According to the company’s new tariffs, data stored up to 50 TB will see a 12 percent reduction in cost, and storage more than 500 TB will see a cost reduction of 13.5 percent. Amazon has cut the price from $0.14 per gigabyte per month to $0.125 for the first terabyte of data, and $0.110 per gigabyte per month for the next 49 TB, instead of the earlier $0.125.

The new price plan will be applicable only for US consumers. For other regions, Amazon has published a separate data storage outline.

On the company’s official blog, Jeff Barr, vice president of Amazon Web Services, said “there’s been a lot written lately about storage availability and prices. We’ve often talked about the benefits that AWS’s scale and focus creates for our customers. Our ability to lower prices again now is an example of this principle at work.”

Amazon explains that the decline in costs is due to the exponential growth of the Cloud. Last week, AWS made the astounding announcement that it had stored 762 billion objects in 2011.  That year the number of stored items increased by 192 percent, making it the largest annual increase since the creation of Amazon Web Services.

Last month, AWS launched AWS Cloud Gateway today, which connects on-premise software appliances with cloud-based storage.

Red Hat Storage Appliance for the Amazon Cloud

Not surprisingly, the Amazon Web Services ecosystem continues to grow.  Market leader in enterprise Linux, Red Hat, announced their Virtual Storage Appliance for Amazon Web Services this week as well.  According to Red Hat, the new appliance will offer excellent performance by taking advantage of Amazon’s cloud services.

The Virtual Storage Appliance for AWS is a software implementation on EC2 and EBS (Elastic Block Storage). Thus, a NAS file server can be run directly into the cloud. According to Red Hat, this also means that all applications can be lifted with support of NAS storage without any adjustments to the cloud.

“Essentially what we are providing is network-attached storage in the cloud,” said Tom Trainer, storage product marketing manager at Red Hat. “Availability is a very important aspect of any storage system, irrespective of if it’s based in an enterprise’s own data center or in the cloud. Red Hat Virtual Storage Appliance for Amazon Web Services can do synchronous replication in one AWS region and multiple availability zones.”

The appliance is based on virtual storage appliance from Gluster, a company and product that Red Hat acquired in October last year. Red Hat plans to introduce the appliance in clouds from other providers in near future.

Red Hat Launches New AWS Tool is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• The Storage Wars: Gluster Becomes a Core Pillar for Red Hat Storage With New Integrations for AWS and OpenShift
• Facebook as an Enterprise Vendor? It’s Not as Crazy as It Sounds
• AWS Outage Causes Web Services to Go Down Again
• Third Largest Bitcoin Exchange Bitomat Lost Their Wallet, Over 17,000 Bitcoins Missing
• Red Hat Proves Why Amazon Web Services Is A Must Consideration
• Black Clouds Over The Cloud? EMC’s RSA Unit Addresses The Issues

Micron Technology is a global maker of DRAM, NAND and NOR flash memory.

The company’s stock (MU) which trades on the NASDAQ was halted and up nearly 3% on the day. Appleton was 51 years old. He joined Micron in 1983 and became chairman and CEO in 2007.

Appleton started on the factory floor at Micron in 1983 and worked his way up. In 1991, he was named president and chief operating officer, and in 1994 he was named chairman, chief executive officer and president. He assumed his current position in 2007. Micron, based in Boise, has 20,000 employees worldwide and is one of Idaho’s largest employers.

The company issued the following statement:

“Steve’s passion and energy left an indelible mark on Micron, the Idaho community and the technology industry at large.”

In a recent blog post (http://wikibon.org/blog/get-ready-for-project-lightning/) Wikibon’s Dave Vellante indicated that Micron was one of the suppliers of flash cards to EMC’s Project Lightning.

I’m headed to the announcement on Monday in SFO to learn more about this technology. I talked to Vellante and he said he didn’t expect any supply chain impact from Appleton’s demise as this is a small part of Micron’s overall business. He pointed out that Micron is one of the world’s most important suppliers of memory systems including DRAMs, flash memory, CMOS and other memory technologies.

Flash is a key part of Micron’s long term growth plan. On the latest earnings call, Appleton said SSD revenues grew 60%. Further, speaking about Micron’s joint venture with Intel for NAND products he indicated:

“IMFS continues to ramp and perform well. As we had mentioned the last quarter, I think within a month, we should be at full wafer starts. It’s all going really according to plan, better than planned…this facility has been ramping on our MLC technology. So I’d just point out that, obviously, that helps us a lot on the cost, but a lot of that product by virtue of the channel that goes into also lowers the average ASP for those, for the overall NAND bit.”

Traditionally, enterprise class flash has been SLC (Single Layer Cell) technology whereas the Multi Layer Cell (MLC) that Appleton spoke about on the last call has been more consumer-oriented. According to analysts, EMC has qualified MLC flash which will provide continued cost advantages for flash in the enterprise.

It’s sad to see such a dedicated leader who has been with the company so long pass.

Update:  Eric Savitz at Forbes has more details - http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/02/03/micron-ceo-steve-appleton-dies-in-small-plane-accident/

Micron Technology CEO Steve Appleton 51 Dies In Tragic Plane Crash is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

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“By working endless overtime without either one day off a week”

“Living together in dormitories and exposing themselves to dangerous chemicals”

“Explosions occurred in factories killing factories worker”

These are some of the allegations that have recently surfaced regarding Apple’s facility working conditions, including a New York Times article published this week. But Apple’s CEO is firmly denying all these claims surrounding work conditions at its supplies factories.

Apple Under Fire

In an e-mail statement sent to Apple employees, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company “never turns a blind eye to problems in our supply chain.”

“Unfortunately, some people are questioning Apple’s values today, and I’d like to address this with you directly,” Cook wrote. “We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain. Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern. Any suggestion that we don’t care is patently false and offensive to us.”

Cook informed that Apple regularly checks and inspects the condition of work facilities.

“Every year we inspect more factories, raising the bar for our partners and going deeper into the supply chain. As we reported earlier this month, we’ve made a great deal of progress and improved conditions for hundreds of thousands of workers. We know of no one in our industry doing as much as we are, in as many places, touching as many people.” Cook added, “We are focused on educating workers about their rights, so they are empowered to speak up when they see unsafe conditions or unfair treatment.”

Cook promised to take stringent actions and ‘dig deeper’ into the issue. “On this you have my word,” said Cook, encouraging employees to follow the progress at apple.com/supplierresponsibility.

Apple has been repeatedly coming under fire for mistreatment allegations at its supply factories.  Most recently, workers at the Foxconn Technology Group threatened a mass suicide if their employers didn’t fulfill their demands, and if the factory conditions weren’t improved.

Change is Inevitable at RIM, says CEO

Research In Motion’s new CEO Thorsten Heins says the company will go through a structure and leadership change in coming days.  He’s changed his tune from earlier this week, clarifying his initial statement that he’d continue pushing forward with RIM’s existing plans around mobile device releases and OS updates.

“There is a lot of change,” he said. “There is a lot of structure change; there has been already a lot of change in terms of our software, our software platform, bringing QNX in. There is no standstill at any moment here at RIM.”

The statement backtracks on Heins’ earlier statement, which revealed that he didn’t believe in change and he would like to move forward with what the company had set in place by former CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie.

Heins went on to say that RIM has the strength and the assets to succeed in the market. He doesn’t want to spilt or sell the company, and instead will look to its strengths to revive their market position.

“I think this got into a little bit of the black and white zone,” said Heins. “I was talking about drastic or seismic changes. What I was trying to address was that there was some suggestion that RIM should be split up or should even be sold. My true belief is that RIM has the strength and the assets that we can really succeed in this market. What I wanted to make clear to the market is that we believe in our own strength, we are BlackBerry, we are an integrated solution: hardware, software, services, and network.”

Jon Rubinstein is Leaving HP

In another top level executive development, former Apple executive and head of Palm Jon Rubinstein has left HP, effective today.

After HP acquired Palm, as a commitment Rubinstein stayed with HP for 12-24 months. “Jon has fulfilled his commitment and we wish him well,” HP spokeswoman Mylene Mangalindan said.

A bit of background: Rubinstein was the man behind Apple’s iPod music player. He left Apple in 2006 and joined Roger McNamee as a partner in the private equity firm Elevation Partners.  During his term as Palm CEO, Rubinstein pulled off a significant makeover of the Palm smart phone OS, later acquired by HP to form the core product behind webOS (now prepping to go open source).

Apple, RIM Heads Clarify Worker Conditions, Need for Change. Palm CEO Leaves HP is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

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• RIM Loses Footing In Europe, Kindle Fire Sales at 6M
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According to the report, $10.9 billion in advertising expenditure was generated on National TV last year, compared to $10.3 billion previous year. The biggest TV advertiser in sports was AT&T Wireless, with $423.5 million spent.

The rest on the list are – Bud Light ($210.2 million); Verizon Wireless ($207.7 million); McDonalds ($164.9 million); DIRECTV ($160.5 million); Geico ($158.1 million); Sprint Wireless ($147.4 million); Southwest Airlines ($143.5 million); State Farm Insurance ($127.5 million); and Miller Lite ($126.6 million). AT&T, Bud Light, Verizon Wireless, McDonald’s and DIRECTV all together has accounted a quarter (26 percent) of the total ad spend.

The inclination of ad spending during sporting events saw that cable has an increasing share of ad space, and is growing 37.3 percent year over year, compared to 5.9 percent for sports ad spending in general.

Super Bowl XVLI, the Place for Advertisers

The Super Bowl is an event known as much for its ground breaking advertising as it is for the game itself. The Super Bowl is the one time a year where you’ve actually got a massive, captive audience, and more importantly, everybody wants to see your ads. Several brands, including Chevy, Doritos and VW, have gone into launch mobile apps prior to the kick-off.

NBC is offering live streaming to mobile for the first time ever. NBC Universal has sold nearly all of its 30-second advertising spots for Super Bowl XLVI, expected to net about $4 million per slot.

Advertising time during the Super Bowl this year is estimated to cost $3.5 million per minute. Companies like Anheuser-Busch have already purchased 4 1/2 minutes of ad time. Pepsi has also got its slot, and will feature Melanie Amaro in one of its commercials.  Others spots you will see are ads from Coca-Cola, Doritos, Mars, Dannon Yogurt, Bridgestone, General Motors, Volkswagen, Kia Motors, Toyota, Hyundai, Audi, Century 21 Real Estate, and of course GoDaddy.

Chevy Introduces Super Bowl App for Super Bowl Event

General Motors’ Chevrolet division is expected to run several ads during NBC’s Super Bowl broadcast on Feb. 5.  The company has purchased multimillion dollar spots that will air during the event. In addition, it has plans for more interactive efforts to attract customers.

Chevrolet is releasing an app for the Android market and Apple App Store for mobile phones and tablets. The app will also available at chevy.com/gametime and will have wide range of activities, including trivia contests for users to win prizes throughout the game.

This is the first time any company has attempted such a large-scale app promo, which will enhance the game-watching experience and help them engage in the online conversation about the Super Bowl.  The company will offer prizes to winners along with Bridgestone, Motorola, the NFL and NFLShop.com, Papa John’s Pizza and Sirius XM Radio.

The Super Bowl broadcast is expected to fetch an average of $3.5 million per ad package. Chevy’s Super Bowl app also reflects marketers’ desire to entree to consumers’ social-media activity and in return earns some extra millions.

Shazam Joins the Party Too

After launching the first application for mobile music recognition on Apple devices, Shazam has since expanded into the TV programming and advertising industry.  The London-based company, which has developed automatic content recognition (ACR) apps for mobile phones and tablets, will increase its presence (and that of its ad partners) during next month’s Super Bowl broadcast on NBC.

Up to one-third of the commercials running during the Super Bowl will feature Shazam icons. Proctor and Gamble, Unilever, Sony Pictures and Bud Light are likely commercials that will have Shazam icons during and after the game, prompting viewer interactions to connect online and offline worlds.

Shazam will allow Super Bowl viewers to interact with commercials during the game in order to gain information about a brand or access free content, but for that, viewers need to have the app installed on their devices and keep the app running during the game.

AdBowl, Another Super App for Super Bowl XLVI

AdBowl launched free iPhone App and invited super bowl viewers to rate the year’s most anticipated ads. The integrated marketing agency has also launched the popular ADBOWL website, where voters can rate the year’s most anticipated ads on either the ADBOWL.com website or through the ADBOWL iPhone App.

AdBowl, for a decade-long game day tradition, tracks what consumers think of the multi-million dollar Super Bowl ads. This time around, viewers can vote on their iPhone or Android device too.

The company will then post the complete listing of the results along with breakdown of the winners between midnight and 1 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on February 8^th.

Game On! Super Bowl XVLI Readies for TV, Mobile Advertising Apps is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

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PCMag has furnished an article about Nintendo’s Thursday announcement that they took a loss of almost $627.9 million for the nine-month period that ended in December. This is almost exactly as much as Nintendo earned during their 2010 fiscal year when they made a profit of $638.83 million. Making this year an almost a total reversal. Much of this is reflected in a 5% slump in Nintendo’s stock in September 2011.

Nintendo spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa said, “Sales of the 3DS were strong in Japan, but Christmas shopping got to a late start overall in the US and Europe. But we are upbeat about hardware and software sales for next fiscal year.”

The Nintendo 3DS did see a great deal of popularity in Japan but it took a while to reach the US and there it didn’t do as well, although it did shine through late-year sales slump for the gaming company. In July, Nintendo reduced the price on the 3DS from $249.99 to $169.99 hoping to turn sales around. The holiday season still didn’t bring in the cash with the reduced price and Nintendo had to refigure its sales expectations from 16 million to 14 million.

Although worldwide sales of the Nintendo 3DS did hit 11.43 million over the nine months, the gaming company said—in the US sales of the 3DS only just crossed the 4 million unit mark last month. Games for the platform such as Super Mario 3D Land, however, did not do so well.

This has been a rough year, but also one with a great deal of expectation about the upcoming Wii-U. Nintendo debuted this new device at E3 2011 but did not give a clear indication as to when they expected to bring it to market except that it might appear during the latter half of 2012. Just like its predecessor, the Wii, the Wii-U is a strange innovation on how video games are presented to players by including a touch-screen controller that’s handled like a tablet and interacts with the television visually.

The Associated Press is now reporting that Nintendo has revealed that it will have the Wii-U ready in time for the winter holiday season (also the biggest sales season for all retail and especially video games.) Nintendo has yet to announce prices for the new system.

Nintendo Announces a Darker Financial Forecast as Wii-U Appears on the Horizon is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• Nintendo Seeing Positive 3DS Sales after Slow Year
• Nintendo Network Shows Console Giant is Finally Serious About Going Online
• The Revival Of Video Game Consoles: Just a Holiday Fling?
• Nintendo Sales Drop as Competition Overshadows Main Offering
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• Nintendo 3DS Debuts in Japan, Sells Out Almost Immediately

“Selling these patents to Intel unlocks some of the substantial and unrealized value of RealNetworks assets,” said Thomas Nielsen, RealNetworks President and CEO.

“It represents an extraordinary opportunity for us to generate additional capital to boost investments in new businesses and markets while still protecting our existing business.

RealNetworks is pleased Intel has agreed to acquire our next generation video codec software and team. Intel has a strong reputation as a technology innovator, and we believe they are well positioned to build on the development work and investment we’ve made in this area,” he added.

After this news, RealNetworks’ shares went up 28% at $9.40 pre-market, whereas Intel’s shares edged up 0.3% to $26.98 pre-market.  Intel is also quite optimistic about this alliance, and signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on future support and development of the next-generation video software and related products.

“As the technology industry evolves towards an experience-centric model, users are demanding more media and graphics capabilities in their computing devices. The acquisition of these foundational media patents, additional patents and video codec software expands Intel’s diverse and extensive portfolio of intellectual property,” said Renee James, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the Software and Services Group. “We believe this agreement enhances our ability to continue to offer richer experiences and innovative solutions to end users across a wide spectrum of devices, including through Ultrabook devices, smartphones and digital media.”

Intel’s been ramping up efforts to edge its way back into a leadership position in the mobile space in particular, though its developments have seen cross-industry benefits for the chip maker.  Intel also expanded its networking portfolio by buying QLogic Infiniband, which clearly reflects the company’s spree. Check out the complete details of the deal here.

Intel Shopping Spree Continues with Digital Patent Buys is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

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Bara will join the thismoment’s team to further enhance the company’s brand, capabilities and enable global sales teams and distribution partners, including Google, to effectively leverage their Digital Engagement Channel (DEC). Using the company’s DEC platform, brands and agencies can create, distribute and optimize branded and UGC content across YouTube, Facebook, the iPhone, and beyond.

Prior to joining thismoment, Bara was the CMO of XenSource and after its acquisition by Citrix, he had served VP of Marketing at Citrix. He brings more than 20 years of marketing experience to thismoment.

“Simply put, thismoment is the most important company in social that no one has ever heard of. John Bara is going to help change all that,” said Vince Broady, CEO of thismoment. “His expertise in branding, building awareness, lead-generation and customer relations will all add further fuel to our explosive growth story. His experience in building both world-class teams and tremendous shareholder value will help take thismoment to the next level.”

Founded in 2010, Thismoment recently secured $7.3 million in a round led by Sierra Ventures. The company’s DEC platform runs on more than 100 Fortune 500 brands.

The mobility boom triggered a recent uprising in social media marketing, daily deals and mobile marketing. Social media is now becomes an extension of currently existing marketing strategies, and businesses are also capitalizing on the availability of these platforms by maximizing visibility, leveraging social media to bridge the gap between businesses and customers.

Bara certainly has his work cut out for him, as thismoment resides in a highly competitive market.  Social business consulting firm DachisGroup recently announced its social media monitoring tool called Social Performance Monitor. The tool will monitor brand mentions, sentiments analysis and correlate data like product announcement and mergers and acquisitions. Salesforce.com’s Radian6 is another tool that provides such kind of reports.

Another social media marketing software developer, Buddy Media secured $20 million in revenue in 2011 with 300 new big brand customers added to their kitty, while daily deal provider Groupon recently implemented a new social marketing instrument on Facebook called Clicky, where users can spin the wheel and score potential discounts from the available choices.

Social, Mobile Challenges for thismoment’s New CMO is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

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Papaioannou, speaking live from the Node Summit in San Francisco, was short on details other than to say that Continuity is “in the Hadoop ecosystem” and that the start-up will announce more funding details later this week.

However, during the interview with SiliconANGLE founder John Furrier, Papaioannou shared his views on what’s needed from the Big Data industry going forward that may shed light on his plans for Continuity.

Real-Time Big Data Applications Needed

Echoing Wikibon’s 2012 Big Data predictions, Papaioannou said the next evolution for the Big Data industry must be the development of interactive Big Data applications that incorporate real-time data. Said Papaioannou:

Once you’ve got the [Big Data] infrastructure and plumbing deployed, then what? You need to build applications. Well, building applications on distributed systems and real-time distributed systems is super-hard. So there’s a whole focus on developers that’s going to come, that’s the natural next wave for Big Data.

Node.js, the red-hot programming language, will play an important role, he said.

I think the most interesting things that are going on in the next decade are Big Data applications. Big Data applications and fabrics are the next generation middleware. And then when you actually get out to where the consumer is, that’s where node comes in.

Where node has really taken off is it really allows you to focus on the application, focus on way more [data] connections so you can actually be pumping real-time data backwards and forwards. So I think that node and Big Data and the real-time web and continuous business s intelligence is going to be one of the key trends we see in this environment going forward.

I think Papaioannou is right on the mark here. As I’ve said before, packaged applications built on modern languages like Node.js that allow traditional enterprises to operationalize insights gleaned from Big Data and related analytics are the key to realizing impactful business value from Big Data. This is particularly true for “traditional” enterprises that don’t have the staff or expertise to build Big Data applications themselves but are instead looking for ready-to-go applications from the vendor community that turn the theoretical benefits of Big Data into concrete business results.

Watch live video from SiliconANGLE.com on Justin.tv

Big Data Analytics Without Coding

Another area Papaioannou highlighted was the need for analytic platforms that allow not just Data Scientists but less technical business analysts to manipulate and derive insights from Big Data without needing to be versed in complex coding.

“Our job as an industry is to be able to allow the people that are used to sitting in Excel or sitting in Microstrategy to be able to do data science with really useful tools,” Papaioannou said. ”You shouldn’t have to write code to get value out of the data.”

Watch live video from SiliconANGLE.com on Justin.tv

Again I think Papaioannou is on to something. It’s well known that the ranks of qualified, experienced Data Scientists are thin. Really thin. According to McKinsey, “by 2018 the United States alone could face a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with deep analytical skills.”

There are two ways to deal with the data science skills gap. One is to train existing business analysts in the ways of data science, as well as to develop more data science educational opportunities for college students. The other is to develop intuitive tools that reduce the level of analytic sophistication needed to perform data science.

Realistically its very unlikely that training and education alone will produce the needed number of Data Scientists in the near term, say the next five to ten years. Of course training and education are critical in the long term, but the analytic platforms and tools Data Scientists use to do their work must become easier to use, as Papaioannou described, if Big Data analytics is to become attainable to the average enterprise in the here-and-now.

So while Papaioannou wouldn’t divulge just what his new start-up Continuity is focused on, my bet is that is something in the application and analytics layer of the Big Data stack rather than the infrastructure/plumbing layer. That’s where the real action is.

Papaioannou had a lot of other great insights, including his take on the Big Data vendor landscape, so definitely check out the full interview (below) if you didn’t catch it live. Also, check out our new pub DevOpsANGLE.

Watch live video from SiliconANGLE.com on Justin.tv

A Perfect Match: When Big Data Met Node.js is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• Survey: Data Scientists Require Rigorous Training, Freedom From Bureaucratic Obstacles
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EMC Ventures has been on fire on the west coast with some really good investments including Silver Springs Networks and Joyent. Silver Springs is going public and Joyent just had an amazing step valuation in their latest round of financing that we reported on SiliconANGLE.com.

Lewis joined EMC in 2002 as Chief Technology Officer from HP where he led the enterprise storage division subsequent to the acquisition of Compaq by HP. In previous roles at Compaq Lewis led the company’s storage software efforts. Lewis has a technical background and started his career as an engineer at Digital. He left HP in the early 2000′s during the HP brain drain that brought several HP storage executives to EMC, including Howard Elias, who now heads EMC’s services division, and Mark Sorenson who ran EMC’s backup business prior to the Data Domain acquisition.

Lewis and these other executives were instrumental in Joe Tucci’s plan to transform EMC after the dot.com bust, from a one-product company (Symmetrix) to a diversified storage giant. Notably, as an HP and Compaq storage executive, Lewis was highly critical of EMC’s monolithic storage approach. Sources close to the situation at the time indicate that Tucci was on a mission to transform EMC which was heavily controlled by the head of Symmetrix engineering at the time, Moshe Yanai. Lewis and his cohorts were a major part of that transformation and advocated a broader role for EMC’s CLARiiON line of products, acquired from Data General. As well, these new executives, among others at EMC, pushed for EMC to diversify through acquisitions and deepen its services strength.

This strategy resulted in several acquisitions, including Legato and Documentum. Both of these acquisitions were problematic for EMC as, in the case of Legato it took years for EMC to figure out how to successfully sell backup software against the likes of Symantec. The case of Documentum was even more vexing for EMC as the information and document management company proved to be too far up the application stack and outside of the core storage strengths of EMC’s sales teams. At the time, Tucci had come from Wang which likely influenced his affinity toward content management software. Sources indicate Lewis was instrumental in convincing Tucci to acquire Documentum which remained a sore spot due to it’s less than adequate financial performance (relative to EMC’s other businesses). At one point sources say, after executive Dave DeWalt, the head of Documentum left EMC to run McAfee, Tucci sent Lewis to the west coast to “fix” Documentum because Lewis was so instrumental in convincing Tucci to buy the company. Sources say that while Lewis was a dedicated leader and strong visionary, Documentum (now EMC’s IIG Division) never performed up to Tucci’s expectations.

These sources indicated however that Lewis was granted amnesty for the problematic acquisition of Documentum because he was also instrumental in convincing Tucci to acquire VMware, perhaps the industry’s greatest acquisition in history. EMC acquired VMware for $625M in 2004. Today, VMware’s market value is $38B of which EMC owns roughly 80%. Notably, approximately 60% of EMC’s current value can be attributed to its VMware ownership.

In 2010, after a several year stint running EMC’s content software business, Lewis was appointed Chief Strategy Officer reporting to Pat Gelsinger, EMC COO and head of the products divisions at EMC. As part of these responsibilities, Lewis ran EMC Ventures and was chartered with building a west coast presence for EMC. As is often the case with long time execs who are placed in a strategy role, this move was viewed by many as placing Lewis in a “velvet box” prior to allowing him to gracefully exit the company.

In my view this is exactly what’s happened. EMC is now entering its third major transformation and it has brought in the likes of Gelsinger to lead this change. As well, Tucci is about to retire and it’s a natural progression that long-time execs that are not in a day-to-day operational role will move on. Lewis has an impressive record of accomplishment and is establishing roots in the valley with investments in emerging cloud companies like Joyent which just raised another $85M. My bet is Lewis will land as the CEO of a startup on the west coast in the cloud, big data or emerging devops space.

For EMC’s part, as I said, it is entering its third big wave of growth. Either Gelsinger or CFO David Goulden will lead that charge as Tucci’s replacement. It’s a coin toss as to who gets that job. Gelsinger is a product and technology guru while Goulden is a long-time Tucci friend, former colleague at both Wang and Unisys, a financial type which gives him cred with Wall Street. He also ran sales at EMC– which is a big plus culturally at the raw-meat-eating company. Gelsinger led the company’s acquisition of Greenplum and is showing himself to be a highly competent and likable leader at EMC. He’s also readying Project Lightning, EMC’s attempt to own the flash stack through automated software. It’s a big bet for EMC and they’re the incumbent for much of the world’s storage. As well, Gelsinger is tight with Paul Maritz, the head of VMware and former Microsoft exec. As I’ve reported in the past, Maritz and Gelsinger are a two-punch combo that are the new Wintel. With all due respect to Dave Goulden who I don’t know, I’m rooting for Gelsinger for two reasons: 1) because he’s been such a great guest on the Cube and more importantly 2) he brings a West Coast mojo that I think EMC needs to win the next battle for the enterprise. In my view EMC will ultimately (and in many ways already does) revolve around VMware, cloud, big data and devops– and the epicenter of these trends is here in the valley.

Lewis leaves his legacy at EMC with a great track record in building out a great VC team in Palo Alto as well as being a key operating and visionary manager in turning EMC into a powerhouse. EMC just crushed earnings yesterday.

Good luck to Mark Lewis – the time was right for him to leave EMC and let the new kids on the block write the next chapter.

Breaking News: Mark Lewis Head of EMC Ventures and Strategy Quits EMC Pat Gelsinger Takes Over is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

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President Obama will participate in a live video chat and answer questions related to his upcoming State of the Union speech.  Google announced today that Obama will participate in 45-minute live video chat on the social networking site Google+. The conversation will take place on January 30th. Obama speaks to Congress and the nation the following Tuesday.

This latest development is part of a White House effort to test new social networking tools, and the latest evidence of the growing intersection of social media and politics.  It’s one the Obama camp is very familiar with, having leveraged social media to the max during his campaign in 2008.

The social networking site will implore questions over the video sharing site YouTube via its YouTube Channel. The president will answer some video-submitted questions, and will also chat directly with a group of the questioners. The stream will later appear on the White House’s Google Plus page.

Announcing the new venture social presidential Kori Schulman, director of the White House’s Office of Digital Strategy posted on the official blog:

“Starting today, we’re excited to announce that you can follow the White House on Google+. On day one, President Obama made clear that this Administration is committed to public engagement and participation. That’s why we launched the we the People petitioning tool and why you can find the White House on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other places around the web. These are just some of the ways that we aim to engage with Americans on the issues that matter the most — and now, we’re pleased to add Google+ to this list.”

The news is not extraordinary in itself, considering the Obama administration has made ​​the Web and social interaction a strength since its establishment. Obama already has a presence across Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and other social sites.

YouTube Soars with 4 Billion View per Day

As the importance of social media rises, so does Google’s dedication to the widespread medium. Google Plus continues to accelerate its growth and already suppresses 62 million users. And one of Google’s other channels reports significant growth as well. YouTube is gathering over 4 billion page views per day.

The site is now registering 60 hours of video uploaded every minute compared, to 48 hours of video in May. One of the reasons is due to the recently revamped design of YouTube’s site.  They’ve also broadened visibility on more devices like smart televisions, and streaming media set-top boxes (Roku, Apple TV, etc.), not to mention mobile.

President Obama himself is very active on YouTube, from his run for office to answering questions submitted on YouTube, and recently just concluded Town Hall meeting.

Google has also hosted Hangouts with other political figures, including Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, which shows social media sites have been steadily boosting their presence in electoral politics.

The White House Comes to Google Plus as YouTube Video Uploads Soar is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

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