Loss-making Nokia Tuesday introduced a cloud map service called Here.
It means it to be one of five businesses including smartphones, basic phones, patents and cellular infrastructure that will help it get back on its feet.
Its map customers include Amazon, Rand McNally, Bing, Daimler, Nikon and Yahoo.
Here is supposed to work across multiple devices and operating systems and offer directions and hotel bookings.
Nokia has also just bought Earthmine, a California 3D mapping concern, to drive phone sales. Terms were not disclosed.
Monthly Archives: November 2012
Campaigns Move to the Cloud
This election season marked a major shift from the traditional ground game of door-to-door get out the vote efforts to “Big Data politics” – in which algorithms are run in the cloud on databases of voter information to figure out who volunteers should target.
As captured in Rackspace’s 2012 election “Powered by the Cloud” infographic, nearly every digital component of the 2012 election utilized the cloud: from the smartphone campaign apps to the social media systems to the super-secret voter information files. The cloud industry was well equipped to handle the terabytes of data-crunching demanded of the multi-billion dollar campaigns. For example, over 80 million voters will use cloud-based networks and smartphone apps to access information critical to their voting decision, a 200% increase over 2008’s election.
Cloud Computing: Cisco To Buy Meraki for $1.2 Billion
Late Sunday Cisco said it’s going to buys Meraki, a privately held cloud
networking start-up, for $1.2 billion in cash and retention-based incentives.
Seems social media upset the announcement plans, which were set for
Monday morning, when there’ll still be a conference call.
The acquisition is supposed to accelerate Cisco’s evolution toward software-
defined networking and expand its cloud-based network offerings to new
markets.
Big Data Conundrum: Show Me the Money!
Inventory levels. Sales results. Negative comments on Facebook. Positive comments on Twitter. Shopping on Amazon. Listening to Pandora. Online search habits. No matter what you call it or what the information describes, it’s all data being collected about you.
Thanks to new technologies like Hadoop, once-unquantifiable data (like Facebook conversations and Tweets) can now be quantified. Now, because nearly everything is measurable, everything is measured. The result: companies are spending big dollars to collect, store and measure astronomical amounts of data.
Show me the data!
There’s a name for this movement: Big Data. Not only is it a name, it has been the “it, it” of 2012, possibly trumping “the cloud.”
Agile Cloud, Big Data and Mobility
Cloud computing has reduced deployment times and the ability to try out new ideas without significant investments in hardware and software. Cloud supports business agility and Cloud projects may have a quicker turnaround time for releases. Many programs have declared victory as being Agile since they are using the rapid deployment capabilities of Cloud and Big Data. The myth is “I use Cloud” hence I’m Agile”. However this is only the business agility aspect in terms of using the “pay as you go” model of Cloud to have quicker provisioning and deployments. Agile management and development is a focus on Agile techniques throughout the development lifecycle. On some projects, in an attempt to get products out using Cloud, Big Data Business Intelligence tools quickly, the magnificent capabilities of Agile management and development have been forgotten. Agile processes do put forth specific methods to manage the rapid development cycles and changing requirements in application development.
Cisco Looking Better than Expected
Cisco, the networking king and economic bellwether, cleared better-than-expected earnings of $2.09 billion, or 39 cents a share, up 10.6% year-over-year, in its first fiscal quarter, which closed at the end of October. Revenues were up 5.5% to $11.9 billion despite depressed demand in key markets like Europe, down 10%, and long-term threats from widgetry like software-defined networking.
CEO John Chambers called the economy “challenging.”
Cisco’s core switching and routing sales, representing 47% of revenue, both declined 2% year-over-year, to $3.6 billion and $2.1 billion respectively.
Cisco Looking Better than Expected
Cisco, the networking king and economic bellwether, cleared better-than-expected earnings of $2.09 billion, or 39 cents a share, up 10.6% year-over-year, in its first fiscal quarter, which closed at the end of October. Revenues were up 5.5% to $11.9 billion despite depressed demand in key markets like Europe, down 10%, and long-term threats from widgetry like software-defined networking.
CEO John Chambers called the economy “challenging.”
Cisco’s core switching and routing sales, representing 47% of revenue, both declined 2% year-over-year, to $3.6 billion and $2.1 billion respectively.
Gartner: PaaS market to hit the billions globally
The latest round of research data from analyst house Gartner reveals that worldwide platform as a service (PaaS) revenue is on target to hit $1.2bn (£754m) by the end of 2012.
This figure represents an increase from $900m (£565m) from the previous year, and integrates various sub-aspects of the PaaS infrastructure, such as aPaas (application platforms as a service) and iPaas (integration platforms as a service).
Following the prediction through fully, Gartner believes the platform as a service market will hit $2.9bn (£1.8bn) by 2016.
This news appears to confound research last week from Symform detailing the struggle of PaaS compared to the more mature cloud markets of IaaS and SaaS.
The key cornerstone of the Symform report was that 79% of companies surveyed used SaaS, yet 48% had no plans to utilise PaaS in the next 12 months.
It’s no real surprise that SaaS continues …
5 reasons why small businesses choose the cloud
It has recently been shown that 80% of private businesses involved in foreign trade are small or medium sized businesses and many of these are growing or looking to expand and develop.
Expanding a business however means more people, bigger servers, more complex IT management, more computers and ultimately, more data to manage.
The solution to this is increasingly being seen to be cloud computing with its offerings ranging from dedicated servers, managed hosting and so on.
Small businesses have embraced this new way of facilitating business expansion, using it to control data and finance management. Here are five reasons why small businesses are choosing the cloud:
1. Using cloud servers means that you’ll be getting protection 24/7. Your information will be constantly monitored remotely and companies experiencing power cuts or hacker infiltrations will have their systems and data secure.
2. Cloud servers will simplify your filing system …
Storage Made Easy Serves Hybrid Cloud Market as Cloud Service Broker
Storage Made Easy, formerly SME Storage, unifies storage with its Cloud Service Brokerage solution, providing complete access to files via a single management tool, no matter the file location.
“Managing files spread across multiple onsite and public cloud information services is more than challenging, it actually interferes with business operations,” says CEO Jim Liddle. “We’re directly addressing ‘cloud sprawl’ and the ‘shadow IT’ effect these services are imposing on organizations.”
A proven player in cloud service brokerage, Storage Made Easy provides cohesive access to multiple internal and external data services and unifies management, security, governance, and search. The service offers strong audit, BYOD management, and compliance capabilities coupled with fast cross-service file search from any client or device.