ReadWriteWeb

Virtualization has been around long enough now that practices have been established. What's changing is how virtualization intersects with cloud computing.

The Influences Driving Virtualization is the latest white paper from ReadWriteWeb. In the white paper, writer Philip Morgan looks at the influences that are shaping virtualization with particular emphasis on standardization, simplification and automation. Through that lens the white paper examines the factors that influence companies and how the cloud plays a defining role.

Virtualization in IT has been big in the enterprise market for some time, but it's not without its advantages for small- and medium-sized operations. Analysts are expecting the adoption of virtualization by SMBs to increase considerably in the months and years ahead. So what's all the fuss about?

For small businesses, the most immediate and obvious benefit offered by virtualization is the cost savings. This is true of businesses of any size, but it is perhaps more critical for SMBs, which naturally have smaller budgets to throw at IT.

Rackspace announced today that it will offer paid support for OpenStack, the cloud platform it open-sourced along with NASA, Dell and others. The new support service is called Cloud Builders, and it is staffed by members of Rackspace's OpenStack team as well as employees of the Rackspace acquisition Anso Labs.

Cloud Builders will offer training, deployment services and ongoing support and management. The service is available starting today. This is the first time Rackspace has extended support outside its own data centers.

This was a busy week for the cloud. The biggest news was Amazon.com's entry into the platform-as-a-service business with its Elastic Beanstalk. But there were several other big announcements as well: a Dell employee confirmed that Dell will get into the infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service businesses, GoGrid announced a new service, Rackspace opened its first European data center and more.

RIM's Blackberry smartphones are no longer the default choice for corporate employees, a pair of stories released today seem to imply. Computer manufacturer Dell is planning to move its 25,000 employees from RIM smartphones to its own Dell Venue Pro - a phone running the new Windows Phone 7 operating system. Later, the company will permit Android phones as an alternative.

And Dell isn't the only RIM-switcher making headlines today, either. Two of the biggest U.S. banks, Bank of America and Citigroup, are seriously considering the iPhone, it's being reported.

Dell is buying Boomi, an SaaS provider that provides services for moving applications to the cloud.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Boomi has made a name for itself in that sweet spot where cloud computing meets the enterprise. It's a fitting acquisition for Dell. it provides the company with a way to go deeper into the enterprise stack and be the company that provides the systems for integrating with the cloud.

In growing technology markets, the rate of innovation increases as the technologies become more accessible. That's what is most significant about the announcement from Dell today that it is now offering servers, loaded and ready to go.

The servers are designed with the power and optimized for customers that wish to create their own cloud-based infrastructures, be they public or private services.

For instance, this might include customers that provide high performance computing (HPC), SaaS or wish to build their own public or private cloud.

Dell is increasing its crowdsourcing efforts on IdeaStorm, by giving hardware manufacturers more feedback on products and services. "Storm Sessions" are designed to attract a larger business community to the IdeaStorm site, by providing a more focused, structured approach.

Storm Sessions provide a way for Dell to listen to its community, but we are a bit skeptical that the effort will receive significant interest from the business community.

Dell Computers announced today that it has now sold more than $6.5 million in product through links broadcast out to its Twitter followers. The company has more than 1 million followers on Twitter, a handy gift from Twitter Inc. via prominent placement of Dell on the Suggested Users List shown to all new Twitter users.

The news will no doubt be celebrated by social media marketers all the world over but I believe there's reason to be very skeptical of this tidbit of information.

Dell has just released a customized version of Chromium OS, the open source code behind Google's new operating system called Chrome, in a build designed specifically for Dell Mini computers. According to a blog post on the Dell Community site, several company employees were inspired create this custom version after seeing Engadget's video showing Chrome OS running on a Vostro A860 netbook. After tinkering around with the code, they were able to create their own version of Chromium OS, complete with functional Wi-Fi drivers, and have made the build available for download as a USB key image file from the Direct2Dell blog.