Day: June 8, 2020

NetApp to Acquire Spot

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NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP), the leader in cloud data services, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Spot, a leader in compute management and cost optimization on the public clouds, to establish leadership in Application Driven Infrastructure. 

Digital transformation initiatives have accelerated and remain the top business priority, especially in today’s environment, and the public clouds offer the speed and flexibility needed to navigate this new normal as companies find to new ways to work, interact and do business. However, unoptimized clouds can be costly and slow down the business transformation. To address this challenge, an Application Driven Infrastructure translates the application’s workload patterns and drives the best possible level of performance and cost for storage and compute, all done while maintaining the contracted service-level agreement (SLA) and service-level objective (SLO). Together, NetApp and Spot’s Application Driven Infrastructure for continuous optimization will help customers save up to 90 percent of their compute and storage cloud expenses, which typically make up 70 percent of total cloud spending, and will help accelerate public cloud adoption.

“In today’s public clouds, speed is the new scale. However, waste in the public clouds driven by idle resources and overprovisioned resources is a significant and a growing customer problem slowing down more public cloud adoption,” said Anthony Lye, senior vice president and general manager, Public Cloud Services, NetApp. “The combination of NetApp’s leading shared storage platform for block, file and object and Spot’s compute platform will deliver a leading solution for the continuous optimization of cost for all workloads, both cloud native and legacy. Optimized customers are happy customers and happy customers deploy more to the public clouds.”

Spot provides a combination of tools for visibility and automation, that drive continuous optimization of workloads in a single platform while maintaining both SLA and SLO. This relieves DevOps, CloudOps, and FinOps teams from the burden and complexity of managing, scaling, tuning and optimizing cloud resources so that they can focus on business innovation under acceptable budget controls.  

“Spot was founded with a vision to revolutionize the way companies consume cloud infrastructure services, using analytics and automation to deliver the most reliable, best performing and most cost-efficient infrastructure for every workload on every cloud,” said Amiram Shachar, Founder and CEO, Spot. “We look forward to joining the NetApp family and building together the future of Application Driven Infrastructure and helping customers to deploy more workloads in the cloud.”

Together, NetApp and Spot will establish an Application Driven Infrastructure to enable customers to deploy more applications to public clouds faster with Spot’s “as-a-service” platform for the continuous optimization of both compute and storage for both traditional IT buyers with enterprise applications, cloud-native workloads and data lakes. 

The transaction is expected to close in the first half of NetApp’s fiscal year and is subject to the satisfaction of certain regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

Pirelli 42

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The newest RIB produced by TecnoRib, official licensee for PIRELLI-branded inflatable boats, is a walkaround with aggressive styling and refined detailing. The emphasis is on open spaces, from the surprising day area to the sofa in the bow, with a broad range of engine options available.

The PIRELLI 42, which made its debut at boot Düsseldorf 2020, has been designed jointly with Swedish firm Mannerfelt Design Team and will be used either as a shadow boat or a day cruiser.

The first in a new range, it will soon be joined by the PIRELLI 52, a larger model that will share the same style and high performance.

A walkaround with a strong personality, PIRELLI 42 interprets the evolving style and philosophy of the maxi ribs built by the Milan-based shipyard and represents a new step forward in the creative process that began with the PIRELLI 1400.

Given its world debut at boot di Düsseldorf 2020, it is 13.1 meters long, with a beam of 4.10 meters, and has been designed and built to offer an onboard lifestyle that puts the accent on relaxation and comfort. That is why it is fitted with forward and aft sunpads, a day area with an outdoor table and, finally, an underdeck area with a transformable dinette and bathroom.

PIRELLI 42, which will be fitted out to meet the owner’s needs, can accommodate numerous guests in total comfort.

Featuring a combination of sportiness, comfort and a design developed jointly with Mannerfelt Design Team, the celebrated Swedish firm with a long track record in competition craft too. PIRELLI 42 has been created both for everyday use as a mid-range cruiser or as a shadow boat. Ted Mannerfelt, CEO and Design Director of the studio of the same name, made this comment about his contribution: “My team and I have worked to meet the Pirelli design approach and to make this boat stand out, enriching its sporty spirit with clean, elegant lines. We also had a special focus on the areas set aside for relaxation. The boat is easy to drive and can deliver remarkable performance”.

PIRELLI 42 is the first model in a new range targeted at owners in search of the perfect balance between elegance and adrenaline, and the shipyard will soon be launching a larger version too, the PIRELLI 52.

Diesel and petrol engines with a range of power ratings can be installed, up to a maximum 900 hp.

The Women’s World Car of the Year (WWCOTY) updates its logo to align with the latest trends

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After ten years, Women’s World Car of the Year has updated its logo to align with the latest trends. Based on the original design from Pear Tree Studios in the UK, the new logo keeps its essence, but introduces some guidelines to reflect the spirit of this decade.

Spanish artist Eva Goes has been in charge of the update. My intention has been to preserve the aesthetics of the previous logo. The silhouette of the woman driver has been kept, as it is a very powerful and attractive image that represents very well this group of motoring women journalists.

The lines of the new logo have been softened and synthesized to adapt more to the present time and to make it more effectively function across all formats, but at the same time keeping the ‘face’ of an empowered woman.

Eva has added a circle to frame the portrait to give it more importance and to allow the logo to work effectively as an imagotype. Eva has also used the large acronym WWCOTY for clarity with the whole title underneath as a fuller explanation.

It has been a great pleasure to work on this logo and to contribute to this group of motorized women from all over the world, says Eva Goes.

Women’s World Car of the Year is the only car awards in the world comprising exclusively women motoring journalists. It was created by New Zealand motoring journalist, Sandy Myhre, in 2009. She is currently Honorary President while Marta García performs as Executive President. The objective of the awards is to choose the best cars of the year. The voting criteria is based on the same principles that guide any driver when choosing a car. It is not a ‘woman’s car’ because such a thing does not exist. Aspects such as safety, quality, price, design, ease of driving, benefits and environmental footprint, among others, are taken into account when casting the vote.

The GCC countries are represented in WWCOTY by UAE based Motoring Jury Shereen Shabnam, Editor in Chief of Millionaire Magazine and Motoring contributor for Madame Magazine, Trending Business Insights and All About Wheels.