Cloudy Days: Trio Of Vendors Announce Pair Of Cloud-Computing Initiatives

Two new cloud-computing deals show just how much the technology continues to gain traction among traditional IT players.Deal 1: HP will sell NetSuite's cloud-based ERP, CRM, and e-commerce apps through its network of channel partners who target SMBs. "SMB customers are looking for new ways to avoid up-front technology costs, and on-demand services are the ideal solution," said Enrique Lores, an HP SVP, in a statement. "Our partnership with NetSuite offers the HP channel network an excellent method for participating in this growing SMB market opportunity."

Aside from Salesforce.com, NetSuite's SaaS apps are considered the most popular among SMBs. They comprise everything a midmarket company needs for its business process applications, said Mini Peiris, VP of product marketing at NetSuite, in a conversation with eChannelLine.

The HP-NetSuite deal applies only to the U.S. and is not exclusive, though at least one analyst thinks NetSuite picked the right partner in HP. "The HP channel base is a good one," said Ray Wang, an analyst with Forrester Research. "It has true SMB users; it's more likely that they're going to use something like NetSuite."

Deal 2: Storage giant EMC has unveiled its first cloud offering -- Atmos, a multipetabyte, policy-based information management solution that manages and optimizes the distribution of rich, information across global, cloud storage environments. Available in 120-TB, 240-TB, and 360-TB configurations, "the EMC Atmos architecture is a low-cost, high-density storage system that offers ease of implementation and serviceability in an efficient footprint," according to the company, which hasn't disclosed pricing.

Atmos is aimed at Web 2.0 users, such as video- or image-sharing vendors, and sets itself apart in that storage devices in multiple geographically diverse locations can talk with one another -- not just one data center to another. That allows corporate data to become much more than stored information sitting in a remote repository, explained IDC analyst Ben Woo. " It's the first deliverable from any storage company that helps use context to search for relevant data more quickly. That's critical going into the future," he told Computerworld.