Technology

Cisco's corporate venture-capital arm says it will spend $150m on start-up companies over the next two to three years, accelerating its investments into areas such as Internet-enabled communication between objects - Internet of Things.

Eutelsat Communications, operator of communications satellites, has announced it has signed a distribution agreement with a provider of wireless communication services Wireless Innovation.

After seeing a rising percentage of specialist servers starting to appear in analysts' research on server sales, HP and Foxconn are working on a joint venture deal to create their own class of cloud-optimised servers for service providers.

INTERXION Holding NV, provider of carrier and cloud-neutral colocation data centre services, has speeded up completion of 7,200 square meters of equipped space in its AMS 7 data centre in Amsterdam and expanding customer available power to 15 MW.

The growing base of connected appliances in homes is being largely ignored by the industry, research says.

Russian datacentre company Ixcellerate's Moscow One Datacentre has been certified for design, build and operation accreditation to IBM Resilience Level 3. The carrier-neutral datacentre is claimed to be the first in Russia to receive this accreditation.

Extrahop's systems for looking wired network traffic in fine detail are in demand; expanding into security and other aspects of monitoring.

Microsoft's message to ISVs is that it has one consistent platform. This includes flexible development, unified management common identity and integrated virtualisation in a complete data platform. What Microsoft now has for the first time, Rob Croft (pictured), Microsoft senior director.

UK Prime Minister Cameron has committed more funding to develop the Internet of Things, and joint development with Germany on various technologies.

IBM's CEO Ginni Rometty has said in a letter to investors that the company "did not meet our expectations." in 2013. IBM will continue to alter its focus to cloud services and data analytics while modifying its hardware products.