*IT Exclusive News

How farsighted is Microsoft’s Azure RemoteApp?

June 23, 2014June 24, 2014 enews

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…

How to Compete with E-Commerce

June 23, 2014June 24, 2014 enews

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…

Deutsche Telekom aims to integrate Netflix

June 23, 2014June 24, 2014 enews

Germany’s national telco Deutsche Telekom is negotiating with global video-on-demand (VOD) market leader Netflix about a partnership when it launches in Germany by the end of the year. Telekom apparently wants to include Netflix into its offering despite the fact that it competes with its own platform Entertain, reports German magazine Manager Magazin with reference to people familiar with the situation. Recently, Telekom already added ProSiebenSat.1′s VOD service maxdome to Entertain as a third-party proposition. The conversations about a marketing collaboration between Telekom and Netflix are at an advanced stage, but haven’t been finalised yet, according…

5 Big Data Vendors To Watch

June 22, 2014June 22, 2014 enews

Big Data is often associated with big vendors—the likes of IBM, Oracle and SAP. But the industry is also full of up and comers and niche specialists that could make an impact on a market said to be worth more than $32 billion by 2017. Gartner has released a list of five Big Data vendors to watch, as enterprises search for technology to draw intelligence from the vast amounts of information collected daily. Analyst Svetlana Sicular posted the list June 17 with the caveat that there are “many more companies…

Oracle Earnings Disappoint As CIOs Opt For The Cloud

June 22, 2014June 22, 2014 enews

Oracle reported that new license sales were flat in the last quarter, evidence that CIOs are increasingly looking to the cloud for software. Oracle also reported June 19 that profits fell 4.2 percent on higher expenses in the fiscal fourth quarter, to $3.65 billion. Lack of growth in new license sales, a key metric for software makers, is what sparked a more than 6 percent drop in share price in after hours trading. “New licenses was a major culprit for the shortfall and will be a focal point of investors…

Oracle buys LiveLOOK for co-browsing technology

June 22, 2014June 22, 2014 enews

Oracle is scooping up co-browsing software maker LiveLOOK in a bid to flesh out its suite of customer experience software. LiveLOOK’s product is already being used by more than 100 Oracle customers, having been embedded into Oracle’s customer service application. It gives support and sales representatives a way to browse alongside customers in order to fix problems and help them make the right purchases, according to a statement. Some 500 customers use LiveLOOK, according to a FAQ document released Friday in conjunction with the acquisition announcement. Oracle is locked in fierce competition…

20 Ways to Reduce the Operational Costs of Your Network Before it’s too Late

June 22, 2014June 22, 2014 enews

We reached out to over one hundred industry experts and asked, “What don’t people understand about the costs of operating a network but should?” Here’s a collection of our favorite advice. “Networks are expensive, get a bad rap for reliability (even when they are meeting their technical specifications), and at the end of the day few businesses could operate without them,” said Matthew H. Podowitz, (@mpodowitz), Senior Director, Operations and Technology Advisory Services, for Pine Hill Group. Even when networks are so critical for business operations, the money that’s spent on…

5 gadgets that changed Amazon

June 20, 2014June 22, 2014 enews

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,…

Microsoft Kills Off Plan to Pay People to Write Good Things About Internet Explorer

June 20, 2014June 20, 2014 enews

Microsoft PR is in damage control after a ‘social strategist’ was caught trying to pay people to write good things about IE. Wed, June 18, 2014 Network World — It was only a couple days ago when Microsoft released its Internet Explorer Developer Channel, “a fully functioning browser designed to give Web developers and early adopters a sneak peek at the Web platform features we’re working on.” Any chance IE might have gotten some long-term social media love was dashed after a clueless “social strategist on behalf of Microsoft” invited the…

What Microsoft’s New CEO Means for Microsoft CRM

June 20, 2014June 20, 2014 enews

On February 4, 2014, Microsoft named the third chief executive officer (CEO) in its history. As such, forgive me in advance if this article is a bit optimistic. After years of watching the decisions made by its second CEO and wondering when the crazy would stop, I’m a little giddy right now. My guess is that others feel the same. When the company announced Steve Ballmer’s retirement, the stock surged 9 percent. Under Ballmer’s leadership, Microsoft saw a festering stock price, with a 44 percent decline and a market valuation sliding from $604 billion to $269 billion.…