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News

• Cloud app integration: What's the best path?

  There's a lot of noise from vendors of every stripe about the cloud. Unfortunately, in the vendors' efforts to show how all their products are cloud-based, there's a lot of blurring about the specifics of what it means to be a cloud application. Consequently, this article will apply differently to every cloud vendor. (And for the purposes of this article, let's keep the discussion to SaaS and cloud-based apps from a vendor or integrator, not ones you build yourself, although some of the same principles apply.)

• Is your private cloud defensive or responsive?

  A strong minority of enterprise IT shops are prioritizing the development of a private cloud, but Forrester surveys suggest these moves will fail. The reason lies in the motivation behind these efforts and the focus. Most are building private clouds to keep their developers from going to the public cloud and are focused on the physical aspects of the cloud, not the operations - and it's the operations that make the cloud.

• 10 IT-related predictions for 2011

  We were wrong -- so far -- that Carol Bartz would be ousted as Yahoo CEO by the end of this year, but we were right that Apple's tablet, whose name wasn't known at the end of last year, would be huge. OK, so that second one was probably a given, but not all of our 2010 predictions were so easy. We think the same is true with our 2011 predictions.

• Cloud Computing: 2011 Predictions

  It's been an incredibly interesting, exciting, and tumultuous year for cloud computing. But, as the saying goes, "you ain't seen nothin' yet." Next year will be one in which the pedal hits the metal, resulting in enormous acceleration for cloud computing. One way to look at it is that next year will see the coming to fruition of a number of trends and initiatives that were launched this year.

• Salesforce.com buys Ruby cloud-app platform Heroku

  Salesforce.com said on Wednesday it will acquire Heroku, a company that specializes in hosting applications based on the Ruby programming language, for US$212 million.

• Salesforce.com unveils Database.com

  Salesforce.com is getting into the cloud database business with a new on-demand service, Database.com, set to be announced Tuesday at the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco.

• Top 10 business predictions for 2011

  It's the time of year for bold and brazen predictions, so I'm jumping on the bandwagon with my forecast of the Top 10 trends, priorities and events of 2011:

• Microsoft Lync: The pros and cons for enterprises

  Lync, the next generation of Microsoft's Office Communications Server software, was unveiled yesterday in New York City, complete with a surprise appearance from Bill Gates via Lync's video conference tool.

• Facebook unveils new messaging system

  Killing recent rumours that it's launching an e-mail killer, Facebook today unveiled a new messaging system that will envelope e-mail, instant messages, Facebook messages and SMS.

• Microsoft CIO eats his own cloud dog food

  A big part of Microsoft CIO Tony Scott's job in Redmond is to personally use all of Microsoft's technologies, including its cloud products. Microsoft types call this "eating your own dog food."

• Cloud computing's current woe: Analysis paralysis

  A recent study from application integration/app hosting company Hubspan added to the pile of research showing that a significant percentage of corporate IT people are "confused" about both cloud computing technology and its potential benefits.

• Ray Ozzie to leave Microsoft

  Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect and the executive responsible for pushing the company into the cloud, plans to step down, Microsoft said on Monday.

• Skype hires Cisco's Bates as CEO

  Skype has named Tony Bates as its next CEO, hiring him away from Cisco Systems, where he led some of the company's core businesses.

• Why CIOs are resetting information security priorities

  The threats and challenges you face haven't changed much in the past year, but you're finding a better recipe for protecting your corporate data and networks, according to our eighth annual Global Information Security Survey.

• How to recruit and hire Millennial tech employees

  Due to a reporting error, the story "How to recruit and hire Millennial tech employees," incorrectly stated Scot Melland's job. He is CEO of Dice Holdings. The second headline and the second paragraph have been corrected on the wire and now read: