Cloud Tech News

According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), worldwide spending on hosted private cloud (HPC) services will be more than $24 billion in 2016. IDC says that they define HPC as an operational model for deploying computing infrastructure services of many types via the cloud.

Selling software to accountants, auditors and Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) takes accuracy, precision and software quality to an entirely new dimension. Intacct is one of the companies I’ve tracked for the last few years in this area, and I recently had a chance to speak with their CEO, Robert Reid.

Parallels estimates the total global SMB IT market to be worth $1.1 trillion. Ovum is skeptical about the relevance of the total market size to hosted and cloud services but it is clear that the appetite of SMBs to consume hosted and cloud services is seeing strong growth.

Cloud computing providers are increasingly falling for bad habits - they are offering customers "standard form" contracts whereby they set the provider lays out the terms, very much like insurance companies do with their policies.

To capitalise on Parallels' success story Cisco, the global networking giant, of recent has made an equity investment of $11 million to the desktop virtualisation firm. According to Hilton Romanski, VP corporate business development Cisco: "Cisco is continuing its commitment to technology development and innovation through strategic investments".

Cloud computing has touched many industries and is increasingly being adopted in many ways, from easily accessible data storage to business application solutions and reduction in hardware investment; and the healthcare industry is no exception.

Action for Children, one of Britain's foremost charities, has used a cloud hosting provider to create a hybrid cloud with which to support its website as well as applications, especially during peak surges in visitor numbers.

We are all aware of the United States military, and that it is the largest in the world. It has a budget of over £340 billion and employs in excess of 3 million people. Of course, such a large organisation will have a monumental IT infrastructure, as well as some of the tightest data security on the planet.