VMware is a company that has historically focused on virtualization solutions that make conducting business easier and more efficient. With the company’s purchase of SlideRocket, an online presentation collaboration tool, VMware provides another valuable feature to any business. With integration with a new cloud storage app, this tool has become even more beneficial to businesses.

Google has recently released its cloud storage and collaboration app, Google Drive. What does this have to do with SlideRocket? Well, SlideRocket’s full set of content authoring tools have been integrated into Google Drive. This means that users of SlideRocket can use Google Drive as another way to create, collaborate on, and store presentations.

Chuck Dietrich, Vice President of SlideRocket by VMware, commented, “Together with Google, VMware is helping individuals and businesses embrace new technologies for collaboration in the cloud era.” He went on to note that SlideRocket and Google Drive provide users with a great way to do just that.

If you use SlideRocket and would like to work with other users over Google Drive, simply log into both services with the same account and in Google Drive select Create and More followed by SlideRocket. Once you log in and integrate your accounts, you’ll have access to your presentations without having to log in to SlideRocket.

If you’d like to know more about how you can virtualize your business, or the different products offered by VMware, we’re ready to tell you more. Let’s talk virtualization.

There are a number of things application developers have had to deal with in the past, especially when working with Java. When their company asked for a new application they would first have to build a framework, and then build the application. This was a time consuming process, until VMWare released the Spring Framework, making the developer’s job much easier. The Spring Framework was recently updated - read on to find out more.

VMWare recently announced that extensions to its Spring Framework are now compatible with Spring 3.1. This update ensures extensions like Spring Android, Integration, Security, Data and Mobile, etc. play nicely with the latest version of Spring, allowing for developers to more quickly develop business solutions and applications.

Who is VMWare? VMWare was founded in 1998 on the platform of providing virtualization solutions and software to companies of all sizes. The company creates virtualization software to work on Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS X with a focus on shifting businesses onto the cloud, without disturbing existing operations or compromising security.

What is Spring Framework? Spring Framework is a process that allows developers to develop applications that can be integrated with Web services, security, messaging and databases that use Java. The Spring Framework builds a framework for developers to use, so they don’t have to develop one themselves. Therefore, it allows them to focus on creating and deploying Java applications in a number of different environments.

What do the Updates Bring? With Spring 3.1, there are a number of updates to the existing framework. The biggest accomplishment with this update is that all of Spring’s Frameworks are compatible with each other. This allows developers to not worry about developing workarounds, if one part of the framework is out of date. In short, it makes developers more efficient, while giving them the ability to develop Java based applications much faster.

Virtualization. Many business owners know exactly what it is and what their companies are doing in regard to it. Whether your company has virtualized some or all of your business, it’s evident that there are cost savings. A recent report found that some organizations have achieved up to 269% return on investment from the process. Read on to learn how.

What is Virtualization? Virtualization is the creation of a virtual computing environment, where one hardware system can run multiple virtual environments. Common types of virtualization include servers, storage devices, or networks. The benefits of virtualization include lower costs, improved IT management, and reduced energy consumption.

The Survey A report published by CDW-G focuses on government organizations in the United Sates. Many SME owners and managers like yourselves are probably asking, “How do study results involving the government help my business?” Well, if you look closer you can see that what the government organizations did can easily be replicated by SMEs, just on a smaller scale.

Results In recent years, many companies have had to tighten their belts due to economic difficulties. Government agencies are no exception. The results of the survey found that agencies and organizations realized investment returns as high as 134 to 269%. The survey found that if IT managers invest in Server Virtualization, Document Management, Storage Virtualization, and Cloud Computing in that order, the returns on Server Virtualization alone can help pay for, if not totally cover the cost of, the other three processes. CDW-G found that on average, the total cost of implementing all four separately is over USD 1.1million, but when implemented in order, the average cost was around USD 400,000.

While it is unlikely that SMEs will see a return on investments of this magnitude, it is highly likely that they will see increased returns if they follow this method of re-investing returns from Server Virtualization into the other three steps. In times of economic stress, this could be a huge boost to your bottom line.

Helpful Recommendations From the results, CDW-G offered some useful recommendations that all businesses can use:

• When budget cuts are needed, first look for ways to increase efficiency without service cuts.
• Review technologies and processes to identify inefficiencies.
• Consider savings and efficiency opportunities in all new solutions.
• Leverage available savings into new projects.

As with any new process, it’s equally important to ensure that you educate the users of the processes and stay on your toes to keep updated.

Desktop Virtualization is starting to gain the attention of more and more businesses with its promise of simplifying IT management, strengthening IT security, and ultimately gaining new efficiencies and cost savings in the business. Read on to find out how.

There is growing interest in Desktop Virtualization with its promise of improved manageability, security and efficiency for the business. Simply put, Desktop Virtualization is new technology that separates the system software such as the operating system and applications from the underlying hardware.

Desktop virtualization allows the hardware, like a laptop or a server, to run multiple operating systems. Imagine having your Mac running Microsoft Windows and Office, or your Dell running OS X and GarageBand for example. To stretch the concept even further, operating systems and applications can be housed on remote machines – such as a server farm in Texas – which you access via the web. The applications are not resident on your computer at all.

Desktop virtualization shifts the burden of managing the system software from you or your in-house IT teams to someone else—people who can do a better job managing and updating your Windows and Office software than you can. If you have a fairly large organization managing a large number of machines, centralizing support allows the organization to gain from economies of scale—ie less people to manage more machines at less cost. Leveraging the computing power of server farms with faster machines also allows employees to get more value out of aging desktops and laptops.

Enabling anytime, anywhere access to applications and data, Desktop Virtualization connects your employees to the tools they need no matter where they are. As organizations support more and more remote employees, using desktop virtualization technology gives them access to their Windows desktop anywhere in the world, at any time, on any device.

Are you supporting remote workers or is your hardware slowing down your employees? Let's talk about Desktop Virtualization and how you can try it for your organization today.