Chinese Hummer deal

General Motors (GM) has named the outfit that is to acquire its Hummer brand of vehicles, along with the division's senior management and operational team.

Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery (Tengzhong), a major industrial machinery group, will acquire the rights to the brand and assume existing dealership network agreements.

It is contemplated that Tengzhong will, as part of the transaction, enter into a long-term contract assembly and key component and material supply agreement with GM.

In an earlier statement, GM said it expects the deal, if successful, to secure more than 3,000 US jobs.

The final terms of the deal are subject to final negotiations.

Based in the Chinese province of Sichuan, Tengzhong is a privately owned company and a domestic manufacturer of road, construction and energy industry equipment.

'We will be investing in the Hummer brand and its research and development capabilities, which will allow Hummer to better meet demand for new products such as more fuel-efficient vehicles in the US,' said Yang Yi,chief executiveofficerof Tengzhong.

Hummer will continue to maintain its headquarters and operations in the US, and will continue to be managed by its existing leadership team.

The team intends to expand Hummer's dealer network worldwide, particularly into new and underserved markets such as China.

The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of this year, and is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Cloud computing: Resistance is futile

There may be a number of unresolved security issues around cloud computing but if you try to resist the trend you are likely to be shown the door.

This was the claim of Philippe Courtot, chairman of security company Qualys, speaking at the RSA Conference in San Francisco last week.

"We know that it's getting harder and harder to secure the current computing infrastructure and something has to change. Fundamentally there are too many variables and too many security patches," he said.

Read more: RSA Security Conference

"The burden today is on the enterprise: they have to select the components, the servers, the routers and the applications, and to add insult to injury they have to secure that."

According to Courtot, the burden of security on organizations is too great, and the cloud is potentially the answer.

Proponents of cloud computing often point to the ability it gives businesses to buy services themselves, bypassing the IT organization. Courtot warned: "If you resist the move to the cloud you will be replaced. Resistance is not an option."

However, he still sees a role for the internal IT security team: "The security people will have a more strategic role because they will be selecting the correct partners," he said.

The complexity of combining cloud applications with traditionally sourced applications will also secure an important role for IT teams, at least in the short term.

Chief information officers, however, remain sceptical of cloud computing, and recent research by silicon.com saw it branded this year's most overhyped technology.

According to Courtot, a number of improvements are needed before cloud computing will be able to take off, including the development of more secure browsers, stronger authentication and federated ID in the cloud, secure open protocols and standards, and legal and contractual improvements.

This article was originally published on silicon.com.

Cloud computing: Resistance is futile

There may be a number of unresolved security issues around cloud computing but if you try to resist the trend you are likely to be shown the door.

This was the claim of Philippe Courtot, chairman of security company Qualys, speaking at the RSA Conference in San Francisco last week.

"We know that it's getting harder and harder to secure the current computing infrastructure and something has to change. Fundamentally there are too many variables and too many security patches," he said.

Read more: RSA Security Conference

"The burden today is on the enterprise: they have to select the components, the servers, the routers and the applications, and to add insult to injury they have to secure that."

According to Courtot, the burden of security on organizations is too great, and the cloud is potentially the answer.

Proponents of cloud computing often point to the ability it gives businesses to buy services themselves, bypassing the IT organization. Courtot warned: "If you resist the move to the cloud you will be replaced. Resistance is not an option."

However, he still sees a role for the internal IT security team: "The security people will have a more strategic role because they will be selecting the correct partners," he said.

The complexity of combining cloud applications with traditionally sourced applications will also secure an important role for IT teams, at least in the short term.

Chief information officers, however, remain sceptical of cloud computing, and recent research by silicon.com saw it branded this year's most overhyped technology.

According to Courtot, a number of improvements are needed before cloud computing will be able to take off, including the development of more secure browsers, stronger authentication and federated ID in the cloud, secure open protocols and standards, and legal and contractual improvements.

This article was originally published on silicon.com.