Verizon acquires enterprise services provider CloudSwitch

Verizon on Thursday announced it will purchase cloud services firm CloudSwitch with the intent of boosting its enterprise and IT offerings.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Verizon plans to combine CloudSwitch with the Terremark IT services company it already owns. The company hopes the CloudSwitch software, which enables enterprises to easily move applications and workloads into the cloud, will help companies move over to Terremark’s services.

Specifically, CloudSwitch currently provides an interface so customers can port applications to Amazon Web Services, Terremark and Microsoft Windows Azure’s clouds. By owning CloudSwitch and Terremark, Verizon can assure customers of better security and control between CloudSwitch and Terremark. In theory, this could help peel some enterprise customers away from Amazon and Microsoft.

“The cloud market is a rapidly growing opportunity, with very real benefits both for our business customers and the consumers they serve,” said Bob Toohey, president of Verizon’s global enterprise unit, in a statement.

CloudSwitch previously earned $15.4 million in two funding rounds. In January, 2009, CloudSwitch raised $7.4 million in first-round funding from the likes of Atlas Ventures and Matrix Partners. The company then grabbed another $8 million in its second round in June, 2009. The company was reportedly in talks for a third round when Verizon approached it with an acquisition proposal.

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Tags: Amazon Web Services, cloud services, enterprise services, Microsoft Windows Azure

Companies: Amazon, CloudSwitch, Microsoft, Terremark, Verizon

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Landmark cloud music ruling frees up Google and Amazon for streaming music services

In a significant court ruling Monday, a Manhattan judge ruled that cloud music services are in the clear to store a single copy of a song and allow users to listen to that copy — as long as it can be confirmed they own the song on their hard drives.

The ruling frees up “cloud music locker” services like Google Music and Amazon Cloud Drive to scan a user’s collection and give them access to a matching song immediately rather than forcing them to upload the track manually.

However, the track stored by the “cloud music locker” service must have the exact same tagging as the scanned track to get access to it. For example, let’s say Amazon Cloud Drive has an official ripped track of Kanye West’s “Dark Fantasy” from Amazon’s library on its hard drive. If a user wants to automatically listen to that track through Cloud Drive, the user must own an Amazon ripped copy. If the user ripped the song from a CD, which would have different tags from Amazon’s copy, they would have to upload it manually.

The complicated case centered around the early cloud music service MP3Tunes and the question of whether the service and its websites infringed on music licensing company EMI’s copyrights. Essentially, EMI was concerned that users were uploading illegally obtained music to MP3Tunes and were listening to those songs using the service. EMI sued MP3Tunes and founder Michael Robertson in 2007, and the fact that it is just wrapping up now shows the complexity of the case.

MP3Tunes’ service was found to be mostly legal under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act’s “safe harbor” provisions because it could not be held at fault for the actions of its users. That part of the ruling also helps all cloud locker services, because they want protection against investigators when their users upload and listen to music they don’t actually own.

However, MP3Tunes was also found to be partially at fault for another concern. It owned a site called Sideload.com that allowed users to listen to music from any link found on the web. MP3Tunes users could copy the files from those links to their music lockers. EMI and other music companies sent notices asking MP3Tunes to take the songs down from Sideload and to remove the violating songs from the music lockers. MP3Tunes removed the songs from Sideload but did not take out the tracks from music lockers.

Although the case and ruling are complicated, this is a win for any service that wants to let users listen to their own music from the cloud. Rest assured this will not be the end of this discussion, as the music industry continues to further fight for control of how users access their music.

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Tags: Amazon Cloud Locker, cloud music, cloud music player, Google Music, streaming music

Companies: Amazon, EMI, Google, MP3Tunes

People: Michael Robertson

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Zurb pulls its annual all-nighter for Rebekah Children’s Services

This article is part of a series of posts about DEMO alumni and news of their progress. Zurb launched at DEMO in Spring 2010. Check out more at DEMO.

Yesterday, interaction design firm Zurb held its annual ZurbWired event, a day-long affair where all Zurb employees stay up for 24 hours to design a website and marketing materials for a nonprofit in need.

Zurb prides itself on being more than just “dudes in expensive chairs.” The firm offers web design services, but also creates tools to help implement designs internally, gives how-to lessons, and will make house calls to help teams code and install designs.

ZurbWired is the one day out of the year when coffee flows Bacchanalia style, and cat naps are the only form of rejuvenation. For this year’s event, Zurb chose Rebekah Children’s Services to receive a new website, pamphlets, posters and other marketing materials from the 24-hour push.

“A lot can get accomplished in 24 hours if you just dedicate yourself!” marketing lead Dmitry Dragilev (pictured above) told VentureBeat in an interview. “We have to go for 24 hours. We don’t sleep, we don’t go home, we just crank through it and create a website and brochures.”

The effort is not free — it takes a lot of hands to make the project a success, but it has a lasting impact on nonprofits who generally don’t have the resources to take on months-long web design initiatives.

At the time we talked with Dmitry and a group of seven volunteers had already created 70 mock ups for Rebekah Children’s Services. Zurb makes sure the chosen nonprofit is involved in the design process — in this case it was five people from the nonprofit’s executive team.

The group hoped to finish the job by 8am Friday morning, and they succeeded. By that time Rebekah Children’s Services had a new website, an updated backend using Joomla, a full mobile version of the website, new website and promotional copy, printed brochures and post cards, two new logos, and newsletter, letterhead and business card templates.

You can see the completed website here.

When its not being altruistic, Zurb is continuing to turn the innovation gears.

“We’re going to the next stage where we’re staring to release products for people to create websites on their own,” said Dragilev.

Zurb will have released up to six web applications by the end of the year. Many of these apps will work with Zurb’s product Verify, which it demonstrated at the Spring 2010 DEMO conference. Verify is about feedback and testing concepts. One of these web apps will allow designers to bypass coding a test page for feedback. Instead, they will be able to upload their design onto Zurb and share the mock-up in a link.

Zurb was founded in 1998 and is located in Campbell, Calif. The company has 13 employees.

Photo and video shot by Zurb.

Come to DEMO in Silicon Valley Sept. 12-14 to see new product launches from a worldwide selection of disruptive companies. Register Today and take advantage of our special VentureBeat Partner rate of $995.00.

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Tags: 24 hours, nonprofit, web design

Companies: Rebekah Children's Services, Zurb

People: Dmitry Dragilev

View the original article here

Zurb pulls its annual all-nighter for Rebekah Children’s Services

This article is part of a series of posts about DEMO alumni and news of their progress. Zurb launched at DEMO in Spring 2010. Check out more at DEMO.

Yesterday, interaction design firm Zurb held its annual ZurbWired event, a day-long affair where all Zurb employees stay up for 24 hours to design a website and marketing materials for a nonprofit in need.

Zurb prides itself on being more than just “dudes in expensive chairs.” The firm offers web design services, but also creates tools to help implement designs internally, gives how-to lessons, and will make house calls to help teams code and install designs.

ZurbWired is the one day out of the year when coffee flows Bacchanalia style, and cat naps are the only form of rejuvenation. For this year’s event, Zurb chose Rebekah Children’s Services to receive a new website, pamphlets, posters and other marketing materials from the 24-hour push.

“A lot can get accomplished in 24 hours if you just dedicate yourself!” marketing lead Dmitry Dragilev (pictured above) told VentureBeat in an interview. “We have to go for 24 hours. We don’t sleep, we don’t go home, we just crank through it and create a website and brochures.”

The effort is not free — it takes a lot of hands to make the project a success, but it has a lasting impact on nonprofits who generally don’t have the resources to take on months-long web design initiatives.

At the time we talked with Dmitry and a group of seven volunteers had already created 70 mock ups for Rebekah Children’s Services. Zurb makes sure the chosen nonprofit is involved in the design process — in this case it was five people from the nonprofit’s executive team.

The group hoped to finish the job by 8am Friday morning, and they succeeded. By that time Rebekah Children’s Services had a new website, an updated backend using Joomla, a full mobile version of the website, new website and promotional copy, printed brochures and post cards, two new logos, and newsletter, letterhead and business card templates.

You can see the completed website here.

When its not being altruistic, Zurb is continuing to turn the innovation gears.

“We’re going to the next stage where we’re staring to release products for people to create websites on their own,” said Dragilev.

Zurb will have released up to six web applications by the end of the year. Many of these apps will work with Zurb’s product Verify, which it demonstrated at the Spring 2010 DEMO conference. Verify is about feedback and testing concepts. One of these web apps will allow designers to bypass coding a test page for feedback. Instead, they will be able to upload their design onto Zurb and share the mock-up in a link.

Zurb was founded in 1998 and is located in Campbell, Calif. The company has 13 employees.

Photo and video shot by Zurb.

Come to DEMO in Silicon Valley Sept. 12-14 to see new product launches from a worldwide selection of disruptive companies. Register Today and take advantage of our special VentureBeat Partner rate of $995.00.

Next Story: Biochemical developer Aurora Algae raises?$22M
Previous Story: WordPress runs 15 percent of the web’s highest trafficked?sites

Tags: 24 hours, nonprofit, web design

Companies: Rebekah Children's Services, Zurb

People: Dmitry Dragilev

View the original article here