Monday, June 6, 2011

Steve Jobs Had "iCloud" Idea in 1997

It's a good illustration that, sometimes, things developers want to do, cannot be done at a particular point in time. Sometimes it takes a decade or more for the all the background enablers to line up. Apple will announce "iCloud" today, June 6, 2011.

Whati isSocial CRM?

sugarcrm-3stages.jpg"A lot of people talk about social CRM, but few know what it means' Jan Sysmans, director of product marketing at Sugar CRM, says.

 There are three ways in which social can be introduced within customer relationship management Jan said, on top of the manual access to information from various sources.

First is "what my customers are saying about themselves on various social media platforms." This is the listening component.

Click on the image for a larger view.

Second, there is "the way that your customers want to be talked to," a talking component. Finally, there is the way that your customers want to be engaged with, an engagement component.

Are the IT department's days numbered? - [En] Orange Business Live

It's the sort of question a proponent of cloud computing would ask, but Orange staffers speculate about whether enterprises will abandon their internal data centers completely for cloud alternatives in 10 years.

"It is looking increasingly likely that some organizations won't run any internal systems at all in their own enterprise data centers, but will instead source everything from the cloud," says
Anthony Plewes, of Orange Business Services.

Facebook is a case in point. The company was leasing its data centre services from third parties for years, until it decided to build its own.

It unveiled its Oregon-based facility in April 2011, and released the hardware specifications under an initiative called the "Open Compute Project," which Facebook hopes will create a standardized data center model.

Sprint to Sell HTC EVO 3D on June 24, 2011

HTC EVO View - HorizontalSprint will be selling the "HTC EVO 3D" and "HTC EVO View 4G" on the June 24, 2011, representing the first smart phone able to view and record full motion video in three dimensions, while the EVO View 4G will be the first tablet able to use the Sprint national 4G network.

The "glasses-free" 3D smart phone will be available for $199.99, and HTC EVO View 4G, the first 4G tablet in market, will be available for $399.99, with a new two-year service agreement or eligible upgrade.

Customers can pre-order HTC EVO 3D or HTC EVO View 4G at any participating Sprint Store with the purchase of a $50 Sprint gift card (per device).
HTC EVO 3D - Angle
On June 24, Sprint Stores nationwide will open doors at 8 a.m. local time for customers to get a jump-start on purchasing these hot new devices.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Browser is Top Smart Phone App Used in 5 European Countries

Mobile Benchmark Data for the European Market
3 Month Avg. Ending March 2011
Total EU5 (UK, DE, FR, ES and IT), Age 13+
Source: comScore MobiLens
Reach (%) of Mobile Subscribers
EU5FranceGermanyItalySpainUK
Sent Text Message82.4%82.8%78.8%79.7%80.9%90.0%
Used Application (excl. pre-installed)30.3%28.1%26.5%28.4%29.6%39.3%
Used Browser31.0%31.3%24.6%27.8%28.7%42.7%
Listened to Music25.6%22.7%26.6%23.4%32.3%24.4%
Accessed Social Networking Site or Blog19.8%19.5%13.3%18.3%18.1%30.2%
Accessed News14.9%14.1%12.3%13.9%11.5%22.0%
Played Games25.6%15.4%24.2%29.0%27.7%32.2%
Used Smartphone34.5%30.4%27.6%37.9%39.8%39.2%

Europe Sees 40 Percent Growth in Mobile Banking Through Smartphones - comScore, Inc:

Groupon has Issues, But not the Ones People Focus On

Since Groupon filed its notice of initial public offering (form S-1), there have been scores, perhaps hundreds of negative articles written about Groupon's business model and prospects. But though there are issues, the most-frequently-raised issues might not be the key concerns. Groupon is, of couse, in a "quiet period" and unable to respond.

But executives at Yipit as a daily deal aggregator of over 500 services, has a different view, after talking to hundreds of daily deal sites, big media companies, white label providers, local merchants, journalists, daily deal users and daily deal non-users. Local merchants do like the service, and the amount of discounts is not an issue for firms with high fixed costs.

EchoStar to Debut Small Cable Operator VOD

EchoStar Technologies will introduce a new video-on-demand solution aimed at smaller cable TV operators. The new "Aria" system features a high-definition digital video recorder with a high-resolution interactive program guide, a video-on-demand service.

The set-tops also will be "SlingLoaded," incorporating the ability to view at-home content at remote locations. The single-server solution supports Apple iOS, Google Android, BlackBerry and Windows mobile devices. The system also provides a remote DVR programming feature.

DIY and Licensed GenAI Patterns Will Continue

As always with software, firms are going to opt for a mix of "do it yourself" owned technology and licensed third party offerings....