I’ve taken quite an extended break from my last CCNA certification. After much thought, I’ve stepped back and decided to go towards a Microsoft certification. In particular, I will be training myself for the Microsoft MCITP: Enterprise Administrator.
The prerequisites for the MCITP: Enterprise Administrator are 70-640 Training, 70-642, 70-643, 70-647 and either 70-680 or 70-620 or 70-624.
Right now I am starting off with the 70-640. At my organization we already have some Windows Server 2008 machines deployed but I’d like to get an expert grasp with this technology. I’d like to acquire more knowledge in creating solutions and deploying. The maintaining part is natural to me.
The tools I will be using to train myself for the MCTS 70-640:
* Sybex MCTS Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Configuration Study Guide by William Panek and James Chellis
* Various online material from Microsoft and Techexams
* Practice tests from the Sybex book
* Lab environment – physical or virtual
Since I do have a couple years experience working with Windows Server I will be putting myself on a fast track study guide. I plan on finishing the book and labs within 2 months and shortly after completing some practice tests I will take the real certification exam.
The most challenging part of all this will be managing time and resources. With full dedication I have no doubt that I can acquire this new knowledge and become Free MCTS Training and MCTS Online Training certified through Microsoft.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Gmail or Exchange? Six questions to help you make the right choice
Summary: There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all e-mail solution. After a long evaluation process, I’m happily using three different e-mail systems. Here’s how and why I chose each one.
When it comes to e-mail, there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution. I’ve learned that lesson emphatically over the last year as I’ve tested a variety of different e-mail solutions for myself and for various friends and clients.
The top-secret Technology Reviewers Handbook says that after all that evaluating I’m supposed to pick a winner. But there is no clear winner. Instead, I’m happily using three different e-mail systems:
My business e-mail i running on a hosted Exchange account at Intermedia. My wife’s business account is hosted on the same server. (I’ve written previously about my reasons for choosing Exchange 2010; I switched to Intermedia earlier this year because they offered Exchange 2010 when other hosted Exchange providers were still offering Exchange 2007.)
I have a single user account at Office 365 for several upcoming projects, where features other than e-mail were the deciding factor.
I’m playing Google Apps administrator for an out-of-state client who needed a free, easy e-mail solution that would work well with his new Android phone.
Why three different solutions? Because each client (including myself) had different needs. I sorted them out by asking a series of questions and thought it might be useful to share my decision tree here.
A note: If you live in the United States, your options should be the same as the ones I write about in this post. In other countries, some services might not be available, and others might be offered at different prices. In addition, I do not cover the many educational offerings available for students and others associated with an educational institution.
1. Do you want a store-and-forward server or one that syncs your messages in the cloud?
Most Internet service providers offer POP3 mailboxes. They’re usually a standard feature with cheap web-hosting plans, too. These accounts use store-and-forward servers that assume you’re downloading your messages to a local store and deleting them off the server immediately. The server isn’t designed to keep an archive. Your master copy of any message is local.
By contrast, cloud-based mail products store your messages on a server so that you can access your e-mail—all of it, new and old—via a web browser. You can usually sync the server’s message store with a local PC or device, using Exchange ActiveSync or IMAP.
For this question, I think there’s only one correct answer. If you work in a big corporation, a central server that stores every user’s messages is a key part of a legally acceptable archiving policy. But a cloud-based server is also a good idea even if you’re a one-person organization. If you have more than one device (smartphone and PC, maybe a notebook, maybe a tablet), keeping everything in sync with a POP3 account is impossible. I still have a few POP3 accounts associated with some domains I own, but I forward all incoming messages from those accounts to a cloud-based account.
2. Do you need a custom domain?
I’m a firm believer in owning your own domain—especially for business mail. You might be perfectly happy to use a generic webmail address as your calling card to the rest of the world. (Just don’t adopt an address from your ISP as your primary e-mail account. If you move or change service providers, that address will become useless.)
The free Google Apps offering allows you to assign your custom domain to Google Apps. Hotmail offers this feature, too, but the domain management tools in Windows Live Admin Center made me want to scream in frustration. For my out-of-state clients, it took a few hours to get their custom domain working with Google Apps, but after those initial hiccups were out of the way it’s been problem-free.
Naturally, all of the paid services—hosted Exchange, Office 365, and Google Apps—offer excellent integration with custom domains. For Office 365 and Intermedia, I had a choice of turning an entire domain over or just defining mail exchange (MX) records. If you know your way around DNS configuration, this is a straightforward task. If you don’t, be prepared to ask for help (or take a crash course in DNS management).
Here’s the DNS manager for an Office 365 P plan. Note that you must set up the MX records with an external DNS service and can’t edit them here:
And here’s the custom DNS manager that Intermedia customers find in the HostPilot control panel:
3. Do you plan to use Microsoft Outlook?
If you live in Outlook, then your primary account should be on an Exchange 2010 server. Period. Full stop.
The combination of Outlook and Exchange offers great online and offline support. That’s true whether you’re using Microsoft’s Office 365 or a hosted Exchange option like Intermedia’s. Hotmail accounts work well after you install the Microsoft Outlook Hotmail Connector.
My experience with accessing Gmail and Google Apps accounts via Microsoft Outlook has been consistently bad—so bad that I won’t use the two products together. I won’t recommend that combination for anyone else, either. If you have a Gmail account and you want offline access, you can use the Offline settings in Google’s Chrome browser or try a third-party client program other than Outlook.
When it comes to e-mail, there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution. I’ve learned that lesson emphatically over the last year as I’ve tested a variety of different e-mail solutions for myself and for various friends and clients.
The top-secret Technology Reviewers Handbook says that after all that evaluating I’m supposed to pick a winner. But there is no clear winner. Instead, I’m happily using three different e-mail systems:
My business e-mail i running on a hosted Exchange account at Intermedia. My wife’s business account is hosted on the same server. (I’ve written previously about my reasons for choosing Exchange 2010; I switched to Intermedia earlier this year because they offered Exchange 2010 when other hosted Exchange providers were still offering Exchange 2007.)
I have a single user account at Office 365 for several upcoming projects, where features other than e-mail were the deciding factor.
I’m playing Google Apps administrator for an out-of-state client who needed a free, easy e-mail solution that would work well with his new Android phone.
Why three different solutions? Because each client (including myself) had different needs. I sorted them out by asking a series of questions and thought it might be useful to share my decision tree here.
A note: If you live in the United States, your options should be the same as the ones I write about in this post. In other countries, some services might not be available, and others might be offered at different prices. In addition, I do not cover the many educational offerings available for students and others associated with an educational institution.
1. Do you want a store-and-forward server or one that syncs your messages in the cloud?
Most Internet service providers offer POP3 mailboxes. They’re usually a standard feature with cheap web-hosting plans, too. These accounts use store-and-forward servers that assume you’re downloading your messages to a local store and deleting them off the server immediately. The server isn’t designed to keep an archive. Your master copy of any message is local.
By contrast, cloud-based mail products store your messages on a server so that you can access your e-mail—all of it, new and old—via a web browser. You can usually sync the server’s message store with a local PC or device, using Exchange ActiveSync or IMAP.
For this question, I think there’s only one correct answer. If you work in a big corporation, a central server that stores every user’s messages is a key part of a legally acceptable archiving policy. But a cloud-based server is also a good idea even if you’re a one-person organization. If you have more than one device (smartphone and PC, maybe a notebook, maybe a tablet), keeping everything in sync with a POP3 account is impossible. I still have a few POP3 accounts associated with some domains I own, but I forward all incoming messages from those accounts to a cloud-based account.
2. Do you need a custom domain?
I’m a firm believer in owning your own domain—especially for business mail. You might be perfectly happy to use a generic webmail address as your calling card to the rest of the world. (Just don’t adopt an address from your ISP as your primary e-mail account. If you move or change service providers, that address will become useless.)
The free Google Apps offering allows you to assign your custom domain to Google Apps. Hotmail offers this feature, too, but the domain management tools in Windows Live Admin Center made me want to scream in frustration. For my out-of-state clients, it took a few hours to get their custom domain working with Google Apps, but after those initial hiccups were out of the way it’s been problem-free.
Naturally, all of the paid services—hosted Exchange, Office 365, and Google Apps—offer excellent integration with custom domains. For Office 365 and Intermedia, I had a choice of turning an entire domain over or just defining mail exchange (MX) records. If you know your way around DNS configuration, this is a straightforward task. If you don’t, be prepared to ask for help (or take a crash course in DNS management).
Here’s the DNS manager for an Office 365 P plan. Note that you must set up the MX records with an external DNS service and can’t edit them here:
And here’s the custom DNS manager that Intermedia customers find in the HostPilot control panel:
3. Do you plan to use Microsoft Outlook?
If you live in Outlook, then your primary account should be on an Exchange 2010 server. Period. Full stop.
The combination of Outlook and Exchange offers great online and offline support. That’s true whether you’re using Microsoft’s Office 365 or a hosted Exchange option like Intermedia’s. Hotmail accounts work well after you install the Microsoft Outlook Hotmail Connector.
My experience with accessing Gmail and Google Apps accounts via Microsoft Outlook has been consistently bad—so bad that I won’t use the two products together. I won’t recommend that combination for anyone else, either. If you have a Gmail account and you want offline access, you can use the Offline settings in Google’s Chrome browser or try a third-party client program other than Outlook.
Friday, August 26, 2011
How Apple's iPad is changing the computer world
With or without Steve Jobs, Apple's [AAPL] iPad isn't just a PC replacement, it's a completely new solution that will define the next-generation of computing, no matter how long the analysts take to recognize the device as more than the equivalent of a PC.
iMusical iYouth
It shows 24-students in a music class at a UK school working together with an adult music teacher (Neil Johnston) to create a release-quality track using 24 iPads.(You can buy the song on iTunes in the US right here.)
The song is completely original, and guitars are linked to the iPad using Apogee Jam while drums and vocals are recorded through iRig Mic and M-audio midi keyboards, themselves all plugged into iPads.
"The iPad is a breakthrough device for the classroom because the opportunities are endless for app integration within an education curriculum," Neil Johnston (@storevanmusic), the music teacher featured in the video above, said to me. "For us, with music, the iPad now allows all students to be engaged in the learning and performing process."
All aboard
This is a big deal, because it boosts inclusion, he explains. "Before, the kid who struggled to play an instrument was given a triangle and told to sit out of the limelight, trying to keep in time. Now that kid, can open up GarageBand and press some chords on a guitar or piano. That kid is now involved with their classmates, that kid is engaged, having a great time, and learning too! Our project was never about replacing real instruments, it was about an engaging music lesson, where every student had a role to play and could take part."
Johnston will fly across to the US this fall to tour New York and beyond, where he'll be hosting sessions inside Apple retail stores, I hear. Watch this space for details.
This isn't the first remarkable use of an iPad in music, or in the classroom. Look around and you'll find many, many more (including three at the end of this story), but it is an interesting reflection on just how much impact a device which is under two years old has already had across so many industries.
The evolution of both the PC and the Post-PC will both go down on the world-changing track record of Apple's ex-CEO, Steve Jobs. However, the significance will extend far beyond that: Apple is defining the new generation of computing.
Incidentally, the UK experiment above prompted Sting to say: "I'm very impressed... Your use of studio as classroom and technology as teacher is exactly what we need to maintain music as a vital part of the curriculum."
[ABOVE: An iPad orchestra plays us to the post-PC future.]
This is the real deal
iPads and similar devices will become the defacto way that people use computers. Laptops are too big and smart phones too small. For many, the iPad is the perfect size -- but the key to the future isn't the technology -- that must become ever more pervasive, but the apps. Apple's app empire is its key differentiation, raising the value of its solutions far above those from everyone else.
HP's move to launch a fire sale on its TouchPad will soon be emulated by all the other tablet vendors (bar Apple) who will perhaps realize that it isn't enough to talk about tech specs, and make sure a device runs Flash (which no one really likes), but you need to resonate with consumers.
And the way to resonate with consumers is to create devices which offer all the creative possibilities of a child's toy, alongside all the productive capabilities of a Mac and all the time-wasting potential of a television, a good book, or radio. And you get all this with the iPad, iTunes and, in future, the iCloud ecosystem.
No one wins a price war
Price is a factor. The HP fire sale saw a few foolish customers waste a hundred dollars or so on a device which will never see a software update, and which has no app market. The sale has raised some cash to offset HP's losses, but customers will quickly tire of a device they can't upgrade, and can't purchase software for. Though some may enjoy installing Linux on the things, that hardly constitutes a mass market.
The success of the sale ably illustrates that there is space in the market for a cheap tablet -- but can you make a cheap tablet? I don't think so. Those cheaper devices just don't have the build quality, the operating system, the screen, the interface, they just don't match up. Also, last time I looked, components were hard to find...
This means that for the present, Apple will maintain its tablet market lead until 2013 at the earliest. Given the company has today begun manufacturing components for next year's iPad 3, there's no end in sight for innovation yet.
What would Steve do?
That's because people at Apple ask themselves one thing in the morning and one thing at night these days, "What would Steve do?"
Reflect on this: The interesting thing about a company collectively and individually asking itself that question is that the result might actually be a post-Jobs renaissance of innovation, as even the guy in the back room suddenly comes up with a great idea.
Stay hungry. Stay foolish. Do what you love. That's a statement of philosophy that can't be matched by any dry focus-group-led discussion on Megahertz or memory.
iMusical iYouth
It shows 24-students in a music class at a UK school working together with an adult music teacher (Neil Johnston) to create a release-quality track using 24 iPads.(You can buy the song on iTunes in the US right here.)
The song is completely original, and guitars are linked to the iPad using Apogee Jam while drums and vocals are recorded through iRig Mic and M-audio midi keyboards, themselves all plugged into iPads.
"The iPad is a breakthrough device for the classroom because the opportunities are endless for app integration within an education curriculum," Neil Johnston (@storevanmusic), the music teacher featured in the video above, said to me. "For us, with music, the iPad now allows all students to be engaged in the learning and performing process."
All aboard
This is a big deal, because it boosts inclusion, he explains. "Before, the kid who struggled to play an instrument was given a triangle and told to sit out of the limelight, trying to keep in time. Now that kid, can open up GarageBand and press some chords on a guitar or piano. That kid is now involved with their classmates, that kid is engaged, having a great time, and learning too! Our project was never about replacing real instruments, it was about an engaging music lesson, where every student had a role to play and could take part."
Johnston will fly across to the US this fall to tour New York and beyond, where he'll be hosting sessions inside Apple retail stores, I hear. Watch this space for details.
This isn't the first remarkable use of an iPad in music, or in the classroom. Look around and you'll find many, many more (including three at the end of this story), but it is an interesting reflection on just how much impact a device which is under two years old has already had across so many industries.
The evolution of both the PC and the Post-PC will both go down on the world-changing track record of Apple's ex-CEO, Steve Jobs. However, the significance will extend far beyond that: Apple is defining the new generation of computing.
Incidentally, the UK experiment above prompted Sting to say: "I'm very impressed... Your use of studio as classroom and technology as teacher is exactly what we need to maintain music as a vital part of the curriculum."
[ABOVE: An iPad orchestra plays us to the post-PC future.]
This is the real deal
iPads and similar devices will become the defacto way that people use computers. Laptops are too big and smart phones too small. For many, the iPad is the perfect size -- but the key to the future isn't the technology -- that must become ever more pervasive, but the apps. Apple's app empire is its key differentiation, raising the value of its solutions far above those from everyone else.
HP's move to launch a fire sale on its TouchPad will soon be emulated by all the other tablet vendors (bar Apple) who will perhaps realize that it isn't enough to talk about tech specs, and make sure a device runs Flash (which no one really likes), but you need to resonate with consumers.
And the way to resonate with consumers is to create devices which offer all the creative possibilities of a child's toy, alongside all the productive capabilities of a Mac and all the time-wasting potential of a television, a good book, or radio. And you get all this with the iPad, iTunes and, in future, the iCloud ecosystem.
No one wins a price war
Price is a factor. The HP fire sale saw a few foolish customers waste a hundred dollars or so on a device which will never see a software update, and which has no app market. The sale has raised some cash to offset HP's losses, but customers will quickly tire of a device they can't upgrade, and can't purchase software for. Though some may enjoy installing Linux on the things, that hardly constitutes a mass market.
The success of the sale ably illustrates that there is space in the market for a cheap tablet -- but can you make a cheap tablet? I don't think so. Those cheaper devices just don't have the build quality, the operating system, the screen, the interface, they just don't match up. Also, last time I looked, components were hard to find...
This means that for the present, Apple will maintain its tablet market lead until 2013 at the earliest. Given the company has today begun manufacturing components for next year's iPad 3, there's no end in sight for innovation yet.
What would Steve do?
That's because people at Apple ask themselves one thing in the morning and one thing at night these days, "What would Steve do?"
Reflect on this: The interesting thing about a company collectively and individually asking itself that question is that the result might actually be a post-Jobs renaissance of innovation, as even the guy in the back room suddenly comes up with a great idea.
Stay hungry. Stay foolish. Do what you love. That's a statement of philosophy that can't be matched by any dry focus-group-led discussion on Megahertz or memory.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
2017: When PCs go the way of the dinosaur?
Today, In-Stat predicted that the global tablet market will reach 250 million shipments by 2017. It's a seemingly big number, but its real significance is bigger: How much will tablets displace PC sales?
Right now the global install base of PCs is about 1 billion units. Shipments have been above 300 million PCs per year, but they're way down in mature markets, still strong in some emerging markets and losing sales to tablets, according to both Gartner and IDC. Is there market sustainable enough for 300 million PCs and 250 million tablets? I'm the wrong person to answer, having already proclaimed -- to the chagrin of many Betanews commenters -- that the "PC era is over."
The synopsis to In-Stat's report -- "The Reality and Ramifications of Tablets" -- focuses more on how consumer electronics devices are impacted. In-Stat sent me data sheets with no data, but questions and other info that let me see the report doesn't take the PC into the equation.
It is the PC that will matter more to many Betanews readers managing IT departments.
Two months ago, I asked: "Are tablets a fad?". In-Stat's data surely suggests otherwise. Then there are Gartner and IDC, which, respectively, forecast 69.8 million and 53.5 million this year.
Much depends on overlap. How much can tablets replace PCs? Many of our readers don't see that happening. Maybe, but Windows 8 is coming, and I'm expecting a juicy developer beta to drop during next month's BUILD conference. Microsoft is clearly targeting Windows 8 for tablets as well as desktop and portable PCs -- and it's what analyst firms Gartner and IDC consider a "full" OS rather than a mobile.
In context of Microsoft entering the tablet market in a big-OS way and with its core market being businesses, there's good reason to rethink the PC's future -- not just in the hands of Apple or Android tablets but Microsoft leading businesses down a hybrid path. Whatever, tablets are maturing fast and the overlap with PC functionally can only get greater (with Windows 8 part of that equation).
I don't see enough room for both tablets and PCs in 2017. Something has to give. Either tablets must cannibalize PC sales or a hybrid product emerges, something that absolutely could happen in a post-Windows 7 world, with Windows 8 driving new form factors. That 250 million is a mighty big number. But many analysts made big predictions about netbooks, which sales have collapsed before tablets. It may be that Microsoft and its hardware partners can similarly upset the current tablet market with Windows 8. If not, we have a date, or thereabouts, for PC's obsolescence: 2017.
In the here and now, In-Stat sees tablets encroaching on consumer electronics devices. "The tablet market and its associated ecosystem are still evolving. Over the next few generations we will see more differentiation between devices that are targeting different market segments and usage models. In addition, competitive device and service pricing will bring tablets into the mainstream consumer and enterprise markets", Jim McGregor, In-Stat chief technology strategist, says in a statement.
"Tablets are joining an array of smart-connected devices that allow users almost unlimited access to content and communications", he continues. "These new devices mark a significant change in the value change of the electronics industry where the content and applications are now the key differentiators and innovation drivers".
In-Stat sees Android and iOS coming to dominate 90 percent of the tablet market during the forecast period, with Windows pulling up the rear. Tablets 9 inches to 11 inches will make up 56 percent of the total tablet market in 2017.
Right now the global install base of PCs is about 1 billion units. Shipments have been above 300 million PCs per year, but they're way down in mature markets, still strong in some emerging markets and losing sales to tablets, according to both Gartner and IDC. Is there market sustainable enough for 300 million PCs and 250 million tablets? I'm the wrong person to answer, having already proclaimed -- to the chagrin of many Betanews commenters -- that the "PC era is over."
The synopsis to In-Stat's report -- "The Reality and Ramifications of Tablets" -- focuses more on how consumer electronics devices are impacted. In-Stat sent me data sheets with no data, but questions and other info that let me see the report doesn't take the PC into the equation.
It is the PC that will matter more to many Betanews readers managing IT departments.
Two months ago, I asked: "Are tablets a fad?". In-Stat's data surely suggests otherwise. Then there are Gartner and IDC, which, respectively, forecast 69.8 million and 53.5 million this year.
Much depends on overlap. How much can tablets replace PCs? Many of our readers don't see that happening. Maybe, but Windows 8 is coming, and I'm expecting a juicy developer beta to drop during next month's BUILD conference. Microsoft is clearly targeting Windows 8 for tablets as well as desktop and portable PCs -- and it's what analyst firms Gartner and IDC consider a "full" OS rather than a mobile.
In context of Microsoft entering the tablet market in a big-OS way and with its core market being businesses, there's good reason to rethink the PC's future -- not just in the hands of Apple or Android tablets but Microsoft leading businesses down a hybrid path. Whatever, tablets are maturing fast and the overlap with PC functionally can only get greater (with Windows 8 part of that equation).
I don't see enough room for both tablets and PCs in 2017. Something has to give. Either tablets must cannibalize PC sales or a hybrid product emerges, something that absolutely could happen in a post-Windows 7 world, with Windows 8 driving new form factors. That 250 million is a mighty big number. But many analysts made big predictions about netbooks, which sales have collapsed before tablets. It may be that Microsoft and its hardware partners can similarly upset the current tablet market with Windows 8. If not, we have a date, or thereabouts, for PC's obsolescence: 2017.
In the here and now, In-Stat sees tablets encroaching on consumer electronics devices. "The tablet market and its associated ecosystem are still evolving. Over the next few generations we will see more differentiation between devices that are targeting different market segments and usage models. In addition, competitive device and service pricing will bring tablets into the mainstream consumer and enterprise markets", Jim McGregor, In-Stat chief technology strategist, says in a statement.
"Tablets are joining an array of smart-connected devices that allow users almost unlimited access to content and communications", he continues. "These new devices mark a significant change in the value change of the electronics industry where the content and applications are now the key differentiators and innovation drivers".
In-Stat sees Android and iOS coming to dominate 90 percent of the tablet market during the forecast period, with Windows pulling up the rear. Tablets 9 inches to 11 inches will make up 56 percent of the total tablet market in 2017.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
HP PC Spin-Off Puts Pressure on Microsoft to Nail Windows 8
Hewlett-Packard's sale or spin-off of its PC business will put pressure on Microsoft to "hit the ball out of the park" with Windows 8, an analyst said today.
Computerworld — Hewlett-Packard's sale or spin-off of its PC business will put pressure on Microsoft (MSFT) to "hit the ball out of the park" with Windows 8, an analyst said today.
For the short term, then, Microsoft is unlikely to notice any difference in Windows sales.
However, like Miller, Margevicius saw the move as a signal of a troubling trend.
HP will retain the webOS operating system it acquired last year from Palm, but it will halt development and production of any tablets based on webOS.
HP's webOS-based TouchPad went on sale only a month ago, and several former Palm executives, including former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein, currently have high positions in HP's Personal Systems Group.
"HP tried to put the defibulator on its PC business with the TouchPad, but it's not yielding the kind of results it wanted," said Margevicius. "The patient isn't dead, but it's moved into assisted living."
Ironically, Miller saw the withdrawal of HP from the tablet hardware business as a win for Microsoft.
HP made it clear that it was betting on its own webOS, rather than Windows 8, for its tablets. By exiting the market, it means that there's "one less partner" to convince that Windows 8 is the right OS for tablets.
"For Windows 8 to succeed [on tablets] Microsoft needs a partner that's passionate, and one that will work with Microsoft to make a great tablet," said Miller.
Both Miller and Margevicius attributed the decision by HP to dump the PC side of its business to the small, fragile margins on Windows-based personal computers.
"This is MBA 101," said Margevicius. "This part of their business may be attractive from a legacy perspective, but it's the part of [HP's] business that generates the least amount of revenue. And HP is run by someone with no strong ties to hardware. [Leo] Apotheker has three things in mind: software, services and support, and not particularly in that order. All those businesses are far more profitable than PCs."
HP hired Apotheker, a former CEO of German software and support giant SAP, as its president and chief executive in September 2010.
Margevicius said that Dell, the world's No. 2 PC seller, will likely reap the most benefit from HP's ridding itself of its PC group. "Dell will be viewed as the vendor that is safe and solid," he said.
Computerworld — Hewlett-Packard's sale or spin-off of its PC business will put pressure on Microsoft (MSFT) to "hit the ball out of the park" with Windows 8, an analyst said today.
For the short term, then, Microsoft is unlikely to notice any difference in Windows sales.
However, like Miller, Margevicius saw the move as a signal of a troubling trend.
HP will retain the webOS operating system it acquired last year from Palm, but it will halt development and production of any tablets based on webOS.
HP's webOS-based TouchPad went on sale only a month ago, and several former Palm executives, including former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein, currently have high positions in HP's Personal Systems Group.
"HP tried to put the defibulator on its PC business with the TouchPad, but it's not yielding the kind of results it wanted," said Margevicius. "The patient isn't dead, but it's moved into assisted living."
Ironically, Miller saw the withdrawal of HP from the tablet hardware business as a win for Microsoft.
HP made it clear that it was betting on its own webOS, rather than Windows 8, for its tablets. By exiting the market, it means that there's "one less partner" to convince that Windows 8 is the right OS for tablets.
"For Windows 8 to succeed [on tablets] Microsoft needs a partner that's passionate, and one that will work with Microsoft to make a great tablet," said Miller.
Both Miller and Margevicius attributed the decision by HP to dump the PC side of its business to the small, fragile margins on Windows-based personal computers.
"This is MBA 101," said Margevicius. "This part of their business may be attractive from a legacy perspective, but it's the part of [HP's] business that generates the least amount of revenue. And HP is run by someone with no strong ties to hardware. [Leo] Apotheker has three things in mind: software, services and support, and not particularly in that order. All those businesses are far more profitable than PCs."
HP hired Apotheker, a former CEO of German software and support giant SAP, as its president and chief executive in September 2010.
Margevicius said that Dell, the world's No. 2 PC seller, will likely reap the most benefit from HP's ridding itself of its PC group. "Dell will be viewed as the vendor that is safe and solid," he said.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Microsoft: We make more money on cloud-based Exchange than legacy email
Per-user income greater in cloud, or so Microsoft claims
microsoft Claims it earns more money per user from cloud-based Exchange email accounts than it does selling the legacy version of Exchange Server most businesses deploy today.
That's what Microsoft investor relations GM Bill Koefoed said at the Oppenheimer Annual Technology, Media & Telecommunications Conference Tuesday, according to a transcript on Microsoft's website. Customers who purchase Exchange as part of the Office 365 cloud service pay roughly $10 per month, less than they would in the back-end costs of running their own Exchange servers, but nearly all of of it goes directly to Microsoft, he said.
Hosted productivity suites: Google Apps or Microsoft Office 365?
That doesn't mean Microsoft actually makes more money in the cloud than it does with its traditional business of selling software licenses. For one thing, Microsoft's cloud customer base is mostly small businesses. To gain the kind of per-user profits Koefoed is talking about, Microsoft needs Office 365 to lure in big enterprises.
"Within an enterprise, let's say it costs $15 per user per month today to run Exchange, and that's about $2 for Microsoft, and that's $13 in rent, power, the data base administrator that's running the thing, the hardware and all the kind of services that are associated with kind of running Exchange in your premise," Koefoed said.
"With Office 365, or with Exchange Online, the Exchange part of that, we charge $10 per user per month," he continued. "So, that ends up being a savings to the CIO of roughly 33%, and we make 5X more revenue and our profit ends up being somewhere, $3 or $4 per user per month. So, we make more revenue and we make more profit and we save our customers money."
The profit ends up being $3 or $4 per user per month because it costs Microsoft $6 or $7 per user to run the data centers powering the cloud service. "We can do that at scale," Koefoed noted. "Interestingly, one of the things that we've learned in our search business is how to run data centers at scale."
Koefoed gave the example in response to investors' questions about how Microsoft's revenue in the cloud compares to its traditional business model of selling software licenses. The popularity of Google Apps with small businesses is among the factors that forced Microsoft to expand its Web-based offerings, but investors are likely concerned these offerings will cannibalize Microsoft's existing revenue streams.
Koefoed's example leaves out the fact that Office 365 is appealing mostly to smaller businesses with few users. The small business version of Office 365, which includes Exchange, SharePoint, Lync and Office Web Apps, costs only $6 per user per month. An actual Exchange Server license, meanwhile, costs $700 for a standard edition and $4,000 for an enterprise edition, plus extra charges for client access licenses.
Enterprises can lessen the financial hit because of their scale, making the economics of running their own servers worthwhile for the customer, which is why Koefoed can say enterprises pay Microsoft only $2 per user per month to run Exchange. For small customers, the per-user cost of running Exchange Server without a cloud subscription would be higher, and therefore more profitable for Microsoft. Whether Microsoft actually makes more per-user profit from cloud services than packaged software is therefore questionable.
Friday, August 12, 2011
How To Successfully Complete Microsoft Certified IT Professional Certification?
The abilities of managing, advancement and troubleshooting Microsoft products. Microsoft has alien a admirable acceptance affairs called as MCITP Microsoft Certified IT Professional. You can authenticate your abilities in Microsoft appliance afterwards commutual this certification.
This acceptance offers assorted fields of ability for IT professionals. Microsoft certifications action abundant benefits. You may acquaint with online training casework providers so that you accomplish the best array in your absolute exam.
You can accomplish as Database or Enterprise Messaging ambassador afterwards accomplishing MCITP certification. Focus on absolute your abstruse and able abilities with Microsoft Certified IT Able credential. This absurd credential created by Microsoft helps to accomplish plan added effective.
These certifications accessible new opportunities of business and advice to brightness your claimed accomplishment and capabilities. During these canicule of recession, MCITP is in abundant appeal in abounding baby and ample business organizations. Reputed business organizations in China, Dubai, Europe and Japan board MCITP and action handsome salaries.
Online e-learning band-aid providers action absolute assay ambiance to practice. These companies action chargeless sample analysis for your accessibility so that you may get the abstraction how their convenance catechism and answers will be afore purchasing. If you accede attempting the absolute MCITP assay again you may get advantage of these basic tests. These are affordable and are accessible at amount able rates.
This acceptance offers assorted fields of ability for IT professionals. Microsoft certifications action abundant benefits. You may acquaint with online training casework providers so that you accomplish the best array in your absolute exam.
You can accomplish as Database or Enterprise Messaging ambassador afterwards accomplishing MCITP certification. Focus on absolute your abstruse and able abilities with Microsoft Certified IT Able credential. This absurd credential created by Microsoft helps to accomplish plan added effective.
These certifications accessible new opportunities of business and advice to brightness your claimed accomplishment and capabilities. During these canicule of recession, MCITP is in abundant appeal in abounding baby and ample business organizations. Reputed business organizations in China, Dubai, Europe and Japan board MCITP and action handsome salaries.
Online e-learning band-aid providers action absolute assay ambiance to practice. These companies action chargeless sample analysis for your accessibility so that you may get the abstraction how their convenance catechism and answers will be afore purchasing. If you accede attempting the absolute MCITP assay again you may get advantage of these basic tests. These are affordable and are accessible at amount able rates.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Microsoft HealthVault to Accept Google Health Record Transfers
Microsoft has announced a way for customers to pull in data from Google Health to its HealthVault health record platform using federal Direct Project protocols.
Microsoft says it will enable users of the soon-to-be-defunct Google Health service to transfer their data to Microsoft's HealthVault PHR (personal health record) platform using the federal government's Direct Project messaging protocols.
The Direct Project is the Obama administration's effort to provide a simple and secure way for people to exchange authenticated, encrypted health information over the Internet.
On June 24 Google revealed that it would discontinue Google Health as of Jan. 1, 2012, and customers could still access their data until Jan. 1, 2013.
About 300 applications and 70 devices connect to HealthVault, which allows consumers to monitor health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and asthma, and record the data in an online account. Devices that connect to HealthVault include blood-pressure monitors, blood-glucose monitors and weight scales.
Microsoft announced Feb. 2 that it would integrate encrypted email functionality into HealthVault using DirectProject's security protocols.
Google Health customers can send their profiles to HealthVault as an encrypted message by selecting "Send profile to another service" and choosing HealthVault, according to Microsoft, which announced the arrangement on July 18 and posted instructions on its Website.
Microsoft is also inviting developers who have designed applications for Google Health to migrate their software to HealthVault.
"Google has been an important ally in providing customers with access to their data and tools to better manage care online," Nate McLemore, general manager for Microsoft's Health Solutions group, said in a statement. "Microsoft continues to advance the HealthVault platform to increase its value to consumers—by adding important features, such as support for mobile devices, and by collaborating with hundreds of health organizations, including the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and CVS Pharmacy—to deliver robust health and wellness applications that connect to HealthVault."
Tech industry experts have said Microsoft benefits in the PHR space by having both Amalga on the enterprise side and HealthVault on the consumer side. Amalga is Microsoft's unified enterprise health platform for storing and retrieving many types of health records. It allows hospital systems to combine health data in disparate formats into a single platform.
HealthVault is better positioned than Google was because it will be able to integrate both Amalga and SharePoint Server with HealthVault to create physician and patient portals, Lynne Dunbrack, program director of connected health IT strategies at IDC Health Insights, told eWEEK.
Redmond says health care data should flow from the hospital to the physician to the home, the company reports.
"Microsoft's strategy and investments continue to be focused on delivering these systems—Microsoft Amalga, which is designed to help health systems streamline operations and connect care teams, and HealthVault, which enables engagement with patients," Peter Neupert, corporate vice president for Microsoft's Health Solutions group, wrote in a blog post. "We believe these two platforms combined—Amalga and HealthVault—can transform care and create a patient-centric health system."
Despite the impending shutdown of Google Health, PHR platforms have a future, if they're integrated into a comprehensive health care IT strategy, according to a report by research firm Frost & Sullivan.
Still consumers have yet to show an interest in tracking health data themselves, experts say. Patients would rather have more face-to-face time with doctors, according to Shahid Shah, CEO of IT consulting firm Netspective Communications.
"People want more time with their physicians and don't really care who manages their chart," Shah wrote in his Healthcare IT Guy blog.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Google vs. Microsoft: Who's Winning?
Google and Microsoft are at each other's throats over everything from patents to Android and Windows Phone market
Google and Microsoft are at each other’s throats over Android.
The simmering rivalry between the two tech giants exploded this week, with executives trading barbs on Twitter and blog posts over patents related to mobile technology.
This newest burst of aggression has its roots in a high-stakes auction that took place earlier this year. Microsoft and a handful of other companies submitted a $4.5 billion winning bid for some 6,000 patents and patent applications formerly owned by Nortel. Google wanted the same property, but its own bid of $900 million couldn’t quite seal the deal.
Now Google seems concerned that Microsoft and its consortium partners (which include Apple, not exactly the search-engine giant’s bosom buddy) will use those patents to sue Android manufacturers into the ground. Indeed, Microsoft is rapidly making an industry out of what it claims are Android’s violations of its intellectual property: in addition to squeezing royalties from any number of Android-device manufacturers, the company has filed patent-infringement suits against Motorola (maker of Android-based smartphones and tablets) and Barnes & Noble (which produces the Nook, an Android-based e-reader).
“Microsoft and Apple have always been at each other’s throats, so when they get into bed together, you have to start wondering what’s going on,” David Drummond, Google’s senior vice president and chief legal officer, wrote in an Aug. 3 posting on The Official Google Blog. “Fortunately, the law frowns on the accumulation of dubious patents for anticompetitive means—which means these deals are likely to draw regulatory scrutiny, and this patent bubble will pop.”
He went on to claim that the Justice Department is “looking into whether Microsoft and Apple acquired the Nortel patents for anticompetitive means.”
Microsoft executives felt compelled to fire back.
“Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, wrote in an Aug. 3 Tweet. “Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no.”
The same day, Frank Shaw, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of corporate communications, also Tweeted: “Free advice for David Drummond—next time check with Kent Walker before you blog.”
He included a link to an Oct. 28 email sent to Brad Smith by Kent Walker, Google’s general counsel, suggesting that “a joint bid wouldn’t be advisable for us on this one.”
Rather than let Microsoft blow a hole beneath the waterline of his tight little narrative, Drummond updated his original post Aug. 4: “If you think about it, it’s obvious why we turned down Microsoft’s offer,” he wrote. A joint acquisition of the patents “that gave all parties a license would have eliminated any protection these patents could offer to Android against attacks from Microsoft and its bidding partners.”
A number of analyst estimates have Android leading the mobile market. According to recent data from Nielsen, for example, Android held 39 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, followed by Apple’s iPhone with 28 percent, RIM with 20 percent, and Microsoft with 9 percent. Similarly, research firm comScore placed Android’s share of the U.S. market at 40.1 percent, followed by Apple with 26.6 percent, RIM with 23.4 percent and Microsoft with 5.8 percent.
Combined with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s recent admission that Windows Phone’s market share is “very small,” it seems Android is handily winning the mobility wars despite Microsoft’s patent maneuvers. That being said, Microsoft seems to have found a viable source of revenue in its latest string of Android lawsuits and “royalty agreements,” something the company is likely to vigorously push in quarters ahead; Jack Gold, founder and principal analyst of J. Gold Associates, recently theorized that Microsoft’s cash stream from Android royalties could even top that of Windows Phone.
Meanwhile, Google’s core business—search—continues to outpace Microsoft’s Bing, although the latter has enjoyed incremental market share gains over the past several quarters. Microsoft has demonstrated a willingness to burn hundreds of millions of dollars to keep itself in the search game, something that makes its investors nervous—but doesn’t seem to have any appreciable effect on Google’s ability to earn lots of cash from advertising.
So Android continues to handily dominate Microsoft in the actual mobility and search markets, but Microsoft has a variety of good legal cards to play in order to make life more difficult, both for Google and its manufacturing partners. In other words, look forward to some messy battles (and more irate blog and Twitter posts) to come.
Google and Microsoft are at each other’s throats over Android.
The simmering rivalry between the two tech giants exploded this week, with executives trading barbs on Twitter and blog posts over patents related to mobile technology.
This newest burst of aggression has its roots in a high-stakes auction that took place earlier this year. Microsoft and a handful of other companies submitted a $4.5 billion winning bid for some 6,000 patents and patent applications formerly owned by Nortel. Google wanted the same property, but its own bid of $900 million couldn’t quite seal the deal.
Now Google seems concerned that Microsoft and its consortium partners (which include Apple, not exactly the search-engine giant’s bosom buddy) will use those patents to sue Android manufacturers into the ground. Indeed, Microsoft is rapidly making an industry out of what it claims are Android’s violations of its intellectual property: in addition to squeezing royalties from any number of Android-device manufacturers, the company has filed patent-infringement suits against Motorola (maker of Android-based smartphones and tablets) and Barnes & Noble (which produces the Nook, an Android-based e-reader).
“Microsoft and Apple have always been at each other’s throats, so when they get into bed together, you have to start wondering what’s going on,” David Drummond, Google’s senior vice president and chief legal officer, wrote in an Aug. 3 posting on The Official Google Blog. “Fortunately, the law frowns on the accumulation of dubious patents for anticompetitive means—which means these deals are likely to draw regulatory scrutiny, and this patent bubble will pop.”
He went on to claim that the Justice Department is “looking into whether Microsoft and Apple acquired the Nortel patents for anticompetitive means.”
Microsoft executives felt compelled to fire back.
“Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, wrote in an Aug. 3 Tweet. “Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no.”
The same day, Frank Shaw, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of corporate communications, also Tweeted: “Free advice for David Drummond—next time check with Kent Walker before you blog.”
He included a link to an Oct. 28 email sent to Brad Smith by Kent Walker, Google’s general counsel, suggesting that “a joint bid wouldn’t be advisable for us on this one.”
Rather than let Microsoft blow a hole beneath the waterline of his tight little narrative, Drummond updated his original post Aug. 4: “If you think about it, it’s obvious why we turned down Microsoft’s offer,” he wrote. A joint acquisition of the patents “that gave all parties a license would have eliminated any protection these patents could offer to Android against attacks from Microsoft and its bidding partners.”
A number of analyst estimates have Android leading the mobile market. According to recent data from Nielsen, for example, Android held 39 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, followed by Apple’s iPhone with 28 percent, RIM with 20 percent, and Microsoft with 9 percent. Similarly, research firm comScore placed Android’s share of the U.S. market at 40.1 percent, followed by Apple with 26.6 percent, RIM with 23.4 percent and Microsoft with 5.8 percent.
Combined with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s recent admission that Windows Phone’s market share is “very small,” it seems Android is handily winning the mobility wars despite Microsoft’s patent maneuvers. That being said, Microsoft seems to have found a viable source of revenue in its latest string of Android lawsuits and “royalty agreements,” something the company is likely to vigorously push in quarters ahead; Jack Gold, founder and principal analyst of J. Gold Associates, recently theorized that Microsoft’s cash stream from Android royalties could even top that of Windows Phone.
Meanwhile, Google’s core business—search—continues to outpace Microsoft’s Bing, although the latter has enjoyed incremental market share gains over the past several quarters. Microsoft has demonstrated a willingness to burn hundreds of millions of dollars to keep itself in the search game, something that makes its investors nervous—but doesn’t seem to have any appreciable effect on Google’s ability to earn lots of cash from advertising.
So Android continues to handily dominate Microsoft in the actual mobility and search markets, but Microsoft has a variety of good legal cards to play in order to make life more difficult, both for Google and its manufacturing partners. In other words, look forward to some messy battles (and more irate blog and Twitter posts) to come.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Chrome 13 Stable as Google Pays 17K for Bug Fixes
Google's Chrome browser version 13 is stable, featuring Instant Pages predictive search technology, print preview for Windows and Linux machines, as well as a better omnibox. Also featuring: 30 bug fixes.
Google has taken Chrome version 13 stable (technically Chrome 13.0.782.107), fixing several bugs and turning the search engine's new Instant Pages feature on as the browser’s default. The next step in Google’s predictive-search technology, Instant Pages is based on a Google-developed prerendering technology that prepares the top search result in the background while a user chooses which link to click. The company says this saves users two to five seconds on typical searches.
Ideally, this technology removes the latency many Web pages exhibit when users click on them. This could, in turn, possibly entice more people to tap Chrome—which has a 13.5 percent market share worldwide—as their search browser of choice.
Also with Chrome 13, print preview is available for Windows and Linux users. The technology, which is, as usual, not yet available yet for Macs, leverages Google's built-in PDF viewer and a "print to PDF" option.
Finally, Chrome's omnibox address bar and search box have been improved to more easily let users go back to pages they’ve visited before. Users need only type part of the Web page's address or title to find matching pages from their search history in the dropdown menu. While there had been some talk about the omnibox going away, clearly that's not the case in this iteration.
A major focus of the 5,200 improvements in the browser is bug fixes. Google and participating third-party experts found and plugged 30 of them, as the search engine paid out $17,000 to “bug squashers.” "Miaubiz" earned $7,500 for detecting various exploits, including $1,000 each for so-called "use after free" exploits.
Sergey Glazunov, a fixture among the bug hunters, netted $3,000 total. That included $1,500 apiece for finding a cross-origin script injection and cross-origin violation in base URI handling. See the complete list of found flaws and payouts in this blog post.
In other Chrome-related news, Google is now making it possible for developers in a host of countries to complete merchant account sign up and start adding their paid apps to the Chrome Web Store.
Google—which last month created the In App Payments API to enable developers to receive payments for applications they sell in the Chrome Web Store in 140 countries—also added the ability to target or exclude specific markets.
Specifically, Chrome Web Store developers can publish their apps only to the following regions: Argentina, Australia, Austria (new), Belgium (new), Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic (new), Denmark (new), Finland (new), France, Germany, Hong Kong (new), India, Indonesia (new), Israel (new), Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand (new), Norway (new), Philippines (new), Poland, Portugal, Russia (new), Singapore (new), Spain, Sweden (new), Switzerland (new) and the U.S. and U.K.
Google has taken Chrome version 13 stable (technically Chrome 13.0.782.107), fixing several bugs and turning the search engine's new Instant Pages feature on as the browser’s default. The next step in Google’s predictive-search technology, Instant Pages is based on a Google-developed prerendering technology that prepares the top search result in the background while a user chooses which link to click. The company says this saves users two to five seconds on typical searches.
Ideally, this technology removes the latency many Web pages exhibit when users click on them. This could, in turn, possibly entice more people to tap Chrome—which has a 13.5 percent market share worldwide—as their search browser of choice.
Also with Chrome 13, print preview is available for Windows and Linux users. The technology, which is, as usual, not yet available yet for Macs, leverages Google's built-in PDF viewer and a "print to PDF" option.
Finally, Chrome's omnibox address bar and search box have been improved to more easily let users go back to pages they’ve visited before. Users need only type part of the Web page's address or title to find matching pages from their search history in the dropdown menu. While there had been some talk about the omnibox going away, clearly that's not the case in this iteration.
A major focus of the 5,200 improvements in the browser is bug fixes. Google and participating third-party experts found and plugged 30 of them, as the search engine paid out $17,000 to “bug squashers.” "Miaubiz" earned $7,500 for detecting various exploits, including $1,000 each for so-called "use after free" exploits.
Sergey Glazunov, a fixture among the bug hunters, netted $3,000 total. That included $1,500 apiece for finding a cross-origin script injection and cross-origin violation in base URI handling. See the complete list of found flaws and payouts in this blog post.
In other Chrome-related news, Google is now making it possible for developers in a host of countries to complete merchant account sign up and start adding their paid apps to the Chrome Web Store.
Google—which last month created the In App Payments API to enable developers to receive payments for applications they sell in the Chrome Web Store in 140 countries—also added the ability to target or exclude specific markets.
Specifically, Chrome Web Store developers can publish their apps only to the following regions: Argentina, Australia, Austria (new), Belgium (new), Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic (new), Denmark (new), Finland (new), France, Germany, Hong Kong (new), India, Indonesia (new), Israel (new), Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand (new), Norway (new), Philippines (new), Poland, Portugal, Russia (new), Singapore (new), Spain, Sweden (new), Switzerland (new) and the U.S. and U.K.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Gartner: Windows Phone 7 sales modest, but promising
Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 sold 1.6 million units in the first quarter of 2011, according to Gartner. Though this represents only "modest sales," Nokia's support for the new smartphone OS will help it move forward in the future, the research firm adds.
Microsofts Windows Phone sold 1.6 million units in the first quarter, according to new data from research firm Gartner. The smartphones, which represent Microsoft's attempt to take market share from the likes of Google Android and the Apple iPhone, originally made their debut in late 2010.
Windows Phone "devices launched at the end of 2010 failed to grow in consumer preference and CSPs [communication service providers] continued to focus on Android," reads Gartners May 19 research note. However, "in the long term, Nokias support will accelerate Windows Phones momentum."
Microsofts deal with Nokia will see Windows Phone ported onto the latters hardware. As Nokia begins to abandon its homegrown Symbian platform in favor of Microsofts offering, however, it could create an opening for the companies competitors to seize additional market share.
"This will precipitate a competitors rush to capture Symbians market share in the mid-tier," Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner, wrote in the May 19 research note. Should Google or Apple succeed, it could prove an unwelcome consequence to an agreement designed to bolster Microsofts and Nokias fortunes in the space.
Worldwide smartphone sales to end users by operating system in 1Q11 (thousands of units)
Source: Gartner
Gartner's numbers (above) show that about 3.6 million phones with Microsoft operating systems were sold during the first quarter of 2011. This suggests that, ironically, Redmond's earlier Windows Mobile 6.5 is still more popular than Windows Phone 7, despite regularly being criticized as obsolete. (Windows Mobile has a large application base and many enterprise-friendly features, so it obviously still appeals to conservative customers.)
Meanwhile, Microsoft is developing a substantial Windows Phone 7.5 update, code-named "Mango," which will introduce a broad range of consumer and enterprise functionality, including the ability to search a server for email items no longer stored on the device, and share and save Office documents via Office 365 and Windows Live SkyDrive. "Mango" (below) will also include Bing Audio, which identifies any songs playing in the vicinity, and Bing Vision, an augmented-reality feature that lets a smartphones camera scan bar codes and QR Codes.
Windows Phone 7.5's conversation view (left) and Lync capabilities (right)
Source: Microsoft
Despite the challenges facing Windows Phone, the past quarter was a good one for smartphones as a whole. "Smartphones accounted for 23.6 percent of overall sales in the first quarter of 2011, an increase of 85 percent year-on-year," Cozza wrote. "This share could have been higher, but manufacturers announced a number of high-profile devices during the first quarter of 2011 that would not ship until the second quarter of 2011."
The current advantage lies with smartphones that offer a broad apps ecosystem. "Every time a user downloads a native app to their smartphone or puts their data into a platforms cloud service, they are committing to a particular ecosystem and reducing the chances of switching to a new platform," she added. "This is a clear advantage for the current stronger ecosystem partners Apple and Google."
Recent data from The Nielsen Company had six percent of consumers indicating they wanted a Windows Mobile/Windows Phone 7 smartphone as their next device, compared with 31 percent for Android, 30 percent for Apples iOS and 11 percent for Research In Motions BlackBerry.
Further information
The Gartner numbers cited in this story derive from the firm's "Market Share Analysis: Mobile Devices, Worldwide, 1Q11" report, available on Gartner's website for $1,295.
Microsofts Windows Phone sold 1.6 million units in the first quarter, according to new data from research firm Gartner. The smartphones, which represent Microsoft's attempt to take market share from the likes of Google Android and the Apple iPhone, originally made their debut in late 2010.
Windows Phone "devices launched at the end of 2010 failed to grow in consumer preference and CSPs [communication service providers] continued to focus on Android," reads Gartners May 19 research note. However, "in the long term, Nokias support will accelerate Windows Phones momentum."
Microsofts deal with Nokia will see Windows Phone ported onto the latters hardware. As Nokia begins to abandon its homegrown Symbian platform in favor of Microsofts offering, however, it could create an opening for the companies competitors to seize additional market share.
"This will precipitate a competitors rush to capture Symbians market share in the mid-tier," Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner, wrote in the May 19 research note. Should Google or Apple succeed, it could prove an unwelcome consequence to an agreement designed to bolster Microsofts and Nokias fortunes in the space.
Worldwide smartphone sales to end users by operating system in 1Q11 (thousands of units)
Source: Gartner
Gartner's numbers (above) show that about 3.6 million phones with Microsoft operating systems were sold during the first quarter of 2011. This suggests that, ironically, Redmond's earlier Windows Mobile 6.5 is still more popular than Windows Phone 7, despite regularly being criticized as obsolete. (Windows Mobile has a large application base and many enterprise-friendly features, so it obviously still appeals to conservative customers.)
Meanwhile, Microsoft is developing a substantial Windows Phone 7.5 update, code-named "Mango," which will introduce a broad range of consumer and enterprise functionality, including the ability to search a server for email items no longer stored on the device, and share and save Office documents via Office 365 and Windows Live SkyDrive. "Mango" (below) will also include Bing Audio, which identifies any songs playing in the vicinity, and Bing Vision, an augmented-reality feature that lets a smartphones camera scan bar codes and QR Codes.
Windows Phone 7.5's conversation view (left) and Lync capabilities (right)
Source: Microsoft
Despite the challenges facing Windows Phone, the past quarter was a good one for smartphones as a whole. "Smartphones accounted for 23.6 percent of overall sales in the first quarter of 2011, an increase of 85 percent year-on-year," Cozza wrote. "This share could have been higher, but manufacturers announced a number of high-profile devices during the first quarter of 2011 that would not ship until the second quarter of 2011."
The current advantage lies with smartphones that offer a broad apps ecosystem. "Every time a user downloads a native app to their smartphone or puts their data into a platforms cloud service, they are committing to a particular ecosystem and reducing the chances of switching to a new platform," she added. "This is a clear advantage for the current stronger ecosystem partners Apple and Google."
Recent data from The Nielsen Company had six percent of consumers indicating they wanted a Windows Mobile/Windows Phone 7 smartphone as their next device, compared with 31 percent for Android, 30 percent for Apples iOS and 11 percent for Research In Motions BlackBerry.
Further information
The Gartner numbers cited in this story derive from the firm's "Market Share Analysis: Mobile Devices, Worldwide, 1Q11" report, available on Gartner's website for $1,295.
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