http://saas.sys-con.com/ Latest articles from Saas & Virtualization Copyright 2008 CLOUD COMPUTING JOURNAL Sun, 27 Jul 2008 04:34:00 GMT CLOUD COMPUTING JOURNAL 10 http://backend.userland.com/rss http://saas.sys-con.com/read/614371.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/614371.htm Sat, 26 Jul 2008 10:30:00 GMT There hasn't been a PowerPC-based computer since Apple abandoned the dingus and bolted to Intel, a move that did wonders for Apple's volumes. Now a Mountain View start-up called CherryPal is about to introduce a $249 Debian-based desktop that's about the size of a dime store paperback built around the 2W MPC5121e mobileGT PowerPC chip that Freescale usually sells to Detroit for navigation devices. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/619258.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/619258.htm Sat, 26 Jul 2008 08:30:00 GMT Application server management software developer NGASI has introduced a hosted version of its AppServer Manager on Amazon EC2. The 'no installation required' service gives Amazon EC2 users the option of not installing their own version of NGASI AppServer Manager to manage application servers. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/619308.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/619308.htm Sat, 26 Jul 2008 08:30:00 GMT Industry gadfly John Dvorak is advancing a theory culled from the blogosphere that Microsoft wants Yahoo for some all-important patent or another that would give it an edge in cloud computing, SaaS and portable search advertising. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/619237.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/619237.htm Sat, 26 Jul 2008 08:15:00 GMT One of the problems with clouds is that they have this tendency to rain as it did on Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3) on Sunday when it was down - and not for the first time - in both the US and Europe for something like eight hours - translating into less than 2Nines availability in a month (not a year, a month). Users couldn't access their stored data - a particularly scary situation for a cloud-dependent business. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/589951.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/589951.htm Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:15:00 GMT Regardless of the downturn in the markets, Morgan Stanley is on track to spend more than ever on their IT budget. They seem to think that during periods of lower economic activity it gives them a rare opportunity to establish themselves in new areas of emerging technology that may give them a competitive advantage down the road. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/587551.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/587551.htm Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:45:00 GMT Cloud Computing offers significant benefits over traditional solutions for deploying production systems as well as for conducting development and testing activities. Dr Thorsten von Eicken, CTO of RightScale, Inc., will be giving a session at SYS-CON's 'Cloud Computing Expo' (November 20-21, 2008) - an adjunct to the 4th International Virtualization Conference & Expo being held at The Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, CA. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/590421.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/590421.htm Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:30:00 GMT Cloud Computing, in its current incarnation, falls short on its promise to make computing as a whole as simple as plugging an application into a utility service. Kirill Sheynkman, Founder & CEO of Elastra Corporation, will be giving a session on Elastic Computing vs. Cloud Computing at SYS-CON's 'Cloud Computing Expo' (November 20-21, 2008) - a brand new adjunct to the 4th International Virtualization Conference & Expo being held at The Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, CA. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/588466.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/588466.htm Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:30:00 GMT The demand for storage has increased exponentially, placing significant stress on current 'in house' storage architectures and costly overcapacity build-outs. Patrick Harr, CEO of Nirvanix, will be giving a session at SYS-CON's 'Cloud Computing Expo' (November 20-21, 2008) - a brand new adjunct to the 4th International Virtualization Conference & Expo being held at The Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, CA. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/618592.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/618592.htm Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:30:00 GMT Microsoft Corp. expects a 'substantial portion' of revenue from its core business services division to come from online applications in the next few years, the new head of that division, Stephen Elop, said Wednesday. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/612033.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/612033.htm Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:15:00 GMT Every time I log into Facebook, or search for flights online, I am taking advantage of cloud computing. However, neither of these examples would be considered SaaS. According to Gartner, cloud computing is not just a buzzword; it does have a distinct meaning separate from SaaS. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/599262.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/599262.htm Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:30:00 GMT Salesforce.com, which has already linked its CRM software to Google Apps and integrated AdWords tracking into its platform, is deploying a free new Force.com Toolkit for Google Data APIs so third-party developers can interact with data in Google services. The toolkit is supposed to bring together data and content in Google Apps with the database, logic and workflow capabilities in Salesforce.com's Force.com development platform. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/584771.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/584771.htm Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:15:00 GMT NetSuite, the Larry Ellison SaaS company, is buying OpenAir, the 56-man shop that is supposed to be the leader in on-demand professional services automation, for $26 million cash, net of the cash on the acquisition's balance sheet. NetSuite says it probably won't be able recognize most of the deferred revenue on OpenAir's balance sheet so the acquisition will add to its losses this year. It is now projecting non-GAAP losses of $2.5 million-$3.5 million (four-six cents) on revenues of $156 million-$159 million. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/602026.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/602026.htm Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:15:00 GMT Parallels announced that ProServe has selected Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 to deliver a cost-efficient and scalable Online Backup solution via a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. Parallels Virtuozzo Containers provides the virtualization technology for ProServe's Virtual Online Backup Server (VOBS) offering. By using Parallels Virtuozzo Containers, ProServe is able to deliver an on-line backup solution with the necessary performance, cost-efficiency, scalability and isolation required for their VOBS offered in a SaaS delivery model. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/612853.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/612853.htm Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:15:00 GMT GigaSpaces Technologies and CohesiveFT announced their partnership to enable simplicity in building scalable applications in cloud environments. GigaSpaces' recently announced cloud application server, combined with CohesiveFT's Elastic Server On-Demand, allows customers to build software stacks and deploy them on multiple cloud providers with just a few clicks. The joint solution handles partitioning, load-balancing and fail-over, while CohesiveFT makes it easy to bundle these applications with software stacks and deploy them on many cloud infrastructures. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/618511.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/618511.htm Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:30:00 GMT FalconStor announced its expansion in the Software as a Service (SaaS) market, collaborating with HiNet - the Internet service provider (ISP) arm of Chunghwa Telecom, an information and telecom service provider in Taiwan - to make online backup services available to customers and small-and-medium-size businesses in Taiwan. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/618341.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/618341.htm Thu, 24 Jul 2008 07:45:00 GMT Intermedia announced that it has surpassed 300,000 customer mailboxes hosted. In the past six months, Intermedia experienced growth in the number of accounts with fifty or more mailboxes, demonstrating the growing penetration of SaaS services into the midmarket. Further, over the past year, Intermedia also became a BlackBerry Alliance Member; was honored with the MSExchange.org Reader's Choice award; and launched two major offerings: the hosted Office Communications Server 2007 service and Intermedia Secure Mail email encryption. Intermedia is a Microsoft Gold Partner, a provider of Microsoft Exchange 2007 software as a service (SaaS) and one of the first companies to offer Microsoft Entourage 2008 as a free download to customers. Achieving these milestones signals a landmark year for Intermedia. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/614372.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/614372.htm Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:00:00 GMT Zoho, the online Office wannabe, has gotten Swisscom, the telephone side of the old Swiss PTT monopoly, to offer its 300,000 business customers a suite of Zoho's SaaS applications as part of a six-month pilot through its Teamnet portal. The Zoho Business suite, including Zoho Writer, Sheet, Show, Notebook and Meeting, will be free. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/558455.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/558455.htm Mon, 21 Jul 2008 10:30:00 GMT As a technology provider that helps application companies embrace cloud computing by virtualizing the applications to run on any cloud, I was a bit disappointed with Google's AppEngine announcement. It appears that Google is embracing the 'walled garden' approach of SalesForce.com and Microsoft instead of the cloud approach of Amazon. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/584958.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/584958.htm Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:30:00 GMT There seems to be a lot of debate as to what Grid computing really is. In fact, the blogosphere seems to be throwing around terms like Grid, Cloud, Utility, Distributed and Cluster computing almost interchangeably. And rather than clarifying things, I feel that the waters are just getting muddier. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/579826.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/579826.htm Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:30:00 GMT Cloud computing is becoming one of the next industry buzz words. It joins the ranks of terms including: grid computing, utility computing, virtualization, clustering, etc. Cloud computing overlaps some of the concepts of distributed, grid and utility computing, however it does have its own meaning if contextually used correctly. The conceptual overlap is partly due to technology changes, usages and implementations over the years. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/609938.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/609938.htm Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:45:00 GMT The term 'Cloud Computing' is much too vague. People want and need 'slots' or 'segments' where they can group things. This is how the mind operates through categorization and ordering. So, to possibly help with this, I would like to propose a 'Cloud Pyramid' to help differentiate the various Cloud offerings out there. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/610021.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/610021.htm Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:45:00 GMT InstallFree has reached an agreement with Click Manageware to distribute its products in the UK and across Europe on a Software as a Service model. The arrangement expands Click Manageware's portfolio into the developing application and desktop virtualization space, which helps IT directors lower total cost of ownership, improve operational efficiency and increase end-user productivity. InstallFree benefits from Click Manageware's large reseller base and value added services. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/608838.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/608838.htm Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:45:00 GMT Information Technology is fantastic, absolutely essential, and largely responsible for this country's increase in productivity over the past decade or so. It's also broken. IT is overly complex, difficult to implement correctly, and expensive to maintain over its short lifespan. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/602833.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/602833.htm Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:30:00 GMT Boomi announced it has raised $4 million in its first institutional round of financing. The investment will be used to accelerate Boomi's go-to-market strategy and further secure the company's high standing position as a provider of cloud-based data and application integration services. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/601918.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/601918.htm Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:30:00 GMT Alert Logic announced that it has released version 1.1 of its flagship log management product, Alert Logic Log Manager. The company also announced that Log Manager fully leverages the power of grid computing and virtualization technologies. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/544193.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/544193.htm Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:30:00 GMT From Application Virtualization to Xen, a round-up of the virtualization themes & topics being discussed in NYC June 23-24, 2008 by the world-class speaker faculty at the 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo being held by SYS-CON Events in The Roosevelt Hotel, in midtown Manhattan. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/570412.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/570412.htm Wed, 21 May 2008 14:00:00 GMT Absolute Performance announced it is expanding the partnership with virtualization and hosting automation company Parallels to better enable managed services and hosting providers to achieve a strategic foothold in the expanding SaaS and On Demand marketplace. The announcement centers around extending Absolute Performance's application performance management SaaS software and services to work more closely with Parallels' virtualization and data center automation products. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/552195.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/552195.htm Mon, 19 May 2008 13:30:00 GMT Sun is now offering a new virtualization service that will let ISVs run their Solaris apps in a multi-tenant on-demand environment without having to rewrite any code. The trick is in Solaris' Containers virtualization and its xVM widgetry. The new Solaris On Demand program will provide third-party hosting complements of NaviSite, AT&T USi Communications and NTT Europe Online. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/556192.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/556192.htm Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:45:00 GMT Parallels announced that Solar Virtualization Technologies Group (VTG), a Platinum partner in the Parallels Service Provider Partner Program, is using Parallels technologies to launch new software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for small and medium businesses (SMBs). Parallels Automation datacenter software provides a centralized operations and business management system, which enables Solar VTG to offers its customers integrated mobile and messaging services that include Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint and Blackberry Enterprise Server. Solar VTG provides a single interface to its customers who are actually accessing services that rely on several internal and external application servers and systems. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/552303.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/552303.htm Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:45:00 GMT Sun Microsystems announced Solaris On Demand, its software as a service (SaaS) program for the independent software vendor (ISV) community. This program provides ISVs with the technology, hosted infrastructure and services needed to offer their software as a service. It is targeted at ISVs with a traditional, on-premise license model who want to offer their existing application on-demand without having to use a multi-tenancy application architecture. To provide the hosting services, Sun is working with several partners such as NaviSite for U.S.-based and European Union companies, AT&T's USi for U.S.-based companies and NTT Europe Online for European Union companies. With the Solaris On Demand program, ISVs can create offerings that meet the application availability, security, scalability and cost requirements of their own customers. http://saas.sys-con.com/read/548010.htmhttp://saas.sys-con.com/read/548010.htm Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:45:00 GMT AXIGEN and Parallels announced the launch of a strategic technological partnership, in which the companies will offer an integrated AXIGEN Mail Server and Parallels Virtuozzo Containers solution for Service Providers offering virtualized hosting environments. The new AXIGEN-Parallels Virtuozzo Containers integration presents a high-end, flexible solution that enables Service Providers the ability to offer customized mail server solutions for customers via a SaaS model.