Cloud IT Week in Review: Microsoft, Forbes, eWeek

By Steve Anderson
Contributing Writer

It's been another big week for the cloud information technology (IT) field, and despite an upcoming holiday weekend, the flow of news didn't let up a bit. So to get yourself ready for next week, it's a good time to catch up on the high points of this week, which we'll do right now with our Week in Review coverage!

First we had a report from Microsoft and Research 451 that noted that organizations are not only putting increasing reliance on cloud-based and other digital operations, they're also ready to put more long-term commitments to same in place. Those offering cloud contracts stand to benefit immediately, with organizations seeing the power such tools can offer and being willing to run with said operations over the long term.

Next a report from Forbes had us considering the overall size of the cloud computing market, a figure that--according to cloud economics master Joe Weinman--really couldn't be accurately measured. A combination of sheer size and rapid changes in the field made it largely impossible to measure in terms of dollars and cents, and instead called for different measures like operational excellence.

A report from eWeek then stepped in, giving us a look at the overall cloud market, which has made a huge impact on the small business market. Enterprise users, however, are still hesitant, owing in large part to issues of security. Data security is still perhaps the biggest reason, but it's not alone. A lack of understanding, a focus on getting full value for legacy investments, and issues of compliance all play a factor.

Microsoft (News - Alert) made the news again, this time with SAP as the duo got together on cloud computing. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently shared a stage with SAP (News - Alert) CEO Bill McDermott to describe how, directly, Microsoft Azure cloud computing would be opened up to SAP HANA cloud applications. Nadella called this connection a better means to serve the "customer's reality," and also represented a reflection of a whole new way to do business.

Finally, Billion Electric Co. Ltd. noted plans to take a line of machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) systems to show at the upcoming Computex show. Taking a cue from the growing 4G LTE (News - Alert) market in Asia, Billion recently launched a slate of new tools, including the M500 in-vehicle multi-carrier router. The router offers a dual LTE module as well as dual subscriber identity module (SIM) cards, which allows it to support remote browsing and streaming video. The M100 industrial router and a set of outdoor routers were also recently spotted in launch, offering a variety of different uses based on conditions.

That was the week that was in cloud IT, and from new connections to new considerations of the market, it was a pretty busy week indeed. Our global online community was right at the heart of the action, bringing back the best in news for us this week. So be sure to join us back here next week for all the latest news, and every weekend for our Week in Review coverage!