Cloud Computing - Billing
Goes SaaS
Well, if the economy -
and not just software,
mind you - is going from
products to services and
perforce subscriptions
then vendors are going to
need an appropriate
billing system that
chases down and captures
all the monthly payments,
right? Well, that's what
a c...Jul. 25, 2008 12:30 PM Reads: 1,709 Replies: 1
With Microsoft mandarin
Kevin Johnson bolting to
Jupiter, leaving
Microsoft to lick its
wounds over Yahoo and
reorganize, CEO Steve
Ballmer sent out an
all-hands e-mail to
Microsoft folk
encapsulating the message
he delivered to financial
analysts gathering in
R...
There hasn't been a
PowerPC-based computer
since Apple abandoned the
dingus and bolted to
Intel, a move that did
wonders for Apple's
volumes. Now a Mountain
View start-up called
CherryPal is about to
introduce a $249
Debian-based desktop
that's about the size of
...
Apple telling the press
that the state of its
CEO's health is a
'private matter' was like
waving a red cape in
front of a bull. Within
hours Fortune and the New
York Times were reporting
that the 53-year-old
cancer survivor probably
wasn't dying - as
everyone had ...
Reminding people of how
its backing was the
making of Linux, IBM, to
no one's surprise, has
thrown its support behind
cloud computing, that
delicious nexus of every
chi-chi buzzword
technology currently in
vogue: Web 2.0, rich
Internet applications,
software-as-a-...
With the stock market
crashing, or giving a
good approximation of a
crash Thursday, Yahoo,
poor thing - well, it has
behaved like a sick lost
puppy, now hasn't it -
announced a supposedly
pressure-relieving
reorganization just like
its familiars in the
press said ...
Application server
management software
developer NGASI has
introduced a hosted
version of its AppServer
Manager on Amazon EC2.
The 'no installation
required' service gives
Amazon EC2 users the
option of not installing
their own version of
NGASI AppServer Manager
...
One of the problems with
clouds is that they have
this tendency to rain as
it did on Amazon's Simple
Storage Service (S3) on
Sunday when it was down -
and not for the first
time - in both the US and
Europe for something like
eight hours - translating
into less than ...
IBM claims to have
created new species of
custom-built,
industry-standard,
Linux-based rack server
for Web 2.0 and Cloud
Computing companies with
massive data centers and
tens of thousands of
servers, like online
gaming, social networks,
search and Internet
firm...
Salesforce.com, which has
already linked its CRM
software to Google Apps
and integrated AdWords
tracking into its
platform, is deploying a
free new Force.com
Toolkit for Google Data
APIs so third-party
developers can interact
with data in Google
services. The tool...
NetSuite, the Larry
Ellison SaaS company, is
buying OpenAir, the
56-man shop that is
supposed to be the leader
in on-demand professional
services automation, for
$26 million cash, net of
the cash on the
acquisition's balance
sheet. NetSuite says it
probably won't ...
Microsoft CEO Steve
Ballmer is now running
the company's Windows,
Windows Live and Internet
properties after Kevin
Johnson, the president of
the company's Platforms
and Services Division
(PSD) and a key player in
the failed
Microsoft-Yahoo talks,
bolted to Jupiter...
A year into Jerry Yang's
turnaround strategy - and
10 days before a
potentially ear-boxing
stockholders meeting -
and Yahoo has produced
second-quarter results
that missed Wall Street's
reduced expectations.
And, as the AP observed,
its market value is now
about $...
CEO Hector Ruiz,
increasingly blamed for
the harrowing of AMD,
stepped down during the
company's Q2 conference
call with Wall Street
Thursday in favor of his
sidekick, AMD president
and patent-carrying
engineer Dirk Meyer, the
guy who used to run AMD's
chip operat...
Citrix on Tuesday
announced Project Kensho,
which is supposed to
deliver Open Virtual
Machine Format (OVF)
tools that will let ISVs
and enterprise IT folk
create portable
hypervisor-independent
enterprise application
workloads that should run
across XenServer, Hyp...
HP is going into the
shipping container
business following down
the path already trod by
Sun and recently IBM and
some other smaller firms
except HP of course
figures it can do these
data center add-ons
better than its rivals.
HP calls its 40-foot
containers PODs,...
You have perhaps heard
that while we were on
vacation Linux file
system ace and convicted
wife killer Hans Reiser
took the cops to where he
had buried her body. Two
days later when Reiser
was supposed to be
sentenced to 25 years to
life for first decree
murder the...
Apple is now the
third-largest PC vendor
in the US, according to
IDC and Gartner's
preliminary Q2 data,
ousting Acer from the
slot. Gartner thinks Mac
shipments were up 38%
year-over-year in Q2 to
give Apple 8.5% of the
sputtering US market, up
from 6.4% this time...
Citrix has tapped its VP
of channels and emerging
product sales Al
Monserrat to replace its
departing sales chief
John Burris, who, as
previously reported, is
going to Sourcefire as
CEO. A couple of years
ago Monserrat was
responsible for Citrix'
North American sa...
Two weeks after its
co-founder and CEO Diane
Greene was abruptly
dismissed, VMware - now
run by one of Microsoft's
old rulers, Paul Maritz -
disclosed exactly how
much under its promised
50% year-over-year growth
2008 is going to be. It's
going to be 5%-8% short
o...
3PAR, the utility storage
company, says it's got an
integrated virtual
desktop provisioning and
management solution for
the VMware Virtual
Desktop Infrastructure
(VDI) that will also
scale VDI storage. It's
supposed to automatically
provision hundreds of
high-perf...
SAP said Monday that it
was going to close down
its TomorrowNow
operation, the reason
Oracle is suing SAP,
claiming TM hacked into
its site and stole its
proprietary support
information. SAP bought
the PeopleSoft/JD
Edwards/Siebel service
start-up in February of
...
There ain't gonna be no
highly diverting
no-holds-barred
fight-to-the-finish proxy
fight over Yahoo come the
company's stockholders
meeting August 1. The two
sides cut a deal Monday.
Yahoo will be giving
corporate raider Carl
Icahn - who was
threatening to replace...
VMware has cut an OEM
deal with Inspur, the
Chinese company whose
name used to be Langchao
and said to be the
largest native server
maker. Inspur will bundle
and support VMware's
Infrastructure 3 widgetry
on its servers. Inspur
says there's little
virtualization d...
Apple got pared in
after-hours trading
Monday, dropping 18
bucks, close to 11%,
apparently because of the
weak guidance it issued
for the current quarter
and because it declared
the state of Steve Jobs'
health off-limits on a
day when the New York
Post revisited
...
That thud you heard
yesterday was the
European Commission
hitting Intel with a
second supplemental
indictment-like statement
of objection (SO)
charging the company with
three more instances of
antitrust violations
designed to keep AMD out
of the market.
Miraculo...
Zoho, the online Office
wannabe, has gotten
Swisscom, the telephone
side of the old Swiss PTT
monopoly, to offer its
300,000 business
customers a suite of
Zoho's SaaS applications
as part of a six-month
pilot through its Teamnet
portal. The Zoho Business
suite, in...
VMware is supposed to
report its second-quarter
results on Tuesday July
22 and people will be
tuning in to see how
EMC's abrupt ouster of
the virtualization
leader's CEO and
co-founder Diane Greene
last week is handled and
what is added to the news
that VMware isn...
The court also said
Novell couldn't run
interference for Linux
and stop SCO from seeking
royalty payments for
alleged UnixWare and
OpenServer infringement
by Linux users under its
infamous SCOsource
licensing program. ,
it's merely a matter of
time before SCO s...
As predictable as the bet
that night will follow
day, Apple sued a little
widely watched wannabe
Mac cloner in Florida
called Psystar that's
been selling a $399 box
called Open Computer for
the last few months.
Microsoft and its
cross-platform,
Flash-rivaling,
RIA-building Silverlight
plug-in are being sued in
San Francisco for patent
infringement by a
no-profile Massachusetts
outfit called Gotuit
Media Corporation. The
thin seven-page suit and
its venue comes
complime...
Amazon has kicked into
Engine Yard's $15 million
Series B round along with
Benchmark Capital and New
Enterprise Associates.
The two-year-old 70-man
open source company
provides a deployment
infrastructure, services
and support for
developers to take their
Ruby and...
Microsoft earned $4.3
billion on revenues of
$15.84 billion, up 18%,
in its fourth fiscal
quarter in June, making
it a $60 billion company
- compliments of emerging
markets and demand for
Windows Server 2008. It
had better-than-expected
Vista sales this time
throu...
About a month and a half
ago HP created a Scalable
Computing and
Infrastructure
Organization (SCIO) out
of a stealth Web 2.0
group that it's had under
the covers for the last
year, year-and-a-half and
its HPC unit along with
its cloud intentions.
Sun, whose stock has been
teetering on the brink of
disaster, pre-announced
its fourth quarter
Tuesday and said it could
have non-GAAP earnings
somewhere between 25
cents and 35 cents
because of a $100 million
restructuring charge
(five-15 cents GAAP) on
revenues ...
Such speculation makes
one wonder if that means
Fujitsu, whose track
record in the United
States hasn't been
anything to write home
about either, would be
reluctant to buy Sun,
which has been looking
anemic enough lately to
have spawned reports it's
looking for a ...
As the economy swings
from bad to worse and
back again, Intel and the
techno lust it engenders
keep soldering on. The
company's second-quarter
results surpassed Wall
Street's expectations and
- despite various
warnings of weakening PC
demand worldwide - CEO
Paul O...
'Traditionally people
have tied their software
to their hardware.
Virtualization changes
all that,' said Dr
Stephen Herrod, CTO of
VMware, the 10-year old
Virtualization giant.
Herrod gave a highly
informative Morning
Keynote today in New York
City at the 3rd
International
Virtualizati 
