Cloud Computing

Cloud technology appears to have taken the world by storm. The U.S. government is among those moving aggressively to the cloud, as federal agencies implement a White House generated "cloud first" policy that instructs agencies to give primary consideration to using the cloud for IT solutions. Adopt...

How easy is it to sell a house, shop for a mortgage, select a mutual fund -- or even make a plane reservation? Sometimes it's not very easy: Mortgage offerings are numerous and complex, and choosing among thousands of mutual funds can be overwhelming. Enter the broker -- or the travel agent. Broker...

The messaging in VMware's announcement of its planned acquisition of Nicira offers insight into both the company's view of the deal and the current state of cloud computing. In essence, without virtualization, cloud computing is an amorphous pipe dream. However, virtualization alone -- or of one t...

U.S. government agencies are trying to meet fast-track goals to improve the acquisition and management of information technology resources. In a government setting that inherently involves myriad checkpoints, protocols, policies, and an exasperating budget process, change does not come easily or qui...

Microsoft unveiled the new versions of its Office suite and and Office 365 subscription-based service on Monday. The updated Office has an intuitive design that makes it touch- and stylus-compatible, and usable across a variety of devices running Windows, including tablets and smartphones. It's also...

The U.S. government's push to utilize cloud-based technology will eventually lead to some blockbuster contracts -- many well over $10 million and others for even more than $100 million. Consider that just one contract in the current batch -- a cloud deal for email services at the U.S. Interior Depar...

Google announced this week the launch of the Google Compute Engine, an Infrastructure as a Service product that lets users run Linux Virtual Machines on Google's servers. It promises to provide resources to businesses and other organizations that need intensive, short-term computing power to solve h...

Most don't realize it yet, but Microsoft is completely reinventing itself right before our eyes. It is expanding from software to hardware and even to the cloud, starting with tablets and wireless smartphones. It is fundamentally transforming the company we have all known and used for decades. This ...

In the heyday of harvesting forests in the U.S., lumberjacks often used dynamite to break up clusters of timber that formed when thousands of logs were floated on rivers to market. In the last 18 months, the U.S. government has floated hundreds of pages of proposals into a river of policy "reforms,"...

Today's rapidly expanding array of cloud-based applications are quickly delivering quantifiable business benefits, as three years of THINKstrategies Best of SaaS Showplace Awards have clearly proven. However, it is also becoming clear that poorly managed deployment of today's cloud alternatives can...

Oracle on Wednesday announced what it described as the industry's broadest cloud strategy, outlining a vision of offering customers a soup-to-nuts cloud solution. The development has been seven years in the making, involving relentless engineering and innovation, key strategic acquisitions, and bill...

SAP has revealed plans to acquire Ariba, an enterprise e-commerce network, for US$4.3 billion as part of the German company's expansion into cloud computing. SAP will purchase Ariba for $45 per share -- about 20 percent more than its market price. Ariba's board approved the purchase unanimously. Th...

The U.S. government's pursuit of cloud-based technology has been characterized by a blizzard of policies, directives, technical studies, proposed contract vehicles and conferences. The federal "cloud first" initiative, requiring agencies to give priority consideration to cloud solutions for IT opera...

The U.S. government is learning quickly that achieving the next big thing in information technology depends upon implementing a huge number of little things. For federal IT managers, that big thing is the cloud. Federal agencies have busily pursued cloud solutions since December 2010, when the gover...

The debate about the viability of cloud alternatives has given way to a new set of discussions about how to maximize the value of today's rapidly evolving cloud services. This new round of deliberations centers on the right approach to planning, selecting, deploying, administering, and optimizing th...