IBM CloudSmart Docs: Recipe To Dethrone Office 365, Google Docs? IBM has its eyes set on enterprise level end-user cloud services. The IT deployment and consultancy giant has recently sprinkled the essentials to its cloud arsenal with one core intent - to take out similar offerings from Google and Microsoft once and for all. This time over, its a novel cloud-based software suite studded with office productivity applications. Dubbed the IBM SmartClouds Docs, the compendium provides online environment for collaborative (plus solo) creation, editing, sharing of word, spreadsheet and presentation documents – stuff you’re probably used to getting done via Google Docs or Microsoft Office
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The Storage Wars: Microsoft Hops Onto The Price-shed Bandwagon Last week’s wrap-up of the on-going cloud storage price wars between Google and Amazon ended off with a humble suggestion for Microsoft: wait for nothing and plunge straight into the cloud storage price-drop showdown. It turns out that the software giant actually did make up its mind to join the party real soon, responding to the soaring market competition in style. Microsoft made a pronounced entry into the ballroom by announcing price sheds for its Windows Azure Storage, and that as well, as much as a hefty 28 percent (how’s that for a stunner). “Reducing prices
Robin Hood Gone Evil: Loophole Leading To Cloud Pickpocketing Identified Researchers at North Carolina State university and University of Oregon have proposed a jaw-dropping price tag for performing heavy duty cloud computing task – as low as zero dollars. Experiments reveal that cloud-based web browsers can be exploited to hijack the underlying computational power, and that as well, in total anonymity. The result could be as unforgivable as cloud computing time theft of mammoth proportions. The pickpocketed resources, once fallen into the wrong hands, can be used for just about anything, including brute force password crack attempts, denial of service attacks and other genres
The Storage Wars: Google and Amazon Battle It Out, Microsoft Turns Turtle The past week witnessed Google and Amazon slashing the price tag associated with their respective cloud storage services one after the other. Interestingly, the price lowering spree from both the giants seems more like an immediate business reflex rather than a thoroughly chalked out pricing plan. Google started the sequel by introducing to the world a novel storage form, the Durable Reduced Availability, priced at a mere $ 0.7 per gigabyte per month. This translated to a price reduction as significant as 20 percent on Google’s storage solutions, setting off shockwaves at the Amazon
Land Of Opportunities: Irish Cloud Centre Secures €5m In Funding From The Government The government of Ireland has seeded about €5m to fuel the state-of-the-art cloud technology initiative – the Irish Center for Cloud Computing and Commerce. A whooping 8,500 new jobs are expected to spring from the Irish government’s decision. The centre is set to be primarily established at the Dublin City University, with supplementary research support dispersed to sister institutions: University College Cork and Athlone Institute of Technology. At the very core of the initiative lies an utterly strong industrial linkage with giants likes of Microsoft, IBM, Intel and Fujitsu constituting the technology
Air Traffic Management Set To Meet Cloud Technology After revolutionizing domains like industrial design and engineering simulation, cloud computing is now set to drastically modify air traffic management technology. In a recent proceeding, General Electric Company and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (that’s NASA) have teamed up to undertake a project aimed at incorporating cloud computing into conventional air traffic management solutions. The multi-million dollar arrangement will permit airline personnel and air traffic experts to carry out their usual (and utterly critical) business in an efficient manner. As an outcome of the project, flight critical real-time information will no longer
Autodesk Cloud Offering To Slash Simulation Cost, Startups Rejoice In a move aimed to strengthen its cloud computing solution product line, Autodesk has recently revealed the latest in its cloud based simulation offerings. Called the Autodesk Simulation 360, the tool set provides a diverse suite of online core-engineering analysis software based on a pay-as-you-go billing mechanism. The product mounts on top of prior cloud initiatives like the Autodesk PLM 360, a collection of collaborative cloud based subroutines for quality enhancement, product introduction, conformity management and expense control. Other significant players belonging to Autodesk’s cloud computing arsenal are Project Cumulus and
Towards Intelligent Cloud Diagnostics: Well Researched Software Marvel A devoted group of researchers at North Carolina State University have painstakingly developed a novel software tool aimed at addressing performance disarrays in cloud computing systems. The tool functions to automatically classify and respond to potential network disruptions before they actually occur. Cloud computing provides the freedom of creating numerous virtual machines provided to the end-users across a single computing platform – all that functions autonomously. Performance issues with such an approach are bound to occur. In case of a software glitch or a closely related hiccup, problems arising across a single
