The mobile platform wars escalated once again in the first quarter of 2012 as BlackBerry finally took the wraps off its much-anticipated new operating system. Meanwhile Android continued to build on its dominance both worldwide and in the U.S., cementing a two-horse race with Apple. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Not satisfied with targeting Google over its search practices, Microsoft and its allies have complained to EU competition authorities over the way Google services are bundled with Android. Read more »
Cloud computing is finally starting to add value to business, as those in charge of cloud within enterprises are moving from talking to doing. That much was very evident in the first quarter of 2013. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The rumored deal will become a reality later this year, assuming there are no regulatory problems. It would give Ericsson a market share of over 25 percent in IPTV and multi-screen systems and services. Read more »
Almost every tech company claims to hate patent trolls, but they certainly don’t always back up their words with actions. Recent patent activity around the Hadoop big data platform might show how companies can effectively battle trolls — if they really want to. Read more »
With the continued miniaturization of technology, the rise of flexible software frameworks, and the growing interest in technologies such as biomonitoring and location-based services, the smart watch is fast becoming technology’s next big thing. We asked GigaOM readers to weigh in on the future of the device. Here are the results. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
So who will be number two in public cloud after Amazon Web Services? Smart money is now on Google Compute Engine. With caveats, of course. Read more »
A Bloomberg report claims Microsoft wants to focus more on IPTV delivery through the Xbox platform. Ericsson already provides other IPTV services to hundreds of telcos, so Mediaroom may be a good fit for its portfolio. Read more »
With the smart watch making many headlines these days, we ask GigaOM readers to weigh in with their thoughts on the device: which features they want, how much they would pay, and which company will rule this market. Read more »
Publishers’ lack of strategic focus on licensing and syndication today is matched by nearly equal indifference from software developers, entrepreneurs, and investors. To change this, they must structure their repositories of content so it can be searched, sorted, customized, repackaged, and accessed in real time via standardized APIs. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Want to see big data in action? When it comes to planning out data center capacity, data can influence everything from the power usage to planning for disasters. Read more »
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Google may think it can waltz into a market that Evernote and others have staked out, but I’m not going to dance. Read more »
Netbreeze promises to bring multi-lingual access and analysis to Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube streams via Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Read more »
Microsoft’s purchase of Skype is starting to benefit the Windows Phone 8 platform: The newest preview version of Skype for Microsoft smartphones is the first to offer HD video on mobiles. Read more »
Mega data centers’ innovations in serviceability, automatically detecting and recovering from failures, procurement practices, and so forth will become standard practice in all modern data centers. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The most recent issue affecting Outlook.com and Hotmail users was caused by temperature spike in one of Microsoft’s data centers, an executive said. Read more »
Microsoft online services including Outlook.com, Hotmail and Skydrive are experiencing problems on Tuesday night. Read more »
Microsoft had a handful of journalists at its new Envisioning Center last week to show off its latest and greatest technology. Here’s what it demonstrated. Read more »
Microsoft is no joke when it comes to building web infrastructure and developing techniques such as machine learning. The company thinks its heavy investment in these areas will pay off big-time in the years to come. Read more »
Talko, a super-stealthy startup co-founded by Microsoft’s former chief software architect and strategist, will make use of Amazon Web Services. Read more »
Worldwide IT spending finished out 2012 with a growth rate of 3.8 percent over 2011, the lowest growth rate since 2009. Fourth-quarter 2012 earnings reports and guidance were notable in their lack of any decisively positive news to raise 2013 spending expectations much. Those optimistic about […] Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Mobile device users already know about TouchPal, the third-party keyboard that speeds input with swiping gestures and word prediction. The free app has now graduated to the big screen of Windows 8. Read more »
The Business Software Alliance has released its annual ‘Global Cloud Scorecard’. Given the source and ranking criteria, the results need to be taken with a bucket of salt. Read more »
If Google really did set off the process that led to Microsoft’s mammoth fine, then this was in a way just another episode in an increasingly nasty war between the two companies. Read more »
First Samsung decided not to even sell its Windows RT tablet in the U.S. Now it appears to be pulling the product out of Germany and unspecified other European regions. Here’s why. Read more »
Microsoft was naughty and got caught, and now it has to pay handsomely. Here’s the rundown on what happened, why it mattered, and why it may not happen again in quite the same way. Read more »
All-you-can-read digital magazine app Next Issue Media is expanding from iPad to Windows 8. The company partnered with Microsoft and hopes that users will want to read digital magazines across their devices. Read more at paidContent »
The console era is over — or so a growing number of game-industry executives would have us believe. While social and mobile gaming have taken a sizable share of the video games market, there is room for growth for hardware, particularly in streaming technology and the emergence of open-source platforms. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Groupon CEO Andrew Mason fired, Google CEO Sergey Brin feels emasculated by phones but not by nerd glasses and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is putting an end to remote work. Plus Oscars & Fashion. Here is our take on the week that was! Read more »
VMware, the king of in-house server virtualization, wants partners to help it defeat Amazon for corporate cloud workloads. One problem: VMware has its own issues with its partners. Read more »
Facebook has announced the purchase of Atlas Solutions, with CNBC reporting the deal went for around $100 million. The deal had been rumored for a while now, as Facebook is looking to improve its ad platform and Atlas Solutions would give them additional advertising info. Read more »
Data portability — the ability to move your information between clouds (or in and out of clouds) with relative ease — is a key concern of companies considering a cloud move. Read more »
File-share-and-sync vendor Box will announce more enterprise-friendly security features and alliances at the RSA Conference on Monday. Read more »
Pity poor Microsoft email users: Hotmail and Outlook.com service is out for many on Monday — indeed some have complained that the service has been on the fritz for weeks since an earlier outage. Read more »
Hortonworks Data Platform for Windows, now in beta, brings Hadoop to Excel and SQL Server (and vice versa.) Read more »
IT folks who worry that cloud computing adoption will kill jobs, may be surprised by the results of a new survey; Amazon unveils OpsWorks; Rackspace makes price changes. Read more »
Microsoft Azure, which started the week with kudos as the best cloud storage service, is down and out on Friday. Read more »
Naysayers may continue to ignore the trend, but tablets aren’t toys and the tablet market isn’t a fad, as 2012 shipments show. This year, tablets could surpass both desktops and laptops. Read more »
Joachim Kempin is the former Microsoft exec who handled the company’s interesting relationships with OEM partners. Now he’s weighing in with ideas to bring Microsoft back to power. Read more »
Google isn’t just an internet search company any more. As it pushes Google TV, Google Glasses, and Chromebooks, it needs to let customers try-before-they-buy. Read more »
