HP

If the tech space is evolving and competitive on the cutting edge, then the PC market is on the bleeding edge. Many factors have affected the industry, but the PC’s fate has been due to the appeal of smartphones, tablets, and the need for mobility. While mobile devices are the rave, can they really replace the workload and capabilities of the PC?

In an effort to make the PC "cool" again, five major PC makers -- Microsoft, Intel, Dell, HP and Lenovo -- joined together to launch a $70 million, 6-week advertising campaign. The campaign, titled, "PC Does Whaaat?!”, launched with targeted online TV commercials focusing on the features available on the Windows 10 platform, and through broadcast and social media channels in the US and China.

HP is going to shut down its cloud business, and this time it means it. Seriously. The company’s executive, Bill Hilf, wrote a post on the HP blog, where he announced that the Helion service will be put out of its misery next year.

"We will sunset our HP Helion Public Cloud offering on January 31, 2016", he writes. Instead, the company will focus on turning its hardware gear into the building blocks for private enterprise clouds.

Microsoft Surface Pro 3 has proven to be very popular with business users, enough to push Dell and HP to announce that they would officially sell and support the device, alongside their own Windows offerings. Dell and HP are the third and second-largest PC vendors, respectively, so, naturally, market leader Lenovo was expected to also join the Surface Enterprise fold.

That has yet to happen, but it is not due to the lack of customer demand as some folks might be inclined to believe. The reason why Lenovo does not want to sell Surface Pro 3 is because, well, it sees Microsoft as a competitor.

If you are like me, you do a lot of work on the go. Not a day goes by where I am not typing away on my laptop in a public place like Starbucks or on a bench. Unfortunately, this opens me up to visual hacking. In other words, devious people can simply glance at my laptop to see what I am doing. If you work with sensitive information, this is a huge problem.

According to a recent 3M-funded study, 90 percent of visual hacking attempts are successful. Luckily, HP has teamed up with 3M to fight this visual hacking scourge. Rather than use clunky screen covers, the computer manufacturer will integrate the 3M technology directly into the laptop display. Whoa.

A recently released report by advocacy group Citizens for Tax Justice has revealed the staggering amount of money being held in offshore accounts by US technology firms.

Offshore Shell Games 2015 discloses that almost 72 percent of businesses listed on the Fortune 500 operated tax haven subsidiaries as of the end of last year.

Star Wars is unstoppable phenomenon. Want proof? The last three films released -- the prequels -- were downright horrible, yet fans still want more. While I feared Disney buying the franchise would be its demise, the opposite seems to be happening -- it is gaining new life.

If you go to almost any store you will spot tons of Star Wars products for sale -- shirts, mugs, candles and more. Today, HP announces what could be the coolest such product ever -- the Star Wars Special Edition Notebook. Be still my heart.

We already knew there was a Microsoft event tomorrow in New York City and BetaNews will be there to help bring you full coverage. The event kicks off at 10am EDT and you can watch it numerous ways, including right here.

However, that's just a prelude to a couple of weeks of other events around the world. Microsoft plans to showcase new devices from a number of OEM partners -- one per day (mostly) beginning October 7th.

With the volume of network traffic growing exponentially, large web-scale organizations need to scale their data centers to new levels. These organizations need scale and flexibility for their data centers to meet increasingly complex business and technology requirements.

To provide developers with the ability to accelerate innovation, avoid vendor lock in and protect their investment, HP together with a community of like-minded companies, today announced the launch of the OpenSwitch Community along with a new open source network operating system (NOS).

When HP announced it was to split into two at the end of last year, everyone knew it would be an expensive and complex separation, with job losses bound to be incurred -- and a new round of cuts has just been announced.

Sky News reports that the company has revealed that 25,000 to 30,000 jobs are going to be axed at HP Enterprise, the new arm separate from its PC and printer hardware division.

We recently reported on HP's new services to help enterprises migrate to Windows 10. Part of this being the WebApp Accelerator Service for Internet Explorer 11.

Web technology specialist Browsium has revealed that HP has selected its browser management solution as a core component of this service.

Well, 2015 is yet another year where Windows dominates the workstations of most businesses. While some companies will utilize Chromebooks or iPads for light work and consumption, Microsoft's venerable operating system just keeps on keepin' on.

Windows 10 IoT Enterprise in particular, when paired with thin clients, can be a remarkable tool for many industries, such as healthcare, servicing, financial and more. Today, HP unveils the 14 inch mt42 -- an AMD-powered mobile thin client that the company claims is the "world's thinnest, lightest and most powerful quad-core", and it looks like a winner.

Buying a Windows laptop can be an extremely stressful ordeal. Unlike Apple, whose OS X is limited to just a few models, Windows notebooks are manufactured by many companies, in countless designs. If you shop online or go to a local store, like Best Buy, your head could easily explode from all of the options.

It is for this reason, that you should do your homework -- read reviews, educate yourself on specs and find out which brands are most reliable. If you don't have time for all of that, I can save you the trouble. The HP Spectre x360 is the laptop you want for back-to-school and beyond. OK, now go buy it. Oh, you want to know why I am saying it is the laptop you want? Well then read on to find out more.

"Wintel, Wintel – why hast thou forsaken us?"

It's a sad day for early adopters of Microsoft's touch-first OS strategy. Customers who bought some of the first examples of Windows 8.x hybrid systems -- the HP Envy x2 and ElitePad G1, Dell Latitude 10, Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 and Miix series, ASUS VivoTab, et al -- will not be able to reliably run Windows 10 because the powers-that-be are refusing to release a compatible video driver. In fact, anyone with an Intel Atom z2760-based PC is fresh out of luck when it comes to Windows 10 support. As far as the hardware vendor community is concerned, the demise of Windows 8.x signals End of Life (EOL) for your systems.

Windows 10 has been officially out for less than a week and the news it has generated doesn't seem to stop. From download numbers to new devices, things keep pouring in. Now HP is heading in a different direction, one aimed at businesses.

HP is announcing a full suite of products geared towards the enterprise market. "HP, a Preferred Provider of Microsoft cloud productivity and mobility solutions, now offers the most comprehensive portfolio of services available for the Microsoft enterprise ecosystem which includes Enterprise Services for Office 365, Readiness Workshop for Office 365, Enterprise Mobility Suite, Skype for Business and the new Windows 10 enterprise suite of services", the company states in the announcement.

Businesses usually like to wait a while before rolling out a new operating system to allow any initial snags to be ironed out.

Of course systems providers have to be ready to support them when they do make the move and HP has announced the availability of a full suite of Windows 10 services designed to help enterprises control costs and smooth out the move to the new operating system.