penlau software

At the recent Structure 2010 “Year of the Cloud” conference, Amazon.com CTO Werner Vogels railed against “the false cloud”–the idea that cloud computing can be done internally, within an enterprise. The “true cloud” in this worldview can only be realized using the facilities and resources of network-accessible service provider. Anything else? False. A misappropriation of the cloud name and concept–a pretender that cannot deliver the benefits of cloud computing. Oddly, another big theme of the conference was the idea that cloud is not defined[....]

An article about Apple’s plan to “soon” launch a cloud service featuring music and movies stirred up a great deal of speculation on Thursday. “Soon,” however, is a relative term because Apple has yet to snag licenses from the top four music labels, sources tell CNET. To stream music, Steve Jobs likely needs licenses, and he doesn't have them yet. (Credit:James Martin/CNET) The Boy Genius Report’s article cited an anonymous source who declared that the Apple service will offer “streaming music and movies from Apple’s servers to your[....]

Microsoft is trying to help midsize business keep their PCs in tune. On Monday, the software maker is set to launch a beta for Windows Intune, a service that uses the cloud to offer management, patching, and antivirus capabilities for a company’s PCs. When it launches in final form, the Intune service will also include upgrade rights for a company to move its PCs to the enterprise edition ofWindows 7. It will also include the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, a collection of asset management, virtualization, and other services that typically are only available for large businesses[....]

Moving server software to the cloud has a lot of advantages. A company no longer has to worry about patches, deploying upgrades, and an number of other concerns. But it also has one big downside–one that many CIOs are still struggling with–a the loss of control. “They do lose control, when they move to a cloud-based service, of some things,” Microsoft Senior Vice President Chris Capossela said during a lunch meeting on Wednesday. “They lose control of when things get updates. They lose control of saying ‘no’ to some new[....]

The U.K.’s House of Commons overwhelmingly voted in favor of creating a law that would enable copyright owners to seek the suspension of Internet service of those accused multiple times of illegal file sharing. The House of Commons voted 189 to 47 to pass the Digital Economy Bill, which also seeks to give the country’s government the authority to block access to Web sites suspected of engaging in pirated material, according to British publication The Telegraph. The bill still needs to go back to the House of Lords, which is nothing more than a formality since that’s[....]

“Cloud computing” is so overused and overhyped that it doesn’t really mean anything anymore. It’s has become kind of a vague “what comes next in IT” label, with no specific meaning, applied indiscriminately to whatever the latest vendor to stop by wants to sell us today. I now hear this complaint with great regularity–but I don’t entirely agree. Sure, every vendor is eagerly “cloud washing” whatever products or initiatives they have to fit in with the latest buzzhype. And the “cloud” term is thrown around with pretty[....]

For anyone hoping that a cloud-based music service will launch with theiPad this Saturday, disappointment is lurking. Music industry sources told CNET this week Apple has informed label managers that a streaming music service is unlikely to be ready before the third quarter. It will be a disappointment for iTunes fans who have been speculating as to when Apple might use music site Lala–which Apple acquired in December–for its streaming expertise to launch a cloud-based music service. Some had hoped such a service might arrive when Apple unveiled the iPad tablet in January, but[....]

For anyone hoping that a cloud-based music service will launch with the iPad this Saturday, disappointment is lurking. Music industry sources told CNET this week Apple has informed label managers that a streaming music service is unlikely to be ready before the third quarter. It will be a disappointment for iTunes fans who have been speculating as to when Apple might use music site Lala–which Apple acquired in December–for its streaming expertise to launch a cloud-based music service. Some had hoped such as service might arrive when Apple unveiled the iPad tablet in January,[....]

Microsoft’s data center of the future will be more like a trailer park. Only the concrete pad will need to be built on-site, with everything else shipped in as a pre-manufactured unit. That’s a step beyond the current approach, used in places like the company’s massive new Chicago data center, where Microsoft has the servers shipped in a container but still requires a traditional building to provide water and cooling. A proof-of-concept version of the prefab units that will make up Microsoft's data center of the future. (Credit:Microsoft) Data centers are key to the[....]

This year will be a transitional year for marketing as we move toward an era that is “more immediate, more personal, more social, and more engaging,” according to recently released survey data from marketing software developer Unica. Really what this means is that marketers have to be much more vigilant about managing their various presences, online and off, in order to stay on top of their brand. While there are more tools and channels for marketers than ever before, marketing budgets haven’t risen dramatically. This means that marketers will need to use technology to[....]

When you’re an up-and-coming free blog service like Posterous, with some big name users on your books, then you need to ensure your web hosting is up to scratch. To that end, Posterous has chosen The Rackspace Cloud to handle its hosting requirements. The move means that the multimedia files users send to the Posterous service, for publication and dissemination via a number of other online services, will be stored on Rackspace’s Cloud Files. Also being handled is company email and a range of application servers. Posterous co-founder Sachin Agrawal said that the new deal means[....]