Idiots! HP could've taken run at Apple and Google with WebOs touchpad.

Sigh!

At some point, somebody other than Apple is going to produce a tablet that really captures the public imagination. It could be Amazon, if early signs of strong demand for the new Kindle Fire hold up, but for now, the second-most popular consumer tablet in the U.S. is one that isn't even getting made anymore.
Hewlett-Packard's discontinued TouchPad was the best-selling non-Apple tablet in the U.S. from January to October, according to a new report from The NPD Group. Excluding iPad sales, HP had 17 percent of tablet market in terms of unit sales at retail, the research firm reported Tuesday, just a hair ahead of Samsung, which captured 16 percent of the market.


FULL STORY:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2396796,00.asp

The Battle for YOUR VoIP Integration dollars has begun...MS vs AVAYA vs CISCO!

Dear readers, all 3 of you. Things are about to get interesting.

Globally, despite 14 percent increase in shipments, revenue from enterprise telephony equipment fell four percent.

Cisco’s share held steady at 30 percent while Avaya’s rose from 19 percent to 22 percent.

Avaya passed Cisco as the IP telephony leader but Cisco retained its overall share lead because of its 80 percent share of the voice gateway market.

The next five vendors were all losing share in Q1 and Q2 2011.

The Forbes article then goes on to say that the VoIP sub-segment of the overall IP telephony market (it classifies IP Telephony as including IP Fax, SMS and or voice messaging with VoIP being the vast majority of the total revenue) remains hot with SIP trunking coming on strong to support what other researchers feel will be a shift from 31 percent of all business lines being VoIP now to 66 percent by 2015. It also points to the growth of smartphones and tablets and the upward pressure of enterprise socialization as driving the need for enterprises to switch to IP solutions (cloud as well as premises based) to accommodate the multimedia needs of these devices.

In other words, the troika of mobile-social-cloud is hastening the death of TDM communications equipment optimized for voice, and given that the last major upgrade/replacement cycle of most installed communications equipment was because of for Y2K fears, the reality is that the base has never been older and certainly is in need of a replenish. We actually reached what should have been a tipping point similar to what happened when the world shifted from analog to digital PBXs and Key Systems, but which has been forestalled to a certain extent by the use of gateways which preserve functionality of the core PBX and its software yet provide interoperability with the IP world.

Enter the 800 Pound Gorilla —That is NOT a Costume!
I will be brief here because this is a subject that is evolutionary and not revolutionary and will undoubtedly be returned to often. Now for the mischief that was promised
.
While Telegeopraphy sees a sales pick-up as a result of enterprise adoption of Unified Communications (News - Alert) (UC) and more VoIP, what I see is market mayhem.

 Numerous blogs have noted that at the recent Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, company officials (including CEO Steven Ballmer (News - Alert)) stated that the sales trajectories of Microsoft Lync licenses was clearly going to make it their next billion-dollar platform, and sooner rather than later.

For the unfamiliar, Lync is Microsoft's unified communications platform that combines voice, Web conferencing, and instant messaging. It was launched on a new server platform in 2010, is relatively inexpensive by industry and not just Microsoft standards and integrates will with Office 365. In fact, the only thing it is missing at the moment is a robustness in its PBC functionality in its hosted/cloud formulation, but this too shall come.
Why is this important? I am going to go here with a keen grasp of the obvious. After wandering in the PBX/VoIP wilderness for almost a decade, Microsoft has it right.

Better yet, from an IT department standpoint, especially for multi-nationals, the coming integration of Skype (News - Alert) is going to only add a level of brutality to traditional incumbents. And, make no mistake about it, Microsoft is lusting after the 10 million installed lines of Cisco as a target of opportunity. {  Dude it's called an EA they already have rights to ync 2010 or Wave 15 ;)  - KP the VoIP Outlaw}

And, did I forget to mention that industry statisticians, netmarketshare.com (who track everything from browser to OS to tablet shares) last time I looked gave Microsoft Windows 92.44 percent of the desktop operating system market. Okay so they don’t have a presence in the tablet OS or mobile handheld markets, but the hands they do hold are those of ID decision-makers and can you spell

INTEGRATION if at first they don’t succeed?

So what is missing from the Forbes piece and the Telegeography outlook? How about those folks in Redomnd, WA who brought us Outlook?

The facts are that all traditional providers of premises-based telecommunications equipment need to be doing something more than looking in their rearview mirrors. As the late, great African-American pitcher Satchel Paige used to say, “Don't look back; they might be gaining on you.”

This is not going to be a case of age before beauty. Yes, Microsoft has gotten things wrong in the past. Yes, even IBM managed to mangle the PBX business years ago and exasperated sold out to Siemens. However, time is running out. Technology is moving too fast and the installed base is ready to be yanked out. It is going to be interesting...." - Paul Bernstein TMC

FULL STORY : http://sip-trunking.tmcnet.com/topics/enterprise-voip/articles/235874-pbx-market-shares-microsoft-lync-what-not-yet.htm

HTML 5 Rules. Flash is Dead. {Except on Gaming Pcs } Long live HTML5

Adobe is trying to put a positive spin on the news that the company is stopping development on mobile Flash Player. From now on, Adobe will focus on HTML5 and AIR-based native apps for smartphones, while pushing forward with Flash Player on PCs.

"We are super excited about the next generations of HTML5 and Flash," Adobe's Danny Winokur wrote. "...There is already amazing work being done that is pushing the newest boundaries, and we can't wait to see what is still yet to come!"

Props to Adobe for keeping its chin up. But now that the company isn't developing Flash Player for mobile devices, it's only a matter of time before desktop Flash Player fades away as well.

Although desktop computing is still the best way to get work done, people are increasingly turning to smartphones and tablets for leisure. According to Comscore, phones and tablets now account for 7 percent of all U.S. Internet traffic, and that number will surely skyrocket over the next few years, affording less breathing room for desktop Flash.

FULL  STORY: http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,243529/printable.html

iApple : The Ying and Yang of the world 2nd biggest company

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

Since Steve Jobs' death last month, the airwaves and Internet have been filled with tributes to Apple's co-founder, including here. (See: Apple Founder Steve Jobs Dies: Reflections on His Legacy)

In addition, Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Jobs became an overnight sensation, topping bestseller lists here and abroad.

Another tribute of sorts can be found at New York City's Public Theater in the form of a one-man show: The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.

Created and performed by monologist Mike Daisey, the show is, in part, a hysterically funny love letter to Jobs from a self-described tech "geek" and Apple aficionado.

"I've grown up with Apple, love the devices and love the design," Daisey says. "I loved Steve Jobs and the way he was able to meld a human sense of taste and editing in creating these incredibly effective devices."
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/agony-ecstasy-steve-jobs-mike-daisey-says-techology-134300755.html
With the passing of Steve Jobs last month, there have been countless tributes to the man who created the company that changed the world. But along side all the amazingly beautiful, functional and revolutionary products Jobs created, there is a slighter darker side to Apple, which rarely makes headlines.

Mike Daisey, storyteller extraordinaire and lifelong "Machead", explores both the good and the bad surrounding Apple in his new Off Broadway play appropriately titled, "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs."

The professional monologist joined The Daily Ticker's Aaron Task to talk about the show he created and currently performs in at Manhattan's Public Theater. In the accompanying video, Aaron and Daisey discuss the "agony " aspect of Apple, which focuses on the reportedly horrendous labor conditions in the Chinese manufacturing plants where some Apple products are made. (For the "ecstasy" part of this interview, see: The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs: Mike Daisey Says Technology Is 'New Religion')

China's Foxconn: Workers Worked to Death
It was back in the spring of 2010 when at least 10 suicides were reported at Foxconn's manufacturing plant in Shenzhen China. Foxconn is the world's largest electronic manufacturer making product for Hewlett-Packard, Nokia and Apple's iPad.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/darker-side-apple-human-cost-iproducts-164412176.html

Microsft made a strategic choice, in deciding to give up mobile computing space leadership to Apple/Google

Microsoft's Courier tablet

(Credit: Gizmodo)

Steve Ballmer had a dilemma. He had two groups at Microsoft pursuing competing visions for tablet computers. 

One group, led by Xbox godfather J Allard, was pushing for a sleek, two-screen tablet called the Courier that users controlled with their finger or a pen. But it had a problem: It was running a modified version of Windows. 

That ran headlong into the vision of tablet computing laid out by Steven Sinofsky, the head of Microsoft's Windows division. Sinofsky was wary of any product--let alone one from inside Microsoft's walls--that 

threatened the foundation of Microsoft's flagship operating system. But Sinofsky's tablet-friendly version of Windows was more than two years away. 

For Ballmer, it wasn't an easy call. Allard and Sinofsky were key executives at Microsoft, both tabbed as the next-generation brain trust. So Ballmer sought advice from the one tech visionary he's trusted more than any other over the decades--Bill Gates. Ballmer arranged for Microsoft's chairman and co-founder to meet for a few hours with Allard; his boss, Entertainment and Devices division President Robbie Bach; and two other Courier team members. 

At one point during that meeting in early 2010 at Gates' waterfront offices in Kirkland, Wash., Gates asked Allard how users get e-mail. Allard, Microsoft's executive hipster charged with keeping tabs on computing trends, told Gates his team wasn't trying to build another e-mail experience. He reasoned that everyone who had a Courier would also have a smartphone for quick e-mail writing and retrieval and a PC for more detailed exchanges. Courier users could get e-mail from the Web, Allard said, according to sources familiar with the meeting

FULL STORY:  

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20128013-75/the-inside-story-of-how-microsoft-killed-its-courier-tablet/

Microsoft has released Update Rollup 6 for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1).
Description of Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1

Download Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1

"Time will tell us; if this was the right choice, however on thing is working for MS$ Lync plus Skype have made Cisco wake up and look over its shoulder..." - Dr. Strangelove