Category: Comments & opinions

Staff want to use their own laptops, tablets and smartphones — and will find a way of doing it whether the IT department knows or not, according to new research. Meanwhile, businesses rather than consumers are showing most interest in wearable tech. IT departments are still failing to get to grips with the concept of bring your own device (BYOD) — forcing staff to go it alone, according to research from tech analyst Ovum. BYOD cuts across all industries, said Adrian Drury, consulting director at Ovum. “The big consumerisation challenge for IT…

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Sometime in 2017, there will be more mobile devices than people on this planet. That might sound surprising, but it’s merely the tipping point in an accelerating trend. Smart CIOs and IT departments are working hard to stay ahead of the curve.  What will an all-mobile world look like? More people in more places will be connected. Many of these mobile users will be making their first-ever connections to the mobile world from developing countries in the Asia Pacific region, the Middle East and Africa. In fact, by 2018, mobile users in Asia will grow to…

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While many are thrilled about the potential of wearable technology, it’s important to remember that the smartphone currently holds the keys to the kingdom. The wearable-technology market has exploded with new products in the past two years. In fact, if you tried to wear all the gadgets at once, you would probably have trouble walking, much less running. At the center of all this body technology sits one key piece: your smartphone. Goofy images of dangling Fitbits and Pebble watches aside, the wearables market should reach about $1.5 billion in revenue…

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Facebook has reportedly dismantled its team working on Facebook Home, its Android homescreen replacement. According to a statement provided by Facebook, however, Home is still supported by the company. Facebook Home, Facebook’s home screen replacement app for Android, appears to be dead, with The New York Times reporting Friday that Facebook has dismantled the Facebook Home team. A Facebook spokesperson has denied the report. Facebook Home started as an Android skin for Facebook’s unsuccessful phone, the HTC First, which was both the first and the last phone to come with Facebook Home pre-installed. Facebook later rolled…

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ARM advocates and NSA back-door paranoids rejoice! Russia building ‘Baikal processor’ to replace AMD and Intel chips Russian news outlet Kommersant has reported that the nation’s government wants to ditch Intel and AMD processors in favour of a locally-developed ARM effort. The outlet’s report suggests three state-owned Russian companies are banding together to develop to be called “Baikal” that will use ARM’s 64-bit kernel Cortex A-57 as its base design, offer at least eight cores, be built with a 28nm process and run at 2GHz or more in PCs or servers.…

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Microsoft is stepping on more vendor toes. At the TechEd North America 2014 keynote in May, the company announced the preview release of Azure RemoteApp, which appears to be a direct competitor – at least in part – to Citrix’s virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution. Running an application on any device sounds like it should be easy to accomplish, but it requires an all-encompassing solution from a reliable vendor, as well as rapidly deploying ways for all devices to access them. The introduction of the iPad highlighted this requirement. IT…

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By now it is old news that Amazon “killed” the bookstores. We all know that bookstores are closing left and right. It is easier to buy books on the internet. The banking industry is in trouble too. Mobile banking is on the rise and those banks that lag behind, which fail to become mobile, will inevitably disappear. But the impact of the internet is far greater, way beyond books and banking. I have only to look no farther than my family. My daughter buys all her food products in volume…

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Ahead of the rumored unveiling of its 3-D smartphone, we take a look at Amazon’s devices through the years. Kindle Year released: 2007 Price: $399 The Amazon (AMZN, Tech30) Kindle wasn’t the first e-reader, but it was the first successful one. When it launched in 2007, its biggest competitors, like the Barnes & Noble(BKS) Nook, were still years away. Since then, the Kindle has gone through several redesigns and editions, including the jumbo-screen Kindle DX, the touchscreen version and the backlit Paperwhite. Today, a Wi-Fi-enabled Kindle is nearly half its original weight, holds up to 1,400 books,…

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Professor at the London School of Economics hails the cloud as years ahead of modern IT services Cloud computing is experiencing a shift in focus, and companies should avoid comparing it to current IT when it is years ahead of the curve, says London School of Economics (LSE) professor Will Venters. “What some business want from cloud and what cloud is truly offering are different things,” he told journalists at the Cloud World Forum in London today. Modern firms want economy, simplicity, agility and innovation, as these are the short-term…

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IBM, which has been shedding underperforming assets as it shifts focus to the growing cloud-computing and analytics markets, is said to be close to a deal to sell its chip manufacturing business to Globalfoundries. Globalfoundries is mostly interested in IBM’s engineers and intellectual property, not its more than decade-old manufacturing facilities, Bloomberg reported June 11. Under the deal being considered, Globalfoundries would become a supplier to IBM. IBM’s main chip fabrication plants are in East Fishkill, New York and Burlington, Vermont. An IBM spokesman refused to discuss the report. “IBM does…

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