Google Opens Up “Compute Engine” To All
Author: John Duckgeischel
on May 16, 2013 - 10:10 PM
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."
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Google Launches "All Access" Streaming Music Service
Author: John Duckgeischel
on May 15, 2013 - 10:48 PM
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.
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BlackBerry Messaging Coming to Android and iPhones
Author: John Duckgeischel
on May 15, 2013 - 8:00 AM
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.
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Some Thoughts from EMC World
Author: Michael Osterman
on May 14, 2013 - 3:30 PM
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.
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Samsung Reveals 5G Future Plans
Author: John Duckgeischel
on May 13, 2013 - 11:34 PM
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."
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More Technology Mergers Expected In Stronger Economy
Author: John Duckgeischel
on May 13, 2013 - 8:06 AM
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”.
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U.S. Government Collects and Stores Phone Calls and Emails
Author: John Duckgeischel
on May 8, 2013 - 8:58 PM
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.
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Microsoft to Show Windows Blue in June
Author: John Duckgeischel
on May 8, 2013 - 8:11 AM
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.
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Adobe Bets on Subscription Software Model
Author: John Duckgeischel
on May 6, 2013 - 10:36 PM
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.
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