We can probably all agree that the cloud computing service-based model of application delivery has received more than its fair share of hype, over-embellished hyperbole and hyper-cross-talk in the last few years. Surely now then we have come to a new plateau in cloud, i.e., the time for real-world usage, implementation and deployment.
What does the “real cloud” mean?
The real cloud is located in a place where we start actually using the hosted virtualized environments that are available to us so that “working applications” move to the cloud. That would be working applications – as opposed to the cloud merely and simply being viewed as a test and development environment.
Parallels and Dell Make the Microsoft Cloud Easy for Small and Medium Businesses
Dell has a long history of making it easy for customers to get what they need. I remember helping a friend’s father get a new Dell PC at an Austin direct retail shop in 1990. I was amazed at how easy they made it to get up and running. Dell had taken out so much friction of what was then usually a convoluted and long value chain. At Parallels, we pride ourselves on being the hosting and cloud services enablement market leader. We work with service providers to meet the IT needs of small and medium businesses – and just like Dell, we are obsessed with making it easy, with eliminating friction. So when Dell is moving to serve its customers in the cloud, we feel there’s a natural fit. Together, we make it easy for Dell’s business customers to purchase and use the cloud services they need.
In fact, we work so well together that in a matter of weeks, Parallels and Dell were able to deploy Parallels Automation and launch Microsoft Office 365.
Of course, this is only the beginning. Now that Dell has deployed Parallels Automation, it’s easy for them to add more cloud services. Parallels Automation software includes delivery capabilities for Microsoft applications and other services that have been certified with the Application Packaging Standard (APS), a “pluggable” approach to enabling hosted and cloud applications and services. With over 400 cloud applications for Dell to choose from and more being added every day, Dell will be able to give their customers exactly what they need for their business.
Try it out and let me know what you think.
Birger Steen
CEO Parallels
b@parallels.com
Teenagers leaving businesses behind in the cloud?
27th July 2012
In the world of big business, what can a teenager’s opinion towards consumer share and sync services tell us about how we should approach the cloud adoption process in the workplace? A lot more than you think, according to iTrinegy’s Debra Wilkins.
SYS-CON.tv Interview: Consuming Security as a Cloud-Based Service
“We help you see what’s exposed on your public-facing infrastructure, and then we help you secure, step-by-step, in a self-service type of approach,” explained Zohar Alon, CEO & Co-Founder of Dome9 Security, in this SYS-CON.tv interview with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan at the 10th International Cloud Expo, held June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City.
Cloud Expo 2012 Silicon Valley, November 5–8, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.
Box Raising Money at $1.2 Billion Valuation: WSJ
After reportedly snubbing an acquisition bid from Citrix worth at least $700 million earlier this year, Box, the cloud storage start-up, is raising more money at the tune of a $1.2 billion valuation, the Wall Street Journal reports.
It supposedly has designs on going public next year at a $2 billion-$3 billion valuation.
The seven-year-old outfit that started in a college dorm has raised about $162 million so far from Mark Cuban, Salesforce.com, SAP, Andreessen Horowitz, Emergence Capital Partners, New Enterprise Associates and DFJ Growth at a valuation of more than $600 million, the paper said.
It is focused now on the paying enterprise as opposed to the consumer, who can use it for free. Box, which lets co-workers collaborate on and edit documents, claims 11 million users at 120.000 companies, including the San Francisco Giants football team and Proctor & Gamble.
Jamaica Emerging as Global Tech Center
Jamaica is emerging as a global technology center. Ya mon, Jamaica. The small island nation of 2.7 million people has relatively high levels of access to high-speed Internet connections, and is working to leverage its English-speaking abilities and location amidst the Americas region. There are no timezone problems for companies in North or South America when doing business with and in Jamaica.
More than a quarter of Jamaica’s people are online, with 4.3% having access to high-speed connections. The latter number may not seem to be a dazzling number, but compare it to 0.8% in Indonesia, 0.9% in India, 1.9% in the Philippines, 4.6% in Thailand, and 6.8% in Brazil. Jamaica’s fast connections are also focused on business.
My ongoing research crunches statistics into the maw of relative income, which takes into account local cost-of-living and the idea of a “pound-for-pound” economic analysis. By this standard, Jamaica is on the rise.
Aggregating and integrating factors such as income, income disparity, Internet connections, corruption, the use of English, and infrastructure development on this pound-for-pound scale finds Jamaica exceeding Mexico, Turkey, all of Southeast Asia except the Philippines, and all of the BRICs except China.
I was excited to see a recent in-depth look at Jamaica published The Sauce, an Australian outsourcing consulting firm. A detailed article written there by David Mullings, a Jamaican investor, states that the country has 13,000 employees in the BPO sector and is planning 10,000 more.
Looks like it’s time to visit Kingston.
Citrix Podio Enables Do-It-Yourself Apps for Project Management Your Way
Citrix today announced that Citrix Podio, the cloud-based collaborative work platform, has launched three new “do-it-yourself” project management apps in the Podio App Market, created by leading project management experts Gantthead, ProjectsAtWork and Brad Egeland. Also available today through Podio’s Project Management listing in the Google Apps Marketplace™, the new apps can be modified and customized (without any technical expertise required) using the Podio App Builder to fit the way any team works. Because building Podio apps is as easy as creating a spreadsheet, even more teams and small businesses can now leverage best practices from Podio’s project management apps, customize them, or create their own apps from scratch, to streamline workflows, manage business processes and become more efficient and productive within any project.
According to Gartner Research, “citizen developers”—workers who operate outside the scope of the IT department and create or assemble new business applications for use by their peers— will build at least a quarter of new business applications themselves by 2014, permanently replacing complex legacy project management software that no longer fits the way modern teams collaborate and work together. Podio is the first place to find, create and modify hundreds of different “citizen-developed” apps to support team-based projects across today’s dispersed, cloud-driven and mobile businesses. Podio has been designed with a fundamental belief that forcing workers to fit their projects and tasks into a set process or structure is like forcing a square peg into a round hole, and that a project management tool should fit the way people work, instead of the other way around.
Using the Podio platform, teams can set up workspaces where they can connect with each other, work across different organizations and collaborate socially to be more effective. To customize their workspaces, people can access and modify more than 700 free apps from the Podio App Market, or create new apps to support their preferred workflows. Getting started is free for up to 5 employees.
Google Apps customers can also now take advantage of Podio’s customizable project management apps and collaborative work platform by installing Podio from the Google Apps Marketplace, Google’s online storefront for Google Apps™ business products and services. Google Apps customers can now use Podio project management apps to turn any email into a task, bring any Google Doc into their project workflow and track project deadlines on their Google Calendar.
Six Degrees Group Announces New Funding, Cloud Hosting Acquisition
Six Degrees Group today announces it has raised £8 million in new funding from Penta Capital and that it has completed the acquisition of Cloud Computing Centre (CCC), a Surrey-based managed cloud hosting expert established in 1999.
CCC focuses on the cloud market and brings over 100 mid-market hosting customers who spend an average of £36,000 pa. The acquisition takes Six Degrees Group’s run-rate position to £50m revenue and £12m EBITDA. CCC’s cloud platform is highly complementary to the existing Six Degrees technology and they are also a Microsoft Gold Partner and Silver Hosting Partner, bringing incremental skillsets for Microsoft Hyper-V to the Group.
Commenting on the acquisition, Alastair Mills, CEO of Six Degrees Group, stated:
“I am delighted to welcome Cloud Computing Centre to Six Degrees Group. This is a significant acquisition for us as it reinforces our mid-market focus, strengthens our managed cloud hosting team and brings outstanding technical capabilities to the Group.”
In response, Keith Bates, CEO of Cloud Computing Centre, stated:
“This is an exciting day in the evolution of Cloud Computing Centre. We felt that the time was right to join forces with one of the fastest-growing managed data service providers in the sector, especially when we have so much in common. Joining Six Degrees Group will significantly strengthen our ability to win mid-market and corporate cloud hosting contracts and to deliver new services to our existing clients.”
SYS-CON.tv Interview: Assessing Cloud Requirements
“There are different areas in the cloud, different models in the cloud. I think a lot of that depends on the data. If the data is really sensitive then we want to have a private cloud. If the data is something that can be out there, then we have a public cloud,” observed Ajay Budhraja, CTO at the Department of Justice, in this SYS-CON.tv interview with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan at the 10th International Cloud Expo, held June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City.
Cloud Expo 2012 Silicon Valley, November 5–8, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.
Google Compute Engine and Cloud Video Transcoding — How Does it Compare?
Zencoder performed some initial comparison tests of Google Compute Engine versus Amazon EC2 for transfering and transcoding video.
“On EC2, we use Cluster Compute instances, which are fast dual-CPU machines in two sizes: 4XL and 8XL. We compared these with the fastest GCE instance type, which is currently a single-CPU 8-core server.”
Here’s one of their resulting charts:
Read the full post for details.
