The Impact of the IaaS Price Wars

Public cloud IaaS providers are competing heavily on price. Watching Google, AWS, and Microsoft play the falling prices game is like watching a ping-pong match. It is just a matter of time before IBM’s SoftLayer matches the prices as well. Adrian Cockcroft wrote a great piece called The Real Story Behind the Cloud Price War, …

What Next for x86 Hardware Industry: The Death of the Blade Format?

The rise of server-based flash caching and other technologies like local performant storage pools, whether virtual storage appliances like the HP StoreVirtual VSA or VMware’s VSAN, marks a possible return to the days of the pizza box server in data centers across the world.

Microsoft Continues to Take Great Strides Forward

Microsoft continues to take great strides forward with its cloud strategy, to the point where success has it charging forth at almost record pace. One thing I have learned, in my years working in IT, is that when Microsoft sets its mind on doing something, it is a pretty safe bet that it will succeed …

What Will the Fallout Be as IBM Leaves the x86 Market?

With the sale of its x86 server division for $2.3B, IBM exits the marketplace it started in the early 1980s. Some have argued that this is a good move for IBM and tolls the death knell for the x86 server marketplace. “Well, if IBM is closing shop, surely the end is nigh. What with all …