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Posts Tagged ‘Capability’

Google Apps Offers Migration for Microsoft Exchange

Google Apps is offering migration for Microsoft Exchange. The service is free with Google Apps Premiere or Google Apps Education.

Last July, Google Apps began offering migration from IBM’s Lotus Notes. Most enterprises are standardized on either Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes, which means that Google now pretty much can migrate any organization to the cloud. Google also offers connection to Blackberry Enterprise Server.Google Apps is providing migration for Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007.

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Microsoft has very limited capability to offer a cloud-based email environment. Most of the offerings it provides are locally installed, single-hosting services. Concerns will wane about cloud security. The ability to offer a cloud-based email environment for easy access will be the norm, not the exception. But even though Google has a jump, Microsoft will have its own offering. In the meantime, Google has an opportunity to make another leap into the enterprise.

This does represent a tipping point for many companies shedding IT assets. The question about email often comes up when companies consider moving to the cloud. It’s an important part of the migration. In recent weeks, we have seen how email is becoming a foundation for the evolution of a web oriented, social enterprise. Google Apps Marketplace offers the capability to offer third party applications that integrate with Google Apps. Email is a critical part of the equation in this Google ecosystem. It provides a backbone for companies to connect its employees with Google Apps and the associated third-parties.

The process to migrate looks relatively simple. Through Google Apps, a customer enters their Microsoft Exchange user name and what it calls “two-legged OAuth,” consisting of a consumer user key and a consumer “secret”. They then upload a .CSV file consisting of the email adresses, calendar and contact information. It is optional what to migrate. For example, an IT administrator may upload email addresses and contact data but not the calendar. Email service does not get interrupted during the migration.

This is a compelling offering for companies moving to the cloud. But it’s only part of the equation. Google still needs to prove it is robust enough for the enterprise to migrate to Google Apps. In the meantime, Microsoft needs to act fast and provide a cloud offering that at least gives its own community the option to move Microsoft Exchange to the cloud.

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Apple releases, pulls iPad SDK beta, camera hints inside

Apple released a third beta of the iPhone OS 3.2 SDK on Tuesday afternoon, the version of the iPhone OS that is exclusively for the upcoming iPad. Apple later pulled beta 3, but not before several developers had downloaded it. Now, a couple details have surfaced, including more references to camera compatibility.

The latest version of the beta includes resources to help developers build applications that will run on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Developers can include code specific to each device as a “universal” app, enabling them to release one app for all platforms if an app is destined for all three devices.

The new SDK also includes a Photos application for testing via the iPad Simulator. That app can automatically access camera hardware if it is present, and offers an interface like that previously uncovered inside the Contacts app. Though Apple didn’t show off an integrated camera when the iPad was introduced, the system-wide capabilities to use a camera suggest Apple either is keeping the feature to reveal when the iPad ships or plans to build one into a future version.

Furthermore, numerous references to video chat capabilities have been discovered in the SDK’s telephony frameworks, including requisite functions to enable the capability as well as icons for buttons to begin and end a video call. These inclusions hint at a possible front-facing camera for future iPhone or iPad models.

Documentation for the third beta also confirms that Apple’s A4 processor includes a GPU core based on Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR SGX technology, the same used in the latest iPhone 3GS and third-gen iPod touch models. An earlier rumor claimed that it used an ARM-based Mali GPU core.

Apple hasn’t explained why the beta release was pulled from distribution shortly after it became available via the Apple Developer Connection, though some who downloaded it said that it contained a “major bug.”

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Will Windows Phone 7 Be Better Than the iPhone for the Enterprise?

The Windows Phone 7 news kind of threw us a bit this week. It had almost no mention about how it would serve the enterprise. It almost seemed like Microsoft had given up.

Now we are starting to see some reports about how Windows Phone 7 would fit for the mobile enterprise. And it makes us wonder. Will the Windows Phone 7 better serve the enterprise than the iPhone?

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The Blackberry is the leader in the market. For our purposes, we are looking at how the challengers compare to each other. Android may become the biggest rival to the Blackberry with its tight integration into Google’s enterprise suite and the ability to use multiple applications at the same time.

I’s the iPhone that looks a bit vulnerable. Without a doubt, the iPhone is showing success in the enterprise. Apple had a robust earnings report for the fourth quarter thanks in good part to sales of the iPhone to people who use it for work.

But here’s the catch. We really have not seen any bona fide use of mobile collaboration tools as of yet across any device. People are using smartphones to check messages and use applications. The applications they do use are services like Twitter.

When mobile collaboration does find its place in the market, it’s not going to be a one application world. It will require the ability to mashup data, pulling information from multiple sources. Our daily work requires us to use multiple applications simultaneously. That’s not possible with the iPhone. And it will not be possible with the iPad. This issue will become even more pronounced as more enterprise applications enter the mobile market.

In comparison, Windows Phone 7 is an information centric device. Information is stored in hubs and you can view the different hubs as a panorama on the device screen. That makes it potentially better than the iPhone or the Nexus One, which do not have that capability.

People want to see the information without having to go from application to application. A panorama is more akin to the experience we get on a device like a laptop. That’s far more suitable for the enterprise.

Gizmodo:

“Out of the box, this information is organized into areas called hubs, which follow the user’s areas of interest. Accessible through live tiles in the home screen, the Me (the user), people, pictures and video, music, and games–plus the omnipresent search–hubs give views into several data sources, connecting and presenting them into an interweaved panoramic stream. These hubs dig heavily into many databases, both locally and into the cloud.”

Ironically, Microsoft often get labeled as a company that creates silo environments. From our view, the mobile applications of today have a certain silo effect. Windows Phone 7 and its hub structure means that it can draw from deep databases from on-premise and the cloud. That to us seems like a powerful combination that is well suited to an enterprise world.

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Bug Labs’ BUGbase 2.0 prototype hands-on

At first glance, Bug Labs’ latest creation actually seems like a bit of a downgrade from the version it replaces — it loses the onboard LCD display and a handful of buttons, after all — but we sat down with CEO Peter Semmelhack today on the hustling, bustling floor of MWC to get the straight dope on what makes the BUGbase 2.0 a superior product. First of all, you can’t overlook the fact that they’ve moved to a Cortex A8-based OMAP3530, an appreciable boost from the ARM11 core it replaces, but it turns out there are a whole bunch of subtler changes too, like the inclusion of on-board audio out (pictured above toward the left of the base), HD video out capability through a module, and a second microSD slot. Why two, you ask? Isn’t 32GB of external storage enough? Probably, but Semmelhack points out that the second slot (covered behind a flap) is dedicated to loading the operating system, making it a trivial task to quickly switch between kernels or get unbricked.

Although the unit we saw today has functional guts, we’re told that the casing is pre-production — not to say that “production” BUGbases need to look amazing, anyway, considering that they’re frequently used for prototyping themselves. Though Android’s already been ported to the Bug platform, the company is really driving home the message in 2.0; when you think about it, this kind of makes any Android dev out there a de facto Bug dev, so that’s a nice angle to play. Look for it to ship by “early Summer,” so it’s time to scoop up that first-gen unit now if you’re jonesing for the integrated display.

Bug Labs’ BUGbase 2.0 prototype hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The good and bad of iPad pricing

Filed under: Hardware, Peripherals, Bluetooth

I think all of us were surprised at the entry level cost of the new iPad at just US$499.00. In a recent article at ars technica it’s stated that the pricing “confirms what a major shift in strategy the iPad is for Apple’s business.” My colleague Sang Tang also says the evidence is persuasive that the price of the iPad makes it disruptive for competitors.

There’s one place where I think Apple has slipped up, and that is the premium charge for 3G access. They’re charging 130 bucks for what can’t be more than a 20 dollar chip, and from a tactics perspective, I think that’s a major mistake. I might be drawn to the cheapest iPad, but if I am traveling for one week and want 3G access, my iPad is just a paperweight. I think it would have been better to have just three different iPad models, starting at $499 and ending at $699.

At that price, people might opt in and out of 3G service, especially since AT&T has allowed you to buy in one month no contract increments. Without the chip built in, people don’t have the easy choice.

It appears that the 3G iPad also gives you GPS, but that’s hardly an expensive option — one firm is offering to add GPS to a Bluetooth chip for less than a dollar. Recently it was estimated that the 3G, power management, and GPS chips cost about $16.00 for the iPhone 3GS, so the cost can’t be that much more significant for Apple. And of course, iPad owners who have built-in 3G capability would be tempted more than once to get 3G service. I know I would be.

But even with 3G, the iPad is a bargain, at least compared to what it could have cost. It has shaken up the consumer electronics industry, and I’m sure more than one company is looking at price adjustments. We’re looking at you, Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

$130 for 3G is a lot to ask, and it would have been nice for Jobs to aim for consolidating a product line, rather than introducing it with six separate models at once. But even with those extra charges, it certainly seems like the iPad’s price will definitely shake up the tablet market, and the eReader industry may not be far behind.

TUAWThe good and bad of iPad pricing originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Favilous joins crowded social bookmarking space

A young UK-based startup called Favilous has joined the crowded social bookmarking space. It hopes to differentiate itself from the legions of existing bookmarking services by building a community behind the bookmarks, so users can share descriptions of sites and help each other discover new online destinations (see a clip from one of their tour slides below).

On the site, users can see other users’ popular bookmarks as well as the most popular bookmarks in various categories, including “Top Sites” and picks for categories such as food, entertainment, and travel. Once you sign up, you pick a number of categories, for example, blogs or music, that are of interest to you. Favilous populates the top sites in each of those categories, and to edit this list, you need to expand the category to see “all sites” and narrow it down from there, or else enter in a URL manually.

When you register you can’t automatically transfer bookmarks from your browser to Flavilous, but they hope to add this capability in the next few weeks, according to founder Steve Whyley. Right now, it seems a bit too manual to me, and that may be why the service hasn’t seen much pickup, accumulating just under 200 users in about a week.

The company also plans to add customized theme pages in the coming weeks as well as the ability to integrate social networking profiles so you can easily share bookmarks with your friends.

The company plans to make money in 3 ways: by licensing the API to businesses and allowing them to customize Favilous for their own needs; by creating a subscription model to bookmark music playlists (they have reached out to Spotify to allow users to bookmark their playlists); and to possibly look at affiliate relationships and advertise to users, although they are hesitant to do that at this time.

The site is better looking than a lot of its competitors, but whether or not it will make for a better social bookmarking experience won’t be evident until the promised features roll out in the next couple of weeks.

Favilous was founded by Whyley and Mike Doyle. Competitors include Pinboard, Instapaper, which charges for its iPhone app but not for use of its site, and Delicious, which is free. Favilous is self-funded.

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Benioff On The iPad: “The Most Important Feature Is Its 10-Hour Battery”

Everyone has an opinion about the iPad, even at Davos. Michael is there this week at the World Economic Forum, grabbing video interviews with the people he is running into (like Michael Dell showing off a yet-to-launch Android device). In the video above, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff talks about the iPad (what else?). Other people might be wowed by the touchscreen or the 140,000 apps or the iBooks, but not Benioff. He’s impressed by the battery:

“The most important feature is the 10-hour battery life. That he was able to get that kind of capability in such a robust device, I think we have a game-changer.”

He also gives Michael a hard time for not getting into some CEO dinner. Watch the video.

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Palm’s webOS 1.3.5.2 for European Pres adds Bluetooth tethering

webOS version 1.3.5.2 for Euro-spec GSM Pres just hit over the last handful of hours, bringing a host of changes — but the biggest, perhaps, is the addition of Bluetooth tethering capability. The move is particularly interesting in light of Palm’s announcement last week that it’ll use its Mobile Hotspot app to enable tethering via WiFi, but it’s unclear how much (if any) crossover there’ll be between units that support one technology or the other. All things considered, which would you rather have?

Palm’s webOS 1.3.5.2 for European Pres adds Bluetooth tethering originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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