Forrester made some waves in the IT world Thursday morning when it released a report strongly urging large enterprise companies to let their employees use Macs at work. It's also something mobile IT folks already figured out: employees are more productive using devices they choose.…
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Untether.tv on Mobilize 2011: top themes and trends
Earlier this week, we held our two-day Mobilize 2011 event, which was jam packed with interviews, discussion panels and fireside chats all revolving around the mobile industry. This morning, Rob Woodbridge hosted me on a video summary of Mobilize, which distills the event's high level themes.…
Read MoreThe state of mobile tech: By the numbers
If one thing became clear at this year's GigaOM Mobilize conference, it's that all the buzz about mobile technology is completely warranted. Since numbers speak louder than words, here are some of the most interesting stats that surfaced on stage at Mobilize 2011.…
Read MoreBuilding a mobile app? Here are 6 tips for you
The mobile apps and services founders speaking at Mobilize 2011 this week gave some great advice for startups to follow. We picked out some of the best tips from Pandora, Flipboard, Instagram, Hipmunk, Formspring and Grey Area.…
Read MoreYes, VMware has plans for Hadoop, big data
Much like everyone has some product or strategy to optimize on "the cloud," momentum is already gathering around the next big technology trend to drive buzzzwords -- big data. VMware is no exception, so I spoke with Steve Herrod, the company's CTO to find out more.…
Read MoreWanna build a developer community? Reward, engage, incent
Developers can be difficult to come by, which is why it helps to build communities of app makers as a way to share expertise and skills. But execs in the field suggested that communities need to provide rewards and incentives to the top users.…
Read MoreSeed funded startups ripe for shakeout, VCs say
Individual seed investors have been an increasingly powerful force in Silicon Valley's startup funding landscape. But some venture capital heavyweights say that while the VC industry has been shaken up by the increase of seed backers, the current environment will likely lead to a fall.…
Read More2011: “The year mobile IT was born”
People have been asking to bring iPads, iPhones and Android phones to work for a few years now, but this is the year that IT departments everywhere are actually embracing it. Every enterprise will deploy smartphones and tablets to their workers over the next year.…
Read MoreThe 3 don’ts of high-engagement apps
At the Tuesday afternoon Mobilize panel on how to keep people coming back to your mobile app, panelists from a variety of services like Hipmunk, Formspring, ngmoco and Yahoo agreed that there were three things you should avoid doing if you want to create high-engagement apps.…
Read MoreFacebook’s future is mobile
Many of us still access Facebook through our web browsers, but it is increasingly becoming a mobile powerhouse. At GigaOM Mobilize, Erick Tseng, Head of Mobile Products for Facebook, said it may soon be more of a mobile company than one which develops for the web.…
Read MoreThe connected home is closer than ever
It seems like the concept of "the connected home" has been a hot topic forever. For most of us, it has remained in the realm of our imaginations. But according to Qualcomm Atheros' Craig Barratt, connectedness everywhere is closer than ever to becoming a reality.…
Read MoreShadow Cities finds that mobile gaming is surprisingly stationary
Grey Area co-founder and CEO Ville Vesterinen, at GigaOM's Mobilize 2011 on Tuesday, discussed a growing trend: location-based gaming. One of the company's most significant discoveries about mobile games has to do with how little they seem to actually be played on the run.…
Read MoreWhat you can learn from the rise and fall of WebOS
The WebOS technology is now up for sale, and its future is uncertain to say the least. But there are still a few good lessons that can be learned from WebOS' journey, says Michael Abbott, the former Palm executive who led the development of WebOS.…
Read MoreSmart objects may talk, but will we listen?
Web-enabling all manner of non-computery things — parking meters, pill bottles, umbrellas — means that people can be reminded to do something: feed the meter, take the meds, grab the bumbershoot. But designing the alerts — in addition to the devices themselves — is a key consideration.…
Read MoreThe pieces are falling into place for an “internet of things”
It may be difficult to describe what exactly the phrase "an internet of things" means, but the pieces of the puzzle that are required for that to develop are all here today, ThingM CEO Mike Kuniavsky told attendees at GigaOM's Mobilize conference in San Francisco.…
Read MoreHow Twitter is preparing for its big iOS debut
It's shaping up to be a busy autumn for Twitter. The service will be integrated into the next version of Apple's iOS operating system, which is set to roll out in October. So is Twitter in complete panic mode preparing for the coming onslaught of traffic?…
Read MoreVMware wants hypervisor hooked into Android kernel
At Mobilize, VMware CTO Steve Herrod laid out a mobile plan that reeks of success on par with what VMware has achieved in server virtualization. The trick to accomplishing that might be VMware's quest to make its hypervisor technology a part of the core Android kernel.…
Read MoreEnterprise app makers not fully embracing HTML5 just yet
While developers working on business apps agree that HTML5 is coming along, they're not ready to abandon native applications. At Mobilize 2011 the theme was hybrid, where executives from Salesforce, Rhomobile and MeLLmo talked about not making a commitment to one or the other yet.…
Read MoreInstagram signs up a new user every second
Less than a year after it launched its photo-sharing app, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom told attendees at GigaOM's Mobilize conference that new users are signing up at a rate of 78 per minute, and 26 photos are being uploaded to the service every second.…
Read MoreCisco security GM: Consumerization drives everything
Employees love using their own devices to do corporate work, but the practice, known as consumerization, is rife with security risks. Speaking today at Mobilize, Cisco's Tom Gillis said consumerization is causing a fundamental rearchitecture of how networks look that requires a reimagining of security solutions.…
Read MoreWhere mobile phones matter: Reaching the developing world
Forget the latest iPhone or Android handset, and watch how people are using mobile phones in Central Africa instead: Jana CEO Nathan Eagle has built technology to reach more than two billion consumers in the developing world, where airtime is money and mobile is the future.…
Read MoreMobile payments won’t sell itself, it requires added value
It's still too early to say when they Year of Mobile payments will happen. But the important lesson is that mobile payments can't rely on payments alone to sell itself; it will take a lot of new valuable services to convince consumers and merchants.…
Read MoreFlipboard is trying to reinvent media for the tablet age
Flipboard was created out of a desire to reinvent media consumption for a digital and tablet age, but that doesn't mean it can't help existing publications repair their damaged business models, editorial director Josh Quittner told attendees at GigaOM's Mobilize conference in San Francisco on Monday.…
Read MoreSquare COO: There’s no value in NFC
The COO of mobile payment startup Square, Keith Rabois, thinks that the mobile payment technology Near Field Communications (NFC) has no value proposition for consumers and merchants, he said at GigaOM's Mobilize conference on Monday.…
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