Breaking It Down: Pictures and Numbers

Summary: SAP’s The Mobile Consumer report is chock-full of interesting info about the state—and the future—of mobile commerce. Luckily, we’ve broken down 100+ slides into easy-to-understand infographics for you.

People are using their mobiles to make purchases—32% have done in the 12 months, according to our recent Mobile Consumer survey results.

That in itself is interesting. But what’s even more interesting is taking a step back and looking at global trends. For example: China’s and other Asian countries’ mobile adoption rate is growing by leaps and bounds, but there still aren’t a lot of mobile services available there. In the States, there’s a lot more already going on, including PayPal, Isis, individual bank initiatives, and apps from Apple (iTunes), Amazon, eBay, Starbucks, etc., but even there 53% of those surveyed want to do more on their mobile.

That’s why we’ve broken down our global results by region—Asia Pacific, EMEA, Latin America and North America—and created a series of handy infographics. They tell the stories of current behaviour, consumer demands for the future, and the speed bumps on the road to get there.

Here’s our global summary:

If you want to find out more, you can download the global and region reports here.

Topic: UberMobile

Diarmuid Mallon is the Lead, Global Marketing Solutions & Programs – Mobile, which includes the SAP Mobile Services division and SAP Mobile solutions. He has worked in the mobile industry since 1996. Follow him here at UberMobile and @diarmuidmallon.

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Samsung Galaxy Note 3 may be region locked, limiting worldwide usage

Summary: The Galaxy Note 3 is now available in Europe and coming to the US starting next week. European buyers noticed a sticker on the box that indicates the device can only be used with a European SIM card.

(Image: Samsung)

I pre-ordered a Samung Galaxy Note 3 from Negri Electronics a couple of days ago, but am now reconsidering that purchase after hearing the news that Samsung may be region locking the Note 3. If I cannot use my $700 smartphone everywhere I travel, then I will look elsewhere.

UPDATE: It seems that Samsung may want to change the wording on their sticker as things are not as bad as they imply. According to a statement Android Community posted from Samsung, the buyer needs to activate the phone with a SIM from the country purchased and can then insert other SIM cards and use the device like you would with any other unlocked phone. It is still not clear to me though if you can buy a device from a US importer and then get it setup with a US SIM card, but I will go ask an importer I know and try to find out.

I have reached out to Samsung for an official statement and clarification on the stickers found on the boxes and the statement made by Samsung PR in Germany. As you can see on the European and American units it clearly states that the device is only compatible with a SIM card used in either Europe or the Americas. When you buy an unlocked device, you pay the premium to be able to use it wherever you wish around the world.

The Note 3 is a perfect business phone with a large display, expandable storage, removable battery, and the highest specifications of any current Android device. I hope there is just some misunderstanding regarding this issue or else I will go back and reconsider which device I am going to purchase this fall.

Matthew Miller started using a Pilot 1000 in 1997 and has been writing news, reviews, and opinion pieces ever since.

Microsoft should buy BlackBerry. There, I said it

I'm not the only one who thinks so. Google the phrase, "Microsoft should buy BlackBerry". You'll see a lot of hits appear. And with good reason too—Microsoft should buy BlackBerry. It's a bargain of a deal and the technology is really good—so good that the government uses it. A lot of highly secure and data sensitive businesses use it: healthcare, security consultants, banks, and stock brokers. Why should Microsoft buy BlackBerry? There are plenty of good reasons but the best one is obvious: security.

It's no secret that security issues plague Android, Windows phones, and even iPhones but have you heard of any BlackBerry compromises? OK, there have been one or two over the past few years but nothing like their competitors.

So, if BlackBerry is so darn great, why is it available at a bargain price and yet no one seems to want it, especially consumers?

BlackBerry (fka RIM) had a few significant and unfortunate outages over the years and those outages left a lot of users cold. I was one of them. I loved my BlackBerry. To me, it was the best phone ever. No, it didn't have a lot of bells and whistles but it did what I needed for it to do: make phone calls, receive phone calls, receive alerts, respond to alerts, receive email, work with email, connect to the Internet, and stay secure while doing it all.

BlackBerry fell out of favor because of the outages and its visual appeal seemed to lag behind the iPhone. The iPhone was prettier and sleeker than my wide BlackBerry with the telescoping antenna. Then Android devices hit the market. It was one of those better mousetrap situations for BlackBerry. Although BlackBerry was the better mousetrap, its popularity waned due in part to its lack of aesthetic appeal. Envious BlackBerry users saw the cool swipey stuff and the ever-growing App Store and it was just too much for them. They'd rather switch than fight.

BlackBerry reminds me of another superior product that failed due to its lack of mass appeal and lack of marketing mojo: OS/2. Don't laugh. OS/2 was an awesome operating system that was far superior to its only real competitor at the time: Windows 3.x. I don't want to digress into a litany of defense of OS/2 but if you know anything about OS/2, you know that I'm right.

BlackBerry could help instill Microsoft into the Enterprise as a mobile provider. Right now, there is a mix of Windows phones, Android, and probably a minority of iPhones in corporate use. It seems that Apple sweeps consumer tech but not necessarily corporate tech. 

Businesses trust Microsoft. If you're an anti-Microsoft person, you can argue that point but I'm sorry but you're wrong. Businesses trust Microsoft because Microsoft is responsible. Who can you call when your Android device goes on the blink or when its security is compromised? The carrier? Nope. The device manufacturer? Maybe. Chances are good that you won't get very far either way.

Microsoft develops and supports the operating system. If there's a security breach, there's only one direction that you can point your finger to: Microsoft. They'll fix it too. And they don't rely on a community of disconnected but benevolent programmers to fix something.

Don't get me wrong. I think that open source or free software is great. I love Linux. I love Apache. I love OpenOffice.org. I love all things open source, free, GNU, etc. But, I'm also realistic. The reality is that corporations like Microsoft. You can't change that with any amount of foot-stomping, hand waving, or Guy Fawkes mask wearing. You'll never convince big companies that they should entrust their 99.999 percent uptime systems to anything but something that's corporate backed.

Red Hat has made inroads into the corporate world. SUSE has made some as well. But they're backed by corporations too. You'll find few, if any, big companies running Debian on mission-critical workloads. And before you kill the messenger, I love Debian. I love Ubuntu, which does have corporate support too, although for some reason, it hasn't really taken hold to a large extent in the U.S.

BlackBerry has government approval. It has the healthcare industry. It enjoys a large portion of the banking industry. It also is the mobile platform of choice for anyone who needs secure communications. Ask President Obama what kind of mobile device he uses. Well, of course it's a BlackBerry, otherwise it wouldn't be significant to mention it here. 

Many analysts besides myself have suggested that BlackBerry would be a smart purchase for Microsoft. They all have different reasons but the only meaningful one to me is to acquire the technology for the secure platform. Microsoft could use the technology, make the BlackBerry attractive again, and create a mobile device desired by businesses. They would have almost no legitimate competition in that realm.

BlackBerry's Security, Microsoft's interface, and a well-oiled marketing machine is just what the new CEO should order for the new Microberry device. Everyone will want one. It doesn't yet exist and I want one. President Obama will want one or two. How can you go wrong in that company?

What do you think? Should Microsoft buy BlackBerry? Or should BlackBerry just be buried? Talk back and let me know.

Related Stories:

The dismal failure of 'Big Data'

Data scientist Hilary Mason at a GE Software panel.

The excitement about "Big Data" in tech circles is very optimistic and many companies are rushing to hire "Data Scientists" to profit from the explosion of hype about the reams of data collected inside their own organizations,  and in the world outside.

But having access to Big Data doesn't guarantee that companies, or individuals, will understand or be able to derive much value from it. The very few examples of companies doing that, are very few. And for a good reason – finding insight in all that data is difficult and becomes more difficult the bigger the data sets.

Take for example the field of economics — it's the original Big Data profession. But in all these years, it hasn't been able to do much at all. The profession is well regarded and respected despite its collective failure to understand the economy and predict its behavior.

Surely, a Big Data profession such as the study of economics over the past 150 plus years would by now be refined and almost scientific in its precision, especially since these days we have as much compute power as an economist might need, not to mention even more data to analyze. But it's not even close.

After the financial meltdown in 2008, Alan Greenspan, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve was asked questions by a Washington committee about how the crisis occurred.

He said all his financial models over the past 40 years were wrong. Yet those models informed his adjustment of interest rates, and if they were based on wrong models, he likely harmed the economy, consistently, decade after decade. It's truly an epic fail for Big Data.

It doesn't require much Googling to discover more examples of the deceit of economists and the failure of Big Data:

How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? - NYTimes.com

It’s hard to believe now, but not long ago economists were congratulating themselves over the success of their field. Those successes — or so they believed — were both theoretical and practical, leading to a golden era for the profession.

The puzzling failure of economics | The Economist

The Financial Crisis and the Systemic Failure of Academic Economics

Economics has failed us: but where are the fresh voices?Broken Recovery: Have Economists Failed Us | TIME.com

Economics is easily the single most important failure of the application of Big Data. And to call economics the "dismal science" is unfair on scientists because there's nothing scientific about it.

How will our new workforce of data scientists fare in their missions? I predict dismally. It's better they avoid Big Data and focus on the small data — just the bits that matter. 

- - -

Talent Shortage Looms Over Big Data - WSJ.com

Become A Data Scientist ... In 12 Weeks? | Big Data

More Thunderbolt on Windows compatibility lessons for Mac owners

Mac users have enjoyed the use of high-performance Thunderbolt devices for several years even when running Windows. However, customers have complained that the Thunderbolt experience and compatibility with Windows isn't seamless. According to a storage engineer in the know, that situation will continue.

Mac owners have had the advantage of running Thunderbolt on their Macs since early 2011, with its introduction on the Macbook Pro line and soon thereafter across the Mac lines. The long-awaited, forthcoming Mac Pro will include a Thunderbolt 2 interface. Until the middle of last year, the the majority of Windows users connecting to a Thunderbolt display or storage device were Mac users running Windows.

However, many find the compatibility situation complicated, as I wrote recently in Boot Camp Windows presents some limitations with Thunderbolt.

While Windows currently doesn't support Thunderbolt, a number of vendors provide Windows-specific drivers for their Thunderbolt devices. At the same time, not all Thunderbolt devices are certified for Windows. On Intel's Thunderbolt Community site, the issue is clearly stated: https://thunderbolttechnology.net/tech/certification

A Thunderbolt device may not function properly or at all if attempted to be used with an operating system for which the device has not been certified.

Recently, I spoke with a storage engineer with experience in Thunderbolt developement (he declined attribution). In order to ship a Thunderbolt device, manufacturers must first get their products certified. This is a process that consists of strict testing by three parties: Apple and Intel, as well as an independent testing laboratory, such as Granite River Labs in Santa Clara.

Some devices are certified as only Apple OS X compatible; and some are compatible with both Windows and OS X. So, a Thunderbolt device may be certified, however, it can show up as invisible to some Windows computers, since the PC BIOS may refuse to recognize a device without the Windows certification bit set.

Customers should note, the engineer said, that Thunderbolt-checking BIOS was only implemented on one or two models of Windows PCs that implemented Thunderbolt last year.

The newest models of Thunderbolt equipped computers that use Redwood Ridge controllers have a new implementation of the BIOS that presents a dialog to the user when a Thunderbolt device is first connected:

- if a device is NOT Windows certified, user is asked to confirm whether use should be permitted. User is expected to then have the proper Windows driver installed for proper operation or there may be problems with hot-plug and surprise removal.

When Thunderbolt was under development, Windows 8 was also under development, and the feeling at Microsoft was that there were simply too many unknowns to burden Windows 8 schedule at the time.

With the release of Windows 8.1, the situation will improve, he continued. However, "note well again, there is nothing in 8.1 to improve the Thunderbolt situation yet."

With Boot Camp, Apple can do a lot, but they can't fix deficiencies with Windows. That is still up to Microsoft.

I am interested in the Thunderbolt announcements over the past couple of weeks at the Intel Developer Forum and IBC2013 in Amsterdam. Many are Windows-certified systems aimed at the high-definition video-editing market. For example, ATTO Technology announced Thunderlink adapters and ThunderStream RAID controllers for Thunderbolt SANs.

Hewlett-Packard announced several Thunderbolt-compatible systems, including the ZBook 14, which the company calls the world's first "workstation Ultrabook," and the "first line of workstations to offer Intel's Thunderbolt technology for high-speed data transfer." They are due in October.

That "first workstation" claim must be news to Apple and the users of Thunderbolt-equipped Macbook Pro and iMacs.

The questions for Mac users is where is the Mac Pro? It wasn't on display at IDF, I understand, nor at IBC. We're all waiting.

Evernote CEO outlines strategy to eventually net one billion users

SAN FRANCISCO---Evernote and its ever-expanding portfolio of productivity apps has grown impressively for a startup over the last five years.

But based on CEO Phil Libin's keynote address at company's third annual developer conference on Thursday morning, Evernote isn't even close to reaching some of its goals yet -- not even close.

According to Libin, Evernote's user base totals 75 million and counting now with at least one million in 16 different countries.

That's fine and dandy, based on Libin's sentiments, but he admitted that the real target is to reach Facebook-like levels and eventually net at least one billion users.

"There's still always room for improvement, even after five years," Libin remarked in reference to updates to the desktop versions of Evernote on Mac and Windows.

Part of Evernote's strategy in gaining ground worldwide is simply stepping over the digital fence and placing physical roots around the globe.

The Redwood City, Calif-based business itself stands at 330 employees scattered across eight offices worldwide. There are also more than 30,000 developers using the Evernote API.

"This new world of connected devices completely changes the focus of how products are going to be created," Libin asserted. "It no longer makes sense creating an app for a device like for your phone."

"We have great people in many of the top centers of innovation worldwide," Libin said, who explained that the strategy is that "we want a little bit of Evernote made everywhere."

The Evernote Trunk, which used to be the showcase for third-party apps, is being retooled as the Evernote App Center.

"The name 'Evernote Trunk,' was way too clever," Libin joked. "Soul-crushingly clever."

Re-launching today, Libin admitted there are actually fewer items and tools for developers, hinting at a "less is more" mantra with a focus on improving specific resources rather than just offering "more."

Much like Nest's newly-announced developer program, Evernote has been on track with ensuring that it is as ubiquitous as possible, working to make itself available everywhere between home and work. This ranges from rounding out the portfolio with varying types of productivity apps (i.e. sketching app Skitch) to unveiling a digital marketplace stocked with high-end physical lifestyle goods.

"That's right, we're a fashion brand now," Libin joked. "No one saw that coming."

Android, in particular, is a big focus for Evernote being that Libin cited Google's mobile operating system as Evernote's launchpad for its interest in wearable technology.

"This new world of connected devices completely changes the focus of how products are going to be created," Libin asserted. "It no longer makes sense creating an app for a device like for your phone."

"The name 'Evernote Trunk,' was way too clever," Libin joked. "Soul-crushingly clever."

Describing it as "probably the biggest revolution that the technology world has seen in decades," Libin explained that the growing interest in wearables reflects that the design focus is shifting from a device-centric model to user-centric.

Libin said simply that for Evernote, that means "we have to make the app for you," not individual phones, tablets, refrigerators, or cars.

Evernote leadership seems to have also realized that its apps can't just try to knock out and replace certain tools -- namely paper.

"Paperless is not the goal. Great experience is the goal," Libin emphasized. "We want to eliminate the stupid uses of paper."

Also introduced on Thursday morning and following the path of its partnership with Moleskine, Evernote has teamed up with 3M for digitally archiving Post-It Notes and making them searchable on Evernote's cloud service.

Libin asked, "What better way to reach exactly the right people -- mainstream people?"

Image via The Evernote Blog

Fanplayr helps e-tailers get smarter about on-site promotions

How many times have you visited a Web site and been greeted with one of those automated agents looking to engage you in "conversation"? Or encountered a pop-up or display advertisement mysteriously linked to something you just bought or were researching?

Conversion tools of this nature aren't exactly new, but they are becoming a whole more targeted and sophisticated. One recent example I've come across is Fanplayr, which applies an additional layer of analytics to gather even more insight about visitor intent with the goal of being even smarter about how those people are approached.

"We allow the e-commerce merchant to target consumers as they are shopping, but only those that fall into certain defined activities," said Simon Yencken, Fanplayr's CEO. "We'll also be able to show you more about the 120 other people who didn't convert."

Here's how Fanplayr's service works: it analyzes where the visitor originates, his or her history and other behavior such as how long someone stays on a page, how deeply they dig into product details, and whether or not they seem to be doing some comparison shopping. It uses that information to create unique profiles that can be targeted with unique messages. Fanplayr is very much the opposite of "spray and pray" types of campaigns. "When you hit a reasonable number of those uniques, we can make a big difference in conversion rates," he said.

To be clear, if you're a really small e-tailer or e-commerce merchant that doesn't see all that much daily Web traffic, this solution probably isn't for you. Where the service is really targeted is at midsize companies that are trying to capture more of their particular niche. 

One example is Seattle Coffee Gear, which sells exactly what its name suggests. The company used Fanplayr's service to develop visitor profiles and associated campaign and promotional offers. For example, a "persuasive discount" was shown only to those visiting specific product pages. Other visitors were targeted with discounts tiered according to the amount of time they spent on the site. The company explicitly excluded low-margin products from any sorts of offers.

To test whether or not its offers were working, the e-tailer set up a control group - visitors that normally would received the sorts of offers described above, but that it deliberately left out. During a trial phase, Seattle Coffee Gear reported a 14 percent higher conversion rate among visitors targeted with the offers. The order values were also 30 percent bigger than for the control group.

"We recognized that optimizing our online purchase incentive programs could have a profound impact on both top-line and bottom-line numbers," said Kaylie Kipe, Web marketing manager for Seattle Coffee Gear, in a case study describing how it uses Fanplayr's technology. "We looked at several solutions that turned out to be overkill, complex personalization engines or products that were not flexible enough to meet our news. Fanplayr has found the perfect balance of features, ease of use and pricing."

Fanplayr pricing starts at $49 per month; the company is in the process of creating additional self-service plans appropriate for smaller retailers, Yencken said.

The technology can be integrated with a range of wildly used shopping cart technologies including Magento, Shopify, Bigcommerce and PrestaShop.

Apple looks to expand datacenter before it even opens

Summary: Apple continues to plan for their expanding cloud services.

With Apple’s well-publicized Prineville, OR datacenter still under construction, a report in last week’s CentralOregonian indicates that they are looking to buy additional land for the purpose of expanding the still not completed facility.

The initial land purchase for the facility under construction was 160 acres; on that lot Apple has been building a 338,000 square foot facility. The current negotiations appear to be for an adjacent 96-acre parcel. As Apple has indicated they are already considering an additional 300,000 sq. ft. facility on the existing parcel, the additional land would allow for eventual construction of another facility or two.

The local community is moving quickly to make the unincorporated parcel a part of the Prineville urban growth boundary. This would make it part of the area under local control and allow the community to make the tax concessions and fee payment arrangements that have already encouraged Apple to build locally.

The tax benefits that Prineville have already offered Apple have been significant; an exemption for up to 15 years in return for Apples quarter billion dollar investment, along with guaranteed jobs at an above local average wage and an annual $150,000 project fee to the local government. At this point, the property still belongs to the county, but it is clear that Prineville looks to annex it.

While there is no guarantee that the as yet undisclosed potential purchaser is actually Apple, there are a few things that just about guarantee it. Primarily the fact that the parcel is completely land-locked, with no right-of –way access granted in any surrounding deed, and completely accessible from Apple's existing property.

With more than 20 years of published writings about technology, as well as industry stints as everything from a database developer to CTO, David Chernicoff has earned the term "veteran" in the technology world.

Application development efficiencies drive Agile payoffs for healthcare tech provider TriZetto

The next edition of the HP Discover Performance Podcast Series highlights how healthcare technology provider TriZetto has been improving its development processes and modernizing its ability to speed the applications lifecycle process.

To learn more about how quality and Agile methods tools better support a lifecycle approach to software, we sat down with Rubina Ansari, Associate Vice President of Automation and Software Development Lifecycle Tools at TriZetto.

The discussion, which took place at the recent HP Discover 2013 Conference in Las Vegas, is moderated by Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions.

Below are some excerpts.

Where you are in terms of moving to Agile processes?

TriZetto currently is going through an evolution. We’re going through a structured waterfall-to-scaled-Agile methodology. As you mentioned, that's one of the innovative ways that we're looking at getting our releases out faster with better quality, and be able to respond to our customers. We realize that Agile, as a methodology, is the way to go when it comes to all those three things I just mentioned.

We're currently in the midst of evolving how we work. We’re going through a major transformation within our development centers throughout the country.

TriZetto is a healthcare software provider. We have the software for all areas of healthcare. Our mission is to integrate different healthcare systems to make sure our customers have seamless information. Over 50 percent of the American insured population goes through our software for their claims processing. So, we have a big market and we want to stay there.

Our software is very important to us, just as it is to our customers. We're always looking for ways of making sure we’re leaner, faster, and keeping up with our quality in order to keep up with all the healthcare changes that are happening.

You've been working with HP Software and Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) products for some time. Tell us a little bit about what you have in place, and then let's learn a bit more about the Asset Manager capabilities that you're pioneering?

Rubina Ansari(Image: LinkedIn)

We've been using HP tools for our testing area, such as the QTP Products Performance Center and Quality Center. We’ve recently went ahead with ALM 11.5, it has a lot of cross-project abilities. As for agile, we're now using HP Agile Manager.

This has helped us move forward fairly quickly into scaled agile using HP Agile Manager, while integrating with our current HP tools. We wanted to make sure that our tools were integrated and that we didn’t lose that traceability and the effectiveness of having a single vendor to get all our data.

HP Agile Manager is very important to us. It's a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, and it was very easy for us to implement within our company. There was no concept of installing, and the response that we get from HP has been very fast, as this is the first experience we’ve had with a SaaS deliverable from HP.

They're following agile, so we get releases every three months. Actually, every few weeks, we get enhancements for defects we may find within their product. It's worked out very well. It's very lightweight, it's web-based SaaS and it integrates with their current tool suite, which was vital to us.

We have between 500 and 1,000 individuals that make up development teams throughout United States. For Agile Manager, the last time we checked, it was approximately 400. We're hoping to get up to 1,000 by end of this year, so that way everyone is using Agile Manager for all their agile/scrum teams and their backlogs and development.

Do you have any sense of how much faster you're able to develop? What are the paybacks in terms of quality, traceability, and tracking defects? What's the payback from doing this in the way you have?

We’ve seen some, but I think the most is yet to come in rolling this out. One of the things that Agile Manager promotes is collaboration and working together in a scrum team. Agile Manager, having the software work all around the agile processes, makes it very easy for us to roll an agile methodology.

This has helped us collaborate better between testers and developers, and we're finding those defects earlier, before they even happen. We’ll have more hard metrics around this as we roll this out further. One of the major reasons we went with HP Agile Manager is that it has very good integration with the development tools we use.

They integrate with several development tools, allowing our testers to be able to see what changes occurred, what piece of code has changed for each defect enhancement that the tester would be testing. So that tight integration with other development tools was a very pivotal factor in our decision of going forward with that HP Agile Manager.

So Rubina, not only are you progressing from waterfall to agile and adopting more up-to-date tools, but you’ve made this leap to a SaaS-based delivery for this. If that's working out well as you’ve said, do you think this is going to lead to doing more with other SaaS tools and tests and capabilities and maybe even look at cloud platform as a service opportunity?

Absolutely. This was our first experience and it is going very well. Of course, there were some learning curves and some learning pains. Being able to get these changes so quickly and not having it do it ourselves was kind of a mind shift change for us. We're reaping the benefits from it obviously, but we did have to have a little more scheduled conversations, release notes, and documentation about changes from HP.

We're not new to SaaS. We're also looking at offering some of our products in a SaaS model. So we realize what's involved in it. It was great to be on the receiving end of a SaaS product, knowing that TriZetto themselves are playing that space as well.

There's always so much more to improve. What we’re looking for is how to quickly respond to our customers. That means also integrating HP Service Manager and any other tools that may be part of this software testing lifecycle or part of our ability to release or offer something to our clients.

We'll continue doing this until there is no more space for efficiency. But, there are always places where we can be even more effective.

The technologies that we’re advancing toward as well will allow us to easily go into the mobile space once we plan and do that.

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Read a full transcript or download a copy.

Disclosure: HP is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.

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Paper isn't dead (yet): Post-it Note goes digital with Evernote

SAN FRANCISCO---With a intuitive, cloud-based arsenal of note-taking and productivity apps, Evernote is already better positioned than most rising software companies to replace paper altogether.

Then why is the app maker so insistent on keeping paper alive?

Rather than abandoning the age-old medium becoming more archaic by the minute, the app maker seems keen on revolutionizing paper instead -- a headscratcher of a strategy, but sometimes those oddball ideas are the ones that really pay off in the end anyway.

A little over 13 months ago, Evernote teamed up with a paper company that still retains a reputation for sophistication (at least among hipsters): Moleskine.

That was definitely a smart move on Evernote's part, given that it's hard to hate on a notebook brand once beloved by the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Vincent Van Gogh.

Given that one of the big trends in tech over the last two years has been to make everything "smarter" (thus the whole wearables trend, in a nutshell), Evernote basically applied that same logic to paper. The result was the Evernote Smart Notebook by Moleskine, in which users could use the Evernote mobile apps to snap photos of their notes on the specially ruled and squared sheets for archiving, picking up handwriting recognition and more.

This year, Evernote is looking to upgrade another iconic paper form factor that arguably has a wider audience and more casual purpose in life: the Post-It Note.

In partnership with its maker, 3M, Evernote will be rolling out a special Post-it Note Camera feature for its iOS 7 app only. (No word on when -- or if -- this will come to Android.)

Essentially, instead of using Post-It Notes in everyday life and then using digital sticky notes on a smartphone, the Evernote/Post-It Note mashup consolidates the required tools to any Post-It (regardless of size and color) and the mobile app.

All the user has to do is snap a photo of the Post-It with the Evernote app, which should recognize, analyze and then archive the note by color, subject, and even due date assigned. The content can be text, a to-do list, a reminder, or even sketches.

To facilitate things even further, Evernote promises that the Post-Its will be searchable on its cloud-based platform. The obvious benefit here for Evernote is that it has the possibility to wrangle in more users with hopes of transforming them into Premium subscribers.

Evernote and Post-It are even rolling out a collection of specially-branded Post-It products that will include a free 30-day Evernote Premium subscription.

For Post-It, they can both push more paper and try to stay relevant at the same time.

Images via Evernote

Hummingbird: Google overhauls search engine

Google does lots of things today—Chromebooks, Android, and they're the 800-pound gorilla of Internet advertising—but when all is said and done, search is still at its heart. So it comes as no surprise that for its 15th anniversary, Google is introducing a major change to its core search engine: Hummingbird.

According to Google, this change to the core algorithm is its biggest since the launch of Caffeine in 2010.

Amit Singhal, Google senior vice president and one of its earliest staffers,  said, "When I joined Google, people would be amazed when a simple query for a Web site would work. As they became more comfortable, they began to ask more complex questions. Hummingbird is the result of that foundational rethink."

Singhai added that while page ranking and indexing must work together in a search engine, Caffeine was focused more on the ranking side. Hummingbird is more about indexing. "Hummingbird gave us an opportunity after years of building to rethink how we use the power of these things," Singhai said.

What will that actually mean in technical terms? Good question. We don't know yet.

This presentation was very light on the technical details. It seems safe to believe that Google's Knowledge Graph will play a larger role in this new take on Google search.

What it will mean for users is that searches will be more personalized and users will be able to use more natural-language searches--"Where is the closest car-rental place?" instead of "car rental zip-code."

The goal, as Singhai explained in a Google blog on August 8:"Larry Page once described the perfect search engine as understanding exactly what you mean and giving you back exactly what you want. It’s very much like the computer I dreamt about as a child growing up in India, glued to our black-and-white TV for every episode of Star Trek. I imagined a future where a Starship computer would be able to answer any question I might ask, instantly. Today, we’re closer to that dream than I ever thought possible during my working life."

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Evernote moves into hardware with its own Fujitsu Scansnap scanner

It had been rumored before that Evernote, a wunderkind startup when it comes to producitity apps, was interested in dabbling with hardware.

The Redwood City, Calif.-based company has made some backwards-like steps before given its partnerships with companies producing a medium that is arguably the very platform Evernote is trying to replace: paper.

But Evernote doesn't seem to care about the critics as demonstrated through collaboration with legendary notebook maker Moleskine and Post-It Note creator 3M.

And hardware is definitely on the agenda at Evernote.

Introduced at the software comapny's third annual developer conference on Thursday morning, Evernote has teamed up with Fujitsu to debut an Evernote-branded scanner within Fujitsu's Scansnap portfolio.

"We're five years in. This is how we stretch. This is how we broaden our toolset," remarked CEO Phil Libin about teaming up with other software, hardware and even apparel companies.

Based on the demo video, users can basically scan a number of different slips of paper in varying sizes (everything from letter documents to business cards) at one time, with each individual piece of content uploaded and archived in Evernote. The content is then searchable on the cloud service.

"This is ridiculously the world's greatest scanner," boasted Evernote's chief.

Supported by both Windows and Mac via Wi-Fi, the Evernote Edition of Scansnap can read A3, B4, and 11x 17-inch documents with a limit of documents up to 34-inches in length and width.

The Evernote Scansnap scanner can be found the new Evernote Market, also launching on Thursday. Described by Libin as "an in-app, e-commerce experience," Evernote Market can be accessed from both mobile and desktop channels.

Priced at $495 in U.S. Dollars, the Evernote Edition Scansnap is available for pre-order now and starts shipping within the United States, Canada, and Japan on October 24.

That price tag also includes one year of membership for Evernote's Premium subscription service, simultaneously promoting the evolving Evernote lifestyle brand as the company works toward the goal of attracting more than a billion users worldwide.

Image via Evernote

Microsoft releases out-of-band Outlook 2013 update

Summary: An update from this month's Patch Tuesday updates caused the folder pane in Outlook 2013 to disappear for many users. Microsoft has released a new version of the update that fixes the problem.

Microsoft has released a fixed version of an earlier update to Outlook 2013 that had been pulled from distribution.

The update was released originally as part of September's Patch Tuesday updates. But within a few days Microsoft acknowledged problems caused by the update and pulled it from their distribution systems. Users reported that, after applying the update, the Outlook folder pane disappeared. Removing the update reversed the problem.

The update affects only Outlook 2013 and is not a security update. According to Microsoft, it contains "stability and performance improvements."

This was not the only problem with this month's Patch Tuesday updates, and it was in fact part of a longer pattern of code quality problems in Microsoft updates.

Larry Seltzer has long been a recognized expert in technology, with a focus on mobile technology and security in recent years

Twitter rebuilds on Java

Summary: The web is experiencing a 'Java renaissance'. But did Java really go anywhere?

Blame it on the Russians. Wired's Cade Metz has an interesting account of how a visit to Twitter headquarters by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev three years ago led to a series of events that recently culminated in the social network's relaunch — written in Java.

(Image: Twitter)

When the Russian president came calling in 2010, uptime was a real concern, and Twitter's management was worried that the system may not stay up during this big moment. So Twitter's engineers built a separate staging server, just for the occasion — to keep the fail whale away from Medvedev. It was one of those "a-ha" moments that sent Twitter's engineers looking for a language with more industrial strength than the current system, written in Ruby:

Twitter's engineers came to realize that Ruby wasn't the best way to juggle tweets from millions of people across the globe — and make sure the site could stay up during its headline moment with the president of Russia. The best way was a brand new architecture based on Java, a programming tool that has grown more powerful than many expected.

Indeed, while many development shops moved away from Java in favor of more lightweight, faster-to-deploy open-source and scripting languages, there appears to be a growing recognition that more resiliency is needed. "Like Twitter, many other companies have realized that Java is particularly well suited to building web services that can stand up to the massive amounts of traffic streaming across the modern internet," Metz observed.

The story here is that many of the hot social web properties have determined that Java — and, by extension, Java Virtual Machine — may have what it takes to support millions upon millions of daily transactions.

However, in the everyday enterprise, Java has been a part of applications and systems for years, and never really went anywhere. While many developers found open-source and scripting languages easier to work with and faster to deploy for many apps, Java has just kept chugging away at the core. Java's ultimate advantage is that the JVM container will run anywhere.

In a survey of 376 employers I helped conduct two years ago in cooperation with the SHARE user group, IBM and Northern Illinois University (as part of my work with Unisphere Research/Information Today Inc), we found the number one programming language skill sought was Java. (The executive is summary available from the SHARE website.) The chart below shows the languages in demand among enterprises:

For the most part, Java has remained a presence in enterprises. And now the hot companies of the 2000s and '10s are discovering it as well.

Database languages (SQL, PL/SQL)Java platforms (eg, Java Enterprise Edition, Java SE)Markup languages (eg, XML, HTML)Scripting languages (eg, JavaScript)

Source: Closing the IT Skills Gap: 2011 SHARE Survey for Guiding University & College IT Agendas

Topics: Enterprise Software, Software Development, Web development

Joe McKendrick is an author, consultant and speaker specializing in trends and developments shaping the technology industry.

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Crash of the mobile titans: What happened to Palm, BlackBerry, Nokia, and HTC?

Image: iStockphoto

Last weekend Apple set a new record and sold over 9 million new iPhones. This incredible sales rate and continued success by Apple prompted me to sit back, look over the last 16 years since I started using mobile devices, and ponder how far four pillars of the industry have fallen.

Apple and Samsung rule the mobile phone space with nearly 50 percent of the worldwide market share with LG, Lenovo, and ZTE all experiencing significant growth.

However, Palm, Nokia, HTC, and BlackBerry are either gone or going, or starting over.

There are many reasons for the failure of these four smartphone vendors, including failed leadership, stubbornness to adapt, poor marketing, and success from competitors. It's a shame that these companies couldn't be competing at a time when the mobile phone space is hot and everyone seems to be writing and talking about the latest smartphone in their hand.

Let's take a walk down memory lane and reflect on the good times.

In early 1997, US Robotics reached out to my small team of marine salvage engineers and asked if we wanted to start carrying a couple of Pilot 1000 devices out with us when we responded to marine casualties. I was immediately hooked on these small portable computers and started following PDA websites, participating in online discussion forums, and saving up for the next great Palm PDA. I set aside my Franklin Planner and embraced this new handheld device.

I still clearly remember the anticipation of a new device arriving, especially the iconic Palm IIIc that was the first color screen Palm device. I remember having a CompactFlash adapter that connected via cable to my Kyocera mobile phone that dialed up my ISP and provided me with the latest news via AvantGo. We were rocking for weeks with our AA batteries and the future was seen in Palm.

We saw spinoffs and new companies releasing Palm OS devices, including Handspring, palmOne, PalmSource, Handera, Sony, Tapwave and more. The Handera 330 pushed memory expansion, Handspring had slick designs and then took us into the smartphone space with Treos, Sony rocked the world with its CLIEs devices, which were focused on media, and Tapwave's Zodiac was a gamers dream.

I owned all of these and have vivid memories of visiting CompUSA to exchange an old Sony CLIE for the next latest and greatest that seemed to launch every other month. Tapwave's Zodiac was an awesome gaming machine that reminds me a bit of what is being done today with the NVIDIA Shield.

The Treo line was extremely popular and made our Palm devices even more valuable with constant wireless connectivity. At one time it seemed everyone with a mobile device had either a Palm Treo or a BlackBerry. There were still very capable Palm and Sony PDAs too, but the phone was the future.

Back then, Microsoft's Pocket PC was seen by many as the evil competitor to the Palm devices. However, Palm's lack of attention to multimedia and pushing innovation forward, along with Microsoft's efforts to bring the desktop to your hand, resulted in Microsoft overtaking Palm and eventually Palm using Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS in its Treo line.

Palm OS eventually went away and they reinvented themselves with webOS. This was a revolutionary mobile operating system and we see signs of it today in Apple's iOS 7, BlackBerry 10, and more. The problem there, in my honest view, was the rather poor quality hardware and limited carrier support. No matter how great the operating system was, not enough people were using it and the slide-out keyboard didn't give you a quality found in competing devices.

HP then took and killed webOS after its Palm purchase and a great operating system failed after three short years. For those of us who started using Palm Pilots, it is sad to look back and see that Palm is no longer with us when they were the ones who brought us into the mobile world in the first place.

As Palm was working on PDAs, then-named Research in Motion (RIM) launched the BlackBerry 850 in 1999 as a two-way pager. And businesses were immediately hooked.

I remember seeing BlackBerry devices on the belts of doctors, lawyers, and other successful business people. Our salvage team ended up getting these so that the team was always reachable in time of emergencies. In the beginning, they were definitely seen as communication tools for work more than anything related to a consumer device like Palm Pilots were.

BlackBerry devices moved from pagers to devices with keyboards and the hardware QWERTY keyboard became synonymous with the BlackBerry. Who remembers side-mounted scroll bars, monochrome displays, batteries that went forever, trackballs, then trackpads?

BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) was a standard across the BlackBerry world and in many cases people continued to use BlackBerry devices to stay in touch with their BBM friends.

BlackBerry tried to compete with modern smartphones a couple of years ago, but its touchscreen Storm devices were failures. They continued to launch QWERTY devices running an operating system that was getting a bit dated when compared to Android and iOS devices and then they basically took a year off to work on BlackBerry 10.

BlackBerry 10 is actually a refreshing and functional mobile operating system that was launched in early 2013. I like the ability to quickly get to a central communications center and you can see that BlackBerry devices still place a premium on communications. Apps are still lacking and in today's modern smartphone world the apps seem to mean more to people than a solid base operating system.

Unfortunately, it appears that BlackBerry 10 was too little, too late as we see private investor interest possibly purchasing the company for less than $5 billion.

RIM ruled the enterprise world and in the late 2000s started making some real progress in the consumer market. I think a lot of that success was due to BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) and the fact that a consumer could go into a carrier store and walk out with a connected smartphone that had data at a lower price than the iPhone. We then saw way too many BlackBerry models and even people who followed the smartphone industry were confused by the overwhelming number of available models, often with actually numbers in their names.

The competition became better, enterprise markets started looking at iOS and Android, and RIM took a year off to figure things out with BlackBerry 10. The mobile space moves fast, and BlackBerry was a year or two too slow to compete.

Microsoft execs make their 'One Microsoft' pitch to Wall Street

Microsoft management has said they believe the company needs to be a player in not just devices and services -- but also both consumer and enterprise -- to continue to grow.

Some of Microsoft's investors aren't onboard with that belief. (See ValueAct, Microsoft's next likely board member.) They think Microsoft should stick to its enterprise strengths. 

At Microsoft's Financial Analyst Meeting (FAM) -- its pow-wow for Wall Street analysts -- Microsoft execs attempted to drive home the company's "One Microsoft" view and the reasons for it.

Microsoft officials showed the slide embededed above in this post during FAM that showed just how strong Microsoft is in the enterprise. The Softies claimed 55 percent of Microsoft's current customer base is enterprise, compared to 20 that is consumer. Small business is a surprisingly low (but growing) 6 percent. That said, execs also showed another slide that indicated that Microsoft generated $15 billion in sales of consumer services (which included sales of its Office 365 Home Premium subscription service) in its fiscal 2013. (Microsoft officials said they now have two million Office 365 Home Premium subscribers, up from 1 million in May 2013.)

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told FAM attendees that from a profitability perspective, "we will be led by our work in enterprise services and devices." But he added that Microsoft is aware that consumer services are important to the customer and "they're a path to enterprise services."

Consumer services are "a path to device success," Ballmer said. "But in some senses, we will lead as we go to market and we will certainly lead in terms of how we hope to generate profit through devices and through enterprise services."

"The one thing that is actually toughest understanding how to make money as consumer service company," Ballmer acknowledged. "Google does it. They have this incredible amazing dare I say monopoly that we're the only person left on the planet trying to compete with. Other than that, most of the consumer services companies just don't make enough profit to really register at this scale." (He did note Facebook might be one of the next to figure it out.)

Ballmer showed this Microsoft chart to emphasize that the company is competing with both consumer and enterprise companies, and competing well:

Terry Myerson, the Executive Vice President of Microsoft's new OS division, noted during a FAM panel discussion that Windows is both a consumer and an enterprise product.

"There's so much of our effort, the windows we build is used on the client, used in the cloud, used in data centers. Having that diversity is essential to delivering Windows' franchise," he told FAM attendees.

There is a "graduation process" between consumer and enterprise, said Satya Nadella, Executive Vice President of Enterprise and Cloud, also speaking on the FAM engineering panel.

"Yammer has taught us a lot and you'll see that in a lot of the product design. This is (neither) an enterprise product or a consumer product. (This) is not the way we're going to approach these things."

My ZDNet colleague Larry Dignan has the charts showing how Microsoft intends to break out its financial reporting segments, post-reorg. The five new segments largely align around consumer/enterprise lines, Dignan noted. While consumer and enterprise may be symbiotic, Dignan argued, they aren't unified. 

What do you think, Microsoft watchers?

Please, let Windows XP die with dignity

Yesterday my colleague David Gewirtz delivered a fire-and-brimstone sermon on the coming XPocalypse, the date early next year when Microsoft stops supporting Windows XP.

Here’s Pastor Gewirtz, in a passage replete with Biblical references:

If you don't think that cybercriminals have marked April 8, 2014 on their calendars with a big star, you're crazy. If you don't think they're holding back on launching some of their bigger exploits until after the patching ends, you're naive. For cybercriminals intent on skinning our 500 million sheep, April 8, 2014 is D-Day.

By abandoning XP on April 8, 2014, Microsoft will cease being a good shepherd of its most loyal customers. Microsoft is just leaving them out there, exposed, and unprotected. On April 8, 2014, those millions of remaining XP users will be like lambs being led to the slaughter. To paraphrase Jeremiah 11:19, they do not know that plots have been devised against them.

Can I get a “Hallelujah!” I said, Can I get a “Hallelujah!”

OK, my turn at the pulpit. Spoiler alert: I don't plan to cite chapter and verse.

First of all, this should not be a surprise to anyone. If you use Windows XP, you are not sheep, you are a paying customer. You got one of the best deals ever, because Microsoft has been running this route, the XP local, for more than a decade. No one is being left at the station. This train has had a “going out of service” sign on it for two years.

The support lifecycle is a contract between Microsoft and its customers, one that’s been clearly described for many years. It is ridiculous to think that a software company should support a product indefinitely. That’s economically silly and technically unsustainable. In early 2014, Microsoft will be delivering security patches for five—count ‘em, five—major releases of its operating system that are still in mainstream or extended support.

Perhaps that is why Microsoft’s reliability record with patches has been getting a bit dicey lately.

If you thought you were getting a lifetime guarantee, you weren’t paying attention. XP’s end-of-support date was actually already extended once.

And how many other computing products from that era are still supported? Seriously, when April rolls around, it will have been more than seven years since Windows XP was a current product from Microsoft. XP was officially replaced in November 2006. To put that in perspective, here’s what the world looked like then:

Google Chrome did not exist.Gmail was in beta.The first generation of Macs using Intel chips had just appeared.The operating system on those Macs was OS X Tiger.The iPad was science fiction.Twitter had been in existence for a few months.Facebook had opened to the public two months earlier.Robert Scoble had been a Microsoft evangelist just a few months earlier.Firefox version 2 was only a few weeks old.The iPhone was only a rumor.Android was not yet in beta.Nokia and BlackBerry were duking it out for the top two spots in the smartphone market.Steve Jobs was alive.

And at that time, Windows XP was already five years old, a senior citizen in software terms.

Windows XP is a relic from another era. No one expects modern software to be supported for 10 years or five years or, in many cases, for even a year. Web services like Facebook and Google roll out big changes every month. Apple drops support for releases that are less than four years old. By modern standards, that's generous. Ten years? That's insane.

When it reaches its end of life in April 2014, Windows XP will have been officially supported for more than 12 years. It deserves retirement.

Microsoft says 13 percent of the PCs in use next April will still be running Windows XP. It’s logical that the decline in usage will steepen as procrastinators realize that, oh crap, yes they have to do something about this.

So who will those laggards be? I think they can neatly be divided into three groups:

The largest group is businesses that have mission-critical apps that run on Windows XP and can’t easily be upgraded. My dentist still has one of those apps. That PC can be locked down pretty hard, and the fact that it’s not connected to the Internet means it’s not really at risk. In big enterprises that have IT staffs and IT budgets, there are ways to virtualize those apps so they run in a session on a PC running a modern operating system, usually Windows 7. Those are the best available options.

The next largest group is cheap consumers who have an old PC that’s still running but is too underpowered to upgrade. Even if we concede these are all senior citizens and Microsoft takes David’s suggestion to give them all free Windows 8 upgrades, this bunch won’t be able to do it. An old Pentium 4 with 512 MB of RAM isn’t eligible to upgrade.

And then there are the clueless, the ones who just don’t know any better, the “lambs being led to the slaughter.” I’m afraid that bunch was mostly pwned long ago. After all, they don’t have up-to-date antivirus software, they didn’t update Java or Flash for years, and they’ll click just about anything if it has naked pictures embedded or dollar signs attached.

And oh, by the way, the security software industry isn't abandoning XP. For XP diehards who keep their security software up to date, it should be easy enough to avoid all but the most sophisticated targeted attacks.

The idea that crafty cyber criminals are just itching to exploit zero day vulnerabilities is a common myth. The reality is that most computers are pwned using exploits that would have been blocked by even a casual patching policy. Most successful exploits target vulnerabilities that were patched years earlier. Zero-day exploits are for spy novels (and actual spies). People who can't be bothered to update their antivirus software or turn on automatic updates are going to be victims, even if you convince them to wake up for a day or two and upgrade their operating system 

In short, when April 2014 rolls around, most of those who are still running Windows XP are doing it either in full knowledge of the consequences or in absolute disregard for the risks. There's no middle ground. And neither group is likely to change just because someone offers them some free or cheap software.

I’d love to see Windows XP die with dignity. But I expect to see it hanging on in airport and hospital signage and point-of-sale apps and on netbooks for at least a few more years before sightings of XP in the wild become truly rare.

Let it go, people. Let it go.

Launch of Microsoft surface 2: what to expect

On Monday, September 23, Microsoft will launch (but not shipping) tablets of its surface of next generation in an event only by invitation in New York City.

In recent weeks, many leaks have revealed much of what was expected in his debut at the launch. Although Microsoft officials have not commented or confirmed these specifications, I have heard and seen information that leads me to believe they are correct.

New surfaces will be almost identical to the existing surfaces, how they will use the same screens of 10.6 and cover VaporMg and be compatible with the same pressure/covers the keyboard using the current.

They have the same number of USB ports and don't support LTE, WiFi-only. The surface, the successor of Surface RT 2, will be a tablet based on ARM (Tegra 4) with an estimated eight hours of battery life. It will feature a new ClearType full screen HD, who made his debut in the Surface Pro at the beginning of this year. Surface Pro 2, the successor to the Surface Pro, there is an Intel Core processor i5-based Haswell and allegedly getting seven hours of battery instead of only four or five hours.

Windows SuperSite editor Paul Thurrott has the full list of the expected 2 surface and Surface Pro 2 specifications, weight, thickness, ports, etc..

The most interesting part of surface launch on Monday, in my opinion, are the new surface peripherals. Despite Microsoft says that last year that the company had no intentions of making a Surface Pro docking station, they built one. The new surface docking station is expected to work with Surface Pro and Surface Pro 2 models only. Is expected to include a USB 3 and three USB 2 port, according to leaks.

And the expected indoor surface - a chunky version of the type of surface cover/keyboard, also comes. This cover will include a built-in battery that will extend the life of battery Surface Pro and Surface Pro 2 devices by a certain amount (still unknown). I am waiting new covers type and touch in a variety of colors at the launch on Monday, also.

There are two big questions at launch of Microsoft 2 surface: device availability and prices. Obviously, Microsoft executives are not commenting.

I have heard from one of my sources that has been reported on the surface information (and asked to remain anonymous) both the surface 2 and 2 Surface Pro can usually be available on or around October 22, in the time window 8.1 is generally available, which is October 18.

I don't know if Microsoft will take orders. I have no information as to what international or reseller distribution seems to strategies. Microsoft was slow to make the surfaces of first generation available outside United States I am not sure what has changed in the company's distribution plans or capabilities on that front.

According to my source, it seems that there is no huge price cuts in the works, which will surely disappoint those who have been waiting for the regular receipt of first generation surfaces that have made Microsoft rethinking its surface of prices.

The above source said that Microsoft plans to continue selling its first generation along with their new surfaces surfaces. The alleged plot is keep Surface RT price at its current level ($349,99 for 32GB with no included cover model) and introduce the surface GB 32 2 at $499. A 64 GB surface 2 will start at $599, the source said.

The Surface Pro will continue to start at $799. Surface Pro 2 will start at $899 for a version of 64GB, according to the aforementioned source. There will be 128 GB, 256 GB and 512 GB models available to $999, $1299 and $1.699, respectively, according to this source.

Touch and type covers will continue a price separately, from what I've heard, like the docking station.

Initially this shared information as my "Rumor of the week" in the recording of yesterday's Windows Weekly (as listeners live Eagle ears ear) on prices.

Keep in mind, this price and the availability of the information comes from a source only. The fixation of actual pricing/availability - if Microsoft announced on Monday - that information can be different.

Event of Monday 2 of surface will not broadcast live, according to Microsoft. But presentation and blogging from, starting around 10:30 a.m. ET on September 23. Also: The surface team will be making a Reddit Ask Me anything (AMA) on 23 September at 3 p.m. EST, as well as, where anybody can send their questions.

Taking Android fragmentation to the next level

 

If all Google did with Android was to make another closed, proprietary stack, it's unlikely it would have gone all that far. In fact, everything Google did was designed to grow Android as far and as fast as possible. The most fundamental of these was to make Android itself open source.

This strategy has been a raving success, with Android clearly the 800 pound gorilla of the handset market worldwide, but it hasn't been without cost; the huge variety of Android versions, devices, and screen geometries, plus the fact that every phone has code from both the manufacturer and carrier makes the configuration matrix huge; all this makes development and testing a challenge.  Compare this to Apple, which has a few phones, on which all the code is theirs, and nearly all users run the current version of the OS (well maybe not today, but soon everyone will go up to iOS7).

But anyone can take the Android source code, modify it and make their own distribution. Perhaps more than any other open source project, this has been a popular feature.

The biggest group creating custom Android versions, or mods, is Cyanogenmod, and now they're going commercial. They've got venture capital and they're already working on things that they didn't have time for when it was just a hobby.

This is very cool in many ways. Right now, nearly everyone (in the US anyway) gets their copy of Android from one of the big carriers. These companies 1) install crapware on the phone that you can't remove without rooting it, and 2) usually don't provide upgrades of Android, even when they would run just fine on the phone.

Of course they do this because they're in a position to push you around and they want to maximize the amount of money they can get out of you. The lack of Android updates is a tactic to make you want to get a new phone when the new phones come out with a new, better Android. They lose money on that new phone, but they make a ton on the 2 year plan you buy in order to get the phone at an affordable price. And when a problem develops in your 20 month-old phone with an old Android version on it, nobody involved has much of an incentive to do much to fix it.

Cyanogenmod and the other modders aim to give you OS options for your phone. You can get innovative features that Google and the carrier won't provide, you get no crapware, you get updates very quickly, and it's all based on the same code that the carriers use to make their lame versions.

But there's essentially no chance that modders can take significant market share from the carriers: the main reason for this is that the throwing arbitrary distributions into the mix limits the ability of carriers to support phones. It may be that if you call up or go into a  store, the carrier will do all they can to help you, but the odds that you'll get competent support for a modded phone are low.

Very few ordinary users will dare going this way, and it would be a bad decision for them to do so. Many of the support calls the carriers field amount to "How do I this Android thing?" If the customer could have any old distribution, support could not function, at least not with affordable employees working off of scripts. In this, the carriers are actually being reasonable.

A better market for modders, I think, is device resale. There are already many places you can buy used/refurbished phones and tablets, but perhaps those organizations could mod the phone up to the current Android level. That would make it much more appealing. It's not going to have support from the handset maker or carrier anyway, at least not for Android.

But all this ends up further fragmenting Android. Even if the versions all tend to get more modern (as they definitely are), the sheer variety of target platforms has to increase the number of potential problems.

So I'm happy for Cyanogenmod. Read their story, it's hard not to like them. And I wish them well, but I'm under no illusions that it will help with the fragmentation problem. The world of Android just keeps getting more and more complicated.

[This story was edited to correct typos.]

The iPhone 5s and the 'mythical' M7 coprocessor

The folks at iFixit managed to be one of the first people to get their hands on the new iPhone 5s, and they did with it what they do with every new bit of kit they get their hands on – they took it apart! And this is an interesting teardown because it gives us an insight into how Apple's marketing works.

During the iPhone 5s launch event, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller announced that the new handset would feature a new motion coprocessor called the M7. This chip, according to Apple, was designed to take in continuous realtime data from the motion sensors and process it, paving the way for a whole new range of new fitness apps.

During the event Schiller gave the impression that the M7 was a discrete chip inside the iPhone 5s, and the on-screen graphic during the event seemed to support that concept.

(Source: Apple)

When a teardown of the iPhone 5s was carried out I fully expected the M7 processor to be revealed. But the latest teardown shows that there is no discrete M7 processor inside the new iPhone.

(Source: iFixit) (Source: iFixit)

"Perhaps the 'M' stands for 'magical,' because it’s not there, folks,' wrote Miroslav Djuric, chief information architect of iFixit, in a statement to ZDNet. "The mythical M7 is most likely a combination of motion-oriented components, and not an actual dedicated chip as Apple implied during last week’s product announcement."

"Chock it up to savvy marketing," he said.

Inside the new iPhone 5s the iFixit team did however uncover some interesting hardware. They found the dual-core A7 based on the ARM v8 64-bit instruction set with what the team believes to be 1 GB of RAM. The also found a Qualcomm MDM9615M LTE modem, a WTR1605L transceiver, and that the updated 1.5 micron pixel pitch iSight camera is a new, until-now-unseen sensor from Sony.

Inside the iPhone 5s is a Murata Wi-Fi module which the team believes is home to a Broadcom BCM4334. What's interesting to note about this chipset is that it does not support the newer gigabit 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard.

(Source: Apple)

On the repairability front iFixit gave the new iPhone 5s a 6 out of ten, where ten is easiest to repair. They liked the fact that the handset is easy to remove and that the battery is relatively easy to replace, but continue to dislike the proprietary pentalobed screws used to hope the handset together, and the fact that the screen is a single assembly which makes replacing it costly.

The team also noted that lashings of glue used to hold down the battery which made it tricky to remove, and a fragile ribbon cable used to connect the fingerprint sensor to the mainboard that could be damaged when opening the handset.

Microsoft's new financial structure shows off enterprise strength

Summary: The goal of Microsoft's financial structure is to show data center expenses and commercial vs. consumer licensing revenue.

Microsoft outlined its new financial reporting structure under its "One Microsoft." The upshot: There are really two Microsofts and the enterprise business is the big dog on the block.

Amy Hood, Microsoft's financial chief, on Thursday outlined how the company will report its financial results. Here's a look at the reporting units and the financials for the year ended June 30.

 

What you get out of these charts is the realization there are really two Microsofts---even though executives spent much of the financial analyst meeting trying to convince people consumer and enterprise were symbiotic.

More from Microsoft's analyst powwow: Microsoft: Touch-first Office apps will come to more devices | Microsoft: Office 365 at $1.5 billion annual run rate | Microsoft: Surface made us better with Windows 8.1, OEM partners

Consider:

The enterprise licensing business dominates in sales with $39.7 billion in revenue for fiscal 2013.Windows and Windows Phone on the consumer side had revenue of $19 billion in fiscal 2013.

Hood, however, did note that the acquisition of Nokia will change the picture for the device business. She said of the new reporting structure:

The goal is to show the progress we're making on devices and services more clearly. And the goal is to show more accountability to the gross margin profiles. Why make a change this big? In some ways it's hard. But adding accountability to our progress in all those areas and transparency in how we're doing in our devices and consumer efforts and commercial efforts is important.

Hood added that shareholders need to see how licensing revenue turns into services sales. Shareholders also need to better track Windows commercial vs. consumer revenue.

Add it up and Microsoft's reporting structure may be able to highlight what needs to be quarantined. Outgoing Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said:

For the first time over the last couple of years windows has done something other than just grow. And we understand the shift that is going on in the market.

Microsoft will hold a conference call next week to go over its new financial reporting structure as well as historical information.

 

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Home workers: Get out and meet people

Work venue: 100 year-old hotel lobby -- Image: James Kendrick/ZDNet

I've been working at home for almost a decade and find it rewarding both personally and professionally. Contrary to what many think, it's not easy to do right and be successful. There are lots of issues that home workers face, not the least of which is isolation.

I've written about working at home and the occasional outside session at the local coffee shop. I've covered how to create a "virtual cubicle" most anywhere, unique venues for working, and how to be a good citizen while working in public. Heck, I've even mentioned the "outlet addict", those who work remotely but can't seem to untether from the power outlet with mobile gear.

See related: How to build a virtual cubicle for working anywhere | Outlet addicts: Laptop owners who don't get the concept | Exciting work venues for the mobile professional | Coffee shop work etiquette

There's no need to rehash all of those subjects so I'm going to share a change in my work routine that has made my good home working routine even better.

About a year ago I realized I was slipping into a routine that was keeping me isolated from the real world. I was happy working in my home office but I was missing vital interaction with others. That was not only less than ideal for me personally, but it wasn't helping in my work covering mobile tech. Besides work colleagues, I wasn't talking to folks enough to keep current with the tech people are using and why.

Once I confronted this, I made a commitment to myself that I would meet at least one new person every day. I would have to spend much more time outside my office, but if I was serious about meeting people that's the way it had to be.

This decision was one of the best I've made in years. I head out at least a part of every day to work remotely and use these excursions to meet new people. I approach folks at sidewalk cafes, coffee shops, and just about everywhere.

When I first started approaching people it was with trepidation. I was concerned I would be interrupting people and they wouldn't appreciate it.

I have discovered my concerns were overstated. If I approach someone too busy to give me five minutes, they tell me and I move on. That's not common as I've discovered that when I approach folks in a friendly manner and courteously, many are happy to speak with me.

People love to talk about themselves and their work. Those passionate about their work are especially happy to spend some time talking about it. These conversations are always interesting and often cross my area of mobile tech coverage. They are a good way for me to get my finger on the pulse of how people use technology in their work and personal lives.

Not every approach will help you in your work, but it's a great way to meet interesting people from all walks of life. My experience has been quite good and I've met some outstanding individuals.

I've met an individual who knows the inner city where I live probably better than anyone. I've become good friends with the sibling of one of my favorite novelists. I've befriended a nice, unassuming guy who ran off and joined the circus. I met an artist who uses a tablet to sketch her creations before committing them to canvas. A tattoo artist uses his tablet to show his portfolio to clients to help choose the right art. Once the design is selected he uses the tablet camera to show the client how the finished tattoo will look on the client's own body, all before picking up the ink gun.

I'm following the circus guy's adventures around the country as he's working to make the biggest show on earth work like clockwork. He's reinforced an important lesson to me about mobile tech explaining his use of a first generation Android tablet. He uses it because it does everything he needs and most importantly, because he likes it.  

I've been following the inner city guy as he uses the cloud, technology, and his old phone with a shattered glass face to completely run his business. He's been positively excited as he's shifted business functions to his mobile phone and other technologies and it's been a joy to listen to his enthusiasm as he shares how well it works.

These are just a few of the interesting people I've met and befriended. There are many more who have expanded my circle of friends and acquaintances in various ways. Others have helped me understand how and why they use mobile technology, which has directly impacted my work.

Most importantly, some of the folks I've met have become very good friends. A professional voice-over talent and his wife I am privileged to call good friends. Another friend works on secret trading apps for a major bank, and yet another runs a refinery that produces chemicals we use every day. Friends are a wonderful asset and good friends are priceless.

A successful strategy I've employed to meet new people is to introduce myself to the owners, managers, and staffs of the restaurants and coffee shops I frequent for remote work sessions. This is an obvious move but not for the reason you might think.

Once I come to know the employees I explain how I try to meet new people and that I encourage them to bring patrons to meet me. This is a fantastic way to get introduced to new folks and I don't have to do anything else to make it happen. This results in a steady stream of people being sent my way, and they're usually receptive to sit and talk a while.

While working in a favorite lunch spot one day, the manager brought a guy to meet me who is developing an accessory for a popular mobile device. Another time I met an app developer for mobile devices who is worth keeping my eye on.

Setting out to meet at least one person a day has been one of my most rewarding undertakings. On a professional level I've learned so much from a wide variety of individuals I would not have met otherwise.

I've been able to get firsthand information that directly affects my work, something that would never have happened sitting back in my cozy home office. I've met people in industries I cover, and others involved peripherally.

The work benefits I've obtained have been good enough, but the personal growth is even better. I've made new friends who have improved my life, from many different walks of life. I am richer for this beyond description.

Setting out to meet a new person every day won't be easy for everyone but it's worth a shot. It may not have such a dramatic impact on everyone's work as it has mine, but making new acquaintances is in itself its own reward.

Microsoft: Phablets are Windows RT's future

The question arises again and again: Why is Microsoft continuing to back Windows on ARM, especially with the latest advances by Intel with Bay Trail and Haswell?

New Microsoft OS division chief Terry Myerson is third from the left.

It seems like the answer revolves around phablets -- at least based on a clue from Microsoft Executive Vice President Terry Myerson, the head of Microsoft's newly converged operating system division.

At Microsoft's Financial Analyst Meeting (FAM) on September 19, Myerson answered a question about the future of Windows RT, Microsoft's version of Windows for ARM. After noting that ARM devices, especially phones, have incredible battery life, Myerson noted that lines are blurring.

His exact quote: "Windows RT was our first ARM tablet. And as phones extend into tablets, expect us to see many more ARM tablets, Windows ARM tablets in the future."

This is the blurring of the lines that some of us Microsoft watchers have been anticipating.

Windows Phone runs on ARM. Windows RT runs on ARM. Both use the NT core. And Microsoft is working to unify the programming interfaces, frameworks and dev tools across these platforms. Though there isn't (yet) a common Windows Store for Windows Phone and Windows RT, there's no reason this will always be the case.

As I blogged recently:

"Will it always be the case that a five-inch phone must run an operating system called 'Windows Phone OS'? Or could it run something called 'Windows RT'? (Or vice versa?) What if the Windows Phone OS and Windows RT both evolve so they become, for all intents and purposes, one OS that can run on mobile devices without a desktop?

"For those who thought Microsoft should have made Windows 8 more of a true desktop/laptop OS that wasn't optimized for touch tablets, and made the Windows Phone OS the operating system for touch-tablet devices, this kind of phone OS/RT convergence might be a belated dream come true.... "

This isn't just some pipe dream. Myerson also told FAM attendees::

"(W)e really should have one silicon interface for all of our devices. We should have one set of developer APIs on all of our devices. And all of the apps we bring to end users should be available on all of our devices."

Check, check and check.

Microsoft still isn't there yet, in terms of a single set of developer APIs or a unified, cross-device store. But it sounds like that's the goal.

On the phablet front, by the way, Nokia is expected to take the wraps off its Windows Phone 8 OS-based Lumia 1520 (codenamed "Bandit") in late October and make those devices available around November 8 on AT&T, according to WPCentral. If and when Microsoft ends up acquiring Nokia's handset division, as it has announced intentions to do, the Windows RT-Windows Phone convergence may take a step forward.

iPhone fatigue? What iPhone fatigue?

Given that the iPhone launch currently underway is the seventh, some analysts and pundits were predicting that consumers would be suffering from buyers fatigue and that interest in the handset would be tepid. Queues at iPhone stores across the UK this morning suggest otherwise.

This morning I paid a visit to an Apple store located at the Trafford Centre in Manchester. This is an average sized store for the UK and is one of two located within the city.

Here's the scene at the entrance to the store at 8AM. Contract customers were ushered to the head of the line and were some of the first in the world to get their hands on the new iPhone 5s and 5c. But this is only a small part of a much bigger queue that stretched all the way out of the mall and into the car park.

(Source: Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNet) (Source: Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNet) (Source: Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNet)

According to staff at the Trafford Center, there were around 2,000 people in the queue, a figure confirmed to me later by police officers that were on duty at the site. The officers reported that the queues had started to form at 10PM the night before, and that despite the crowds everyone had been well behaved and patient.

In order to prevent people queuing up needlessly, and I suppose to prevent disappointment and the emotions that come out as a result, Apple had put in place a ticket system which meant that everyone in the crowd was guaranteed a handset. I spoke to a few people, and it seemed that very few had managed to secure an iPhone 5s, and no one I spoke to had managed to secure a gold iPhone 5s.

Information I received in confidence from an Apple employee working at another store suggests that few, in any, gold iPhone 5s handsets had been shipped to UK stores, and that supplies of the white handsets were also severely limited. This leave the space grey as being the most widely available at present, adn even supplies of that are tight, with web orders now shipping in seven to ten days.

(Source: Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNet)

Staff at another cellphone retailer – Carphone Warehouse – situated yards away from the Apple Store told me they "had been lucky enough" to have taken delivery of fifty iPhone 5c and 5s handsets in total, and expected them all to be gone before lunchtime. Staff also conformed that the iPhone 5s was in short supply, so much so that the store didn't have one to use as a demo unit.

The Apple Store I visited is one of 37 stores in the UK, and both sources on the ground and social media conforms that similar queues have been present at all of them this morning.

Apple is going to sell a lot of handsets today.

iPhone fatigue? What iPhone fatigue?

UK networks left frustrated, concerned on Apple iPhone 5s/5c launch

Credit: Apple

Short supplies of Apple's latest iPhone models, the 5s and 5c, have left mobile networks "frustrated" and "concerned" about causing their customers anger and disappointment on today's launch.

According to the BBC, several U.K.-based networks revealed that stock of the latest premium model -- the 5s -- is "severely limited" in the country. The carriers did not want to be identified in case they could be disadvantaged once new stock arrives.

The iPhone 5s is a premium smartphone available in three colors with storage options of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB respectively. The iPhone 5s is a 64-bit mobile phone, the first of its kind, and has an improved battery life, a 28-megapixel camera, fingerprint recognition technology and uses the latest operating system, iOS 7.

In contrast, the stock levels of the iPhone 5c are abundant. The iPhone 5c comes in five colors -- taking a break from the traditional colour schemes to come in blue, green, yellow, pink and white plastic casings. The smartphone has storage options of 16GB and 32GB, and is equipped with Apple's Retina Display and an 8MP camera.

See also: iPhone 5s, 5c, iOS 7 reviews are in: The good, the bad, the ugly

One network said that while they have "crates and crates" of the 5c, the premium 5s model was being "drip-fed" into the market -- and networks have been left frustrated over Apple's silence as to when stocks will be replenished.

When purchased online in the United Kingdom, the iPhone 5s will not be delivered until October, according to Apple's website.

Anonymous sources told the publication that the 5s stock shortage may be due to the iPhone and iPad maker's wish to drive sales of the cheaper 5c model -- as customers largely ignore it and have not placed many pre-orders for the 5c. While the 5c could be pre-ordered in the United Kingdom, networks and retailers were banned from offering pre-order services for the premium model.

However, Gene Munster, an analyst at U.S. investment bank Piper Jaffray, told the BBC that the shortage problems may be due to problems related to the new hardware. Munster said:

"We believe the 5S is more production-constrained than the iPhone 5 was at launch, likely due to the addition of the finger-print technology."

In the United States, AllThingsD reported this week that suppliers are also having the same issue; one source calling inventory "grotesquely" low and another describing shipment numbers as "disappointing."

In China, the country's second-largest operator by subscriber base revealed it received over 100,000 online orders over the past week for the iPhone 5c and 5s, despite a lukewarm reception and disappointment that the 5c is out-pricing much of the general public.

In Australia, there seems to be little interest in the 5c for those who waited in line for up to 20 hours. The gold coloured 5s, however, was sold out by 7.30am, and police patrolled to keep Apple fans in line.

The first launch phase today for the new iPhones include Singapore, China, Australia, Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. The number of countries that have access to the new gadget will climb to 100 countries by December, according to Apple.

Red como servicio - Aryaka lanza nueva oferta de servicio

Summary: Organizations have distributed sites face challenges to implement a reliable and cost-effective network that can support their operations. Aryaka believes that its network-as-a-service offering is the answer.

Aryaka recently added a network-as-a-service offers to its portfolio of services. This should be of interest for distributed organizations or organizations that have a customer base distributed needed to reduce their costs of global networks and increasing levels of flexibility.

Aryaka ®, the leading provider of WAN optimization as a service, as-a-service of network and application like-a-Servicesolutions delivery, today announced cloud-as-a-service of network to optimize and simplify access to all services, public cloud and private including but not limited to, Office 365, Google Apps and Amazon Web Services (AWS). The solution ensures a uniform, private experience, low-latency network for all users within the company, regardless of where the cloud service or user.

While aimed at enterprise cloud services as Office 365 and AWS are global in their availability, individual companies assigned a key data center, usually closest to the headquarters. Employees in offices therefore cross the internet connection to access this data center, resulting in latency and congestion, especially during periods of use peak. Cloud Network of Aryaka, delivered as a service, omit this process, allowing companies to deliver fast, consistent and enterprise-wide access on a private cloud data network and access cloud services in places that previously were very besieged by latency.

Network Cloud as-a-service of Aryaka connects instances in the cloud as if they are on the local network with connectivity to any, regardless of where the end users around the world. Distributed worldwide points of presence (POPs) Aryaka, interconnected through a secure network, dedicated and redundant central as well as a software stack of full optimization in each of these bursts, it provides businesses with optimized access to all places and users in cloud environments. Without requiring the installation of devices or private links, Aryaka integrates services of enterprise cloud for all office locations and data centers in an environment with mesh.

 

Application delivery as Aryaka service also allows cloud providers to distribute applications dynamic or contained to a worldwide audience of employees, customers and partners. Both solutions are available worldwide through the data center 25 Aryaka with simplified price based on subscription and 24/7 customer support.

Networks are a current cost of the IT infrastructure. In the past, organizations tuveen that implement an infrastructure network with sufficient bandwidth to support the workload of more intense but most of the time was exaggerated. Aryaka believes purchasing a network service could reduce the overall costs while still offering the Organization what you need when you need it.

Aryaka is not the only provider of networks and services teams to discuss this approach. I have learned of similar capabilities being offered or planned by Aepona, Cisco, Global Telecom and technology, micro-data and others. Aryaka product, while interesting, will face challenges from other competitors and will be forced to work hard to get their messages in a noisy environment.

Topic: cloud

Daniel Kusnetzky is a distinguished analyst and the founder of the Kusnetzky Group LLC. It is also the managing partner of Lux Sonus LLC, an investment firm.

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Microsoft: Touch-first Office apps will come to more devices

Microsoft officials have acknowledged this year that touch-first versions of the core Office apps were in the pipeline.

But at the company's Financial Analyst Meeting (FAM) on September 19, officials took that a step further and confirmed that touch-first Office apps also will be coming to non-Microsoft platforms.

The suite of touch-first Office core apps -- Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote -- are codenamed "Gemini." Microsoft officials have said Gemini will be available on Windows some time in 2014.

At FAM, Qi Lu, the Executive Vice President of Microsoft's new Applications and Services engineering unit, hinted that more touch-first Office apps are likely to be coming to other non-Microsoft platforms. 

"We are working on touch-first versions of our core apps on Office," Lu told analysts attending FAM. "We will bring these to Windows devices and also to other devices in ways that meet our customers needs and value, annd in ways that make sense economically for Microsoft and in the proper timeframe."

I may be going out on a limb here (but don't think I am), but I'm reading "other devices" as meaning non-Windows devices.

Lu said Microsoft uses a combination of factors in deciding which applications to ship on which devices and when. He said the company evaluates customer interest, the ability to deliver a quality user experience, and economics ("It needs to make sense for Microsoft.")

Right now, OneNote and Lync are already available on iPads and Android devices. Skype and SkyDrive.com are available on Android and iOS. And an Office 365-tethered version of Office Mobile is available on iPhones. Web versions of the core Office apps -- known as Office Web Apps -- are also available across several browsers and platforms, including iPad and Android tablets.

As I've blogged before, last I heard, Microsoft was planning to roll out Office apps for iPads in the fall of 2014. Lu,expectedly, didn't talk timeframes during FAM.

Speaking of Office, Microsoft officials announced that Office 365 is now on a $1.5 billion annual run rate. In April, it was on a $1 billion run rate, officials said.

Update: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer also seemed to indicate Office is coming to other non-Microsoft platforms during his FAM remarks.

Ballmer noted that Microsoft execs' heads were not in the sand. "We're working away on all the things you think we should be working away on," he said.

"We can lead with our devices in the consumer market and even so, if we want people to adopt our services there, is a requirement that we support some other platforms. Windows lovers, we love it. Windows is first. It can be best because we have the capability of doing so. But we're also eyes wide open and being I think pretty smart and looking and developing for other platforms.