Author: Amy Larsen DeCarlo

As Principal Analyst for Security and Data Center Services at Current Analysis, Amy assesses the managed IT services sector, with an emphasis on security and data center solutions delivered through the cloud including on demand application and managed storage offerings.

Social Media Roasts Apple over Its Subpar Response to the FacePalm Bug

by Amy Larsen DeCarlo, posted in IT Leader, Secure
A. DeCarlo
A. DeCarlo

Summary Bullets:

  • Reports surfaced that Apple ignored multiple efforts from an Arizona lawyer to alert the company that her teenage son had uncovered a bug which allows one FaceTime user to spy on another.
  • Twitter users blasted Apple for ignoring the lawyer’s attempts and then being slow to disable the affected feature and issue a fix.

News that Apple seemingly ignored repeated reports for a week that its popular FaceTime video app had an alarming privacy-invading bug is going viral on social media. Twitter users questioned whether Apple was ignoring calls to investigate a FaceTime group chat bug that allows the initial caller to listen on the call recipient even if the person on the receiving end didn’t pick up, or if the company might have been surreptitiously working on a fix before notifying users about the embarrassing flaw. Continue reading “Social Media Roasts Apple over Its Subpar Response to the FacePalm Bug” →

CEO Diane Greene Prepares to Exit Google with Its Enterprise Cloud Play Still Incomplete

by Amy Larsen DeCarlo, posted in Cloud Enable
A. DeCarlo
A. DeCarlo

Summary Bullets:

  • Diane Greene led the Google Cloud enterprise charge, helping the provider make up lost ground with an ambitious agenda that included significant acquisitions, investments in AI, and new strategic partnerships.
  • But, for all of Google’s forward momentum, the provider still hasn’t closed the gap with IaaS leaders AWS and Microsoft Azure.

As Google Cloud chief Diane Green gets ready to hand over the reins to her successor, former Oracle exec Thomas Kurian, the industry is taking a moment to reflect on the progress and conflicts that marked her term. When Greene joined Google in 2015, despite the company’s status as an Internet titan, the organization was an underwhelming performer in the enterprise cloud. Continue reading “CEO Diane Greene Prepares to Exit Google with Its Enterprise Cloud Play Still Incomplete” →

Web Pioneer Lays Out Ambitious Plan to Disrupt Digital World Order

by Amy Larsen DeCarlo, posted in Secure
A. DeCarlo
A. DeCarlo

Summary Bullets:

  • Consumers’ unease with the misinformation, disinformation, and mishandling of personal digital data is driving new regulations and investment in developing new ways to protect content.
  • Inrupt, a startup founded by Tim Berners-Lee, wants to shake up the status quo with technology that will effectively decentralize the web and put more control in the hands of end users.

Twenty-nine years after the first successful Internet transmission using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the protocol’s developer, Tim Berners-Lee, wants to disrupt the web status quo. In an effort to address mounting concerns about privacy on the web, Berners-Lee is forging a path to return control over data access and storage to end users. Berners-Lee’s new startup, Inrupt, is pushing for adoption of an open source platform which could, if widely implemented, effectively decentralize the web. The platform, known as ‘Solid,’ takes aim at the current digital data model in which a relatively small number of dominant web players maintain significant access and storage control over the majority of end-user information. Continue reading “Web Pioneer Lays Out Ambitious Plan to Disrupt Digital World Order” →

Privacy and Data Integrity in the Disinformation Era

by Amy Larsen DeCarlo, posted in Secure
Amy Larsen DeCarlo – Principal Analyst, Security and Data Center Services

Summary Bullets:

  • Facebook executives have been on a summer apology tour after the Cambridge Analytica fiasco came to light but new information surfaced that shows the company is still not adequately protecting consumer personal data.
  • Lawmakers aren’t waiting for tech to self-regulate with California’s legislature passing a sweeping consumer privacy bill and federal regulators looking to follow suit.

 

Digital advertising, an $88 billion industry in 2017, is driving notable revenue expansion for some of the top social media platforms.  However, this growth has brought with it some questionable practices in how user information is mined and shared.  Facebook became a focus of intense scrutiny when it came to light that during the 2016 U.S. presidential election U.K.-based political consulting house Cambridge Analytical tapped data from tens of millions of Facebook users to build out voter profiles without express permission.  Facebook executives conducted something of an apology tour, testifying in front of a U.S. Congressional Committee and promising more transparency about how user data is handled and applied. Continue reading “Privacy and Data Integrity in the Disinformation Era” →

Amazon Enlists Marquee Partners Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan Chase to Take On Healthcare

by Amy Larsen DeCarlo, posted in IT Leader
A. DeCarlo
A. DeCarlo

Summary Bullets:

  • Amazon teamed up with Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan Chase to create a separate operating company to find a more cost-effective and efficient way to deliver healthcare to the company’s respective employees.
  • While all three companies bring unique characteristics that set this union apart from other alliances, it is Amazon’s history of transformative innovation that elevates the alliance.

When three giants of their respective industries strike an alliance around U.S. healthcare, the world is bound to react (as are markets). And when one of those companies is Amazon, the word ‘disruption’ almost automatically enters the conversation. So, when news hit the wires that Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and J.P. Morgan Chase are entering a healthcare-related partnership to benefit their employees and lower their cost structure, speculation went into high gear and the conjecture started. Continue reading “Amazon Enlists Marquee Partners Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan Chase to Take On Healthcare” →

OpenWorld: Oracle’s Ellison Makes an Aggressive Play to Dominate the Cloud He Once Dismissed

by Amy Larsen DeCarlo, posted in Cloud Enable
A. DeCarlo
A. DeCarlo

Summary Bullets:

• Unveiling its second generation IaaS platform at its OpenWorld user conference, Oracle’s Ellison asserted that it is Oracle not AWS that will lead the market

• But the company has a lot of ground to cover to come anywhere close to dislodging a provider that continues to impress with an ever-expanding portfolio

Eight years after Larry Ellison ridiculed the cloud as a manufactured buzzword that encompassed everything the computing industry was already doing, the CEO has reversed course and is looking to play a spoiler in a market that forecasters predict could top $120 billion in just four years. Ellison turned his keynote into a scathing critique of AWS and a forum to present Oracle in the disruptor role. Continue reading “OpenWorld: Oracle’s Ellison Makes an Aggressive Play to Dominate the Cloud He Once Dismissed” →

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Spin-outs Pave the Way for More Big Shifts in the Cloud Market

by Amy Larsen DeCarlo, posted in Cloud Enable
A. DeCarlo
A. DeCarlo

Summary Bullets:

• Consolidation is the name of the game in cloud as more providers look to mergers and other moves to redouble their efforts against the better-resourced industry giants AWS, Microsoft and even Google

• Rackspace is following suit, finding a buyer in equity firm Apollo Global Management that will invest more in growing the company which will operate as a private entity outside the scrutiny of Wall Street

With just a handful of cloud providers dominating the market, second tier and tertiary rivals are looking for new ways to compete. For many, consolidation is the route they take in their quest to level the playing field as they face-off against behemoths like AWS and Microsoft. Continue reading “Mergers, Acquisitions, and Spin-outs Pave the Way for More Big Shifts in the Cloud Market” →

Verizon Pulls the Plug on Two Public Cloud Services

by Amy Larsen DeCarlo, posted in Cloud Enable
A. DeCarlo
A. DeCarlo

Summary Bullets:

• Verizon told customers it is discontinuing its Public Cloud Reserved Performance and Marketplace public cloud services in April and that clients of the former will need to migrate their virtual machines to another environment, preferably its own Virtual Private Cloud.

• While the company is sunsetting its credit card cloud service, Verizon will continue to support other IaaS solutions including Cloud Storage

More changes are afoot in the public cloud as yet another provider pulls the plug on its credit card payment-accepting IaaS offer. Verizon is ending support for its Public Cloud Reserved Performance on-demand compute service this spring. The provider is also shutting down its cloud marketplace in April, ending the company’s first shot at building an online catalog that would compete against similar cloud storefronts from the likes of Amazon and Microsoft. Continue reading “Verizon Pulls the Plug on Two Public Cloud Services” →

HP Enterprise’s Newest Cloud Tactic? Work with Microsoft to Sell Customers on Azure

by Amy Larsen DeCarlo, posted in Cloud Enable
A. DeCarlo
A. DeCarlo

Summary Bullets:

  • Close on the heels of its decision to shutter its Helion public cloud, HP Enterprise is going the partner route to the hybrid cloud with a new alliance with Microsoft Azure
  • HP Enterprise will now sell customers on Microsoft Azure services while Microsoft will send customers seeking out consulting and private cloud services to HP Enterprise

HP Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman slipped a surprise into the Q4 2015 earnings call, the last quarter in which HP reported as a single company. The company is teaming with long-time ally Microsoft in the cloud. HP Enterprise, which announced last month that it is scrapping its own Helion public cloud services, will now be a preferred Microsoft Azure partner. The company will now sell Microsoft Azure public cloud services while the latter will point clients in need of public cloud and consulting services to HP. Continue reading “HP Enterprise’s Newest Cloud Tactic? Work with Microsoft to Sell Customers on Azure” →

HP Dims the Lights on Its Helion Public Cloud

by Amy Larsen DeCarlo, posted in Cloud Enable
Amy Larsen DeCarlo
Amy Larsen DeCarlo

Summary Bullets:

  • HP’s fits and starts in the cloud continued this week with its disclosure in a blog that the company will sunset its Helion public cloud offer in January.
  • Unable to compete against the hyperscale tier cloud providers, HP is choosing to redouble its efforts in private cloud – and in selling hardware and software to IaaS providers across the public/private spectrum.

HP is making a fast exit from the public cloud sphere. Outmaneuvered by cloud behemoths like AWS and Microsoft which can outcompete HP consistently on price and agility in the IaaS realm, HP has decided to take its Helion public cloud solution off the market in January 2016. In a blog post this week, Bill Hiff, Senior Vice President and General Manager for HP Cloud, said that while HP is committed to helping customers manage their infrastructures across the traditional IT and private and public cloud spectrums, it was time to make a change. Continue reading “HP Dims the Lights on Its Helion Public Cloud” →