Business | Technology
Industry leaders to set cloud standard
International Business Machines (IBM) Corp, Cisco Systems Inc and more than 20 other companies formed an alliance to set standards for the cloud-computing industry, making it easier for customers to switch between competitors.
- By Katie Hoffman, Bloomberg
- Published: 23:01 April 3, 2009
New York: International Business Machines (IBM) Corp, Cisco Systems Inc and more than 20 other companies formed an alliance to set standards for the cloud-computing industry, making it easier for customers to switch between competitors.
The companies created an "Open Cloud Manifesto," which calls for more consistent security and monitoring of the technology, according to Armonk, New York-based IBM.
Cloud computing lets businesses cut costs by ditching their own servers in favour of external data centres.
The agreement pits the companies against Amazon.com Inc, an early backer of cloud computing that declined to participate in the group.
That company, the world's largest Internet retailer, sells access to its storage and computing power via its Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud.
More businesses are using cloud computing as a way to cut costs during the recession, even as total technology spending declines.
The industry's sales will increase 21 per cent this year to $56.3 billion (Dh207.18 billion), according to research firm Gartner Inc.
The approach frees customers from having to buy and maintain computers, letting them quickly expand or shrink their computing use to meet their needs.
The new approach would add to that flexibility by making it simpler to shift data and software to another provider.
"The more experience those customers have, the more they understand how important this flexibility is," Karla Norsworthy, vice president of open standards at IBM said.
"They don't want to end up in vendor lock-in."
Amazon.com is studying the manifesto, said Adam Selipsky, vice president of product management for Amazon web services. Standards are important and will emerge over time, he said.
IBM rose 37 cents to $94.52 at 4 pm in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Amazon.com climbed 92 cents to $71.44 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading.
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