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On the Radar: Mycroft Mycroft was founded eight years ago to provide a secure connection to classified data across the internet. Its initial customers were in the military, but it has expanded its market into the commercial sector. In 2010 its customers started to expand their use of mobile devices ... read more..

CSC strengthens its testing portfolio In September 2011, global IT services provider CSC acquired AppLabs, a provider of software testing and validation services. CSC can now offer a complete portfolio of testing services from custom application and ERP testing to cloud-based application testing, as well as capabilities in SOA, security, ... read more..

Oracle announces its public cloud As expected, at this year's OpenWorld, Oracle announced Oracle Public Cloud (OPC). While the company is not as late to the public cloud party as you might think, considering that it had more time to prepare than most of its competitors, OPC could have been ... read more..

VMware announces new developments in management space VMworld 2011 Copenhagen saw 7,200 attendees, demonstrating the power of virtualization and highlighting that the journey to the cloud remains a topic of increasing interest to organizations. VMware used the event to announce some new offerings based on the management layer, which Ovum ... read more..

Microsoft developers face uncertainty following WinRT revelations Microsoft's Build conference saw early announcements on Windows 8 and the technology stack behind it, named Windows Runtime Library (WinRT). Windows 8 is a major shift for Microsoft as it aims to support a new age of touchscreen devices while retaining backwards compatibility ... read more..

OpenStack: gaining strength slowly but surely On September 29, 2011, the OpenStack open source community released the fourth iteration of its infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform. Codenamed Diablo, this latest version improves the platform in a number of key areas. However, OpenStack still has some way to go to establish itself in ... read more..

People-centric IT: Adapting to a shift in powerAt its recent global analyst event in Boston, AppSense introduced the concept of people-centric IT. For many years vendors have used the term user-centric IT to define the shift in power that is being witnessed at the desktop through the increased use of ... read more..

Amazon Web Services introduces identity federation In August 2011, AWS announced that its identity and access management (IAM) service now supports identity federation. IAM has not attracted the attention it deserves, mostly because of AWS's lack of communication. It nonetheless plays a significant role (along with another of AWS's nicely maturing ... read more..

Nimbus broadens Tibco's BPM stable to appeal to business users Tibco, an integration middleware vendor that traditionally had a software engineering focus, has been striving in recent years to add tooling that appeals to the business. The latest move is the acquisition of UK-based Nimbus Partners, a specialist provider of ... read more..

HDS buys BlueArc Hitachi's storage subsidiary Hitachi Data Systems has bought network-attached storage (NAS) specialist BlueArc for an undisclosed cash price. BlueArc is a well-respected supplier of very high-end NAS systems, demand for which has been growing steadily for several years, and is the latest in a string of similar ... read more..

HP takes a bold step into enterprise software A key part of HP's proposed turnaround is the recent announcement of its intent to acquire Autonomy. Ovum believes this is a strong indication of yet another strategic shift for HP this time from commodity hardware to software and related services. ... read more..

i2 buy deepens IBM's Big Data war chest IBM's Big Data arsenal got a bit bigger in September 2011 after it acquired Cambridge, UK-based i2 for its analysis and fraud prevention software. i2 brings advanced analytics technology to the table that is consistent with IBM's strategy to strengthen and expand ... read more..

Middleware holds the key to the future of IT Until now there has been no reason for middleware to be fascinating to business executives. However, this has to change. With the cloud commoditizing physical infrastructure and applications following suit, organizations will have to look elsewhere to differentiate themselves. Composite applications ... read more..

HP's credibility as a predictable strategic IT supplier: strengthened or shaken? HP had a bombshell day on Thursday, August 18, 2011, announcing quarterly earnings, a major software acquisition, transformation in the huge Enterprise Services division, the killing of its just-released WebOS-based iPad competitor, and the potential divestiture of its largest ... read more..

On the Radar: Nebula aims to make private clouds cheap Disruptive and innovative are two favorite words used by new vendors to describe themselves, often without having any new ideas, products, or business models to back up their claims. However, Nebula, a Silicon Valley-based start-up, aims to radically reduce the ... read more..

Data centers consume less power than predicted but the problem persists Jonathan Koomey, a Stanford University professor and scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, forecast in 2008 that the amount of power consumed by the world's data centers would double from 2005 to 2010. It would be an encore performance ... read more..

Enterprise architecture and software lifecycle management integration One of the key goals of IT management is improvement of the engagement and integration of IT with the business, and from a software lifecycle management (SLM) perspective, the requirements gathering and management activities are key to ... read more..

Oracle lands FatWire Oracle announced an agreement to acquire web content management (WCM) vendor FatWire, which specializes in web experience management (WEM) solutions. WEM enables organizations to build and manage an engaging experience for site visitors. This acquisition will fill an important gap in Oracle's enterprise content management (ECM) portfolio. ... read more..

Microsoft Office 365 enters version 'one-dot-zero' Microsoft may have taken the Beta sticker off its latest cloud collaboration offering, Office 365, but organizations should approach this initial release with eyes wide open. Microsoft Office 365 is set to compete against a range of offerings, including those from large vendors such as ... read more..

Linking social, mobile, and cloud July 2011 Catalyst Driven by changing business needs and global economic factors, organizations are starting to do things differently. Speed, agility, mobility, reuse, and innovation are the transformative factors forcing organizations to push aside old technologies and communication models to make way ... read more..

Managing application development, from Agile and cloud to embedded systems and mobile apps June 2011 Catalyst Application lifecycle management (ALM) is a process and philosophy as well as a software solution to support the process. After a period of relative stability, several factors are beginning to reshape ... read more..

Symantec recognises the value of an integrated strategy from consumer to enterprise At its global analyst event in New York on May 23, Symantec talked about five mega-trends and how they represent different challenges for consumers, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and enterprise customers. Ovum agrees that having an integrated ... read more..

The UK 2011 census is a shining example of project management The England, Wales, and Northern Ireland census of 2011 is record breaking as an IT project in many respects. It has been particularly successful when viewed as a large public sector project. We examine how this was achieved, and ... read more..

Amazon Web Service outage: keep it in perspective In April Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced an outage that was its longest to date and exposed serious flaws in the design of components of its infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering. The I told you so anti-cloud brigade went into a frenzy of smugness. ... read more..

Next generation WAN optimization The pressure on the WAN is increasing as more use is made of SaaS, cloud-based services such as data storage, and video streaming from the Internet by enterprise users. In these situations the traditional symmetrical approach to WAN optimization cannot be used, as the infrastructure on ... read more..

Download the latest Ovum Straight Talk IT publication Welcome to the latest issue of Ovum Straight Talk IT, in which we showcase our ongoing collection of technology market data, and how we use it to support and guide our analysis. This issue contains 40 pages of thought-leading articles and insights ... read more..

VMware steps into PaaS and public cloud service provision On April 12, VMware announced the limited beta release of Cloud Foundry (CF), an open source platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering, rightfully positioned as the most open of its kind. It is still early for CF, which needs to expand its capabilities, as ... read more..

Is there a market for another enterprise search product? US/German company Q-Sensei is starting to actively promote its enterprise search platform. This product, like many others, is aiming to give organizations a single combined interface for all of their information and social media feeds. However, in Q-Sensei's case, it aims ... read more..

Product lifecycle management vendor PTC acquires MKS Just as Ovum launches its latest Software Lifecycle Management report that predicts, among other things, that a product lifecycle management (PLM) firm will acquire a software lifecycle management (SLM) firm, that is exactly what happened with PTCs announcement of its intent to buy ... read more..

Secure application development delivers a good return on investment Microsoft has published a case study showing how MidAmerican Energy adopted its Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) framework and delivered rapid and dramatic improvements in its IT systems. This included an estimated 20% improvement in project productivity resulting from the reduced ... read more..