Microsoft software still dominates the landscape and is important for many web workers. From Windows and Office to SharePoint and Project, we cover the tools that web workers use every day and how to get the most out of them.
According to some researchers, web companies such as Google, Amazon and Facebook are doing the research world a disservice because they won’t make their datasets available for peer review. These researchers have a point, but privacy concerns might always trump openness where openness matters at all. Read More »
Microsoft has won the latest salvo in its ongoing war with Motorola, but it’s not yet clear whether Moto will buy a license for the infringed patent or try a workaround. Read More »
Microsoft’s Bing StreetSide service was offering a welcome replacement for Google’s out-of-date Street View imagery in Germany, but now privacy complaints have seen it taken offline. When will somebody realize these complaints have gone too far? Read More »
In its push to get traction for Windows Azure as a platform for cloud services, Microsoft is opening an Azure accelerator in Bangalore. The goal is to find and help startups across India and Southeast Asia — and get them aboard the Microsoft PaaS. Read More »
What use are hundreds of shortcuts if you don’t know them? Berlin’s Veodin has come up with a free tool called KeyRocket, which trains users in the way of the shortcut with more relevance and less irritation than Microsoft’s hated old Office assistant. Read More »
Github, the social network for software developers, now has a brand-new, first-ever Windows client. That means developers can build their Windows XP, Windows 7 and pre-release Windows 8 — even Vista applications — but now also share their work on the popular Github repository. Read More »
Here’s our daily pick of stories about Apple from around the web you shouldn’t miss. Today’s installment: What Apple et al are up to with Nortel’s patent trove, why iPhone subsidies won’t be lowered any time soon, a contract-free iPhone 3GS and Tim Cook’s compensation. Read More »
The European Commission today announced it had found four possible “abuses of dominance” by Google, and suggested the search giant propose a package of “remedies” in coming weeks. Read More »
With news that Google and Microsoft plan to take on Amazon Web Services with infrastructure services of their own, you have to ask: How many clouds do we need? Legacy vendors IBM, Microsoft and HP are hoping at least a couple more. Read More »
Google is hard at work on a cloud computing offering that will compete directly with the popular Amazon EC2 cloud, I have been told, although Microsoft probably will beat it to the punch. The timing for Google is TBD, while Microsoft should announce on June 7. Read More »
VMware’s set its sights on becoming a bona fide application development powerhouse. With the latest version of its Springsource-based vFabric Suite, VMware adds application deployment automation, vSphere-optimized Posgres and a SQLFire in-memory database layer — all are geared to woo web scale developers. Read More »
SAP All-in-One business applications will now run in Amazon’s cloud — another step that could make Amazon Web Services more enticing to risk-averse businesses that stress over entrusting their life-blood applications to a public cloud. Read More »
There’s quite a ruckus going on over ARM-powered Windows 8 tablets: Mozilla and Google are crying foul over third-party browser restrictions Microsoft has put in place in Windows 8. Here’s why this isn’t really a new problem and why it’s likely to get worse over time. Read More »
Microsoft’s top search guy took to the Web Thursday to show off a refreshed interface for Microsoft’s Bing search engine, that he said better incorporates the user’s social media contacts in a new sidebar which brings in their Facebook and Twitter contacts input. Read More »
Of the dozens of meeting requests I received for this year’s Interop conference, the one I least expected came from Google. Interop is all about enterprise IT — networks, security, servers, stuff with gravitas. But in its own way, Google is becoming a serious IT company. Read More »
Paul Doscher, CEO of Lucid Imagination wants you to know that when it come to enterprise-class search, open-source Lucene is a contender. And a strong contender that can face off against Google, Amazon and Microsoft in the big data search arena. Read More »
Let it never be said that the cloud computing wars are boring. Within hours of being blasted for locking developers into its ever-rising cloud stack, Amazon announced new managed database services and Elastic Beanstalk support for thousands of Microsoft-centric developers. Read More »
Microsoft is joining a growing number of tech companies that want to do something about their growing carbon emissions due to power hungry data centers and office buildings. The software giant on Tuesday announced a plan to become carbon neutral by fiscal year 2013 (this July). Read More »
Just as the older members of my family are finally getting used to Skype and FaceTime, along comes a 3-D hologram concept project! Dubbed the TeleHuman, the system uses six Microsoft Kinect sensors and a 3-D projector inside a 1.8 meter tall acrylic cylinder. Read More »
Up-and-coming IaaS player Tier 3′s new Web Fabric Platform aims to give enterprise customers access to infrastructure services and higher-level application services from a single console. It builds on Iron Foundry, an open source fork of Cloud Foundry that adds .NET support. Read More »
Apple devices have enjoyed wireless music playback through AirPlay speakers, but Windows users generally have been left out in the cold, until now. Aperion’s Aris wireless speaker lets Windows 7 and Windows 8 Consumer Preview computers pipe tunes wirelessly using Microsoft’s “Play To” feature. Read More »
When it comes to NYC’s tech scene, digital media and commerce companies get all the attention, but city’s big opportunity could very well be as the hub for the “data centric” economy. From startups to web giants, many are making a beeline for the Big Apple. Read More »
With more and more business leaders now turning to this topic, the questions — and confusion — are multiplying. With so much to consider, we’ve broken down the cloud discussion to help companies decide which strategy is right for their business.
The big news out of ROFLCon is that this is the last ROFLCon. So if you want to catch your favorite “Famous on the Internet” stars — Tron Guy, Double Rainbow Guy, the Nyancats — you better get to MIT Building 26 in the next few … Read More »
Ask a VC about big data and she will probably tell you about visualization of the user interface. We’re talking about intuitive UIs that let users visually work with data using charts and tools, not algorithms. It’s hard to do right, but the payoff could be …
A new EU child safety strategy calls for parental controls to be built into all internet-capable devices, for apps to get their own age ratings — and for a proposed electronic ID system to be used for proving your age online. Read More »
Legacy IT vendors used to dealing with one or two ways of delivering their products and services to market, now must handle four, five, maybe more business models as cloud computing takes off. And many, according to Accenture, are not prepared for that complexity. Read More »
Motorola has won an injunction in Germany on key Microsoft products involved in a patent dispute. But in a confusing and complex judgment, the chances of Motorola actually trying to get Microsoft’s key products removed from shelves are slim. Read More »
LG is reportedly focused on Google Android smartphones and not new Microsoft Windows Phone handsets. LG only built two Windows Phones in 2010 and none in 2011 even though it has kind words for the platform. Unfortunately for Microsoft, actions speak louder than words. Read More »
Microsoft”s $300 million investment in Barnes & Noble’s Nook business gives it a piece of an ebook reader also-ran. But this is far from the first time Microsoft enlisted a B list ally to attack a recalcitrant market. Read More »
Last month I exclusively reported that Apple was buying fuel cells from Bloom Energy for its data center in Maiden, North Carolina. Well, on Monday morning Bloom Energy has finally confirmed that yes, it is supplying fuel cells for Apple’s data center, reports CNET. Read More »
Although Microsoft invested $300 million in a Barnes & Noble spin-off on Monday, this isn’t the first time Microsoft played the e-book game. Typical for the company, it often has great ideas, but it errs on the timing: Microsoft debuted e-book software back in 2000! Read More »
Microsoft and Barnes & Noble are teaming up to take on Amazon and Apple. The $300 million investment in the Nook subsidiary of Barnes & Noble gives Microsoft about 17.6% ownership of this business unit and values it at about about $1.7 billion, more than … Read More »
Microsoft’s Research division is testing home automation market software it developed that makes it easy for devices to speak to each other. This HomeOS platform can help demystify smart home systems with numerous protocols. Plus it works nicely on smartphones for remote control and monitoring. Read More »
Microsoft and Barnes & Noble are forming a strategic partnership that combines the Nook and college businesses into a new company. Microsoft is making a $300 million investment in the new company and Nook e-books are coming to Windows platforms. Read More »
Cloud computing and big data are in the enterprise to stay, but making the most of them presents challenges for IT decision makers. The future belongs to those companies who can work through legacy tools, ongoing security issues and the data scientist shortage.
Critics say that a bill called CISPA, which has been passed by the House of Representatives and is on its way to the Senate, is just as bad as SOPA — but others, including Facebook, support the legislation. Should you be concerned about it? Read More »
Eighty-five percent of the global population owns mobile phones. This report forecasts the global handset market, examining the Americas; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and Asia-Pacific. Drivers include an increased number of subscribers in developing countries and the rollout of 3G and 4G wireless …
Microsoft’s effort to merge the Windows Phone look and feel with Windows 8 will pay off in the form of causing Google Android to “fade away” says a mobile market watcher. That’s possible because Microsoft — and Apple, as well — have something that Google doesn’t. Read More »
If you parse Amazon’s first quarter earnings, you could be forgiven for thinking that Amazon Web Services (AWS) is now a $2 billion-a-year business. Revenue from Amazon’s “other” category was $500 million for the quarter, although “other” does include revenue from other things. Read More »
Skype may be blocked for use by a wireless provider in the very country one of Skype’s founders, Niklas Zennström, is from. Sweden’s Telia is reportedly considering a block on Skype’s mobile video and VoIP services later this year unless customers pay an additional usage charge. Read More »
There are now more than half a dozen commercial Hadoop distributions in the market, and almost every enterprise with big data challenges is tinkering with the Apache Foundation-licensed software. A new report examines the key disruptive trends shaping the Hadoop platform market.
Taking money to plug a company is a cardinal sin of journalism and can even be against the law. Yet, astro-turfing — spinning paid opinion as popular sentiment — remains a thriving trade all the same. Read More »
Well that didn’t take long. Cloud storage security firms such as Boxcryptor, who were all about Dropbox and Box.net, are suddenly racing to add support for Google and Microsoft’s heavyweight offerings. Read More »
Aaron Levie, founder and CEO of Box, said even with the long-awaited arrival of Google Drive, he still doesn’t see Google as a competitor. That’s because he sees Box as more of a collaboration platform that happens to have storage making Microsoft more of a rival. Read More »
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