Report Paints Unflattering Picture Of Microsoft Cloud
A New York Times article has highlighted the real-world impact of the data centres powering Microsoft's cloud services
A New York Times article has highlighted the real-world impact of the data centres powering Microsoft's cloud services
The Apple iPhone 5 isn’t likely to put in an appearance at the 2012 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), planned for 11 June. What Apple instead plans to show off is an update to iCloud, the Wall Street Journal reported on 14 May. iCloud users can today store sets of images in the cloud, which can be synchronised to photos on various Apple devices. The next version of iCloud, reports the Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, will allow users to share sets of photos with other iCloud users, who will be able to comment on them – Apple with a touch of Facebook, it would seem.
Apple has decided not to remain silent after Greenpeace criticised it, along with Amazon and Microsoft, in a mid-April “How Clean Is Your Cloud?” report, which claimed all three heavily relied on “dirty utilities” like coal to power their cloud-running data centres. Apple, normally tight-lipped in the face of media hype and public criticism, issued an uncharacteristically quick riposte to Greenpeace’s PR offensive, with a statement about the energy sources for the data centres – facilities often referred to as “server farms” – it is building in Maiden, North Carolina and Oregon. Renewable energy sources “Our data centre in North Carolina will draw about 20 megawatts at full capacity, and we are on track to supply more than 60 percent of that power on-site from renewable sources including a solar farm and fuel cell installation, which will each be the largest of their kind in the country,” Kristin Huguet, an Apple ...