With subscription-based pricing and no server to buy and maintain, GFI Cloud is the affordable IT management console that helps you scale IT operations quickly and easily, to meet business demand. Get antivirus, workstation and server monitoring, remote control and asset tracking. Free 30 day trial.

IBM Taps Middleman to Reach Mid-Market September 27, 2012 IBM launched a major initiative on Wednesday with the goal of targeting middle-market companies via their managed service providers. Increasingly, middle market companies are turning to companies that deliver technology solutions on a pay-as-you-go-model, said Mike McClurg, IBM's VP of global mid-market sales.

Oracle's Short-Term Software Gains May Have Long-Term Costs September 24, 2012 Oracle reported earnings for its first fiscal quarter in 2013 last week, telling a tale of two product lines: Its software operations fared respectably, while its hardware slumped dramatically. Hardware systems product revenue was down 24 percent. "These are tough times, and companies are still not investing heavily in capital equipment," noted tech analyst Laura DiDio.

Amazon's Bigger, Faster, Better Superhighway to the Cloud September 20, 2012 Last month I wrote an article for the E-Commerce Times called "Amazon Spreads its Wings." In it, I talked about the many ventures that Amazon has embarked on, including its rewriting of the rules of publishing and retail sales. I also discussed how Amazon was smart enough to realize that it could do something "extra" with its massive computer power.

Dreamforce 2012: Revolution Is Out September 20, 2012 The CRM industry is used to getting a jolt every year from Dreamforce, Salesforce.com's annual mega-event. Each year, the number of attendees swells -- this year, it's more than 70,000 -- and that makes CEO Marc Benioff's bacchanal the epicenter of the CRM industry for a week. That give Salesforce a chance to make a serious splash.

Software, Not Hardware, Defines the Data Center September 17, 2012 In advance of the VMworld conference in San Francisco, Dana Gardner sat down with Steve Herrod, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Research & Development at VMware. Their discussion hinges on the intriguing concept of the software-defined datacenter. We look at how some of the most important attributes of datacenter capabilities and performance are now squarely under the domain of software enablement.

Aprimo Shows Reps More Cross-Sell, Upsell Possibilities September 17, 2012 Aprimo has released its second app for Salesforce.com's AppExchange, called "Aprimo Service to Sales." It is an inbound marketing app with real-time interactive features. The first Aprimo app destined for the AppExchange was released in 2010. The newer app, however, is written on a different code base, which was acquired last year with the acquisition of Helm Interaction's IP assets.

VMworld 2012: Passing the Torch - and the Ammunition September 11, 2012 Chief executive transitions in the IT industry often tend toward melodrama or at least bald quirkiness: The number of ignominious CEO departures at HP and Yahoo could qualify both companies for their own telenovelas. After successfully acquiring Sun Microsystems, Oracle unceremoniously booted CEO Jonathan Swartz, an event he noted by tweeting a Zen-like haiku.

Like FOSS Fog, Cloud Confusion May Not Matter September 11, 2012 The general public knows little about the true technology fundamentals of cloud computing, suggests a recent survey commissioned by IT vendor Citrix. Almost a third of the roughly 1,000 U.S. adults polled thought cloud computing was related to weather. However, everyday people do not have to understand, appreciate or knowingly participate in a technology in order to leverage it in their lives.

GSA Inks Email Cloud-Service Deals With 17 Vendors September 05, 2012 Many U.S. government agencies seeking to utilize cloud-based information technology have tilted to one of the most common IT functions as a beginning step -- email systems. Converting existing email operations to cloud-based platforms became much easier for all federal agencies on Aug. 30, when GSA awarded a set of IT contracts to 17 providers for cloud and related services.

Selling Cloud Services to Feds Requires a Rainbow of Marketing Tactics August 31, 2012 What is the best way to market cloud IT services to the federal government? Any way you can. U.S. government agencies share the same goal: Under a White House mandate, all agencies must give priority to cloud configurations for IT projects. With all agencies pursuing the same "cloud first" goal, marketing cloud services, it seems, should be fairly straightforward for cloud providers.

'World of Warcraft' Collides With World Politics August 29, 2012 Today in international tech news: Trade sanctions have prevented Iranians from playing the ever-popular computer game "World of Warcraft." Also: Australia grapples with data collection laws that one official likened to a police state; Chinese search engines juke results to stymie one another; VMware tries to tap into China's IT-heavy Five Year Plan.

AWS Glacier: Grinding Down the Competition? August 29, 2012 Hardly a day goes by that one IT vendor or another fails to announce one "fastest/biggest/bestest" achievement or another, attempting to poke in the eye or drive straight into a ditch any and all previous claims. But it is ironic that some of what have become IT's most transformative solutions and services began with little, if any, braggadocio.

How Secure Is the Cloud, Really? August 28, 2012 Cloud security skeptics were given yet another reason to doubt the fortitude of online storage when the strange tale of Mat Honan emerged earlier this month. Through the clever use of social engineering, a hacker was able to wreak havoc on the Wired journalist's digital life.

Federal Budget Watchers Zoom In on Cloud Spending Plans August 24, 2012 It seems so easy and so simple. Federal agencies should put most of their efforts into their missions and use management tools which enable them to meet mission goals. One such tool is cloud technology -- an "on demand" option for information technology services. In concept, the simplicity of using on-demand IT pretty much the way water comes from a tap is appealing.

New Amazon Glacier Service Keeps Data in Deep Freeze August 21, 2012 In nature, glaciers are slow but steady masses of ice that flow as they melt. They take many years to accumulate and often just as long to deform. In other words, a glacier is typically here for eons, and fittingly "Glacier" is the name of Amazon's new data archive service aimed at enterprise and small businesses.

Big Data and the Deep Blue Sea August 20, 2012 A fascinating global ocean studies initiative helps best define some of the IT superlatives around big data, cloud computing and middleware integration capabilities. The Ocean Observatories Initiative and its accompanying Cyberinfrastructure Program aims to provide an unprecedented ability to study the Earth's oceans and climate using myriad distributed data centers and literally oceans' worth of data.

'Horrible Problems' May Be Rolling In With the Cloud August 16, 2012 Why does Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak think cloud-based computing will bring "horrible problems" over the next few years? Sounds crazy, but to tell you the truth I think Woz is correct -- to a point. The more we transfer everything to the cloud, the less control we will have over it, according to Wozniak. That's true -- and that's just one of many issues that must be resolved before we embrace the cloud.

The Honan Affair and the Cloud's Dark Lining August 13, 2012 The attack last week on journalist Mat Honan's iCloud account has the potential to strip the silver lining from the cybernimbus. Honan had his digital life destroyed when hackers, in a convoluted effort to hijack his Twitter account, ended up trashing everything connected to his Apple iCloud account.

The Cloud: It's Not Just a Technology - It's a Catalyst August 13, 2012 "The word 'cloud' gets thrown around a lot, but when I drill into the topic, I find that customers are really talking about services and integrating different services, whether they are on-premises, in the public cloud arena, or even that gray land, which is called 'outsourcing,'" said HP's Paul Muller.

SaaS Marketplaces Are Ready to Soar August 10, 2012 Now that Software as a Service and the broader cloud computing concept have gained widespread recognition and acceptance, it will be interesting to see whether online marketplaces will become a preferred method for acquiring these on-demand resources. It makes sense that many IT and business decision makers would like to take advantage of a "one-stop shop" for SaaS apps and cloud services.