LinkedIn Snaps Up SaaS Player mSpoke

"LinkedIn, the leading social network for professionals, has shelled out to acquire mSpoke, a firm specializing in a cloud-based recommendation engine to help surface more relevant content." Read the rest here.

How Big is Amazon’s Cloud Computing Business?

"It goes without saying that with its array of web services, Amazon has transformed the computing landscape and nurtured what is generically known as the cloud computing industry. By turning expensive storage and computing hardware into a billable service, it has opened up new vistas for entrepreneurs and made corporations rethink how they build and use their computing and storage resources. The question often people ask: How much money is Amazon making from these web services? I’ve heard some wild estimates." Read the rest.

Six Questions to Ask Before Jumping Into A Cloud

"MSPmentor talks a lot about the power, promise, and perils of the cloud. But how can you know when it’s the right time to make the jump to SaaS? Solutions provider Logicalis has six questions MSPs can ask to help make that decision. They’re worth a read."

6 Questions For Accenture's Cloud Computing Captain

"Accenture has a multi-pronged plan of attack for cloud computing. The New York-based solution provider is attacking the cloud on several fronts, whether it's from strategy, consulting, systems integration or its own brand of software, Accenture has a cloud offering for all clients....But along with making it perfectly clear what it is in the cloud, Accenture is also quite clear on what it's not:" read the rest.

Colocation for the Changing Cloud

"Cloud computing is widely acknowledged as the major force driving IT into the future. International Data Corporation (IDC) has predicted that spending on cloud services is set to increase from $16.2 billion in 2008 to $42 billion by 2012. (1) But as the cloud revolution continues, companies need to consider how they’re going to update their IT infrastructures to prepare for this growth." Read the rest of the article here.

Accounting in the Clouds: Is it all Hype?

Accounting software is already available via SAAS. QB Online, FreshBooks and others have been offering an online version for a while. Read the article here.

Why Most Cloud Contracts Shouldn’t Be Negotiable

"This week brought news that pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly has ended its use of Amazon EC2 because of an inability to negotiate contractual liability with Amazon Web Services in the case of outages or data breaches." Read the rest here.