Google Compute Engine (GCE) was launched a year ago as a cloud computing infrastructure service that was available by invitation only to Google Cloud Platform customers that had the Gold Support Package.  Now Google is opening up GCE to the public.  As part of this week’s announcement Google is made a game changing move when it comes to billing.  It is now offering sub-hour billing.  In other words, billing will now be charged down to minute, with a 10-minute minimum. This is a significant change from current industry standard practices.  “Today, the standard unit of measure for compute is an hour, regardless of how much time you actually use," said Urs Hölzle, senior VP for technical infrastructure. "So if you have a 15 minute job that is done after 15 minutes, you still pay for 60 minutes, which increases your actual costs by four times. So just think about that. Imagine making a 15 minute phone call and then you get charged for a full hour. It makes no sense. And starting today, you won't get overcharged like that on Compute Engine."

At its San Francisco annual developer conference, Google announced its new streaming music service.  For a $9.99 monthly fee, the company will allow users to listen to an unlimited number of songs, as it challenges smaller established companies such as Pandora and Spotify. Although Apple has been a leader in online music since it launched iTunes, it hasn’t yet launched its own music streaming service.  Google’s “All Access” service gives listeners plenty of choices including 22 genres, delivered as individual play lists or radio-like streams that can be customized.  Google plans to first launch the online music service in the United States and then expand into other countries.

On Tuesday BlackBerry announced that the BlackBerry Messenger (BBN) service would be offered to Android and iPhone users.  Company president and chief executive, made the announcement at an Orlando, FL annual marketing conference.  “Why is BlackBerry doing this now?” Mr. Heins asked. “We are confident that the time is right for BlackBerry Messenger to become an independent, multiplatform service.”   The service will be offered on a limited basis this summer.   Mr. Heins did indicate that the download would be offered at no charge for the Android or Apple iOS.  According to Forrester Research’s Charles Golvin, although BlackBerry would not see any direct financial gain, the exposure of BNN on a competitor’s phone may convince some to switch brands.

 I spent some time at EMC World last week in Las Vegas.  As always, it was time well spent in informative sessions and in individual meetings – and, gauging by the difficulty of traversing the hallways between sessions and after keynotes, the show was very well attended.

Although my bent in visiting a show like this is normally geared more toward security, archiving, encryption and other topics related to what Osterman Research does, two of the major themes I took from the conference were the growing importance of Big Data in the context of improving security; as well as the need to view backup, archiving and disaster recovery along a continuum of data and information protection instead of individual point solutions.

With regard to the issue of Big Data and security, I believe that EMC and many others are correct in viewing Big Data as an important way to significantly improve the security of systems, networks, messaging and virtually every application on which we rely to get work done.  The issue of Big Data in a security context is a simple one: analyzing vast amounts of data from email, social media posts, transactions, various applications, location-generating systems and other data sources with the goal of determining when systems have been breached or are about to be.  The goal is less about preventing the ingress of bad guys and malicious content and more about analyzing the sometimes extremely subtle anomalies that occur when they do.  This is not to say that intrusion prevention or blocking content is irrelevant or futile, but rather that Big Data can be useful in keeping bad guys out, but more useful once they’re inside.

Samsung announced on Monday, that had achieved a mobile technology breakthrough with fifth-generation networks which will allow for data transmission rates several hundred times faster than current 4G technology.   The company claims that recent technological advances have helped it to overcome challenges in transmitting large data volumes over broadband frequencies.   The company announced its commitment to accelerating R&D funding to capitalize on the deployment of this technology. “Samsung’s latest innovation is expected to invigorate research into 5G cellular communications across the world,” the company stated. “The company believes it will trigger the creation of international alliances and the timely commercialization of related mobile broadband services."

A rebounding economy and stock market set the stage for the current healthy climate for technology sector mergers and acquisitions (M&A).   Cloud technology companies and related software technologies may help to fuel the M&A activity as the major players seek to bolster their portfolios with technology from newer small companies.  "Ultimately higher market values should result in higher valuations for sellers and thus result in more deals," stated Rob Fisher, PricewaterhouseCooper's U.S. technology industry deals leader via email. "To the extent the rising markets are driven by confidence in long term fundamentals that also tends to increase the appetite of buyers who tend to shy away from deals when they have uncertainty about their existing prospects."   This contrasts with the term Price Waterhouse Coopers used described the M&A scene, for first quarter of 2013 as “dismal”.

Government insiders have indicated that Nation Security Agency intercepts and stores 1.7 billion emails, phones and other communications…every day.   In a May 1st interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, Tim Clemente a former member of the Joint Terrorism Task force was asked about the FBI investigation of Boston marathon bomber Tamerian Tsarnaev’s window Katherine Russell.  Authorities had specific questions about a phone call that took place between Russell and Tsarnaev, after authorities released Tamerian’s photo when he was considered a person of interest.   During the conversation with CNN, Clemente indicated that if Russell was not cooperative, the FBI still has the ability to identify the phone call’s content, and that the government may have the ability to listen to any phone call.

Microsoft has announced plans to make the Windows 8 update release known as Windows Blue available at the end of June according to Julie Larson-Green, corporate VP in charge of OS development.   Since its release, Windows 8 has received some push back about removing the Start menu.  "We're principled in the direction we're heading but we're not going to be stubborn," she stated on Tuesday during a New York Wired conference in New York, during a Q & A session.    The company confirmed that the Windows Blue public preview is set to be released at the upcoming San Francisco Build developer conference which is scheduled for June 26th to the 28th.   According a blog from Windows CMO Tami Reller, the official Windows Blue release will happen by year’s end.

Adobe System, best known as the maker of Illustrator and Photoshop, along with other popular titles has made the strategic decision to offer its products exclusively through its subscription-based service called Adobe Creative Cloud.   As one of the largest software publishers, Adobe’s decision to move away from the traditional packaged software approach to online services may have a ripple effect with other software publishers.  With this decision Adobe is taking the risk that it will be able to convince customers to move to a software subscription service while it transitions customers from traditional license and packaged software valued at $4.1 billion in revenue annually.