Articles from Quentin Hardy

1. Running Clouds, Chasing Cisco Explore Forbes.com (Apr 19 2010) Cloud Computing A small cohort of Silicon Valley luminaries is reinventing the hottest trend in computing--and in the process giving the likes of Cisco, HP and Juniper Networks something to think about. Arista Networks is announcing on Monday its first chassis-based switch, capable of running 10,000 computer servers in a so-called "cloud" data center, the core of the growing business of remote access to high-speed supercomputing via a Web browser. The company says the product, which lists for $140,000, offers five times the performance of existing machines, while consuming one-tenth the power and occupying half the space. (Read Full Article)

   Comment Mentions:   Google   Cisco   Juniper Networks

2. How big computing will make every action a transaction Explore Forbes.com (Apr 8 2010) Technology is about possibilities. Phones increase how many people you can connect with. Cars, how much ground you might cover. Powerful, highly networked computers may shift your every situation, changing what you might do and where you might be, every hour of any day. Everything is possible, a continual auction of time, space and attention. It could mean ultimate freedom, or a whole new kind of control. Imagine a world rich enough in sensors, databases and analytic software to do all this. It will be possible by 2020. The primitive stirrings of it are here already, in everything from suggestions about what to read next at Amazon.com ( AMZN - news - people ), to real-time traffic information on Google's ( GOOG - news - people ) Android phone. Microsoft's ( MSFT - news - people ) Natal gaming software responds to how you move in space, with no controller or gaming device at hand. (Read Full Article)

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3. Microsoft's New Cloud Computing Explore Forbes.com (Oct 29 2009) Construction , Cloud Computing In a suburb outside Chicago, Microsoft has been showing off its latest data center. The 707,000-square-foot building will hold, at top strength, 162 sealed cargo containers of up to 2,500 computer servers each, plus thousands more servers in conventional racks. The cost: $500 million. But though Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system is capturing all the attention these days, this bland building might be a place to see the company's future. All the computers will run on a single operating system called Azure that, eventually, will let big companies run applications like e-mail and house data at this and other Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ) centers. (Read Full Article)

   Comment Mentions:   Amazon.com   Fujitsu   Google

4. Belly Of The Beast- Microsoft Data Center in Chicago Explore Forbes.com (Oct 6 2009) Construction , Power and Cooling , Servers Opened on July 20 in Northlake, Ill., it is Microsoft's newest and largest data center, a machine that unites several hundred thousand computer servers in the task of taking Microsoft, and much of corporate America, into a continually changing online world. The building's raw statistics suggest a powerful, monolithic force. The data center's 702,000 square feet of space consumed 3,400 tons of steel, 2,400 tons of copper and 26,000 cubic feet of concrete. Inside its vast open rooms are 190 miles of cable-holding conduit pipes, and 7.5 miles of chilled water to cool off the servers. It is the first point of consumption for the nuclear-fueled Elmhurst power grid, initially taking 30 megawatts of power, enough power to supply 20,000 U.S. homes, with plans to take 30 megawatts more. (Read Full Article)

   Comment Mentions:   Amazon.com   IBM   Microsoft Corp

5. Google Strikes Back Explore Forbes.com (Jul 8 2009) On the heels of Microsoft's Bing, the Internet giant develops a computer operating system. Google says it will develop a computer operating system. The product isn't due out for a year, so there's not much to say about its technical worth, other than it will be based on the popular open-source Linux system. The Internet giant's action, however, tells us much about the current competitive environment on the Internet. It also indicates that both Google ( GOOG - news - people ) and Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ) have shifted their competitive game from "out-innovating the other" to include "hurting the other guy's business." Google says it is building the operating system that to be open source and designed for cheap, lightweight netbook computers. (Read Full Article)

   Comment Mentions:   Google   Microsoft Corp

6. Outlook For Google: Corporate Sales Explore Forbes.com (Jun 9 2009) Cloud Computing Google has added tweaks to its e-mail for corporations that are designed to make it easier for potential customers to switch away from Microsoft's popular Outlook service. While unlikely to mean much to the search giant's bottom line anytime soon, it signals Google's resolve to target large corporations--and gives Microsoft head-on problems. The changes, available in the Gmail "premier" service that Google ( GOOG - news - people ) sells to corporations for about $50 per employee a year, make it possible to move existing calendar, folder and contact data between Outlook and Microsoft's ( MSFT - news - people ) Exchange e-mail server, and Gmail and Google's remote server farms. The service, which can look like an online version of Outlook as well, according to Google, speeds up e-mail downloads. Rather than changing any feature inside the Google service, these tweaks are meant to give customers peace of mind as they move ... (Read Full Article)

   Comment Mentions:   Google   Microsoft Corp

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