YouTube isn't the future of TV
In a few weeks I’ll launch a YouTube channel where you’ll be able to see lots of shows readers have asked about, including Startup America and even that lost second season of NerdTV. YouTube, as the largest video streaming service anywhere, is the absolute best place for me. But YouTube isn’t the future of TV.
I know this because TV is a business and this channel I’m launching is a business and I’ve spent the last several weeks talking to investors and running the numbers every which way. I’ve spent many hours with my friend Bob Peck looking at the economics of YouTube and my unequivocal conclusion is that while YouTube is great, it isn’t TV.
Is Microsoft trying to kill BYOD?
IT news comes in fast. Sometimes it takes us a while to process it all. In the blur of competing headlines, critical trends become obscured, and seemingly disconnected events -- when viewed through the prism of a few days rest and a good cup of tea -- can suddenly seem interrelated.
Consider the past two weeks. First, Microsoft drops the Surface bombshell, including news that only one of the devices -- the Windows RT version -- will be ready in time for the holidays. Then, on the heels of much hand wringing over Google’s Nexus 7 and its impact on the BYOD movement, PC stalwart Hewlett Packard reveals that it won’t be shipping any Windows RT tablets, at least not in the short term. Again, seemingly disconnected events -- yet when you pull them all together they lead to one inexorable conclusion: Microsoft hates BYOD.
Google Nexus 7 first-impressions review
Last week, Google introduced its first branded tablet during the I/O developer conference. You can preorder one now, for delivery in a few weeks: $199 (8GB) or $249 (16GB). Maybe you're wondering if you should get one. I'd like to help that decision-making process, having the privilege of using Nexus 7 since June 27.
Nexus 7 is the most important Android device released to date. The tablet represents a culmination of disparate product and cloud services development coming suddenly together -- hardware, Jelly Bean, Chrome, curated content, seamless sync and personal assistant Google Now, among others. The tablet is first and foremost for anyone living the Google lifestyle. If you use more than a handful of Google services, this device, or Galaxy Nexus, is for you. Well, with caveats. Those aside, if you don't want this tablet, you really should.
Four self-hosted Dropbox-like services businesses can use
File synchronization services like Dropbox have really taken off in recent time. They basically allow you to sync files between devices using cloud storage as buffer. Depending on the service, you get web access, document editing options, photo galleries, media streaming and more on top of that.
All services have in common that they encrypt the connection between your computer and the cloud host to protect the data from third parties that try to intercept or record what is being transferred. Each service has implemented its own scheme, and it is often difficult and sometimes even impossible to find out how the data is protected by the service.
Apple's injunction stopping Galaxy Nexus sales is shameful
I'm ashamed of Apple, and myself for giving anything to iPhone today. To celebrate iPhone's fifth anniversary, I asked BetaNews writers to offer missives based on their experience using the handset. We published Wayne Williams' story on Wednesday, another by Chris Wright early day and my own this afternoon. Two other stories are in the queue. We'll run them over the weekend, however, instead of today. There's no longer any sense of birthday celebration in these halls.
Today, US District Judge Lucy Koh gave Apple a great gift for iPhone's fifth, that I see as anything but. Apple's preliminary injunction against the Samsung-manufactured, Google-branded Galaxy Nexus is an outrage and demonstrates how far fallen is Steve Jobs' company from the innovative spirit that brought iPhone to market. The original set the smartphone market ablaze and brought Apple to unimagined success as seen from 2007. There was a time when Apple innovated rather than litigated and up-ended so-called copycats by making bold, breath-taking successor products. But that Apple is gone, buried with Jobs, who sadly left this world last year.
Nexus 10: Three extra inches of BYOD Hell
It’s relentless. Just when my psyche was beginning to recover from the Nexus 7 bombshell, here comes the Nexus 10. A rumored upsized-version of Google’s recently announced reference platform, the Nexus 10 will be to the iPad what the Nexus 7 is to the Kindle: An immediate, existential threat pounding on the gates of Fort Cupertino.
To Apple, the thought of an ultra-cheap (think sub-$300), 10-inch iPad fighter must send chills down CEO Tim Cook’s spine. But to me, the Nexus 10 represents something much worse: Three extra inches of BYOD hell for enterprise IT shops.
I run my business from iPhone 3G
Second in a series. Editor's note: To commemorate iPhone's fifth-anniversary, we present several stories looking at its debut and colorful history -- so far. Who says you need the newest tech to be productive, eh?
As a writer and freelance IT contractor, I am in effect running my own business. I have multiple clients, assignments with deadlines, meetings with suppliers and contacts, and lots of marketing to arrange. Over the last few years I’ve noticed that I can manage all of these activities from my humble iPhone 3G. In effect I’m running my business from my phone, which is pretty amazing when you think that the original iPhone is only five years old today. In that short time the ‘God phone’, as some dubbed it at the time, has completely transformed what a phone can be.
Will iOS users dump Safari for Chrome?
That's really my question for iPad and iPhone users. Today Google released Chrome for iOS. Will you dump Safari for Chrome? I would. But can't. I boycotted Apple earlier this month because of its patent bullying, which later succeeded in blocking Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 imports. What madness!
In May, I claimed that I would use iPad if Chrome was available. Well, the browser is here and I won't, mainly because of the boycott. But also because I'm mad. To receive holy admittance into the Apple App Store shrine, Google sacrificed a lamb and prostrated before the great iOS idol. Chrome and Safari may both be based on WebKit, but Google's browser actually uses a different rendering engine. Well, not on iOS.
Would you sell your iPad and buy Google Nexus 7?
I ask because this morning I got email from a reader who is doing just that. "I ordered my Nexus 7 yesterday for $249, and I am selling my iPad gen 1 for $200", Brian Fagioli writes. It's not a bad trade-off. The original iPad is obsolete when iOS 6 ships, while Nexus 7 packs the newest Android version, Jelly Bean. But would you, and even for a newer iPad?
Google announced the tablet yesterday at Google I/O. Two models are available for preorder -- 8GB ($199) and 16GB ($249) -- and ship in mid-July. I wouldn't call Nexus 7 an iPad-killer, since it's a product with different ambitions: Reclaiming the Android tablet ecosystem from Kindle Fire. But the lower price and smaller size, and Android 4.1, do appeal. The question is to whom.
Google Apps vs Office 365: Which wins over users?
Unlike most tech industry analysts that pit Google versus Microsoft in a paper-specs war each time they opine about these cloud email platforms, I’ve got two cents to offer on the subject from a slightly different -- and perhaps more down-to-earth -- perspective. I’m an IT consultant by day who is responsible for implementing, supporting, and training on each company’s product.
It allows me to have better perspective about how end-users feel about these major cloud suites when “non techies” are at the wheel. And the things they tell me are often no-holds-barred as they rarely hold back. The bigger question most analysts fail to answer still stands: who’s winning the “hearts and minds” of those using these suites?
Microsoft's road to redemption
Microsoft just put behind it an eventful and positive week, coming off two major announcements on its two major computing platforms -- Windows and Windows Phone: Surface and WP8. Consumer and expert scepticism hobbled much of the excitement, as Microsoft nose dives into paradigm change. Nevertheless, the third week of June 2012 is indicative of a profoundly new direction for Microsoft, characterized by refreshing perspectives and paves a path that leads ultimately in the right direction.
Microsoft is making genuine inroads towards a new strategy that represents a complete paradigm shift from the fundamentals that defined the company and its products over the last couple of decades. The company used to be the antithesis of Apple in practically every sense, selling products based on the abundance of choice as opposed to Apple's strategy of marketing a small hardware lineup. Apple's strategy has always focused on ease of use, simplicity and form; whereas Microsoft, although not neglecting form and aesthetic, put functionality first and foremost and wrapped design around this in the most appealing way possible. The announcements this week represent a fully-committed digression from this strategy from Microsoft.
Android users are smarter than you
Just ahead of Google I/O 2012, The Street claims that "Android users don't know enough to matter". Interesting story, especially considering the timing, and one that’s bound to stir lots of criticism just because it puts down all Android fans in the world.
There are plenty of references, but they sustain a flawed point of view.
Microsoft should have bought Yammer two years ago
Editor's Note: On June 25, Microsoft announced acquisition of four year-old, enterprise social-networking startup Yammer, for $1.2 billion. A day earlier, in the midst of rumors, Chris Wright put the merger in context, in this sharp and insightful analysis.
Recent press reports claim that Microsoft has bought Yammer, or that they are buying Yammer, or that they at least want to buy Yammer. The scenario currently playing out isn't entirely clear, although the New York Times seems confident the deal is done. In reality, we won’t know the exact nature of what is going on until any paperwork is complete.
Ahead of Google I/O, Android is the tortoise winning the race
The annual Google developer convention I/O will take place next week. Like Apple's WWDC and Microsoft's TechEd, it is the big summer event where the world is given a look at each of the respective companies' plans for the coming year.
Google is expected to announce a lot of staggering new stuff, like its own branded sub-$200 tablet and its own Cloud platform to rival Amazon Web Services.
Enterprise IT will kick Microsoft Surface to the curb
What a week! Just when I thought Microsoft could never be as cool as Apple, bang! Here comes Surface (no, not that Surface) to shatter my preconceptions about the weather in Seattle and its effect on product innovation.
Surface is sleek, sexy, and, dare I say it, kind of cool. It’s got this rockin’ kickstand thingy at the back, a neat-o magnetic keyboard/cover and is made from some cutting-edge alloy straight out of a Star Trek episode (specifically, Voyager -- DS9 would never stoop so low). In short, Surface has all the ingredients of an iPad killer. But while it may achieve some success in the consumer space, enterprise IT shops won’t touch it with a 3-meter pole.
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