The Cloud Condenser - Volume 9

ShuttleCloud is proud to present notable cloud industry news from July 2013.This series is updated monthly with the latest and greatest resources on all things cloud.Cloudability monitors over $250 Million in Cloud Spending | Alex Williams of TechCrunchIn the midst of a booming cloud industry vertical, scores of new startups are entering the space weekly for their shot at a piece of the pie. As such, IT Admins everywhere are wrought with the overwhelming number of choices. And who can blame them? Freemium SaaS products have never been so exciting. Which is why we like Cloudability. Rather than provide the "next best thing," their service exists to manage your other services. A free account provides a monthly costs dashboard, and paid accounts provide insights into usage and efficiency.Microsoft: "We're Toast if we Fight Google on Price" | Paul Kunert of The ChannelMicrosoft recently held the Worldwide Partner Conference, where cloud partners gathered to talk sales strategy for upcoming product suites. While marked "private and confidential," the key points have been released (see: headline). Our two cents: pricing is important, but it shouldn't be demonized as the deal breaker. Microsoft's focus, rather, should be on product. Perhaps if they "narrowed the SKU's" and made the business model easier to digest, they'd be better equipped to deduce why all their business is going to Google. Bonus: perhaps Google's low pricing is just a distraction.Gartner: Worldwide IT Outsourcing Market to hit $288B in 2013 | CJ Arlotta of MSPmentorWhat's all this talk about "IT departments disappearing?" What about machines taking over the world and leaving people without jobs? Not the case. Rather, they're just moving people out of your office. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings have allowed the standardization of backend IT operations, but they haven't removed the people or the costs associated. Information technology work is alive and kicking; we're just starting to pay John Doe at xyz IaaS company instead of John Smith at our company.