November 5 , 2012
Volume XLI, Issue 7
This Week in Santa Monica: CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2012
CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2012 (CCW:2012) at the Doubletree Suites by Hilton Hotel this Thursday November 8th and Friday November 9th in Santa Monica, CA, will feature three co-located conferences exploring the impact of "the cloud" on entertainment, broadband, and venture financing.
This first joint activity of the Cloud Computing Association (CCA) and the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) will give attendees an excellent jump-start on their preparedness for 2013 as cloud-computing industry participants or observers.
The DCIA thanks Platinum Sponsor Aspera, Gold Sponsors DataDirect Networks, Extreme Reach, Oracle, and SAP; Silver Sponsors CSC Leasing Company, i3m3 Solutions, Kaltura, Scayl, Sequencia, and Unicorn Media; and Associate Sponsors Hertz NeverLost, MEDIAmobz, Moses & Singer, and Scenios for making it possible to extend an extremely attractive offer to DCIA Member Companies to attend this inaugural event.
The CCA and DCIA encourage DCINFO readers to turn-back your clocks if you haven't already done so, vote in the national election on Tuesday, and then come to CLOUD COMPUTING WEST! Our thoughts and prayers are with those unable to attend due to complications from last week's major storm on the East Coast; and our best wishes go to all affected for a swift and full recovery from the damage it caused.
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.
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 advocacy initiatives, and publishes the weekly online newsletter DCINFO.
CCW:2012 registration enables delegates to participate in any session of the three conferences being presented at CCW:2012 — ENTERTAINMENT CONTENT DELIVERY, BROADBAND NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE, and INVESTING IN THE CLOUD.
Big Bird, Binders, and Bayonets Are Not Big Issues
Excerpted from FOX News Editorial by CEA President & CEO Gary Shapiro
In the first Presidential Debate, Governor Mitt Romney stated that every dollar of government spending should be measured by whether "the program is so critical it's worth borrowing money from China to pay for it." In illustrating that cuts to the deficit are necessary to preserve the economy and jobs, Romney used public broadcasting as an expenditure that is not worth borrowing money to fund. Instead of responding to the tough economic issues of the debate, the Obama campaign responded with television ads mocking the cuts to Big Bird.
At the second Presidential Debate, in response to a woman's question about gender pay equality, Romney noted that his efforts to hire qualified senior-level women resulted in him reviewing binders full of women. The Obama team went into spin mode to ridicule the Governor's choice of words and tie them into a non-existent "war on women." By Thursday, several major newspapers had front-page stories on the candidates and women issues as a result.
Never mind that even CNN acknowledged that Romney hired huge numbers of senior-level women and has a history of promoting women as executives. His Lieutenant Governor in Massachusetts, Kerry Healey, said that of the top 20 positions in his Cabinet, 10 were filled by women, including the Chief of Staff.
Finally, during Monday's foreign-policy debate, following Romney's comments that the Navy has fewer ships today than at any time since 1917, Obama produced his ready-made one-line retort: "Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets." Afterward, the media declared it was the line that will "live forever." The Obama campaign meanwhile bought the search-term bayonets on Twitter.
All the debates are examples of how the Obama camp capitalizes on the small issues to defer attention away from big problems, like the economy, deficit, and entitlement spending. Obama was recently on the campaign trail in the battleground state of Iowa where he said, "We don't have to collect a bunch of binders to find qualified, talented, driven young women." While the media responded to the Obama redirect strategy of focusing on Big Bird, binders, and bayonets, the issue of the budget and jobs moved off the front page.
This may play well for Romney, considering that a recent battleground poll revealed that more than two-thirds of Americans name pocketbook issues like the economy and jobs as their top concerns.
After the Hofstra debate, polls found that Romney beat Obama on the issue of who can better handle the economy, 58 percent to 40 percent. While the Obama administration continues its barrage of attack ads on Romney's wealth, involvement with Bain, and shipping jobs overseas, they are losing ground with voters who want to hear about policies that can get the economy going again. As Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan said recently, since Obama can't run on his record, he's running on division, distraction, and distortion.
In the debates, Romney capitalized on the enthusiasm gap for Obama's economic policies by offering a five-point plan that would create 12 million new jobs. Romney positioned himself as the man with the plan, offering solutions for the middle class, and highlighted Obama's record by citing stats of the mounting federal debt, the decline in household incomes, a growing entitlement state, and soaring gas prices just to name a few.
As the election nears, these are the policy topics voters should be debating and sharing with each other, not colorful memes and rhetoric about Big Bird, binders, or bayonets. Whether President Obama's reelection strategy of diverging from four years of hostility to job creators is successful remains to be seen. But the next generation deserves a serious discussion of serious issues rather than political efforts to trivialize them.
The Cloud: More than Buzz
It's easy to dismiss all the excitement about "cloud" as just more marketing buzz. The vendors are scrambling to promote their "cloud strategies," and the press, as usual, is virtually the spokes-office for the latest trend in automation technology.
But it's more than just buzz. The cloud has ample advantages: rapid deployment, lowered cost of ownership, simpler maintenance, etc. But it also has another, almost unseen but critical, value: It allows organizations to be agile and quick-responsive in an atmosphere of instant gratification. The cloud is the answer to the age-old question: How can I keep my customers happy today?
There's a lot behind that cloud. Learn how cloud can have a positive impact on your business. Download the latest KMWorld White Paper, "New Solutions in Cloud Computing." You might be surprised at what cloud can do for you.
Get your copy of the latest KMWorld White Paper, New Solutions in Cloud Computing.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2012 (CCW:2012) is finally upon us, and the DCIA and CCA cordially invite all DCINFO readers to attend what promises to be an enormously stimulating and valuable event.
CCW:2012 is taking place at the Doubletree Suites by Hilton Hotel in Santa Monica, CA this Thursday November 8th and Friday November 9th.
Our OPENING PLENARY SESSION will begin with a keynote by Geng Lin, CTO of the Networking Business at Dell, who will introduce three central themes — how are cloud-based solutions in the entertainment sector evolving; how do these and related developments impact broadband network infrastructure; and how should investing in this space be evaluated?
Panelists Jay Migliaccio, Director of Cloud Platforms and Services at Aspera; William Whelpley, Manager of Cloud Services at IBM Global Services; and Robert Stevenson, Chief Business Officer and EVP of Strategy at Gaikai will then probe these questions in more detail.
At ENTERTAINMENT CONTENT DELIVERY, keynoter Mike West of GenosTV will offer an examination of the latest trends in cloud solutions for high-value content production and distribution. Then a panel with Extreme Reach's Dan Brackett, Slacker's Jim Cady, Kaltura's Russell Zack, TransLattice's Robert Geiger, and Meteor Entertainment's Sarah Novotny will analyze the newest cloud offerings for entertainment, and the industry's direction in terms of adopting them.
At BROADBAND NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE, keynoter David Sterling of i3m3 Solutions will explore current impacts of cloud migration on broadband network operations and businesses. Then a panel with Altman & Vilandrie's Stefan Bewley, Hurricane Electric's Owen DeLong, Integrated Media Technologies' Bruce Lyon, Trend Micro's Bill McGee, and PricewaterhouseCooper's Jeff Sage will analyze network resource usage by data centers and new ISP cloud services.
Meanwhile at INVESTING IN THE CLOUD, keynoter Ketan Patel of New Venture Partners will offer fresh updates on venture capital and M&A activity in the cloud computing space. And the follow-on panel with CSC Leasing's Matt Thompson, Cisco Systems' Bill Williams, MD Capital Advisors' Derek Cahill will analyze the latest trends in capital structuring and strategic alliances for cloud computing firms.
At our conference luncheon, author Bill Williams will discuss and sign copies of The Economics of Cloud Computing, his book that's become required-reading for industry participants. Our next keynote by Jim Burger, Member of Dow Lohnes, will outline key pitfalls to avoid in adopting cloud solutions.
Then a panel with Radio Mitre's Guillermo Chialvo, American Standard Television's Francesco Fabbrocino, Verizon FiOS's Jason Henderson, Chyron's Todd Martin, DigiRamp's Peter Rafelson, and Peer Media's Rajan Samtani will analyze problem areas now affecting cloud adoption in the entertainment sector.
Another panel with Attend's Chuck Stormon, Yale University's Richard Yang, and Huawei's Ning Zong will analyze problem areas for ISPs created by the proliferation of cloud computing.
And a third panel with Edwards Wildman Palmer's Lawrence Freedman, Dynamic Synergy's Mark Landay, and Moses & Singer's Dov Scherzer will analyze problem areas affecting investments, acquisitions, and mergers involving cloud services.
From there, a series of very focused ENTERTAINMENT CONTENT DELIVERY keynotes by Mark Davis of Scenios, Dave Toole of MEDIAMobz, Stephen White of Gracenote, and John Schiela of Phoenix Marketing International will highlight current developments in cloud collaboration, cloud dailies, cloud metadata, and cloud pilots.
BROADBAND NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE keynotes by Bill Sewell of Wiredrive, Bill Kallman of Scayl, Prabhat Kumar of i3m3 Solutions, Julian Lovelock of HID Global Identity Assurance, and Doug Natal of Oracle will examine third-party SaaS, third-party PaaS, third-party IaaS, security, and interconnection.
And INVESTING IN THE CLOUD keynotes by Peter Siwinski of Cumulus Venture Partners, Chris Haddad of WSO2, Ajay Malhotra of Prime Focus Technologies, Sean Jennings of Virtustream, Ann Greenberg of Sceneplay will explore public clouds, private clouds, hybrid clouds, virtual private clouds, and community clouds.
Finally, we'll come back together for the day-one closing plenary session with Shahi Ghanem, EVP of Strategy at BitTorrent, and Lucia Gradinariu, Chief Market Strategist at Huawei summarizing all that we've covered regarding benefits and drawbacks of cloud computing for entertainment, infrastructure, and venture financing.
After this very full day, we'll bus from the Santa Monica conference venue to Marina del Rey for a relaxing cruise and networking cocktail reception aboard a yacht.
We'll start Friday with a continental breakfast and exhibition hall activities, after which attendees may resume or change their selection of topical break-out sessions.
At ENTERTAINMENT CONTENT DELIVERY, a series of very-focused keynotes by Matt Johnson of Unicorn Media, Brian Campanotti of Front Porch Digital, Greg Wiley of Media Science International, Scott Campbell of SAP America, and Joey Jablonski of DataDirect Networks will explore cloud transcoding, cloud storage, cloud delivery, cloud data, and cloud analytics.
Meanwhile, at BROADBAND NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE, keynotes by Jean-Luc Chatelain of DataDirect Networks, Linda Senigaglia of Navigation Solutions, Ryan Walters of Philotek, Tim Cavanaugh of Cavanaugh Consulting, and Daniel Kenyon of Equilibrium will offer insights into and case studies of cloud architecture, cloud mobility, virtualization, interoperability, and scalability.
And at INVESTING IN THE CLOUD, keynote addresses by Gigi Johnson of Maremel Institute, Mark Theissen of Cirro, Bruce Cleveland of InterWest Partners, Kevin Lynch of Deloitte Consulting, and Scott Ryan of EMC will examine education clouds, big data, business intelligence, VC criteria, and exit strategies.
This will be followed by a mid-morning networking break in the exhibit hall. Then we'll bring all delegates back together for our conference closing plenary session: "The Future of Cloud Computing for Entertainment, Telecom, and Investment."
We look forward to seeing you in Santa Monica. More information is available here; please sign-up to attend here. Share wisely, and take care.
The Cloud Provides Disaster Recovery as Sandy Rages
Excerpted from CRN Report by Jack McCarthy and Steven Burke
For Tim Shea, the Founder and CEO of Alpha NetSolutions, a 10-year-old managed services and cloud computing provider based in Millbury, MA, Hurricane Sandy was a non-event for his customers. That's because of the technology advances that have come with dramatic improvements in cloud computing, Shea said, and its accompanying backup disaster recovery.
"We had a few calls, but it's business as usual," said Shea, discussing the impact of Hurricane Sandy that wreaked havoc up the East Coast. "No one has lost data. All our managed services clients are prepped for this, and we have contingencies in place. None of my customers are in fear of losing their data. If something happens we know what to do. We have been through this so many times it isn't even funny."
Although Hurricane Sandy slammed into the East Coast this week, creating widespread damage, cloud networks held up for the most part.
The very nature of cloud computing — the ability to host data center assets off-premise in remote, distributed data centers — can protect data from a disaster, even if it's a hurricane that spans several hundred miles.
"One of the most understated use cases for the cloud is disaster recovery," said Zeus Kerravala, Founder and Principal Analyst with ZK Research, a networking and cloud research firm. "The cloud is built for back-up and recovery, with geographically disbursed networks."
Cloud Sherpas, a Google partner delivering Google Apps and other products to customers in a cloud model, has had few problems of network availability, said Michael Cohn, Senior Vice President of Cloud Sherpas.
"With Google, data doesn't live in any data center," Cohn said. "It's fragmented and distributed in multiple data centers."
Like Google, Rackspace has data centers located around the world and can ensure networks remain operational in a disaster.
"We have the tools now to build out disaster recovery using the cloud," said John Engates, Rackspace CTO. "People are going to think about having a disaster recovery in the cloud because of the hurricane this week."
At Alpha NetSolutions, literally 100 percent of the company's customers rely on some form of cloud computing including hosted Microsoft Exchange, says Alpha NetSolutions' Shea.
"If you have two feet of water in your data center, your servers and back-up are gone, but if you are on a cloud platform, you just drive to Starbucks or McDonalds and you are up and running."
Alpha NetSolutions includes hosted Exchange as part of its standard managed services package. "Hosted Exchange is so important to us, we give it away with our support plan," said Shea. "Some people think cloud is about saving money, but it's about a more robust platform that costs less. You couldn't afford to put in the redundancy you have in a cloud solution with an on-premise solution and make it accessible to so many people regardless of their location."
All of this, of course, was not the case even six years ago, says Shea, when many of his customers were still relying on tape backup that was just plain unreliable. "We used to cross our fingers," recalls Shea. "With tape we would be praying we would be able to get the data back. We never felt comfortable. It was pretty bad back then. A lot of times my guys wouldn't want me to know what kind of problems we were having with this stuff. Today, it's just no big deal."
"Back-up disaster recovery (BDR) technology has really matured," said Shea. "We haven't had a customer lose a file in the last four years."
Alpha NetSolutions has standard BDR services and best practices that make data recovery for his clients a non- issue. "A big part of our managed services is getting our clients to standardize best practices with the same level of fault tolerance, antivirus, battery backup, redundant ISPs," he said. "All of that is part of our standard managed services practice. Every one of our clients gets our BDR service. Ten years ago, every one of our clients was a one off. Today, we have a single standard best practice."
Alpha NetSolutions' product arsenal includes StorageCraft's ShadowProtect service combined with the latest virtualization technology and hosting from Rackspace. These days, says Shea, he can even virtualize data in the cloud. "We can have customers back up in 10 minutes," he says.
Cloud Computing's Popularity Goes Sky-High
Excerpted from China Org Report
For Xu Di, a 25-year-old Beijing resident, teaching her father, 57, how to use the computer was always a difficult job.
"When I told my father how to copy and paste on the computer, he copied on his office computer and tried to paste on his home computer. When he found nothing was pasted, he blamed me for failing to teach him clearly," Xu said.
However, cloud computing made a big difference to Xu's life, and her father's.
Cloud computing is using computing resources, either hardware or software, that stores and delivers data as a service over the Internet.
With a Chinese cloud client-side application such as Evernote or Jinshan Kuaipan, copying from your office computer and pasting when you get home is possible.
"Photos, videos, contacts — all you need to do is just register an account, and you can open anything you need, anytime, on any of your computers and your phones," Xu said.
However, Xu is just one of the Chinese computer users who take advantage of the new technology that has increasingly found its way into people's lives.
"Before I leave home every morning, I check the bus on my cell-phone to see where it arrives. If I find it is still five stops away, I use the extra time to buy some breakfast at the nearby store," said Zhu Xing, 26, from Xiamen in Fujian province.
In June, Xiamen opened a bus inquiry system, which allows cell-phone users to check the real-time position of buses they are waiting for.
"The system saves me a lot of time waiting at the bus stop, and it is really improves traffic efficiency," Zhu said.
Earlier this year, Nanning in Guangxi, Ningbo in Zhejiang, and Wuhan in Hubei all installed the real-time traffic-query system.
Also, cloud computing extends to some home appliances that traditionally had less connection with computing technologies - for example, cloud televisions.
Some leading TV brands, including Haier, Hisense, and Konka, all jumped into cloud services.
Other TV producers, like Skyworth Group and Sichuan Changhong Electric, use cloud technology to add new functions to TVs, such as apps designed for the sets.
"In the future, users will become very busy controlling the indoor and outdoor environment at their homes," said a staff member responsible for an exhibition of home appliance producer Changhong, and quoted by Beijing-based newspaper Science and Technology Daily.
"We have developed six different kinds of home appliances, connecting to each other by wireless network, and all can be controlled by a cell-phone, iPad, or your TV."
Ying Fangtian, also quoted in the report, said the interaction between users and products is a trend of designing in the future.
"The ultimate goal for design is to make the world we live in nice and warm. It improves our living quality while it drives up new industries. Cutting-edge technologies should change the world in this way," Ying said.
"Now I do not use my computer hard-drive much because I find the chance that my hard-drive will break down is higher than the chance that I cannot log on to my cloud," said Liu Chen, 26, a user from Beijing.
"Since I put money in the bank instead of at home, why do I have to keep data at home? Just put it on the cloud," Liu said.
However, Rui Jianwu, an engineer, warns users to pay attention to their data safety.
"As more and more people are using different cloud servers, the quantity of data is growing tremendously.
"The companies providing cloud services should improve their service from their administration of the data. For example, few companies have very clear regulations on obligations of compensation for losses by the failure of their server," Rui said.
This March, some representatives of the National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, raised proposals to draft an information security law to ensure users' data safety.
Walmart Stores to Start Carrying Boxee TV Devices
Excerpted from RedOrbit Report by Michael Harper
For those looking to cut the cable and consume TV in a more modern way, there are three popular options. Each of these black boxes stream content from an online source or from your local media box, and if the right pieces are in place and you're willing to make a few compromises, it's likely you'll never miss your cable or satellite provider.
The most popular choice is the Apple TV, a great compliment to any of Apple's other devices, like iPads, iPhones and Macs. Apple announced earlier this week that they've sold 5.3 million of these hockey puck boxes in the past 12 months alone.
Roku has more than one option to choose from, including a new flash drive-like stick capable of streaming content all while plugged in the back of the TV and out of the way. According to an analyst for IHS Isuppli, Roku has sold 1.4 million of all their devices in the last year.
Finally, D-Link's Boxee rounds out the list, selling a lesser 120,000 of their devices last year.
Boxee has also just announced a new device, the Boxee TV, which not only plays live TV, it also offers a feature called No Limits DVR, which offers viewers an unlimited amount of DVR storage in the cloud.
Though they've sold the fewest devices of the three, Boxee is likely to get some huge help in sales this holiday season thanks to one retailer: Walmart.
Customers could buy a Boxee Box online or in a Best Buy store, but starting tomorrow, a Boxee TV could be as close as the local Walmart chain. According to Tech Crunch, the Boxee TV will run at $99 in more than 3,000 US stores and will even get some sales help from a large, in-store advertising campaign.
"It's going to be a big launch for us," said Avner Ronen, CEO of Boxee in an interview with Bloomberg.
"There's a big difference between having your product being carried by retailers, where it sits on the shelf, and getting real marketing behind it."
The magic of the Boxee TV, says Ronen, is the combination of Live and streaming content. With a built-in antenna to capture over-the-air shows, the Boxee TV presents viewers with a familiar site when it boots up: TV channels.
Both Apple TV and Roku present their users with navigable icons and menus in which to choose what they want to watch.
These two companies believe in a future where TV looks very differently. Instead of standard channels, these other devices relegate the content to different apps. Instead of turning to channel 235, users will simply pull up the ESPN app on their device.
Ronen is gambling that people won't want to watch TV that way and will stick with the old fashioned style of viewing.
"You turn on the TV, and it's a familiar ground," said Ronen.
"We don't believe the future of the TV is going to be a future filled with apps. When you turn on the TV, you don't want 60 icons. You just want to watch something."
Verizon Terremark: Magic Quadrant Leader for Cloud IaaS
Excerpted from TMCnet Report by Laura Stotler
Verizon Terremark was named a leader in Gartner's latest Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) report. The 2012 report is designed to show how vendors have been measured and positioned based on criteria for the cloud IaaS marketplace as defined by Gartner.
The report describes cloud compute IaaS as a standardized and highly automated offering in which compute resources are owned by a service provider and are offered to the customer on demand. The report goes on to describe resources as scalable and elastic, in near real-time and metered by use.
Cloud compute IaaS includes self-service interfaces that are exposed directly to customers, including a Web-based UI and an optional API. Resources may also be single tenant or multi-tenant, and are hosted by service providers or on-premises, in customers' data centers.
A subsidiary of Verizon Communications, Verizon Terremark strives to transform and secure enterprise-class IT on a global scale. The company provides advanced infrastructure and managed service offerings designed to deliver the scale, security and reliability needed to meet the requirements of global governments and enterprises.
"The cloud computing IaaS market is continuing to evolve and mature with leading providers distinguishing themselves based on their level of customer service, a proven track record of effectively securing cloud infrastructures and delivering hybrid cloud solutions that match customer needs," said Chris Drumgoole, Verizon Terremark's Senior Vice President of Global Operations.
"The robust network and cloud infrastructure platforms that we have integrated under Verizon allow us to provide unique solutions that meet the needs of enterprises and government agencies. We believe the result of Gartner's evaluation highlights that our strategic investments in developing a robust portfolio of cloud computing infrastructure offerings are aligned with market demand for enterprise-class cloud solutions."
Unlocking Value from Cloud Computing with Two Stocks
Excerpted from TREFIS Report by Morgan Smith
Over the past several years, technology has taken some giant leaps forward in terms of allowing businesses to better engage with their employees, customers, and competitors — and one of the biggest keys in providing companies with the means to do so is cloud computing. The term cloud computing — a concept that was unknown to the majority of the planet until just a few short years ago — has today become almost a household name.
In this article, I will discuss how the current and future need by large and small companies, as well as by individuals, has helped in transforming the businesses that both provide cloud computing and allow for the usage of cloud computing capabilities — and in turn may lead to a great opportunity for investors.
For many smart businesses, cloud computing can provide a critical success factor — and once this technology is harnessed correctly, cloud computing can allow businesses to operate in a much more cost effective way than its competitors. As more and more businesses seek to stand out from their competition, they are in search of providers of this cloud computing technology that allows access to data and applications from anywhere in the world — and they can oftentimes find it from small, yet powerful sources.
One great example of a smaller provider of cloud computing today is Younicycle. The company was officially named and launched in 2003, after formulating ideas starting in 2000. This innovative company helps developers to collaborate online through use of fully integrated and highly powerful cloud services. What this means is that application developers can efficiently and effectively work closely with content developers in real time by sharing files online, co-managing databases, and securing data — essentially resulting in projects that are completed more quickly and seamlessly from all sides.
Younicycle's website is the online version of Younicycle and is presented as software-as-a-service (SaaS). The company also offers a Younicycle Server Package (YSP) for your own server and a Younicycle Enterprise Package, which includes PDF creation capabilities. An extended version of the Enterprise Package is what Younicycle has used to develop and serve its own site and many others.
Younicycle is different from other operators in the cloud space. The company provides tools that can be used to create online software or software for your local internal operations. Instead of providing a targeted vertical application, Younicycle provides all of the tools needed to create your own targeted applications.
On a much larger scale, there have been numerous large cap companies that have run headlong into the cloud computing arena. Take Amazon for example. In many ways, Amazon has been hailed as the "cloud king," with its offerings of cloud based storage and processing through its Amazon Web Services (AWS), and with a client list that spans the likes of DropBox, Netflix, and Yelp, as well as Amazon itself.
It was estimated as of late 2011 that Amazon had over 1.5 billion items in its retail catalog — and with 200+ fulfillment centers worldwide, Amazon has lots to keep track of. Enter cloud computing technology — which has allowed Amazon to seamlessly make in excess of 50 million updates to its catalog each week.
Yet, while Amazon doesn't disclose a great deal about its current data centers, as well as those that are planned for the future, the company is, according to research from Accenture, the largest cloud service provider by far, and it is estimated that the company's Elastic Compute Cloud, or EC2, runs on approximately 450,000 servers around the globe. The estimated revenue from this alone could be in the $1 billion range for Amazon.
With a market capitalization of nearly $108 billion, Amazon' third quarter 2012 reported revenue grew by nearly 27% as compared to the same quarter 2011. Amazon's share price is estimated to rise over 14% over the next 12 months, allowing a nice return for its investors.
Not to be left out, Microsoft has also been seen as not just a large user of, but a provider of cloud computing. Today, there is a huge demand for new apps, as well as the need to access data at any time and from anywhere. Microsoft provides delivery of Cloud OS that is set up as a comprehensive set of various capabilities across a user's data center — which is also either a Microsoft data center or one belonging to a service provider.
Microsoft's approach to cloud computing has been used primarily as a way to help its own customers in taking a big step towards redefining the overall role that IT plays in implementing the strategy of a business. In many respects, the use of cloud computing can be a real game changer in terms of the way that companies compete and do business.
As of early 2012, it was estimated by International Data Corporation (IDC)) that spending on public and private IT services could generate 14 million jobs worldwide by 2015, and new business revenue in excess of $1 trillion per year for the companies that provide this service.
Microsoft is clearly a leader in the cloud computing arena, offering software, tools, and other services to help their customers around the world. And, this has certainly helped in growing the company even further.
As of the third quarter 2012, Microsoft reported a market cap of nearly $237.5 billion, and earnings per share of 1.85. With a dividend yield of 3.3%, Microsoft shares can provide steady income to its investors, along with growth in the form of an estimated 25.6% rise in the company's share price over the next year, making this large cap a winner in both the short- and long-term.
When it comes to data storage and IT collaboration, most small and large businesses today can benefit from the use of cloud computing. And, while there are a number of small providers of this service, it is the large caps that not only offer cloud computing services but also use this technology that are providing advantages to their own companies as well as to their investors.
Because both Amazon and Microsoft provide the lion's share of cloud computing services, as well as the related software, I feel that it is highly likely that this new technology will be responsible for increasing revenue as well as subsequent growth for each.
IBM Spends Millions in SmartCloud Push
Excerpted from Computer Daily News Report
IBM says its new production-grade cloud platform SmartCloud Enterprise+ (SCE+) is now available and fully operational in Australia.
The SCE+ platform will be hosted at IBM's data-center in Baulkham Hills, Sydney. It's IBM's seventh cloud center globally to date, and the first to operate and serve SCE+ in the Asia-Pacific region, Big Blue says.
It's said to offer enterprise-class managed cloud services, and act as an IBM hub for Asia-Pacific, but especially for Australia and New Zealand. It will operate on a pay-by-the-month subscription basis and is said to be suitable for organizations deploying between 10 and 500 virtual machines (VMs).
IBM Australia cloud computing executive Dean Evans told Australian IT that the company's investment into the local SCE+ project was in the "millions of dollars".
The new offering builds on IBM's public SmartCloud Enterprise service, which is believed to have close to 50 customers in Australia, including a number of software vendors and a major airline — which is not Qantas, according to IBM executives.
"We believe SCE+ addresses both a solution and platform gap that currently exists in the cloud market within this region. Particularly in Australia and New Zealand, there is both a readiness and need to move away from components and infrastructure and towards shared platforms and software," said Evans.
AT&T Offers Free Cloud Storage for iOS and Android
Excerpted from CNET News Report by Marguerite Reardon
Is AT&T trying to be like Apple's iCloud or Google Drive? It sure looks like it. The company is now offering a free video and photo storage service.
AT&T on Thursday announced a new service it calls AT&T Locker that will allow AT&T iPhone and Android smart-phone customers to store 5GB worth of videos and photos for free in AT&T's "cloud."
The service is available through a free app in the Apple App Store or the Google Play store. And it allows users to store roughly 5,000 average sized photos in the cloud. The app requires subscribers use either an iPhone 3GS or newer device. And Android users must be on version 2.1 or higher of the Android OS. Customers who don't have devices that meet those requirements can still store photos and video in the Locker, but they must connect via a computer to sideload the video or pictures to the cloud storage.
From the AT&T Locker, users can share their videos and images on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or e-mail. Users can create and customize albums for photos and video on the device or online from their computers. AT&T also allows customers to store music and other files in the AT&T Locker.
Users can choose to upload new photos and video via Wi-Fi, AT&T's cellular network or both. Customers can manage those photos and share them through the app on the smart-phone or on the AT&T Locker web page. AT&T plans to incorporate additional features in future versions of AT&T Locker. And the company didn't say whether higher storage options will be available.
The service sounds very similar to services already offered by Apple and Google. Apple's iCloud service also allows up to 5GB of free storage. And it also offers Photo Stream, which allows its iPhone users to automatically store photos in Apple's cloud and share them across multiple iOS devices as well as share them with other people. The service stores up to 1,000 pictures automatically and this storage doesn't count against the iCloud storage limits.
Google also offers storage in its Google Drive service. This service also offers up to 5GB of free storage. You can store anything here from pictures to documents to music.
Of course there are also other options for storing photos and other digital content including DropBox and Microsoft's SkyDrive. So it's unclear why exactly AT&T wireless subscribers would use AT&T Locker over any of these other services. That said, AT&T's focus on mobile content may appeal to some users.
Still, considering the bad rap the company is getting lately in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, especially in places such as New York and New Jersey, some subscribers may not trust AT&T with their precious photos and videos if they feel they can't count on the carrier to keep the network up and running in a crisis. After all, operating a wireless network even in the face of a disaster is AT&T's core business.
DDN Expands Technical Certification Program
DataDirect Networks (DDN), the leader in massively scalable storage, this week announced the launch of the company's official technical certification program. The three-level curriculum is designed to enable organizations to develop in-house resources to manage DDN's scalable portfolio of SAN, NAS, and object storage appliances.
Available immediately, customers and partners can enroll in multi-level courses that are held either within DDN's facilities around the world or via custom onsite classes. Additionally, the company announced expanded support for all DDN partners to develop a minimum of two DDN Certified Storage Professionals on staff as part of the DDN PartnerLink ecosystem.
"The launch of our certification program helps to ensure that DDN customers and partners can fully leverage the incredible benefits of DDN Big Data solutions, and it also provides members of our worldwide end user community a way to enhance their professional development," said Erwan Menard, Chief Operating Officer, DDN. "Establishing a robust certification program is an important milestone as we scale our operations for massive growth."
Tests and preparation materials for first level of certification, DDN Certified Storage Professional, are available immediately, and classroom preparation is available worldwide in six languages, including English, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin, and Spanish.
Microsoft's Head in Cloud
Excerpted from China Daily Report by Chen Limin
Microsoft could be excused for being somewhat ambivalent in its attitude toward the Chinese market. The country is the world's biggest personal computer market but the US software giant has failed to collect due revenues in the past two decades because of piracy.
The company, however, has been trying to take another approach — cloud computing — hoping to improve its performance in the Middle Kingdom.
Last month marked the China launch of its Windows Server 2012, an operating system used for cloud-based services. The move came after it announced an increase in staff by 1,000 to its approximately existing 4,500 employees in China in the current fiscal year and boosted its research and development spending by an additional $500 million, with a considerable part of it going to cloud computing.
Zhang Yaqin, Chairman of the company's Asia-Pacific Research and Development Group, said cloud computing, which provides storage and computing capacity to customers via the Internet, could very possibly be the biggest source of revenue for Microsoft in China in the future.
However, he added that the US company will find it challenging to change its business model from licensing software to providing services.
"It's very painstaking to make the transition but compared with last year, there are changes happening this year," Zhang said.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer has been talking about the company's change from a software company to "a devices and services company". He wrote in a shareholder letter earlier this month: "The full value of our software will be seen and felt in how people use devices and services at work and in their personal lives."
Software licensing is a one-off deal but providing services will help a company to generate continuous revenues, which is why Microsoft considers it necessary to change, said Thomas Zhou, Senior Research Manager with research company IDC China.
Software licensing is also what Microsoft finds troubling in China because pirated software has prevented it from gaining revenues in the way it does elsewhere.
When Ballmer visited China last year, he said revenues in China in 2011 would be only about 5 percent of the total in the United States, even though PC sales in the two countries were almost the same, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
This suggested Microsoft's revenue in China is about $2 billion, compared with its US revenue of $36.2 billion and worldwide total of $62.5 billion in the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2010.
"For it to develop a cloud computing business is more of a problem of strategy rather than ability," said Zhang Guangbin, Chief Analyst with ZDNet Enterprise IT Solution Center, a Beijing-based laboratory for evaluating IT solutions owned by CBS.
"Microsoft has to overturn its original way of doing business - making money from licensing. It has to be very quick in introducing products to the market," he said. He added that Microsoft has lost some of the opportunities of gaining advantages over others because of a slow response to the changing competition environment.
Microsoft has come up with various cloud-based services in the US but not many have been introduced to the Chinese market. They include Office 365, by which users pay not for the license but the amount of services they use, and Windows Azure, another operating system for cloud-based services.
It's not known how much Microsoft has earned from its cloud computing business in China.
However, its Server & Tools Business is included, in which its cloud computing business, is the segment growing the fastest, with double-digit growth for 26 consecutive quarters, reaching a revenue of $19 billion last year, said the company.
Major cloud-based services providers in the US, such as Amazon and Google, have limited presence in China in the area. Rivals in the market include IBM, Oracle, and Chinese vendors Yonyou Software and Alibaba Group.
According to a report by consultants Accenture in 2010, cloud-related spending only took up 6.3 percent of total IT spending in China at that time, about half of the US figure, but 80 percent of people interviewed said they would like to increase spending in this area in the following year or two.
Chinese PC shipments rose 13.5 percent last year, The figure is expected to reach 78.95 million this year, an increase of 9 percent from a year earlier, according to the market research company IDC.
Huawei to Help Build Cloud Computing Ecosystem
Excerpted from IT Web Communication Report
Huawei recently announced in Shenzhen that it officially joined the OpenStack Foundation. Huawei and other members of the Foundation are committed to promoting the development and application of OpenStack to build a more open cloud computing ecosystem.
OpenStack is an open source software project designed to provide for the construction and management of public and private clouds. Launched two years ago, OpenStack has already attracted more than 190 companies and 2,000 developers, including IBM, HP, AT&T, Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical, Cisco, Dell, and VMware.
More and more companies are happy to use services not led by a single vendor's cloud computing infrastructure, and open source software projects can help rid them of the strong dependence on certain types of products.
OpenStack, adhering to the concept of an open approach, has become the industry's most influential movement in this arena and has excellent prospects for the development of cloud computing open source projects.
"Huawei, as the industry-leading ICT solutions provider, is the best partner for global telecom operators. Telecom operators have a keen interest in open source cloud computing solutions, and we will serve as the basis of core projects of OpenStack," Huawei IT Cloud Computing Product Line Vice President Ren Zhipeng said.
"Currently, Huawei has OpenStack cloud computing solutions in development by a strong R&D team, and future results will be fed back to the community to accelerate the maturing of OpenStack software. We are also able to help OpenStack develop a strong community ecosystem, full of vitality, especially in China."
Huawei is a leading global provider of cloud computing solutions, with 85 customers in 33 countries. It recently completed deployment of the world's largest desktop cloud (as of June 2012, it reached 70,000 users).
Huawei has also been helping customers in the global construction of 260 data-centers, including 35 cloud computing data-centers. Huawei is ranked seventh in the Hadoop community.
Cloud Computing Will Save Us from the Zombie Apocalypse
Excerpted from InfoWorld Report by David Linthicum
It's just a matter of time before we migrate our existing IT assets to public cloud systems. Additionally, it's a short window until the dead rise from the grave and attempt to eat our brains. In other words, "The Walking Dead" could be a documentary.
The first thing we must ask ourselves as lumbering corpses make their way to our office building: How can the migration to the cloud save us from forever roaming the earth as zombies? Here are some guidelines that should keep you safe in case of the zombie apocalypse.
Avoid the zombies by living with your data. Make your way to your cloud computing provider's nearest data center, and live among the servers. Those data centers are built like fortresses, with armed guards who can pull off zombie-killing headshots. Also, zombies are typically not authorized to enter the building; they tend to have trouble with card readers.
As cities fall to the zombie hordes, your applications and data will automatically fail over to other cloud centers not yet infested by zombies. Let's say the zombies take over Dallas. The cloud center there will automatically default to another cloud center that's up and running n another region. Thus, as zombies take over cloud centers, the built-in resiliency will ensure that your critical business applications and data stores remain available online.
Cloud computing-supported mobile devices are perfect for accessing applications and data while running from zombies — and they make convenient weapons. Mobile devices would not work without back-end support through major public cloud providers, leveraging the ubiquitous nature of cloud computing. Also, these devices — when used like ninja throwing stars — can decapitate zombies from up to 20 feet away. The new iPad Mini's thin profile, weight, and balance make it perfectly designed to remove the head of a zombie from a good distance when tossed correctly. Once you clean off the zombie gore, you can use it to access your files on iCloud or DropBox. Perhaps that is what Apple had in mind all along.
If cloud computing is being sold as a way to save us from years of bad IT practices, then saving us from zombies should be easy.
Coming Events of Interest
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.
INTELLIGENCE IN THE CLOUD - December 4th in Washington, DC. This workshop continues the NAB's series of programs developed for military and government professionals to demonstrate how advances in the commercial industries can benefit the military and government sectors. The atmosphere for the workshop is interactive with attendee participation welcome.
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.
2013 International CES - January 8th-11th in Las Vegas, NV. With more than four decades of success, the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) reaches across global markets, connects the industry and enables CE innovations to grow and thrive. The International CES is owned and produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the $195 billion US consumer electronics industry.
CONTENT IN THE CLOUD at CES - January 9th in Las Vegas, NV. Gain a deeper understanding of the impact of cloud-delivered content on specific segments and industries, including consumers, telecom, media, and CE manufacturers.
NAB Show 2013 - April 4th-11th in Las Vegas, NV. Every industry employs audio and video to communicate, educate and entertain. They all come together at NAB Show for creative inspiration and next-generation technologies to help breathe new life into their content. NAB Show is a must-attend event if you want to future-proof your career and your business.
CLOUD COMPUTING CONFERENCE at NAB - April 8th-9th in Las Vegas, NV.The New ways cloud-based solutions have accomplished better reliability and security for content distribution. From collaboration and post-production to storage, delivery, and analytics, decision makers responsible for accomplishing their content-related missions will find this a must-attend event.
CLOUD COMPUTING EAST 2013 - May 20th-21st in Boston, MA. CCE:2013 will focus on three major sectors, GOVERNMENT, HEALTHCARE, and FINANCIAL SERVICES, whose use of cloud-based technologies is revolutionizing business processes, increasing efficiency and streamlining costs.
|
