Planet Lowyat » cloud

Dell loses bid for cloud computing trademark

Planet Lowyat — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:50:44 +0000

Dell cannot register “cloud computing” as a trademark because the term is a generic one describing services offered by many companies, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has said in an initial ruling. Personally I think the name cloud computing is too common and I’m happy with the result.

The term refers to computing services that are delivered to end users over the Internet, often from a remote data center. It has been applied to many types of services, including storage services like Amazon’s S3, online anti-spam services, and hosted applications such as Salesforce.com’s customer relationship management service.

If Dell were allowed to trademark the term it could send dozens of other vendors scrambling to find an alternative buzzword to describe their services and avoid messy lawsuits. IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Yahoo, and Google all have employed the term cloud computing to promote their services.

The USPTO described its decision as “non-final.” Dell has six months to file a response or the USPTO will abandon the application.

Proponents of cloud services say they can help users cut costs because they don’t have to invest in buying and managing their own hardware and software. But the model also means subscribers can be left stranded when a service has problems. Amazon’s S3 suffered an outage last month which temporarily affected Twitter, which uses S3 to host images such as user avatars.

EMC to buy cloud computing start-up Pi Corp

Planet Lowyat — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:56:28 +0000

Storage giant EMC said today that it’s angling to purchase Pi Corp, a Seattle-based company whose software and services will help users keep track of their personal data.

Pi develops software and online services to enable users to control how they find, access, share and protect everything from photos, videos, and music. The data can be stored online or locally. Pi hasn’t actually launched any products or services yet: They are in beta testing, according to EMC.

EMC sees Pi not only as part of its consumer push, but also an element of its cloud computing strategy, the next big thing in storage, according to one analyst.

The rapidly growing amount of personal data is what prompted EMC to open its wallet, according to CEO Joe Tucci. It’s a cash transaction, but EMC won’t disclose the amount which suggests EMC didn’t pay an irrational number for the company. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter. Once completed, Pi chief executive officer Paul Maritz will join EMC’s executive squad as general manager of its Cloud Infrastructure and Services Division. That means he’ll report directly to EMC head honcho Joe Tucci.

MC said the Pi team will join its web-hosted application operations, an area the company officially entered in January with the online backup service MozyEnterprise.

EMC is also reportedly in early talks with German software giant SAP to develop its online offerings.