Microsoft and Box, which builds on-demand file storage and sharing tools, will work on new links between their products and jointly sell some tools.

Seattle Times technology reporter

Microsoft and file-storage startup Box have signed a deal to sell each others products, the latest blurring of the lines between friends and rivals in the growing business of cloud-computing.

Box builds web-based file storage and management tools, services that compete head-to-head with Microsofts own OneDrive and Sharepoint.

Despite that rivalry, the companies have agreed to jointly sell Box services and elements of Microsofts Azure cloud-computing platform, they said on Tuesday.

The companies say their engineering teams are also working on building more links between their products, including adding Azure to the Box Zones program. That effort lets Box customers opt to store their content in specific areas of Azures massive global network of data centers. (Box Zones already includes Azure rivals Amazon Web Services and IBM).

Cloud-computing has made some partnerships that would have seemed bizarre in the world of out-of-the-box business software of a generation ago. Microsoft, during its dominance of the personal computer heyday, developed a reputation for pushing customers to use its range of products at all costs, and shunning those developed by others.

But as the company prioritizes growth in its Azure cloud-computing platform, which enables other companies to build services on Microsofts network of data centers and rented software services, the Redmond firm has abandoned some of its scorched earth tactics. The company, analysts say, is betting that customers who plug into the cloud will demand that the products they use work well with those of other technology vendors.

Box, based in Redwood City, Calif., began as a startup founded by a pair of college students in Mercer Island. The company is among a slate of startups born in the cloud era that has thrived by building on-demand, web-based tools that replicate or improve on programs companies used to run from their own servers. Box held an initial public offering in 2015, and had sales of $425 million during the most recent 12-month period.

Original post:

Microsoft signs cloud-computing partnership with Box - The Seattle Times

Trainer Chad Brown sent out a number of graded stakes winners to work on Belmont Park's main track June 25.

Klaravich Stables and William Lawrence's grade 1 winner Practical Joke breezed four furlongsin :48.09 as he gears up for the $400,000 Dwyer Stakes (G3) July 8.

The Into Mischief colt, who will make his first start in the Dwyer since a fifth-place run in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1), seeks his first win of his 3-year-old campaignafter runner-up efforts in the Xpressbet Fountain of Youth Stakes and Toyota Blue Grass Stakes (both G2).

"He breezed and continues to train very well ahead of the Dwyer," Brown said.

Preakness Stakes (G1) winner Cloud Computing also put in a maintenance work Sunday, breezingfour furlongs in :49.49. It was his second work since winning the second leg of the Triple Crown May 20. Also owned by Klaravich and Lawrence, Cloud Computing is training toward the $600,000 Jim Dandy Stakes (G2)July 29 at Saratoga Race Course.

Grade 1 winners Lady Eli and Antonoe breezed in company and covered four furlongs in :49.42. Lady Eli, who most recently won the Gamely Stakes (G1) at Santa Anita Park, is slated to make her next start on Saratoga's opening weekend in the $500,000 Diana Stakes (G1T).

Brown said Antonoe, fresh off her win in the Longines Just a Game Stakes (G1T)June 10, is also a possibility for the Diana.

"They went together. They're a good team and we're happy with both of them," Brown said.

Don Alberto Stable'sRubilinda, the first U.S. winner for 10-time group 1 winner Frankel, was scratched from the June 24 Wild Applause Stakes after the race was moved off the turf.

"It puts me in a bad spot. I likely now will have to go on to an allowance race and if she does well, then on to a stakes race," Brown said. "I'd like to run her (at Belmont)if I could."

Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1T) winnerNew Money Honey and grade 3 winnerFifty Fivetwo of the four expected Brown entrants for the $1 million Belmont Oaks Invitational (G1T) July 8are expected to breeze on the turf June 26 at Belmont.

Read more:

Lady Eli, Cloud Computing Among Workers for Brown - BloodHorse.com (press release) (registration) (blog)

Cloud computing is a crucial technological trend and has become an important technology during the fourth industrial revolution, according to Nguyen Thanh Phuc, Director General of the Authority of Information Technology Application.

Cloud computing is a crucial technological trend and has become an important technology during the fourth industrial revolution

Phuc made the remarks at the recent Vietnam Cloud Computing Conference 2017, sponsored by the Vietnam Software Association (VINASA), in coordination with the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (National University of Singapore).

Of note, Vietnamese ministries and authorities have boosted information and technology applications, the building of e-government and improved the investment environment to create clear and favourable conditions for enterprises, said he.

Also at the conference, Associate Professor Dr. Vu Minh Khuong from Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy delivered a presentation about a survey on cloud computing at 800 enterprises and organisations in Vietnam.

The survey results indicated that the country had the fastest growth in investment for cloud computing in the 2010-16 period among ASEAN countries, increasing 64.4 percent per year, higher than the average in ASEAN (49.5 percent) and the world (42.5 percent).

However, real spending on cloud computing in Vietnam was still rather low last year, which was 107 times lower than in Singapore; 6.5 times lower than Malaysia; 2.4 times lower compared with Thailand and 1.3 times lower compared with the Philippines, he added.

The above numbers revealed that there were many barriers to promoting cloud computing in Vietnam. The largest barrier is the popular use of unlicensed software, the lack of knowledge about the benefits of cloud computing, information security concerns and the quality of cloud services in Vietnam, he said.

According to experts at the conference, in the early stages of digital transformation, priority should be given to developing ICT infrastructure, especially broadband connections and cloud computing applications.

At the same time, there should be priority policies created for cloud computing, in order to trigger digital conversions using big data and Internet of Things applications.

Nguyen Dinh Thang, VINASA Vice Chairman, added that cloud computing offered tremendous benefits, such as product and service standardisation, investment cost reductions, the shortening of the time to develop products and improvements in the quality of services.

Therefore, the agency proposed that the government need to have an orientation policy, while businesses and organisations need to develop strategies on research, investment and early cloud applications to improve production and business efficiency, contributing to the countrys economic development and boosting the countrys progress during the fourth industrial revolution.

VNA

Continued here:

Cloud computing key to 4th industrial revolution - News VietNamNet - VietNamNet Bridge

A few years ago, the cloud was a promise to reduce costs of IT and improve flexibility and scaling by providing on-demand computing, storage and services to every organization.

Today, the cloud is a ubiquity we take for granted. We expect every file, every service and digital asset we have to be available across all our devices everywhere we go, at any time of the day.

The omnipresence of the cloud has streamlined and transformed quite a number of domains, including education. Today, thanks to cloud computing, education and training has become more affordable, flexible and accessible to millions of people and thousands of businesses.

Heres a look at how cloud-based education has changed things for the better.

One of the problems schools and training departments in organizations have constantly struggled with is to keep up with hardware, software and IT staff costs and complexities. In contrast, the cloud has been offering low-cost, subscription-based model that can support more companies and organizations.The elegance of the cloud is that the user only requires little more than a browser and an internet connection. This is a welcome shift from the need to manually install and update applications on every single computer in a department.

In the past years, solutions such as Googles suite of educational tools have provided schools with a free access to general classroom tools such as word processors, spreadsheets and presentation software. Cloud applications such as Google Docs allow students to easily collaborate on assignments in an easy-to-use environment.

Microsoft has also made its move to the cloud, providing subscription-based access to the cloud version of its popular Office suite, which it offers for free to students and teachers.

One of the interesting developments in the space has been the advent of virtual classrooms in the cloud. Virtual cloud classrooms provide teachers with a paperless way to set up classes and courses, distribute material and assignments, and track and grade student progress from their desktop browser or smartphone.On-premise virtual classroom software have existed for a while, but their installation and deployment came with heavy technical and financial requirements. In recent years, established companies such as Blackboard have started offering cloud-based services, making it possible for more schools and institutions to enroll.

Bigger tech corporations are also entering the space. Google launched its Classroom app as part of G Suite for Education in 2014 and Microsoft released its own Classroom last year. Both solutions revolve around providing a unified environment to better use office cloud apps in managing classes.

Cloud platforms can be a boon to professional education. For instance, IT training is traditionally associated with large investments in hardware and complex setup costs. However specialized cloud platforms have provided a flexible, cost-effective and easy-to-deploy alternative.

One example is CloudShare, a provider of cloud-based virtual machines, which enables companies to setup virtual training labs for their training sessions. With CloudShare, trainers can create any number of VMs of various operating systems in a virtual class environment, assign them to students, monitor their use and actively assist students when needed.The use of cloud computing and virtual classes in IT training brings huge benefits by cutting back hardware costs and complexity while providing an interactive experience that is not possible in legacy classroom settings. It also benefits companies that need to train staff and employees across the world by sparing them additional traveling and trainer fees.

By 2025, the global demand for higher education will double to approximately 200 million students per year, mostly from emerging economies. Elsewhere, the disruption of the economy and employment landscape by artificial intelligence is increasing demand for professional training in various fields.

But thanks to cloud-based education, more and more people can now attend academic and professional courses. In recent years, weve seen the emergence of massive open online courses (MOOCs) platforms, which provide easy and affordable (sometimes free) access to knowledge and training.

In 2012, Stanford University professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller founded Coursera, a cloud platform that offers online courses, specializations, and degrees in a variety of subjects, including data science, computer science, engineering and medicine. Aside from Stanford, other top universities such as Princeton, University of Michigan and Penn State University are now using the platform to offer their programs to students worldwide.

Applicants can enroll for courses, specialization certificates or full higher education degrees. As of 2017, the platform offers more than 2,000 courses and has more than 24 million registered users worldwide.

edX, a platform similar to Coursera created by Harvard University in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, added high school education to its platform in 2014 to help people across the world get access to secondary education.Tech corporations have launched their own education platforms to give access to knowledge and education in specific fields. One example is IBMs Big Data University, a free platform that aims to put more people into data science and machine learning jobs and now has more than 400,000 signed up users.

Cloud-based learning platforms offer anyone with an internet connection classrooms, lectures, course material and a seamless environment where they can learn at their own pace and work on assignments and projects on any device and anywhere they go.

With such huge amounts of data being collected and processed in the cloud, the next step of cloud education is the integration of artificial intelligence in the process. AI algorithms can assist both teachers and students in the learning process, finding pain-points in the teaching process and lending a hand where learners are struggling. Most major vendors have either taken their first steps or are now considering integrating AI-powered tools in their training solutions.

Weve already seen acceleration and enhancements in education and training thanks to the cloud. What will come next can be even more exciting.

Read next: Facebook has a magical Harry Potter easter egg to celebrate the books 20th anniversary

Read this article:

How the cloud has changed education and training - TNW

Over the next few years, we will learn whether cloud computing is a nice little business that will settle into maturity by the end of the decade or a once-in-a-generation business opportunity.

Thats the view of Morgan Stanleys Brian Nowak, who delivered the Wall Street view of Cloud City earlier this month at our Cloud Tech Summit. Theres no question right now that cloud computing is at a point of inflection, he said, with very strong growth expected over the short term as more and more workloads move into the cloud.

Right now, Morgan Stanley estimates that about 20 percent of all workloads run on the cloud. That 20 percent is a very important number because if you look at other adoption cycles, whether its notebooks, smartphone penetration, the x86 server, even digital music and video games, when you get to that 20 percent penetration point, that curve inflects and growth accelerates, Nowak said.

When you get to that 20 percent penetration point, that curve inflects and growth accelerates.That shouldnt come as a surprise to anyone who has noticed the surge in Amazon Web Services revenue over the last few years. The real question is whether or not growth continues to accelerate this pace once public cloud hits the 50 percent penetration mark, which Morgan Stanley expects to happen around 2020.

Historically, when you look at other markets, like in server virtualization, after that, growth in the market slowed considerably, down to the single digits, Nowak said. Just to be safe, Morgan Stanley is making that projection to its clients, given the historical trends.

However, he acknowledged a bullish case for the cloud based around the fact that a lot of cloud workloads are brand-new workloads; instead of lifting and shifting, the industry jargon for taking applications running on homegrown infrastructure and moving them into the cloud, lots of companies are starting new workloads on cloud services.

As those workloads scale, thats a ton of new business for cloud providers that simply didnt exist on on-premises hardware. And, of course, there are still lots of companies moving those older workloads onto the cloud as well, giving cloud companies several sources of growth over the next few years.

Another trend to watch is the growth of hybrid cloud strategies, with workloads spread across the public cloud and internal servers, which might put a damper on the most bullish case for public cloud but still mean companies are increasing what they spend in the cloud.

Watch the full video of Nowaks talk above, and stay tuned for more highlights from the event in the days ahead.

Visit link:

Morgan Stanley: Cloud computing is at 'an inflection point' but how big will it get? - GeekWire

Home > Technology > Survey: businesses ramp up spending on cloud computing

Technology June 23, 2017

Security fears ease, but cloud costs can climb fast with increased usage.

By DC Velocity Staff

Businesses are spending more on cloud computing as improved technology eases concerns about security, but users must guard against overspending, according to an IT industry survey released Wednesday.

Nearly 70 percent of U.S. businesses surveyed by Clutch, a Washington-based business-to-business (B2B) ratings and reviews firm, said they plan to increase spending on cloud computing in 2017. One in five of those businesses report their cloud computing spending this year will likely increase by more than 30 percent, according to the study, "How Businesses Use Cloud Computing: 2017 Survey."

Companies are migrating their software applications and databases from on-premise servers to cloud platforms in large part because they are gaining confidence in cloud security, the survey showed. The top five benefits of using the cloud, ranked according to how often they were cited by respondents, were:

1. Security (mentioned by 45 percent of respondents) 2. Increased efficiency (41 percent) 3. Data space (40 percent) 4. Flexibility (33 percent) 5. Scalability (28 percent)

This attitude is a shift from past years.

"Early on, there was a lot of concern from people with respect to moving workloads to the cloud because of security reasons," Jeremy Przygode, CEO of California-based managed service provider (MSP) Stratalux Inc., said in a statement. "Only the most basic of security features were built into the cloud. It really didn't have a lot of the feature sets and functionality that you can find today."

In today's world, however, the cloud is often considered a more secure option than on-premise deployments, whether measured by physical security (protecting physical assets at a geographic location), infrastructure security (ensuring security patches are updated as soon as possible), or data and access security (such as encrypting data and controlling user privileges), the report found.

The only caveat is that end users must follow the same practices that they apply for on-premise software use, the report said. These include maintaining office security strategies such as encrypting data and databases; ensuring that users' privileges are correct; and deploying features such as cybersecurity scanners that monitor for threat scenarios, Clutch found.

"Cloud is the new normal," Przygode said. "When businesses need to evaluate new solutions, or need to do a hardware refresh on existing solutions... [c]loud is the go-to solution to figure out how to do that."

As users become more comfortable with cloud security, however, they are finding a new concernhigher costs. The survey found that the largest percentage of businesses listed "increased cost" as a challenge they had encountered with their cloud provider in the past year, suggesting the increased spending may not always be intentional or wanted in some cases, Clutch said.

Those spikes in cloud computing costs are triggered when businesses buy space on cloud platforms at initial costs that can be as low as fractions of a cent per hour for a given amount of storage. If usage surges, those prices can jump up dramatically, Clutch warns.

"Cloud computing is a dual-edged sword," Przygode said. "It's great because you can quickly provision equipment or resources in the cloud by simply pushing a button. That's the agility. However, the other edge of that sword is, because it's so easy, people tend to fire stuff up and forget about it."

The best solution to control cloud computing price fluctuations and stay within budget is to exercise strict monitoring over usage time, and use proper governance over contract rates, the survey found.

The Clutch survey included 283 IT professionals at businesses across the U.S. that use a cloud computing service. Of those businesses, 58 percent had 11 to 1,000 employees, while 42 percent had more than 1,001 employees. The majority (65 percent) of respondents were male, and three-quarters of the respondent pool were 25 to 44 years old.

After you comment, click Post. If you're not already logged in, you will be asked to log in or register.

Feedback: What did you think of this article? We'd like to hear from you. DC VELOCITY is committed to accuracy and clarity in the delivery of important and useful logistics and supply chain news and information. If you find anything in DC VELOCITY you feel is inaccurate or warrants further explanation, please ?Subject=Feedback - : Survey: businesses ramp up spending on cloud computing">contact Chief Editor David Maloney. All comments are eligible for publication in the letters section of DC VELOCITY magazine. Please include you name and the name of the company or organization your work for.

See original here:

Survey: businesses ramp up spending on cloud computing DC ... - DC Velocity

Companies are planning to spend more on cloud computing services in 2017, but must be cognizant that anticipated costs could balloon absent appropriate monitoring and use, suggest survey results released this week by Clutch.

Reflecting input from 283 IT professionals at businesses in the United States that use a cloud computing service, Clutchs Second Annual Cloud Computing Survey found 67% of polled businesses plan to increase cloud computing spending this year.

Almost half of businesses surveyed report they expect their cloud computing to increase by 11% to 30%, while almost one in five expect the increase to exceed 30%, note poll results from the Washington, D.C.-based B2B ratings and reviews firm.

Just 8% of businesses participating in the survey which explored current and future trends say they expect their cloud computing spending will go down in 2017.

Cloud is the new normal, suggests Jeremy Przygode, CEO of Stratalux, Inc., an Amazon Web Services advanced consulting partner and managed service provider.

When businesses need to evaluate new solutions, or need to do a hardware refresh on existing solutions cloud is the go-to solution to figure out how to do that, Przygode says in a statement from Clutch.

Notes Clutch, As the cloud gains popularity, businesses are perhaps less likely to see it as an alternative option, but rather as the logical next step for their data storage. Therefore, they will increase their spending in the technology.

While the anticipated spending rise may be encouraging, Clutch cautions that these additional expenditures may be due to a variety of factors, from a greater desire to use the cloud to negligence regarding usage.

Consider that 47% of polled business the largest percentage of all options cited increased cost as a challenge encountered with their cloud provider in the past year.

This suggests that, in some cases, the increased spending is perhaps not always intentional or wanted, Clutch reports. The reality of cloud computings mechanisms means that businesses may end up paying more than they expected.

Keeping costs in line can be advanced by monitoring and appropriate use. For example, if usage surges, prices can increase dramatically.

Cloud computing is a dual edged sword, says Przygode.

Its great because you can quickly provision equipment or resources in the cloud by simply pushing a button. Thats the agility. However, the other edge of that sword is, because its so easy, people tend to fire stuff up and forget about it, he points out.

When starting out with a cloud project, the customer may think that its much cheaper, says Haresh Kumbhani, founder and CEO of Zymr, Inc., a cloud consulting and software development services company.

But, by the time they go to production, the bill goes from $800 to $8,000 per month, Kumbhani notes, adding price increases can be alleviated through proper monitoring.

That surge happens because theyve chosen the auto-scale option and didnt tune the policies which govern the costs, he explains.

Survey findings show that advances have been made on a number of fronts, including security and perception of how secure cloud can be. In fact, the largest percentage of respondents listed security as a benefit of using the cloud.

Still, Kumbhani advises considering three aspects when it comes to cloud security:

Around 80% of breaches occur because this third part is not very well-secured, Kumbhani points out. That being the case, he recommends that clients encrypt their data and databases, ensure users privileges are correct, and deploy features such as cyber security scanners that monitor for threat scenarios.

There is also movement with regard to what type of cloud private, hybrid or public respondents are using or looking into using.

Though a private cloud remains the most popular option, results indicate a hybrid cloud is an increasingly attractive option, with 82% of polled businesses that do not currently use a hybrid cloud saying they are exploring the option for the future.

A hybrid cloud has services and infrastructure spread between a private network and off-site cloud provider, offering flexibility and customizable features.

Even if you are committed to a private cloud solution, a hybrid cloud solution can provide additional benefits where you can burst your workloads into the public cloud as needed, Przygode suggests.

Burstability is defined as meaning even if cloud usage surges past average levels, then the public cloud can provide the CPU to manage that, as opposed to maxing out.

When you go with a hybrid solution, you have to make sure as a company its engineered properly to gain access to it, advises Kevin Rubin, president and COO of IT managed service provider Stratosphere Networks.

Although a bit more challenging, customizing your cloud experience allows [a business] to leverage different toolsets that are truly drilled down to their department, their individuals, and how they do business, Rubin explains.

Przygodes view is that the transition towards public cloud is an inevitability.

Size also matters when it comes to the cloud and choices around that.

Findings show the needs of small- to mid-sized businesses versus large enterprises are very different, and that each type of company should evaluate their specific needs before deciding between private, public, or hybrid cloud options.

While large enterprises may be able to afford external help, Rubin says, small- to mid-sized businesses may need to wait to transition, or seek out lower priced options.

Related: Global spending on worldwide cloud services and infrastructure to reach US$122.5 billion in 2017: International Data Corporation

In addition, almost one in five surveyed businesses using a cloud computing service are using artificial intelligence (AI) encompasses the concept of computer systems accomplishing tasks that previously required human intelligence features.

The cloud can progressively power AI with larger computing power and data storage, Clutch reports, adding that 60% of polled businesses using AI began doing so in 2015 or 2016; and 10% in 2017 (from January and mid-May).

Przygode points out that AI can be used to scan IT environments and analyze potential threats with greater efficiency.

AI is a really good use case for finding the signal in the monitoring noise, because sometimes there might be alerts for an activity that is perfectly normal, but using AI, we can filter alerts through machine learning algorithms and reduce false positives before they get escalated to our team, he explains.

As businesses explore their options for data management and storage in the future, it is important to understand the opinions and trends regarding cloud computing, and how this technology is evolving, Clutch recommends.

Companies can go it alone, Przygode says.

He adds, however, that cloud computing is not the same type of computing as it was in previous generations, and traditional IT and cloud IT are different. Frankly, the infrastructure and, more importantly, the way of managing that infrastructure, has changed dramatically, he maintains.

Continued here:

Companies plan to spend more on cloud computing services this year, higher prices among drivers: Clutch - Canadian Underwriter

BBC News

Amazon accuses Walmart of bullying in cloud computing clash BBC News Walmart, the US's biggest retail chain, has been accused of trying to coerce its technology suppliers into shunning Amazon's cloud computing service. Amazon has accused its rival of attempting to "bully" the IT companies into picking a rival platform ... Wal-Mart to vendors: get off Amazon's cloudFox Business Walmart Tells Tech Partners Not To Host Its Apps On AWSPYMNTS.com Walmart Tries to Keep Vendors from Using Amazon's Cloud: Good Luck With ThatTheStreet.com Newsmax -The Australian -The Daily Caller all 43 news articles »

Read more:

Amazon accuses Walmart of bullying in cloud computing clash - BBC News

V?ng`q,|1Z#>FC V(YB,0LEa[r<1s^%sr/+ hu_rb@S )v/-+3,_Zl|bu=WCD3-&AvW]a`hYykU9 HdtjLfNFlBWA318AC[gru9Mup.mgrDGU(NQ.6MWAp39/l+!.dLPR WP,WjBM`p"r3vH{1fTpE5 ;$rMxyufe!61= RRt+`B;0kUt`c2'_U4TDkdqpy(*BT7 G{$QaZEfC yVpj!L(UlNIa/*c q;8vCJe 6PFMN?J(}kENodYbwa+p$}IDY1R4W!UtwI4 o=Aw C aX (JMiNaAV7.<.K:<,eb p`U}*uPJ5spnzsl=LAt~qeBq2I(N&HTTg-bQW!X0y>nde|_psLtz(Vp 3Le 5jE$[L=A&{t^z7"uj;TM R5r|-5 a"a7U>|x)zJ/#5T>bb7-F!o ;HZjUnPMtkvOw,fmb:fbiI(PdDx8~BBk V*3-CBm^6$-gXbXMn~jb/UFPs/)UrEZ;"= {9[UsGvn9?V wP_^qxEhw1Ht3"~?1~['|L)"1]Kx0)i2e{Tv8|ClEeD-L*;|_}0q`Uhd*~m?29F.IpZ*yCP_&0==}CDyi VY{Tt9Wlz(zj@+@E(l*,d 8hi}h4ogZ7>u|S[%;cny/Kz@8}f=xnrdbp'g{^@U/C1RSj37_L_Ae(FJpgH89L!K*^J6$>w]T!N<%Z>/LByZu^pnu_9tkB7aKW +=ECS 9Fivb5RL2*^xtS1ly@. Y#Q`Zbew=v' B35Y_K`'g[1{/|&Z@ ^Z+j>hZT~+t7_Z9_mq'!d)%eE.:AyVEKW:YTN-;hU)#_[D8F:#^+BA('^pGA/cVs;IiWIa-q+v"j5NR~?C%("9hC>^aq7~^0m''LoM|l Au.P%`[+lJxEl=v"]Y:Vc`zZ ip6d+$X5uJzW&(HRdq!;AP #r#"F6Sl&bORVUnRq#a[*q8ANI~Y: J+s r.*bvml K8$"Z5 4M7'P(@#D>|%*F]eBvKS]7Z/{RHMGIoyVbW! H|)g}{h}a S*pGJdfz=]y] #~ 9v/V-Up!VmE.[U1 pD$%QED qSj9wxSQW%<{*L[d@d-nUB(l5xIaGE1DOuihJ$>iu0V|CA@ZtwVk_W+DV%d@Fwqxgs6g" JSx4ztn.GRA.YKJet7ENhf!L.^mI hJd[D3?a1QAI>0>v) wcSoyb" hv'$Hy0d4l%"aD![ )7FA)|SQ(3P_e-eX.=9uODQ%'a<7l-`@had@'qhET9 :z5(#(8-KEjGiq(VTaS90QU<|+n nJY:hg]Qi-W X(`2#U.Se1.P k:)qJ4+CAl s+QR*E6LhF/SNE.dW&42ef;SSIBueo]EIr":<^jRf!FX2; m7lB YH@_.:a9Vd4ARGE8 #ZC (!xij*t ,{o?A@JJwQ= V1.jpnBx2{N))#a;:0oq>}hi``` '[mj`F R_tw=*&OOX|~W$!kyVFsI l% Q2kIL' |.+$W:e'C`vd$0QLo/tbj H`@`v7i!Bzq4HU!t4HjgtktFFR*D1CZ+(NIPVBhP)n`/J9I2"bE]UiJPPhhPhbN@2Mh67XLH$LCb4zm!:hrpUog-NN;V;!D I?DpP,ITSdvXLa TuU%r},(mstV%F##^hV-%km5DmePy`xb%"VFb)T3LlITWXVCP$~E"p hqdYV`WaJSzP6CAs &ffv)mu`~$fip^=cy.4]4_/_Qa jv,>8kTx}CR?@]!Z.Xd^^|l9"$9YAPx?OlBq,4zx'!A! j%TUgV+0~XeRJa>vRmjT}#GYbp-TY={Vd*Ab}wMu%+(I{'=eS0 0LIfsx [#=E1DPQ)jCRXbhMhuL"1vly[~ K,]r@aFF-Xi/ | voE<^eh+W!JPl;r*W?v6M^JQQsU)Wvu#&Q0n(/R6uG5JkAGq-a`p$)k3I1PVZ`.f[T(_ M+0d,USI:ASAwE s%yvCbj8LR+b}V/Z9 "es2Oz1;lH!I5D$Lq>Y/|R0nu `F:ly:z: ;' =&_@7QTCi_3j6r^M @kKB(ZvV~&+ix##G,uL[y'GDR* q92[uA!AYLTIL=Y.u*`;x`?l$N:gu ^55QQ/@[u}k$ 9Ar_0i9:Sq:Q89q:<)2s/wd#s*h uP2 1 /6#D_AgiWnP#r>'%?N"r'S%(q&u"dPuB3ek4,dkF~:C(1]I&IlpXpvBCa8$v$8}#SvAq[XH'L TT. ilE`.%!|A4{ )nTmtbY1X_@/_Ej` GNj_VTcVs.>/_ZRt 6n/=IO#(VoU lJ[HXhTwgSwa`ZV2XA-W<6H4 If$PH%60jHN!wo'[IX$J]Q 'gE~JY S|)a8TUD{8TB(2s~gIDA,%IwSoQePWdv;m)q}T2C*5sR$2Bmss%/F+JL!,lML?4Z4<3,7"vQjGi_RohEQVgm+~R[&~hr@Gb>.D6e!bkQ7]+1UO5f"MTQsmU(Q K"BiPB%GX %r NTV"@]I?5(k5B iz9_N:xV5&(s c9.J;5J{MHic^ & J&'K 5Q3LAFgR7_7ip*Q% XBTT5V13._W@VPH~BM,Jll7M#-}q:v(~UOVcffgPz12W fsFI>`(ip=%=zGAK1A0BgX')$"L QPw8I$aP# 6~)CB3lOsh^hWe 2qpN5Yh^E'TI]Q]"I(U $ msJ CR#aS)rf6+>`94H*k:oO]`$*42q%JZA_gH>+UA4<-Du1WXH|M5--1#@sM;CIB5U'B0Hb-Zc544--&Mou/yc%5R72R7J|V) :*+!Wbb+]2kCXR@lM!uFgZ3bIVwE,X qIHqToVNEY3a"6UTw}?>`+Ocp>`% ozv'b._JrSW#(iu+s.3E't"D paq6)Gv70R -#6]3@ifn J@1Fj(*3 PY?,A54yie@Ser'N4Lia.?gdW9f>jLRxJjF tKRZ[@-H(`p _JSsg"z J`E,+dC^_Wi$pDlDNX1R204IE?4J+ [aH'^(8-{uBB2J@J5FQ+-K!#J""E `L5"bF3+=)i ojV)"3LFGRKc5E_lyMl}fm}V.|F~kFxn_qd(7HKk6/Uc"= p! y>k<&Rps9%j:Df2\_KnWq UsVIiQZ]2*'49^qPJ977G~FTl7! Y #+p&]U*C;S)vLls-3ve uO_V,?[Xf)$l6A$+^t-v3eht,cj |`C33E)Sfv&8D-2Tm;R4/:TUEUNQ!YH$eP)kYl1,98f$ZrZK7GBsXTHvVj0[/vw$ 2rb1Ri)])08A-%$KX!oPEAR4<@aW_!M0v`7JfP 1Zq yI.FkLnb50~vSU7eqA_NA7y>fgUCZ Xm|_AmyOt"ef4"@52l4r"pS:md *-Xg4,8t#~%D!(&$";d -Ep9s$Rs)Bj[K(o H~>yHF*>C+#YxQYIIuleJz"_lR.B*5`2U=(]P+v"MG+&`#X z;b_-0QGjY9fnj$=":X}g^"wp#BB<'Sc4B`YsaX!Jbd@XxZga(37<6WA _ui xtJVYpGTL1A ZeX._#?{4>O*0!~O2we3F+5YoofyjAh=GE&GWj%M,3}BF'$fTXoNeJ!2d9_4@$y!t-B@UYzi3BKLoax;/v3d_g+UI0S&&i3^U[y f4#$ sF!!!r"zvkiA?CsJxiK t||AOL,`@>C!:IZb*.'64~gJ{TD4&fzg $[Wi[4Tr3oWThVsoa[SQ(r(phfY!:03|JVJLA`-(jmC3 nVXn?6c*s#8;ae5>suSspVS.Wc{HmJr T![MkMb"@60dCVa5"DrrwPu+ly+C5BTC+@>%zd2Pc*<+7Ks/YrP1j)Me "LP+DAg}0YUz;HqUJ;ytJ@2h;9XU@-ED*J~]MGf-$0TGo)DRD#BZxVJXP2

?1YNCV4}/17"V6Oo2O9L$ )qhE-x`bb9MtboQAAuy9P|f4Jgp:N)O|_>Rc B-JpXRw`:ey(x4`AZu:w"{8,dLS@(S0)qwr zFkUS1Wv`BG4<4 X.z*;Ijyo EjI y]^V+[}/{*XKlBtW`HvES4t'uC qF-bw-L UZ)San.ts>R7y%C*5jEGy=Zl1nJUMinQ1Na |...rVVDd0nkvr(w~rkl+xV6[Ap!q2rx%or?7o4VL ju4R8DFj/HF/V&m|F1Ya(@PGrL)g.Cm,+e YiLa|N/v61 jm,raygybSE0V*_d0}#8NN;uc]#+qD"hgc>ds[x':EA/A$jc0YGJ]G_:Gtzkoj0z]Y3S#OG~/MRMivEM*Ax*fI#cDtQ*h>flQ2Z!eTYu^,R%[GEy[9RA xq>VD,vJ{5@`Ug-3I_sCMF0f(V-v1J.vj4DBHhfx1#03T=KKf(J&e[FXLofdf2g"T4BWGh,K:Km@b7a.2;v91,PXb/ZMTw~A{A|6 P[%bLI4=Lahh|& nHG:BDW)K a0]vM*UjFP Vbu]b`$j#6r;vh'9qxTjQb4c4|JW(=}S'LTNJR3!X2g8Me1jab[[DtG%koqN8P0NrR;v/-1kN0dtAJs8EihTxc(%5qc{k LeF@DMcers.DSvFCBth!zbJ(fM)YlbPs& 0@3xG@ZAg[#r~L] *Z"^ |q/3| %@2$lmv1]1+UYIFUD'(6a^KFd_=5;td#H}~%5hR.`Wq=GYFFw%i1?|_nTHNtvbUHH3"YvoH9*SmM=3m$GmroC*XuTR}/D}+w]'voD~gHQT7UgwQX [#W4|u4bON~pd|@._j;F$k3ag S)V5-mMA7>SvoJMbjv=fd.>38'+|U9v%X7?<(g*~/%3*S2guN426EF wvJT5r)K:wRWeU`Qv V9+aC}Txk M-k,;aVh9AnJveA(J/Wf*1K9vb`S,eIZJK4*A-'e(gI&{Fq,Q5lCJg#vn }%6! LvLi/nKutnt;#_?VxnhzG}~` o/o2 P&'i]0I:-//X3rqZ_#WVP;o/<')]n};WO.l u8qvvrX1|u9Y0s"v OdtPc1 NbI' _YW3Wb^.#[~Z*^r-g)sXzzT!?q=7QR2ny-)PJLz;~Q]K?iEe*TBb`&FP =JBxhDIvY.s#XySjzK w5GwmP)2)t4DsY9b5c5BB@.k-kH%QKp"g>#v[/G8Dga $#(cK{V/)@71Efm2SW5YQ

)U2[0-r!@6sXD.oJQ?VHM_eM?. f,3(OCyibX3+&&}'_`t0XSsRjBk5etZA*m'cN8}r>'Dn,"$h|c4H;61 $H"{ sa i 2BA*Yi) 4m7XZPI9(j "'HHZuFBY ?P + QR{xO:b!V v=xmbXLQ{%9&O $7pcU!gc3"EV1pg"E.mQ6B]$_f#2 c 'bVO!1vbi" {"cP9V5QQ96j Z4V:V2UC- TcQq>4n2 +&KEY+Pk+F(NVvmHFQwI1q%cXR(9_jZQ zky XEyU"0}e&@?D@up)[cXUF! Q15I%FHj#LS0t/fBPZha3|3sP|b= >Y >awP_x`rq*bT4s(LgCN0WjL5*R^+Lfe0bIil1'^!}@*XpILdNb)+@]_E9T6"VkMeT[*'^I"]iX9+LB}#1X!av/)h U,cstp1eq'gx+j,C`pM#*KlxfQN]L|l,Q"!x ~s&P2WWG(%t5iBjVCdxXz5PIi|lQc-1*$+4!~`n;j|!dT p D"HWg1JL$&gY&N]E#jZ oe,BXMP&6EO&g%>E:R|PTV@4n(37q(4[]4Z{@fQ|@XA$R

See the rest here:

Cisco adapts to the rise of cloud computing - The Economist

Oracle Corp.'s stock hasn't kept pace with some cloud rivals for years as the software company lagged behind in transitioning its business to the cloud.

That may have begun to change Wednesday after Oracle reported earnings that topped Wall Street's modest forecasts, sending the stock up more than 10% in after hours trading.

The Redwood City, Calif., company said its fiscal fourth-quarter net rose 15% to $3.23 billion, or 76 a share, from $2.81 billion, or 66 cents a share, a year earlier. The company said adjusted per-share earnings, which commonly exclude stock-based compensation and other items, were 89 cents.

Revenue rose 2.8% to $10.89 billion.

According to estimates gathered by S&P Global Market Intelligence, analysts expected Oracle to earn 78 cents a share on an adjusted basis, on revenue of $10.45 billion.

Analysts were particularly impressed with Oracle's success in bringing in new customers to its web-based, on-demand computing services. Annually recurring revenue, or ARR, from these new customers hit $855 million in the quarter, and topped $2 billion for year, the company said.

Continue Reading Below

ADVERTISEMENT

"It's the best quarter we have ever had," Oracle co-Chief Executive Mark Hurd said during a conference call with analysts. "We had a goal of $2 billion in ARR; we finished with nearly $2.1 billion. Next year, we will sell more."

At the same time, Oracle is altering the way it reports on its cloud business. The company is mixing its nascent infrastructure-as-a-service business, where it provides computing resources and storage on demand, with its more tenured business of selling access to app-management and data analytics tools, called platform-as-a-service.

In its fiscal fourth quarter, Oracle posted solid results in its cloud-infrastructure business, where it competes against leaders Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google. Revenue from the business rose 23% to $208 million.

The company's platform-as-a-service business, combined with its other cloud business that sells access to applications -- known as software-as-a-service -- saw revenue climb 67% to $1.15 billion ended May 31.

On a call with analysts, co-CEO Safra Catz said Oracle combined results from its platform and infrastructure cloud businesses because "synergies and cross-selling between these two businesses is very high."

Combining results from the two business will make it harder to measure Oracle's success in the cloud-infrastructure market. Larry Ellison, Oracle's co-founder and executive chairman, made building the company's cloud-infrastructure business a key mission, saying last summer "Amazon's lead is over" after introducing Oracle's latest technology for the market.

Amazon, though, continues to pull away. Its Amazon Web Services unit, whose net sales are largely comprised of its cloud-infrastructure business, grew 43% in the most recent quarter to $3.66 billion.

To keep pace with rivals in the cloud-infrastructure market, Oracle will need to meaningfully expand its capital spending and operating expenses, Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analyst Brad Reback recently wrote in a report.

Last year alone, Amazon, Microsoft and Google spent a combined $31.54 billion in 2016 on capital expenditures and leases, much of that on data centers to deliver cloud-infrastructure services.

Oracle spent $2.02 billion on capital expenditures in its fiscal year, up from $1.19 billion a year earlier. That, in part, led to operating margins of 34%, compared with 43% in the previous fiscal year. The company has said it doesn't believe it needs to spend as much as rivals to catch up, arguing its technology is superior.

Growth in Oracle's entire cloud business is outpacing the decline in its legacy business of selling licenses to software customers run on their own servers.

The cloud business grew $502 million year-over-year while Oracle's new software-license revenue fell $140 million. It is the fourth-consecutive quarter in which Oracle's cloud-revenue gains outpaced declines in its legacy software business.

Over all, revenue from new software licenses fell 5% to $2.63 billion.

The biggest piece of Oracle's software business remains its massive software-license updates and product-support operations. That segment generated $4.9 billion in revenue, a 2% gain from a year earlier.

Write to Jay Greene at Jay.Greene@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 21, 2017 19:11 ET (23:11 GMT)

Continued here:

Cloud-Computing Business Lifts Oracle's Profit -- 2nd Update - Fox Business

INDUSTRY INSIGHT

Traditional IT infrastructures were built for a different time, and conflict with many of the core requirements of modern day computing that is exponentially increasing the worlds connectivity expectations and requirements. Todays government must find a path that leverages disruptive technologies, such as cloud computing, without disturbing agency personnel's ability to deliver on their core missions.

As agencies try to escape the legacy systems built decades ago, benefits such as cost and energy savings are compelling them to move to cloud environments. In 2011, the White House rolled out the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy was rolled out to address the fact that it can take years to build new data centers for new digital services, or months to increase capacity of existing data center services. The start-small approach enabled by cloud computing lets agencies provision capacity incrementally so they can develop and test applications with smaller initial investments than traditional IT models allow. At the same time, the nature of some expenses change from being capital investments in hardware and infrastructure to a pay-as-you go model, making the cloud was very appealing.

However, a 2014 assessment by the Government Accountability Office revealed that government cloud adoption is lagging often because existing legacy systems are not due to be modernized or replaced. This, coupled with other challenges -- such as the decentralized structure of technology investments, lengthy procurement processes, complexities in identifying and then managing an appropriate migration path to the cloud, data governance/control issues, lack of insight into vendor technologies and capabilities and concern about vendor lock-in -- has severely impacted the success of cloud adoption.

However, understanding how an agency fits into the use cases for government is the first step in justifying the switch to the cloud. Other reasons include capabilities for the following:

Data analytics on demand. By integrating on-premises computers with pay-per-use cloud computing resources in a seamless user experience, government big data analysts working with massive datasets can shave wait times down to a fraction of an hour.

Distributing applications to users. With smaller footprints in more geographically dispersed collection points connected to the cloud for computing power, agencies can decrease latency, improve reliability and reduce network costs.

Internet of things. By integrating existing systems with various cloud platforms that can seamlessly share data, agencies can provide new digital products and services to demonstrate rapid innovation.

Disaster recovery and continuity of operations. Unplanned outages occur for reasons as routine as human error or hardware failure, and as extreme as natural disasters or acts of terrorism. Simple and cost-effective geographic distribution of disaster recovery sites or mix-and-match cloud services give agencies the redundancy and resiliency they need to still deliver, even in the event of a disaster.

Multicloud flexibility. A multicloud environment introduces the ability to seamlessly use compute power from multiple cloud providers or to easily migrate data from one cloud to another.

The interconnected cloud ecosystem

As government is pushed to think digitally, hybrid and multicloud environments are being seen as the logical next step in the value chain since integrating users, services, capacity and connectivity creates a much better user experience. Connectivity across clouds could be the most important feature of all, as standalone cloud environments can be as isolating as traditional IT infrastructure.

Some agencies have turned to the public internet to connect to clouds only to find that security and performance issues in using the public internet introduce more hurdles. Others have explored establishing dedicated links (via multiprotocol label switching extensions) from their network to each chosen cloud provider. However, this approach is expensive, requires more connections, takes months to provision and leads to vendor lock-in.

To achieve the promise of digital transformation, an interconnected government must use a new strategy to directly and securely connect people, locations, clouds and data. Integrating an interconnection-first approach with a cloud-first strategy enables digital users to gain access to multiple clouds from any location or any device. This paradigm accelerates a new level of interconnection to the multicloud environment and gives users the following benefits:

Government cloud pioneers are demonstrating real and significant cost savings. They are getting unprecedented abilities to scale up and down quickly, are not being locked in and even get enhanced levels of security. Although each agency has a unique mission, security requirements and IT landscapes, the benefits of an interconnected government address every possible scenario.

An interconnected cloud ecosystem creates a high-speed fabric of globally distributed cloud-based points of presence, expanded out to the digital edge. Just as the General Services Administration's Data Center Shared Services Marketplace is envisioned to be the central location where agencies can choose from an inventory of data center services, automated management tools and products to achieve efficiency and cost savings, an interconnected cloud ecosystem offers a neutral marketplace for providers and consumers to come together.

The government cloud marketplace is maturing, and agencies are becoming both providers and consumers of cloud services. This opens up new avenues for shared services. In order to fulfill the potential for an interconnected government, this platform layer of digital services requires participation by the broadest ecosystem of network and service providers so agencies can take advantage of all that digital transformation can offer.

About the Author

Jody McCann is senior director for government strategy and partnerships at Equinix.

Read the original post:

Catching up with an interconnected federal cloud - GCN.com

More than two thirds of businesses plan to increase their cloud computing spending in 2017, according to a new report from B2B research provider Clutch.

The report, which polled 283 IT professionals at businesses across the United States, also found that for almost half (47%) of organisations, increased cost is a key challenge with their cloud provider.

48% of those polled said they expect to increase their cloud computing spend by 11%-30% this year, compared to 14% of respondents for a 31-50% increase. 23% said they expect their spending to remain approximately flat.

Cloud is the new normal, said Jeremy Przygode, CEO of managed service provider Stratalux. When businesses need to evaluate new solutions, or need to do a hardware refresh on existing solutions cloud is the go-to solution to figure out how to do that.

45% of respondents said security was the biggest benefit of using the cloud, ahead of increased efficiency (41%), more data space (40%), flexibility (33%) and scalability (28%).

Przygode argues the transition towards public cloud is an inevitability. I believe that all roads lead to public cloud eventually, he said. Different companies have different pathways to it.

Some are going directly to public cloud; others are trying to build a private cloud first because they still want to retain control. But ultimately I believe that over time they will eventually become public cloud customers as well.

Only 37% of respondents said they are using a public cloud today, compared with 68% for private cloud, and 47% for hybrid cloud. Kevin Rubin, president and COO of Stratosphere Networks, explained: When you go with a hybrid solution, you have to make sure as a company its engineered properly to gain access to it.

Its a little bit more challenging but customising your cloud experience allows [a business] to leverage different toolsets that are truly drilled down to their department, their individuals, and how they do business.

You can read the full report here.

Link:

Report affirms continued cloud spend for US businesses in 2017 - Cloud Tech

Oracle Corp. co-founder and executive chairman Larry Ellison predicted three months ago the company's cloud-infrastructure business would "soon" grow faster than its other web-based, on-demand applications and services.

He didn't say then when soon would be. But it wasn't three months.

On Wednesday, Oracle reported fourth-quarter results that topped analysts' expectations, sending its stock soaring in after-market trading. The company also changed the way it reports its cloud-computing business.

Oracle is mixing its nascent infrastructure-as-a-service business, where it provides computing resources and storage on demand, with its more tenured business of selling access to app-management and data analytics tools, called platform-as-a-service.

In its fiscal fourth quarter, Oracle posted solid results in its cloud-infrastructure business, where it competes against leaders Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google. Revenue from the business rose 23% to $208 million.

The Redwood City, Calif., company's platform-as-a-service business, combined with its other cloud business that sells access to applications -- known as software-as-a-service -- saw revenue climb 67% to $1.15 billion for the quarter ended May 31.

Continue Reading Below

ADVERTISEMENT

Going forward, it isn't clear whether Oracle will continue to break out its progress in the cloud-infrastructure market. On a call with analysts, co-Chief Executive Safra Catz said Oracle combined its platform and infrastructure cloud businesses because "synergies and cross-selling between these two businesses is very high."

Over all, Oracle earned a profit of $3.23 billion, or 76 a share, in its fiscal fourth quarter, up from $2.81 billion, or 66 cents a share, a year earlier. The company said adjusted per-share earnings, which commonly exclude stock-based compensation and other items, were 89 cents.

Revenue rose 2.8% to $10.89 billion. Excluding the impact of a strong U.S. dollar, revenue would have grown 4%, the company said.

According to estimates gathered by S&P Global Market Intelligence, analysts expected Oracle to earn 78 cents a share on an adjusted basis, on revenue of $10.45 billion. Shares jumped 9.5% to $50.18 in recent after-hours trading.

Mr. Ellison has made building the cloud-infrastructure business one of Oracle's key missions, saying last summer "Amazon's lead is over" after introducing Oracle's latest technology for the market.

Amazon, though, continues to pull away. Its Amazon Web Services unit, whose net sales are largely comprised of its cloud-infrastructure business, grew 43% in the most recent quarter to $3.66 billion.

To keep pace with rivals in the cloud-infrastructure market, Oracle will need to meaningfully expand its capital spending and operating expenses, Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analyst Brad Reback recently wrote in a report.

Last year alone, Amazon, Microsoft and Google spent a combined $31.54 billion in 2016 on capital expenditures and leases, much of that on data centers to deliver cloud-infrastructure services.

Oracle spent $2.02 billion on capital expenditures, up from $1.19 billion a year earlier. That, in part, led to operating margins of 34%, compared with 43% in the previous fiscal year. The company has said it doesn't believe it needs to spend as much as rivals to catch up, arguing its technology is superior.

Mr. Reback, though, believes that the company will invest more in data centers to compete in the cloud-infrastructure market.

"They will need to continue to spend $2 billion or higher a year," Mr. Reback said in an interview.

Growth in Oracle's entire cloud business is outpacing the decline in its legacy business of selling licenses to software customers run on their own servers. The cloud business grew $502 million year-over-year while Oracle's new software-license revenue fell $140 million. It is the fourth-consecutive quarter in which Oracle's cloud-revenue gains outpaced declines in its legacy software business.

Over all, revenue from new software licenses fell 5% to $2.63 billion.

The biggest piece of Oracle's software business remains its massive software-license updates and product-support operations. That segment generated $4.9 billion in revenue, a 2% gain from a year earlier.

Write to Jay Greene at Jay.Greene@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 21, 2017 17:45 ET (21:45 GMT)

Read the original:

Cloud-Computing Business Lifts Oracle's Profit -- Update - Fox Business

It's not just Amazon that will make money from cloud computing and artificial intelligence, according to Wall Street.

Morgan Stanley believes Microsoft's Azure business will thrive riding the same hot technology trends.

The firm reiterated its overweight rating on Microsoft shares, predicting the company will report profits ahead of expectations next year due to cloud computing demand.

Microsoft's "top line drivers include the Azure (Microsoft emerging as a public cloud winner), data center (share gains and positive pricing trends), and O365 [Office 365] (base growth and per user pricing lift)," analyst Keith Weiss wrote in a note to clients Monday.

"With a strengthening secular positioning and rationalization of underperforming portions of the solution portfolio, Microsoft is back to showing durable double-digit EPS growth and investors should be willing to pay a higher multiple for that growth," he added.

Weiss raised his price target for Microsoft to $80 from $72, representing 14 percent upside from Friday's close.

The analyst cited how the growing "machine learning" [artificial intelligence] trend will spur demand for the company's Azure cloud computing services and it could add up to $110 billion in market value for Microsoft.

As a result, Weiss estimates Microsoft will generate fiscal 2018 earnings per share of $3.45 compared with the Wall Street consensus for $3.32.

"Windows 10 gives Microsoft an improved story on tablets, a new leg of rev. growth and downstream opps. for synergy with the Surface, Xbox, and the device ecosystem," he wrote.

CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this story.

Go here to see the original:

Microsoft will ride artificial intelligence, cloud computing to higher ... - CNBC

Internet connectivity is the great enabler of the 21st century global economy. Studies worldwide unequivocally link increases in Internet penetration rates and expansion of Internet infrastructure to improved education, employment rates, and overall GDP development. Over the next decade, the Internet will reinvent itself yet again in ways we can only imagine today, and cloud computing will be the primary operating platform of this revolution.

But not for everyone. Worldwide, the estimated Internet penetration rate ranges between 44% and 50%, much of which is through less productive mobile devices than desktop workstations. Overall, Internet penetration rates in developed countries stand at over twice that of underdeveloped economies. For many, high-quality Internet services are simply cost-prohibitive. Low-quality infrastructure and devices, unreliable connectivity, and low data rates relegate millions to a global online underclass that lack the resources and skills necessary to more fully participate in the global economy. First recognized as early as the 1990s, these persistent quantitative inequities in overall availability, usability, etc., demarcate a world of Internet "haves" and "have not's" known commonly as the "Digital Divide".

In the decade to come, cloud computing and computational capacity and storage as a service will transform the global economy in ways more substantial than the initial Internet revolution. Public data will become its own public resource that will drive smart cities, improve business processes, and enable innovation across multiple sectors. As the instrumented, data-driven world gathers momentum, well-postured economies will begin to make qualitative leaps ahead of others, creating an even greater chasm between the haves and have not's that we will call Digital Divide 2.0.

At one end of the chasm are modern information-driven economies that will exploit the foundational technologies of the initial Internet revolution to propel their economies forward as never before. In particular, cloud technologies will unleash new capabilities to innovate, collaborate and manage complex data sets that will facilitate start-ups, create new jobs, and improve public governance.

Meanwhile, many in the developing world will continue to struggle with the quantitative inequities of the first Digital Divide. Developing economies will very likely continue to make some progress; however, their inability to rapidly bridge the Internet capacity gap will inhibit them from fully participating in the emerging, instrumented economies of the developed world. Failing to keep pace, these economies will continue to face the perennial problems of lack of investment, lack of transparency within public institutions, and a persistent departure of talent to more developed economies.

In the early 1990s, there was much sloganeering and some real public policyin the United States regarding the development of "information superhighways" that would connect schools and libraries nationwide. Information sharing across educational institutions provided the critical mass for launching today's emerging information economy. However, implementation was uneven, and since that time there remain winners and losers, both nationally and globally.

As cloud computing emerges as the principal operating platform for the next-generation information economy, we are again challenged by many of the same questions from two decades ago: who will benefit most from the upcoming revolution? Will progress be limited solely to wealthy urban and suburban centers, already hard-wired with the necessary high-capacity infrastructure, and flush with raw, university-educated talent? Will poorer and rural economies be left to fall that much further behind?

Not necessarily. Industry experts and economists worldwide broadly recognize the tremendous latent economic value of cloud. Clever public-private partnerships in cloud adoption are reinvigorating and transforming municipalities. Shaping public policy begins with recognizing the transformative power of this technology and the role it can play in enabling a wide range of economic sectors.

Now is the time for public sector authorities, private enterprise, and global thought leaders to develop creative approaches to ensure some level of equity in global information technology access. Engagement now may help avoid repeating and exacerbating the original Digital Divide and posture cloud computing as a global enabler, rather than a global divider.

By Michael McMahon, Director, Cyber Strategy and Analysis at Innovative Analytics & Training

Related topics: Access Providers, Broadband, Cloud Computing, Data Center, Policy & Regulation

Read the original:

Cloud Computing and Digital Divide 2.0 - CircleID - CircleID

Augustine Doe, VP, Enterprise Risk Management, Network Health

Organizations continue to migrate dataone of their key assetsto the cloud for a variety of reasons: optimizing capacity, providing 24/7, 365-day access to data, backing up essential information, and improving collaboration between users. While such increased reliance on the cloud speaks to the multiple benefits the cloud provides, it also is forcing organizations to confront the various risks cloud computing poses. This article summarizes three practical considerations for any organization looking to reduce risk in cloud computing.

Inbound to the cloud: Encrypted or secured data passage to the cloud always reduces the risk of third-parties being able to intercept the data. This is particularly important for data likely to be used by bad actors for nefarious purposes. Payment Card Information (PCI), Protected Health Insurance (PHI), Personally Identifiable Information (PII), and Non-card Financial, and Confidential are among the most desirable kinds of data to bad actors.

At rest in the cloud: Reviewing the fine print in each cloud agreement regarding the type of security provided by the cloud owner when data is at rest goes a long way to enhancing an organizations overall cyber posture. Most fee-free cloud storage agreements provide little of any data protection, so an organization needs to perform its due diligence on the type of protection provided by the cloud provider in each cloud agreement.

Encrypted or secured data passage to the cloud always reduces the risk of third-parties being able to intercept the data

For instance, depending on the type of data and the location where it will be stored, the level of data security would need to comply with a specific minimum level as required by state, federal, and international laws. The organization should know what level of security their data must have to be compliant with any applicable laws.

Outbound data to users: An organizations data protection efforts come to naught if data leaving the cloud destined for users do not receive appropriate protection. As part of the organizations practices for managing third parties (e.g., vendors, reporting agencies, regulators, joint venture partners, franchisees, etc.), users of data should be constantly reviewed for sound data security practices, such as Service Organization Controls (SOC 1 and 2). Also, the organization needs to stay on top of its access, security, and change management protocols and controls and constantly educate employees and third parties about the importance of sharing each type of data through the appropriate medium.

Data containing PCI appears to be the data most desired by bad actors. According to Verizons 2016 Data Breach Report, 27 percent of 53,100 PCI records (using the median value of records for each type of data observed) experienced breach incidents compared to 11 percent of 1,000 PHI records; 48 percent of 761 PII records; and percent of 55 Non-card Financial records. Because PCI data is most desired, its movement in and out of the cloud should be afforded a higher level of protection, e.g., encryption, as part of any organizations overall data security management.

Bad actors are constantly exploring potential weak links to find easy ways to penetrate an organizations data value chain. The cloud should not be considered a shield nor does it by default make data more secure. Data on its way to the cloud, at rest in the cloud, and leaving the cloud should continue to be managed by the organizations appropriate security, change, and access management protocols and controls in real time. To assist organizations in performing real-time management, a variety of security firms provide year-round, 24/7 enforcement of security, change, and access management protocols and controls.

Cloud computing has become a staple of many organizations operations and several factors suggest both volume and demand will increase. First, the amount of data that organizations must analyze to make sound business decisions continues to grow and therefore organizations need to optimize capacity both to store and analyze data. Second, the ongoing maturation of the service sector in the U.S. economy means businesses need 24/7 access to data to remain competitive. Third, as bad actors become more and more sophisticated, organizations need to stay extra vigilant not only in protecting data but in having an avenue to recover data and to remediate in the event of corrupted data. Data backup is an excellent fallback position to deploy in the event of corrupted data. Finally, the increasing complexity and interconnectedness of business continues to push organizations to collaborate more with each other and the cloud provides a great avenue for this collaboration.

The optimal approach to managing risk in cloud computing is for an organization to clearly understand the security afforded its entire data value chain, the types of data that are most susceptible to loss or misuse, and for the organization to continue to enforce security, change, and access management protocols and controls in real time. Only when these steps are taken can an organization feel that it has a robust front for managing and protecting one of its most critical assets.

Read this article:

Three Considerations for Reducing Risk in Cloud Computing - CIOReview

Last January, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) issued a circularaddressed to both the national and local government prescribing the Philippine governments Cloud First Policy.

The policy is aimed at reducing the cost of government information and communications technology (ICT), increasing employee productivity, and developing better citizen online services through the use of cloud computing technology.

Various governments such as the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom have done similar Cloud First Policies.

So what is cloud computing?

The DICT defines cloud computing as a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g. networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.

Its characteristics include on-demand self service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity and measured service, the department explained.

Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1

What are the benefits that can be derived from using cloud computing technology? DICT says these are inter-agency collaboration, operational continuity and business recovery, faster deployment of services, greater budget control and decreased spending on legacy infrastructure.

The initial DICT GovCloud infrastructure was set up in 2013 by DOST-ICT Office as part of the Integrated Government Philippines (iGovPhil) Project which aims to provide cloud infrastructure access to government agencies.

And then, to pursue its cloud-first policy, government relaunched the Government Cloud or GovCloud initiative last March.

The DICT awarded the P373-million build, operate and transfer a complete cloud solution project to the Vibal Group, a cloud and education technology company which used to be known as a book publisher.

Vibal said GovCloud would use a hybrid cloud strategy that would use both private and public cloud, adding that creation of private in-country data center would ensure data security, while the off-premise public cloud would make online information and services readily available to government agencies.

The company then partnered with a number of technology firms, including Microsoft for the cloud undertaking. Vibal and Microsoft have been official partners since 2012, when Vibal made available its interactive e-books compatible to Windows OS.

Microsoft managing director Karrie Ilagan said their strength and commitment to security, privacy and transparency would empower the government to achieve the best for its citizens.

While cloud computing produces efficiency, productivity and would provide better citizen services, security is paramount to efficiency, especially with the advent of state-sponsored cyberattacks and cyber-espionage.

DICT launched the National CyberSecurity Plan of 2022 just last month in a bid to protect every single user of the internet in the country. This, of course, is timely especially since the Philippines is among the top 10 countries with malware threats.

With the increasing incidence of cyber espionage and cyberattacks initiated by nation-states, there is now a call for a Digital Geneva Convention, whereby governments should commit to avoiding attacking citizens, critical infrastructure and the private sector; reporting vulnerabilities rather than stockpiling, selling or exploiting them; pledging to aid in the containment and recovery from cyberattacks; and creating a trusted national and global IT infrastructure.

Microsoft offers what it calls a secure, trusted cloud which it emphasized is the most important value that it provides compared to other vendors.

Describing its trusted cloud, Microsoft assured that it helps protect data and has the most comprehensive compliance cover all over the world, including solutions for compliance with the Data Privacy Act of the Philippines, protects major IT systems reliably with Microsoft Disaster Recovery, and offers the most IT flexibility with a truly consistent hybrid cloud.

To show its commitment to a secure, trusted cloud, Microsoft has signed the ICT for Shared Prosperity Technology Manifesto with the DICT. It identifies national challenges and issues that need to be addressed, and key technology pillars that can help in championing and driving economic progress in the country.

Microsoft earlier announced that it would continue to invest $1 billion yearly on cybersecurity research and development in the coming years. The amount excludes acquisitions which the company may make in the sector.

The cloud has allowed companies like Microsoft to create much more sophisticated tools to guard against increasingly cunning attackers. Instead of having to manage their own security, companies also now tap cloud service providers like Microsoft to keep their data secure.

Microsoft has what it calls the Enterprise Mobility + Security that allows its clients to get identity-driven protection against todays attacks.

Its product named Azure is said to have the most comprehensive compliance coverage. It is the most trusted cloud for US government institutions.

With the Data Privacy Act of 2012, Microsoft says it has already designed Azure with industry-leading security measures and privacy policies to safeguard data in the cloud, including categories of personal data identified by the Data Privacy Act.

There is also Microsoft Dynamics 365 which are intelligent cloud applications that connect data across sources.

Microsoft explains that its cloud product combines the companys current customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning cloud services into a single service, and includes new, purpose-built applications to help manage specific business functions.

At the end of the day, it is the citizenry who will decide whether or not governments new policies and programs on ICT have improved the delivery of public services.

For comments, e-mail at philstarhiddenagenda@yahoo.com

See more here:

Cloud first - Philippine Star

Get inside Wall Street with StreetInsider Premium. Claim your 2-week free trial here.

GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ: GDS) today announced that it has signed a strategic partnership agreement (the Agreement) with Tencent Cloud Computing (Beijing) LLC (Tencent Cloud), under which GDS Holdings, recognized as preferred carrier-neutral data center provider, will provide secured and continuous data center resources to Tencent Cloud to support its ever-growing demand. The two parties will also work closely on cloud computing and related professional solution services to provide users with the best public cloud experiences.

Pertaining to the Strategic Partnership Agreement, GDS, as preferred carrier-neutral data center provider, will provide Tencent Cloud with secured and continuous data center resources to facilitate any incremental demand from Tencent Cloud. In addition, GDS will leverage its advantages in data center resources to facilitate Tencent Cloud in hybrid IT cooperation and jointly provide clients with hybrid IT total solutions that enable public cloud expansion and implementation, thus creating the most favorable platforms for Tencent Clouds deployment. The two parties will cooperate in data center design and high-quality operating standards while working closely in technology development, customer expansion and joint marketing activities, so as to drive and promote cloud-computing services in China.

It is a great pleasure to have GDS as our strategic partner in terms of carrier-neutral data center solutions and we welcome them as part of our cloud family, stated Mr. Yuepeng Qiu, Vice President of Tencent and President of Tencent Cloud. Our cloud business is undergoing rapid growth. GDSs extensive footprint in all key markets in China as well as its long track record of serving the most demanding customers, including ourselves, is exactly what we are looking for. We believe GDS can provide us with secured and continuous data center resources with high-quality operation standards as we accelerate our cloud deployment across China. The strategic partnership is beneficial to both parties. We look forward to providing more secured cloud solutions and services to our clients and helping to drive cloud adoption in China to a new level together with GDS.

We are delighted to be a strategic partner of Tencent Cloud, stated Mr. William Huang, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of GDS Holdings. Our recognition as preferred vendor by Tencent Cloud shows the extensive mutual trust and respect we have established with the Tencent organization. Cloud adoption is taking off in China and Tencent Cloud is a driving force. Our state-of-the-art data centers support this growth by functioning as hubs for cloud and enterprise customers, bringing both together with synergies that fuel growth and opportunities. We are proud to be working alongside Tencent Cloud, and together with our customers, look forward to paving the path for future cloud development in China.

Go here to read the rest:

GDS Holdings Limited (GDS) Announces Strategic Partnership with Tencent Cloud - StreetInsider.com

GeekWire File Photo.

Kicking off a week in which it plans to encourage American businesses to invest in China, Alibaba Group announced plans to give something back to the cloud computing community: Alibaba Cloud is now a member of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.

The Chinese internet giant plans to join the CNCF as a Gold member, putting it on the same level as rival Tencent. The CNCF, which is working to improve adoption of modern cloud-native software development technologies without setting standards, said in a statement that it was looking forward to more open-source contributions from the international cloud community.

Alibaba may not be a household name in the U.S., unless your household sells servers or enterprise computing technology. Nearly half a billion people mostly in China use one of Alibabas many services, from ecommerce to streaming video, and Intel has dubbed the company one of its super seven data center customers. The company is holding an event in Detroit this week with founder and executive chairman Jack Ma to pitch China as a source of new revenue for American businesses.

Alibaba Cloud is the leading cloud computing service in China, although it does face competition from Amazon Web Services and Microsoft there. On a global basis, it trails AWS, Microsoft, and Google by some margin, but Gartners latest Magic Quadrant report ranked it above more established U.S. cloud services like IBM and Oracle based on its belief in Alibabas ability to execute its cloud strategy.

Its definitely a significant addition for the CNCF, which now has a second source of cloud computing expertise in China through which to promote its member projects, most notably the Kubernetes container-orchestration project.

Read more here:

Chinese tech giant Alibaba joins key open-source cloud computing foundation - GeekWire

Amazon (AMZN) may have long been the leader in cloud computing with its Amazon Web Services, but that may change later this year as Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is finally able to surpass it.

Thats according to Pacific Crest Securities which late Friday said Azure, the cloud computing unit of Microsoft, could have more revenue that its main rival for the first time in 2017. In a research note covered by The Street, analyst Brent Bracelin predicted the rise of Microsoft for the first time in 10 years would transition the company from a cloud laggard to a cloud leader. Bracelin said he came to this conclusion after conducting an analysis of the 60 biggest cloud computing companies. It was revealed that the market is poised for primetime and has lots of growth opportunities. The analyst is predicting spending on cloud initiatives could explode to $239 billion in the span of five years, with the Redmond, Washington software giant benefiting the most from the growth. Bracelin pointed to what he called unmatched product depth and breadth" in software as a service, platform as a service and infrastructure as a service as the main reasons. (See also: Microsoft's Azure Cloud Revenue Estimated at $3B.)

While Microsoft still makes the lions share of its money through software sales, its cloud computing business continues to grow. For the three months ending in March, it said revenue in its Intelligent Cloud business came in at $6.8 billion, up 11% compared to the year ago and up 12% on a constant currency basis. During the third quarter, the company said server products and cloud services revenue increased 15%, driven by Azure cloud revenue growth of 93%. Our results this quarter reflect the trust customers are placing in the Microsoft Cloud, said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer at Microsoft said at the time. From large multi-nationals to small and medium businesses to non-profits all over the world, organizations are using Microsofts cloud platforms to power their digital transformation. (See also: Credit Suisse Bullish on Microsoft Cloud Business)

Pacific Crest isnt writing off Amazon completely in the cloud market, despite predicting the rise of its main rival and even though it has seen revenue growth at AWS decline for seven quarters in a row. Bracelin said that business appears to be increasing during the second quarter, with revenue growth of 9% sequentially forecasted. "We remain bullish on the five year prospects for AWS and are encouraged by 2Q cloud activity picking up," Bracelin wrote. "However, investor optimism is partially reflected in the valuation."

Read the original post:

Microsoft Could Surpass Amazon in Cloud Computing This Year (AMZN, MSFT) - Investopedia