Features

• Where Cloud goes next

  It's difficult to define what the "Cloud of tomorrow" will look like because of all the changes happening in the IT industry - changes to fundamental application architecture, service models and interactions between components. The Cloud continues to disrupt IT in new ways so predicting tomorrow is a perpetual moving target.

• Opinion: IT is about to meet the Amazon Effect

  IT upheaval is inevitable -- like it or not.

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  Exclusive research: IT commits to cloud computing

  Cloud budgets are rising as IT confronts security and ROI challenges, according to the 2013 Cloud Computing Survey from IDG Enterprise (free download). (Insider: Registration required)

• Salesforce.com aims for next $1 billion business with ExactTarget buy

  Salesforce.com's pending US$2.5 billion purchase of marketing software vendor ExactTarget will help it develop a new $1 billion annual revenue stream and set the company on a clear strategic course for the foreseeable future, according to Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff.

• How to build a private cloud

  A private Cloud looks and acts like a public Cloud, giving your corporation all the speed, agility and cost savings promised by Cloud technology, only it's single-tenant, and that tenant is you, right? Well, that's the goal, but it's not quite the reality yet for most enterprises.

• 5 tips for avoiding private cloud failures

  According to Piston Cloud Computing's CTO, the rate at which his customer's pilot projects turn into production private clouds is pretty typical of most OpenStack-based providers – and it's pretty low.

• Stack wars: OpenStack v. CloudStack v. Eucalyptus

  OpenStack -- co-founded by Rackspace and NASA in 2010 -- certainly has the buzz, what with partnerships with AT&T, HP and IBM, to name a few, all of which have promised to use OpenStack as the base for their private cloud offerings.

• Here, there, everywhere: 3 personal Cloud storage systems

  Cloud storage has become increasingly popular, both for individuals and companies, as a place to stash everything from tax records to family photos. Services such as Dropbox, Box, SugarSync or Google Drive offer the chance to easily store your data and then access it from any of your devices.

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  The hidden dark side of today's hottest tech trends

  New technologies and new IT strategies are here to solve all your problems -- except the ones they create

• Box Offers User-Friendly File-Sharing, But Faces Big Competition

  The cloud storage service is an intuitive collaboration tool and has IT-friendly features. However, it's in a crowded, competitive market that includes Microsoft.

• Google's next act: Diversify and conquer

  Center stage at this year's Google I/O was a company honing its vision for a future beyond search

• IT's new concern: The personal Cloud

  As personal and professional Clouds converge, IT's mission to improve productivity while protecting corporate apps and data is getting tougher.

• What to expect at SAP's Sapphire

  SAP's Sapphire conference kicks off next week in Orlando, setting the stage for the company to sell customers on its visions for cloud-based applications, in-memory computing and mobility.

• What the man behind HP's new internal IT plan has in mind

  As someone who spent billions with HP over 20 years while in IT leadership roles at Boeing and Verizon Wireless, John Hinshaw knew the big hardware, software and services company from the outside as well as anyone. In the year-and-a-half since becoming executive vice-president of technology and operations at HP, he's been putting that knowledge to use on the inside.

• Why developers are turning to API services

  As application development increasingly hooks into outside services, tools to manage all those APIs are sprouting up