Chris Preimesberger

OpenStack at Age 3: 11 Major Milestones in Its Evolution by Chris Preimesberger A Private Cloud Is Born In July 2010, Rackspace Hosting and NASA created OpenStack, an open-source cloud computing operating system, designed to take on the likes of VMware’s vSphere, Microsoft’s Azure, CloudStack and Amazon AWS. Citrix and Dell are among the key […]

Earthlink, one of a handful of pioneering Internet service providers when it launched 19 years ago, revealed June 17 that it will acquire Centerbeam, a 13-year-old privately held cloud and managed services provider, for about $22 million in cash. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter.Atlanta-based Earthlink is transitioning from dial-up and […]

LONDON–There were 130 invitees aboard a special British Airways charter 747 from San Francisco to London earlier this week. Upon closer inspection, there were 130 good stories to tell as well.A bit of background: This specially selected group was invited on an unusual mission by a British Airways/United Nations-sponsored initiative called UnGrounded. The lineup consisted […]

UN Will Back Project AdviseHer to Aid Women in STEM Education by Chris Preimesberger UnGrounded: First Event of Its Kind Here’s British Airways’ logo for the first UnGrounded tour from Silicon Valley to the United Kingdom. Organizers say they want this to become a regular event—and for other segments of the market. Getting Right to […]

LONDON–For the better part of six hours on the evening of June 12, about 120 forward-thinking invitees on a chartered British Airways 747 from San Francisco to London went old school. Packing away their myriad connected devices, they sat down and simply talked to each other about a lofty but increasingly important concern: how to […]

SAN FRANCISCO–Should seasoned proprietary database providers Oracle, SAP and Microsoft be wary of younger upstarts coming to market with highly regarded open-source products?To answer that question, all one needs to do is look at IT history. Linux, in all its flavors, has made huge inroads into the enterprise IT stack during the last two decades. […]

One of the key benefits of the cloud model—and all cloud systems are virtualized—is how virtual machine-driven systems can help to ensure business continuity and speed disaster recovery. Companies of all sizes are always looking for affordable ways to deliver quality IT services reliably and continuously to customers and employees. Cloud computing using virtual machines […]

SAN JOSE, Calif.—As the server business becomes more commoditized with every passing iteration, Dell apparently has found a way to separate itself from the pack.At the same time, it seems to be putting the edge back in PowerEdge.The Round Rock, Texas-based company at its Enterprise Forum this week introduced a combination server/storage/networking device called the […]

IT vendors, analysts, and IT data center and systems managers tell eWEEK on a regular basis that hybrid cloud is the flavor they expect ultimately will be used most often within enterprises. This is certainly logical. As enterprises—especially those with older systems—refresh their IT on an iterative basis, they are swapping out services they previously […]

SAN JOSE, Calif.—A surprise “virtual visitor” showed up during the leadoff keynote at Dell’s Enterprise Forum June 4: Mark Hurd, Oracle’s co-president, appearing via widescreen video before a couple thousand conference attendees. Hurd made an appearance at Dell’s biannual enterprise showcase to reveal that Oracle had agreed to an enhanced long-term partnership with Dell to […]

Salesforce.com, continuing to add marketing and social networking tools for use by its Marketing Cloud and Social.com groups, revealed June 4 that it will acquire cloud marketing platform provider ExactTarget for $2.5 billion in cash. Under the terms of the agreement, Salesforce.com will pay $33.75 per share for the Indianapolis-based company. The stock was selling […]

SAN FRANCISCO—It was only a matter of time before consumerization-of-enterprise-IT conferences began showing up, and now they’re here. IDG’s first CITE (Consumerization of IT in the Enterprise) Conference and Expo, which opened June 2 at the Marriott Marquis here, has attracted about 1,000 attendees interested in the wave of BYOD and other mobile IT issues […]