Cloud computing a priority initiative - Google

[GoFlyKiteNow]

Google to make Cloud computing a priority initiative

BANGALORE: Google’s engineering initiatives in cloud computing (enterprise solutions) will be led by its centers in Bangalore and Hyderabad. The company’s president for enterprise, Dave Girouard, who was in Bangalore on Tuesday, said India would be a ‘Center of Excellence’ for the company in cloud computing.

“India will become the largest enterprise development center for us,” he said. Enterprise work also happens in Google’s centers in Mountain View in California, Kirkland in the state of Washington, and Stockholm.

Google has some 500 engineers in India and Girouard said the company intends to hire “hundreds” more.

The Hyderabad center already has a focus on cloud computing. Bangalore is currently focused on work related to search, advertisements and mobile, and the plan now is to create a cloud computing team here too.

Google’s cloud computing offerings are partly an extension of its consumer offerings — like Gmail, Docs and Calendar — to businesses. Docs include web-based documents, spreadsheets, drawings and presentations that let users edit the same file at the same time.

Calendar is a web-based application that enables employees to easily schedule appointments, overlay multiple calendars to see when people are available, integrate with your email system, and share project calendars across the company or with co-workers.

The company also offers an application called Google Sites that is an easy way to create secure web pages for intranets and team projects, and an application for private, hosted video sharing.

Most such applications are currently licensed by companies and hosted in in-house data centers. Google is trying to persuade companies to move everything to the cloud, so that companies can dispense with issues of maintaining a data center and doing software upgrades.

Google started its enterprise initiative only three years ago, in 2007. The company says it now has 2 million businesses, with 25 million active users, as customers. In India, those numbers are 100,000 and 1 million respectively. “Compared to a year ago, we are now seeing three times as many businesses signing up for our cloud offering,” Girouard said.

As part of the initiative, Peeyush Ranjan, who leads Google’s enterprise related engineering efforts worldwide, has relocated to Bangalore, from the company’s Mountain View headquarters.

 

[zuoom]

how would all these cloud computing be affected with the "kill switch" as proposed in the states?

 

[GoFlyKiteNow]

Microsoft partners worry over cloud-computing role

Microsoft partners worry over cloud-computing role
Originally published Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 6:37 PM
By Sharon Pian Chan
Seattle Times technology reporter

WASHINGTON — As Microsoft continued a full-court press to get its partner companies to sell cloud-computing services, some of them were still scratching their heads over whether Microsoft's advances in cloud computing could end up biting into a chunk of their own businesses.

Their questions came as Microsoft announced new products and sales-support programs at its Worldwide Partner Conference this week that are aimed at helping partners make the jump.

About 13,000 people representing companies that resell, build on and sell services based on Microsoft products are attending the conference at the Washington Convention Center.

Microsoft has said it's "all in" when it comes to cloud computing, the next technology frontier where people will access software and data stored on the Internet using devices such as the phone, tablet and computer, rather than just from software contained in a single computer or laptop. Facebook, Google Docs and iTunes are examples of cloud-computing applications.

The shift to selling cloud services would be dramatic for many of Microsoft's partners. Many make money selling, installing and managing Microsoft software.

For instance, they might help a corporate customer upgrade all its computers to Windows 7 and Office 2010 then manage the computers to make sure they have the latest updates and virus protection.

Some of the new products announced this week will make Microsoft the software manager, via the Internet, and some partners are concerned their services will no longer be needed.

"A lot of partners are struggling [with] exactly how we're going to manipulate and change the business model from being an infrastructure provider to being a trusted adviser," said Jamison West, chief executive of JWCS, a technology-services provider and Microsoft Gold Certified partner in Seattle.

Since Microsoft was founded, the company has depended on its partners to sell Microsoft software to corporate customers. Those partners, which number more than 640,000, include Web hosters, data-center providers, IT services companies and telecom companies.

Many aspects of Microsoft's cloud computing could end up in direct competition with them.

The company, for instance, is building massive data centers on different continents to host software and data for corporate customers. Those centers could compete with data-center providers.

 

[GoFlyKiteNow]

eBay To Use Microsoft Cloud Computing Technology

eBay To Use Microsoft Cloud Computing Technology
By Chad Catacchio Follow Chad Catacchio July 12th, 2010

eBay will start using Microsoft’s cloud computing platform appliance Windows Azure in their datacenters starting this year.

The announcement came today at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington DC.

eBay has already been testing Microsoft’s cloud computing platform by hosting – somewhat ironically – their iPad listings store http://ipad.ebay.com. The new agreement, however, means that the Windows Azure appliance will be installed directly into eBay’s datacenters, with both companies putting in engineering expertise to make the overall system work.

Obviously the big news here is: eBay isn’t going with Amazon. Of course, eBay and Amazon are competitors to a certain degree, so that makes a bit of sense, but still, Microsoft has got to be very pleased to have such a high profile partner to highlight that they are firmly in the cloud computing race.

If you want to hear more about this agreement, here’s a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95SUIeu2N14&feature=player_embedded

 

[GoFlyKiteNow]

Cloud computing: A 3.3 Trillion USD biz - Microsoft

Where Microsoft stands on cloud computing

By Network World Staff, Network World
June 17, 2010 06:55 PM ET

Microsoft is betting on the cloud to provide the next wave of innovation and opportunities for technologists, businesses and consumers. CEO Steve Ballmer has said that the vendor is “all in” for the cloud, which potentially represents a $3.3 trillion opportunity.

Microsoft is firmly on the cloud-computing bandwagon and with good reason -- it can make more money by doing so, even as it helps customers cut costs, said business division head Stephen Elop. Microsoft is not only selling applications via the cloud, but raw computing power and a development platform with its Azure service. "We're going after more of the pot."

Microsoft has 40,000 people employed building software around the globe, and about 70% of those folks are doing something for the cloud, Steve Ballmer said during a March address at the University of Washington.

Microsoft Corp sees India as the global hub for cloud computing, the concept of renting computing power that has taken the technology world by storm and in the words of the NYT, what Silicon Valley cannot seem to get its head out of. ( Watch )

“India will not only see a surge in cloud computing services but companies all over the world will look to India to support their transition to cloud computing,’’ Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said on Thursday.
.
Due to an early emphasis on getting the right architecture for its Azure cloud platform, which went live in February, Microsoft's cloud service is still missing key features that are available in the company's standalone products, said Microsoft executives at the company's 2010 Tech Ed conference.

Microsoft has begun upgrading cloud-based Exchange and SharePoint services to its 2010 offerings, but the migration is expected to last all year and many customers may see only a "preview" version of the technology in 2010. Exchange 2010 shipped last November, and SharePoint 2010 was released in May of this year

 

[GoFlyKiteNow]

Could the Cloud be the end to Digital Piracy?

Could the Cloud be an end to Digital Piracy?
Jun 25 2010 11:58PM GMT

Could the cloud have finally caught up with digital piracy? Can the developer finally have what is owed to them?

With the advent of software development came a new kind of property rights i.e. the protection of ones intellectual property.

Now with a new licensing policy(pay as you go or as you use) and a bit of ingenuity I believe the market leaders in Cloud Computing- SalesForce and Google- have finally bitten the Pirates.

How do you ask might they have done this?

First: By keeping everything on the cloud, all software is developed and stored away safely on their server farms in all their data warehouses spread around the world and hence not giving the pirates a chance too look under the hood to find out what can be ripped off. Hence no code is coming through your processor hence no chance for hackers to reverse engineer the binary code or break-it down as it goes into the processor.

Second: You pay for what you use, this is has always been a selling point for the masses, you buy what you need for yourself its basic as human nature. The problem with many other software licensing model, which I personally think need to change since they are broken is that everyone pays the same price whether your are a large cooperation or a small enterprise or a user seating at home. If they split it into all this categories then you get the short end of the stick, by getting some watered down version of the original software forcing you either to cough up more money or head the software piracy way, its a thin line.

Third: Another area the cloud is getting my vote is license buying, I buy as many as I need to use today and I can keep truck of what I’m using, the old licensing model is too close to call. This is how it works, I get CD I Pay for 100 User licenses, If I install it in 101 User PC, then that’s a serious license violation and I’m pirating, however if my numbers go down to 99 we are cool.

Fourth: I don’t have to buy so many peripherals or need anyone that will bump up my expenditure to make it work. With the current traditional software it does not just stop at buying it, I have to budget for buying some expensive hardware to run it on, then I can’t get away with just that I have to have a number of well trained and qualified friends hanging around me to install it and get it working right, and call them in ever so often to show me where what is.
.

 

[Glaringly]

Re: Cloud computing: A 3.3 Trillion USD biz - Microsoft

I'll be extremely worried if India becomes the Global hub for cloud computing.

I remember years back when the company I am working have a direct lease circuit to Bangalore. I had many nightmares supporting it, since on some days of the week it will just disappear without trace, any chance of getting it to work is totally out of the question. Then it finally dawn on us that because of the lack of circuits ( network cable ), our company circuit on is put on round robin usage, some days they are used by other companies, though our contract is 365 days a year.

 

[FlipSide]

Re: Cloud computing: A 3.3 Trillion USD biz - Microsoft

Where Microsoft stands on cloud computing

By Network World Staff, Network World
June 17, 2010 06:55 PM ET

Microsoft is betting on the cloud to provide the next wave of innovation and opportunities for technologists, businesses and consumers. CEO Steve Ballmer has said that the vendor is “all in” for the cloud, which potentially represents a $3.3 trillion opportunity.

Microsoft is firmly on the cloud-computing bandwagon and with good reason -- it can make more money by doing so, even as it helps customers cut costs, said business division head Stephen Elop. Microsoft is not only selling applications via the cloud, but raw computing power and a development platform with its Azure service. "We're going after more of the pot."

Microsoft has 40,000 people employed building software around the globe, and about 70% of those folks are doing something for the cloud, Steve Ballmer said during a March address at the University of Washington.

Microsoft Corp sees India as the global hub for cloud computing, the concept of renting computing power that has taken the technology world by storm and in the words of the NYT, what Silicon Valley cannot seem to get its head out of. ( Watch )

“India will not only see a surge in cloud computing services but companies all over the world will look to India to support their transition to cloud computing,’’ Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said on Thursday.
.
Due to an early emphasis on getting the right architecture for its Azure c

Other big companies like Oracle and SAP. I do not know how they will be able to cope with this Cloud technology. Their application process are somewhat different.