All posts by Richard

Deutsche Börse Launching Cloud Capacity Trading Exchange

Deutsche Börse says it will launch a trading venue for outsourced cloud storage and cloud computing capacity in the beginning of 2014. Deutsche Börse Cloud Exchange AG is a new joint venture formed together with Berlin-based Zimory GmbH to create the first “neutral, secure and transparent trading venue” for cloud computing resources.

The primary users for the new trading venue will be companies, public sector agencies and also organisations such as research institutes that need additional storage and computing resources, or have excess capacity that they want to offer on the market.

“With its great expertise in operating markets, Deutsche Börse is making it possible for the first time to standardise and trade fully electronically IT capacity in the same way as securities, energy and commodities,” said Michael Osterloh, Member of the Board of Deutsche Börse Cloud Exchange.

Breaking: Internet-based TV Operator Raises $19 Million

Magine, the Swedish cloud-based cable operator, today announced that it has closed a $19 million Series A round led be a group of Swedish and international investors.

The company says that it will use this new influx of cash to fund its international expansion, with Germany and Spain being the next countries on its radar. The service is already available in Sweden.

“Magine is not just another TV platform, but a totally new way of accessing and consuming content,” said Magine chairman Michael Werner. “It is a subscription service that was devised to make viewers come back to watching TV and this is why broadcasters and content providers are very keen to adopt the service. Magine helps them create new forms of monetizing whilst respecting the current rights chain.”

FinancialForce, Bluewolf Partner For Apps+Consulting

FinancialForce.com, the cloud applications company, and Bluewolf, the global business consulting firm “born in the cloud,” today announced a strategic global partnership. Together, Bluewolf and FinancialForce.com will help companies access and improve visibility into data that speeds bookings-to-billing cycles and enriches customer engagement.

Bluewolf and FinancialForce.com will provide cloud-based applications and services to joint customers that eliminate the borders between the front and back office, and consolidate information across disparate customer relationship management (CRM), back office and supply chain applications. This will allow companies to organize as teams around their customers, instead of internal departmental structures.

“Rather than invest in the maintenance of rigid, on-premises systems, the cloud frees us to focus on customizations and innovations that meet customer needs and create a first-mover advantage in the market,” said Jonathan Adlerstein, CIO of Plymouth Rock Energy. “Working with Bluewolf and FinancialForce.com, we have integrated our sales, customer care, marketing and billing information in the cloud, enabling employees at every level to own any customer interaction.”

Two areas of focus for the Bluewolf and FinancialForce.com partnership will be media billing and general accounting processes.

“Billing reconciliation is a problem for online media companies as most back office systems used to manage ad billing are unequipped to handle changes in orders and invoices. This can result in long billing cycles, unacceptable Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and in some cases, lost revenues,” said Jeremy Roche, president and CEO of FinancialForce.com. “FinancialForce.com’sMedia and Accounting offerings coupled with Bluewolf’s expertise in the industry will make us the go-to team for customers seeking a proven end-to-end solution.”

As partners, FinancialForce.com and Bluewolf will provide customized and scalable cloud-based billing solutions that reduce the time it takes organizations to send invoices, resulting in a faster turnaround on receivables.

IBM Acquiring SoftLayer for Private Cloud Infrastructure

IBM is acquiring SoftLayer, a privately held cloud infrastructure provider. IBM hopes SoftLayer will enable IBM to  marry the security, privacy and reliability of private clouds with the economy and speed of a public cloud, with Fortune 500 companies the target market.

IBM says the majority of the Fortune 500 have concerns about how cloud will work with the IT investments they have already made, and many have been waiting for a cloud that is better than “good enough.”   As a result, although cloud is growing quickly, it’s still only a small part of the total IT spend.  There’s a lot of opportunity for IBM to capitalize on.

SoftLayer has a breakthrough capability that provides an easy “on ramp” especially for the Fortune 500 to adopt cloud. And for the SoftLayer born-on-the-cloud customers, IBM opens a new market into the enterprise.   Specifically, SoftLayer allows cloud services to be created very quickly on dedicated servers — rather than a virtual ones, which is the norm in the public cloud.

By building out a cloud on a dedicated server , a client no longer has to worry about sharing computing resources with other companies — thereby improving privacy, security and overall computing performance.  By using dedicated servers, software that was built for on-premise use can be more easily ported to the cloud.  It doesn’t have to go though as much heavy configuration as it does with a virtual server, which it was not developed to work with.

This capability will be added to IBM’s SmartCloud portfolio. IBM SmartCloud offers 100 cloud-based solutions for line-of-business execs including Watson Engagement Advisor; hybrid solutions such as IBM PureSystems, mission-critical cloud services for SAP on our SmartCloud Enterprise+ and the best private cloud solutions in the market.

Headquartered in Dallas, SoftLayer serves 21,000 customers with a global cloud infrastructure platform spanning 13 data centers in the U.S., Asia and Europe. SoftLayer excels at running cloud-centric, performance-intensive applications in mobile, social, gaming and analytics.

IBM is also announcing today the formation of a new Cloud Services division that combines SoftLayer with IBM SmartCloud into a global platform, reporting to SVP Erich Clementi, IBM Global Technology Services.

Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed and the acquisition is expected to close later in 2013 following standard regulatory review.