Articles about Cloud

On February 21, Google started selling its first computer, Chromebook Pixel, which I called a "status symbol" over the weekend. In typical fashion I asked "Will you buy Google Chromebook Pixel?" There surely is a market for the laptop somewhere, but not among the respondents to our poll.

Seventy-seven percent of you answer "No". That's among the highest percentage ever to one of my polls. If there's Chromebook Pixel enthusiasm, it surely isn't from BetaNews readers. Just 8 percent of respondents will buy the Chrome OS laptop "as soon as available in my country". Only 16.5 percent plan to buy Chromebook Pixel ever. So has Google got a flop? No way, Jose.

Continue reading →

Cue the violins. IDC says that the cloud, smartphone and tablet are reshaping IT spending, using the word personal computing defenders despise: "Cannibalization". There's a reason I dismiss the post-PC moniker for cloud-connected device era.

"Cannibalization is happening across the industry" Stephen Minton, IDC vice president, says. "Smartphones have taken over from feature phones, tablet adoption is impacting PC spending, and the cloud is affecting the traditional software, services and infrastructure markets". And you people wonder why Google would make in Chromebook Pixel a high-end cloud computer. It's the future, baby.

Continue reading →

When you’re permanently connected to the internet via one device or another, then checking something on Wikipeda is very easy: just browse to the site, enter the topic and you’ll be reading more within seconds.

Life isn’t so simple for everybody, though. If you don’t have a smartphone, perhaps can’t get a signal, or are in an area with unreliable broadband (or maybe none at all) then accessing the site will be much more of a challenge. Fortunately there are other options, and although it’s still only an alpha build, XOWA is already one of the best.

Continue reading →

Microsoft's cloud service, Windows Azure, along with Team Foundation Service, suffered a major outage yesterday that also affected non-enterprise people, as it resulted in problems with Xbox Live as well. However, according to the Xbox Status page, the Live system, along with Xbox Music and Video, which were also affected, is back up and running.

Now, as of this morning we have some information on the root cause of the much-publicized problem. Brian Harry, Product Unit Manager for Team Foundation Server, blames the nine-hour outage on "an expired SSL certificate in Windows Azure storage". Harry goes on to explain that the company stores "source code files, Git repos, work item attachments and more" there and that "the expired certificate prevented access to any of this information, making much of the TFService functionality unavailable".

Continue reading →

Seventeenth in a series. The Windows 8 app store is picking up pace again. New apps this week almost doubled in comparison to last week. A total of 1,049 new apps found their way into Windows Store -- of which 826 were listed as free to install and use and 224 as paid apps. It will be interesting to see if this is the beginning of an uptick in terms of new apps in the store or if things will dry off again in the coming weeks.

Microsoft did update a couple of first-party applications this week. Just in is the Skype update, which enables Windows 8 users to transfer files using the client, a feature that has been an integral part of the desktop app for a very long time.

Continue reading →

Did you know that Google has real people working there? If you have ever tried to contact the company then you may have concluded otherwise. In fact, it may be more difficult than finding a phone number for Amazon -- a task that has resulted in websites dedicated to the adventure. Apparently the search giant would like to change that reputation and today it took the first step.

Google has announced a new support package for customers of its Cloud Platform services. This is an enterprise service that the company would like to use to compete against Amazon S3 and Windows Azure. In fact the service is doing very well, with some high-profile customers such as Best Buy. But a bit more was needed to boost things over the hump -- namely human interaction.

Continue reading →

This evening, Sony captured geekdom for two hours, during a live event announcing PlayStation 4. If you're not prostrate on the floor crying like a baby, desperate to get the console now, you must have missed the stream -- or perhaps you're holding out for E3 in a few months and the promise of Xbox 720.

PS4 will go on sale this year -- that's right, holiday 2013. So Microsoft better get its shtick together and have Xbox in stores, too. Consumers will make some hard choices this year about gaming platforms. Whichever, or both, console gaming is going to be a whole lot more exciting come Black Friday.

Continue reading →

In June of 2012 Microsoft purchased Yammer, a social networking site geared towards enterprise. The service allows employees to collaborate across buildings and geographic locations. Now the company has released its 2012 numbers in an effort to show that the investment paid off.

The fourth quarter ended on January 31, and Microsoft reports that sales have "nearly tripled year-over-year". The service has more than seven million users. The numbers bragging continues with the addition of 290 new companies coming on-board with the service, including big names like TGI Fridays, Woolworth and Trek Bicycles. In fact, the announcement says Yammer now has "85 percent of the Fortune 500".

Continue reading →

If you use Hotmail then you may already know that you are moving to Outlook.com. You may not want to, but you are -- unless you plan to scrap the whole thing and head over to Gmail, Yahoo mail or another service. Microsoft officially launched Outlook overnight, but the service beta debuted six months ago; we reviewed here already.

So, to help users along in this moving process, the company posted a question and answer page appropriately titled "My Hotmail account was upgraded to Outlook.com".

Continue reading →

According to Gartner, by 2017 around 25 percent of enterprises will have their own app stores for managing home grown and corporate-sanctioned apps on PCs and mobile devices. Bring Your Own Application (BYOA) is becoming almost as important as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in some corporate workplaces.

StackMob, a cloud-based mobile platform provider, has today launched a new Enterprise Marketplace for third-party services, aimed at offering a simple and effective way for larger organizations to build and deploy their own full-featured mobile applications.

Continue reading →

I'm not surprised about the weekend furor over changes to Office 2013 retail licensing terms. Gregg Keizer, writing for Computerworld, has done some of the best reporting on this topic. He deserves your pageviews, starting with this story. I can confirm what he writes, that the new End User License Agreement restricts usage to one PC and isn't transferrable. Whether or not Microsoft actually enforces the provision, or changes it, is another matter. We'll see.

What does perplex me: Why there is no backlash about other licensing term changes that are considerably more onerous and costly. Like I explained last month, "Microsoft really doesn't want you to buy Office 2013". That is the reason for all these licensing changes. The company wants consumers to purchase Office 365 instead.

Continue reading →

I swear I fully expect to awaken one morning to find someone with a large camera strapped to his or her back standing at the foot of my bed. At this point my home may be the only place the Google Maps team has not gone. Give credit where it is due -- the Google Maps team is nothing if not intrepid and has gone down the trails of national parks and under the waves in places like the Great Barrier Reef, as well as covering the standard road-fare.

Now the team has ventured into the NFL arena, starting with Lucas Oil Stadium, home of number-one overall draft pick Andrew Luck and his Indianapolis Colts team.

Continue reading →

The big day continues for Microsoft's Office 365 division. Earlier we learned that the service will be deployed in the state of Texas, adding 100,000 new government employees to the list of users. Now, Microsoft informs about an upcoming launch event, although few details are available.

In a very brief post, Kirk Gregersen, Office 365 general manager explains: "Virtual Launch Event on Wednesday, Feb. 27" to "celebrate the availability of a major new release coming to Office 365 for businesses".

Continue reading →

BitTorrent has launched an app for sharing large files, but this time it is not the latest Hollywood release. Yes, I know the service is famous for being a source of piracy, but the peer-to-peer service is also a good way to share and distribute legitimate files -- Linux distros, for instance. Now the distribution service wants to add a bit more legitimacy to the resume by adding a way for users to share large files in the course of everyday work life.

Today BitTorrent announced the beta release of SoShare, a service that users can access to share files with one another that are larger than those that the typical email service would permit. Quite a bit larger as a matter of fact. Catherince Meek says users can "send up to a terabyte of data in one transfer".

Continue reading →

Sixteenth in a series. Windows Store's slow but steady application growth continues this week with the addition of 610 new apps in the US store. This brings the total listed to 28,665.  Of those, 22,101 free and 6,563 paid. It is not clear why there is one application missing when you add free and paid apps.

The growth is slowing down if you look at the recent performance. Two weeks ago, 970 new apps were listed in Windows Store, one week ago that number dropped to 773, and this week we see another drop to 610 new apps. It will be interesting to see if the downwards trend continues or if there will be a recovery in the coming weeks.

Continue reading →