Category Archives: Microsoft

Content & Applications, Microsoft, News & Analysis, office 2016, Office 365, Software as a service

Microsoft releases Office 2016 for ‘mobile-first, cloud-first world’

Microsoft Office 2016 devices croppedMicrosoft has promised to ‘re-invent productivity and business processes’ for the mobile and cloud-first world, with its new Office 2016 for Windows. It has also unveiled new additions to Office 365 and made Office 2016 for Mac available as a one-time purchase.

The latest version of Office is designed to make optimal use of Windows 10, with better collaboration and tighter security. The productivity applications within the suite have been updated to make them more cloud friendly, with changes to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Access, Project and Visio to make them more collaborative in nature, according to Microsoft.

One reported change is that groups of employees can now work on a single Word document and view each other’s comments as they are written. The new system now includes Skype for Business so that users of any new Office app can chat, screen share or video chat directly from their documents. Another new feature, enabled by Skype integration, is the ability to simultaneously co-author documents. In October Skype will be available on Office Online, according to Microsoft.

“The way people work has changed dramatically, and that’s why Microsoft is focused on reinventing productivity and business processes for the mobile-first, cloud-first world,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

These latest changes are a ‘big step’ in transforming Office from familiar but individual productivity tools to a connected set of apps and service designed for collaboration and teamwork, according to Nadella.

The security protection for business customers has been beefed up, according to Microsoft, with built-in data loss prevention features designed to cuts the risk of data leaks. New multi-factor authentication will secure the access of those outside the corporate network. Enterprise Data Protection, promised ‘later this year’ will help business to secure the process of sharing corporate content across application and cloud locations.

The delivery of future Office desktop application updates is to change, says Microsoft, so that Office 365 subscribers receive new features and capabilities continuously.

Other new tools include an analytics from Office Delve, a personal work analytics (Delve) and additional charts and formulas for Excel.

“The Office 2016 apps run beautifully on the best Windows ever,” said Kirk Koenigsbauer, Microsoft’s corporate VP for the Office Client Applications and Services. “The Office 2016 apps simplify collaboration and remove barriers to team success.”

AWS, Cisco, Dell, Equinix, Google, HP, IBM, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Platform as a service, Public Cloud, Salesforce, Software as a service, Synergy Research

Public cloud generating $22 billion a quarter for IT Companies

metalcloud_lowresPublic cloud computing generated over $22 billion in revenues for IT companies in the second financial quarter of 2015, according to a study by Synergy Research Group.

The revenue breaks down into $10 billion earned by companies supplying public cloud operators with hardware, software and data centre facilities and $12 billion being generated from selling infrastructure, platforms and software as a service.

In addition the public cloud supports ‘huge’ revenue streams from a variety of internet services such as search, social networking, email and e-commerce platforms, says the report. It identifies the supply side companies with the biggest share of revenues as Cisco, HP, Dell, IBM and Equinix. On the cloud services side the market leaders are AWS, Microsoft, Salesforce, Google and IBM.

As the public cloud makes inroads into the total IT market, the hardware and software used to build public clouds now account for 24 per cent of all data centre infrastructure spending. Public cloud operators and associated digital content companies account for 47 per cent of the data centre colocation market.

While the total IT market grew at less than five per cent per year, the growth of cloud revenues outpaced it. Infrastructure and platform as a service revenues (Iaas/Paas) grew by 49 per cent in the past year and software as a service (SaaS) grew by 29 per cent.

“Public cloud is now a market that is characterized by big numbers, high growth rates and a relatively small number of global IT players,” said Synergy Research Group’s chief analyst Jeremy Duke.

However, the report noted that there is still a place for regional small-medium sized public cloud players.

Microsoft, Services

Microsoft Purchases Adallom

While Microsoft did not specifically relay how much it had paid for the purchase of Israeli based Adallom, website TechCrunch has estimated that the purchase was around $250 million dollars. This purchase serves as Microsoft’s response to the trend of increased cloud based computing. While Microsoft originally sold packaged programs such as its Office software, the company has begun to shift to software offerings through cloud based applications.

Adallom helps customers “protect critical assets across cloud applications,” according toMicrosoft vice president Takeshi Numoto’s blog post. “With more frequent and advanced cybersecurity attacks continuing to make headlines, customer concerns around security remain top of mind. These concerns pose real challenges for IT, who are charged with protecting company data in this rapidly evolving mobile-first, cloud-first world.” Adallom works with cloud based applications such as Salesforce and Dropbox. The three-year-old startup’s technology will be used in other Microsoft offerings as well, such as its Enterprise Mobility Suite and Advanced Threat Analytics.

adallom

The announcement of the acquisition was released the same day that Microsoft relayed its expanding partnership with Dell which will help diversify the amount of Windows 10 powered devices and services for a multitude of businesses. The center of this push is Microsoft Surface Pro tablets and accessories, which Dell will begin to sell in Canada and the United States through online shops, with more markets being added the next year.

“Our global enterprise customers have asked us to match the Surface Pro 3 and Windows 10 experience with enterprise-grade support and services -– and our partnerships like this one with Dell will do just that,” Microsoft chief Satya Nadella said in a release. Dell partnership has kicked off a “Surface Enterprise Initiative.” Microsoft has plans to release a new tablet for businesses.

This comes a day before an event hosted by Apple, which was anticipated to unveil a new tablet which could insert Apple into the market for Surface.

Microsoft is set to increase the business capabilities of its Windows 10 operating system.

The post Microsoft Purchases Adallom appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

Azure, cloud security, Gemalto, Microsoft, News & Analysis

Gemalto’s cloud-based encryption now available in Microsoft Azure marketplace

Mobile securitySecurity vendor Gemalto is to sell its SafeNet ProtectV encryption system on the Azure Marketplace. This means Microsoft’s Azure users will find it easier to encrypt and protect data and applications in the cloud and meet compliance regulations, it claims.

Gemalto says SafeNet ProtectV simplifies the protection of data. It encrypts each virtual machine created in the cloud in its entirety and extends this protection to attached storage volumes. By automating this process it saves users from the aggregated admin burden of configuring each virtual machine individually. Though the process is automated, SafeNet ProtectV allows customers to separate security administration duties. This means security enforcers can exert ‘granular’ levels of control and establish clear accountability with audit trails and detailed compliance reporting, it claims.

Maryland-based SafeNet was bought by Gemalto in August 2014 for US$890 million. SafeNet technology protects 80 per cent of the world’s intra-bank fund transfers and it employs 550 cryptographic engineers. Gemalto specialises in the protection of data, digital identities, payments, and transactions, at all points from the point of sale to the data centre.

The cloud infrastructure services market is on target to be a $42.7 billion industry in the next four years, said Gemalto’s encryption product VP Todd Moore. But, he said, that momentum will only be maintained if cloud services like Azure can meet the top levels of security and compliance.

“Easy implements of strong data protection and security in the cloud are a major consideration when moving sensitive workloads,” said Moore. Gemalto’s strategy is to make robust encryption frameworks simple so companies can move to the cloud with confidence – and ProtectV provides the audit controls, according to Moore.

Adding companies with cloud-based data encryption, like Gemalto, will convince more companies that it’s safe to use the cloud, according to Nicole Herskowitz, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Microsoft Azure. “Azure Marketplace provides customers with choice, flexibility and access,” said Herskowitz.

acquisition, Adallom, cloud security, M&A, Microsoft, News & Analysis

Microsoft unveils cloud security plans for Adallom amid rising cloud unrest

Cloud securityMicrosoft has announced its plans for Israeli founded cloud security firm Adallom, the cloud security firm it bought for a reported $250 million.

Detail of the plans for its new acquisition was unveiled in a Microsoft blog by corporate VP for cloud and enterprise marketing Takeshi Numoto. Though reports of the acquisition emerged in July details of Microsoft’s cloud security strategy have only just been unveiled.

The frequency of advanced cybersecurity attacks has made security ‘top of mind’ among cloud users, according to Numoto. The acquisition of Adallom will expand Microsoft’s existing identity assets by acting as a cloud access security broker, allowing customer to see and control application access, Numoto explained. It will also protect critical company data stored across cloud services. Adallom helps secure and manage popular cloud applications including Salesforce, Box, Dropbox, ServiceNow, Ariba and Microsoft’s own Office 365.

Adallom will complement existing Microsoft offerings as part of Office 365 (serving in a monitoring capacity) and the Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS), which includes Microsoft’s Advanced Threat Analytics system. Microsoft had previously bought another cloud-security vendor, Aorato, with Israeli Defence Force ties, in 2014. Aorato was rebranded as Advanced Threat Analytics.

Adallom’s technology monitors the use of software-as-a-service applications and was created by founders 2012 by Assaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak and Roy Reznik who met while serving in intelligence for the Israel Defense Forces.

The unveiling of Microsoft’s cloud defence plans coincides with an independent report, by Osterman Research, that 76 per cent of UK firms are concerned about the lack of security in the cloud, with consumer-grade cloud storage of corporate documents being named as the chief cause of unease.

The report found that employees preferred consumer-focused file sync and share (CFSS) solutions to enterprise-grade file sync and share (EFSS) solutions in the workplace, and often failed to consider the security risk posed by CFSS solutions.

Services that will be monitored by Microsoft’s new cloud security acquisition, such as Dropbox, which allow consumers to instantly sync files across all devices, but do not provide the same protection of information as EFSS, were identified in Osterman Research’s report as a particular cause for concern.

“Use of CFSS over EFSS significantly increases corporate risk and liability,” the Osterman Research report warned.

“We are thrilled to welcome the Adallom team into the Microsoft family,” said Numoto in his Microsoft blog, “cybercrime will persist in this mobile-first, cloud-first era, but at Microsoft we remain committed to helping our customers protect their data.”

M&A, Microsoft, News & Analysis, productivity, Volometrix

Microsoft buys VoloMetrix to include people analytics in its cloud offering

MicrosoftMicrosoft has bought Seattle-based people analytics software maker VoloMetrix. The new addition will become part of an organisational analytics offering to Microsoft’s cloud service customers.

VoloMetrix uses information about employee email and calendar use to assess their individual and collective productivity. The system can also pull in data from Salesforce and other sources. By identifying employees that have too many meetings or who create excessive email traffic it can help companies manage their time resources more effectively.

According to Microsoft corporate vice president Rajesh Jha the newly acquired technology will be a strand in Microsoft’s new organisational analytics service Delve which will be unveiled for previews in October. Eventually, the service will become part of Microsoft’s cloud service Office 365.

The terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed. VoloMetrix co-founder and CEO Ryan Fuller blogged that joining Microsoft means the company can grow far more quickly. “Microsoft has a huge vision to reinvent productivity and a set of assets in Office 365 that are fundamental to how work gets done,” Fuller said.

VoluMetrix had previously raised $17 million in funding, including a $12 million cash injection in September 2014. Its enterprise clients include Boeing, Facebook, Genentech, Qualcomm, Seagate and Symantec.

Quantifying employee productivity is a new growth area with two start ups, Culture Amp and VoloMetrix, leading the field. These systems collate data about employees’ electronic calendar and email behaviour and use that data to assess people’s impact at work.

The systems can expose those who spend all their time “managing up” to senior executives or promoting themselves in status meetings, rather than working, according to Volometric founder Fuller. “You can quickly see the load senior executives are imposing, as well as the social graph of who else is affected,” said Fuller.

Cloud based people analytics will be used to understand the external and internal relationships and drive corporate decision-making, Fuller said: “Once a company understands the behaviours that correlate to success, they can measure them.”

In anticipation of opposition over privacy issues, VoloMetrix recently hired former Microsoft privacy strategist, Peter Cullen, to advise it. Reports are currently anonymous and private but individuals can see their own statistics.

Australian rival Culture Amp, used by enterprises like Airbnb, Box, Etsy, GoDaddy and Jawbone,

received $6.3 million in Series A funding from Felicis Ventures, Index Ventures and Blackbird Ventures in March 2015.

Azure Data Factory, Big Data, Cloud Dataflow, Database, Google, Microsoft, News & Analysis

Google, Microsoft punt big data integration services into GA

Big cloud incumbents are doubling down on data integration

Big cloud incumbents are doubling down on data integration

Google and Microsoft have both announced the general release of Cloud Dataflow and Azure Data Factory, their respective cloud-based data integration services.

Google’s Cloud Dataflow is designed to integrate separate databases and data systems – both streaming and batch – in one programming model while giving apps full access to, and the ability to customise, that data; it is essentially a way to reduce operational overhead when doing big data analysis in the cloud.

Microsoft’s Azure Data Factory is a slightly different offering. It’s a data integration and automation service that regulates the data pipelines connecting a range of databases and data systems with applications. The pipelines can be scheduled to ingest, prep, transform, analyse and publish that data – with ADF automating and orchestration more complex transactions.

ADF is actually one of the core components of Microsoft’s Cortana analytics offering, and is deployed to automate the movement and transformation of data from disparate sources.

The maturation and commoditisation of data integration and automation is a positive sign for an industry that has for a very long while leaned heavily on expensive bespoke data integration. As more cloud incumbents bring their own integration offerings to the table it will be interesting to see how some of the bigger players in data integration and automation, like Informatica or Teradata, respond.

Microsoft, News, Services

Azure Data Factory Launch

Microsoft has greatly improved its big data analytics sector through the release of Azure Data Factory, a cloud based data integration service. Azure Data Factory (ADF) has been designed to both automate and streamline moving data from sources into and organizations business intelligence and analytics system to change it into a form companies can utilize.
Joseph Sirosh, corporate vice president of Information Management and Machine Learning at Microsoft, has stated, “With ADF, existing data processing services can be composed into data pipelines that are highly available and managed in the cloud. These data pipelines can be scheduled to ingest, prepare, transform, analyze, and publish data, and ADF will manage and orchestrate all of the complex data and processing dependencies without human intervention. Solutions can be quickly built and deployed in the cloud, connecting a growing number of on-premises and cloud data sources.”
DataFactoryOverview_960
ADF is the connecting thread between services such as Azure HDInsight, Azure ML, and Power BI.
Sirosh also added “Using ADF, businesses can enjoy the benefits of using a fully managed cloud service without procuring hardware; reduce costs with automatic cloud resource management, efficiently move data using a globally deployed data transfer infrastructure, and easily monitor and manage complex schedule and data dependencies.”
The new service is very efficient and has been decreasing prices. Sirosh has commented, “At the same time, with the new cost efficiencies gained with the on-demand use of cloud resources, they were able to utilize 600 percent more compute hours and double their supported customer base.”

The post Azure Data Factory Launch appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

Azure, Internet of Things Telecoms, Jasper Wireless, Ken Laversin, Macario Namie, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Sam George, Softbank

Jasper, Microsoft partner on enterprise IoT

Jasper and Microsoft are integrating Jasper's IoT tech with Azure

Jasper and Microsoft are integrating Jasper’s IoT tech with Azure

IoT platform provider Jasper has announced a new strategic partnership with software giant Microsoft designed to help businesses bring IoT services to market more easily, reports Telecoms.com.

The partnership will involve integrating Jasper’s platform with Microsoft’s Azure cloud suite, a preview of which will be available later this year. The combined platform will aim to cater for the full IoT journey, from sensors and devices, to wireless communication, to big data collection and analysis.

“Through this strategic partnership with Microsoft, we continue to increase the business value of IoT by making it easier and faster for enterprises to bring their IoT services to market, and to scale those services globally,” said Macario Namie, vice president of Strategy at Jasper.

“Our vision for the Azure IoT Suite is to help companies thrive in this era of IoT by delivering preconfigured solutions and world class services that any company, whether startup or the most established global enterprises, can use to create new value,” said Sam George, director of Azure IoT at Microsoft.

“Jasper’s IoT services platform is a critical component of delivering on this vision. By bringing together the Jasper Platform and the Azure IoT Suite, businesses of any size and in any industry can build cost effective IoT solutions for themselves or their customers.”

While it’s been around for over a decade, Jasper is currently accelerating its partnership activity with big tech companies in a sign that IoT itself is approaching critical mass. Earlier this week Jasper announced a similar partnership with Japanese telco SoftBank, to help it introduce IoT solutions to enterprise.

“The Japanese market is enthusiastically embracing the opportunity created by the Internet of Things to transform the way they operate, interact with customers and create revenue,” said Ken Laversin, senior vice president of Worldwide Sales at Jasper, “SoftBank’s partnership with Jasper demonstrates their commitment to bringing cutting edge IoT technology to Japan.”

David Dennis, GroundWork, Hyper-V, KVM, Microsoft, OpenStack, Opinion, Virtualisation, VMware

Will Microsoft’s ‘walled-garden’ approach to virtualisation pay off?

Microsoft's approach to virtualisation: Strategic intent or tunnel vision?

Microsoft’s approach to virtualisation: Strategic intent or tunnel vision?

While the data centre of old played host to an array of physical technologies, the data centre of today and of the future is based on virtualisation, public or private clouds, containers, converged servers, and other forms of software-defined solutions. Eighty percent of workloads are now virtualised with most companies using heterogeneous environments.

As the virtual revolution continues on, new industry players are emerging ready to take-on the market’s dominating forces. Now is the time for the innovators to strike and to stake a claim in this lucrative and growing movement.

Since its inception, VMware has been the 800 lb gorilla of virtualisation. Yet even VMware’s market dominance is under pressure from OpenSource offerings like KVM, RHEV-M, OpenStack, Linux Containers and Docker. There can be no doubting the challenge to VMware presented by purveyors of such open virtualisation options; among other things, they feature REST APIs that allow easy integration with other management tools and applications, regardless of platform.

I see it as a form of natural selection; new trends materialise every few years and throw down the gauntlet to prevailing organisations – adapt, innovate or die. Each time this happens, some new players will rise and other established players will sink.

VMware is determined to remain afloat and has responded to the challenge by creating an open REST API for VSphere and other components of the VMware stack.  While I don’t personally believe that this attempt has resulted in the most elegant API, there can be no arguing that it is at least accessible and well-documented, allowing for integration with almost anything in a heterogeneous data centre. For that, I must applaud them.

So what of the other giants of yore? Will Microsoft, for example, retain its regal status in the years to come? Not if the Windows-specific API it has lumbered itself with is anything to go by! While I understand why Microsoft has aspired to take on VMware in the enterprise data centre, its API, utilising WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation), only runs on Windows! As far as I’m concerned this makes it as useless as a chocolate teapot. What on earth is the organisation’s end-goal here?

There are two possible answers that spring to my mind, first that this is a strategic move or second that Microsoft’s eyesight is failing.

Could the Windows-only approach to integrating with Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualisation platform be an intentional strategic move on its part? Is the long-game for Windows Server to take over the enterprise data centre?

In support of this, I have been taking note of Microsoft sales reps encouraging customers to switch from VMware products to Microsoft Hyper-V. In this exchange on Microsoft’s Technet forum, a forum user asked how to integrate Hyper-V with a product running on Linux.  A Microsoft representative then responded saying (albeit in a veiled way) that you can only interface with Hyper-V using WMI, which only runs on Windows…

But what if this isn’t one part of a much larger scheme? The only alternative I can fathom then is that this is a case of extreme tunnel vision, the outcome of a technology company that still doesn’t really get the tectonic IT disruptions and changes happening in the outside world. If it turns out that Microsoft really does want Windows Server to take over the enterprise data centre…well, all I can say is, good luck with that!

Don’t get me wrong. I am a great believer in competition, it is vital for the progression of both technology and markets. And it certainly is no bad thing when an alpha gorilla faces troop challenger. It’s what stops them getting stale, invigorating them and forcing them to prove why they deserve their silver back.

In reality, Microsoft probably is one of the few players that can seriously threaten VMWare’s near monopolistic market dominance of server virtualisation. But it won’t do it like this. So unless new CEO Satya Nadella’s company moves to provide platform-neutral APIs, I am sad to say that its offering will be relegated to the museum of IT applications.

To end with a bit of advice to all those building big data and web-scale applications, with auto-scaling orchestration between applications and virtualisation hypervisors: skip Hyper-V and don’t go near Microsoft until it “gets it” when it comes to open APIs.

Written by David Dennis, vice president, marketing & products, GroundWork