Displaying items by tag: Cloud
Cisco Dumps $1 Billion into the Cloud, but Still Might Miss the Mark
Cisco has made the decision to dive even deeper into the cloud with a $1 Billion investment in cloud services. The money will be spent over the course of the next two years and is earmarked to build infrastructure services similar to Amazon Web Services and Microsoft’s Azure. Over the past few years Cisco has been investing more heavily into cloud services and even bought a cloud networking company (Meraki) with the intent of integrating some of their cloud management technologies into future Cisco products. In the long run this is a financially smart move as cloud services can represent a sustainable revenue stream and also allow Cisco (or another business) to reach new markets and customers they might not have access to. It also gives existing customers an option to utilize a “trusted” partner for something they might be considering, but not willing to move on due to not having a vendor they like.
SkyDrive becomes OneDrive
Last month, Microsoft officially announced that the SkyDrive service, because of a dispute over the name, will be renamed to OneDrive, a change which came into force from today. Existing users of the SkyDrivea will not see significant changes in applications and their functionality, since it will all work the same as before.
Why Satya Nadella was a smart CEO choice for Microsoft … to keep things going the way they are.
Microsoft has a new CEO in the form of (former) executive VP of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group. The announcement today comes after months of speculation about the replacement for Steve Ballmer. As you might remember Steve Ballmer made an abrupt decision to retire after Windows 8 and 8.1 failed to take off as expected. It was (and still is rumored) that his retirement was not voluntary, but was a response to a number of bumps in Microsoft’s progress since Ballmer took over from Bill Gates. At the time of the decision there was a general hope that Microsoft would turn away from their cloud push and retreat from the devices and services company they so wanted to become. Sadly with the appointment of Nadella it looks like Microsoft’s attempt to become just like Apple will continue.
Spotify music service on the rise
After they brought free music streaming to users on mobile devices in mid-December, Spotify has announced that in the first week after the introduction of these features they marked quadrupled numbers of their users.
Box doubles their free storage offering
Box, a company that provides cloud services and the lives from selling storage to business users, is trying to get closer to residential customers. Competition they have in many popular services like Dropbox and Google Drive SkyDrive or forced them to make a move that will surely please their customers.
Security omission in Google Cloud Messaging
Kaspersky Lab has announced that they have found a backdoor in the Google Cloud Messaging service that allows developers to directly communicate through their servers with applications installed on Android devices. Backdoor can be used by criminals to send text messages to premium numbers, as well as for theft of data from Android devices.
nCrypted Cloud makes your Dropbox safe
As we all know, the biggest issue with Cloud systems is security, and it is nice to see that there are more and more options becoming available to solve this issue. We had a chance to talk with Nick Stamos, CEO and co-founder of the nCrypted Cloud, located in Boston. It should be noted that this is his 4th startup, and that the last one was also focused on security. The inspiration for the nCrypted Cloud was the case of presidential candidate Mitt Romney, when his Dropbox and mail accounts were hacked, and the most ridiculous part of the story is that the hacker only had to guess the name of the Romney's pet to enter his account.
$600,000 investment into Codeanywhere
Codeanywhere, which developed from PHPanywherea in 2011, slowly becomes equivalent to Google Docs, but for developers. Codeanywhere offers the possibility of developing web sites and applications as well as other desktop tools, but from any Internet browser and with any device. The code itself is automatically saved in the cloud in real time. With more than 150,000 users, Codeanywhere is emerging as one of the greatest players in the world of programming in the cloud.
How Did Microsoft Get to Windows 8 Anyway?
Microsoft as a corporate entity has had an interesting life cycle. When Bill Gates was in charge the goal was to build systems and software that would interconnect and build the back bone for corporate and home networks. Interoperability was the key and the folks at Microsoft insisted on creating their products to work now and also support older programs (and in some cases hardware). This was vital for their target market; the enterprise. Bill Gates knew that if he build a solid back ground in companies, universities, schools etc then it would spread to the consumer market. The plan worked and continued to work simply because most people want a similar experience across their computing platforms (remember this point). The move was brilliant and Microsoft managed to get themselves very firmly entrenched in the market.
Free Office with small Windows 8 tablets
Microsoft published some very interesting news - a tiny tablet with Windows 8 based on x86 hardware is supplied with free Office 2013 Home & Student edition.