Cloud lifts Salesforce revenue

Salesforce.com reports double-digit sales and earnings growth in Q4, showing that its cloud computing model for Web-based sales management software is taking hold with corporate customers, reports Investors.com.

Salesforce earned 16c per share, a 45% increase over the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. Sales grew 22% to $354 million, beating analysts' forecasts of $342.2 million.

"While most software companies went backward last year, Salesforce.com went forward in a dramatic way," says Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, adding that Salesforce.com had won numerous customers away from rivals Oracle, Microsoft and SAP in the quarter.

Computer Associates (CA) says it plans to acquire 3Tera for an undisclosed sum that will equip it with tools to offer customers a smoother transition to private and public cloud computing, states Computerworld.

In CA's third cloud acquisition, 3Tera will provide CA with its AppLogic suite which helps customer encapsulate applications into containers suited for private and public cloud environments.

"The most interesting thing about 3Tera is their ability to give both service providers and enterprises a way to take existing applications and bring them to private and public cloud environments via an elegant interface. The process used to be done very manually, but AppLogic automates it and smoothes that transition," says Jay Fry, VP of business unit strategy for CA.

The third HP research lab in the Asia-Pacific region will participate in cloud and collaborative computing research, reports Information Week.

Prith Banerjee, senior VP of research and director of HP Labs, says the new facility is part of HP's effort to translate findings in the lab more quickly into products in the marketplace.

Cloud computing is a key research initiative for HP and the Singapore facility will participate in cloud and collaborative computing research, Banerjee says. "Cloud is one of the eight pillars of future computing that we've identified."