As  iPhones, Android Phones and BlackBerry’s sell by the millions, Microsoft reached a major milestone of its own this week for its forthcoming Windows Phone 7 Smartphone platform.    The company plans for a multiple Window Phone 7 smartphones to be available in time for the coming 2010 Christmas shopping season.   The latest mobile operating system from Microsoft features aggregated Web content and apps that are organized into category specific Hubs that include “Games” or “Office”.    “Windows Phone 7 is the most thoroughly tested mobile platform Microsoft has ever released,” Terry Myerson, corporate vice president of Windows Phone Engineering, blogged on Sept 1st. “We had nearly 10,000 devices running automated tests daily, over a half million hours of active self-hosting use, over three and a half million hours of stress test passes, and eight and a half million hours of fully automated test passes.”

It all started with Dell’s initial $1.15 billion bid for 3Par Inc. a few weeks ago, then HP countered with a higher bid that started the bidding war between both companies.    HP currently has the highest  bid with a $2 billion dollar offer for 3Par, leaving Dell wondering about its next move in this strategic chess match.   “We're assessing what our next step will be," Dell spokesman David Frink stated.  As the cloud computing market heats up, both Dell and HP see 3Par’s storage technology as a great compliment to their respective product lines.   The question of how much HP or Dell is willing to pay for 3Par, Inc. may be answered in the near future.  "If HP is able to rapidly ramp up 3Par's sales, it can certainly justify the price they're offering to pay for it," says Stan Zaffos, research vice president at Gartner.

As August draws to a close, Google made its 5th acquisition of the month with its purchase of the Canadian social gaming company SocialDeck.  "We started this company with the goal of connecting friends through social games on all kinds of exciting new mobile devices," SocialDeck wrote on the company’s web site. "We've been amazed and humbled by all of the stories and experiences our customers (you!) have shared with us."   Recently Google acquired other social gaming companies such as Jambool and Slide, and has vested $200 million in Zynga which popular on Facebook.  A week ago Google bought Angstro which makes social-media applications, and it also recently purchased iLike, the e-commercial visual search company. Google has not disclosed its plans for the SocialDeck, however the social focused acquisitions has fueled much speculation about Google’s plans to expand in the social arena.

 SocialDeck is known for a number of games that include Pet Hero Puzzle, Shake & Spell, Shake & Spell 3D, and Color Connect.    The company distributed the games through iTunes and made Shake & Spell available through Facebook and Blackberry.   The company offered both free and 99 cent versions of their applications.   The company also developed Spark, a social-gaming platform that works on Facebook, iPhone and Blackberry to connect players across social games.

Related Links:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2368513,00.asp

http://www.develop-online.net/news/35739/SocialDeck-buyout-next-in-Google-spending-spree

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/netsys/article.php/3901371/Google-Continues-Social-Buying-Spree-With-SocialDeck.htm

Your favorite movie may be available at home on YouTube sooner than you think.  Apparently talks are currently underway between major motion picture studios and Google regarding making a catalog of Hollywood favorite films available on a pay-per-view basis by the end of 2010 according to the Financial Times.    The on-demand streaming service will provide the movies for $5 per viewing based on reports from those are familiar with Google’s plans.  When a  YouTube representative was asked about possible developments the response was that, “We have nothing to announce at this time."

The 3Par acquisition saga continues as HP raised its bid to $2 billion or $30 per share.   The company was initially sought by Dell for $1.13 billion when it made its first offer on August 16^th.   The latest $2 billion offer is HP’s second bid and eclipses Dell’s second bid of $1.6 billion, which was also made this week.   3Par has become a much sought after prize as both companies try to bolster their storage portfolios as they compete in the growing cloud computing marketplace.    3Par’s thin client approach makes it easier and less expensive to store information than the traditional storage approach.   Storage products have become an essential piece of the puzzle as the data-center equipment market continues to expand.

Dell Inc. announced today that 3Par Inc. has agreed to accept its $1.6 billion second offer for the data storage company. 3Par has been in the news multiple times recently as Dell initially Dell offered $1.15 billion and then HP came into the picture with an unsolicited $1.6 billion cash bid.  Details of the accepted offer have not been disclosed so far.  3Par became an attractive target with its thin provisioning storage technology which can provide the required storage on demand. The company’s “thin” technology architecture delivers storage capacity more efficiently that a traditional or “fat” provisioning approach. 

Novell’s newly announced Cloud Security Service is open for business with general availability in the U.S marketplace.    As Novell rolled out the new service product, it became one of the first companies to provide a multi-tenant system that is cloud-focused which has been designed from the ground up.   Dipo Chachravarty, general manager for Novell cloud security described the Novell Cloud Security Service  as a framework that provides for just in time provisioning of access management for private and public  and cloud computing environments.  Customers of the new service can control the provisioning, authentication and authorization of users on local or hosted cloud computing systems.  The service allows IT managers to provision identity management tokens in real time.  The scalability of the service makes it possible for IT managers to have scalability based on demand requirements as a large volume of users access files on in-house or remote cloud computing environments.    To efficiently manage application workloads the new service utilizes RESTful API’s which can be integrated with various applications.

As Android sales continue to grow the pressure on Apple to find one or more alternative carriers to AT&T builds.  Since AT&T filled a SEC10-Q which noted that they would not have an exclusive hold on certain handsets the speculation regarding iPhone expanding its horizons has grown.  Kaufman Bro.'s analyst Shaw Wu has stated his belief that Apple wants to expand through other U.S. Wireless network operator(s).  "From our checks with industry and supply chain sources and a recent SEC 10-Q filing by AT&T mentioning that exclusivity with 'a number of attractive handsets' could end, we have conviction that the iPhone could likely finally be at another carrier besides AT&T here in the U.S. in 2011 and potentially at Verizon in 2011 or 2012... We believe the argument for AAPL to pursue Verizon sooner than later is to address the growing presence of Android. What better way to do that than where Android has seen the majority of its success?"  Recent speculation by industry analysts has included not only Verizon, but also possibly T-Mobile or Sprint.

On Wall Street share prices of 3PAR rose to over $24 per share on news that Hewlett-Packard’s $1.6 billion offer to buy 3PAR was one third higher than a prior $1.1 billion bid by Dell Inc.   Today’s price levels are the highest seen on record since the company’s initial offering in 2007. 3PAR known for its storage products which are often used in data centers has become especially attractive as a target as the cloud computer business segment continues to expand.   The shares of other data storage companies have gone up recently based on the 3PAR acquisition news including Commvault Systems up 6.6%, Compellent Technologies, Inc. up 8.2% and Isilon Systems with a gain of 7.5%.