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Windows on an iPad – Technology Review

Check the source for an overview of Steve Perlman’s latest adventure

By downloading a free application to an iPad, users get two gigabytes of storage and access to popular Office software

Windows on an iPad – Technology Review

Continue reading: Windows on an iPad – Technology Review

What Went Wrong With Oracle’s Quarter? – Arik Hesseldahl – News – AllThingsD

Oracle had a bad quarter, but it can now point to at least one large Exadata cloud

Ellison also hinted that Apple is a big Oracle customer. He mentioned a “a very large American smartphone manufacturer” that had bought more than 30 Oracle Exadata systems as it built out its cloud. Unless I’m missing something, there’s really only one company that fits that description, and that’s Apple. Its use of Oracle gear within the mix at its North Carolina data centers has been speculated about before, but never confirmed by Apple directly. (Big surprise, that.)

What Went Wrong With Oracle’s Quarter? – Arik Hesseldahl – News – AllThingsD

Continue reading: What Went Wrong With Oracle’s Quarter? – Arik Hesseldahl – News – AllThingsD

Salesforce, a Leader in Cloud Computing, Draws Big Rivals – NYTimes.com

I suspect Google will be surprised to read that Google Apps is “close to” $1B in revenue; Gartner estimates it at considerably less than that

Mr. Benioff, the chief executive of Salesforce, is characteristically pleased with himself. “It’s great that Oracle and SAP are buying cloud companies,” he said, asking, “Do you think it will transform them?”

For Mr. Benioff, who co-founded Salesforce in 1999, the acquisitions are a vindication of his strategy. “Amazon Web Services is making over $1 billion in revenues with cloud software,” he said. “Google Apps is close to that. We’re on track for revenues of $3 billion in 2012. That is $5 billion, and that is… Continue reading: Salesforce, a Leader in Cloud Computing, Draws Big Rivals – NYTimes.com

Google vs. Microsoft: Not All Clouds Are Created Equal | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com

Excerpt from an Amit Singh profile; he’s the 20-year Oracle alum now leading Google’s enterprise operations

With its new cloud services, Oracle is offering its various software tools over the web, including its database. But it hasn’t adopted a Google-like multi-tenant architecture. Ellison says that in keeping customers isolated from each other, Oracle provides better security — whereas Singh sees this as an inability to really cut costs.

There’s no settling these arguments. There are certainly advantages to Google’s model — we’ve seen them firsthand — but no doubt, there will be businesses who refuse that model for years to come. But Singh’s point is well taken. At Google, “the cloud” means… Continue reading: Google vs. Microsoft: Not All Clouds Are Created Equal | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com

Don’t look now, but AWS might be a billion-dollar biz [GigaOM]

In other news, from AMZN

“Other,” the revenue category in Amazon’s reports that encompasses Amazon Web Services, is growing like mad — 70 percent over last year, in fact. This matters because it likely means AWS is outpacing its projected growth and is rapidly approaching a $1 billion run rate.

[…]

Whatever the actual market size though, one has to assume AWS will be responsible for the lion’s share. Rackspace topped $100 million in cloud revenue in 2010, and has done just just over $80 million over the first two quarters of 2011. When Terremark announced its fiscal third quarter earnings in February before… Continue reading: Don’t look now, but AWS might be a billion-dollar biz [GigaOM]