Introduction to Cloud Computing for Corporate Users

Amy's Blog has a nice Power-Point presentation that she has graciously shared introducing Cloud Computing to the Corporate User.

Digital Media Presentation

View more presentations from gdevey.

Convergence of Cloud and Web 3.0 is Coming; Getting there Will be a Bumpy Ride.

Ted Hoy, vice president of product at Digital River, a leading provider of global e-commerce services, has a nice post on Adotas about how Web 3.0 and the Cloud are converging. "Imagine," he says, "getting a new laptop computer during the holidays, starting it up and automatically having your personal files, pictures and address books at your fingertips without ever having to transfer or load a single application or document. With a few clicks and a single login, your information is right there." Concepts like this "will be pervasive in a few years with the evolution of Web 3.0 and cloud computing. The implications of this shift are far reaching for not only consumers but also businesses, especially software publishers and other high-tech companies that have a significant Web presence. In fact, the paradigm for e-commerce and the business models that support it have already started to change.

However, the path to Web 3.0, like its predecessors, is going to be more of journey rather than an event."

EyeOnTheCloud couldn't agree more. Read Hoy's entire post on the Adotas website.

EyeOnTheCloud believes that this convergence will have a more profound effect on society than even the PC and Internet revolutions that preceded it, and will fundamentally change behavior of both businesses and users in ways that we are only beginning to imagine and which we can't fully comprehend.

So hang on. It's going to be a fun ride.

Indicee - Business Intelligence in the Cloud - Raises $6 million

Business intelligence is crucial to both big and small companies. Indicee is a startup that that helps users easily combine data from their business applications and generate reports using Indicee’s cloud-based service. It essentially wants to bring bring reporting and analysis to the “masses” with a cost-effective solution to mashup business data.

Indicee, based in Vancouver, BC just completed a $6 million Series A round from Granite Ventures andYaletown Ventures. Their technology taps into data from business applications and content from productivity software such as Excel, and others and automatically builds reports and analysis for this data in the cloud. Users can ask business questions in plain English, which Indicee then responds with reports and visualizations that are produced from on-demand from data uploaded to the cloud.

Indicee users also share data securely with colleagues or associates in an online community/social exchange. The software was recently released to beta testers, including Mary Kay Cosmetics, Alco Ventures and Sage Software.

Read more at http://www.ccortez.com/Z/?N=38860.

Indicee is on the web at http://www.indicee.com/

Rackspace Experiences Power Outages and Growing Pains; to Present at Goldman Sachs Conference

Rackspace, a public company (NYSE: RAX) that is a leading provider of hosting services and also aims to be a substantial provider of Cloud Computing hosting infrastructure, has experienced some growing pains. According to Network World, it needed to apoloze again for a power outage in its Dallas-Fort Worth data center that required a "hard re-boot to occur on a portion of our cloud infrastructure," Rackspace said. Rackspace previously suffered outages in June and July. Going forward, Network World said Rackspace  is reviewing its policies for maintenance notifications, and reviewing procedures and systems to ensure quick resumption of service in case of events like the one this week."We have invested massively in the DFW facility to ensure it delivers at a level you expect from Rackspace,"  "Despite last night, we feel very good about our plan and have high confidence in the DFW facility – clearly we have to prove it," the Company said in a letter to customers.


As migration to highly scalable cloud computing services steps up, users are increasingly concerned about reliability and security in the Cloud.


Separately, Rackspace announced that Lew Moorman, President of Rackspace’s Cloud business and Chief Strategy Officer, will present at the Goldman Sachs Data Center Techtonics Conference in New York City on Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 10:15 a.m. EST.

John Engates, Chief Technology Officer, will present on a cloud computing panel at the Thomas Weisel Partners Emerging Communications Conference in New York City on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 11:00 a.m. EST. Audio webcasts of the events will be made available on Rackspace’s website, located at ir.rackspace.com.

Thanks to my editor, Theron Shreve for drawing the outage to my attention.

Gartner Group Projects $150 Billion Cloud Computing Market by 2013

eWeek, in its coverage of the well-attended  Cloud Computing Conference & Expo  reports that Cloud Computing is projected to become a very big business very soon. Gartner analysts in March 2009 said global cloud services revenue could move beyond $56.3 billion this year—from $46.4 billion in 2008—and grow to $150.1 billion in 2013. IDC was more tempered in its projections, calling for worldwide spending on cloud services to reach $42 billion by 2012.