Synchronoss Technologies Inc, a global leader in managed mobility solutions, continued its upward trend that was evident in its third-quarter results. A company release showed that the adjusted revenue climbed to $181 million, while net income rose to $32.5 million. Both these numbers are 20 percent higher than the same quarter last year. As a result, the company’s adjusted earnings was $0.68 per share. These numbers are sure to make investors happy as the expected revenue was almost three million more than what they expected, and the adjusted earnings was also $0.01 more. Due to such impressive numbers and happy investors, the shares of Synchronoss rose by 13.7 percent during trading on Tuesday.

A closer look at these numbers show that revenue from its cloud business grew by 40 percent year over year, and accounts for almost 60 percent of the company’s total sales. This growth was fueled by the rising demand from customers who wanted to make the most of cloud power. Specifically, successful cloud migrations to companies like Softbank and British Telecom helped it to gain international recognition. Also, this company’s enterprise security mobility platform brought in new clients from healthcare, legal, and financial industries. More importantly, Synchross’ partnership with Verizon UID gave it access to almost one-third of the US consumer market, besides the enterprise market. All these developments and strategies have helped Synchronoss to make such impressive strides over the last year.

Despite these numbers, there are some things that investors should watch out for. An important aspect is stock-based compensation expense, that was almost $9 million in this quarter, while the acquisition expenses amounted to $7.3 million. There is a big difference between both these expenses – the first one is something that investors will see every quarter, but the second one is more of a rarity, so it’s impact will also be for a short term only. In other words, investors should watch out for this stock-based compensation, and should ensure that it does not go too high.

Currently, this company boasts of more than 130 patents, and three billion plus mobile subscribers from around the world. Many of its customers include leading companies such as Verizon, AT&T, Charter Communications, Vodafone, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable in the communications sector, Goldman Sachs and Softbank in the financial sector, and OEM companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Samsung. Other than these big names, Synchronoss caters to almost 300 of the Fortune 500 companies.

Going forward, this client-base is only going to increase. In fact, Synchronoss is likely to be a good bet for investors, as it is focusing more on its cloud business, and through it, plans to increase its sales and revenue multi-fold. It is also planning to come up with more cloud-based solutions, and expand the features on its existing products, to meet the growing demands of its customers.

This company has three broad lines of business – universal ID, secure mobility, and personal cloud. It  is headquartered in Bridgewater, New Jersey, and trades under the stock symbol SNCR on the New York Stock Exchange.

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The last few weeks have some top companies like Amazon and Microsoft declare positive quarterly results, much of which came from their successful cloud business segment. Yesterday, it was the turn of Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba, to join this bandwagon. Its revenue from sales went up by 55 percent in the last quarter, thanks to the doubling of revenue from its cloud computing division, according to a release by the company.

Alibaba’s cloud business saw a jump of 130 percent that is equivalent to about $224 million, while its overall digital business saw a jump of 302 percent, and this equates to a whopping $541 million. These huge numbers reflect the growing digital adoption among the Chinese, and is significant because it comes at a time when the Chinese economy is in a slump. Much of it can be attributed to the growth in both consumer-to-consumer (C2C) and business-to-consumer(B2C) transactions.

As more young Chinese upgrade to a tech-savvy lifestyle, there is a greater demand for digital products. It is estimated that the Alibaba group controls more than 90 percent of C2C business through its portal Taobao. Likewise, more Chinese businesses are turning to the Internet to cater to a tech-savvy population within and outside China. Since Alibaba’s T mall platform, geared for B2B transactions, account for over 50 percent of all traffic in this sector, it’s little wonder that the digital profits have soared over the last year.

Alibaba, often seen as the Chinese version of eBay or Amazon, has grown past its core e-commerce business as it has expanded to many areas including sports and entertainment. This expansion is what has given the company a solid infrastructure to tap into the growing digital needs of its customers.

That said, the core commerce unit also saw an increase of 41 percent, when compared to the same period last year. But, the core business alone cannot drive Alibaba’s business, as its customers are evolving to keep pace of the trends happening elsewhere. This is why the company’s strategy to expand across different areas has paid off. Recently, Alibaba Pictures took a minority shareholding in Amblin Partners, a Spielberg company that includes DreamWorks studios. Going forward too, Alibaba is likely to continue its expansion strategy.

Despite these positive numbers, the shares of Alibaba Holding Group fell by about three percent in trading, on the New York Stock Exchange. This fall can be partly due to the fact that the year-on-year growth was not matched by the increase in net profit. Of course, this comparison is not fair because last year, the company booked an exceptional gain due to the re-evaluation of one of its units. If this comparison is left aside, Alibaba sure had a great quarter, and it is poised for greater growth in the coming months too, as its mobile users increased by 23 million in this quarter alone. This means, Alibaba has more than 450 million mobile users, and it is up to the company now to monetize this huge customer base by providing them the right social and digital experiences.

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If you’ve done a fair amount of development, you’re sure to have used Nitrou.io at some point of time during your development career. For others, Nitrous.io is a ubiquitous cloud-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that made it easy for developers to work on any programming language without having to download any tool, software kit, or editor. In other words, you can open nitrous.io on your browser, login, and start coding in a programming language of your choice. You even had the choice to share it with other developers and teammates for better collaboration.

Well, all this convenience and ease of use is going to end on November 14! An official release by the company says that it will stop taking on new users, and will refund all payments made to its service after October 16. Anyone with an existing project on Nitrous.io will be sent an email link to download their data, and this link will expire within 15 days.

This announcement came as a surprise for its customers, and the cloud IDE community at large, because Nitrous.io is a popular platform for developers. Founded in 2012, this company has offices in San Francisco and Singapore. It attracted more than 500 investors, including some big names like Golden Gate Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Lion Rock Capital. It even got a funding to the tune of $6.65 million in March 2014. This company is well-known for the huge jump it got within the first year of its operations – 100,000 users even before its first anniversary. With such an impressive background, and a large and satisfied customer base, it’s not clear why the company decided to shut down its operations. Though the team says that it’ll soon release an open-source version of its cloud IDE, it’s not clear when this release would happen. No timelines have been given in this regard.

Looking back, things have been quiet with Nitrous.io since the beginning of this year. The only change was the company’s pricing that was announced in April of this year. Also, this company hired Alex Malinovich, a GitHub alum, as its CEO in July. This strategic change was done with the aim to reach out to more professional developers, along with novices and students. Besides this announcement, there has been no major feature releases for the whole of this year.

Such a long silence followed by this sudden announcement has opened much speculation about what could have gone wrong with the company. Some contend that its strategy to bring in more professional developers did not work out, and the company eventually ran out of money, thereby forcing it to stop operations. A few others believe that it is likely to be acquired by a major player, just like how another cloud IDE, Cloud9 was acquired by Amazon Web Services. None of these speculations have been confirmed by the company yet.

This means, the more than 200,000 developers on this site are going to feel disappointed, as of now. Let’s hope Nitrous.io comes up with its new open-source version soon!

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FireMon, a leading provider of US Network Security Policy Management (NSPM), has acquired an Israel-based security company called FortyCloud, for an undisclosed sum. This acquisition is expected to boost the cloud management capabilities of FireMon, as it looks to expand its customer base.

FortyCloud is based in Hod Hasharon, Israel, and it was founded by Amit Cohen, Amir Naftali, and Noam Singer. They are the present CEO, CTO, and Chief Architect of the company respectively. This company specializes in providing secure connectivity across multiple cloud environments, offers identity access management, two-factor authentication for remote cloud access, and abstraction of cloud platforms to ensure that it is easy to comply with the existing regulations.  It’s a small company with ten employees, and all these employees have joined FireMon when the deal was closed earlier this month.

FireMon, on the other hand, is based in Overland Park, Kansas. It was founded in 2004 with an aim to help organizations identify and correct the infrastructural and security gaps in cloud architecture.

This acquisition comes within a year of FireMon launching its first cloud infrastructure security offering, thereby signaling the impressive growth that it has seen over the last year. With this acquisition, FireMon can effectively secure cloud infrastructure and connectivity, that in turn, will make it easier for enterprise clients to move their on-premise infrastructure to the cloud. Currently, security is one of the major concerns of many enterprise, and this is also what is preventing them from moving completely to the cloud. When the underlying infrastructure and connectivity are strengthened, it’s only natural that more companies will move to the cloud. In this sense, this acquisition is likely to boost the client-base of FireMon.

After this acquisition, FireMon will offer support for:

• Management capabilities of native cloud
• Automated security mapping
• Cloud discovery
• Object abstraction across on-premise security infrastructure and multiple cloud environments
• Security enforcement across multiple cloud platforms

Besides this addition, FireMon has added more capabilities that’ll allow it to automate its cloud security, encryption, and policy enforcement. In turn, this’ll provide secure connectivity across different cloud providers, and also between an organization’s data center and public cloud infrastructure. All these additions are a part of FireMon’s strategy to help companies better manage their cloud infrastructure.

A report by Gartner shows that by 2020, 95% of cloud security issues will be due to the organization, and not the cloud provider. Addressing these inadequacies in an organization is easier said than done because today’s networked environment is complex, and involves a variety of technologies both on-premise and in the cloud. Such a complex situation requires a clear strategy as well as a set of security tools, and this is exactly where FireMon fits in.

Going forward, FireMon’s acquisition is expected to benefits its customers in a big way, by enhancing security in their connectivity and communication. Such partnerships augur well not only for the companies involved, but also for enterprises that depend on the cloud, as well as the cloud market at large.

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Calabrio, a Minneapolis-based software company, has released a new product called Calabrio One, that’ll help customers to store some part of their data on the cloud instead of saving it all on their on-premise systems. Besides storing, it also comes with advanced analytics to understand customers better.

This customer engagement and analytics software company believes this is the next step forward, as more customers are looking to deploy multichannel support and service options for their end customers. In addition, contact centers have adopted an always-on approach, with operations spread across multiple locations around the world. Also, the growing practice of employing a global workforce necessitates a new kind of support infrastructure.

Due to these evolving requirements, contact centers have undergone a digital transformation as they have to provide omnichannel support, and at the same time, have the flexibility to deploy their own Workforce Optimization (WFO) tools in the cloud. Such a complex requirement needs a hybrid cloud approach to data storage, so that users can get both functionality, and ease of use.

To meet these requirements, Calabrio has come up with a unified workforce optimization software suite, after years of development and millions of dollars in investment. Calabrio One comes with the following features:

• It’s a unified software that handles call recording, analytics, quality assurance, and workforce management.
• It is based on an intuitive web-based architecture that makes it easy to use for everyone.
• It has an interactive dashboard, and provides seamless access to data and reporting.
• The fact that it is a fully integrated suite, is a major attraction for customers, as they prefer it over individual components.
• It helps with faster decisions, as the data collected through this tool can be shared throughout the organization.
• Calabrio One provides a high level of flexibility in deployment and administration.
• This product allows companies to leverage their existing infrastructure in older contact centers, and at the same time, add new contact centers that run in the cloud. This integration is possible with Calabrio One, as it offers a unified interface and consistent user experience.
• Its Active Architecture is designed to ensure that customers have no downtime whatsoever.
• It uses Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute Services (EC2) as this is the largest and most scalable infrastructure available in the market today. As a result, data is sure to be secure and available all the time.
• Calabrio One uses Amazon S3 storage, so users can move their data seamlessly through different storage options.
• To meet the needs of growing digital interactions, this product uses a complex grid computing architecture to process heavy data coming from contact centers.
• It uses something called a Smart Capture technology to provide in-depth insights based on customer data.
• It supports multitenancy by protecting the visibility of each tenant’s data.
• This suite includes many easy-to-use tools that provide a better understanding of customers.

These features are sure to enhance the efficiency and operations of contact centers, so the company expects more customers to make the switch to Calabrio One.

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Dallas-based telecom leader, AT&T, signed a multi-year agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to offer joint services in the areas of cloud networking, IoT, security, and analytics. The terms of the deal was not disclosed, though a press release from AT&T said that this partnership would give its customers access to AWS Cloud in many ways.

This is a significant partnership for both the companies, as it helps one to tap into the strength of the other. Telecom companies like AT&T do not have the cloud infrastructure like that of companies like Amazon and Microsoft, so partnerships are the best way to beef up their offerings. It would take a ton of money and even many years for AT&T to build an infrastructure the size of AWS, and this is why it’s a sensible move to tap into the strength of this cloud service provider.

Earlier, AT&T had signed an agreement with Microsoft to use its Azure platform to securely move customer-centric data between private and public cloud. Also, it entered into an agreement with IBM in 2012 for a similar service.

If you’re wondering why AT&T signed another agreement with AWS, it is to focus on these three specific areas:

• Under this partnership, AT&T’s NetBond customers can establish faster and more secure connections to the AWS Cloud.  NetBond is an MPLS VPN service that connects enterprise applications to public clouds. Over the last year, NetBond has seen a four-fold increase in traffic, and this partnership is expected to provide enhanced customer visibility, security, and automation for these customers.

• Through this partnership, AT&T plans to have a stronger foothold in the IoT market, thereby allowing AT&T devices to send data to the cloud seamlessly. This is also a huge market for AT&T, as many connected devices such as cars and fitness machines come with sensors that collect pertinent information from the users. A reliable network is needed to send this data to the cloud, and AT&T wants to project itself as the leading network service provider to send this data. Already, its network includes 29 million connected devices, and these numbers could go up hugely with cloud integration.

• The final focus area is to improve security on cloud platforms, so the response time for threats is greatly reduced. This is in line with AT&T’s plan to boost its Threat Intellect Platform that was launched this summer. It’s AT&T’s own machine learning system that identifies real-time threats as they occur, and this system can get a big boost with AWS’s cloud security and infrastructure.

These three focus areas could expand to include more areas too in the future, as AT&T is looking to consolidate its cloud business, as a way to make up for the declining growth in its traditional role as a telecom provider.

To implement the terms of this partnership, both companies plan to employ specialists from their respective companies on a joint effort to work on the specified areas.

In all, this is another significant partnership that is sure to augur well not just for the companies, but also for the industry and its customers as a whole.

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Akamai, a leader in Content Delivery Services (CDN) is on an acquisition spree. On October 4, it acquired a California-based startup called Soha Systems for an undisclosed amount. Founded in 2013 by Haseeb Budhani,  Soha Systems provides enterprise secure access for the cloud. Recently, it had raised just under $10 million in venture funding from Andreesen Horowitz and Menlo Ventures, and was considered a successful tech startup. This was an all-cash deal, though the exact amount was not revealed by either companies.

This acquisition comes on the heels of another acquisition that was made last week by Akamai, when it bought a New York-based startup called Concord Systems for another all-cash deal. Earlier, it had also acquired companies like Bloxx and Prolexic respectively.

These acquisitions are expected to give a big boost to the operations of Akamai, as it looks to consolidate its position as the leading provider of content delivery network in the world. Currently, it has one of the largest distributed computing platforms in the world, and this company alone is responsible for 15 to 30 percent of all digital traffic.

Soha systems, an innovator in the sphere of cloud security, was a natural partner for Akamai, as the latter looks to provide more secure enterprise applications in the cloud. Over the last few years, Akamai has been looking to make a foray into cloud enterprise security applications, which acts as a natural complement to its web traffic services. In fact, providing employees with secure access to enterprise applications is a core component of web access, especially with the enterprise trend of moving more applications to the cloud. In this sense, Soha systems’ security service is expected to be the perfect product for Akamai’s expansion plans.

Also, there have been many rumors that Akamai is preparing to itself to be a potential acquisition target for Microsoft or Google, as they look to take on competition from Amazon’s AWS.  Since Soha Systems offers secure access delivered as a service, this acquisition is likely to boost its chances of getting acquired by one of the big companies in the near future.

Further, this acquisition can help Akamai to tap into a new business segment – cloud security. Today, more companies are looking to move their applications to the cloud for better performance, and in such a scenario, security becomes absolutely vital. IT teams today, are grappling with providing security, access, and performance, without compromising one for the other. Akamai’s strategy can go a long way in providing security across a range of different devices, and this way, it can help its enterprise customers to make the most of key trends driving the cloud and mobile services.

This deal is expected to give Soha Systems a boost too, besides the cash deal for founders. Soha’s cloud security is likely to be a high-value component of Akamai’s massive global platform, thereby giving it more visibility on a global stage. The existing operations of Soha Systems along with its employees and clients would not be affected, according to a press release from Akamai.

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In another strategic alliance deal, Egnyte, an enterprise file-sharing and collaboration provider,  has partnered with Microsoft to make Azure cloud platform the preferred storage choice for its customers. However, a company statement says that if a customer already has a license with a different cloud provider such as Hewlett-Packard, Amazon, IBM, or Google Cloud, Egnyte will  still honor these licenses.

With this deal, users can open any Egnyte file directly on Microsoft Office Online for viewing and editing, and the changes are automatically saved back to Egnyte. Also, users can remotely edit and access Egnyte files from any native Office Mobile app.  With this option, Egnyte  plans to offer end-to-end integration services for its corporate customers to help them tackle a growing mix of documents, apps, images, and other data that are stored in employees’ personal devices.

Currently, younger employees prefer to bring their own devices for work, and tend to use the apps they feel most comfortable with. Though this flexibility is good for employees, it makes life harder for IT managers, as they have to stay on top of security and integration aspects for these different devices. Though some companies prefer to block users from bringing their own devices, it’s not seen as a viable option. Instead, many companies are turning to file synchronization and sharing providers like Egnyte, Dropbox, and Box to address this problem.

In fact, a research by Gartner shows that corporate customers tend to turn to companies that specialize in file synchronization and sharing, rather than using content management and storage tools offered by larger providers like Microsoft and Google. However, the downside with choosing smaller companies is that they focus only on a niche area, and this means, clients still have to turn to larger vendors for integrations.

To overcome this downside, many file sharing and cloud storage companies are collaborating with cloud vendors to offer a comprehensive service. Already, Dropbox has partnered with Hewlett-Packard, and Box teamed up with IBM to offer cloud storage services. Hence, it’s no surprise that Egnyte also chose this path, to stay on top of competition.

Also, Microsoft was a natural partner for Egnyte, as the two companies have been tapping into each other’s capabilities for more than a year now. In mid-2015, Egnyte and Microsoft entered into an agreement under which, business users can seamlessly access and manage all of their Windows files over a network. This partnership was a big success for both the companies, especially Egnyte, as it helped to expand the latter’s customer base.

Since then, both the companies have developed many integrations such as Azure Key Vault, Azure AD, Microsoft Office Mobile and Microsoft Sharepoint Online, and these tools have been beneficial for both the companies to reach out to a wider customer base and to take on competition in their respective segments. More importantly, users have gained immensely from these collaborations, thereby making the above agreements a win-win situation for everyone involved.

This new agreement too is expected to give Egnyte a big boost, both on the apps and IT infrastructure markets as Azure has become an important platform for enterprise integrations today.

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