GMO Cloud

Startups Given More Options With Cloud Services

Cloud computing makes it possible for startup companies to postpone or even turn down VC funding.

An article in CIO.com talks about how VC dependency among startups has evolved to their democratization; a development wherein the cloud has played a major role in. This is because these days, they are given more options such as angels, accelerators, incubators and of course, cloud.

There is already a long list of on-demand services that help startup companies operate on a low budget. To name a few components that cloud use has proved to eliminate high costs:

• Development costs
• Long-term server lease
• System maintenance, management and security

Incorporating these in their operations meant offering lower costing services to end users, which makes the process of acquiring customers faster. The author mentioned though, that VC’s are still crucial in the early and latter stages of the development of these startups.

Read about how VC’s can still contribute to the growth or scaling up of startup companies at CIO.com and how slowly, the cloud is making these firms independent on VC funding.

Be Part of Our Cloud Conversation

Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.

Friday Cloud News Roundup

Miami Dolphins Use Cloud Technology

A collaboration between the Miami Dolphins, Sun Life Stadium and IBM brings an analytics platform: Intelligent Operations Center (IOC) for smarter cities.

The stadium, likened to a mini-city, will be providing the latest technology to stay competitive and continue to attract tech-savvy fans to its events.

IOC will be introducing a new platform that will provide metrics to address:

• Crowd control
• Concession planning

Moreover, they will also provide a mobile application to audience that will:

• Deliver latest game scores and stats
• Give up-to-date travel and parking instructions
• Direct fans to the nearest concession stands.

Read more about this new cloud-based technology that is expected to further increase and attract more visitors, visit PCWorld now.

Phorum 2012

This coming March 28, the Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies (PACT) will be having its National Cloud Conference Demo Pit, which would features 15 very promising cloud companies.

These companies were selected for their innovation in the use of cloud computing to address business concerns such as operations and cost through a diverse range of cloud offerings.

At the end of the event, three Demo Pit participants will be selected and will have the privilege to meet Mr. Peter Coffee – VP and head of platform research at Salesforce.com.

To get further details on the event, visit Digital Journal.

Success of Cloud Connect 2012

UBM Techweb-produced event, Cloud Connect 2012 proved to be a success as they announced their record-breaking attendance of over 3,700 IT professionals, developers and service providers.

The event, known for being the most important, vendor-neutral for the entire cloud ecosystem had over 90 exhibitors, a 20% increase from 2011.

Highlights of the event included:

• Carrier Cloud Forum
• CloudNow Top Women in Cloud Awards
• Call for papers for Cloud Connect Chicago

The event expects to see the same (or even better) turnout on the next Cloud Connect in September. To view details on the event, visit Brandenton now.

Major Hollywood Studios Eager to Use the Cloud

Two big Hollywood studios, Warner Brothers and Fox, have partnered with Sandisk and Western Digital to form Secure Content Storage Association (SCSA).

They will be launching Project “Phenix”, which is a software customers can use to store and manage movie and videos that they have purchased online.

The studios, also known to be associated with Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) say that this is complimentary to the cloud-based project, and this should bet be seen as a move on giving up on Ultraviolet.

Read the full release on this news and see also how the DECE plans to address this.

Cloud Brings More Jobs

A recent article in The Infoboom announced its prediction that the cloud will bring about more jobs as strong cloud growth is expected in the next five years and businesses of all sizes will create cloud computing jobs.

This time, many universities and colleges offer cloud computing programs but often, there is disconnect between these institutions and the real world. There are adoptive processes though, that have started to address these concerns.

One is the effort of companies in defining how they will use the cloud, and the other one is the initiative of recruitment agencies to supply small and midsized businesses with cloud computing talent by offering a cloud-specific career board to its offerings:

• Placements
• Retained searches
• Temporary contracts
• Permanent placement

Businesses know that they still need to identify and staff cloud computing jobs on top of developing their cloud infrastructure.

How does the cloud exactly create more job opportunities in the IT community? Find out by reading the full article in Infoboom.

Cloud Foundry Open Tour 2012

The Cloud Foundry will be having its open tour – a global series of one-day developer events – this year.

This event will help the cloud community, especially developers to meet and exchange  ideas mainly on open Platform-as-a-Service.

In the United States, the tour will be visiting four locations:

• San Francisco – March 30
• Portland – April 2
• Austin – April 5
• Washington DC – April 9

The event’s focus will be on the broad community of contributors including activities:

• Cloud Foundry Bootcamp
• Using MongoDB for Cloud Foundry applications.

To find out more details and register for the event, visit the Cloud Foundry website.

Be Part of Our Cloud Conversation

Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.

What Drives Cloud Adoption in the Healthcare Industry?

More often than not, the healthcare industry is at least a few steps behind technological innovation – cloud technology adoption is not any different.

At this time, where technology is not seen in the industry as a tool to leverage on improvement of patient care, providers and even governments around the world find themselves spending a considerable amount of capital or GDP, which is clearly unsustainable.

In the second installment of healthcare industry blog series in HDS, author Dave Wilson, senior director of Global Health and Life Sciences discusses the top healthcare drivers for cloud technology:

• Delivery of cost-effective healthcare
• Government incentives
• Clinical innovation
• Big data growth
• Administrative simplification
• Cloud challenges

Though these drivers have not been very prominent to be seen as influencing factors in technological innovations in the healthcare industry, though it is undeniable that they are crucial to its development. To read the full article, visit HDS.

Be Part of Our Cloud Conversation

Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.

Cloud Storage Startups Join the Big League

Personal cloud storage and sharing firms Box and Dropbox are hopeful to go public next year as reported in a recent article in USA Today.

How can consumers gain access to documents, photos, music and videos regardless of what device they are using, wherever they are? This was the question addressed by Dropbox despite the presence of larger competitors such as:

• Apple’s iCloud
• Amazon Services
• Microsoft Skydrive

The start-up still managed to capture more than 50 million users. Not far from this success story is fellow start-up Box, that has earned more than 9 million users even though it has bigger competitors like:

• File Trek
• Yousendit
• Microsoft Sharepoint

Though there is the challenge of competing against many “Goliaths” in the estimated $1.4B personal cloud storage market, these start-ups remain optimistic as 90% of Corporate America is projected to use this technology within the next three years.

This projection paves the way for Box to be the next great enterprise software company and for Dropbox to build the next Apple or Google.

Read more about start-ups Dropbox and Box and see how much they have accomplished in their respective industries. Visit USA Today now.

Be Part of Our Cloud Conversation

Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.

How Can SMB’s Keep Their Cloud-Hosted Solution Safe?

Most small and midsize businesses opt for cloud adoption without seriously taking into consideration putting up a comprehensive data management or backup plan in place.

ZDNet’s award-winning business journalist, Heather Clancy shares in a blog her learnings on how a cloud adoption’s security is dictated by real business strategy and commitment.

She also partakes 7 ways to make sure that an organization’s cloud-hosted solution is as safe as possible:

• Do technical diligence
• Request and expect customer references
• Be really selective about what data your company is archiving
• Think hybrid with your strategy

To read the rest of the 7 safety measures for cloud adoption, visit ZDNet.

Be Part of Our Cloud Conversation

Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.