Posts by RegisterThis

Queensland bans IBM from future work

Yep, typical consultancy behaviour

@AceRimmer - exactly. I had the misfortune of working on one of the UK government IT projects (that has made the news in the past) outsourced to a large US company subsequently bought by another large US company. I lasted 7 months and could not take the "deliberate entrapment" of the UK government users in defining wrong requirements: no advice was given, and if it was seen they were going down the wrong route, it was actively encouraged and dissentors (like me) who tried to do a good job were 'silenced' or 'disposed of' being easy-come / easy-go contractors. After the UK govt. specified the sub-optimal requirement, it was implemented. Ta da ... QED ... instantaneous further change request amidst accusations of not specifying requirements properly. This article sounds like identical behaviour of actually adding no value to the process and instead actively encouraging 'expensive mistakes' to be made actively or passively. The saddest thing is there were a few whistle-blowers, who instead of getting government thanks ... got axed making me think that there were a few insiders benefitting from the contract award. I wonder why it took so long to get to this point in Australia unless the same thing was happening: some people in government were invested in this and also chose to ignore the obvious abuses?

BYOD sync 'n share

Re: An OS feature?

Ian Ferguson. Yeah, I think there are 2 different issues here. (i) synching between devices across the 'cloud' and (ii) storing information in the cloud (for synching, sharing or whatever). I think the Reg author is right that (i) may become an OS feature, BUT (ii) is a cloud service where I think that there will always be a service provider app involved. (ii) can do (i), but (i) cannot do (ii) if that makes sense ....

Android spanking iOS in world's BIGGEST mobile market

Re: @basically they want iOS / iPhone but it's relatively expensive

... and "Dazed and Confused" hits the nail on the head: (1) segmentation applies to ANY product (target price, demographics etc.) and (2) varies from culture to culture. There will never be a universal product that dominates all others in all markets. Believe it or not, where I live, Blackberry is still the hottest thing because it = corporate = hierarchy = POWER = made it = status! In contrast, Apple = Cool Kid (assumed you grow out of it with a Blackberry) and Android = every-man-and-his-dog "I got a new <insert manufacturer of choice> phone" evolution from Feature- to Smart-phone.

Rogue IT employees - give us the down and dirty

Re: Rogue IT employees - give us the down and dirty

... a scarier thought is the most dishonest, vengeful IT pro I may be working with NOT YET caught in the act of doing somethi

'The new iPad' revealed: Full specs, rumor scorecard

Re: The pixel count is the best feature

Agree: Pixel count is nice, but there is a point where you actually need size to view it on and personally I think 1280x800 for something up to 10 inches gives a great picture and actually allows text to be large enough to read. This pixel race just allows more birds-eye view and arguably more zooming required to do anything that requires reading text. Spot the generation who will all be wearing glasses/contaxts by age 30 if this nonsense continues!

Acer Iconia A100 7in Android tablet

Agree ...

As somebody who has not yet taken the plunge into tablet land, but played with plenty in shops, I have been waiting for the 'perfect' 7 inches to come around. The iPad was clearly streets ahead of the Samsung Tab, but the Samsung TAB was just more 'practical'. The reality is that my main use of my laptop is productivity, and 10 inches of less functionality (iPAD) is not a reason to dump a laptop - especially when Macbook Airs and the new wave of competition (Samsung series 9 etc.) provide plenty of real portable computing. 7 Inches of screen real-estate (more than a smartphone) for days when a laptop isn't required has always made more sense from the perspective of not carrying a laptop. Sadly, I think though that I am still waiting after this review. The other interesting one will be the 5" Samsung note as a 'true' convergence device. Never played with the Dell streak to be able to comment on that form factor vs. 7 inches.

(Paris also likes the greater maneuverability of 7 inches)

Apple flings patent lawsuit at HTC (again)

Plus HTC Sense attacks Apples UI USP

The common criticisms of Android are those of fragmentation, and ironically, lack of differentiation!

Of all those in the Android camp, HTC is the one pushing the boundary the most with respect to 'skinning' and changing the Android experience into something unique (and fragmented!). I don't know if I have just noticed it, but HTC is really using 'sense' in all sorts of taglines and contexts to push themselves as providing an intelligent and adaptive user experience where the phone knows what you want.

HTC is changing the UI agenda slowly from 'intuitive' (i.e. you know just how to do it), to 'sensible' (i.e. it knows what you want). This is what Apple is scared of: they have had the monopoly of user experience so far and it has been their USP and 'sense' is a direct attack on 'it just works simplicity'.

HTC ChaCha Qwerty Android smartphone

Plus a few Blueberrys and Raspberrys

I have also been aware of a few 'blue' and 'red' versions of the Blackberry often referred to as Blueberrys or Raspberrys by their owners ...

('blue' and 'red' in quotes as I tend to 'round off' colours to the more basic ones whereas I am sure the ladies would have specific names for these 'specific colours' which would be more descriptive to those in the the know!)

Apple pilfers rips off student's rejected iPhone app

@Oliver Mayes

... but they both deserve the same treatment in the forums :-)

Has Steve Jobs killed the consumer hard disk industry?

and ...

"Personally I still want a local nas, using online stuff only as sync, if only as a backup of the cloud."

Exactly. No consumer cloud provides any decent kind of guarantee for your data or availbility of the service and until such time as that can happen, I certainly will not rely on cloud (if ever). Backup, Sync, share etc., but NEVER my primary source of MY data.

By the way, I do wonder when 'personal cloud' (like pogoplug) will start to take off? Ultimately 'cloud' just makes me outsource my storage - and frankly, the consumer cost savings are minimal compared to the enterprise savings of virtualised storage, SaaS, processing power on demand etc. What I want is uniquitous access to my data at my house (and maybe backed up into the cloud)!

Apple uncloaks top 10 tools of iOS 5

Looking over their shoulder for the first-time ...

Am in right in thinking that this is the first release where Apple has *really* majored on features that are not just related to supportings its media platform eco-system and related to extracting more money? A bit of concern that that Android (and even WP7 - gasp) had closed the gap and were actually slipping ahead? Good on them from a consumer perspective. Empires never last forever and arrogance is usually their downfall.

HTC Sensation dual core Android smartphone

@Monty Burns

"Overall, a poor showing from HTC in my opinion."

Yeah - I was dissapointed too. Apparently they are releasing an NFC enabled one in Q3. Hopefully they will do a few tweaks to address some of criticisms. I don't care about the benchmarks as there is such a thing as 'enough' processing power and the benchmarks are skewed a bit by the higher resolution and running anything off an SD card as opposed to internal storage. (Besides the OLED also has its cons!)

Just adding more RAM - and even just 8GB solid state storage for 'apps' and squeezing a bit more battery oomph in would convince me as I would prefer the better HTC build quality!

Let's see what iPhone 5 turns out in the interim. Even WP 7 is starting to look interesting with Mango. Choice for consumers is always good ... less so for vendor groupies :-)

Release before your better competition?

The issue here was a race to market and expectation setting. Samsung released their Galaxy SII first and it set the benchmark. HTC haven't done enough to meet or exceed those expectations which were set quite high. It beats the SII in 3 areas only: Resolution (at the expense of brightness), Build Quality (at the expense of size) and UI (Sense over Tocuhwiz). And with the exception of the UI which is arguably superior, the other pros are losses in other categories (resolution for colour etc.). After that it is all one-way traffic in the SII camp. My guess is that had HTC say just upped RAM to 1GB or added some proper solid state storage it would have gone a long way to meeting expectations. HTC made it too easy to be seen as 'Plain Jane' in the Android 'SuperPhone' race!

Apple seeks patent for keyboard that sucks

Definitely prior art out there ...

... I have used lots of keyboards that suck!

Apple ex-evangelist Kawasaki pans, praises Jobs

Exactly my view of Apple's "greatness"

As a technology company they are only 'above average' ... but they are the greatest marketing company ever!

Yes, they have changed the direction of the market (with the iPhone for example), but again, touch screen phones were NOT NEW (neither were ipods): technology-wise they did not really contribute much with the exception maybe of the user experience from a UI perspective. BUT they made them COOL and DESIREABLE where everybody else had failed to ignite interest. And the COOL and DESIREABLE meant that the market could turn e.g.

- Price points previously prohibitive to their competitors using say capacitive instead of resistive technology (selling only 'technology') for a better user experience was breached

- user expectations of long battery life were altered in exchange for the DREAM

- the DREAM made users accept less features (a race that is now starting again in smartphones!)

Insurance firm pushes out iPhone app that rates driving ability

Already being done ... using GPS tracking device though ...

http://www.outsurance.co.za/personal/car-insurance/safedriver-at-out/

... apparently the temptation is that *if* at the end of the year your data shows you to be a conservative driver, then your premium *could* decrease by up to 20%.

Pads propel PC market growth

Nothing new?

I guess the categorisation thing is nothing new and depends entirely on where you position any given 'Pad' now.

Historically we had:

- "tablet PC's" (PC's) (failures ... but yeah, Apple did not 'invent' this category with the iPad

- "portable media players" e.g. the 7+ inch Archos offerings etc.

Unsurprisingly the iPad falls somewhere in between the 2 running the OS of a mobile device (effectively an oversized iTouch) -- but featuring App platform capabilities not generally seen in personal media players like Archos historically.

Personally I think the iPad is more in the mould of a PMP and Apple gives this away with it running iOS as the OS and doing everything through their media centric iTunes ... if they moved towards running full OS/X (as some of the Win 7 tablets are doing), then I would definitely count it as a PC. Likewise ... Android tablets as a PCs ??? ... Nah!

How can you take a clearly mobile platform and blow up its form factor and call it a PC?

'Fierce competition' drives Apple's iPhone 6 changes

PS ...

"can either Android or Apple offer me decent mapping software that doesn't require Internet access all the time to read the maps?"

Nokia can ...

... errr ...

... could?

Reviewers slam BlackBerry PlayBook software

Good point ...

I think that my view was that BBM is what has gotten them a following outside of the corporate market which they had pretty much owned and arguably saturated and was only there for the losing ... but I won't argue with the pro's of the BES for corporates ... but the only reason you see teens with the BB is for BBM ...

Quite sad really ...

At the outset, let me say I own neither a tablet, nor any iOS or Android devices (yet) - nor RIM device. I will be in the market for a new smartphone later this year and then it will probably be an Android (HTC Sense skinned) or the latest iPhone 5 by then. (In case you are wondering, I have a Nokia E72, which is my 1st - and will probably be my last Nokia)

Currently, I grapple with the use-cases for owning a tablet. Money being no object, I would probably have bought an iPad 2 by now. I have played with both iPads (1 and 2), the Samsung Tab and the Blackberry playbook back at MWC in Barcelona earlier this year.

Of these, my percpetion is that the iPAD is the most polished, but that the RIM had the most potential with by far the best and most flexible (but still easy to use) OS and UI (IMHO) by a long shot!

VERY SADLY .... I think RIM have been either stupid or greedy or both!

They have tried to launch this to either upsell to their existing customer base - or thought that they could force people to buy a blackberry as well.

In doing so, they have ignored thier 2 USP's.

1. As GIles Jones pointed out, they have push-email wrapped up

2. BBM. It is arguable that this is the one item that has kept RIM in the smartphone market!

This should have had proper 3G connectivity from the get-go and its own email / BBM client.

The excuse trotted out months ago was around security. I don't buy that! Having email on it is NOT a security risk or an issue for corporate policies otherwise they would not allow email on any smartphone or laptop for that matter. This is so patently obvious that I think this was more greed than stupidity.

* PS. In a sense the cirticisms are unfair as the iPad 1 was missing a lot of 'should have been' features at the launch. The difference, is as a pioneer with a new value proposition you can get away with missign features. As a late-to-market offering, you need (1) your unique value proposition, and (2) you won't be forgiven the glaring ommisions.

Nokia to help WinPho outsell iOS in four years

Unlike you, Analysts ...

- Look at actual figures (Do you know how many handsets Apple sell compared to Nokia?)

- Don't publish their personal pet peave or hate tied to the brand they best identify with ...

- Remember that the world is bigger than English speaking UK or Europe ... (Yes, the handset demographics on the tube are not representative of the world!)

- Recognise segmentation i.e. high, middle and low end offerings ... Apple is high end and not having the most handsets in the market is probably NOT their biggest concern. Theirs is owning the high-end segment. The smart-phone/dumb-phone divide will dissapear and you will have different price points of ALL smartphone market.

But the figures speak for themselves ...

2010 handset sales:

- Nokia : 453M

- Apple: 47M

So Nokia sells roughly 10 handsets for every 1 Apple sells.

Even though Nokia lost a few percentage points market share, they still grew their shipments at 4.9% or about 20M units. Apple grew at 87% or about 20M units.

Let's assume both continue to sell an additional 20M units per year (Reflecting a decline in % growth for both, but 87% is unsustainable for Apple), so in 2015, units equal:

- Nokia: 553.3M

- Apple: 147.5M

If 25% of Nokia's handsets sold then are WP7 smartphones, then they match and exceed iPhone. (And my iPhone extrapolation of 20M growth per annum is a lot more generous than either IDC or Gartner).

Now assume that by 2015, ALL phones are smartphones (entry level = todays specs) and Nokia offering is entirely WP. A lot more WP than iPhones!

And that is ignoring Samsung, LG and HTC who are also selling WP.

What people seem to forget is that ALL phones will likely be 'smart' within the next few years and that on the gloabl stage, only 3.5% of handsets are iPhones. Frankly, you have to be extremely cynical not to see WP outstrip IOS over the next few years. (And, I don't think this will worry Apple, as it is like saying that Mercedes will be unhappy that more Toyotas are sold!)

Nokia deal to 'rocket Windows Phone 7 past iPhone'

@David Hicks

I fully agree there are a lot of BIG ... nay HUUUGE IF's ... especially on the Nokia channel.

Just checked again (total handset market) in Q4 2010.

Nokia 33.3

Samsung 20.6

LG 8.6

RIM 3.6

Apple 3.5

Nokia lost market share compared to Q4 2010, but still grew!

If you take it that Nokia, Samsung and LG represent 62.5% of the handset market and all will be sellling (not exclusively!) WP7, they can do a LOT of messing up and still have a massive market to push WP7 too!

Not that far fetched if upselling to an existing customer base?

1. Conversion of Symbian to WP7: More plausible if you also consider future conversion of Nokia 'dumb' and 'feature' phone users to 'smart' WP7 platform. Last figures I saw still had Nokia selling 4 handsets to every 1 from RIM and Apple. A big *if*, but combined with some loyal current Nokia smartphone user conversion that is a very large user base to farm. This depends largely on scale to get the price right for the upsell. I also disagree with the concluding remark that the only thing handset makers are interested in is margin: This is so patently ignorant and naive from a business perspective as it ignores any kind of segmentation in business which is common to ALL product businesses i.e. all industries have products for different segments of the market. Apple is the mercedes of the handset world and they arguably would not be interested in selling at the level required to capture the larger, but less lucrative, 'VW Drivers'. Android is a different proposition though!

2. For me, the one advantage of WP7 is the potential for seemless integration between MS desktop and MS mobile worlds. Almost a similar argument to the benefits that some people enjoy from living in an 'all Apple' world. The difference is, that unlike Apple, MS have a *massive* user base to try and farm onto their mobile offering too. So again, a massive customer base to try and leverage ...

Amazon jumps the gun on free clouds

Ah ... but ...

I think the real benefit is the ability to sync or access anywhere in the case that you forget to move your music around to different devices. For me, cloud backup = yes, cloud sync = yes, cloud primary store = No!

Personally, like you, I want another local copy and I think other do too - already there are a few services to backup your cloud data.

Apple iPad 2

Apple lives and dies by new model releases ...

Apple's high end segmentation and limited offering within devices (compared to say an HTC, Samsung, Nokia etc. means that they pretty much live by new product releases. Their annual sales cycle has a 3 quarter lifespan and then starts to taper as they saturate their high end market and marginal new customers ... and then it is time to get a new product out there. Have some (unfortunately confidential) research on this and it is fascinating to see the Apple cycle of new release Q1-2 of mainly repeat/upgrade buyers, Q3 of majority new Apple buyers, and then the tapering in Q4 before next release ...

Never noticed stutters, but certainly rotation issues on v1

Have a friend with one and they are forever shoving it under my nose to see some App or something. The only issue I have noticed is that often in the midst of handing it to me over the table or so, the Apps seem to get frozen up or stuck in the incorrect orientation. On these occasions I have given it back to him and he does a few twists and hands it back to me more more carefully making sure it does not twist through any axis it clearly is not made to. Not always, but at least 3 instances I can think of. As a non-Apple-product owner this certainly has not done justice to the 'because it just works' mantra I always hear. For me this sums up the problem with tablets: generation 1 technology without clear use-cases beyond infotainment and too little competition to drive prices down to compensate. (Of course nothing new with new tech!)

iPhone 'Death Grip' effect is real, plastic cases don't help

Yeah ... I'm sure they will 'fix' it ...

IF de-tuning detected THEN increase signal bars shown

QED

Antennagate Redux: Consumer Reports condemns Verizon iPhone 4

John Molloy ... Simple arithemtic

<sigh> ... for a moment assume you earn 100 X's for something you sell. Now assume somebody wants to take a 30% cut of that ... so you are going to lose 30 X's and only take home 70 X's.

Now assume that you are not happy to lose those 30 X's.

How many X's would you have to add onto those 100 X's, such that when 30% is deducted, you are left with 100 X's?

Let's assume it is as simple as 30% more. That would mean that you now charge 130 X's. But ... what's this ... 30% of 130 is ... 39 X's ... so by raising my price by 30%, I am still losing and only getting 91 X's!

But, wait ... if I add on 42 X's and charge 142 X now, then 30% = 42 X's. Hurray ... I still make 100X's even after paying Apple 30% if I raise my overall price by 42%!

QED ...

Fujitsu relieves Ballmer's iPad pressure

Maybe just the Apple 'KOOL* stamp of approval?

The one thing Apple manages to do through its horde of evangelistic fanbois is make that which was important non-important.

Form factor was a big inhibitor to earlier tablets as people did not know how to hold them when typing. It became clear that other than the 'touch based input', they were less convenient to use for any kind of text entry - at least a laptop could balance on your lap as you typed on the keyboard.

The 'Apple KOOL Factor' (as in KOOLAID) seems to have made people more tolerant and open to the idea - even though people trying to use them for the same use-cases complain of 'hover strain' using on screen keyboards and the awkwardness of placing them for usage.

Apple has very successfully confused mass consumer market devices with the always 'enterprise first' MS approach of old. Today the lines are blurred as people intend to use their work laptops for entertainment too ... so why not use entertainment devices for work? Beside for what you would pay for a laptop or tablet 6/7 years ago you CAN buy both.

My boss is a classic example with the form factor problems that were so widely publicised about the original MS tablets.

He is a self-confessed fanboy who rushed out to buy an iPad. He now happily tells everybody how he now leaves his latop at work and only takes his iPad home or travelliong on short trips. BUT, when pressed, he will confess that it is actually *less* convenient for replying to emails quickly than even his iPhone i.e. he can use his iPhone with one hand, without a surface to prop the device on while typing etc.

--> So in reality, the issues haven't really changed - just the perception. Better UIs for touch *may* help, but that is mainly for navigation - not doing 'work'.

So we have mass confusion in a world where these types of devices were the preserve of enterprise and business -- now we see 'dumber' devices being designed for the far bigger consumer market with a far more entertainment centric use case drowning out the business/enterprise requirements.

--> My prediction is that new 'Slates' for business usage will ultimately fail for the same reasons as before -- because the slate form factor is best for enter/info-tainment and NOT productivity work.

Apple 'greed' tax spreads beyond music, movies, magazines

@makemineamac Re: "Antisocial? Really? "

ok ... sorry ... not antisocial ... just dumb ... or at best obtuse!

For your sake I truly hope that Apple get's their way, that you get to pay for everything at Apple (since you only want to shop there) ... and that you can afford to pay 30% more for everything.

And don't whinge when it gets expensive and you go shopping for the same content elsewhere only to find it costs 30% more too ... because you wanted this!

Aargh ... no ... spare me ...!

"premium package" only for iOS?

Can you bear to imagine the smug fabois then ... "I have access to exclusive content so I am now even more superior" ... la la lala la ...

... but at least the joke will be on them ... 30% more for probably cosmetic and minor content / packaging change :-) Multiplied by multiple content taxes ... suckers!

But then they are ADDICTS so probably won't mind as long as their iDevice feeds their sense of identity and superiority ... ho hum!

@makemineamac

You are a pretty anti-social individual ...!

The net effect of this is that publishers take a 30% cut in revenues ... or raise the prices 30% to cover this. Now I doubt many publishers can do the former given the cellar pricing of digital content, which leaves only the latter / RAISE prices for everybody by 30%.

So what you are really supporting is paying 30% more for ALL YOUR purchases through Apple AND that EVERYBODY ELSE must pay 30% more elsewhere too? All so you can entrust your details only to your beloved Apple who will never do anything wrong with them? Excuse me if don't see why everybody else should be paying more just so Apple's sheeple can live in an only Apple world! The very definition of arrogance for a company who has at best 16% of the entire internet connected market globally!

Apple 'outstrips' all brands at box office

Brilliant marketing ...

I am NOT an Apple fan, but they must be applauded on their marketing and the way they manage to create the perception of ubiquitousness (when in reality, their overall share of global markets is pretty small) and desirability (using 'role models' to use their stuff publically) and 'premiumness' (which attracts a high price).

I don't think their products are the best or anything special beyond the 'looks' category - but their marketing is clearly streets ahead of everybody else!

FTC and DoJ toss-up on Apple subs plan 'probe'

Lewis MettIer ... think we agree ...

Personally I am not an iPhan ... nor particualrly an iHater. For me, Apple's best skill is marketing and that makes this move even more unfathomable ... this for me is their worst c0ck-up ever. I am just gob smacked by this move. It really does smack of success induced and arrogance rubber-stamped megalomania with a dash of death wish ... if that makes sense ...

Just one correction ..

"Trying to restrict competition this way only works with monopoly like power. And Apple will always use that power to control and manuipulate its customers."

Excluding iTunes as a music sales platform, Apple does not nearly have anything approaching a monopoly in terms of end-devices for delivery EXCEPT in press column inches. They still have but a drop of the overall PC/Laptop market (counting the iPad as a PC?) and a bare 16% of the smartphone market and even less of the overall mobile market. With the amount of publicity they get and stunts like this you would think they had the other 84% as well ... but they don't. Companies making a decision to give away 30% of their revenue or raise their prices by 30% through other channels would be very silly given that in terms of shear numbers Apple still represents a very small channel to market.

Definitely not good for consumers ...

I think Apple are either stupid or chancing their luck and I cannot decide which one.

This smacks of publicised colluding / price fixing to me.

Demanding that publishers cannot offer customers a better price through other channels is no different than supermarkets agreeing not to drop the price of an item below a certain level ... and in most civilised parts of the world those supermarkets would be done for this!

Now the fanbois are probably going to say that the publishers are suppliers so that is different ... but lets consider that the supplier has a 'factory outlet' ... if a supermarket signed an agreement with a supplier that he could not offer goods cheaper through his factory shop outlet they would also get done for colluding and price-fixing.

The key here is that in most Western economies the price is to be set between the individual buyers and sellers ... Apple should know that!

Windows 8 squeezed to fit 2012 Dell fondleslab?

Just another piece of the MS puzzle ...

Just another piece in a bigger picture playing out with the 'ailing' MS at the centre?

- Next Windows will run on ARM as announced and demo'ed

- Ties in with Nokia dumping Intel and Meego for MS

- Ties in with Nokia/MS being reluctant to indicate *which* version of WinPhone will be on the first Nokia device

- Dell date ties in with the 2012 timeframe hints from MS/Nokia for the first real joint device

- helps make sense of MS's laclustre development of WinPhone since initially released (6 months to announce a few new features)

Personally, I think that when you put all this together, a lot of questions are answered:

- MS Windows 8 will be a single OS for desktop, tablet and phone form factors

- The 'skin' may differ and WinPhone 7 may be the 'skin' without the eventual insides currently

- This would help explain the apparent lack of concern MS has about the missing features in WP7 ... they will all be in Windows 8 underneath

- This makes sense of the Nokia / Windows tie up:

MS recognises that it dominates the desktop and laptop market, but has no offering in the mobile market: Its core strength for cornering the mobile market is a seamless experience across all devices - full compatibility. True write once, run everywhere albeit with a different UI.

In Nokia, they have the dominant handest manufacturer in the world as the route to market. Yes, in the smartphone segment, for every Blackberry (RIM #2) sold Q4 2010, TWO Nokias were sold and likewise for Apple (#3) (Would never have guessed so from all the press noise?). And that is not even thinking of Nokias reach into the mid and lower end markets which they dominate even more.

So at the other end of the spectrum, you have Nokia recognising their biggest asset is their user base of which a massive majority have not even converted to smartphones yet - but Nokia have nothing to tempt them up the value chain. A seamless windows experience on their new smartphone that integartes with their PC makes it far more tempting to stay with Nokia and an all MS world?

--> So I think I see where the MS and Nokia strategy are heading? Flame away :-)

HP reinvents self as data center designer

Data Centers are Booming! (Virtualisation or Cloud ring a bell?)

"After a drought in the construction of new data centers in the past couple of years, the market is starting to thaw a bit."

Understatement of the Century! From what I see companies specialising in fitting datacenters ranging from storage companies offering Comms (e.g HP) to comms companies offfering storage (e.g. Cisco) to 3rd party data center installation specialists have all announced that 2010 saw a significant uptick in data centre / cloud revenues for them (most in excess of 30% growth last year in this area of business!). (I will cede that it may have been off a very low base!)

The amount of data being stored globally is growing exponentially and combined with the use cases for virtualisation (driven by EMC/VMWare, Ctirix, MS et al) and cloud type use-cases are also driving lots of data centre expansion and renewal projects with companies outsourcing their own data centres to hosted ones as a means of cost reduction.

This business is booming!

Mobile industry looks forward to spanking Apple

Self-destruct in T-10 ... 9 8 7 ...

"while drawing up the ranks to take on Apple"

Yep ... which makes Apple's '30% share' attack on content providers all the more bizarre? A lesson in how to p1ss off everybody you need to partner to make money? What is Job's thinking? MWAHAHAHA me thinks as he chews his pinkie and strokes his pussy ...?

Without the operators or content providers, the Apple media and content business is but a bunch of empty servers sitting somewhere doing nothing! It really seems that the reality distortion field has kicked in and either somebodies ego is going to take a hammering in an about-turn or that self-destruct button is going to be pressed. (For the media side of the business - not 'i' devices!).

Yeah ... had to be Paris after the comment above ...

Rhapsody bristles at Apple subscription grab

@DZ-Jay

Cupertino called and said they want you back for bathtime ...

They said your bath will only be 70% as full tonight as they believe you find it more convenient for them to fill your bath than for you to run your own ...

Steve Jobs unveils 30% subs model for ... everything

@AC "What's your problem"

Err ... Apple don't do delivery or distribution ... the operators do! Unplug Apple's servers and then see how far they 'distribute' or 'deliver' ...

The next step in self-destruction ... GREED!

If Apple controlled the majority of connected device routes to the market, then this might make sense, but they don't. Apple is clearly starting to believe their own spin that everybody in the world has an internet connected Apple device and they have the biggest connected device channel to market. A bit like Mercedes benz decideing that they have the biggest share of the automotive industry!

@honkj

Actually, you need to take your analogy a step further. The billing should be done by the carriers, who take a small share (e.g. the magazine stand landlord who HANDS YOU your magazine), who then pass on a bit to the publishers (who provide him the content)?

So where is Apple in this? Well I guess Apple with their App store performs one of many roles analogous to a magazine stand: signage, advertising, packaging etc. and should also get a share from the magazine stand owner. The point is that the START of the value chain should not be Apple, but the point of delivery. After all Apple DON'T create the content (media house) NOR deliver it to you (operator). When was the last time you paid the advertiser for your magazine? The only role of the APP Store is a pretty shop front - and without the operators one which cannot even be visited or deliver.

* Note the contrast of the Apple business model already emerging in HP's announcements and the Nokia/MS tie up of 'carrier billing'. Apple are slowly coming under attack from the operators finding friends in other places and now they are planning to p1ss off their suppliers too?

iPhone 5 rumors: bigger, smaller, cloudy, keyboard-equipped

Agree! Current Viable Use Cases for Mobile Personal Cloud Limited

I guess the answer to "how the hell is the rate of growth of the required infrastructure going to keep up?" is that it is not and will not for a while ... and on current roadmaps never will.

The use cases of personal 'MOBILE' cloud are extremely limited and represent scaled down cloud. It is clear that FTTx is required to make cloud properly viable, but that then limits it to fixed access at home ... or at best over WiFi or local Femto/Pico cell type solutions where the fibre is backhauling a relatively small 'mobile' coverage. Even LTE, once one strips out the hype, is only likly to be 'better than', but 'not good enough'.

So for fully mobile (as opposed to sitting at a coffee shop on WiFi 'mobile'), cloud services are likely limited to emergency access, light weight entertainment and synchronisation type cloud services. Following on from the comment on synchronisation, I think a key element of 'mobile' mobile cloud (as in not in a WiFi hotspot, but over 3/4G) is the 'essentialness' of a local cache to minimise the data tranfer requirements within cells.

Toshiba £300 'entry level' Froyo tablet back on sale next month

USB x2 ... Yummy!

Mini and full size ... perfect. Mini for connecting to other mobile devices and full size to allow it to take the place of a laptop or netbook. In my view almost the top priority for tablkets to be useful ... err ... plus a few other things ... but this is the main thing missing that prevents me from jumping at an iPad or Tab is its inability to replace my laptop properly as a lightweight hub for other devices.

Adobe open source code backs – gasp! – HTML5

A Jibe at Jobs ...

"Adobe lives or dies by its ability to help customers solve real problems. That means putting pragmatism ahead of ideology"

Meeow ...

Luckless Lush hammered in hack

Spot on ...

I remember trailing after my wife round one of those stores and getting a headache from the olfactory senses bombardment ... at least this gives them a headache!

(I wonder what their employee turn-over is? I couldn't work in one of those stores for 10 minutes let-alone a day!)

Conan the Smelly Barbarian (AKA RegisterThis)

How Nokia and Microsoft will carve up mobile services

From an ARM shareholder ...

... I would agree 100% with with the 'Poke Intel in the eye'.

Intel are increasingly desperate for a play in the mobile segment which is where the growth is but is dominated by ARM ... and ARM is increasingly invading their own back yard. I would not underestimate how much significance Intel put into trying to work with the largest phone vendor in the world (yes Nokia are still the largest - for how much longer is a valid question though!)

As an ARM shareholder, this announcement made a lot of sense following the earlier announcement of MS porting Windows to ARM. ARM share price up since announcement.

Adobe Flash: 20m phones flip Steve Jobs the bird

Apple ... Choice?

"2. Selectively enable flash, i.e. you get a little icon where the flash app is and you must tap it to start it."

- Jobs: If I want you to make a choice *I* will tell you what to choose ...

"The latter option is an extremely obvious solution that Apple could have chosen to do"

- Could have ... but won't now due to Jobs ego ... while clearly brilliant, he will ultimately overstep the mark and kill the company through his own ego ...