Ambitious Alibaba takes aim at the kings of cloud computing

HANGZHOU, CHINA - OCTOBER 13:  (CHINA OUT) Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., speaks during the launching ceremony of the Alibaba's Tmall 11.11 Global Shopping Festival at the company's headquarters on October 13, 2015 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province of China. Alibaba will open offices in three European countries and expand further in the U.S as it seeks to revive growth and reassure jittery investors. The 11.11 Global Shopping event this year will cover more than 200 countries throughout the world in large-scale businesses.  (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images) When you think of the biggest cloud players in the world, one company you might not consider is Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant that held a record $25 billion U.S. IPO in 2014. Alibaba entered the cloud computing business in 2009, just three years after Amazon launched its cloud division, AWS — and Alibaba’s cloud computing efforts are among the ambitious projects that… Read More Continue reading Ambitious Alibaba takes aim at the kings of cloud computing

The global decline of cybersecurity confidence

Tenable Network Security solicited insights from 700 security practitioners in nine countries and across seven industry verticals to calculate a global index score reflecting overall confidence that the world’s cyber defenses are meeting expectations. According to this year’s data, global cybersecurity confidence fell six points over 2016 to earn an overall score of 70 percent — a “C-” on the report card. The overall decline in confidence is the result of a 12-point drop in … More Continue reading The global decline of cybersecurity confidence

Soracom launches SIM cards and services easing IoT rollout cost

One of Soracom's case studies is Farmnote, "a solution that involves attaching a sensor to heads of cattle and polling data on their activity." One of the challenges of Internet of Things is the poor availability and high price of mobile data. Twilio announced it was going to have a stab at changing that earlier this year. Today Soracom showed off its solutions to ease the pain of IoT adaptation across the industry. The company’s slightly byzantine pricing plans are optimized for a number of low-bandwidth, high uptime applications. Read More Continue reading Soracom launches SIM cards and services easing IoT rollout cost

Insider, a marketing platform for emerging markets, secures $2.2M to expand

Insider, a unified online marketing platform out of Turkey, has secured a $2.2 million Series A round of financing, bringing its total funding since launching in 2012 to $3.3 million. That may not sound a lot, but it’s a lot for the region and considering it’s targeting a global market, especially emerging markets outside the US. Assuming its product is competitive, it can… Read More Continue reading Insider, a marketing platform for emerging markets, secures $2.2M to expand

LinkedIn courts users in India with LinkedIn Lite, online job placement tests, business tools

linkedin-india As LinkedIn continues to wait for the close of its $26.2 billion acquisition by Microsoft, it continues to build out its business, with the latest developments on the international front. Last week, LinkedIn announced that it had hit 100 million users in Asia Pacific (around one-quarter of its total), and today at an event in Delhi, India, it unveiled three new products it’s rolling out… Read More Continue reading LinkedIn courts users in India with LinkedIn Lite, online job placement tests, business tools

Softbank has completed its £24B cash acquisition of ARM Holdings

IOTGlobe One of the biggest tech deals this year — and the biggest ever in the UK — has now closed. Today, Softbank announced that it has completed its acquisition of ARM Holdings, the semiconductor firm that it announced that it would acquire for £24 billion (around $32 billion in today’s currency, $31 billion at the time of the deal) in July, in order to make a big jump into IoT. As… Read More Continue reading Softbank has completed its £24B cash acquisition of ARM Holdings

The Europas — It’s time for a different kind of tech conference

awards3 (1) Let’s face it. Some tech conferences have lost their way. While TechCrunch Disrupt remains a firmly curated, media-driven, event, with hundreds of journalists attending, a couple of other conferences have really gone for scale. A minimum of 15,000 people, thousands of companies, echoing halls — and a lot of investors (and journalists) turning their badges around so they don’t… Read More Continue reading The Europas — It’s time for a different kind of tech conference

Dell reportedly near closing the sale of its IT services unit to Japan’s NTT Data

shutterstock dell logo Dell is reportedly finalizing the sale of its IT consulting unit to NTT Data for $3.5 billion. According to Reuters, the deal, which will help Dell’s pay down debt from its $67 billion acquisition of EMC Corp., may officially be announced today. Read More Continue reading Dell reportedly near closing the sale of its IT services unit to Japan’s NTT Data