Friction between finance and tech leaders prevents companies from controlling cloud spend

Vertice, an optimisation platform for SaaS and cloud spend, has unveiled the results of its global survey, 'The State of Cloud Cost Optimisation', which reveals that organisations are being held back from controlling their cloud spending and gaining ROI because of a lack of alignment between finance and tech leaders.

Amidst cloud costs rising by an average of 35% year on year, Vertice surveyed 600 senior finance and tech leaders in the US and UK and found that cutting cloud...

21 September 2023 | Applications

FAQs: How blockchain and cloud compare – and complement each other  

A lit up question mark.

By Niamh O’Connell, senior business development manager at CasperLabs.

Companies have relied on commercial storage providers to house their data since the 1960s - and when cloud services were introduced in the 2000s, early adopters quickly benefited from greater scalability, flexibility, fewer maintenance responsibilities, and improved security. 

Today, blockchain technology is similarly poised to transform how companies store, access, track, and protect data. But for...

7 December 2022 | Blockchain

Salesforce employees are protesting the company’s NFT plans

Salesforce Tower

Hundreds of Salesforce employees are protesting against the company’s plans to offer non-fungible token (NFT) services, according to the Thomas Reuters Foundation.

More than 400 employees have signed an open letter addressed to Salesforce’s co-CEOs calling for them to abandon their crypto plans.

Marc Benioff and Bren Taylor, the company’s CEOs, revealed intentions to build up a portfolio of services to help companies buy and sell NFTs in a sales call earlier in...

23 February 2022 | Blockchain

Salesforce reportedly working on NFT cloud service

Salesforce NFT

Cloud software specialist Salesforce is working on an non-fungible token (NFT) cloud service, according to a CNBC report.

The plans were revealed by Salesforce co-CEOs Marc Benioff and Bret Taylor during an online sales call, with references made to companies like Pepsi which are making similar NFT plays.

Salesforce, which mostly provides cloud-based software for sales teams, marketing departments, and e-commerce sites, believes it can offer a service for artists to...

10 February 2022 | Applications

Ransomware mitigation sees focus from AWS, Azure, Google Cloud

Ransomware mitigation strategies have become an increasingly important aspect of major cloud providers’ offering following the pandemic.

In recent weeks, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud have all published articles recommending mitigation tactics and best practice in the event of a ransomware attack.

A ransomware attack occurs when company files are encrypted and money is demanded in exchange for the decryption key and the maintained privacy...

16 September 2021 | AWS

Five leading trends of database innovation: Cloud-native, self-driving, and more

In the wake of the pandemic, one trend that emerged is the need for digitalisation, and this will continue – and even grow – in the future. And, while it’s still not clear exactly what that actual economic impact of Covid-19 will be, IDC predicts that the digital economy will accelerate to counter this. The firm predicts that over 65% of APAC GDP is expected to be digitalised between 2020 and 2023 and spending will hit US$ 1.2 trillion.

As businesses – and even economies...

30 April 2021 | Alibaba Cloud

AWS makes Ethereum generally available on Amazon Managed Blockchain

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced the general availability (GA) of Ethereum on its managed blockchain service.

The open source blockchain joins Hyperledger Fabric as compatible with Amazon Managed Blockchain - in a move which will add power to Ethereum's offering, but also showcases AWS' latent ambitions in the space. A preview had been showcased in December.

In a blog post confirming the GA, AWS cited decentralised finance (DeFi) as a key use case going forward....

11 March 2021 | AWS

HSBC moves Corda enterprise blockchain technology to Google Cloud

HSBC has become the first financial institution to move Corda Enterprise onto Google Cloud, promising reduced client onboarding times and costs.

The bank uses Corda, from R3, for its custody blockchain platform, Digital Vault. The service, launched in November 2019, digitises the transaction records of private placement assets, from equity, to debt, and real estate.

Moving to Google Cloud, HSBC noted, will enable the company to move more of the 'transaction lifecycle'...

1 March 2021 | Blockchain

Google Cloud advertises for blockchain sales manager in China

Google Cloud is looking for a business development manager based in China focused on blockchain technologies.

According to a LinkedIn job advert posted a week ago, the ideal candidate is expected to have a decade of experience selling infrastructure software, databases, analytic tools or applications software, and knowledge of C-suite dealings, among other qualifications.

The word 'blockchain' itself, perhaps wisely, does not appear in the posting itself, only noting...

7 January 2021 | Blockchain

Google Cloud teams up with Theta Labs for blockchain-based video delivery

Google Cloud has brokered another partnership in its exploration of blockchain technologies, with the company joining the enterprise program of blockchain-based video delivery network Theta Labs.

Google has joined the grandly-named Enterprise Validator Program, alongside Binance, Blockchain Ventures, and Gumi, which 'allows enterprises to validate transactions in accordance with Theta's underlying consensus protocol', in its own words.

Theta's business case is to broadly...

28 May 2020 | Blockchain