While the bring-your-own-device phenomenon in IT presents a fair amount of risk to enterprise security, most companies are warming up to the idea anyway. A Cisco-sponsored survey of 600 IT and business leaders found that 95 percent of their companies allow employee-owned devices on the corporate network.
Of all companies surveyed, 36 percent support all BYOD devices, while 48 percent support a select list of devices. An additional 11 percent tolerate employee-owned devices on enterprise networks, but will offer no IT support.
The overwhelming number of corporations giving some type of support to BYOD is due to a large majority of IT executives themselves seeing the initiative as positive to their companies. Cisco says 76 percent of respondents called BYOD either somewhat or extremely positive, citing higher employee job satisfaction and increased productivity as reasons for their support. The benefits outweigh the risks, the data suggests, and it's better to keep your employees happy.
While employees may appreciate device choice, there's a much more personal reason behind the push for BYOD. Employees cite personal freedom as a major reason for wanting their own devices in the workplace. Corporate-owned hardware typically comes with usage policies that prevents personal use. That means checking Facebook or instant messaging is a no-no. Cisco says it found that 69 percent of BYOD users were using unapproved applications on these devices.
Simply put? It's much more difficult to track what your employees are doing when they're using their own devices. BYOD gives the employee the freedom to do as they wish.
This personal component seems to really be driving the BYOD phenomenon, but the need for mobile connectivity is also a factor. Cisco found that four in five white-collar employees use a mobile device in the course of their workday, with 65 percent of all white-collar workers requiring mobile connectivity in order to perform their jobs.
"As the number of devices being brought into work increases, organizations need a comprehensive mobility strategy", Cisco chief technology officer Padmasree Warrior says. Undoubtedly, this strategy needs to include some type of security component, as respondents listed security concerns as a top challenge in dealing with BYOD.
Photo Credit: CLIPAREA l Custom media/Shutterstock
Finally, initial sales of another smartphone smoke iPhone -- that is if leaked numbers prove true. Samsung Galaxy S III goes on sale in 11 days, but preorders reportedly already top 9 million. By comparison, the much-lauded iPhone 4S sold 4 million units, including preorders, during its first three days of availability. At this pace, Galaxy S III is poised to be the biggest smartphone launch to date.
Samsung announced the smartphone on May 3, when I asked: "Is iPhone 4S obsolete?" Surely someone thinks so, and their answer should chill the hearts of Apple apologists and investors. Samsung, not Apple, is the rising star in the cloud-connected device firmament. Perhaps iPhone 5 will change matters. But for now, Samsung, propelled by the Galaxy S brand, broad channel distribution and smart software innovation, is brightest star.
Samsung Sales eclipse Apple's
Many of you are among those early buyers. Four days ago I asked: "Will you buy Samsung Galaxy S III?" Among the 1,195 responses so far, 18.16 percent have preordered or plan to. Another 41.59 percent plan to buy within 3 months. Less than one-quarter, 24.02 percent, won't buy the S3. Granted, the responses represent more of a gadget audience and are unqualified -- meaning I don't know who you are.
But the numbers jive with other trends. Based on sales to end users, rather than shipments into the channel, Samsung snatched overall phone leadership from Nokia and smartphone top-ranking from Apple during first quarter. Samsung sold 38 million smartphones -- 86.6 million for all handsets -- to Apple's 35.1 million, according to Gartner. Something else: Samsung accounted for 40 percent of Android sales. That's right, four out of every 10 recent Android smartphone buyers got a Samsung.
Several factors work in Samsung's favor -- and that of Galaxy S III. While the handset will initially launch in Europe, Samsung plans to rapidly reach 296 carriers in 145 countries. Apple offers iPhone 4S through 230 carriers in 100 countries. Samsung marketing, particularly its make-fun-of iPhone users campaign, is effective. For example, the first two "Next Big Thing Commercials", which first aired November 22 and December 2, affected "iPhone’s consumer perception, sending it into decline around the time the first ad appeared and continuing now," Ted Marzilli, YouGov BrandIndex managing director, said then. "At the same time, Samsung’s perception has crept up gradually and just surpassed iPhone last week".
But it's Samsung's innovation in the absence of Apple's that makes the difference. Remember, iPhone 4S wasn't the big upgrade everyone expected. In some respects, neither is Galaxy S III. Sure there's a quad-core processor, LTE and larger display (4.8 inches to Galaxy S II's 4.3 inch or 4.5 inch). But Samsung chose to pack in the big benefits elsewhere.
Apple's Luck runs Out
For that, Apple execs should consider themselves lucky that Samsung doesn't have a marketing personality like Steve Jobs and worry there's no "reality distortion field" peddler for iPhone 5. Galaxy S III promises some truly innovative software features supporting the hardware, most of which would have received "My God, Apple has done it again" blog, news and social media response if introduced by Jobs. Much of Samsung's innovation extends from the foundation that Google laid with Android 4 "Ice Cream Sandwich". Meaning: Other Android licensees can do it, too.
Will you buy Samsung Galaxy S III?
Rather than blow out the hardware specs, Samsung focused on benefits that make the phone more responsive to the user. The original iPhone stood apart from all other handsets, not just smart ones, for its humanness. Touch, and its intimacy, and the way the handset responded to your proximity gave it a human quality. Suddenly the phone wasn't an inanimate object but more living thing.
Samsung seeks to bring this quality to Galaxy S III, and it's centerpiece to the product marketing. For example, the front camera detects whether the user is looking at the phone and keeps the screen lit. How many times has your display gone dark while reading a website or ebook? The phone also can automatically turn on, if recognizing your face. The feature, called "Smart Stay", is real innovation, not Samsung copying Apple. It's also stark example of Samsung out-Appling Apple by focusing on features that offer real benefits. This and other new features match responsive capabilities to hardware sensors.
Still, hardware-wise, Galaxy S III is no slouch: 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display (306 ppi) with 1280 x 720 resolution; 1.4GHz quad-core processor; 1GB RAM; 16GB or 32GB storage (64GB in future), expandable with microSD card; HSPA＋ 21Mbps (850/900/1900/2100), 4G LTE, GSM/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900); 8-megapixel rear-facing and 1.9MP front-facing cameras; LED flash; zero shutter-lag; 1080p video recording; accelerometer; ambient-light sensor; gyroscope; GPS; proximity sensor; digital compass; NFC, Bluetooth 3.0; WiFi N; 2100 mAh battery; carrier locked; Android 4.0 and TouchWiz "nature" UI. Measurements: 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm, 133 grams.
The entire package definitely entices many of you. "The iPhone is a great phone to look at but looking at a phone quickly becomes boring", Roger Seabrook comments. "I have an S3 on preorder". Dallas Twiford: "I'll be buying this phone, it's a freaking beast".
I ask again: Will you buy Galaxy S III? Please answer in comments below and take the poll above, if you haven't already.
Photo Credit: Samsung
Today is Facebook Day, the day when the most-successful-social-network-so-far opened up to public investment and outshone all other American IPOs up to this point.
With shares initially priced at $38, Facebook (FB) opened at $42.99 on the Nasdaq at 11:30am EST on Friday. After a brief delay in trading on Friday, a reported 82 million shares (of 421.2 million) were traded in the first 30 seconds of availability, totaling $116 billion.
This surge and retreat in price is thought to have been the result of a communication lag for traders an anonymous Wall Street source told Business Insider on Friday.
But the high initial valuation, reportedly buoyed by 33 different investment banks underwriting the IPO does nothing to quash doubts about the long-term value of the popular social network in the face of shifting user behaviors.
Facebook, as we learned in the company's IPO amendment last week, has not proven its value in the mobile world at all.
"We do not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability to do so successfully is unproven. We believe this increased usage of Facebook on mobile devices has contributed to the recent trend of our daily active users (DAUs) increasing more rapidly than the increase in the number of ads delivered. If users increasingly access Facebook mobile products as a substitute for access through personal computers, and if we are unable to successfully implement monetization strategies for our mobile users, or if we incur excessive expenses in this effort, our financial performance and ability to grow revenue would be negatively affected."
With today's Facebook IPO, the recent valuation of Pinterest at $1.5 billion, and the misfire of a Groupon IPO, skeptical onlookers are crying "bubble!" while a handful of small groups and individuals rake in the millions, and in some cases, billions.
ESET has released NOD32 Antivirus 6 and Smart Security 6 to public beta, and is attempting to lure early adopters by offering a chance to win one of 500 one-year licences for Smart Security.
Top of the new feature list must be Anti-Theft, a web service which aims to help you locate missing devices. If you’ve enabled anything similar on your phone or tablet then you’ll know what to expect – you can log on with a browser, perhaps see the position of your device on a map, view grabs of the laptop’s screen, and so on but it’s still a welcome addition to the packages. (Although it’s in NOD32 solely for the beta: normally Anti-Theft will be in Smart Security only.)
And even if you don’t plan on making use of Anti-Theft, protect at least one device with it and you’ll automatically be entered in a prize draw to win a full one-year licence of Smart Security 6. The contest runs between May 17 and June 17, 2012, and there will be 100 winners every week, with the company notifying the lucky ones via email.
Elsewhere, the program’s new idle detection means it’s able to scan your system when you’re not around. Update rollback means you can easily revert to a previous edition of your database. And Smart Security’s firewall, along with the antivirus heuristics and cloud-based file reputation system have all seen notable improvements.
As ever, it’s important to keep in mind that these are betas, with some significant bugs. ESET report that the programs may current crash when restoring an object from quarantine, for instance, which could prove fatal if it’s a system-critical file that’s been tagged in error. Make sure you’ve a full system backup available before you install either package.
If that’s not a problem, though, first builds of Smart Security 6 and NOD32 Antivirus 6 are available now. Don’t forget to protect something with Anti-Theft right away to give yourself the maximum chance of winning a Smart Security licence.
Photo Credit: Andrea Danti/Shutterstock
LastPass.com, developer of the LastPass family of password-storage products, has released a new free app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. LastPass Wallet is designed to give iOS users a taster of the LastPass feature set by providing a tool for viewing, creating and managing secure notes, one of the service’s lesser known features.
The app provides templates for users to quickly create notes for sensitive personal information often found in the user’s wallet or purse, such as credit card details, passport number and wireless passwords.
On logging into the app for the first time using an existing free or premium LastPass account, you’ll see LastPass Wallet sync with their account and bring over any existing secure notes, which can be edited if required. The app also allows new notes to be created, providing a number of templates for common types of personal information, plus a catch-all “Generic” option for other types of information.
These templates basically steer you towards filling in specific fields. Once complete, the note can be saved or additional media items, notably photos and audio clips, can be attached to it. The note can also be organised into groups, making it easier to spot in an ever-growing list.
The big question, of course, is how secure is all this data? LastPass points out that all your data is always stored encrypted in the cloud -- the actual decryption and encryption takes place locally on your computer or device. That means your data is as safe as your master password makes it, which is why we don’t recommend ticking the box to save your logon information when prompted, and setting up a four-digit passcode via the Settings section to ensure you have to provide a pin code when switching back from another app.
Of course, if you have no specific need to use LastPass Wallet, we’d preach against using it for the sake of using it, but if you want a new means of securely storing the contents of your wallet in digital format on your iPad or iPhone, then LastPass Wallet is a good choice, for new as well as existing LastPass users.
LastPast Wallet is a free download for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch users. A LastPass account – free or premium – is required to use the service.
Plain, ordinary text files aren’t normally the most interesting ways to convey information, but if you’d like to change that then Toolwiz FlipBook may be able to help.
Just point the program at a particular TXT file, and in a click it’ll be converted into an executable file. And launching this on any Windows PC will display your file’s contents in a 3D book. Readers can navigate the book via keyboard or mouse, and will see an animated flipping effect as the pages turn.
Exactly how useful this might be is open to question. FlipBook only imports text files, for instance, so your books can never include any graphics (the program doesn’t even allow you to customize the image on the book’s cover). If you want to produce a more engaging document then it might be better to author a PDF file, instead, which will provide far greater scope for creativity than you have here.
FlipBook’s final creations aren’t too impressive, either. The books only have a marginal 3D effect. And the page flipping animation is poorly implemented: run a book on a high-end PC and pages flip so quickly you can barely see it happen.
Toolwiz FlipBook also suffers from a total absence of documentation. What happens if you check the builder’s “Find the chapter automatically” option? Hold down the left mouse button while dragging over a book’s page and you can scribble on it, but is there a way to save these annotations? And is that connected with the mysterious “Comment Mode” menu link, which didn’t seem to do anything when we clicked on it? We’ve no idea.
If you already have a bunch of text files, though, stories you’ve written for your kids, say, then Toolwiz FlipBook does provide a quick and easy way to make them look at least a little more appealing. And who knows? When the Help file finally arrives in some future update you may discover even more useful features just waiting to be accessed.
Photo Credit: Photosani/Shutterstock
Stated differently: Will you invest in Facebook? The third-largest IPO in history begins today. Facebook set a price of $38 share, which values the social network at about $104 billion. Twenty-eight year-old cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be super wealthy, if Facebook gets its price (and likely much more) as I post ahead of the market's open.
Facebook makes available 421.2 million shares. Zuckerberg maintains voting majority, 503.6 million, which at $38 is $19.1 billion, making him the 29th richest person -- wealthier than Google's cofounders.
I wouldn't buy Facebook, even if I could. I can't for conflict-of-interest reasons. Investing in companies we cover is taboo. I go further, owning no stocks whatsoever. Too bad, as Apple looked like a real bargain to me in 2003. Will you buy Facebook? The stock symbol is "FB", by the way, as trading opens.
Facebook is one of the most profound success stories of the Internet era, along with Google. College students founded companies that transformed societies all without the typical barriers that often stifle innovation. Facebook shows the Web can be the great equalizer.
Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig makes the point in his review of movie "The Social Network". He uses Nantucket Nectars, founded by Tom First and Tom Scott, as vehicle for comparing the old and new worlds of starting a business in Massachusetts:
After graduating from Brown in 1989, they started a delivery service to boats on Nantucket Sound. During their first winter, they invented a juice drink. People liked their juice. Slowly, it dawned on First and Scott that maybe there was a business here. Nantucket Nectars was born. The two Toms started the long slog of getting distribution. Ocean Spray bought the company. It later sold the business to Cadbury Schweppes.
At each step after the first, along the way to giving their customers what they wanted, the two Toms had to ask permission from someone. They needed permission from a manufacturer to get into his plant. Permission from a distributor to get into her network. And permission from stores to get before the customer…
Zuckerberg faced no such barrier. For less than $1,000, he could get his idea onto the Internet. He needed no permission from the network provider. He needed no clearance from Harvard to offer it to Harvard students. Neither with Yale, or Princeton, or Stanford. Nor with every other community he invited in. Because the platform of the Internet is open and free, or in the language of the day, because it is a ‘neutral network,’ a billion Mark Zuckerbergs have the opportunity to invent for the platform.
Zuckerberg still isn't asking permission, as he seeks to rewrite societal attitudes about privacy. This not asking defines the social network and its disruptive nature.
Facebook is just eight years old, not even six open to anyone. I joined on Sept. 30, 2006 -- not that I have used it that much over the years. How about you? When did you join? But the most recent redesigns, including the Timeline, have me more interested in the social network, even as I spend much more time on Google+. Facebook is growing, maturing, and from that perspective is ripe for today's IPO.
But as Facebook is a disruptive force, it faces another. The IPO will change Facebook. Zuckerberg will no longer be able to do what he wants -- to act without asking permission. Even with controlling share, Facebook is a public company with all the pressures (and regulations) that brings. The social network is beholden to investors now and the quarterly pressures that come with it.
That's the price Zuckerberg pays for going public -- the risk he takes for the rewards.
Comcast said Thursday it plans to make changes to its pricing structure to start billing for the amount of data customers use, versus the capped method in place today. The cable company will test two different pricing structures in some markets, while hard enforcement of the 250GB cap put into place in 2008 would end.
Both piloted pricing structures give users 300GB of data at a flat rate. Where they differ is in how this allotment is treated: one solution places this cap across all of Comcast's tiers, while the other carries the 300GB allotment for the Internet Essentials, Economy, and Performance tier and higher allotments for faster tiers above that.
In all cases, users are charged a flat rate for additional bandwidth beyond that initial allotment -- for example, $10 for 50GB, and so forth. The company says that while an overwhelming majority of its users still remain far below its set caps (some using as little as 2GB or 3GB a month), the cap itself cast a shadow over some of Comcast's recent announcements.
"Over the last several years, we have periodically reviewed [the capping] policy, and for the last six months we have been analyzing the market and our process and think that now is the time to begin to move to a new plan", Communications and Data Services head Cathy Avgirls writes in a post to the company's blog.
"This conclusion was only reinforced when, in recent weeks, some of the conversation around our new product introductions focused on our data usage threshold, rather than on the exciting opportunities we are offering our customers", she continues. One of those "conversations" could have been its move to allow Xfinity movie streaming to the Xbox to not count against a subscriber's cap.
That prompted Netflix CEO Reed Hastings to accuse the company of favoring its own traffic over competitors, an accusation Comcast executives did not address in a conference call on Thursday announcing the move.
Instead they focused on marketing the new plans as a way to force heavy users to pay up for data they use, while giving users worried about hitting the cap more flexibility. Seems like Comcast finally realized that caps are bad for business, but their reasoning is not the answer Hastings or other industry watchers were looking for.
Comcast has found itself in trouble before over traffic favoritism, and accusations it throttles specific types of traffic such as BitTorrent. While the end of the cap is surely welcome news, it still does not answer the deeper questions of whether the cable and Internet provider's forays into the businesses of its competitors mean its own traffic gets prioritized over others.
That in essence is the whole argument for net neutrality, and Comcast's move Thursday is sure to bring that debate back to the forefront, regardless of whether the caps are there or not.
Photo Credit: krimar/Shutterstock
Sometimes, BetaNews readers really amaze me. Three days ago I posted "The measure of Windows Phone failure is..." based on comScore US smartphone OS market share data. To me, it was a trivial story, because I was days late writing about the numbers and posted it more as filler, being short writers (because of holidays and emergencies). More than 220 comments later, Windows Phone is hot-topic of debate among you.
Yesterday, Gartner released first-quarter global phone sales data that puts to end any real debate about Windows Phone's present: Combined smartphone OS share with Windows Mobile was 1.9 percent, down from 2.6 a year earlier but flat sequentially. The quarter-on-quarter data suggests, in context of Nokia Lumia launches, that Microsoft's mobile operating systems have finally hit bottom -- that perhaps the things won't get much worse and could finally improve.
Glimmer of Hope
Day after I posted the, ah, "failure" story, Kantar Worldpanel ComTech released data downright hopeful for Windows Phone. During the first three months of the year, market share rose to between 3 percent and 4 percent in Britain, France, Italy and the United States and to 6 percent in Germany. That's up from about 2 percent in nine countries, sequentially. Problem: Kantar Wordpanel doesn't exactly measure sales, but uses consistent panels of users to calculate market share. The approach is still much more accurate than shipments, which is the measure most analyst firms use.
Today, I asked Gartner for clarification on Microsoft share: Is it Windows Phone only or combined with Windows Mobile? "Windows Phone makes up around 85 percent of the overall Microsoft numbers you see", Carolina Milanesi, research vice president, says. She adds: "With Nokia accounting for around 60 percent".
What about Windows Phone's future? She wouldn't be specific, but says: "We will see a lift from Nokia, coming from the products being available in China from April and then later in the year with the new version of the OS and new products at different price points".
America and China
China is linchpin, because of the market's size, smartphone sales delayed from Chinese New Year and Nokia's already large presence in the country. All work to Windows Phone's benefit. But the second reason is unexpected opportunity. Sales for all manufacturers fell year over year and sequentially, and China is one reason.
"Global sales of mobile devices declined more than expected due to a slowdown in demand from the Asia/Pacific region", Anshul Gupta, Gartner principal research analyst, says. "The first quarter, traditionally the strongest quarter for Asia, which is driven by Chinese New Year, saw a lack of new product launches from leading manufacturers, and users delayed upgrades in the hope of better smartphone deals arriving later in the year".
Those delays could be good for Windows Phone, as Nokia ships Lumias in volume to China and a well-regarded brand seeks revival. Meanwhile, Lumia 900 is now available in the United States, backed by big marketing campaigns.
Gartner's sales data won't reflect the smartphone in the United States, since AT&T didn't start selling Lumia 900 until April. However, shipments should show up in first quarter data from other analyst firms -- reflecting stock shipped for store shelves. Side note: Numerous commenters faulted my referring to Lumia March sales in an earlier post; that was deliberate since reported data was for shipments (and preorders started in first quarter). However, I should have made that point clearer, which is reason for clarifying now. For Windows Phone's future, second quarter will reveal more, particularly in the countries where, according to Kantar Worldpanel, share rose in Q1.
Is There Room for Three?
The larger question about Windows Phone: Can it be No. 3? Analyst Mike Feibus thinks so, writing for BetaNews: "Windows Phone will gain serious market share this year". He believes that Verizon supporting Windows Phone will hugely impact sales. I'm skeptical.
Gartner's phone sales data suggests otherwise. Apple and Samsung accounted for 49.3 percent of smartphone sales during Q1, sign that the market is consolidating around them. While Samsung sells home-grown Bada and Windows Phone devices the majority are Android. In fact, Samsung accounts for 40 percent of all Android sales. Conceptually, that should allow room for a third major operating system, but the market is heading elsewhere, as more Asian manufacturers adopt Android. More likely scenario at this juncture: Samsung accounting for most Android sales and the rest splitting among smaller manufacturers, particularly from Asia, leading to fragmentation for most of the remaining market not consumed by Apple and Samsung.
Nokia still stands in the way of that scenario, and much depends on its continued smartphone and Windows Phone transition. However, Nokia market share slumped from 25.1 percent year over year to 19.8 percent in the broader handset market, or a 22.7 percent decline. Meanwhile, smartphones languish.
"Smartphone sales are becoming of paramount importance at a worldwide level", Gupta says "Smartphone volumes contributed to approximately 43.9 percent of overall sales for Samsung as opposed to 16 percent for Nokia".
Remember, Nokia accounted 60 percent of Windows Phone sales during first quarter.
It's hard to imagine that Windows Phone can go anywhere but up. How far is the question.
Cloud-based desktop software analytics platform Trackerbird completed its beta phase and launched to general availability on Thursday. The platform lets .NET software developers and vendors embed tracking mechanisms in their software to watch installations, trends in feature usage, user behaviour, demographics, and license conversions.
It's similar in concept to Concerity Analytics, which we launched here on BetaNews two years ago. By integrating Trackerbird's SDK into a desktop application, developers can collect anonymized reports and detailed conversion funnel analysis in real time. All software usage metrics collected by Trackerbird are totally anonymous and no IP addresses are stored. Developers can make Trackerbird analytics collection an option that the end user can choose to run.
In addition to the metrics, the Trackerbird platform includes a direct-to-desktop messaging service called ReachOut, which lets software vendors send out messages and surveys directly to the desktops of users who match certain behavioral or demographic profiles. This includes country and language, operating system, product version/edition/build, license type and license status. This lets software vendors strengthen marketing relationships with customers without encroaching on the end user's privacy.
"Trackerbird is not just another statistics collection tool. With Trackerbird we went a step further and developed a scalable analytics engine that can provide real-time answers to practical product management questions", Keith Fenech, CEO of Trackerbird said in a statement on Thursday. "We believe software companies have a lot to gain from using Software Analytics tools, however they should be very careful in choosing the right tools so as not to waste resources collecting vanity metrics. Data is only useful when it can be directly applied to business decisions."
Trackerbird Software Analytics is free for software with fewer than 400 installations. Premium plans for larger install bases begin at $49 per month.
Unsurprisingly, 4G LTE is the fastest growing cellular network technology, in part for what it delivers and deployment's timing. Strategy Analytics forecasts that 4G LTE will reach 1 billion connections, or 15 percent of all, by 2017. That compares to 12 years for GSM and about 11 years for WCDMA to reach as many.
But LTE isn't gain without pain. In the United States, Verizon by far and large has the most expansive 4G network, reaching 250 metro areas and 200 million Americans compared to 38 metros and 75 million people for AT&T. Adoption still is fairly low, perhaps because phone subscribers don't understand the value. Meanwhile, Verizon will axe grandfathered unlimited plans when subscribers upgrade to LTE. There's pain for the gain.
Attitudes are changing, particularly among carriers. "It has taken some time to warm up, but operator sentiment toward LTE has improved significantly over the last year," Phil Kendall, Strategy Analytics director, says. "The LTE smartphone market is providing this sudden lift, with LTE’s medium-term potential boosted by the much greater scale in today’s mobile market: WCDMA launched into a world of fewer than one billion mobile connections, whereas we have over six billion connections today".
Here in the States, more carriers offer LTE smartphones -- the majority Androids, a few Windows Phones and none iPhones. AT&T started with the HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket in November. Since, the carrier added nearly a half-dozen more. Verizon offers about 12 LTE smartphones, while, Sprint, which is in early-stage network deployment offers two, while US Customs bars a third, the HTC EVO 4G LTE, because of a patent dispute with Apple.
"The race is on for mobile operators to reduce cost per Gigabyte (GB) to match the rate at which revenue per GB is falling, Sue Rudd, Strategy Analytics director, says. "LTE is one of the key tools to deliver this improvement, with the early volume in LTE devices an encouraging sign for operators looking to maximize return on their LTE investments".
While carriers invest in LTE, one of the most popular smartphones doesn't support the technology. Apple fakes out iPhone users, after updating iOS to version 5.1 and changing the 3G to 4G, which satisfies AT&T marketing but not what is 4G. Fake 4G marketing -- from Apple, AT&T, T-Mobile and others leads consumers to believe they have something they do not, which dulls LTE benefits.
That's good for existing HSPA+ handsets, iPhone among them, but fosters confusion, as this Saturday Night Live parody so aptly illustrates.
Earthlink this week strengthened its cloud services offerings, debuting a hosted desktop solution that allows customers access regardless of device and via both the Internet and secure MPLS connections. Over 250 applications are supported, and customers may also install their own custom applications.
Since the middle of last year, EarthLink has been transforming its business from an ISP to cloud services provider. In July, the company promoted Brian Fink to executive vice president of managed and cloud services. Fink brought with him two decades of experience in managed services. Since then, the company has continued to make some high profile cloud hires, including the appointment Thursday of former Concentric Cloud president Michael Toplisek to vice president of IT services.
In late April, the company announced partnerships with Microsoft, VMware, and Zimbra on virtualization solutions for customers, and products aimed at bringing businesses into the cloud. The hosted desktop offering builds upon that announcement.
Cloud Workspace will offer redundant data storage and routine back-up and disaster recovery protection, and the infrastructure is SSAE 16 compliant, a standard developed for the protection of corporate accounting data.
"Cloud Workspace simplifies manageability, increases protection and delivers data and applications securely from the cloud, allowing users the convenience of using any device to access and run applications and data as if local to them, even while moving between devices", managed services product management vice president Mike Fuqua says.
It’s a strange day when some of the biggest news about the latest release of an application is a feature's removal, but this is the case with the latest version of FeedDemon. Some months ago, Google announced plans to make changes to its Reader service and this has ultimately led to FeedDemon removing the sharing features that relied on this particular service, but Google+ mostly been picks up the slack. The most recent version of FeedDemon also has a number of other changes and additions that are worth mentioning.
The program has long featured a recommendation engine that can point you in the direction of stories, articles and feed that you might well find interesting, and this has been improved to ensure greater relevance. When you use the built in browser to view web pages, a new Ctrl+0 keyboard shortcut is available that can be used to revert to a 100 percent zoom level. If you have the Pro version of the program – as opposed to the free Lite version – you also have a new newspaper style Photo Strip view to make use of.
If you have found the program has been slow to start you should now find that things are slightly faster, and there are a number of other bug and problem fixes that are worth mentioning. When you opt to hide all of the buttons on a toolbar, that toolbar now becomes hidden itself rather than remaining visible with no buttons, and the new tab page now includes handy Most Visited and Recently Closed options.
Other issues that have been addressed include problems with an incorrectly displayed system tray icon, problems with using the Send to Twitter and Send to Delicious options and more. To overcome compatibility problems with Internet Explorer 9, transition effects have now been removed, and there are the usual range of spit and polish changes that you would expect to find in any release.
You can find out more and download a copy of the app by paying a visit to the FeedDemon review page.
Photo Credit: nasirkhan/Shutterstock
Catering to the special marketing needs of nonprofit organizations, Blackbaud Inc. on Thursday released a new version of its Blackbaud CRM software which expands the software's functionality with a new browser-based dashboard, new fundraising and membership management functionality, and improved overall data management.
The major addition to Blackbaud CRM 2.93 is its Web dashboard. Previously, the software was only available as a Windows application, but now it can be accessed through Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Safari for iOS, and Android. The dashboard features a new, streamlined user interface and new batch commit functionality.
The membership processing functionality has also been redesigned, to allow quicker configuration of new member profiles and processing of dues, two functions essential to many nonprofit groups. Additionally, the software's treatment of duplicate data and merging of multiple records has been improved to streamline the all-important constituent database for direct marketing and solicitation.
For a full list of feature upgrades, check out the Blackbaud CRM 2.93 walkthrough.
iOS app Flipboard has already earned itself something of a name as a great way to aggregate multiple social networks and news media into a single, more easily managed stream. The latest version of the iPhone and iPad app sees the introduction of support for audio as well as the more usual text and image based content. Audio content can be scanned through just as you would the rest of your feeds, but it can also be played in the background while you continue with your browsing.
There is support for SoundCloud, NPR (National Public Radio) and PRI (Public Radio International), which gives you the opportunity to listen to a wide variety of podcasts, radio broadcasts and more. By connecting Flipboard with SoundCloud you can listen to sounds that have been created or shared by your friends. There is a whole new audio category for you to explore and this interesting change in direction for the social networking tool.
Just as with anything else you consume through Flipboard, the sounds you encounter through the app can be shared through the likes of Facebook, Twitter and other services. Just where the audio addition will lead remains to be seen. There is almost undoubtedly be online radio stations that are designed specifically for a Fliboard audience, and it won’t be long before artist start to use the app as a medium for collaborative or crowd-sourced work. The future looks and sounds exciting.
The latest update also improves accessibility options, and it is now possible to use the VoiceOver feature of iOS to listen to articles rather than having to read them. There is also a new fully localized Japanese version of the app as well as support for Readability. This last addition supplements the existing support for Instapaper and provides users with another option for time-shifting their reading.
You can find out more and download a free copy of the app at the Flipboard review page.
Australian software developer Auslogics has released major updates for two of its Windows performance tools. Auslogics BoostSpeed 5.3.0.0 is the company’s flagship tool, an all-in-one performance manager, whileAuslogics Disk Defrag 3.4.3.0 - whose functionality is included in BoostSpeed -- provides a free (for personal use) hard drive optimization tool.
The latest build includes numerous feature additions, performance improvements and bug fixes, plus introduces “partial” compatibility with Windows 8, with full compatibility promised for version 5.4.
Both BoostSpeed and Disk Defrag introduce a new free space availability check before the user creates a Rescue Center backup, allowing them to either abort the entire operation or proceed without the safety net of a backup. The Rescue Center is now also capable of creating and restoring backups that are larger than 2GB in size.
Defrag-specific improvements include improved SSD detection, which helps automatically enable a special defrag algorithm for solid-state drives, plus better use of system resources to boost overall stability.
Other changes are specific to BoostSpeed, starting with the integrated launcher (Integrator), which now offers to make a Restore point when first launched and automatically checks for updates. The Both Startup Manager and Uninstall Manager components feature a tweaked user interface that allows the user to get detailed ratings of individual start-up or application entries simply by hovering the mouse over the respective column. The interface also adds a new ‘Google it’ button to the toolbar for those wishing to learn more about the selected item.
The Uninstall Manager also introduces a new Forced Remove option for viewing, and deleting, a program’s files, Registry keys and system components even when the installer is no longer present.
Other modules also receive minor tweaks -- notably the File Recovery tool has an improved search conditions selection wizard to allow the user to jump to a specific part of the wizard using default settings, while the Registry Cleaner has regrouped the categories list to provide a more intuitive presentation.
The latest builds of both BoostSpeed and Disk Defrag also introduce performance improvements via optimized code and algorithms, plus the fixing of various memory leaks. They also claim to fix all known bugs as well as various installer errors.
Auslogic Disk Defrag 3.4.3.0 is a free (for personal) use download, while Auslogic BoostSpeed 5.3.0.0 is also available as a free trial download. Both require PCs running Windows XP or later. A three-PC, 12-month subscription to Auslogic BoostSpeed 5.3.0.0 is currently available for just $14.95 -- a saving of 70 percent on the MSRP -- through the Downloadcrew Software Store.
Photo Credit: Sergey Mironov/Shutterstock
When browsing the Internet you may well have noticed that some of sites you visit are secure, while others are not. While HTTPS is most often used for secure shopping and banking web sites, there is no reason that connections to other pages should not be encrypted to help improve privacy and security. If this is something that has concerned you, HTTPS Everywhere could be just what you have been looking for.
This free browser extension can be used to ensure that a secure connection is used whenever available. There are a huge number of websites that offer support for encrypted HTTPS connections, and yet will default to sending visitors to the regular, unencrypted HTTP version of the sites. HTTPS Everywhere uses a series of specially written rules to redirect your browser, provided you are using Chrome or Firefox, to the secure version.
There are number of remade redirection rules included that add support for a number of major web sites, but you can also define your own rules to add support for others that you may make use of. Support is a little hit and miss so you will have to experiment with the XML files used to write rules to see what you can come up with, but this is an easily enough process providing you don’t mind getting a little hands-on.
HTTPS Everywhere is currently available for Google Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox browsers. While Firefox users have a stable version of the extension to work with, the Chrome version is currently in beta but it still a handy tool to have installed. It is not a magic solution that will wipe out all security concerns that are involved in using the web, but it is help additional layer of protection that seems to work well and as compatibility improves, it will only become more useful.
You can find out more and grab yourself free copies of the extension by visiting the HTTPS Everywhere for Chrome or HTTPS Everywhere for Firefox review pages.
Photo Credit: Jimmi/Shutterstock
If you used PCs back in the 1980s then you’ll probably remember that file management was, well, a little basic. To put it politely. But that all changed in 1985 with the arrival of XTree, a powerful file manager that came packed with functionality: the geeks of the day loved its feature set, speed and extensive list of keyboard shortcuts.
It didn’t last, of course -- the program was essentially killed off by the arrival of Windows Explorer. Which, while nothing like as powerful as XTree, was free and included with every PC. But if you still have fond memories of those early file managers then there could be a way to recapture them, as XTree Gold clone XFile has just been released as freeware.
You’ll have to forget all those Windows and GUI conventions you’ve learned over the past few years, though, because XFile predates them all (and not least in its character-based interface).
You can’t multi-select files with the mouse, for example, or by holding down Ctrl or Shift as you click.
There are no context menus, so don’t waste your time right-clicking things.
And it’s not great at allowing you to work in multiple windows at the same time. If you open the Gallery, say, to display thumbnails of images in the current folder, then you have to close that before you can use the File Manager again.
Still, for all that, even now the program has some plus points. It’s optimized for keyboard use, for instance, with a host of keyboard shortcuts supporting just about every file management task. And there’s support for all the regular XTree Gold commands, so if you remember those (or you’ve used an XTree Gold-like file manager) then you could feel at home right away.
There are handy bonus features, too. Like the hex editor, for instance. The PDF and MDB viewers. And the occasionally useful integration with other tools: the Web menu, for instance, provides easy hotkey access to Ping, Traceroute and IPConfig.
And of course the rather basic technology underlying the program means it’s extremely undemanding. XFile can be run from a USB key, requires under 800KB of drive space and even after running multiple operations on our test PC, was consuming less than 16MB of RAM.
The program still has plenty of annoyances, and isn’t something we’d recommend for the typical PC user. But if you’ve used an XTree Gold-compatible file manager before, and remember the keypresses, then it could still be useful for a few file management tasks (and it’s also interesting as a quick PC history lesson). The 736KB XFile download is available now.
The figure is so important, I'm breaking it out from the long analysis posted mid-afternoon about the smartphone market consolidating around Apple and Samsung. The South Korean electronics giant is doing to Android on smartphones what Amazon does on tablets: Hugely fragment the market around a forked operating system. I warned about this three weeks ago in post "Google has lost control of Android". Now there is sales data to back it up.
Earlier today, Gartner released first quarter sales data for global handsets. Not shipments into the channel, but actual sales to end users. Market leader Samsung accounted for 40 percent of all Android smartphone sales, with no other manufacturer topping 10 percent. Sure Samsung's success lifts overall Android smartphone share -- 56.1 percent up from 36.4 percent a year earlier. But what's good for Samsung isn't necessarily in the best interests of the broader Android ecosystem.
Samsung Rises
Smartphones accounted for 43.9 percent of Samsung handset sales in Q1, according to Gartner -- that's out of 86.6 million handsets. Samsung smartphone sales rose 25.9 percent year over year to 38 million units. One OEM is largely responsible for overall Android sales gains. Based on recent gains, it's no longer a question of if but when one licensee accounts for half of all Android smartphone sales.
That would be great if Samsung shipped pure Android. Instead, the consumer electronics company skins the OS with TouchWiz UI, which customization will be greater on Galaxy S III than any of its companions. Samsung, and not Google, controls the Android user experience and when handset owners move up to the newest version; the majority still have Gingerbread and not Ice Cream Sandwich.
Additionally, Android's continued success largely ties to a single manufacturer whose priorities are broader and in some ways out of sync with Google's and the operating system's other licensees. For example, Samsung also sells smartphones with home-grown Bada and Windows Phone, all while paying Microsoft a patent bounty on every Android. Allegiance to Android isn't assured.
Fractured Android
This fragmenting -- no fracturing -- of Android isn't just confined to smartphones. Amazon started selling Kindle Fire in mid November. By end of December, the tablet already had captured 29.4 percent US share, based on number of unique devices, putting it ahead of the Samsung Galaxy Tab family (23.8 percent). Over the following two months, Kindle Fire took sales from every other Android tablet, ending February with stunning 54.4 percent Android tablet market share. Tab family ranked second followed by Motorola XOOM, with 15.4 percent and 7 percent share, respectively. So for each, Android smart phones and tablets, one manufacturer largely accounts for the majority market share.
That would be better for the larger Android ecosystem, if not for the forking of Android. Amazon more heavily customizes Android on Kindle Fire than anything Samsung does on smartphones. The online retailer attempts to create a curated experience, offering capabilities and extended services similar to Apple's. Samsung is moving that way, too, by bundling digital content stores with its devices, for example. However, should the Note platform succeed on smartphones and tablets, a truly forked Samsung Android would emerge as platform for developers creating apps exploiting pen and touch.
Forrester Research predicts that proprietary Android will surpass the Google Android ecosystem within three years. Frank Gillette writes in report "Tablets Will Rule The Future Personal Computing Landscape": "The popularity of these content-driven devices will cause proprietary Android share to surpass the installed base of Google’s Android ecosystem in 2015. This further fragmentation will challenge Android developers, customers, and especially enterprises, and hamper the creation of a shared ecosystem".
Looked at differently, according to comScore, Apple and Amazon accounted for 71.5 percent of the tablet market at the end of February. In smartphones, according to Gartner, Apple and Samsung had combined 49.3 percent smartphone share at the end of March. In both markets, leadership splits between two companies, Apple is one of them and a single Android-licensee is the other. Something else: All three seek to provide a curated hardware, software services.
Google's Nexus Response
Yesterday, Wall Street Journal reported rumors that Google would work with Android manufacturers to offer several different Nexus smartphones and tablets concurrent with release of Android 5 "Jelly Bean". Samsung produced the last two Nexus smartphones and HTC the first. That's absolutely the right thing to do. Google needs to regain control of Android from both Amazon and Samsung, while taking more leadership over the broader ecosystem and end-user experience.
Updating is where Google's Android control is weakest, and where the company lacks leverage to offer uniform experience across devices or to assure they have the latest OS version. Last month, Google engineer Jean-Baptiste Queru put doubts to rest about who's to blame: "The part that blows my mind is that some variants of the Google-engineered flagship devices still haven't received Ice Cream Sandwich (or are stuck with older versions of Ice Cream Sandwich) because of delays introduced by operator approvals".
The WSJ report claims Google would sell the Nexus devices direct, as it recently started doing with Galaxy Nexus smartphone. These Androids would stay up to date and be pure -- free of skins or other enhancements. Google wouldn't seek to replace cellular carriers but augment buying options -- and in process provide needed competition that might compel carriers to update Android versions faster.
The point: Google is doing the right thing, but took too long about it.
Photo Credit: Samsung
There are many manufacturer-created user interfaces for Android, and sadly, most of them are unpleasant.
Some are polluted with unremovable bloatware, some are sluggish performers, and some are just badly designed. For as many different versions of the Android user experience as there are, there are very few major builds that add remarkable innovations on top of the Android platform.
Wednesday, South Korean consumer electronics maker LG officially launched its new Android UI built on the Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) framework called LG Optimus UI 3.0. Though LG has not yet established itself as a power player in the Android smartphone world, this branded user interface manages to provide some actual innovation on top of Android that makes it worth checking out.
Optimus UI 3.0 was crafted with quick, on-the-fly usage in mind, so users can unlock the screen by dragging their finger anywhere on screen, or allows them to draw a pattern on the screen to launch directly into an app. This adds a twist to the existent ICS UI, which can be set to launch directly to the homescreen with no lock screen at all. Instead of bypassing the lock screen, LG is offering users the ability to bypass the homescreen.
LG has also given users the ability to fire off their camera with a voice command, making the sometimes tricky act of touch-focusing in the Android camera a bit simpler. Also, this gives users the ability to take their own photograph without having to set a timer, or hold the phone at arm's length.
Another innovative feature of the new UI based around the quick creation of information is called Quick Memo, which adds a sort of transparent layer over the homescreen that lets users draw or jot notes upon the screen and then share the notes via SMS, email, or social networks.
The Optimus UI 3.0 will debut this week on the LG Optimus LTE II in Korea, and then on the quad-core LG Optimus 4X HD worldwide in June.
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