August 30th, 2012

Paranoid Server Admins Get New iPhone App From Cloud Security Company Dome9

Dome9 logo

Israeli security company Dome9 provides a hosted firewall for protecting servers in both private or public clouds. It enables customers to lockdown SSH access or admin panels until they’re specifically opened via the web-based Dome9 console. Today the company released an iPhone app that will provide more convenient access to the console. → Read More

August 30th, 2012

What Is An Open Cloud And What Isn’t?

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Over the past few days I’ve been in San Francisco for VMware’s annual show and in San Diego to spend some time with  the technologists at CloudOpen – the Linux Foundation’s first cloud only event.

The two shows demonstrate how the cloud world is maturing.  And as it matures, the stakes will get higher. This is quite evident when you consider how much VMware is trying to move beyond its… → Read More

August 29th, 2012

LinuxCon 2012: OpenStack and Open Clouds

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At LinuxCon and CloudOpen this week, attendees are being bombarded with cloud, cloud, cloud. Most of the cloud goings-on revolve around OpenStack, the open source infrastructure-as-a-service project started by Rackspace and NASA. Today SUSE announced their SUSE Cloud product, which is a commercially supported version of OpenStack integreated with SUSE Linux. Red Hat has an unsupported preview… → Read More

August 29th, 2012

Cloud-based Telco Disruptor Twilio Adds 5 More Markets Plus Local Numbers In 4 As It Preps A Move Into Asia

Twilio, the startup that lets developers incorporate cloud-based voice and messaging services directly into mobile and web apps via a series of APIs, continues to scale up its business — crucial to how the company will make money on its low-cost service in the longer term. Today, Twilio added five more countries in beta to its list of supported markets for voice services: Czech Republic→ Read More

August 14th, 2012

Backed By Andreessen, Virtual Workforce MobileWorks Completes 1M Tasks For Startups In 1st Year

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MobileWorks launched last summer with a simple, yet big mission: Build a viable alternative for Amazon Mechanical Turk and in so doing create a motivated, happy and accurate virtual workforce. To be the anti-Turk, the startup set out with a novel approach (and a social mission) — to pay workers fair wages and create a collaborative online work environment in which microwork would become less… → Read More

August 11th, 2012

It’s A Dark Time To Be A Consumer In The Cloud

Sky symphony by Kevin Dooley

Ecco Pro, a much beloved outliner and personal information management application for Windows was discontinued about 15 years ago. But you can still download it and run it on Windows 7 today thanks to the efforts of a handful of volunteers. Even though the software isn’t open source a few devotees have continued modding it and keeping it current for modern operating systems. They say that no… → Read More

August 8th, 2012

Vital Insights Gets $20M From Bregal Sagemount To Drive Auto Sales SaaS To New Markets

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Vital Insights, an enterprise startup focused on providing a cloud-based customer experience management solution to the automotive industry, has announced a $20 million growth round from a single investor, private equity firm Bregal Sagemount. This is a first round of funding for the company, which has actually been cash-flow positive since 2008, seeing revenue growth of 30% in the first half of… → Read More

August 7th, 2012

VMWare Buys Log Insight From Pattern Insight, Moves Further Into Cloud Infrastructure Management

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In the space of a little over a month, VMWare is making yet another acquisition to strengthen its position in cloud management: it is buying cloud log analytics platform Log Insight from its current owner Pattern Insight, the data management and search platform company. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

As part of the deal, the team working on Log Insight will transfer to VMWare… → Read More

July 24th, 2012

Mobile Analytics Company Keen Announces Seed Round

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Keen, a mobile analytics startup co-founded by former Google Analyics employee Kyle Wild, announced a $750,000 series A investment from 500 Startups, Data Collective, SK Ventures, Cloud Power Fund and several big name individual investors, including Dropbox investor Pejman Nozad, PayPal investor Jared Kopf and TechStars managing directors Nicole Glaros and Jason Seats. You can find a full list of… → Read More

July 22nd, 2012

The Onion’s Take On The HP Cloud and 4 Other Attempts At Making The Cloud Funny

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Why is the cloud so hard to make funny?

Do a search on YouTube. You will see songs about the cloud based upon Joni Mitchell and Vanilla Ice songs. “Cloud, Cloud Baby.” Groan.

Thank goodness for The Onion. Finally, the cloud is funny. → Read More

July 19th, 2012

Heroku Releases Free PostgreSQL App for OSX

PostgreSQL

Today Heroku, a platform cloud company owned by Salesforce.com, released a free PostgreSQL app for Macintosh OSX called Postgres.app. You can download the beta here today, and it will be available on the Mac App Store within the next couple weeks. The app is also on GitHub. OS X Lion and Mountain Lion are supported. → Read More

July 19th, 2012

Huddle Takes On Microsoft/Yammer, Puts Social Features Into Its Collaboration Platform (Like Google Docs But With Conversation)

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Huddle, the cloud collaboration company that picked up $25 million in funding in May, today is launching a significant update to its platform: it’s adding in a social communication layer to its service, so that when people share and work together on documents online, they can also talk to each other about them.

The move puts Huddle into closer competition against companies like Microsoft… → Read More

July 12th, 2012

YC-Backed Filepicker.io Goes Mobile, Brings Cloud Service Integration To iOS And Android Apps

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Filepicker.io, a Y Combinator-backed company building tools that make it easier for developers to integrate access to cloud services within their applications, is now bringing its capabilities to mobile developers building apps on iOS and Android. With the new Filepicker.io Mobile Library, developers can quickly add integrations which let their apps connect to popular online services like Dropbox… → Read More

June 22nd, 2012

CloudCar, The Stealthy Startup That Andy Rubin Is *Not* Joining, Has Raised $11.5M

cloudcar

CloudCar, a startup still in stealth mode that was the subject of rumors earlier this month when Robert Scoble reported that Andy Rubin would leave his job at Google to join it, has filed a Form D with the SEC indicating that it has raised $11.5 million in a Series A round.

The startup may not be Rubin’s next place of employment, but he is connected to it: after the rumor hit, and then he… → Read More

June 19th, 2012

Eucalyptus Systems Aims For Private Cloud Dominance

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Marten Mickos is working on a joke. He has the opening line — “An app guy, an ops guy, and a VMware sales guy walk into a bar…” — but he hasn’t figured out what the punchline is, yet. Mickos is the former CEO of MySQL AB. Today he’s the CEO of Eucalyptus Systems, developers of private infrastructure as a service solutions, and he thinks about “The Cloud” a lot.

Eucalyptus Systems is… → Read More

June 19th, 2012

Aaron Levie, Box CEO: We Should Have Bought Yammer

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It was clearly meant as a joke. Yammer is, according to many reports, just moments away from a big acquisition by Microsoft, so on stage at LeWeb in London today my colleague Mike Butcher asked Aaron Levie, the outspoken CEO of cloud storage player Box, if he had been interested in the enterprise social networking service. “Yeah, we should have bought Yammer, but they didn’t come knocking.”

But… → Read More

June 18th, 2012

Box Floats Into Europe, Aiming For 30% Of Its Cloud Business To Be There In 18 Months

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The cloud-storage company Box is today announcing a new step up in its business: it is officially moving into Europe, opening an office in London to focus its efforts in the region, and help it in the landgrab for cloud customers against competitors like Dropbox and Google.

The move is not Box’s first foray into doing business here — Aaron Levie, the CEO and co-founder, tells TechCrunch that… → Read More

June 7th, 2012

FAA Chooses Office 365: Microsoft One-Ups Google In Battle For Government Cloud Market

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In early 2011, former U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra and team helped institute a “Cloud First” policy, which aimed to speed up the government’s internal adoption of cloud computing and services. Since then, many government agencies have begun moving their collaboration and productivity applications to the cloud. Today, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) became the latest to… → Read More

June 7th, 2012

500 Startups-Backed Cloud Productivity Tool 300.mg To Close Its Doors Next Week

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unching its public beta in the fall of last year, 300milligrams (also known as “300.mg,”) set out to build a “priority inbox for team conversations.” The startup was one of the 34 teams in 500 Startups’ Fall 2011 batch, and, after graduating in January, spent the first half of this year iterating, trying to find its stride, some follow-on funding, and a workable business model.

Alas, it seems… → Read More

May 31st, 2012

More Cloud Investment: Sonian Picks Up $13.6M For Cloud Archiving And Search, OpenView New Investor And Strategic Partner

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As more businesses and consumers sign up to services that operate in the cloud, so more companies working in this space continue to get attention from investors. The latest is Sonian, a specialist in cloud-based archiving and search services, which has picked up a C-round of $13.6 million.

With the funding, OpenView Venture Partners becomes a strategic partner of Sonian. OpenView — you may… → Read More

May 29th, 2012

E3 Rumor: Sony Partnering With Cloud Gaming Provider

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According to a very short, very rumor-filled VG24/7 piece, Sony is looking at adding cloud-enabled gaming to the PlayStation line, presumably in the form of an Onlive or Gaikai partnership.

Given that we won’t see much new this year at E3 – aside for official Wii U availability and perhaps (just perhaps) whispers of next gen Sony and Microsoft consoles, this bit of news could carry the show. → Read More

May 17th, 2012

Freshdesk Launches $10M “Future Fund” To Bring Free Help Desk Support To 500+ Startups

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Freshdesk, the makers of cloud-based help desk software that allows companies to support their customers through email, phone, website, Facebook and Twitter, are on a mission to compete with the big boys of the space, like Zendesk and Salesforce’s Desk.com. Though it believes that the biggest market opportunity down the road will be in offering a unique brand of cloud-based customer support to the… → Read More

May 9th, 2012

Cloud Storage Service Pogoplug Goes After Business Users With Launch Of “Pogoplug Team”

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Cloud storage service and device maker Pogoplug is expanding beyond the consumer space today, to focus on the more potentially profitable business market. With a new offering dubbed “Pogoplug Team,” the company is introducing a service that will turn a file server or spare PC into a private cloud for storing data onsite. The idea, like most of what Pogoplug offers, is to provide a DIY cloud… → Read More

May 9th, 2012

Spire.io: A New Platform For Serverless Apps That Work On Web & Mobile

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What do you do when you’re a consumer apps company with apps that never hit the big-time, but whose development forced you to solve the same problems over and over again? Well, if you’re Border Stylo (makers of Glass, Retrollect, and Trivia Together), you turn your knowledge of developers’ needs for backend infrastructure into your new business.

And that’s exactly what Border Stylo is doing… → Read More

May 2nd, 2012

Twilio Rising: Microsoft Inks Deal To Offer Voice, Messaging APIs To ‘Tens Of Thousands’ Of Azure Developers

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A potentially big move forward for cloud-based telephony API startup Twilio — and an intriguing development for Microsoft, given its would-be ownership of Skype: Twilio and Microsoft have formed a strategic alliance to offer Twilio’s APIs to developers on the Windows Azure platform.

The offering will cover both Twilio’s voice and messaging services, and Twilio is sweetening the deal by giving… → Read More

May 1st, 2012

Birst Lands $26M From Sequoia, Hummer Winblad To Bring Big Data Analytics To The Masses

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Birst, a San Francisco-based startup that offers on-demand business intelligence and analytics solutions for companies big and small, has raised $26 million in series D financing, led by Sequoia Capital. Existing investors, including Hummer Winblad and DAG Ventures, also participated in the round, bringing Birst’s total funding to $46 million. → Read More

April 25th, 2012

Linux Foundation To Host Open Source Cloud Conference “CloudOpen”

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It wasn’t that long ago that I complained about cloud fragmentation issues. There were some interesting observations in the comments on that post. Now word comes that the Linux Foundation is hosting CloudOpen, a “new conference to advance openness in the cloud.”

Most of the major players are already committed to participating at CloudOpen: Canonical, Citrix, Dell, Eucalyptus, HP, IBM, Intel… → Read More

April 23rd, 2012

WPP Teams Up With Infosys To Launch Its First All-In-One Cloud-Based Marketing Platform

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The heat is on to migrate more digital marketing activities into the cloud, and while we have seen a lot of movements from smaller, fleet-0f-foot startups in this area, the big players don’t want to be left out in the cold, either. Enter WPP, which today announced a partnership with the Bangalore-based outsourcing and IT specialist Infosys for a new cloud-based digital marketing… → Read More

April 22nd, 2012

Sins Of The Cloud

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Editor’s Note: Alexander Haislip is a marketing executive with cloud-based server automation startup ScaleXtreme and the author of Essentials of Venture Capital. Follow him on Twitter @ahaislip.

In the beginning there was the cloud. And it was good. But over time it can also be surprisingly expensive. If you’ve ever said “Oh my god,” at the end of your billing cycle, you’re may be… → Read More

April 13th, 2012

Readers: What’s Your Cloud Strategy?

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I get press releases every week about some new (or old!) company and their so-called cloud solution. Some folks are clearly abusing the popularity of the “cloud” buzzword, and others are actually doing interesting things with distributed computing, infrastructure- and platform-as-a-service, orchestration, and related technologies. Amazon is the prime mover on IaaS, but OpenStack, CloudStack and… → Read More