Despite readily available cloud-based services, many companies are now outsourcing big data to managed service providers and expecting high-performance results. How do managed service providers ensure they are ready to meet this demand?

Berlin-based startup factory Rocket Internet recently promised to produce 10 more startups each year, starting in 2015. And it looks like it’s striving to finish 2014 the way it plans to tackle the new year.
After a spate of launches across the continent over the past few months, Rocket Internet is rolling out its latest startup in four European countries, after the “groundbreaking success” of the launch in one country.

WeWork, an office-rental company with roots in the tech industry, has reportedly raised an impressive $355 million funding round.
This is only the company’s second funding round. The previous funding, an angel round in January 2012, raised $6.85 million. WeWork was started in 2010.

Even more impressive, the latest round values the company at almost $5 billion, according to sources cited by the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the funding.

Britain is in the midst of an accelerator and incubator boom, according to new research revealed by Telefonica/O2.

The report revealed that over half of the programs currently operating in the U.K. were launched in the past 3 years.

This timeline mirrors Britain’s tech sector’s explosive growth since the government’s endorsement through the Tech City programme in 2010. It appears this early endorsement has acted as a catalyst, with the private sector now accounting for over 40 percent of all startup programs in the U.K.

Just like everyone else, Google puts together end-of-year lists for its various properties. We’ve already seen YouTube and Google Play, but now it’s time to see what the company is best known for: Search.

The company today released the fourteenth installment of its year-end zeitgeist. Here are the top 10 global trending searches for 2014:
1.       Robin Williams
2.       World Cup
3.       Ebola
4.       Malaysia Airlines

Streaming video service Netflix is showing some love for subscribers using the company’s Android app with a new social-focused updated released today.
The Netflix Android app update adds a set of social recommendation features, which essentially make it easier for you to share a particular movie or TV show with a friend via Facebook.

2014 has been a huge year for many in the tech industry, including Google Ventures. During the past year, the firm has seen record numbers in terms of investments, exits, and other actions. Life sciences was the the firm’s biggest investment category this year, making up 36 percent of investments.

Google Ventures president and managing partner Bill Maris has a soft spot for life sciences and health technology, having studied and done research in neurobiology earlier in his career. “I’ve always had a keen interest in the life sciences and I feel like there’s a real opportunity” in it now, Maris said in an interview with VentureBeat. “In 2000, even if you had a billion dollars, you couldn’t sequence a single genome,” he said.

History is rife with examples of companies wandering away from their core expertise and bungling things terribly. Colgate once offered kitchen entrees, Coors decided to sell bottled water alongside its beer, and ESPN tried to sell a mobile phone.
It’s easy to shake our heads at these mistakes. But if the dangers are so obvious, why is diversification so rampant among tech companies?
Amazon, Google, and Microsoft often attempt feats outside their core expertise. Now we should add to that list Facebook, which recently announced it would launch Facebook at Work.