Gloomy February is generally in need of more celebrations, and it has gotten one: Anywhere Working Week is on now. But this initiative from UK business, government and nonprofits to promote remote work is hardly getting pulses racing. Flexible work deserves a higher profile. Read more »
We know consumerization is eating away at the dominance of PCs, but Forrester Research has released fresh numbers on the phenomenon. The results are bad news for Microsoft, with Forrester finding one-third of work devices are non-Microsoft and a quarter mobile. Read more »
Cisco, the networking company that many felt would be a great acquirer of Skype had looked at the VoIP and video company and declined because it couldn’t see a way to do a deal without upsetting its service provider customers, according to Cisco CEO John Chambers. Read more »
Cloud storage player Box is beefing up its Android clients with collaboration and batch upload support. It also seems to be favoring Android devices even over popular IPhones and iPads and is definitely backing them at the expense of Windows Phone. Read more »
Systems integrator Dimension Data bought OpSource for its cloud services in June, and is now unveiling the updated cloud offering under its brand. The updated services include a public compute-as-a-service cloud, a private version of same, as well as managed hosting and managed services. Read more »
Mobile privacy will still be a murky issue despite a new agreement between the state of California and six leading mobile companies over how best to help app developers comply with a California law requiring them to post a privacy policy. Read more »
Cloud service providers are all rushing to claim compliance with the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002. The only problem is that FedRAMP, the federal effort to ensure a safe move to the cloud, won’t sign off on certifications for three or four more months. Read more »
Microsoft loves to jump on Google’s mistakes, but probably should have taken a pass before it slammed the search giant for not following an outdated standard that a close partner also shuns. Read more »
Microsoft isn’t taking the cloud storage challenge lying down. The company plans to build tight links between its Windows 8 and its SkyDrive cloud storage, making it easy for users running Windows 8 on tablets, PCs or phones to put their digital stuff on SkyDrive. Read more »
It may not be Silicon Valley but the Boston-Cambridge metro area has a lot going for it — infrastructure expertise, a deep talent pool, and VC funding. Facebook famously went elsewhere, but here’s why other local companies started here (and will stay put.) Read more »
Barney Pell has a new startup. The serial entrepreneur, who sold Powerset to Microsoft, has founded a new company called QuickPay, which aims to revolutionize the way that people find and pay for parking. QuickPay has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Fontinalis Partners. Read more »
European Union’s decision to approve the Microsoft & Skype merger without any objection isn’t sitting well with Cisco, the unified communications giant who is worried that Microsoft will use Skype to dominate the video calling industry. Sour grapes for a company caught in it own business-model. Read more »
Microsoft’s ambitious Windows Azure cloud is many things — it’s a full-fledged PaaS for developers. But beneath that, it is also a huge pool of foundational storage infrastructure for rent. And in that arena, it could be the only real competitor to Amazon. Read more »
Two industry luminaries — Google Fellow Amit Singhal and Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Henrique “Rico” Malvar — were elected to the The National Academy of Engineering this week. Singhal oversees Google’s search algorithms and Malvar specializes in signal processing and compression. Read more »
It looks like some of the bloom is off the SaaS rose. New numbers show the booming growth in valuations of SaaS companies is slowing after a long run-up as pure-play SaaS companies face more competition from legacy players. Read more »
Neil Young put a lot of the media industry’s hysteria about file-sharing into perspective when he said in a recent interview that “piracy is the new radio — that’s how music gets around.” In fact, a certain amount of “piracy” can be good for business. Read more »
We’ve already talked about some key highlights from the Macworld | iWorld 2012 show, particularly from the prosumer and developer angles. But my focus here is on those products average Apple users might be interested in, for both Mac and iOS devices. Read more »
Companies such as Google, PayPal, Facebook and Microsoft have teamed up to create a standard to help boost email security. They are part of a working group to create the DMARC standard, which will help cut down on the number of phishing attacks. Read more »
Los Angeles-based startup Causecast this week debuted its Employee Impact Platform, a web-based program that connects companies and their employees with non-profits and charitable causes. With Causecast, small businesses can compete with larger, more established companies when it comes to offering employees ways to give back. Read more »
Could Apple spend its $100 billion in cash to create a virtual cable operator to compete with Comcast and the like? Sure. But it would have a really hard time offering a competitively priced service and building a profitable business out of it. Read more »
Nokia’s smartphone sales were down 31 percent in the final quarter of 2011 as the company’s switch to Microsoft’s Windows Phone continues. But one million Lumia’s sold to date is a good start, and Nokia is delivering on its transition plans, which gives it a chance. Read more »
Joe Coyle, CTO of global integrator Capgemini, sees a lot of cloud pitches from all the major technology vendors — and God knows they all have a cloud strategy. Here’s what he thinks of the current state of the market. Read more »
The greater Boston area may not be the hub of the big data universe that some recent research suggests, but it got a leg up this week with news that tech giant Hewlett-Packard is moving some of its big data operations to Cambridge. Read more »
To hear IBM and Microsoft tell it, their respective cloud strategies are coming along nicely, thank you very much. But given the hazy definitions of cloud computing and the lack of real numbers, it’s hard to tell if that really is the case. Read more »
Nokia may have sold 1.3 million Lumia handsets running on Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform, which would be a morale boost for both companies. Both have been in decline, facing competition from iOS and Android devices. Is this finally a smartphone turnaround point for Nokia and Microsoft? Read more »
Another European country is pushing a nationalistic agenda when it comes to cloud computing, one that could have huge repercussions for U.S.-based cloud powers and the nature of cloud computing in general. France Telecom is pushing a French cloud to feature built-in-France technology. Read more »
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about how consumers will soon be buying more TVs, and upgrading them ever faster. After seeing the best that CE manufacturers had in store at CES, I’m even more convinced. But not for the reasons you might think. Read more »
Apple’s iOS mobile platform tends to sell more paid software than its rivals, and its biggest advantage might be a head start that Google, Microsoft or any other mobile competitor can’t do much to eliminate: iTunes. It’s also an advantage Apple likely isn’t done profiting by. Read more »
This week had me running around the CES event, where Android 4.0 was everywhere. New tablets with multicore chips impressed me — and could even be notebook replacements — plus a few smartphones looked incredible. Apps may start looking better to due to a Google initiative. Read more »
Surprise! The hypervisor battle rages anew and is in fact getting more heated as VMware tries to push vSphere (not just the free ESXi hypervisor) to customers and Microsoft vies to win market share and credibility for Hyper-V. Read more »
Sometimes Windows is just what the doctor ordered, and with OnLive’s new Desktop app for iPad, I suspect it’ll be the prescription I’m looking for much more often. Here’s a look at what the fresh new Windows virtualization app for iPad offers. Read more »
The cloud is looking pretty good to software developers this year, according to new Zend Technologies’ research. More than half of the 3,335 developers surveyed said they expect to use a public cloud for their work in 2012, with AWS being the top draw. Read more »
The latest evidence that the set-top box will soon be dead comes from Samsung and DirecTV, which have partnered. Set-top boxless viewing will enable operators to provide the same user interface on the TV without the need for another piece of hardware. Read more »
Apple is the No. 1 “leading edge” brand in Canada according to a new poll, the results of which were published Tuesday. While Apple is the best-positioned company in terms of watching where tech is headed, homegrown smartphone competitor RIM didn’t even make the top 10. Read more »
Qualcomm CEO Dr. Paul Jacobs shared his mobile vision at CES Tuesday, with much of the focus on emerging markets. With half of all smartphones expected to be sold in emerging markets by 2015, it’s no wonder the chipmaker is looking to innovate beyond traditional borders. Read more »
Microsoft may have finally accomplished something it has failed to do at the last six Consumer Electronics Show events I’ve attended: It has people talking about its phones. Even with few product launches announced at CES, there’s good reason for the Windows Phone buzz. Read more »
Skype is killing long-distance phone calls, minutes at a time. In fact, the growing popularity of the service has seen it steal minutes away from the phone companies. And for consumers that is good news. What’s more, the idea of free voice is only gaining traction. Read more »
Samsung is putting some effort behind its smart TV lineup, with plans to add new functionality for consumers to interact with their TV screens. Its next-gen smart TVs will include voice, gesture and facial recognition features that will enable even smarter TV applications. Read more »
The new OnLive Desktop app making its debut at CES this week will let users stream their full-featured — and resource-intensive — Microsoft Office applications to their Apple iPads. The company runs virtualized versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint on its data centers in the cloud. Read more »
Reports suggest Nokia could be preparing to elevate F-Secure founder Risto Siilasmaa from its board to the role of chairman — and a speech from 2009 gives an intriguing insight into how he could view his role at the top of the troubled mobile giant. Read more »
