Apple Grabs 25% of the Smartphone Market, Android Doubles Market Share

comScore has released a report on the state of the US mobile market from September to December 2009, and it shows that the recently established trends of Android and iPhone growth don’t show signs of ceasing.
In December 2009 RIM was still the leading mobile smartphone operating system in the U.S., with 41.6% market share, a slight drop from 42.6% from September 2009. Apple has risen from 24.1% to 25.3% in that same period, and Google, although still in the fifth place, has doubled its market share – from 2.5% to 5.2%.

Microsoft lost one percentage point and dropped to 18% share, but the biggest loser of the bunch was Palm, which dropped from 8.3% to 6.1%, despite recent price cuts which made their smartphones one of the cheapest on the market. If Palm doesn’t do something to reverse this trend, it may soon be looking at the back of Android, which is growing like a weed, both in the US and internationally.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mashable/~3/FOgFn-4-OlE/

Join Us: http://bit.ly/joincloud

Adecco Connects Its UK Branches with Magic Software’s uniPaaS

Magic Software Enterprises Ltd., a provider of application platforms and business and process integration solutions, announced on Monday that Adecco, a market leader in human resource solutions, has developed MAX, a back-office system for its 200 UK branches, using Magic Software’s uniPaaS application platform.
read more

Join Us: http://bit.ly/joincloud

Cloud: Hype, Opportunity or Disintermediation

Will such disintermediation be the final straw for the ailing Telecom giants already faced with the ultimate threat of being relegated to just bit pipe providers? 

With the growth of the ‘prosumer’, Telco customers continue to search for the ultimate experience at the lowest possible price, and who can blame them? But with the vast redistribution of wealth from the operators to the ever creative software/hardware companies, is the implementation of cloud solutions just another headache for the industry?

Leaders in Voice such as AT&T, NTT and Virgin Mobile USA have called an urgent meeting at the NGT Summit (hosted by GDS International) to discuss the implications of the Cloud phenomenon in an already volatile and competitive market place.

“As with all business the customer will ultimately drive the move,” said a spokesperson for NGT 20 consortium. “Disintermediation is a key concern for the industry which must be addressed.”

There is no doubt the Cloud creates an improved customer service but will it be to the telecom industry what itunes was to the music industry? Will such disintermediation be the final straw for the ailing Telecom giants already faced with the ultimate threat of being relegated to just bit pipe providers?

Whatever mix of connectivity products and value-added services that are provided by the large operators, the customer needs to address its business needs, and business must be prepared to evolve to meet them. Is the industry ready?

read more

OpSource CTO Counts the Cloud on New CloudTV Series | FreshNews.com

OpSource™, the leader in Cloud operations, today announced that co-founder, CTO and industry insider John Rowell will take on the myths surrounding Cloud adoption in the second episode of his new CloudTV webinar series, “The Real Cloud,” which will air Tuesday, February 16th, at 2 p.m. ET and be accessible from https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/259590763.

This month’s guest is influential blogger and Vircado co-founder Guy Rosen, who is known for his breakthrough work tracking Cloud adoption in his “State of the Cloud” series. Rowell and Rosen will discuss the realities of Cloud adoption today. Is it slowing down? Are there any Davids beating the Goliaths? What products and solutions are gaining steam? And which ones deserve to go away?

“There is so much hype, both positive and negative, about Cloud adoption that I am looking forward to sitting down with Guy and figuring out how we can accurately count the Cloud,” said John Rowell, co-founder and CTO, OpSource. “Last month’s show was a blast and sparked some great discussion. We’ll be sure to stir the pot some more in our latest installment.”

For more information on “The Real Cloud” and to register for the webinar, please visit https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/259590763.

Join Us: http://bit.ly/joincloud

Transitioning to Cloud Computing

The drive toward cloud computing continues to be a dominant infrastructure deployment theme for organizations looking to reduce costs, increase storage and optimize mobility. What many fail to realize is the trend towards cloud computing is continually forcing IT managers to rethink fundamental security issues as a barrage of new attacks and exploits continue to assault the cloud every day. Compelling for any business model, cloud computing delivers a scalable, accessible and high-performing computing infrastructure that comes at an appealing price for organizations. Similarly, operating in the cloud allows for the convergence of new and emerging technologies. Providing appeal to both the provider and the consumer, cloud computing enables new application deployment and recovery options, as well as new application business models. However, cloud computing may not be the panacea that the press and many organizations make it out to be. We must have trust and confidence in the platform on which we are deploying our applications and data. We must be able to maintain control of the information that drives our business. Ultimately, we must be able to prove that trust to our auditors. The solution, having not yet been defined, could be deemed “auditability.”

Visit Cloud Distribution’s web site for more stories and comment – http://www.cloud-distribution.com

Ground Rules For Mobilizing Users

Last week, I discussed rolling user-owned mobile devices into your mobility plans. While letting the users pay for their own wireless access may be a boon to the company’s bottom line, it can also snowball into a nightmare for administrators dealing with supporting a slew of new devices.  A little advanced work and planning can help thwart the dark side of mobility: the threat of unending calls to help desk, security threats and general chaos. First and foremost, you’ll need to set some ground rules.

On the top of the list should be defining the limits of IT support. All too often, end-users assume that it is IT’s role to make every piece of technology they possess work. Don’t believe me? Just try to find an IT professional who hasn’t been asked to fix a co-worker’s home computer. It has to be made very clear to users that IT makes no guarantees that connecting a mobile device to corporate email will work, but that they will do what they can to help the users succeed. Building up an archive of support documents and laying out the exact process needed to connect a given mobile device will go a long way in guiding all but the most technically-challenged users in getting and staying connected. If your IT staff does not have access to these mobile devices and your budget doesn’t allow bringing a few in house, ask your users. There are no doubt a few folks within your organization who would be willing to trade a little time documenting and taking screen shots for early mobile access.

The second rule applies to the devices themselves, and how many are allowed to connect. Microsoft Exchange allows a virtually unlimited number of mobile devices to connect to a user’s mailbox via Server Activesync. While this may thrill the gadget-happy users that want to have their entire collection of iPhones, iPads and Android devices linked to their mail, multiple devices compounds the threat of one of them being stolen or lost.

Furthermore, administrators need to make it clear that “jailbreaking” or “rooting” devices, a process which opens up these devices to third party applications  and networks, is expressly forbidden. While it may be attractive for users to “free up their devices”, it opens up brand new security threats.  In fact, there have already been rogue applications that have made their way through these liberated devices. Another side effect of jailbreaking is that there is typically a lag between official releases and the broken versions, meaning users are waiting to apply the known security fixes of the official releases.

If despite your best efforts, the chaos of mobility gets to be too much, there are a number of products out there that can bring provide a level of visibility and control. Vendors like MobileIron, zenprise, iPass and Fiberlink are building tools, appliances and services that can bring visibility, control and a number of self-service options to mobile devices.  As the paradigms of mobility continue to evolve, look for companies like these, as well as additional offerings from both traditional enterprise vendors and the wireless carriers to make the dark side of mobility a little brighter. 

Original Article -= http://www.networkcomputing.com/wireless/the-dark-side-of-mobilizing-users.php

MobileIron – http://www.cloud-distribution.com/mobileiron/

Read more Cloud Distribution News @ http://bit.ly/5NMFEA

Visit Cloud Distribution’s web site for more stories and comment – http://www.cloud-distribution.com

Google’s Smartphone Management Drops Another Big Barrier To "Apps" Adoption

Google has removed what for many CIOs and IT professionals has been one of the last remaining hurdles to their adoption of Google Apps for business documents, spreadsheets, presentations and probably most importantly: email. Yesterday, the biggest of the cloud-based challengers to Microsoft and IBM-Lotus announced it now has a range of Blackberry-esque mobile device management features (including the ability to remotely wipe a smartphone) for iPhones as well as Windows Mobile and Nokia-based devices.

Visit Cloud Distribution’s web site for more stories and comment – http://www.cloud-distribution.com

Oracle Shoots Down Sun Cloud

Amazon’s EC2 and S3 have nothing to fear from Sun. Oracle says it’s going to blow the Amazon-aping Sun Open Cloud away. It doesn’t want to pursue the on-demand service, announced last March, a month before Oracle agreed to buy Sun, and promised for the summer, as a worldwide public cloud using OpenSolaris, Linux, Windows, Sun Grid Engine, ZFS, MySQL and Java running on Sparc and x86 blades complete with open APIs.

Visit Cloud Distribution’s web site for more stories and comment – http://www.cloud-distribution.com

AppZero Named One of “100 Coolest Cloud Computing Products”

document.body.scrollTop = 0.000000;

AppZero has announced that Everything Channel’s CRN has named its server-side application virtualization software one of the “100 Coolest Cloud Computing Products.” The Top 100 Cloud Computing products include 20 storage vendors, 20 security vendors, 20 productivity vendors, 20 infrastructure vendors and 20 platform vendors.


AppZero technology encapsulates a server application in a Virtual Application Appliance (VAA), which contains all of the application’s dependencies, but with zero operating system (OS) component. The VAA, freed from any OS encumbrance, can move seamlessly from data center to, and among, clouds and back across both physical and virtual servers.

“AppZero’s mobility of server-side applications makes it easy for enterprise data centers to instantaneously provision a single copy of a ‘gold’ application image to 1,000s of machines in the data center and/or to any cloud or combination of clouds,” says Greg O’Connor, AppZero CEO. “This automation of installation and configuration of server applications speeds deployment, reduces errors, and cuts the need for a human touch.”

The list was based on nominations from Solution Providers rating technology, channel influence, effectiveness and visibility along with business and sales impact. The final selections were made by a panel of Everything Channel Editors.

Winners were announced online at Channelweb.com.

Visit Cloud Distribution’s web site for more stories and comment – http://www.cloud-distribution.com

Symbian switches to open source

Symbian phone operating system goes open source

The group behind the world’s most popular smartphone operating system – Symbian – is giving away “billions of dollars” worth of code for free.

The Symbian Foundation’s announced that it would make its code open source in 2008 and has now completed the move.

It means that any organisation or individual can now use and modify the platform’s underlying source code “for any purpose”.

Symbian has shipped in more than 330m mobile phones, the foundation says.
It believes the move will attract new developers to work on the system and help speed up the pace of improvements.

“This is the largest open source migration effort ever,” Lee Williams of the Symbian Foundation told BBC News.

“It will increase rate of evolution and increase the rate of innovation of the platform.”

Ian Fogg, principal analyst at Forrester research, said the move was about Symbian “transitioning from one business model to another” as well as trying to gain “momentum and mindshare” for software that had been overshadowed by the release of Apple’s iPhone and Google Android operating system.

Evolutionary barrier
Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia bought the software in 2008 and helped establish the non-profit Symbian Foundation to oversee its development and transition to open source.

The foundation includes Nokia, AT&T, LG, Motorola, NTT Docomo, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone.

The group has now released what it calls the Symbian platform as open source code. This platform unites different elements of the Symbian operating system as well as components – in particular, user interfaces – developed by individual members.
Until now, Symbian’s source code was only open to members of the organisation.
It can be downloaded from the foundation’s website from 1400 GMT.

Mr Williams said that one of the motivations for the move was to speed up the rate at which the 10-year-old platform evolved.

“When we chatted to companies who develop third party applications, we found people would spend up to nine months just trying to navigate the intellectual property,” he said.

“That was really hindering the rate of progress.”

Opening up the platform would also improve security, he added.

‘Mind share’
Symbian development is currently dominated by Nokia, but the foundation hoped to reduce the firm’s input to “no more than 50%” by the middle of 2011, said Mr Williams.

“We will see a dramatic shift in terms of who is contributing to the platform.”
However, said Mr Williams, the foundation would monitor phones using the platform to ensure that they met with minimum standards.

Despite being the world’s most popular smart phone operating system, Symbian has been losing the publicity battle, with Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s iPhone dominating recent headlines.
“Symbian desperately needs to regain mindshare at the moment,” said Mr Fogg.

“It’s useful for them to say Symbian is now open – Google has done very well out of that.”
He also said that the software “may not be as open and free as an outsider might think”.
“Almost all of the open source operating systems on mobile phones – Nokia’s Maemo, Google’s Android – typically have proprietary software in them.”

For example, Android incorporates Google’s e-mail system Gmail.
But Mr Williams denied the move to open source was a marketing move.

“The ideas we are executing ideas came 12-18 months before Android and before the launch of the original iPhone,”.

Visit Cloud Distribution’s web site for more stories and comment – http://www.cloud-distribution.com