Here is my collection of trends and predictions for year 2014:
It seems that PC market is not recovering in 2014. IDC is forecasting that the technology channel will buy in around 34 million fewer PCs this year than last. It seem that things aren’t going to improve any time soon (down, down, down until 2017?). There will be no let-up on any front, with desktops and portables predicted to decline in both the mature and emerging markets. Perhaps the chief concern for future PC demand is a lack of reasons to replace an older system: PC usage has not moved significantly beyond consumption and productivity tasks to differentiate PCs from other devices. As a result, PC lifespan continue to increase. Death of the Desktop article says that sadly for the traditional desktop, this is only a matter of time before its purpose expires and that it would be inevitable it will happen within this decade. (I expect that it will not completely disappear).
When the PC business is slowly decreasing, smartphone and table business will increase quickly. Some time in the next six months, the number of smartphones on earth will pass the number of PCs. This shouldn’t really surprise anyone: the mobile business is much bigger than the computer industry. There are now perhaps 3.5-4 billion mobile phones, replaced every two years, versus 1.7-1.8 billion PCs replaced every 5 years. Smartphones broke down that wall between those industries few years ago – suddenly tech companies could sell to an industry with $1.2 trillion annual revenue. Now you can sell more phones in a quarter than the PC industry sells in a year.
After some years we will end up with somewhere over 3bn smartphones in use on earth, almost double the number of PCs. There are perhaps 900m consumer PCs on earth, and maybe 800m corporate PCs. The consumer PCs are mostly shared and the corporate PCs locked down, and neither are really mobile. Those 3 billion smartphones will all be personal, and all mobile. Mobile browsing is set to overtake traditional desktop browsing in 2015. The smartphone revolution is changing how consumers use the Internet. This will influence web design.
The only PC sector that seems to have some growth is server side. Microservers & Cloud Computing to Drive Server Growth article says that increased demand for cloud computing and high-density microserver systems has brought the server market back from a state of decline. We’re seeing fairly significant change in the server market. According to the 2014 IC Market Drivers report, server unit shipment growth will increase in the next several years, thanks to purchases of new, cheaper microservers. The total server IC market is projected to rise by 3% in 2014 to $14.4 billion: multicore MPU segment for microservers and NAND flash memories for solid state drives are expected to see better numbers.
Spinning rust and tape are DEAD. The future’s flash, cache and cloud article tells that the flash is the tier for primary data; the stuff christened tier 0. Data that needs to be written out to a slower response store goes across a local network link to a cloud storage gateway and that holds the tier 1 nearline data in its cache. Never mind software-defined HYPE, 2014 will be the year of storage FRANKENPLIANCES article tells that more hype around Software-Defined-Everything will keep the marketeers and the marchitecture specialists well employed for the next twelve months but don’t expect anything radical. The only innovation is going to be around pricing and consumption models as vendors try to maintain margins. FCoE will continue to be a side-show and FC, like tape, will soldier on happily. NAS will continue to eat away at the block storage market and perhaps 2014 will be the year that object storage finally takes off.
IT managers are increasingly replacing servers with SaaS article says that cloud providers take on a bigger share of the servers as overall market starts declining. An in-house system is no longer the default for many companies. IT managers want to cut the number of servers they manage, or at least slow the growth, and they may be succeeding. IDC expects that anywhere from 25% to 30% of all the servers shipped next year will be delivered to cloud services providers. In three years, 2017, nearly 45% of all the servers leaving manufacturers will be bought by cloud providers. The shift will slow the purchase of server sales to enterprise IT. Big cloud providers are more and more using their own designs instead of servers from big manufacturers. Data center consolidations are eliminating servers as well. For sure, IT managers are going to be managing physical servers for years to come. But, the number will be declining.
I hope that the IT business will start to grow this year as predicted. Information technology spends to increase next financial year according to N Chandrasekaran, chief executive and managing director of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest information technology (IT) services company. IDC predicts that IT consumption will increase next year to 5 per cent worldwide to $ 2.14 trillion. It is expected that the biggest opportunity will lie in the digital space: social, mobility, cloud and analytics. The gradual recovery of the economy in Europe will restore faith in business. Companies are re-imaging their business, keeping in mind changing digital trends.
The death of Windows XP will be on the new many times on the spring. There will be companies try to cash in with death of Windows XP: Microsoft’s plan for Windows XP support to end next spring, has received IT services providers as well as competitors to invest in their own services marketing. HP is peddling their customers Connected Backup 8.8 service to prevent data loss during migration. VMware is selling cloud desktop service. Google is wooing users to switch to ChromeOS system by making Chrome’s user interface familiar to wider audiences. The most effective way XP exploiting is the European defense giant EADS subsidiary of Arkoon, which promises support for XP users who do not want to or can not upgrade their systems.
There will be talk on what will be coming from Microsoft next year. Microsoft is reportedly planning to launch a series of updates in 2015 that could see major revisions for the Windows, Xbox, and Windows RT platforms. Microsoft’s wave of spring 2015 updates to its various Windows-based platforms has a codename: Threshold. If all goes according to early plans, Threshold will include updates to all three OS platforms (Xbox One, Windows and Windows Phone).
Amateur programmers are becoming increasingly more prevalent in the IT landscape. A new IDC study has found that of the 18.5 million software developers in the world, about 7.5 million (roughly 40 percent) are “hobbyist developers,” which is what IDC calls people who write code even though it is not their primary occupation. The boom in hobbyist programmers should cheer computer literacy advocates.IDC estimates there are almost 29 million ICT-skilled workers in the world as we enter 2014, including 11 million professional developers.
The Challenge of Cross-language Interoperability will be more and more talked. Interfacing between languages will be increasingly important. You can no longer expect a nontrivial application to be written in a single language. With software becoming ever more complex and hardware less homogeneous, the likelihood of a single language being the correct tool for an entire program is lower than ever. The trend toward increased complexity in software shows no sign of abating, and modern hardware creates new challenges. Now, mobile phones are starting to appear with eight cores with the same ISA (instruction set architecture) but different speeds, some other streaming processors optimized for different workloads (DSPs, GPUs), and other specialized cores.
Just another new USB connector type will be pushed to market. Lightning strikes USB bosses: Next-gen ‘type C’ jacks will be reversible article tells that USB is to get a new, smaller connector that, like Apple’s proprietary Lightning jack, will be reversible. Designed to support both USB 3.1 and USB 2.0, the new connector, dubbed “Type C”, will be the same size as an existing micro USB 2.0 plug.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Sony tape smashes storage record
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27282732
Sony has developed a new storage tape that is able to hold up to 185 terabytes (TB) of data per cartridge.
Created with the help of IBM, Sony’s technology allows for tapes that can store the equivalent of 3,700 Blu-ray discs.
The tape hold 148 gigabits (Gb) per square inch – beating a record set in 2010 more than five times over.
Analysts IDC predict that by 2020, global data storage will amount to 40 trillion gigabytes – around 5,200 gigabytes per person.
Using tape is a cheaper and more energy efficient method of storing data when compared to power-hungry large data centres full of hard drives.
However, retrieving data from tape is a far slower process.
“In addition, the expansion of cloud services and the creation of new markets to utilize big data have led to a growing need for a data storage media which can store large amounts of information.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple still dominates tablet market despite losing share to Samsung
http://www.techspot.com/news/56617-apple-still-dominates-tablet-market-despite-losing-share-to-samsung.html
Even with a decline in iPad sales Apple is still the king of the tablet market, according to market research firm IDC, which yesterday published its tablet shipments preliminary results for the first quarter of the year.
According to IDC’s report, Apple’s iPad shipments stood at 16.4 million, a drop of 16.1 percent compared to the same quarter the previous year. The Cupertino-based company lost its market share to Samsung, whose tablet shipments rose to 11.2 million from 8.5 million.
The tablet market as a whole reported a slow growth in the first quarter. Worldwide tablet shipments stood at 50.4 million, increasing by just 3.9 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago.
“Consumers are holding on to existing tablets and not upgrading, and large-screen phones – also called ‘phablets’ – are becoming more popular”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Phablets Put The Hurt On Tablets
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1322228&
Tablet makers face challenges as large-screen phones grab more market share, IDC reports.
Phablets and the longer replacement cycle for tablets have left a dent in demand for slates. The growth rate of tablet sales may already be leveling off, according data from IDC. Tablet makers shipped 50.4 million devices, a precipitous drop of 35.7% compared to the holiday quarter, and a meager increase of just 3.9% from the year-ago period. The numbers suggest 2014 may be a difficult one for companies that make tablets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Optical USB 3.0 cables have 5-Gig capacity and 30-meter reach
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2014/04/usb-3-optical.html?cmpid=EnlCIMMay52014
Corning Incorporated recently announced the availability of its USB 3.Optical Cables by Corning; the products have the capability to send 5-Gbit/sec data at distances up to 30 meters. “This cable is designed to be compatible with devices using USB 3.0 and 2.0 interfaces,” the company said when announcing its availability, adding that USB-IF has not yet developed a specification for optical-fiber transmission.
On that note, Corning added, “The USB 3.Optical Cables by Corning are up to 50 percent thinner and up to 80 percent lighter than comparable copper cables—qualities that enable convenient transport.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
AMD beds ARM in ‘Project SkyBridge’ and home-grown ‘K12′ ARM architecture chips
Pin-compatible x86 and ARM SoCs can share same motherboard
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/05/amd_announces_project_sky_bridge_and_k12_demos_seattle/
AMD has announced that it will create pin-compatible 64-bit x86 and ARM SoCs in an effort it’s calling “Project SkyBridge”, and that it has licensed the ARMv8 architecture and will design its own home-grown ARM-based processors.
“AMD is the only company that can bridge ARM and the x86 ecosystems,” said AMD’s SVP and GM of global business units Lisa Su at the announcement event in San Francisco on Monday.
“We said we were going to be ambidextrous,”
Pin compatibility, Su said, will bring “tremendous flexibility to the market,” seeing as how an OEM can design and build a single motherboard that can be fitted with either an x86 or ARM SoC.
“It’s a family of products that we’ll be putting out starting first in 20-nanometer technology.”
“It’s a family of products that we’ll be putting out starting first in 20-nanometer technology.”
On the ARM side, Su said, “We’re going to optimize 64-bit [ARM Cortex] A57, again in the same footprint as we have our x86 capability.” These low-power ARM-based APUs will also be AMD’s first HSA-capable chips that support Android.
After the first Project SkyBridge products appear in 2015, the following year will see AMD moving beyond such ARM-designed and licensed compute cores as the ARM Cortex-A57, to create its own ARM-chip designs.
demo of a server based on AMD’s 64-bit ARM Cortex-A57–based “Seattle” server processor – now dubbed the AMD Opteron A110 Series
Tomi Engdahl says:
AMD Announces K12 Core: Custom 64-bit ARM Design in 2016
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 5, 2014 1:01 PM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7990/amd-announces-k12-core-custom-64bit-arm-design-in-2016
In 2015 AMD will launch project SkyBridge, a pair of pin-compatible ARM and x86 based SoCs. Leveraging next generation Puma+ x86 cores or ARM’s Cortex A57 cores, these SoCs form the foundation of the next phase in AMD’s evolution where ARM and x86 are treated like equal class citizens.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AMD is also working on a new 64-bit x86 Core
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 5, 2014 1:16 PM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7991/amd-is-also-working-on-a-new-64bit-x86-core
K12 core is a 64-bit ARM design, but Jim Keller also revealed that his team is working on a corresponding 64-bit x86 core.
The x86 counterpart doesn’t have a publicly known name at this point
Tomi Engdahl says:
50+ crowd are wolfing down tablets: Silver foxes are even migrating to the Twitters
@gramps We’ll see you at #sundaylunch
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/06/tablets_drive_older_people_to_the_web/
Ofcom showing the number of people over 65 going online as 42 per cent compared with the previous year’s 33 per cent.
The Kana figures show those aged over 65 are actually better connected than those aged 55 to 64. The older group will check for emails around every hour while the pre-retirement group will only look every four hours. Older people are also apparently more assiduous about checking voicemail and Twitter.
The Ofcom research is generally at odds with the Kana figures, showing that those aged 55 to 64 use the web more than those aged over 65.
The growth is surprising as neither Android nor iOS has done a particularly good job of targeting the grey market and social networks aimed at the field have been slow to take off.
Tomi Engdahl says:
VC Fred Wilson: By 2020 Apple Won’t Be A Top-3 Tech Company, Google And Facebook Will
http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/05/vc-fred-wilson-in-20-years-apple-wont-be-a-top-3-tech-company-google-and-facebook-will/
Fred Wilson of New York’s Union Square Ventures, one of the top tech investors around, believes that by 2020, the biggest tech company in the world — Apple — will cease to be the most important, and won’t even be in the top three.
Why? Apple, he believes, is “too rooted to hardware,” with not enough tied into the cloud, and that will make it too much of a challenge for it to evolve going forward.
“I think hardware is increasingly becoming a commodity,” he said. “Their stuff in the cloud is largely not good. I don’t think they think about data and the cloud.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
EMC aims Elastic Cloud Storage band at Amazon, Google
Twang-ang-ang-ang… OUCH! You software-defined @£$%
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/06/emc_announces_elastic_cloud_storage_google_amazon/
EMC is in Vegas to gamble, and had all of its software-defined storage bets on show at its EMC World storagefest – everything from Project Nile and ViPR 2.0 to its massively scale-out ScaleIO server SAN.
First up is its Amazon-attacking Project Nile, embodied as an Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS) appliance.
The ECS appliance is designed to offer public cloud storage economies for private and hybrid cloud deployments, but private cloud security and control. It can also be used by cloud service providers themselves.
The turnkey appliance uses commodity hardware (x86 servers + storage) with exabyte-class scale-out clustering.
According to EMC, its cost comparison reflected:
the ECS Appliance delivered nine per cent and 18 per cent lower total cost of ownership (TCO) in mainstream-sized (1.4PB raw/740TB utilised) customer implementations than Google and Amazon respectively,
23 per cent and 28 per cent lower TCO in large-scale (11.5 PB raw/5.7 PB utilised) customer implementations than Google and Amazon respectively.
The ECS appliances look to be credibly cheaper-than-cloud – when we get pricing – and highly scalable systems.
VMware has its VSAN, aggregating storage across VM-running VMware servers. ECS appliances provide a SAN made up of virtual SANs courtesy of ScaleIO and the appliances do not run VMs – there is no compute and storage convergence with ECS.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SAP cloaks HANA in terabyte dress for VMware’s dance hall
Upgrade gives HANA greater performance on vSphere 5.5
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/06/sap_hana_vmware/
VMware and SAP have partnered to let a virtualized breed of the in-memory data muncher HANA run on customer-owned hardware as well as in the public cloud.
The deal was announced by the two companies on Monday, and means that companies running vSphere 5.5 have another way to access SAP’s in-memory data fiddler.
When running on VMware, HANA can handle up to 1TB of data compared with 64GB a year ago, and 32 processors within a VMware system. VMware says this gives operational and capital-expenditure savings of 60 and 70 per cent, compared with running it on un-virtualized hardware.
HANA was launched by SAP in 2010 as one of the key technologies for the companies suite of data management and analysis products.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Atom, GitHub’s code editor based on web tech, goes open source
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/06/github_atom_open_source_release/
Code-sharing site GitHub has announced that Atom, its highly customizable code editor, has left beta and its full source code is now available to world+dog under the MIT open source license.
“There’s no one thing in Atom that’s brand new,” Sobo said. “The real sell of Atom is the synthesis of a lot of different things that no one editor does well.”
“As Emacs and Vim have demonstrated over the past three decades, if you want to build a thriving, long-lasting community around a text editor, it has to be open source,” Atom’s development team explained in a blog post.
Tomi Engdahl says:
China’s Alibaba files for IPO that could be tech industry’s biggest ever
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_25708986/alibaba-files-ipo-that-could-be-biggest-history
Chinese e-commerce colossus Alibaba on Tuesday filed for an initial public offering that is poised to be one of the largest in history and will create a mighty rival to Silicon Valley’s tech giants.
With its entry into the U.S. stock market, Alibaba — often described as a combination of eBay, Amazon and Google — will have a valuation estimated at $150 billion to upward of $200 billion, giving it an immediate market value greater than Facebook and Amazon.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel unloads bevy of new Chromebooks; previews ‘Education’ reference design
http://www.zdnet.com/intel-unloads-bevy-of-new-chromebooks-previews-education-reference-design-7000029130/
Intel is putting further stock into its Chromebook investment with a slew of new budget-friendly laptops alongside a few other Chrome OS-based computing devices.
All in all, Intel is gearing up to release at least 20 Chromebooks by the end of the year — up from just four in September 2013. Intel further boasted that it will be involved in releasing the first to feature 64-bit Chrome OS.
Starting with what might already be considered the traditional Chromebook model for consumers, Acer, Asus, Lenovo, and Toshiba are focusing on the consumer demographic with the first Chromebooks running on Intel Celeron processors based on the Bay Trail-M system-on-chip platform.
Business customers on the road frequently might want to take a second look at these fanless machines being that the Bay Trail-M SoC promises up to 11 hours of battery life while supporting touch-enabled screens and 802.11ac wireless internet.
Looking forward, the chip maker offered a glimpse at its “Education Chromebook” reference design.
Shenoy held up the white clamshell prototype, noting that the technology inside was previously available on Windows, continuing that Intel is “now bringing that innovation and investment to Chrome.”
Intel is still keeping most of the details on this project under wraps, hinting at most of education slant held up by software.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Job Postings For Python, NoSQL, Apache Hadoop Way Up This Year
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/14/05/07/025215/job-postings-for-python-nosql-apache-hadoop-way-up-this-year
The number of jobs posted for NoSQL experts has risen 54 percent year-over-year, ahead of postings for professionals skilled in so-called ‘Big Data’ (up 46 percent), Apache Hadoop (43 percent), and Python (16 percent). Employers are also seeking those with expertise in Software-as-a-Service platforms, to the tune of 20 percent more job postings over the past twelve months; in a similar vein, postings for tech professionals with some cloud experience have leapt 27 percent in the same period.
Tomi Engdahl says:
US Military Drones Migrating To Linux
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/14/05/06/1932228/us-military-drones-migrating-to-linux
Tomi Engdahl says:
U.S. military UAVs migrate to Linux
http://linuxgizmos.com/u-s-military-uav-control-systems-switch-to-linux/
Raytheon is switching its UAV control system from Solaris to Linux for U.S. military drones, starting with a Northrop Grumman MQ-8C Fire Scout helicopter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Out in the Open: An Open Source Website That Gives Voters a Platform to Influence Politicians
http://www.wired.com/2014/05/democracy-os/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Norwegians trial Oculus Rift in tanks: The ultimate battlefield simulator
High tech comes cheap when compared to military prices
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/06/norwegians_trial_oculus_rift_in_tanks_for_the_ultimate_battlefield_simulator/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why not build your own VSAN hardware, asks VMware
Frustrated system builders: your time is now and the boss can’t stop you!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/07/why_not_build_your_own_vsan_hardware_asks_vmware/
When VMware launched its virtual storage area network (VSAN), it announced a laundry list of partners it said would be offering tricked-up servers to act as “ready nodes” real soon now.
Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu. Supermicro and Inpsur have put up their hands and with “ready nodes”, servers with disk-slots-a-plenty capable of being pressed into service inside VSANs.
But VMware clearly likes it both ways, because it has just released a guide to building your very own VSAN nodes, suggesting that doing so “allows you great flexibility and choice in how you design your storage.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gartner networked storage suppliers: Behold the Reg spaghetti-graphic
There’s nothing Flashy about this – maybe that’s a problem
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/20/gartner_networked_storage_supplier_trends/
Gartner’s worldwide external controller-based disk storage numbers have come in – and we’ve graphed them for all the quarters since the start of 2011
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM Shares Updated Cortex A53/A57 Performance Expectations
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 6, 2014 8:00 AM EST
http://anandtech.com/show/7995/arm-shares-updated-cortex-a53a57-performance-expectations
With the first Cortex A53 based SoCs due to ship in the coming months, and Cortex A57 based designs to follow early next year, ARM gave us a quick update on performance expectations for both cores. Given the timing of both designs we’ll see a combination of solutions built on presently available manufacturing processes (e.g. 28nm) as well as next gen offerings (20/16FF).
ARM 64-bit cores
If we compare across the same process nodes (28nm in both cases), the Cortex A53 should give us nearly a 50% increase in performance compared to ARM’s Cortex A7. The Cortex A57 should offer roughly the same increase in performance compared to Cortex A15 as well.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Yaarrgh! LOOK OUT! UK set to be BURIED under MOUNTAIN of TABLETS
Samsung anointed the ‘new Acer’ by channel
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2014/05/07/tab_mountain/
Retailers and distributors are buried under a “consumer mountain” of fondleslabs with the major channel-cramming culprit – according to our sources – a certain large South Korean vendor whose name begins with an S.
According to current stats from Stock In The Channel, a web-based tool that provides live data feeds from distributors, there are approximately 300,000 Samsung Galaxy boxes sat on warehouse shelves in Blighty.
More Reading
Tablet boom quiets down a bit as growth slowsMicrosoft: The MORE Surfaces it sells, the MORE money it losesPartner firms: Microsoft kept Surface from you for YOUR OWN GOODApple and Android split Santa’s stash, go on Xmas PC and tab highWe hardly ordered any stock! Yet here we are again with ANOTHER PC MOUNTAIN
It seems Samsung has reacted to the post-Chrimbo sales slowdown by, er, not reacting.
In an ideal world, distributors don’t want to store more than four to eight weeks’ worth of stock, but current levels are tracking upwards of 12 weeks, said multiple sources who asked to remain anonymous.
“Demand is suppressed,” claimed one channel source. “It is the wrong season and B2B sales are not helping to clear a consumer mountain.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
GitHub trends show programming language fragmentation
A new study of GitHub activity over time reveals shifts in the choices developers are making among coding languages
http://www.itworld.com/cloud-computing/417730/github-trends-show-programming-language-fragmentation
Historically, only five languages have mattered on GitHub: JavaScript, Ruby, Java, PHP and Python
JavaScript usage shows the greatest growth
Java growth suggests that GitHub is making inroads in the enterprise
Programming language use is fragmenting
“The programming landscape today continues to fragment, and this GitHub data supports that trend over time….”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Crytek Open-Sources Their ‘Renderdoc’ 3D Debugger
http://games.slashdot.org/story/14/05/07/194259/crytek-open-sources-their-renderdoc-3d-debugger
“Game studios now seem to be forming a habit out of opening up their debugger / development utilities. After Valve’s notable VOGL debugger, Crytek has now decided to open source their Renderdoc debugger.”
Crytek Open-Sources Their Renderdoc Graphics Debugger
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTY4Mzc
ValveSoftware/vogl
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/vogl
Tomi Engdahl says:
Itanium HP servers to be replaced with X86
HP plans to release the first x86 processor- based NonStop servers in 2015.
A big change to the underlying Intel’s plans to drive down Itanium processors designs.
Platform to change the HP Nonstop to be translated into its own OS to run the new system architecture. The company promises to existing customers Nonstop “100 percent application compatibility ” with a new x86 its base .
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/x86+korvaa+itaniumit+hpn+palvelimissa/a986599
Tomi Engdahl says:
Evernote and LinkedIn Perfect the Business Card
http://blog.evernote.com/blog/2014/05/07/evernote-linkedin-perfect-business-card/
Business Cards Matter More Than Ever
Business cards are how great things start. Their exchange represents the moment that important partnerships, opportunities, and relationships begin. And even in our hyperconnected lives, business cards are just as relevant as they ever have been. The assortment of cards we collect are a physical tie to people we’ve met, places we’ve traveled, and what we’ve accomplished.
Today, Evernote becomes an amazing business card scanning app.
Evernote instantly digitizes it and, through our integration with LinkedIn, the world’s largest network of professionals, creates a searchable note in your account with the most up-to-date, relevant information about your new contact.
Tomi Engdahl says:
At $3.5 billion, who’s going to buy ERP vendor Epicor?
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2152280/at-35-billion-whos-going-to-buy-erp-vendor-epicor.html
Epicor has been put up for sale by private equity firm Apax Partners, which is hoping to get up to US$3.5 billion for the ERP (enterprise resource planning) vendor, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, but analysts say it’s difficult to pin down who might be interested in buying it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft’s decision to patch Windows XP is a mistake
There will always be one more emergency.
http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/05/microsofts-decision-to-patch-windows-xp-is-a-mistake/
IT people who have had to impress on their superiors that they need the budget to upgrade from Windows XP because Microsoft won’t ship patches for it any longer. Microsoft has made these IT people into liars. “You said we had to spend all this money because XP wasn’t going to get patched any more. But it is!”
A complete about-turn means that Windows XP will take even longer to flush out of the market, making it a continued headache for developers and administrators alike.
But the option Microsoft took is the worst of all worlds. It undermines efforts by IT staff to ditch the ancient operating system, and undermines Microsoft’s assertion that Windows XP isn’t supported, while doing nothing to meaningfully improve the security of Windows XP users. The upside? It buys those users at best a few extra days of improved security. It’s hard to say how that was possibly worth it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nvidia beats estimates as it expands into the cloud
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2153021/nvidia-beats-estimates-as-it-expands-into-the-cloud.html
Nvidia reported results for the April quarter that exceeded analyst expectations, as the company’s customers favored its high-end graphics chips as well as new products for the data center.
Profits increased 46 percent from a year ago, while revenues climbed 16 percent.
Nvidia’s gains were across-the-board, save for its graphics chips that were sold into notebooks, which showed declines as the overall notebook PC market fell. In general, Nvidia’s GPU business grew by 14 percent to $898 million, with high-end GeForce GTX GPUs climbing 57 percent.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Licensing changes mean Redmond’s IoT plan brings cheap VDI
Hated VDA charge doesn’t apply to thin clients running Windows Embedded
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/09/licensing_changes_mean_redmonds_iot_plan_brings_cheap_vdi/
Microsoft has just posted some advice on how to do Windows desktop virtualisation (VDI) on the cheap.
Redmond is infamous for insisting that if you use a thin client to run virtual desktops, you’ll have to send it $US100 a year for the privilege. That charge is called the Virtual Desktop Access licence and comes over and above the cost of the Windows licence.
Unsurprisingly, this hasn’t gone down well with users because it makes VDI more expensive. Anecdotally, it sometimes makes VDI so expensive it’s not worth doing.
But Microsoft now seems to have made a noteworthy change to VDA, As described here that mean “If you use Microsoft Software Assurance (SA) and you have a Windows Embedded Thin Client (Windows Embedded 7/Windows Embedded 8), then you can now move this into your SA, thus negating the need for VDA licensing.”
Other thin clients will still incur the $100/year VDA fee.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mathematical Model Of Consciousness Proves Human Experience Cannot Be Modelled On A Computer
https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/898b104158d
A new mathematical model of consciousness implies that your PC will never be conscious in the way you are
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Dumb Policies Scare Tech Giants Away From Federal Projects
http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/05/08/229256/how-dumb-policies-scare-tech-giants-away-from-federal-projects
“A study published in March found that that the reason why the U.S. government has sub-par IT programs is because leading commercial IT companies established in the U.S. aren’t involved in government contracting. Either the government holds closed bidding, essentially stifling competition to its own disadvantage, or prospective companies are put off by the cost-prohibitive regulations associated with government acquisition given the low returns (less than 10% as compared to 20% or more in the commercial world).”
Tomi Engdahl says:
CGI: We Weren’t Fired From Healthcare.Gov Contract
http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/300072750/cgi-we-werent-fired-from-healthcare-gov-contract.htm
Despite its well-publicized struggles with the HealthCare.gov website, Montreal-based solution provider CGI Group said it was never fired from the contract and that it plans to continue pursuing federal and state government work in the U.S.
CGI Federal, a subsidiary of CGI Group, was awarded a $93 million contract from the U.S. federal government in 2011 to build the Healthcare.gov website. But the company faced intense criticism for technical problems following the Oct. 1, 2013 rollout of the site.
Despite published reports earlier this year stating that CGI was fired by the federal government and removed from the Healthcare.gov contract, Lorne Gorber, senior vice president of global communications and investor relations, told CRN that is not the case.
“We’re still working there, and have never been fired,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Munich switched 15,000 PCs from Windows to Linux
http://www.linuxvoice.com/the-big-switch/
Munich city council has migrated 15,000 workers from Windows to Linux. It’s a great success story for Free Software, and it upset Microsoft enormously. We visited the city and talked to Peter Hofmann, the man behind the migration – so read on for all the juicy details about what went right, what went wrong, and what made Steve Ballmer sweat…
Humble beginnings
Cast your mind back to 2001, and the state of Linux at the time. It was well established as a server OS and fairly well known among computing hobbyists, but still a small fish in the desktop pond. Gnome and KDE were still young whippersnappers, while hardware detection needed improvements and top-quality desktop applications were lacking in many areas.
“Back in 2001, a member of the Munich city council asked: are there any alternatives to using Microsoft software? And based on that question, we put out a tender for a study, which compared five platform options. One was purely Microsoft-based, one was Windows with OpenOffice, one was Linux with OpenOffice, and so forth.”
As the study progressed, two main options emerged as choices for the council: remaining with a purely Microsoft solution, which would involve upgrading existing Windows NT and 2000 systems to XP; and moving to a purely Linux and open source alternative. “If you lay more emphasis on the monetary side, the pure Microsoft alternative would have won, or if you lay the emphasis on the strategic side, the open source alternative was better.”
That was interesting enough – that staying with Microsoft would have been cheaper. Given the cost of buying licences for Windows and Office, you’d think that sticking with Microsoft would’ve cost far more than switching to Linux. However, the calculations were based on a five-year period, so they mostly covered migration costs (staff, technical support, retraining users etc.) rather than operational costs (buying new hardware, licence fees and so forth).
With the Linux alternative, we saw that it would be possible to implement the security guidelines we wanted to have. At the time there was a lot of discussion about Windows 2000 and the calling home functionality.”
One of the biggest aims of LiMux was to make the city more independent.
In May 2003, the city council was due to vote on whether to make the big switch to Linux.
“Steve Ballmer tried to convince our mayor that it would be a bad decision to switch to open source, because it’s not something an administration can rely on. But some members of the city council said: what are we, if one member of a big company simply comes here, and he thinks he can just switch our opinions?”
“GNU/Linux and Free Software
users around the world were
pleasantly surprised by the decision”
Gonicus provided consultants, and the city council recruited new technicians – eventually there was a team of 13 working on the LiMux project. They started creating a custom version of Debian and by 2006 the roll-out was beginning.
“In 2008 we saw that Debian was clearly stable, a good thing, but not the best if you want to use new hardware. They are always a few years behind. We also wanted to have a clear timetable for when new versions would be available. In Debian, when it’s ready it’s ready, so you can’t base a release plan on it. Those two things were the basis for switching from Debian to Kubuntu.”
Another reason for using Kubuntu was the KDE desktop.
KDE was chosen as it could provide an interface very similar to that of Windows NT and 2000, as used by the various departments of the city at the time.
“There are different levels of users. Some would say: ‘This button was green before, and it isn’t green now, so I cannot work like this!’ And the others say: ‘Just give me something, I have to work, and I’ll get used to it’. We had that kind of range of users, but most were the first type.”
“LiMux has been a success,
and has shown how flexible
and effective Free Software is.”
While the initial aim of the project wasn’t to save money, it’s still what a lot of people talk about. Today, over a decade down the line, has LiMux been a good idea in terms of finances?
“Yes, it has, depending on the calculation. We did a calculation and we made it publicly available on our information system for the city council. We have the exact same parameters for staying with Windows as with the migration to the Linux platform. Based on those parameters, Linux has saved us €10m.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google’s Chromebook becomes less dependent on a network connection
Google Chromebook notebooks more features and programs that work with or without a network connection.
Chromebooks have recently had the chance to watch videos and movies, when the device is not online.
Chromebook idea is that the computer retrieves and synchronizes content from the network. In this case, the device does not need to contain as much applications installed on the computer than to the traditional PC.
The operating system is updated every six weeks.
Google Chromebook computers are now specifically marketed for those who are giving up Windows XP and looking for a new machine.
Google is also planning to Chrome OS has a functioning mini- desktop , Chromebox .
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/uutisia/googlen+chromebookista+vahemman+riippuvainen+verkkoyhteydesta/a987042
Tomi Engdahl says:
Netcraft: Microsoft Closing In On Apache Web Server Lead
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/05/09/140242/netcraft-microsoft-closing-in-on-apache-web-server-lead
“After almost two decades of trailing the market leader, Microsoft’s Web server software is coming close to rivaling the dominance of the Apache Web server, according to the latest Netcraft survey of Internet infrastructure.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ask Slashdot: How Do You Tell a Compelling Story About IT Infrastructure?
http://ask.slashdot.org/story/14/05/09/194226/ask-slashdot-how-do-you-tell-a-compelling-story-about-it-infrastructure
“Every month we submit status reports to upper management. On the infrastructure side, these reports tend to be ‘Hey, we met our service level agreements … again.’ IT infrastructure is now a lot like the electric company. Nobody thanks the electric company when the lights come on, but they have plenty of colorful adjectives to describe them when the power is off.
What is the best way to construct a compelling story for upper management so they’ll appreciate the hard work that an IT department does? They don’t seem particularly impressed with functioning systems, because they expect functioning systems.
Comment:
The only other situation I’ve seen is when the CTO is a really charismatic guy who can describe the most simplest of task in the most interesting way and can play enough politics so people kiss his butt to make sure he’s happy. Then the CTO tells his underlings how appreciated they are by the executives even though they themselves never thought to say so.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Court: Oracle Entitled To Copyright Protection Over Some Parts of Java
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/14/05/09/1646238/court-oracle-entitled-to-copyright-protection-over-some-parts-of-java
‘[T]he declaring code and the structure, sequence, and organization of the 37 Java API packages at issue are entitled to copyright protection.’ A jury’s earlier finding of infringement has been reinstated, and now it’s up to Google to justify its actions under fair use.
Tomi Engdahl says:
So what is going on?
It is unusual to have such a number of competing deployment models for infrastructure. Yet in storage, we do have an increasing number of deployment models.
Centralised Storage – the traditional NAS and SAN devices
Direct Attached Storage – Local disk with the application layer doing all the replication and other data management services
Distributed Storage – Server-SAN; think VSAN and competitors
And we can layer an acceleration infrastructure on top of those; this acceleration infrastructure could be local to the server, or perhaps an appliance sitting in the “network”.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/12/trevor_aint_so_potty_vmware_kernel_openness/
Tomi Engdahl says:
SCC: Blighty biz cracked open wallets in 2014, and not JUST for Windows XPocalypse
End-of-support lifts reseller’s numbers, services do well too
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2014/05/12/scc_fiscal_14/
Customers fleeing end-of-support Windows XP doom coupled with boosts in data centre hosting and managed services wins fuelled top and bottom line goodness at reseller titan SCC in the recently closed fiscal ’14.
SCC CEO James Rigby told us the local product business was flat in the first six months of the fiscal year but noted a marked improvement from October onwards, adding: “Most definitely the UK economy has lifted”.
XP migrations lifted professional services at the company by 20 per cent.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Silicon Valley bod in no-hire pact lawsuit urges court to REJECT his OWN lawyers’ settlement
$300m is just not enough in techies v tech giants pay storm
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/12/tech_worker_urges_rejection_of_no_hire_lawsuit_settlement/
One of the plaintiffs in the no-hire pact lawsuit against Silicon Valley tech firms has asked the court to reject a $324m settlement deal negotiated by his own lawyers because he says it’s “grossly inadequate”.
Lawyers in the case reached a settlement with Apple, Google and other giants accused of conspiring to keep IT workers’ wages down by agreeing not to poach each other’s staff.
The settlement, which was announced late last month, was called “an excellent resolution” by one of the leading lawyers for the plaintiffs. But one of those plaintiffs, Michael Devine, clearly doesn’t agree.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel’s 64-bit Moorefield chip debuts in the Asus Memo Pad 8, but only in Japan
No news when it will arrive in the UK
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2344072/intel-64-bit-moorefield-chip-debuts-in-the-asus-memo-pad-8-but-only-in-japan
THE INTEL MOOREFIELD CHIP, which was announced at Mobile World Congress this year as an update to the firm’s Atom range of system on chip (SoC) processors, has made its way into its first device.
Intel announced on its news website that the quad-core 64-bit Atom Z3580 chip will arrive for the first time powering the Asus Memo Pad 8 tablet in Japan.
“The Memo Pad 8 is the first Moorefield-based device to be announced. KDDI [a Japanese telecommunications operator] plans to offer the new Android tablet to their subscribers in Japan at the end of August,” Intel said on Thursday.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IT Shops Losing Control Over Technology
http://www.cio.com/article/752166/IT_Shops_Losing_Control_Over_Technology?page=1&taxonomyId=600007
A global survey of more than 1,000 C-level executives shows that IT organizations are losing control over new technology adoption at their companies but are still held accountable for integrating the technologies securely into their company’s infrastructure.
Increasingly, spending and control of technology budgets are moving out of traditional IT organizations, the survey commissioned by technology consulting firm Avanade found.
Non-IT departments control more than 37% of enterprise technology spending, and that number is likely to grow over the next few years. Some 71% of C-level executives believe they can make technology decisions more quickly and effectively than IT organizations, the survey found.
The trend, driven by the growing availability of cloud services, mobile technology and the overall consumerization of IT, is fueling some real tension between IT organizations and the broader business.
“What’s interesting about the survey is that people still trust IT,”
The situation poses some tricky challenges for IT organizations. While many would like to innovate, they continue to be bogged down with the need to keep the existing infrastructure running. The survey found that IT staffs spend some 36% of their time managing and maintaining legacy systems. Not surprisingly, fewer than one in four of the respondents said IT suggested new or innovative technology projects of their own.
The best way for IT to remain relevant in the rapidly transforming enterprise is to become technology adviser and services broker.
“IT needs to up their game,”
Many IT organizations already have the experience and the expertise with technology integration, vendor management and contract management that business units will likely struggle with on their own, he said.
“A lot of the tech budget has shifted to the line of business. That’s marketing, HR, operations, supply chain and logistics,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook policy changes seem to cause some to stop using it:
Why I’m Shutting Down My Facebook Page
http://controlgeek.net/blog/2014/5/11/why-im-shutting-down-my-facebook-page
But right around the time I set up that page, Facebook started throttling back the “organic” (unpaid) reach of posts on business pages. So now, unless I promote a post (pay), share it via my personal page, tag people (many of my photos don’t have people), etc, then Facebook typically shows the photo to only about 10% of my likers (and Ad Week says the reach will eventually be forced down to 1-2%).
Of course Facebook needs to make money, and even though my Facebook photography business page didn’t lead to a single sale, I would gladly pay them $50 or $100 a year or something
But Facebook doesn’t give me that option–they just ask me to pay $5 or $10 or $20/photo (post) to increase the reach, but that would be thousands of dollars a year just to deliver a free photo to people who already “like” my page. What’s the point?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Friday Rant: It’s Time to Kill the ‘PC’
http://www.serviceprovideritreport.com/author.asp?doc_id=561241§ion_id=3080&_mc=sem_otb_edt_ppcm
For those 30 years, quarterly reports of PC sales, compiled by IDC, Gartner, and market research firms that have faded into the sunset, have been viewed as indicators of the computer industry’s health. It became an expectation that PC sales would be up each quarter, but the industry was really feeling great when the increases were in double digits. That was Porsche time.
However, a funny thing has happened over the past year or two. Desktop PC sales have been in in the tank, and even notebooks haven’t kept growth in any real positive territory.
Almost nobody is buying PCs, yet the computer/tech industry as a whole isn’t hurting, thanks largely to the smartphone and tablet, as well as cloud services, storage, and other sectors.
Let’s lose the PC as an economic indicator, and, while we’re at it, let’s come up with a new name for the whole class of devices that we use to access the web, send email, read files, and otherwise do our daily work. Does anyone really care that your email was sent from your iPhone or your Android device? We’re at a point where every modern device can handle a large portion of what we do.
Let’s call a desktop a desktop, a notebook a notebook, and so on. But we need a catchall term for whatever we use to do our work.
Now, what should we call the device that accesses the web and our corporate systems?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft blinks, extends Windows 8.1 Update deadline for consumers
Another 30-day reprieve before the patch cutoff axe falls
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/12/windows_8_1_patch_deadline_extension/
In a move that should surprise no one, Microsoft has extended the deadline when consumers must install the Windows 8.1 Update to avoid being cut off from future security patches to June 10, giving them a 30-day reprieve.
“While we believe the majority of people have received the update, we recognize that not all have,” Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc wrote in a blog post. “Having our customers running their devices with the latest updates is super important to us. And we’re committed to helping ensure their safety.”
The software giant is still trying to play hardball with consumers, however, and it’s easy to see why. With another major update bundle expected to drop in the fall, Microsoft wants to get all of its Windows 8.1, Windows RT 8.1, and Windows Server 2012 R2 customers onto the same support and servicing cadence, ASAP.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nvidia’s 64-bit Tegra K1 could end up in microservers
The software stack is ready
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2344265/nvidias-64-bit-tegra-k1-could-end-up-in-microservers
NVIDIA’s FLAGSHIP Tegra K1 processor could find its way into servers, the company’s CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said in a conference call.
Nvidia announced its 64-bit Tegra K1 processor at CES in Las Vegas in January, claiming it can the performance of the Playstation 4 (PS4) and Xbox One games consoles.
Described by the firm as a “super chip” that can bridge the gap between mobile computing and supercomputing
“I think we’re seeing a lot of interest in putting something like Tegra in microservers, but one step at a time,” Huang said in the conference call.
If this was to happen, it would put Nvidia in competition with ARM processor makers in that market. Huang said what makes the Tegra K1 appeal is that the software stack is ready and would easily slip into microservers.
There’s also plenty of competition in that market from Samsung and AMD, which are also planning to launch 64-bit ARM chips.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Australia targets software maintenance costs with Drupal plan
Whole-of-government CMS will use open source to keep recurring costs under control
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/13/australia_targets_software_maintenance_costs_with_drupal_plan/
Software maintenance costs Australia’s government will today hand down its annual budget, a document that is expected to result in the closure and/or merger of around 70 government agencies as part of an austerity drive designed to reduce government debt.
The choice of Drupal is aimed squarely at capital and recurring costs: the FAQ (PDF) provided by the Department calls out software maintenance costs as something to be avoided. The document also says “GovCMS intends to use a Software-as-a-Service vendor to reduce the requirement for upfront investment to establish the platform.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple has its own JavaScript accelerator in the works
http://www.infoworld.com/t/javascript/apple-has-its-own-javascript-accelerator-in-the-works-242042
Apple’s FTLJIT project aims to give JavaScript a boost, and it doesn’t require the use of asm.js for its speed improvements
Mention JavaScript engines at this point, and the big name that comes to mind is Google’s V8, the engine that powers not only Google Chrome but Node.js as well. Firefox’s SpiderMonkey also gets mention for its implementation of asm.js that can make JavaScript run nearly as fast as native code.
Apple, too, has a JavaScript engine — JavaScriptCore (aka “Nitro”) for WebKit — and its most recent set of changes give it a performance boost to rival its industry comrades.
These upgrades, codenamed “FTLJIT,” use the LLVM compiler as the JIT (just-in-time) compilation system. LLVM is a compiler technology nominally used for C/C++ compilation, but it’s not tied exclusively to that language, and so compilers for most any language can be developed with it.
FTLJIT is still considered experimental, so although it’s being made available in the OS X port of WebKit by default, it’s not actually turned on yet — it has to be enabled through command-line flags.