporary DNS servers used to assist victims of a massive Internet fraud ring.
Click here to read more and here (US readers) to ensure that your computer is safe.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 The DCIA believes that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) exceeded its authority and acted without proper Congressional approval by promulgating net neutrality regulations that took effect last year after being narrowly passed by a 3-2 vote in December 2010.
The Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit previously ruled in a case involving Comcast that the FCC lacked authorization to regulate broadband, which is currently considered an information service rather than a telecommunications service.
Instead of proceeding with caution after the court ruling, the Commission moved ahead with its open Internet order, considered by many at the time to be a "reckless power grab," imposing additional restrictions and discriminating between wireline and wireless access providers, while excluding major portals, app store operators, search engines, and others.
The FCC's regulations also require broadband Internet providers to disclose information about their network management practices, which in itself could be an important component of a more fully developed and properly sanctioned program to ensure transparency.
Now Verizon and MetroPCS have filed litigation against the FCC in a brief filed Monday with the DC Circuit as part of the operators' ongoing 18-month legal challenge to the regulations.
The two operators originally filed suit against the Commission's rules in early 2011, only to have their complaint dismissed on a technicality. The suit was re-filed, and in March the court allowed the challenge to proceed after dismissing the FCC's request for a delay.
The companies argue that the rules should be vacated because they conflict with the Communications Act, are outside the FCC's authority, and violate constitutional rights.
In a more difficult argument, the telecoms' appellate brief also contends that the regulations violate their free speech rights because they strip providers of control over what they transmit and how they transmit it, and compel carriage without compensation.
Their point is that other major gatekeepers to Internet-based content are excluded from this anti-discrimination requirement. Whether others should be included, or whether there should be different standards for different participants in the web ecosystem remains an unanswered but important issue at this juncture.
This also opens a more complex set of considerations, including placement of liability for copyright infringement and the question of censorship, which need far more discussion in the context of an acceptable regulatory process.
In addition, the concerns voiced by both independent (as opposed to carrier-owned) content providers and public advocacy groups regarding fair and equitable treatment of Internet data remain unanswered.
From the DCIA's perspective, which is focused on commercial advancement of distributed computing over the Internet and other networks, the FCC's movements here have been in no way beneficial.
Without a more comprehensive approach, too much marketplace uncertainty remains, and private sector interests and the public at large would be better served by vacating the Commission's current rules.
The FCC's regulations, which ban all Internet access providers from blocking sites or competing applications and impose greater restrictions on those that do so through wireline networks, may have been well intended, but were clearly premature and incomplete. The basic problem, as noted above (and at the time it was issued) is that the FCC's order imposes classic common-carrier obligations on broadband providers, which is prohibited by the Communications Act.
Further complicating this issue, the advocacy group Free Press, which also sued the FCC contending that it acted arbitrarily in adopting different standards for wireless and wireline providers, this week withdrew its lawsuit rather than file a brief in the case.
The group isn't satisfied with the neutrality regulations, but decided to drop the litigation; which it was pursuing in order to improve the rules and not contest the FCC's authority or basis for imposing them.
Free Press and a coalition of more than 100 organizations, academics, start-up founders, and tech innovators instead launched the Declaration of Internet Freedom — five principles outlining the basic freedoms that all Internet users should enjoy. This effort is meant to spark a passionate, global discussion among Internet users and communities about the Internet and our role in protecting it.
What is needed is a complete reworking on the now outdated Communications Act in light of today's Internet and the business realities of providing access and fostering continued investment and innovation.
If the court simply overturns the FCC's regulations, wireless and broadband Internet providers could be allowed to block online content and competing services, and that would not be a good thing. And the potential for consumer net users and digital content providers to benefit from more advanced and flexible services could be curtailed if the court doesn't do so, and that would be bad, too.
The FCC's response to the telecoms' brief is due in September. Meanwhile, if you agree that Expression, Access, Openness, Innovation, and Privacy are principles that should be secured for the Internet globally, please sign the Declaration of Internet Freedom. Share wisely, and take care.
Huawei to Venture into Internet Industry in July
Excerpted from Want China Times Report
Huawei Technologies, the world's second-largest telecom equipment maker after China Mobile, is set for its first foray into the Internet market in July when it will launch a series of products and services and carry out organizational restructuring, Guangzhou's 21st Century Business Herald reports.
Two years ago, Huawei ventured into the mobile phone market to compete with major handset manufacturers Apple, Samsung and HTC in a move that drew widespread market attention.
In the first half of this year, Huawei's Internet business department, affiliated with its Carrier Software Business Unit, was upgraded into a secondary department of the company, which was merged into its Consumer Business Group with its terminal company and its HiSilicon chip manufacturing factory.
Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, said the company plans to launch a series of Internet products and services beginning in July after the launch of its new mobile phone user interface called Emotion UI. This will be the first collective debut of Huawei's Internet products.
These include its own Kik-like service, TianTianLiao (Daily Chatting), to compete with Tencent's Weixin and MiLiao by Xiaomi Tech. TianTianLiao differs from these two competitors in its close integration with traditional SMS features on Huawei phones. According to Huawei engineers, you can send free messages via GPRS/Wi-Fi when available or messages can be sent via the operators' network.
The service originated from Kik applications in a foreign country. In November 2010, a Kik Messenger instant communication software system was put online through Apple's App Store and also made available for the Android Market. Though photos and attached files are not allowed to be sent through the system, the number of its users exceeded 1 million within 15 days after going online.
Huawei seeks to increase the number of TianTianLiao users to 10 million by the end of this year. According to the company's financial report, sales of its smart-phones in 2011 were estimated at 20 million units.
Huawei started its research on the Internet quite early. In 2008 it set up the Internet Business Unit, which is operated directly under the Huawei software company.
In the first half of 2012, the Internet unit was merged into the newly established Consumer BG and its name was changed to Huawei Cloud Terminal Unit.
The report said that according to Huawei plans, the major functions of its cloud terminal department are mainly for increasing Huawei mobile phone devices' competitiveness in the market and extending the use period of Huawei terminal devices.
The department has 1,000 employees, accounting for only a small portion of the company's 140,000 employees.
The Cloud Terminal Unit's two major businesses are the development of premium product applications and a cloud processing platform.
The development of premium product applications mainly includes those applications used by mobile Internet devices and employs about 200-300 employees. The cloud platform is manned by 800 employees.
A source from the company said that after more than 10 years of efforts in developing its telecom system and equipment business, Huawei has become the world's second-largest equipment supplier.
However, the company is still lagging in the Internet business sector. Currently, the mobile Internet industry is suffering from limited profits. Regarding this, Yin Xin, a senior executive at the company, said this is mainly due to the small number of users and increasing costs of telecom operators, and because more efforts are needed to increase high-end smart-phone users.
BitTorrent Torque Allows Users To Make Torrent-Based Web Apps
Excerpted from WebProNews Report by Chris Richardson
Does the introduction of web-based app development further legitimize the concept of file sharing via BitTorrent technology? Does it remove the vail of "this kind of technology is only used to infringe copyright" from the act of sharing torrents with other computer users?
Whether or not that was the goal of the BitTorrent developers, it's hard not to consider the ramifications of such a legitimate move.
Over at the BitTorrent blog, the team discusses the launch of BitTorrent Torque, which is related to the lead image in name only. Although it's still in the alpha stage, it's hard for them to discuss the program's potential without a modicum of excitement:
"BitTorrent Torque is a JavaScript interface to a custom torrent client that exposes all the power of BitTorrent to web developers. Simply put, it allows anyone to utilize our powerful technology to create completely fresh and new experiences for users with just a couple lines of code.
This alpha allows BitTorrent to move beyond desktop clients. We believe web developers are pioneers when it comes to creating beautiful, intuitive user experiences. Torque will empower them to create powerful applications that will appeal to broad audiences."
Considering the ideas some have when "torrents" are mentioned, it's clear there are many more options available than just sharing ripped movies and music. That being said, the majority of the apps being created are to make the act of file sharing that much easier. As an example, the four featured apps over at the BitTorrent Torque Labs offer such capabilities:
"Turns all torrents links into regular downloads. No torrents to manage. Just content."
And:
"Create a sharable link to a file on your computer. No cloud, no hosting. Just a link directly to your file."
So while the capabilities increase, it doesn't look like the associations that are made when the word "torrent" is used will be going away anytime soon.
Telefonica Partners with Tech Giants
Excerpted from The Next Web Report by Matt Brian
European mobile giant Telefonica is set to make it easier for its customers to purchase digital items and subscribe to services using their mobile devices following a new deal with Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and RIM.
Leveraging its "global framework agreements" with each of the four tech giants, Telefonica hopes to drive paid downloads and sales of digital goods and services and has already begun rolling out the necessary platforms in Europe, with plans to offer mobile billing services in 14 of its businesses worldwide by the end of the year.
All four technology companies offer operator billing services to their customers. Both Facebook and RIM have partnered with Bango to offer mobile billing technologies, with Facebook recently launching its new Pay Dialog mobile SDK, which will allow mobile operators to work with app developers to integrate operator billing into their apps.
Both Google and Microsoft have enabled operator billing in their respective Google Play and Windows Phone Marketplace stores, partnering with numerous mobile operators around the world to streamline the app download process but provide easy ways for users to download other content.
Operator billing on Google Play is already live for O2 customers in Germany and will launch soon on Movistar networks in Spain. As part of its deal with Microsoft, Telefonica will setup a "Store within a Store" within Windows Phone Marketplace in some of its local markets, offering a branded app download portal to its customers.
O2's BlackBerry users can also download apps in the UK via Premium SMS and in Germany, via RIM's Direct to Bill platform.
Today's announcement further demonstrates Telefonica's commitment to mobile billing. In March, it announced that it was part of a number of companies that contributed to mobile payments platform Boku's $35 million funding round.
The cash injection meant the San Francisco-based startup has secured more than $75 million across a series of funding rounds since 2009, helping the company enable transactions to be carried out at point-of-sale (POS) in stores, with payments being charged to the user's mobile phone bill.
Ron Paul's New Primary Goal Is Internet Freedom
Excerpted from Slashdot Report by Charlie Moss
Ron and Rand Paul are shifting the central focus of their family's libertarian crusade to a new cause: Internet Freedom.
From the article: "Kentucky Senator Rand and his father Ron Paul, who has not yet formally conceded the Republican presidential nomination, will throw their weight behind a new online manifesto set to be released today by the Paul-founded Campaign for Liberty. The new push, Paul aides say, will in some ways displace what has been their movement's long-running top priority, shutting down the Federal Reserve Bank. The move is an attempt to stake a libertarian claim to a central public issue of the next decade, and to move from the esoteric terrain of high finance to the everyday world of cable modems and Facebook."
This seems like welcome news to me. Let's see if they can get more traction here than they did with the Fed.
Netflix: "We're Bullish on the Cloud" Despite Outage
Excerpted from GigaOM Report by Derrick Harris
Last week's Amazon Web Services outage might have outsmarted Netflix's Chaos Monkeys, but the content-distribution giant isn't about to turn its back on cloud computing.
According to a Friday blog post from the Netflix cloud team, the outage (which started with a generator failure and resulted in a cascading bug that took down AWS's Elastic Load Balancer feature) exposed some flaws in Netflix's operations both within and beyond its control, but it was a relatively small blip in what has been better overall availability since the company made the move entirely to the cloud.
That the AWS outage resulted in a control plane backlog that prohibited customers from failing over into Availability Zones not affected by the generator failure was Amazon's fault.
However, Netflix's Greg Orzell and Ariel Tseitlin write, the outage also highlighted some problems with its own load-balancing architecture that ended up compounding the problem by "essentially causing gridlock inside most of our services as they tried to traverse our middle-tier." Netflix is working to fix this problem.
Still, they note, Netflix has had better overall uptime since moving to the cloud and is "still bullish on the cloud." In part, that's because Netflix has been able to architect its cloud-based services to be resilient even when AWS fails.
Some of those decisions proved wise last week. Regional isolation contained the problem to users being served out of the US-EAST region. Netflix's European members were unaffected. Cassandra, its distributed cloud persistence store, which is distributed across all zones and regions, dealt with the loss of one third of its regional nodes without any loss of data or availability.
Not all of Netflix's best-laid plans worked as planned, though — even its oft-touted Chaos Moneys. Chaos Gorilla, the Simian Army member tasked with simulating the loss of an availability zone, was built for exactly this purpose. This outage highlighted the need for additional tools and use cases for both Chaos Gorilla and other parts of the Simian Army.
Considering that Netflix bet the farm on AWS as its infrastructure platform for the foreseeable future, it had better be bullish on the cloud. Of course, that bet also comes with perks, as Netflix is one of AWS's banner customers. Orzell and Tseitlin note that Netflix is working closely with AWS "on eliminating single points of failure that can cause region-wide outages and isolating the failures of individual zones."
As distributed systems expert Geoff Arnold explained to me earlier this week, though, solving the problem entirely is likely a pipe dream. As cloud systems grow more and more complex, new and unforeseen problems will keep popping up as the old ones get fixed. If Netflix and AWS can fix the present issue, maybe it will be a while until they have to undertake this effort again on something new.
UN Declares Internet Freedom a Basic Right
Excerpted from Slashdot Report
The United Nations Human Rights Council has passed a landmark resolution declaring that Internet freedom is a basic human right.
They wrote, "The same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, in particular freedom of expression, which is applicable regardless of frontiers and through any media of one's choice, in accordance with articles 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."
The council also called upon all countries to "promote and facilitate access to the Internet."
The article points out that this comes alongside a report from the Pew Internet Center, which asked a group of Internet stakeholders how they think firms in the private sector will handle the ethical issues that arise with countries wanting to censor or restrict Internet access.
The responses were varied, but skepticism was a recurring theme: "Corporations will work around regional differences by spinning off subsidiaries, doing what's needed to optimize on future profits."
Is Cloud Computing Changing the Film Industry?
Excerpted from CloudTweaks Report by Catherine Balavage
There are many things people think about when it comes to the film industry: glamor, money, success, movies stars; but IT is probably low on the list. However, it is cloud computing that is causing a revolution in the film industry.
The film industry has decided to fully embrace cloud computing. This makes sense: the film industry is vast and sprawling, it is not just based in Hollywood, but all over the world. The film industry is more like a global village. Someone in London can share files with someone in Los Angeles at the drop of a hat. You can stream, you can talk to people, you can save vast amounts of money. I asked some of my friends who work in the industry how cloud computing helped them.
John Fox: "I've quite often used private FTP servers as a nice go-between for dailies and renders for sound engineers, color grading, and compositing/VFX departments including relevant project files, raw footage, and exported EDLs. I worked in IT for a number of years and I've been lucky enough to work in broadcasting and production. I think for the most part security concerns and bandwidth usage are often mitigating factors affecting scalability. For smaller studios a NAS and a dedicated server in addition to various external drives is often adequate.
It's pretty daunting trying keep several hundred gigs of all your raw footage uploaded unless you have the speed to upload and pull it down in a reasonable time frame. Plenty of free services, but as things scale up you start to see instances of dedicated file servers, VPS and utilization of VPNs.
A lot of broadcasters have one or two dedicated NAS units and often have each company branch linked on a virtual private network. I think really it comes down to good strategy on what's going to be advantageousness and cost effective. I feel data wrangling is getting a lot easier as the years progress. The larger studios are often rolling with their own large scale render farms and data centers and often budget for additional infrastructure where necessary".
Matthew Radway: "I use Dropbox with a folder for each project that can then be used to share stuff with the cast and crew really easily".
Neil Meffan: "Dropbox is good for sharing among people, Google docs is at a pinch but ALWAYS keep a back up somewhere offline too".
Ewan Richardson: "I use cloud based rendering and transcoding for certain projects. Gives access to large scale rendering without hardware costs".
Cloud computing is here to stay in the film industry, for every frame of film 24Gb of data is processed.
The truth is: what is really pushing the film industry forward and lowering costs is possibly the least glamorous thing of all: the cloud.
European Parliament Overwhelmingly Rejects ACTA Anti-Piracy Pact
Excerpted from Washington Post Report by
The European Parliament overwhelmingly defeated an international anti-piracy trade agreement Wednesday after concern that it would limit Internet freedom sparked street protests in cities across Europe.
The vote — 39 in favor, 478 against, with 165 abstentions — appeared to deal the death blow to the European Union's participation in a treaty it helped negotiate, though other countries may still participate without the EU.
Supporters had maintained that ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, was needed to standardize the different national laws that protect the rights of those who produce music, movies, pharmaceuticals, fashion goods and other products that often fall victim to piracy and intellectual property theft. EU officials said, too, that protecting European ideas was essential to the economic growth the continent so badly needs.
But opponents feared the treaty would lead to censorship and snooping on the Internet activities of ordinary citizens. Alex Wilks, who directed the anti-ACTA campaign for the advocacy group Avaaz, said the agreement would have permitted private companies to spy on the activities of Internet users and would have allowed users to be disconnected without due process.
Wilks said the agreement did not properly balance the rights of private citizens and those of copyright holders, whom he described as companies, though their ranks also include individual authors and musicians of modest means.
Beyond the EU and 22 of its member countries, eight other countries also signed the agreement — the U.S., Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea — though none has yet ratified it. The EU vote will not affect them.
David Martin, a member of the European Parliament from Scotland, pronounced the agreement dead.
"No emergency surgery, no transplant, no long period of recuperation is going to save ACTA," Martin said. "It's time to give it its last rites. It's time to allow its friends to mourn and for the rest of us to get on with our lives."
But EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht did not sound ready to give up altogether. He said in a statement that he would push ahead with his plan to have Europe's highest court determine whether the agreement, as currently written, would curtail any fundamental European rights, and would consider his next move in light of that opinion.
"It's clear that the question of protecting intellectual property does need to be addressed on a global scale — for business, the creative industries, whether in Europe or our partner countries," De Gucht said. "With the rejection of ACTA, the need to protect the backbone of Europe's economy across the globe: our innovation, our creativity, our ideas — our intellectual property — does not disappear."
But the overwhelming vote Wednesday seemed to indicate that the agreement in its current form has no chance to be approved.
The treaty was unanimously approved by the 27 EU heads of government in December. But EU efforts to ratify it ran into trouble almost immediately. For the EU to become a party to the treaty, all 27 member countries would have to formally approve it.
Sony Acquires Gaikai Game Streaming Service for $380 Million
Excerpted from VentureBeat Report by James Pikover and Dean Takahashi
Sony announced that it will acquire the streaming videogame service Gaikai for $380 million. The deal officially closed on June 30th, and Sony is purchasing the California-based company as part of a move to disrupt the gaming business. The news doesn't come as a shock; rumors about the potential acquisition rose in May and June.
What this acquisition means for partnerships that companies like Samsung, LG, Walmart, and others have with Gaikai is unclear, but the potential benefits for Sony are huge. They go anywhere from in-store kiosks playing any PlayStation 3 or PlayStation Vita title straight from a TV connected only to the Internet, to no need for future console hardware because of streaming-only services.
Sony has had the benefit, compared to Microsoft's Xbox Live service, of offering free online gaming, and with a streaming cloud service, the company may be able to turn back the Xbox's dominance this generation.
Sony has repeatedly had trouble creating software platforms, something that Gaikai has done tremendously well with its streaming game service. This may prove to be the most important part of this acquisition for Sony, which has struggled to gain dominance in software development when compared to rivals like Microsoft and Nintendo.
Sony's move to the PlayStation Mobile, a suite for games that run on both smart-phones and game consoles, will also benefit from streaming functions. We've already seen earlier this year that streaming games can function well over cellular networks.
"By combining Gaikai's resources, including its technological strength and engineering talent, with Sony's extensive game platform knowledge and experience, Sony will provide users with unparalleled cloud entertainment experiences," said Andrew House, President and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment. "Sony will deliver a world-class cloud-streaming service that allows users to instantly enjoy a broad array of content ranging from immersive core games with rich graphics to casual content anytime, anywhere on a variety of Internet-connected devices."
"Sony has built an incredible brand with PlayStation and has earned the respect of countless millions of gamers worldwide," said David Perry, CEO of Gaikai. "We're honored to be able to help Sony rapidly harness the power of the interactive cloud and to continue to grow their ecosystem, to empower developers with new capabilities, to dramatically improve the reach of exciting content and to bring breathtaking new experiences to users worldwide."
Mitch Lasky of Benchmark Capital said in a post that years ago, back in the fall of 2009, that his company invested along with Rustic Canyon Ventures and New Enterprise Associates because Gaikai stood at the intersection of cloud computing and next-generation game distribution. Of Gaikai's Perry, Lasky said, "David believed that his idea could change the world and he went out and made it happen."
In its own post, NEA's Paul Hsiao and Greg Papadopoulous said, "The strategic significance of this transaction within the gaming and interactive entertainment sector is akin to Apple's launch of iTunes years ago in the music space — it will no doubt provide new opportunities and shift the dynamics in an ecosystem that includes game platforms, publishers, developers, TV manufacturers, cable and broadband operators, mobile devices, graphics chip companies, and content distribution networks. From a consumer perspective, it's thrilling to see interactive cloud delivery of video games taking off. One can imagine playing all the great titles anywhere from any device connected to the Internet — similar to the way we consume music and movies today. In addition to the pure super-low latency streaming capabilities, Gaikai's technology can amplify existing gaming consoles by creating a local display and interaction point where additional compute and rendering capabilities, upgrades, etc. can be provisioned automatically in the network."
Microsoft said, "The cloud has been a key component of our strategy and a big area of investment with Xbox for many years. Through Xbox LIVE we're serving up gaming and entertainment in the cloud to more than 40 million people. We're committed to delivering extraordinary entertainment experiences across devices in a uniquely connected way through Xbox, Windows Phone, Windows 8 and other popular devices, and we're looking forward to continuing to innovate in this space in the future."
Public Knowledge Needs Your Support Now
We are at a pivotal moment. On the one hand, we see a secretive process creating seriously problematic terms in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement:
We've been raising issues like policy laundering, lack of transparency, myopic focus on enforcement, unbalanced IP exportation, inconsistencies with US law, and lack of civil society inclusion for months now.
On the other, we see a growing and powerful movement raising these concerns:
More than 80,000 people have signed a petition called "Stop the Trap," dedicated to ensuring that any rules that may impact the Internet are developed in an open and democratic way.
478 members of the European Parliament voted to reject the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (AFTA), which has similarly problematic provisions.
130 Representatives wrote to USTR Ron Kirk last week, speaking out against the secretive process, the lack of consultation with Congress, and the TPP's impact on existing law.
4 Senators have called for "increased transparency, including broader consultation on Internet freedom" in the TPP.
This week, PK attended TPP negotiations in person, to make sure no one could ignore this growing movement.
1 signature is all we need from you. Help us get the "Stop the Trap" petition over 100k signatures so that no one can deny the public's concerns with the TPP. Sign now.
EA Exec: We'll be "100 Percent Digital" Eventually
Excerpted from CNET News Report by Don Reisinger
Electronic Arts (EA) is considered a major publisher in the gaming industry. But soon, it might be a major digital publisher in the gaming industry.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, EA Labels President Frank Gibeau said that his company will transition its operation entirely to digital in the not-so-distant future.
"For us, the fastest growing segment of our business is clearly digital services and ultimately Electronic Arts, at some point in the future — much like your question about streaming and cloud — we're going to be a 100 percent digital company, period," Gibeau told the gaming publication. "It's going to be there someday. It's inevitable."
EA has increasingly warmed to the idea of digital distribution. The company has a game download service called Origin, and last year acquired PopCap Games to double down on digital. EA still offers its titles in game stores, like GameStop, of course, but it has said for quite a while now that it believes the future is in digital.
"There will come a day where I think that people will stop going into UK game retailer Game and GameStop," EA Sports Vice President Andrew Wilson told Eurogamer. "And I use those purely as examples of retail. It's important for retailers and us to understand what the consumer wants in the future."
Wilson's comments came just a couple of months after his boss, EA CEO John Riccitiello, told investors in an earnings call that he planned to "transform EA from a packaged goods company to a fully integrated digital entertainment company."
For EA, it all comes back to economics. The company generated $1.2 billion in digital revenue during its last fiscal year, and expects to see that rise to $2 billion this fiscal year.
Still, Gibeau says his company isn't ready to ditch the physical retail sector just yet. Despite EA's desire to move to an all-digital model, it will be gamers who decide when that happens.
"The ultimate relationship is the connection that we have with the gamer," Gibeau said. "If the gamer wants to get the game through a digital download and that's the best way for them to get it, that's what we're going to do."
Cincinnati Bell: Leading the Telco to Cloud Transformation?
Excerpted from Talkin' Cloud Report by Joe Panettieri
From AT&T to Verizon, big telcos and telecommunications companies gradually are becoming cloud services providers (CSPs). But keep an eye on Cincinnati Bell, which is piecing together a cloud services strategy that includes hosted Exchange, hosted SharePoint, backup, archiving, and compliance services.
During the Ingram Micro Cloud Summit last month, Gartner VP Tiffani Bova noted that many US-based telecom companies were slow to introduce cloud services because they had legacy infrastructure and existing services to maintain. But Bova mentioned Cincinnati Bell as one of the US telecommunications providers worth watching in the cloud market.
Cincinnati Bell earlier this year partnered with Parallels and Apptix to introduce a range of cloud services. Parallels provides a platform and dashboard that speeds SaaS deployments and eases cloud services management. Apptix is a well-known provider of hosted Exchange and SharePoint in the cloud. The company competes with Intermedia, the largest independent provider of hosted Exchange in the world, and a major partner to multiple cloud providers and telecom companies.
Meanwhile, Cincinnati Bell is also exploring an IPO (initial public offering) for its data center business. The business, based on Cincinnati Bell's CyrusOne acquisition from 2010, has been expanding. According to BizJournals.com, the CyrusOne business in January 2012 acquired a 700,000 square foot data center in Dallas, and in December 2011 announced plans to build a data center in San Antonio. And the company broke ground on a Houston data center in May 2011, BizJournals noted.
If the data center IPO proceeds, Cincinnati Bell plans to use some of the funds raised to pay down debt. Coupled with the company's cloud services strategy, Cincinnati Bell remains a company worth watching — though plenty of telcos are making aggressive moves of their own.
Two prime examples:
No doubt, telcos will continue buying up or partnering with cloud services companies.
M&A: Cloud Computing and Analytics Drive Transactions
Excerpted from GovWin Report by Brian Coyle
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity in the defense and government services sector held steady in the latest second quarter, and is expected to remain robust for the remainder of the year as larger firms continue to seek out smaller companies operating in hot sectors to help offset expected federal budget cuts.
Among the contractors we track, there were 43 deals either announced or completed during the latest second quarter, off slightly from 44 deals announced in last year's second quarter, and up significantly from the 29 transactions announced in the first quarter of this year.
M&A activity in the second quarter was driven by four deals which had valuations of over $1 billion, including SAP's $4.3 billion purchase of cloud-based applications provider Ariba, and CGI Group's $2.6 billion acquisition of rival Logica, an Anglo-Dutch firm which provides consulting, outsourcing and IT services to governments and companies across Europe.
Other significant purchases in the latest second quarter included Microsoft's $1.2 billion acquisition of business social network Yammer, and Microsoft's purchase of more than 925 patents and patent applications from AOL for $1.1 billion. After the purchase, Microsoft later sold 650 of those AOL patents to Facebook for $550 million.
Smaller deals in cloud computing and analytics fueled M&A activity in 2Q.
During the latest second quarter, there were several M&A transactions announced in the cloud computing and big data/analytics sectors, and we expect these trends to continue moving forward.
On the cloud front, there were six deals reported in the latest second quarter which involved companies with cloud-related solutions, on par with the six cloud computing transactions announced in the first quarter of this year.
Notable deals (besides SAP/Ariba) include Dell's purchases of Wyse Technology and Clerity Solutions earlier in the quarter, and Oracle's purchase of Virtue, which operates a cloud-based social marketing and engagement platform, for $300 million. In another cloud-related transaction, Teradata agreed to acquire eCircle, which provides e-mail marketing and social media software in the cloud. This acquisition is expected to significantly enhance Teradata's multi-channel marketing capabilities.
Overall, top-tier IT firms looking to expand their market share in the cloud computing sector is expected to continue moving forward, as the market is slated to see high-growth over the next several years. According to Deltek's Federal Cloud Computing Services Outlook, 2012-2017, the demand for vendor-furnished cloud computing services by the U.S. government will increase from $734 million in fiscal 2012 to $3.2 billion in fiscal 2017, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 34%. Given this expected growth, we expect top-tier IT firms to continue their foray into the cloud market, targeting smaller companies providing unique or distinctive solutions.
Elsewhere, M&A activity in the big data/analytics market was also strong in the latest second quarter, continuing its momentum from earlier in the year.
Always on the hunt for acquisitions in hot sectors, IBM seemed to have its eye on the analytics market in the latest second quarter, making three acquisitions, including Varicent Software, Vivisimo, and Tealeaf Technology. IBM said it believes the analytics market presents a significant growth opportunity for the company with attractive profit margins.
Other notable deals in the analytics market in the latest second quarter included VMWare's purchase of big data startup Cetas Software, Cisco's acquisition of data analytics firm Truviso, and CACI International's buyout of Delta Solutions and Technologies, which provides financial management and business analytics services to the federal government.
Overall, M&A activity in the big data/analytics market has been strong over the past quarter or so, and we expect this trend to continue as top-tier IT firms continue to seek out small- and mid-tier firms providing unique or niche technologies within this hot sector.
Coming Events of Interest
ITU Telecom World 2012 - October 14th-18th in Dubai, UAE. ITUTW is the most influential ICT platform for networking, knowledge exchange, and action. It features a corporate-neutral agenda where the challenges and opportunities of connecting the transformed world are up for debate; where industry experts, political influencers and thought leaders gather in one place.
CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2012 - November 8th-9th in Santa Monica. CA. CCW:2012 will zero in on the latest advances in applying cloud-based solutions to all aspects of high-value entertainment content production, storage, and delivery; the impact of cloud services on broadband network management and economics; and evaluating and investing in cloud computing services providers.
Third International Workshop on Knowledge Discovery Using Cloud and Distributed Computing Platforms - December 10th in Brussels, Belgium. Researchers, developers, and practitioners from academia, government, and industry will discuss emerging trends in cloud computing technologies, programming models, data mining, knowledge discovery, and software services. |
