SAP’s Afaria mobile device management tool is now available on Amazon Web Services’ cloud, offered as a way to make it easier to start using the platform, SAP said at the Sapphire conference on Monday.

The availability of Afaria 7.0 server on AWS gives enterprises a fast and simple way to buy and implement an enterprise-ready mobile management platform, according to SAP.

“We have a number of customers that don’t want to deal with and implement their own device management infrastructure in-house, because they view it as non-core, and instead they want a cloud-based offering,” said Kevin Ichhpurani, senior vice president, Ecosystem and Channels at SAP.

With the cloud version of Afaria 7.0, administrators can just go to Amazon’s Marketplace, enter their passcodes and start provisioning it. >more

IT Services and Consulting

In the last couple of years Barnes & Noble has made some big inroads into the e-book market, cutting into Amazon’s huge lead. As it stands, Amazon still has about 60 percent of the e-book pie, Barnes & Noble has around 25 percent, and Apple sits at around 15 percent, with smaller players like Sony and Kobo left to fight over the crumbs. Of course, those numbers are just estimates, and depending on who you talk to, Amazon’s share might actually be closer to 65 percent.

While a strong second place is not a bad position to be in, the problem for Barnes & Noble has been how much it cost to get there and how much it’s going to cost to pick up more market share from Amazon and Apple, which has steadily ramped up its iBooks digital reading platform and recently launched a major digital textbook initiative. Both Amazon and Apple, needless to say, have huge cash reserves to dip into for marketing, engineering, and R&D, while Barnes & Noble has appeared at times as if it’s simply battling for survival.

Enter Microsoft and its $300 million investment in what amounts to a spinoff of Barnes & Noble’s Nook digital media business, which includes e-books, textbooks, and all those digital newspapers and magazines its been selling on Nook devices. So far the new “subsidiary” of Barnes & Noble doesn’t have a name (it’s simply referred to as Newco) but you might as well call it Nooksoft (read more here about the announcement here).

Obviously, the cash injection is important because Barnes & Noble has been hemorrhaging money as it beefs up its Silicon Valley-based digital operation with expensive software engineers and hardware designers (a New York Times article noted that Barnes & Noble already has 300 employees in its Palo Alto, Calif., office). The new company also frees up additional cash for Barnes & Noble to compete with Amazon and Apple’s huge marketing machines and attract more talented engineers with potentially lucrative stock options. The other obvious benefit to the deal is it allows the bookseller to bring the Nook e-bookstore to Windows 8 devices, whether they be PCs, tablets, or smartphones, though Amazon’s Kindle app will be available for the Windows 8 platform as well.

Today’s announcement also marks the first time that Barnes & Noble has openly talked about going global, though it remains unclear when it will bring its Nook devices to overseas markets. In a conference call, CEO William Lynch said that few companies were “on more screens than Microsoft” and that the new partnership would allow Barnes & Noble to to extend the Nook digital bookstore to thousands of users in the U.S. and globally. Amazon is also making a big push into global markets and Apple, of course, is already selling millions of iPhones and iPads around the world.

Here in the U.S., in the wake of the government’s lawsuit against Apple and five of the “big six” publishers (and subsequent settlement with three of them), there’s talk of Amazon once again lower prices on e-books and selling certain titles at a loss. In the past, competitors had trouble matching Amazon’s prices, but Microsoft’s cash infusion would make it easier for Barnes & Noble to go toe-to-toe on pricing.

Ultimately, however, the biggest benefit of the deal may be a change in consumers’ psyche about Barnes & Noble. In the commodity world of e-books, branding is important, and many consumers fear that their purchases, which are stored in a “digital locker,” will vanish if a company goes out of business. When Borders went belly up, consumers were simply migrated over to Kobo because Kobo already powered Borders e-book store. But no one knows exactly what would happen if Barnes & Noble went down the tubes, and not a Nook story goes by on CNET without a commenter voicing some concern over Barnes & Noble’s longevity.

“I’ve always thought that the Nooks were a bit better designed than the Kindles,” said CNET reader tgibbs in a recent comment concerning the arrival of the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight. “But I bought a Kindle because I’m more confident that Amazon will be still be around in the future.”

With a giant like Microsoft backstopping the Nook, consumers may now have more confidence that the Nook platform will indeed be here to stay. And that type of peace of mind is just as essential in helping Barnes & Noble gain market share than money alone.

Source

Microsoft plans to release a nearly final version of Windows 8 this summer that will give consumers and businesses their final chance to kick the tires on the redesigned operating system before it’s released for sale, most likely later this year.

Windows group president Steven Sinofsky announced the Windows 8 Release Preview at a technology conference in Tokyo Tuesday. He said it would be freely available for download in June, but provided few other details. Sinofsky also Tweeted the news with a post that read, “Announce … Windows 8 Preview first week of June.”

Sinofsky’s announcement of a Release Preview, or release candidate, as some are calling it, immediately sparked speculation that Microsoft may be preparing to ship a final version of Windows 8 to computer makers as soon as October, with Windows 8 devices on the market shortly thereafter.  >more

April 19th and 20th | Galveston Island Convention Center at the San Luis Resort, Galveston, Texas.

Percento Technologies is sponsoring and will have a booth at the 2012 Texas Credit Union League Annual Meeting and Expo.

The event will offer the latest review of best practices, state-of-the-art technology solutions and a look into the future.  If you plan to attend, feel free to stop by to talk and visit with us.  And don’t forget to throw your buisness card into the bowl for a chance to win an Scotty Cameron Scotty Cameron Studio Select.

Managed IT Support

We hope you’re sitting down, because you’ll need to be to in order to hold  the Excite 13 in your hands.

Starting at a steep $649 and available June 10th, this is the largest Android  tablet yet, featuring a billboard-like 13-inch screen. What’s the point of being  3 inches bigger than the iPad?

Toshiba says this 2.2-pound device was designed primarily for home use,  whether you’re surfing the web, playing games, video chatting, or watching  movies. Here’s our first impressions of this Ice Cream Sandwich-powered  beast. Read more

Apple Inc.’s new iPad was named the best tablet computer in a ranking by Consumer Reports, two weeks after the magazine said the device runs “significantly hotter” than previous models.

The new iPad’s high-resolution screen provides the best detail and color accuracy of all tablets Consumer Reports has seen, the publication said today on its website. Consumer Reports also commended the device’s camera and faster connectivity. The new iPad costs $500 to $830.

Last month, Consumer Reports said the new iPad reached temperatures of 116 degrees (47 degrees Celsius) when handling processor-intensive tasks such as playing graphics-heavy games. While the iPad can reach 122 degrees in 90-degree weather, when playing a game at maximum brightness, the temperatures don’t pose a health hazard, the reviewers said.

The device’s temperature is close to the 121 degrees that a Samsung Electronics Co. Galaxy Tab 10.1 can reach in the same conditions, Consumer Reports said. An Asustek Computer Inc. Asus Transformer Prime can reach 117 degrees.

“With use of a laptop, evidence suggests that temperature on the bottom of its case of 120 degrees risks damage to bare skin with prolonged contact,”  Consumer Reports said in a statement today. “But we think the same temperature on a tablet is more a potential inconvenience than a concern.”

Satisfaction Ratings

Many customers didn’t wait for the reviews before buying the new tablet. Apple sold more than 3 million iPads during the product’s debut weekend.

The sales enthusiasm carried through to satisfaction ratings, according to survey results released today by ChangeWave Research, a unit of 451 Research LLC. Of the new iPad owners surveyed, 82 percent said they were very satisfied with the device, compared to the 74 percent approval rating of the previous iPad.

The high-resolution “retina” display was ranked the best feature on the iPad by new owners. The biggest dislike of the iPad was the cost, according to the ChangeWave survey.

Consumer Reports ranked the new iPad above other new tablets including the Toshiba Corp. Excite 10LE, the Pantech Co. Element, the Sony Corp. Tablet P, and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 7.7.

The magazine suggested that gamers turn down the brightness of the tablets if the heat bothers them.

When Cupertino, California-based Apple released the iPhone 4, Consumer Reports declined to recommend it, saying it dropped calls when gripped a certain way. After initially playing down the matter, which became known as “Antennagate,” Apple gave out free cases and issued a software update aimed at addressing the glitch.

Apple rose 3.2 percent to $618.63 at the close in New York. The shares have gained 53 percent this year.

Source

Apple Inc’s new iPhone will have a sharper and bigger 4.6-inch “retina” display and is set to be launched around the second quarter, a South Korean media reported on Thursday.

Sales of the iPhone, first introduced in 2007 with the touch screen template now adopted by its rivals, account for around half Apple’s total sales.

Apple has decided on the bigger 4.6-inch display for its next iPhone and started placing orders to its suppliers, the Maeil Business Newspaper said, quoting an unnamed industry source.

Its major display suppliers LG Display and Samsung Electronics Co declined to comment.

Samsung, which is also the biggest challenger to Apple in smartphones, uses 4.6-inch OLED display for its flagship Galaxy S II smartphone, introduced in April last year.

The high-definition “retina” display–containing several times as many pixels within the same area– is used in the latest iPad released earlier this month.

The latest iPhone 4S was introduced in October last year.

Source

IT Consulting Firm – Percento Technologies

The world’s largest and most resilient BitTorrent site plans to redefine “cloud computing” with a plan to move at least some of its servers onto unmanned drones miles above Sweden.

In a Sunday blog post, The Pirate Bay announced new “Low Orbit Server Stations” that will house the site’s servers and files on unmanned, GPS-controlled, aircraft drones.

One of the sites administrators, MrSpock, said with the advent of miniature computers such as the Raspberry Pi, a $35 micro computer the size of a thumb drive that includes a WiFi and SD card slot for storage, the site can take its servers far from any law enforcement.

“We’re going to experiment with sending out some small drones that will float some kilometers up in the air,” MrSpock wrote. “This way our machines will have to be shut down with aeroplanes in order to shut down the system. A real act of war.”

The Swedish site has operated since 2003 by an “anti-copyright organization” and despite numerous raids, remains one of the most popular music and movie pirating sites on the web. The site hosts thousands of “torrent” files—tiny files that allow users to connect to and download files from other users. The system is one of the most popular ways to anonymously share large files and often comes under fire from copyright holders, who argue that the service allows people to easily share copyrighted movies, music, games and software.

The site has repeatedly mocked American copyright laws and has said that American laws “[do] not apply [in Sweden].” Earlier this year, four of its staffers were sentenced to Swedish prison. Last year, the site apparently moved some of its servers to a mountain cave complex in Sweden.

“Experiencing raids, espionage and death threats, we’re still here,” the site wrote in a blog post last month. “We’ve been through hell and back and it has made us tougher than ever.”

The move to hovering servers could make it nearly impossible for authorities to shut the site down, a fact not lost on the site’s administrators.

“We can’t limit ourselves to hosting things just on land anymore,” MrSpock wrote. “When time comes we will host in all parts of the galaxy, being true to our slogan of being the galaxy’s most resilient system.”

Source

A glimpse at the upcoming Office product on Paul Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows reveals a new suite that tries to mimic the feel of Metro but runs as a traditional desktop program.

Microsoft Office 15 will come built for the desktop but offer a huge touch of the Metro flair, according to a description posted by Supersite for Windows author Paul Thurrott, who obtained a copy of an early preview version.

Accord to Thurrott, the technical preview of Office 15 kicks off like the current version, letting you choose which applications to install.

But after a full installation, you’ll find your Metro start screen cluttered with a huge number of live tiles for each application. That’s an inherent flaw in the Metro UI, which doesn’t allow tiles to be organized into folders. Install enough apps, and your Metro screen can easily be inundated by dozens, if not hundreds, of individual tiles stretching across your screen.

Thurrott even asks the question: “Will Microsoft clean this up? I would bet so.” Microsoft clearly needs to offer users a better way to manage the vast number of apps destined to take up space on the start screen. So I also have to believe this must be on the company’s to-do list for Windows 8.

Looking at a specific Office application, namely Microsoft Word, it displays a split view with a list of recent documents on the left and a stack of Word templates to choose from on the right. From the screenshot provided by Thurrott, this resembles the split screen you see when you run two Metro apps side by side.

As part of the clean screen approach seen in other Windows 8 apps, such as Internet Explorer 10, Word keeps its infamous ribbon minimized by default, available only when you want it. A new full-screen view hides the ribbon and all other elements, letting you focus just on your document.

Office 15 also taps into the integration between Windows 8 and your Windows Live ID account. By signing into the new OS with your Live ID, you can access your online Photo Gallery, SkyDrive, and other Live services.

The SkyDrive access should prove convenient for people who store their documents online. I use SkyDrive to sync my local files so they’re available both in the cloud and across other PCs. Office 15 will let you work directly with your documents on SkyDrive just as if they were stored locally.

The other applications in the suite, such as Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, carry on with the same visual style and clean screen approach.

Since this is a technical preview, which Microsoft only made available to a select few customers, the company likely still has more changes in store for the new Office suite. But at first glance, Office 15 seems like a step in the right direction, offering some of the simplicity of the Metro style but keeping its roots firmly as a desktop program.

The technical preview of the new Office is expected to blossom into a full beta sometime this summer, available for everyone to try out.

Source

IT Services