Arik Hesseldahl

Recent Posts by Arik Hesseldahl

Intel Sees the Cloud From Both Sides Now

Think the cloud is for big companies and not for small businesses? You’re not alone. Most small businesses are generally happy doing their IT the more traditional way with applications running on servers they can touch. It is, however, for several reasons, the more expensive, less efficient way of doing things.

Small businesses have the same concerns that big businesses do about the cloud. You can sort of see the struggle that goes on their minds. One voice says: Confidential business data out there on some machine on the Internet? You may as well hang a “hack me now” sign on the door.

The other voice, the one frustrated with all the hassle that goes with running the server and patching the applications and operating system and so on, says: But wouldn’t it be nice to quit worrying about running the server and spend more precious time on things that actually matter to the business? And? We’ll save money….Come on, let’s call Amazon or Joyent or Microsoft Azure or IBM….

Chipmaker Intel today sought to reach and satisfy both those voices with a hybrid server combined with a service called AppUp, that essentially offers small business a way to have it both ways.

The lynchpin of the service is a server, naturally containing Intel chips, that the business installs on the premises, but which is remotely managed by Intel a service provider selected by the business. The business picks the applications they want to have pre-installed on the server, making its operation less of a headache. Businesses don’t have to pay for the server up front, but rather pay a subscription fee. Think of it a little like the Google Chromebook concept, but translated to a server.

The hardware offered is a Lenovo ThinkServer TS200v and a white box server. More servers are coming from Acer, NEC and others soon, Intel says. Intel plans to offer the service in North America and India, with more countries to come later.

(Headline obviously inspired by Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” which is such a good song I couldn’t help but embed it.)

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Another gadget you don’t really need. Will not work once you get it home. New model out in 4 weeks. Battery life is too short to be of any use.

— From the fact sheet for a fake product entitled Useless Plasticbox 1.2 (an actual empty plastic box) placed in L.A.-area Best Buy stores by an artist called Plastic Jesus