Microsoft
Amazon AWS Lowers On-Demand and Reserved Prices
Sep 2nd
Amazon AWS Lowers On-Demand and Reserved Prices
Effective immediately, we have lowered the On-Demand and Reserved prices for High Memory Double Extra Large (m2.2xlarge) and Quadruple Extra Large (m2.4xlarge) instances for Linux/UNIX and Windows by up to 19%. If you have existing Reserved Instances, your hourly usage rate starting 
September 1st will be lowered to the new usage rate and your estimated bill will reflect these changes later this month. We continuously strive to be more efficient, and are excited to pass cost savings on to you in the form of lower prices.
Beyond this price reduction, there are several other ways that you can save money when using Amazon EC2. Compared to On-Demand instance pricing, Reserved Instances enable you to reduce the cost of your instances by up to 56%. When using Reserved Instances, you pay a low, one-time fee and in turn receive a significant discount on the hourly usage charge for that instance during a 1 or 3 years period. After the one-time payment for an instance, that instance is reserved for you; you may choose to run that instance for the discounted usage rate for the duration of your term, or when you do not use the instance, you will not pay usage charges on it. Spot Instances also are available, which allow you to bid on unused Amazon EC2 capacity and run your instances for as long as your bid exceeds the current Spot Price. For customers who have flexibility in when they can run their instances, Spot Instances can significantly lower their Amazon EC2 costs.
You can find more detailed information about these options at http://aws.amazon.com/ec2.
Source Amazon
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10 Hot Cloud Reseller Partner Programs
Sep 1st
10 Hot Cloud Reseller Partner Programs
Here is a list of 10 Hot Cloud Computing Reseller Programs on the internet. If we missed you don’t worry about it I’m sure we’ll hear from you. You can expect this list to be updated regularly. so if you have a program that you believe is worthy of a mention, let us know and we’ll see what we can do.
Google Apps
The Google Apps Authorized Reseller Program offers IT solution providers the ability to take Google Apps – a cloud-based suite of email, calendar, IM, and collaboration tools – to new and existing customers. Watch the Quick Tour video. 
As one of the global leaders in SaaS, Google Apps has experienced accelerating adoption with thousands of businesses signing up daily and over 2 million companies already using this solution to improve their business with better messaging and collaboration tools. Hear why more and more companies are going Google.
SoftLayer Cloud
The SoftLayer Reseller Program provides qualified hosting resellers with exceptional benefits as well as confidence that they are delivering their end customers a service with the highest performance and reliability. With SoftLayer, “value-adding” hosting resellers can better fulfill their end customer’s needs and grow their own services on demand.
The program gives resellers non-exclusive rights to offer standard SoftLayer services as well as products not sold directly under the SoftLayer name brand. Resellers receive generous volume discounts on dedicated server and upgrade purchases, setup fees and more. Resellers also receive preferred services, including a customized customer portal and auto-provisioned server delivery within 2 to 4 hours on components in stock.
RedHat Cloud Partner Program
A Red Hat Certified Cloud Provider offers a trusted destination for Red Hat customers, ISVs, and partners to use Red Hat technologies in public clouds, and meets rigorous testing and certification requirements to ensure the delivery of a safe, scalable, supported, and consistent environment for enterprise cloud deployments.
Through the Certified Cloud Provider Program, Red Hat has established the industry’s first program to certify that vendors have tested the cloud and have support processes in place to quickly resolve problems should they occur.
OpSource Reseller Program
OpSource’s Distribution Partners provide systems integration and outsourced solutions that include cloud or managed hosting. These partners resell OpSource solutions. Distribution Partners, including systems integrators, MSPs and VARs must be generate more revenue from services rather than rely on decreasing margins on hardware and software. Cloud computing represents an opportunity to translate expertise in infrastructure, network and software solutions into cloud hosting services revenue.
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Cloud Computing is Changing the Way Business is Done
Aug 24th
Cloud Computing is Changing the Way Business is Done
The Old Model
Not too long ago hardly any one was using Google Apps for accessing and updating their documents, now it appears almost everyone uses Google docs when connected to the Internet instead of The Microsoft Office tools. Similarly some 2-3 years ago there were just a few top notch video games available on the Internet, but now users can play games without installing the software on their PC.
It’s real, Cloud Gaming is on the move!
In the near future almost everyone will be using online applications for their office and business purposes. Google, Amazon, Salesforce, IBM and Oracle are the main players in the market to offer their clients almost all types of IT infrastructure and business solutions. This concept of shared hardware and software resources among many users is the basis of cloud computing. These resources are owned and provided by vendors who charge the users on utility based methods.
The New Cloud Model
GLOBAL SHIFT
The shift in Cloud computing is actually a paradigm shift from the client-server technology. Cloud computing is completely changing the way computing work is done in the business world. The major IT giants have already prepared themselves for this inevitable shift. They have already built data centers, launched different cloud based technologies, offered PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) to businesses around the world.
Doing Corporate Functions in the Cloud
Office workers will now be able to perform routine and new activities using PaaS and SaaS. This is more efficient not only in terms of time and money, but in quality and agility as well. Corporations will not need to worry about their increasing storage demands as Cloud computing offers economic and practical pricing model. These services are low priced, scalable, agile, and have utility based billing methods.
In Search of the Best Proportion
Concerns with the reliability, security and legal issues, there will still be a need for private clouds or at least private servers. Many financial and health related companies are bound by law to keep their client’s record personal and in their own storage locations. This limitation will force such companies to use hybrid cloud – a mixture of private and public cloud. Using hybrid clouds will let enterprises keep their confidential and desired data in their own private storage location.
By CloudTweaks
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Microsoft and Salesforce Kiss and Make Up
Aug 5th
SAN FRANCISCO – Software manufacturing leading corporation Microsoft has revealed it has reached a deal to resolve a patent duel with Salesforce.com – a cloud computing firm.
Each had brought a lawsuit in the US court accusing the other to have violated its patented technology.
Under the terms and conditions of the agreement, both companies will have the rights to use each others technology. It was also decided that Salesforce.com will pay compensation to Microsoft, though the amount to be paid was not revealed.
“We are pleased to reach this agreement with Salesforce.com to put an end to the litigation between our two companies,” said Horacio Gutierrez – Microsoft corporate Vice President.
“Today’s agreement is an example of how companies can compete vigorously in the marketplace while respecting each other’s intellectual property rights.”
The legal duel arose as Microsoft is finding it hard to accustom itself with latest trends of programs being shared as services in the internet cloud instead of being purchased, installed, and maintained on individual computers.
Microsoft manufactured its trend defining software such as Office, outlook, and Windows, whereas San Francisco-based Salesforce has rapidly become popular and prospering name in cloud computing.
Microsoft has introduced Windows Azure cloud Platform providing wide range of live services offered through web.
Salesforce filed a litigation in June against Microsoft for violating its patent rights, apparently as retaliation for similar lawsuit that the US technology giant filed against Salesforce in May.
Various Sources
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Cloud Computing Is Here to Stay! Forbes
Aug 3rd
Cloud Computing Is Here to Stay!
For some, this summer is shaping up to be the “Summer of Cloud Computing,” with every major technology vendor announcing products, or at least a strategy for the cloud. For others, this seems to be the “Summer of Cloud Computing Hype.” There’s been a fair amount of debate of late about which side of the fence cloud computing resides on. I don’t think there is even a question: Cloud computing is here to stay.
To me, the better question is whether or not we, as the entire IT ecosystem, can adapt quickly enough to serve the needs of the cloud. I believe we can. Take for example the recent announcement by VMware for its vSphere 4.1 software product that addresses one of the core issues with cloud computing–manageability. Or Microsoft‘s ( MSFT – news – people ) announcement of the Windows Azure Platform appliance, which is intended to enable IT to transform traditional infrastructure to a private cloud based on Microsoft’s familiar OS, application, management and tools technologies. And we can’t forget the cloud with the red lining, Red Hat ( RHT – news – people ) Cloud Foundations Edition One, which is an architecture that allows clients to construct cloud infrastructures based on open source software technologies.
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Google cloud-computing applications get certification for federal government use
Aug 1st
Google cloud-computing applications get certification for federal government use
Google wants the federal government to use its e-mail.
The company earned federal certification last week for its cloud-based e-mail, calendar and other collaboration applications after the General Services Administration determined they met moderate-level federal security requirements.
It’s the first cloud-based suite to earn such accreditation and serves as an impetus for the Mountain View, Calif.-based giant to ramp up its sales efforts in Washington, said David Mihalchik, Google’s federal business development executive.
“We hear them tell us that federal employees are clamoring for the same technology [at work that] they have at home,” Mihalchik said. “What we’ve done is to certify Google Apps so that government has an apples-to-apples comparison of their existing system and Google Apps.”
Once largely absent from Washington, Google has expanded its reach here in recent years, mainly to lobby on Internet and antitrust policies. Its offices in Reston and north of Metro Center currently contain about 30 employees each.
But the notion of the federal government as a potential customer has only begun to take shape as lawmakers and executives look to cut information technology costs with cloud computing, a burgeoning trend whereby organizations receive IT services and software via the Internet.
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Cloud Computing Analysts encouraged by Microsoft’s ‘cloud’ progress
Jul 31st
Cloud Computing Analysts encouraged by Microsoft’s ‘cloud’ progress
SEATTLE (MarketWatch) — Wall Street analysts came away from Microsoft Corp.’s annual gathering encouraged by the company’s progress in adapting to a market in which software applications are increasingly delivered online, according to research reports published Friday.
Microsoft increasingly has been moving into so-called cloud computing, where software is accessed through an Internet connection, rather than installed in a user’s computer.
Younger rivals including Google Inc. (GOOG 484.85, -0.14, -0.03%) , Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN 117.89, +1.03, +0.88%) and Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM 98.95, +1.16, +1.19%) have sought to expand the cloud-computing market, while Microsoft has endeavored to alter its own approach to keep pace.
Jefferies & Co. analyst Katherine Egbert pointed out that investors are shifting money out of Microsoft shares, based on concerns about how the company will develop new ways of making money.
Shares of Microsoft have fallen roughly 15% in the past three months, compared with a roughly 8% decline for the Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP 2,255, +3.01, +0.13%) over the same period. The stock closed Friday down slightly, at $25.81.
But Egbert wrote in a research note that concerns about Microsoft may be exaggerated, as the company has a history of adopting “technologies, mostly invented by others, to the mass market.”
Cloud evolution
“We’re going to lead with the cloud,” Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner said at the company’s annual analyst meeting Thursday, while noting successes in vying for cloud-computing contracts against Google and International Business Machines Corp.
Microsoft “appears to be holding their own competitively” in cloud computing, Deutsche Bank analyst Todd Raker told clients in a note. “The bottom line is we believe the cloud is evolving from a secular threat to an opportunity” for the company.
However, Raker also acknowledged that the timing of any significant economic benefit from Microsoft’s cloud-computing effort remains “unclear,” noting that “we get significant pushback from investors on near-term reasons to own the stock.”
Some analysts argued that investors may not yet fully appreciate Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform service, which includes cloud computing and storage for customers hosted at the company’s data centers.
“While the buzz has picked up around Azure over the past 12 months, we do not believe the company gets enough credit,” Oppenheimer analyst Brad Reback told clients in his own research note.
“Azure should be a net revenue and profit creator” as more corporate customers snap up the service, he said.
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Will cloud computing economics add up for Microsoft?
Jul 30th
By Larry Dignan at ZDnet
Microsoft at its financial analyst meeting made the case for being a cloud computing leader and argued that its economic prospects will improve as information technology shifts to an on-demand model.
The big question: Do you buy the argument that cloud computing will accelerate Microsoft’s earnings and revenue growth? Let’s face it: Every software vendor is talking cloud computing, but the economic theory is that it’s better to cannibalize your own business than allow some rival to do it. Few established software vendors have argued that the cloud will gussy up their financial metrics.
Microsoft CFO Peter Klein, however, made the case that cloud computing is going to be big business, improve the company’s gross margins, cut costs and bring in more customers. And, as noted by Altimeter partner Ray Wang, Klein did a decent job putting cloud computing in financial terms. It’s too early to put any hard data around Microsoft’s nascent Azure efforts, but Klein said that the software giant could grab a bigger piece of the enterprise IT pie. After all, the historical dividing lines between vendors—software, hardware, networking and storage—are melting away.
So how’s Microsoft going to harness the cloud for financial gain? Klein had a few big themes to ponder:
The cloud opens up a broader IT spending pie. In cloud computing, software, hardware and services blend together. You don’t buy servers. You buy capacity. Klein said:
