News

• No big-bang Apps news at I/O, but some announcements merit attention

  Apps, Google's flagship product for enterprise IT, had a minor presence at this week's I/O developer conference, but some announcements at the show and in prior weeks deserve attention from customers of the cloud email and collaboration suite.

• Newvem expands to monitor Azure and Amazon clouds

  Newvem, which sells a tool that allows users to track and optimize their use of cloud computing resources, has expanded its software's functionality to monitor not just Amazon Web Services, but now Microsoft Azure now as well.

• Former Amazon cloud engineer spills to Reddit audience

  Usually Amazon Web Services, which many consider to be the leader in the infrastructure as a service (IaaS) cloud computing market, is pretty hush-hush about the internal workings of its massive cloud.

• SAP builds out HANA platform and ecosystem

  Anyone remotely within the orbit of SAP lately knows that its number-one focus is the HANA in-memory database and development platform. At this week's Sapphire conference in Orlando, the vendor sought to show the progress it is making in both building out HANA's capabilities as well as attracting developers and partners to HANA.

• ServiceNow wants to be the cloud for IT

  Many enterprise IT shops may be reluctant to jump head first into cloud computing. After all, there are a variety of concerns that come with using the cloud, from security to integrations with existing systems, and perhaps most scary: What the cloud will mean for your IT job.

• Google takes Quick Action on Gmail

  In the middle of its annual developers conference, the Google unveiled updates to its popular Gmail service.

• Amazon gives DynamoDB a performance boost

  Amazon Web Services is improving the performance of its DynamoDB database service with Parallel Scan, which gives users faster access to their tables.

• SunGard brings cloud service to disaster recovery

  Can the old guard in business continuity and disaster-recovery services thrive in an era when the companies are looking at new ways to process business data? SunGard Data Systems, with decades of experience in availability services, is feeling the pinch as some business clientele move data to the cloud. But SunGard says it's pushing forward with innovations that are making it a public cloud provider as well with the kind of application availability it says will be hard to match elsewhere.

• Google rolls out by-the-minute cloud billing, introduces a new NoSQL database

  Google, attempting to build its reputation as an enterprise and developer-focused cloud computing provider, today said its cloud platform is open for anyone to signup for, and can be used with a new by-the-minute billing scheme.

• Dell 'refining' plans for OpenStack-powered public cloud

  Fresh off the acquisition of a company that specializes in helping customers manage resources across multiple public clouds, Dell said it is "refining" its own plans to build a public cloud based on OpenStack.

• SAP unveils 'consumer-friendly' Fiori app suite

  SAP's software is known for its role running many of the world's largest companies, but not necessarily for its user-friendliness. As part of an ongoing effort to change this perception, SAP unveiled Fiori, a set of 25 lightweight "consumer-friendly" applications that can run on desktops, tablets and mobile devices, on Wednesday at the Sapphire conference in Orlando.

• Rackspace to help customers debug their programs

  Facing fierce competition in the market for cloud services, hosting provider Rackspace has pledged to help its users debug the programs they'll run on Rackspace's OpenStack platform.

• Nick Carr's IT Doesn't Matter still matters

  Nick Carr's article "IT Doesn't Matter" was published in in Harvard Business Review in May 2003 and ignited an industry firestorm for its perceived dismissal of the strategic value of IT.

• Q&A: Nick Carr on 10th anniversary of 'IT Doesn't Matter'

  Nick Carr rocked the tech world with his controversial essay in the May 2003 issue of the Harvard Business Review, titled "IT Doesn't Matter." Carr claimed companies were overspending on IT and that the competitive advantage to be gained by tech investments was shrinking as technology became more commoditized and accessible to everyone. On the 10-year anniversary of the article's publication, Carr talked with Network World's Ann Bednarz about what he got right, what he got wrong, and how the piece remains relevant today.

• NetSuite to increase focus on ERP for manufacturers

  Capitalizing on apparent demand from customers, NetSuite is adding new capabilities aimed at manufacturers to its cloud-based ERP (enterprise resource planning) software.