In a major announcement this week, IBM has released Watson Analytics, a service that will give businesses — both large and small — access to natural language tools and predictive algorithms on a freemium pricing model. It will be a cloud-based service designed to run on desktop and mobile devices. Calling it

It was revealed yesterday that networking giant Cisco is in talks to acquire Private OpenStack cloud service innovator, Metacloud. With an aim boost its strategy towards building the world’s largest global Intercloud – a network of clouds – Cisco has been mobilizing significant technology partners, service and cloud providers, integrating

In a move to bolster its cloud service prowess, HP acquired open source cloud software startup Eucalyptus Systems last week. Essentially, HP hired Eucalyptus’ entire workforce (which is less than 100 people), along with their CEO Marten Mickos as the Senior VP and head of HP’s cloud computing wing. Mickos

In a report recently published by IDC, it was suggested that cloud technologies are significantly disrupting infrastructure sales in EMEA, with estimates that $3.4 billion was spent on hardware going to cloud environments during 2013 (marking a 21% increase compared to 2012). “Along with big data, social, and mobility, cloud

Oracle Social Cloud on Tuesday announced LinkedIn support for its Social Relationship Management (SRM) platform, allowing Oracle Social customers the ability to publish, engage, automate, and analyze LinkedIn activities within the Oracle SRM platform. Oracle will now join LinkedIn’s Certified Company Page Partners Program, which offers tools and services to

Japanese IT vendor Fujitsu announced on Monday that it is injecting $2 billion over the next two years to expand its cloud portfolio. The company said that the majority of its budget will be spent on new datacenter capacity and ramping up investment in infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), software-as-a-service (SaaS),

While cloud technology can offer several benefits to businesses, it is not without its downsides and risks. One of the major issue is the cost involved in migrating workloads to the cloud. Of course, the cost factor is usually discussed in detail with prospective vendors before finally making a decision.

Max Kanaskar is an Associate for Strategy& (formerly Booz & Company). He has extensive experience in IT capability development and data management, and has advised companies in transformational data management programs, including data strategy, management and governance. He’s a regular commentator on big data and technology. His views can be found

Philips, the Dutch healthcare and lighting company, announced on Thursday it would be partnering with Salesforce to build a cloud-based platform that will connect healthcare providers, insurers and healthcare consumers. Philips has built two applications on the platform, eCareCoordinator and eCareCompanion that will become available in the summer. The former

Coherent Path, a cloud-based analytics platform designed for retailers to tailor their marketing efforts to individual customers, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $6.25 million in Series A funding. Sigma Prime and GrandBanks Capital led the investment round, with participation from CommonAngels. “The team at Coherent Path is excited