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This Company Is Taking Cloud Customers From Amazon – The Motley Fool

With stocks looking like they're taking another dive down this year, it might be a good time to consider one of the few remaining areas that's still growing -- the cloud. Cloud revenue, that is, not cloud stocks. Cloud stocks are down across the board. For instance, the Global X Cloud Computing ETF, which tracks cloud stocks, has cratered 36% this year.

Despite the declining share prices, cloud companies are still growing their revenues and profits. This makes for a compelling opportunity to take advantage of the cloud megatrend. However, not all cloud stocks are created equal. Oracle (ORCL -2.24%) is a company that has a few advantages that other cloud players don't. It's also taking cloud business from the cloud's early market share leader, Amazon.

For decades, Oracle has been a market share leader in ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software. ERP software handles huge corporate functions like accounting, project management, and supply chain management for enterprise-sized companies around the globe.

Oracle was a relative latecomer to the cloud transition. Still, it has been moving its expansive customer base from its on-premise server farms to Oracle's Cloud infrastructure and software to its cloud-based version over the last several years. Oracle's competitive advantage remains in its ERP software. The company's software is so hard to duplicate that Microsofthas formed a multi-cloud partnership with Oracle to make it available to its Azure users. Amazon has also made it available to AWS users.

Image source: Getty Images.

Its margin profile is perhaps the most attractive feature of Oracle's cloud-based business model. Because the cloud-based software business is digital, there is very little cost associated with adding a new customer or selling additional software to an existing customer. That gives Oracle the advantage of bundling its software and cloud infrastructure services at a lower price than the competition.

In a Q&A session with investors during Oracle's second-quarter earnings announcement, founder and chairman Larry Ellison made some interesting comments. He said that because of its cost advantages and stellar functionality, he expects that cloud customers will be moving from Amazon to Oracle by next quarter -- and some of those companies "will shock you."

Some AWS customers are already on the move. Oracle recently closed its acquisition of Cerner, a healthcare information company. The acquired expertise may have lured Bionexo, a healthcare business serving 15,000 hospitals, to move its data warehouse from AWS to Oracle during the second quarter. In addition, the largest telecom in Chile is also taking its workloads from AWS to Oracle.

One aspect of cloud stocks is that many cloud players are conglomerates that investors must account for. Amazon has its namesake e-commerce platform, which experienced a revenue decline last quarter due to a slowing U.S. economy. Alphabetmakes most of its money from advertising, which could suffer for the same reason.

Oracle, on the other hand, is focused on its cloud business. As the company continues to move its current customers to the cloud, its margins should improve accordingly. The same can be said about customers switching to Oracle's cost-advantaged cloud platform. Oracle investors have the added benefit of not having additional businesses hiding the growth of its cloud platform.

The trend toward cloud computing is firmly entrenched and has plenty of room for growth over the next several years. Industry analysts expect cloud computing to grow 15.8% annually through 2028. Because of Oracle's ERP software dominance and cost advantages, the company should capture an above-average share of the growth.

Numbers from its first fiscal quarter ending Aug. 31 may be evidence. Oracle grew its cloud infrastructure revenue by 58% in constant currency (after adjusting for fluctuations in foreign currency) and its Cloud Application revenue by 48% in constant currency. Those numbers bested revenue growth at AWS for the quarter and significantly increased from Oracle's fiscal fourth quarter.

ORCL PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts

If you're looking for a stock that can take full advantage of the cloud growth megatrend without the additional baggage, Oracle is a great bet. It has the twofold advantage of ERP software supremacy and cost advantage over other cloud companies.

Like other cloud stocks, Oracle shares are down this year. Now, investors may also find the stock's valuation enticing. Wall Street expects Oracle to generate $4.95 in earnings per share for this fiscal year. That implies a favorable forward price-to-earnings ratio (based on forecasted earnings per share) of under 14 times, nearly its lowest in over a year. Tune in to Oracle's next-quarter earnings, and you might see the shocking AWS customer wins that Ellison predicted.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fools board of directors. John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fools board of directors. BJ Cook has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Amazon, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Cloud computing will open new dimensions of future: JECRC organizes Cloud Summit ’22, more than 4000 students from 50 institutions across the country…

Cloud Summit 22 held at JECRC Foundation. More than 4000 students from 50 institutions across the country participated in this program. The JECRC Cloud Summit was sponsored by Tatum Platinum (Ravish Jain, Country Head), Department of Science and Technology (Rajasthan), Cloudworks and Geeks for Geeks. Mugdha Sinha, IAS, Secretary, DST Government of India, Chief Guest of the three-day event said How current technology is enlightening the world and how cloud computing is a stepping stone to this process.

Also Vikram Sharma, Sandeep Jain, Ravish Jain, Jacob Vasa were the special guests of the program. JECRC Cloud Summit was organized to promote the importance of cloud computing. This program brought students together to listen to the worlds biggest speakers and learn about cloud computing. Representatives of big tech companies like Google, Oracle, TCS, Micro-soft etc. Nishant, Nitin Agarwal, Avijit Prasad, Animesh Gaitonde, Ritesh Nehte, Piyush Saxena, Alan Griffenson, Sumit Kapoor, Gaurav Khetarpal, discussed the importance and future of Cloud Computing. JECRC Vice Chairperson Arpit Agarwal said that Cloud Summit 22 The aim of this program is to promote cloud computing among the students and connect more and more students of the country with it. This summit will open the door for the students which will connect them to the world of computing in a better way.

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Nutanix unveils Partner Program updates and incentives – iTWire

COMPANY NEWS: Nutanix, a leader in hybrid multi-cloud computing, today announced the next era of Elevate, a global partner program designed to re-define the partner engagement journey. Nutanix has evolved the Elevate program focus to provide a better experience for the entire partner ecosystem and customers throughout the customer lifecycle, while staying true to the programs unified framework. This includes an expanded benefits package to build a partner profit continuum.

The IT industry is at an inflection point in how customers want to procure and consume technology, said Nutanix senior vice president of worldwide channel sales Christian Alvarez.

With our updates to the Elevate program, weve addressed many of our partners needs to engage with customers through their lifecycle not just selling the technology, but enabling them to adopt, perform, expand and ultimately renew. Elevate now supports and rewards partners along this entire journey through purpose-built benefits and incentives.

In the past year, Nutanix has re-architected its go-to-market strategy, programs, and tools to provide partners more control, insights, and efficiency over sales cycles. New updates to the Elevate Partner Program include:

Enhanced and expanded incentives framework to reward partner ecosystem throughout the customer lifecycle For the first time in Elevates history, Nutanix has extended program incentives to include not only partner organisations, but individual sellers and SEs to ignite new customer acquisition growth. The New Business Individual Incentive will reward individual sellers and systems engineers at eligible resellers and services providers each time they sell Nutanix into net-new accounts. In the coming months, Nutanix will begin to roll out a pilot program for an Elevate Program incentive designed to reward select partners for the delivery of consistent, on-time renewal rates with their Nutanix customers.New incentive for partners that lead sales cycles autonomously Nutanix launched a Channel Led Selling Rebate Incentive for Elevate, built to reward resellers who drive deals through the entire sales cycle autonomously. Nutanix is enabling partners to realise this selling motion through new tool sets like the recently revamped Sizer 6.0 capacity planning tool and enhancements to Nutanixs Performance + Deal Registration program.A continued focus on building partner competencies through education and certificationsThe Elevate program requirements introduced a new Sizing Associate accreditation requirement for all levels, designed to enable partners to speed up sales cycles through rapid capacity planning, quoting and order fulfilment using Nutanix Sizer.

For more information about the new updates to Elevate and how to join the Nutanix partner program, click here.

About NutanixNutanix is a global leader in cloud software and a pioneer in hyperconverged infrastructure solutions, making clouds invisible, freeing customers to focus on their business outcomes. Organisations around the world use Nutanix software to leverage a single platform to manage any app at any location for their hybrid multicloud environments. Follow us on social media @nutanix.

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Click the button below to register and get your ticket for the Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane event

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SK to build AI computing infrastructure with University of Toronto – The Korea Herald

An exterior view of the St. George campus at the University of Toronto (Courtesy of University of Toronto)

South Korean mobile telecom carrier SK Telecom announced Sunday that the company, its artificial intelligence chip developer arm Sapeon and the University of Toronto came together on Thursday to build an AI chip-mounted computing infrastructure at the Canadian universitys campus in Toronto.

Sapeon will provide its low-power neural processors, the X220 and X330, free of charge to run its neural processing unit, or NPU, Farm infrastructure, which is capable of delivering up to 32,000 trillion operations per second.

According to SK Telecom, researchers at the University of Toronto will use the new computing infrastructure and cloud computing tools to generate or optimize the artificial neural network models. SK Telecom did not disclose when the new computing hardware would be introduced.

Sapeon's AI chips have been used for data centers, broadcasting media quality improvement and voice recognition improvement.

This signals that the ties between Korea and Canada are materializing in the field of AI.

SK Telecom said the memorandum of understanding of the three parties was in line with the bilateral cooperation of South Korea and Canada for research and development in the field of AI.

Earlier on Friday, President Yoon Suk-yeol and his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau met in the Canadian capital of Ottawa. The leaders pledged to seek supply chain resilience in the field of batteries, electric vehicles and critical materials, as well as emerging technologies including AI and next-generation network beyond 5G.

The summit between Yoon and Trudeau came during Yoon's weeklong overseas trip that ended Saturday. Yoon visited the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.

By Son Ji-hyoung (consnow@heraldcorp.com)

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Got $1,000? Here Are 2 Remarkable Stocks to Buy – The Motley Fool

If you want your $1,000 to turn into a whole lot more a few years down the road, buying stocks is a great idea. But not just any stocks. The best bet is a company that has a track record of earnings growth -- and solid future prospects too.

You can find them in any industry. Today, though, let's look at retailers. It's been a tough year for them -- higher inflation and economic troubles have weighed on companies and consumers. But there still are some players that have what it takes to weather the storm and perform over the long haul. The following two companies actually generate revenue from customers before they even buy anything. Let's check out these winning retail players.

You don't have to sign up for Amazon's (AMZN -3.01%) Prime program to shop on the e-commerce website. But more than 200 million people have. And that means Amazon is bringing in steady annual revenue from them. Amazon says Prime members' spending has been increasing -- and they're relying more and more on Amazon for shopping and entertainment.

Of course, today's economic environment is weighing on retail. That's hurt Amazon's earnings in recent times.

But here's some good news. The company's cloud computing business -- Amazon Web Services (AWS) -- continues to report double-digit growth in sales and operating income. That's in spite of the current economic situation. And AWS actually is the big profit driver. AWS last year accounted for more than 70% of Amazon's total operating income.

This means Amazon can count on AWS during these difficult times -- as well as in easier times. Importantly, AWS is the market leader. And the cloud computing market is expected to grow in the double digits through this decade. AWS should continue to drive Amazon's growth well into the future.

As for e-commerce, woes may not be over. Amazon must still manage higher costs. Shoppers may not spend as much if inflation hurts their wallets. But the tough times won't last forever. History shows us economic downturns are followed by recovery and growth. As a market leader, Amazon is well positioned to benefit once the pressures of inflation and a difficult economy ease.

Prospects look good for these two Amazon businesses. And the company's track record shows us it can deliver top-notch earnings -- and share performance -- over time. That makes it a great buy for long-term investors.

AMZN data by YCharts.

You have to pay a membership fee to shop at Costco Wholesale (COST -4.26%). In return, you get prices that usually beat those of other retailers. This business model has worked for Costco over the long term. Earnings and return on invested capital have climbed over time.

COST Net Income (Annual) data by YCharts.

Of course, you might wonder whether, in difficult economic times like right now, people may reconsider paying a membership fee before even setting foot in a store.

I would argue that this actually might be a moment of strength for Costco. Though there is an annual fee to pay, customers who shop at Costco often enough clearly get their money's worth. So, when they're worried about spending, customers might favor Costco over other stores.

Costco has shown that its membership continues to grow. The company recently hit an all-time high in membership renewal rates. At the end of the fiscal fourth quarter, Costco's renewal rate in the U.S. and Canada reached 92.6%, up 0.3 percentage points from the previous quarter. And the number of cardholders climbed 6.5% year over year to more than 118 million at the end of the fourth quarter.

The trend in executive memberships also supports the idea of strong future revenue prospects. Executive memberships cost double the amount of a traditional membership. This higher level of membership comes with various benefits. Executive membership is on the rise. And that's important because these members make up a significant share of sales -- nearly 72%.

Now let's talk about price. Trading at 33 times forward earnings estimates, Costco isn't the cheapest retailer on the block. But considering Costco's earnings track record and today's membership growth, it's worth paying a premium for this stock.

And Costco's valuation isn't as high as it was a few months ago. It's declined 22% since the start of the year. This looks like the perfect opportunity to get in on this remarkable stock.

John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Adria Cimino has positions in Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon and Costco Wholesale. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Got $1,000? Here Are 2 Remarkable Stocks to Buy - The Motley Fool

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Is Cloud Hosting the Best IT Solution for Your Business in 2022? – StartupGuys.net

To be successful in the modern world, your company should use the latest technologies and possibilities. This is especially important when talking about the internet, where innovations appear every day. One of the most popular cases today is cloud hosting using online storage to operate and secure large amounts of data. Is it a good initiative? Let us find out!

Cloud hosting is a resource you can use to provide access to applications and internet sites. The main difference between this format and regular hosting is that it uses servers connected to a unique functional system.

Site hosting is a rapidly growing field. Many companies are trying to provide trustworthy software to their clients, like EasyWP. These allow for faster WordPress sites. No problems are insurmountable when there are experts around.

Clouds can greatly increase the effectiveness of your project. You will also feel more comfortable operating and communicating. Some of the benefits are:

With clouds, criminals and scammers have fewer chances to steal data. Even if you lose your work device or it gets stolen, fraudsters still need to enter your cloud accounts using your username and password. Think of it as a large virtual hard drive where you can store all your data.

Moreover, such initiatives are easy to monitor. Once again, online security personnel will not need to check every employees laptop. They can focus on data stored in one secure place.

Clouds are also suitable for providing limited access to freelancers or other team members. If you dont want them to see important documents, share only the required ones.

Not only will security workers feel more comfortable with using clouds, but regular employees will too! With all the data in one place, each team member can access it simultaneously. Any corrections could be made in a few moments, and workers have total control.

Distance is not a problem. As long as you have a device with an internet connection, it is always possible to get down to work. And hey, no spending an enormous amount of time sending different files to each other!

Forty years ago, computers were enormous devices. They took up a lot of space, and it was too expensive to buy a couple of PCs for one office. Ten years ago, people switched to laptops but still came to their workspaces. All data and information required for work still need to be stored somewhere. Many companies built enormous server rooms with large pallets of hardware. Now it is time for cloud hosting.

Not only is it more flexible and comfortable, but its cheaper too. You dont need to pay hardware sellers or engineers. Just pick one (or more, if you have the need) hosting company you like and use its services. There is no need to build something yourself these companies already have their own servers and technology. They can be located everywhere, but what is the most important part theyre not in your workspace. So, you can even spend less money on rent or focus on other organizational things. Your employees will thank you for the new fitness or dining zone, but not a spacious room full of cables, wires, and indicators.

The same goes for a usual internet page hosting. Whichever platform you use, for example, a WordPress site, you can save money on a distant hosting without any hardware required from your side.

Using cloud hosting for business allows you to team up with specialists from all over the world, with different languages, ethnicities, skills, and perspectives. Hire people regardless of their location, and focus only on their professional abilities. The same goes for freelancers many top-tier workers would gladly join you for projects and other activities.

Why limit yourself to individuals when you can cooperate with a whole team? Connect with little workshops and large enterprises to achieve new business heights. This can easily be done with the help of online hosting. Share documents, files, and projects connections are the key to success.

Surely, the benefits of cloud hosting are great, but you need to pay attention to some details.

Dont hesitate too much; you will be satisfied with your new tech. It grants new abilities, so use them wisely to achieve maximum efficiency and business sustainability.

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Better living through cloud: Green aspirations drive migration – CIO Dive

Cost, convenience and compute are the big Cs driving the cloud market. Climate is a more recent addition to the list one thats gaining ground as the market matures and the planet warms.

Phase one of cloud was the great migration of data storage and applications that improved efficiency, provided access to greater computing power and, as a side benefit, brought significant carbon emissions reductions.

The second phase moved beyond infrastructure to offer an ongoing proliferation of SaaS and other as a Service products, a further bump to operational convenience and efficiency. These innovations may not specifically target environmental, social and governance (ESG), but the flip side of efficiency is sustainability.

Tech leaders are now counting on the next phase of cloud adoption a migration of core business functions to open new avenues for curbing greenhouse gasses.

There's a huge pivot towards the heart of the business, said Brian Campbell, principal in Deloitte Consultings Strategy practice. Thats where were seeing a lot of the investment in innovation going as we look out over the next three to five years.

ESG goals are one key area of innovation emerging as a top-ten business priorityfor C-suite leaders, according to a May survey of 400 chief executives by Gartner.

New Securities and Exchange Commission regulations that would make companies disclose greenhouse gas emissionsannually are in the works, adding a degree of urgency to corporate ESG initiatives.

Most companies regard integrated cloud technologies, including AI, IoT and analytics, as a force-multiplier in driving positive outcomes across a wide array of objectives, according to a June report from Deloitte. Nearly three-quarters of 500 senior cloud decision-makers surveyed by Deloitte view cloud capabilities a means to achieving better sustainability in support of environmental issues.

Businesses in every sector are turning to an industry cloud approach, Campbell said, migrating processes that are specific to their industry and using AI-enabled technologies to accelerate modernization.

One trait of this phase of cloud maturation is the onboarding of software tuned specifically to industry use cases to replace less efficient legacy applications. Through that alone, Campbell said, companies are expecting to see sustainability gains.

Faster and more precise real-time monitoring tools, more energy efficient cloud servers and digital twin technologies that test sustainability implications of operational decisions are three ways companies are already pushing ESG agendas forward.

Nearly three-quarters of the 500 multinational companies surveyed by Accenture in June had deployed carbon measuring AI technologies to reduce emissions, and more than nine had set a goal of achieving net-zero targets by 2030.

Campbell said companies he consults with have started to set targets and are aware they need to be tracking emissions just like they track other metrics.

Those efforts are supported by technologies specifically designed to measure sustainability metrics.

[Global system integrators] are now giving you good ways to measure the implications of a lot of the choices that youre making as an organization, Campbell said. So, you're getting sustainability potential from the general investment that's going into cloud and cloud technologies.

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Public Cloud Risks Is Your Organization Prepared for Cloud Threats? – Security Boulevard

The dawn of cloud computing created endless business opportunities for organizations seeking substantial growth by delivering a flawless user experience backed with robust security.

Regardless of the niche, enterprises are now leveraging the public cloud to its full potential and ability to stay ahead of the competition.

Moreover, public clouds have significantly increased the deployment of virtual machines since it offers flexibility and is quite affordable, even for startups and small enterprises.

However, the rapid adoption of the public and hybrid cloud doesnt necessarily mean that sensitive information stored on remote servers or shared clouds is secure.

A recent survey revealed that phishing is one of the most common cloud attacks, with 73% of respondents agreeing that their organization faced a phishing attack.

And phishing is just one risk; plenty of other underlying risks can affect your cloud security.

Hence, businesses must understand the risks associated with public cloud security and take timely action to avoid financial and reputational losses.

Lets understand the risks associated with the public cloud and how businesses can take timely action to avoid the risks.

Since several risks can impact a business, heres the list of some of the most common risks that every business should be aware of:

One of the biggest challenges with the public cloud infrastructure is that the data is stored outside the enterprises IT environment. And this can be pretty risky from an information security perspective.

Hence, most public cloud providers suggest enterprises create backups of their sensitive information to deal with any risky situation.

Besides, privacy risks, especially in shared cloud infrastructure, cant be overlooked. And the sensitive data is beyond the control of the organization.

So, businesses need to invest in cloud security best practices, including multi-factor authentication (MFA) and risk-based authentication (RBA).

Since most enterprises arent relying on renowned cloud providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, the risk of data privacy and identity theft lingers.

Moreover, cybercriminals are always searching for ways to breach security by bypassing the poor line of defense. In a nutshell, they exploit destructive authentication mechanisms.

So, how should an organization protect the privacy and security of its consumer information? Users may be misusing their account verification. Its in these cases that the Zero Trust Model works.

The zero trust model believes no user can be trusted, and verification is no longer an option. It supports the theory that all users must be authenticated, authorized, and regularly verified to ensure they can be trusted with the data in any business hierarchy.

Another major issue that can affect the overall security of your cloud is connection failures and cloud server downtime.

Many businesses have faced DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks in the last couple of years, leading to identity theft and financial and reputational damages. And the number of such attacks is surging exponentially.

DDoS attacks are pretty common in private cloud infrastructure, and one robust way to avoid such attacks is to choose servers offering 100% uptime.

A cloud-based CIAM (customer identity and access management) solution like LoginRadius, has set up automated failover systems in all layers of our architecture, which is why it ensures 99.99% uptime every month.

The increasing number of enterprises leveraging the cloud has increased the risk of data breaches and identity thefts.

Businesses considering leveraging the private cloud shouldnt overlook the security aspects and must consider relying on n robust security infrastructure.

Enterprises thinking about accelerating business growth through cloud adoption shouldnt miss the aspects above.

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Amazon, Microsoft and Google face UK probe over dominance in cloud computing – CNBC

The probe will focus on so-called "hyperscalers" like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, which let businesses access computing power and data storage from remote servers.

Chesnot | Getty Images

British media regulator Ofcom is investigating Amazon, Microsoft and Google's tight grip on the cloud computing industry.

In the coming weeks, the watchdog will launch a study to examine the position of firms offering public cloud infrastructure and whether they pose any barriers to competition.

Its probe, announced Thursday, will focus on so-called "hyperscalers" like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, which let businesses access computing power and data storage from remote servers, rather than host it on their own private infrastructure.

Further action could be taken by the regulator if it finds the companies are harming competition. Selina Chadha, Ofcom's director of connectivity, said the regulator hadn't yet reached a view on whether the cloud giants are engaged in anticompetitive behavior. Ofcom said it will conclude its review and publish a final report including any concerns and proposed recommendations within the 12 months.

Amazon, Microsoft and Google were not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.

The review will form part of a broader digital strategy push by Ofcom, which regulates the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the U.K.

It also plans to investigate other digital markets, including personal messaging and virtual assistants like Amazon's Alexa, over the next year. Ofcom said it is interested in how services including Meta's WhatsApp, Apple's Facetime and Zoom have impacted traditional calling and messaging, as well as the competitive landscape among digital assistants, connected TVs and smart speakers.

"The way we live, work, play and do business has been transformed by digital services," Ofcom's Chadha said in a statement Thursday. "But as the number of platforms, devices and networks that serve up content continues to grow, so do the technological and economic issues confronting regulators."

"That's why we're kick-starting a programme of work to scrutinise these digital markets, identify any competition concerns and make sure they're working well for people and businesses who rely on them," she added.

Ofcom has been selected as the enforcer of strict new rules policing harmful content on the internet. But the legislation, known as the Online Safety Bill, is unlikely to come into force anytime soon after Liz Truss replaced Boris Johnson as prime minister.With Truss' government grappling with a plethora of problems in the U.K.not least the cost-of-living crisisit's expected that online safety regulation will move to the back of the queue of policy priorities for the government.

The move adds to efforts from other regulators to rein in large tech companies over the perceived stranglehold they have on various parts of the digital economy.

The Competition and Markets Authority has several active probes into Big Tech companies and wants additional powers to ensure a level playing field across digital markets. The European Commission, meanwhile, has fined Google billions of dollars over alleged antitrust offences, is investigating Apple and Amazon in separate cases, and has passed landmark digital laws that may reshape internet giants' business models.

Amazon holds a comfortable lead in the cloud infrastructure services market, with its Amazon Web Services division making billions of dollars in profits every year. In 2021, AWS raked in $62.2 billion of revenue and over $18.5 billion in operating income.

Microsoft's Azure is the first runner up, while Google is the third-largest player. Other firms, including IBM and China's Alibaba, also operate their own cloud arms.

Combined, Amazon, Microsoft and Google generate roughly 81% of revenues in the U.K.'s cloud infrastructure services market according to Ofcom, which estimates the market to be worth 15 billion ($16.8 billion).

Microsoft recently announced a number of changes to its cloud contract terms, effectively making it easier for customers to use competing cloud platforms as well as Microsoft. The Redmond, Washington-based company had faced complaints from rivals in Europe that it was limiting choice in the market.

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5 Benefits of Cloud Communications in Higher Education – EdTech Magazine: Focus on K-12

3. Cloud Communications Require Less IT Management

Transitioning communications offsite means no longer having members of the IT staff fully dedicated to managing phone communication and server rooms, freeing them up to focus on more pressing tasks at colleges and universities. And with higher education institutions reporting staffing shortages and struggles in hiring new employees,particularly in areas like cybersecurity, having IT experts with more time on their hands can only be a good thing.

On the infrastructure side, cloud communications require little more than a strong internet connection, and preferably a redundant connection in case of an outage, along with a quality switch to route communications correctly. As for the cloud providers themselves, most offer a 99.99 percent uptime promise for their service, so interruptions should be rare if not eliminated entirely.

Traditional phone systems involve many wires running from desk to desk and into a large phone server in a backroom somewhere. Cloud communications mean no more on-premises servers and, for those users who ask for nothing more than a headset to make their calls, no more physical phones. Even for people who still want a traditional on-desk phone, communications run through a switch, and connections are most often made to a computer via USB or Bluetooth.

That means theres not only less for IT departments to maintain, but also little upfront equipment to buy and fewer capital expenditures. As for the cloud communication service itself, most providers charge on a per-user basis, so unused desks no longer continue to rack up phone bills when they sit empty.

READ MORE:How to set up a cloud-based telephony solution in higher ed.

The flexibility that is a major selling point for cloud communication tools can also apply to future planning.

As collaboration tools evolve, there are sure to be new features that colleges and universities want to incorporate. With cloud communications, it will be as easy as updating a piece of software. That also goes for security updates as they are rolled out to keep cloud communications protected.

Cloud communications systems are also easily scalable, both up and down. So, if your communication needs expand, its as simple as adding any number of new users, or vice versa when users need to be retired.

The future in cloud communication is already here, but the vast number of options can be overwhelming to sort through. To find out which platform might be best for your college or university, a CDW expert can conduct an assessment of your current infrastructure, break down the pros and cons of every option, and recommend a solution tailored to your needs.

This article is part of EdTech: Focus on Higher EducationsUniversITy blogseries.

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