Azure: Can Microsoft Meld Windows with the Web?

The giant's bid to join the world of cloud computing is likely to appeal most strongly to corporate users. Microsoft is hosting more than 6000 programmers in Los Angeles (PDC) and Ray Ozzie unveiled project Windows Azure to the audience. One of the pioneers in this movement is Amazon.com, headed by Jeff Bezos and Ozzie "tipped his hat" to Jeff for starting this movement. This is not just cloud computing, this is truly a move towards "computing as utility" as we see the use of electricity today. The timeline for full exposure for Windows Azure is five to ten years from now, so there is lots to be seen in the coming months and years. PDC unveiled some tools for programmers that can start testing some of the functionalities in the Azure platform. When I defended my doctoral dissertation about software product platforms, this is what I thought would happen and I am happy that it is now really coming to light even if it still will take years. Windows Azure, I am ready to explore the business opportunities!

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Nokia marketshare in smart phones is dropping according to lastest news

I have been blogging about mobility marketplace in my Finnish blog and today Nokia announced their results. Nokia's marketshare in the cellphone market has dropped from 40 percent to 38 percent. This drop is not huge, but an alarming trend for Nokia. Nokia has issues in the smart phone markets as well. I checked out the latest Nokia E71 and E90 phone while visiting Finland and I have to say that the keyboard in E71 is the best I have ever experienced.

However, based on our research (global call down to businesses), Nokia Symbian platform is not seen as a sexy platform to build things on. The platforms of choice today is Windows Mobile, RIM Blackberry for the corporate and Apple iPhone and Google Android for the consumer markets. This trend is specifically here in the US, but I expect the market to be very heated of getting developers to build solutions on their platform. The winner is going to be the one ruling both business and consumer markets. There is not a single vendor that can claim to have these both.

Top 10 Strategic Technologies of 2009--That Gartner Missed and I fully agree that they did

Gartner picks its choices for the top 10 strategic technologies of 2009, but Eric Lundquist has his own list--from mobile computing to green IT. I like Eric's articles. He brings very good issues to the public, so I highly recommend you all to follow his opinions.Eric lists following as his 10 that shoudl be part of it:
1) Mobile Computing
2) Thin Clients
3) Tune-ups
4) Data Center Design
5) Enterprise Sandbox
6) Intraprise Networks
7) Anti-social Nets
8) Com control
9) BLI
10) New Green
My company did recently a study on a global study and we also found out that mobility came out as a big player. Another one, that can relate back to BLI in Eric's terms is business intelligence where integration is still a huge issue in organizations. That came out very strongly in our research. I am kind of suprised about Anti-social Nets and I agree that organizations might limit the use of them going forward. Unified communications is such a large term and people are very confused about the whole thing. I would congratulate Eric on the article!

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Businesses Can`t Ignore Social Media: Wake-up call for businesses

Social networks will play a huge role in the way businesses find and attract talent, as well as burnish their corporate image. CIOs can play a crucial role in making it happen. Brian P. Watson reports in CIO Insight article that social networks are not just fad, but they are going to be crucial to do business in the future. The article is an interview of John Sviokla from Diamond Management & Technology Consultants. The article refers to Linkedin.com and how CIO's can impact the company's use of social networks. I am very intrigued about the social and physiological aspects of social networking and that is one of the reasons why I participate in this for both actor as well as a researcher.

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Customizing Comments and Revisions Tracking in Microsoft Word

I run into an interesting article in PCmag.com about revisions tracking from collaboration perspective. We use tracking feature in our company on regular basis to make modifications, comment each other in our research reports. Very handy feature indeed.

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Ten leading platforms for creating online communities: the competition in social online community platforms is heated

Creating online communities of customers and workers has been one of the hotter topics in business and technology this year. Whether you’re on the business side, in IT, or are just trying to build virtual teams around shared goals, online communities are rapidly becoming a popular way to organize people and accomplish work in a highly collaborative manner. I have been tracking different aspects of social networking from both business- as well as personal perspective and Dion Hinchcliffe lists the top 10 online communites.

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Oracle CEO Larry Ellison Spits on Cloud Computing Hype: I do not agree from a software engineering perspective

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who built his empire in database software before attacking the market for enterprise applications, denounces the buzz about cloud computing as hype at Oracle OpenWorld. However, that isn't stopping Oracle from drinking the cloud computing Kool-Aid. Clint Boulton from eWeek quotes Ben Worthern from Walls Street Journal what Ellison says about cloud computing:The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do. I can't think of anything that isn't cloud computing with all of these announcements. The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop? We'll make cloud computing announcements. I'm not going to fight this thing. But I don't understand what we would do differently in the light of cloud computing other than change the wording of some of our ads. That's my view.What I think is missing here is that the software technology used to create true solutions for the cloud did not exist before. If the cloud meant that an onpremise application was hosted at a hosting center, the statement is true, but if the cloud means that a solution can utilize multiple services in the cloud, Larry Ellison is wrong. I ready today that Microsoft is going to announce its cloud computing operating system within a month. It is going to be interesting to see what types of capabilities it is going to offer.

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