Here are some words I never thought I'd be writing again: There's a new phone from BlackBerry that you might be interested in. This time, it's called the KEYone.It's not that I'm biased against BlackBerry. I strapped the first one to my hip when it came out in the early 2000s, before smartphones were invented and the only other way to get your email when you were away from your computer was on a two-way pager. (Kids, gather 'round. Gramps is telling his stories again...)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In detailing its third quarter 2017 financial discussion Extreme CEO Ed Meyercord said the company was “locked and loaded” as it worked toward combining and integrating the two companies – Avaya and Brocade it is in the process of purchasing.Extreme a lot of work ahead as it combines Brocade's data center business and the network technology of Avaya Holdings– which is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy – both of which it said it would acquire in March. Extreme added that it has now integrated another buy it made, Zebra wireless with great success. Extreme said that in the third quarter alone four of its top 10 deals came from the Zebra side.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Tim Bajarin asked his friends to name the top contributors to the tech industry—people who should be on a Tech Mount Rushmore if one were to be built. Who is Bajarin? He is the president of Creative Strategies, an analyst, and a futurist located in Silicon Valley where he has followed technology for almost four decades.People such as financial analyst Mark Stahlman, long-time tech editor Joel Dreyfuss, and investor Roger McNamee—all with almost the same four decades of experience covering the tech industry in their separate fields—cast their votes. The 30 or 40 individuals that contributed the nominations are all experienced people in the tech sector, though fairly heavily weighted towards digital technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Qualcomm, in a smartphone chip licensing spat with Apple, will reportedly ask a U.S. government agency to ban the import of iPhones into the country.Qualcomm plans to ask the U.S. International Trade Commission to ban imports of iPhones, which are built in Asia, according to a Bloomberg Technology report. The news report cited an unnamed person familiar with Qualcomm's strategy. A Qualcomm spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the news report.The USITC has the power to ban imports into the U.S. for patent infringement, and the agency is frequently used by patent holders as an alternative or addition to slow-moving patent infringement lawsuits in U.S. courts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The week after a U.K. court favored SAP in a US$70 million licensing dispute, the software developer took another brewery to arbitration in the U.S., this time seeking damages of over $600 million.The disputes -- both are ongoing -- bode ill for companies using platforms such as Salesforce.com to indirectly access data held in SAP systems subject to named-user licensing."SAP investors may welcome this litigation, but it's yet one more reason why new customers are fleeing to the hills, choosing Amazon Web Services or Google, where they can, for their future software needs," Robin Fry, legal director at software licensing consultancy Cerno Professional Services, said Thursday. "Why choose SAP if, despite being a loyal customer and careful attempts at compliance, there’s a real risk that they might bring a gun at your head, or force you to restate your earnings, down the line?"To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
For the first time in history, U.S. households with landlines – such as mine -- are now in the minority, according to survey numbers from a federal government report released this morning.From that report issued by the National Center for Health Statistics:The second 6 months of 2016 was the first time that a majority of American homes had only wireless telephones. Preliminary results from the July–December 2016 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) indicate that 50.8% of American homes did not have a landline telephone but did have at least one wireless telephone (also known as cellular telephones, cell phones, or mobile phones) —an increase of 2.5 percentage points since the second 6 months of 2015.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The technology industry is buzzing about intelligence, analytics and other ways to make insight-driven decisions based on real data. What is not talked about so much is where these applications gets all of this information.Metadata is the data about data, and it is the key to significant insights for the enterprise. Knowing anything about the data used in an enterprise starts with metadata, which notes important details, such as when a file was last opened, how often it has been accessed, who accessed it, its size, its location, and so on. In fact, Stewart Baker, general counsel to the NSA has said, “Metadata absolutely tells you everything about somebody’s life. If you have enough metadata, you don’t really need content.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Most enterprises across the globe are currently at some stage of the digital transformation journey, and there is no doubt that cloud is a key driving factor. No sector is immune to the impact of digital transformation, particularly as the influx of digital and data-driven challengers shows no sign of abating and legacy businesses find themselves forced to modernize rapidly, sometimes just to maintain their competitive position.Enterprises face myriad challenges when it comes to moving applications and data to the cloud. On the one hand, there is increasing pressure to reap the benefits of cloud services. These include the agility to increase infrastructure capacity with no additional capital expenses and to quickly deploy new services as mandated by the business needs. On the other hand, enterprises have legacy systems and applications that cannot be virtualized or migrated to the cloud. In addition, in many sectors, such as financial services, there is a raft of governance, compliance and regulatory (GRC) requirements that impact cloud strategy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s a hybrid and multi-cloud world, at least according to Red Hat.So this week at its Summit in Boston the company that is known for commercializing open source projects for enterprises has taken steps to further facilitate how users of its application development tools can manage workloads across public clouds and on-premises systems.Here are the key details: Red Hat announced native access to Amazon Web Services products in its Red Hat OpenShift product. OpenShift is the company’s platform as a service (PaaS) application development software, and it’s also the company’s main tool for helping enterprises deploy application containers, including those from Docker.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco kept the checkbook open by making a second purchase in less than a week, this time grabbing the analytics and data science technology from Saggezza for an undisclosed amount.On May 1 Cisco padded its SD-WAN portfolio with SD-WAN player Viptela for $610 million.Saggezza is a privately held company founded in 2006. The name Saggezza derives from the Latin word for wisdom, or insight, according to the company’s website. It’s products, TruVantage – aimed at financial institutions and Lube Insights – a cloud-based application offer data analytics support for IT operations, visualization applications and business process optimization.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Being an Austinite, I enjoyed having DockerCon local, and I co-authored a guide to visiting Austin in the hopes that attendees would enjoy having DockerCon in Austin as well.During DockerCon 2017, a few major announcements were made, including the Moby Project. What is the Moby Project? It's a framework to assemble specialized container systems without reinventing the wheel.
The Moby Project is to Docker what Fedora is to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. - Solomon Hykes, Docker CTO/FounderTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of Star Wars, the second of the two “star” franchises that form such a foundational part of nerd culture. Consequently, this is a special Star Wars edition of your faithful Raspberry Pi roundup.It’s easy to see what Star Trek “means” as a part of nerdery – it’s a mostly hopeful vision of the future, where the adults mostly act like adults and the better angels of our natures win out much more often than our demons. Star Wars is harder to pin down. As lots of people have said, it’s really more fantasy than sci-fi, but it’s one where many have chosen to let their imaginations roam freely.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Cool ways to celebrate Star Wars Day + Raspberry Pi roundup: Searching for Pi, steampunk laptops, Code Angels, and a visit to Competitor CornerTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you're buying a PC or server, you've likely considered chips based on x86 or, perhaps less often, the ARM architecture.But like Linux in software, an open-source chip project is out to break the dominance of proprietary chips offered by Intel, AMD, and ARM.The RISC-V open-source architecture, created by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2010, is open to all who want to use it. The RISC-V design can be modified for PCs, servers, smartphones, wearables, and other devices.A startup called SiFive is the first to make a business out of the RISC-V architecture. The company is also the first to convert the RISC-V instruction set architecture into actual silicon. The company on Thursday announced it has created two new chip designs that can be licensed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Here's a surprise: BlackBerry is back with a new handset and it's pretty good.I know, I know, you've heard this before. Several times over the last few years BlackBerry has attempted to make a comeback and each time it's come to nothing, so what's different now?For the first time the iconic BlackBerry hardware keyboard has been married with Android in the BlackBerry KeyOne. Combine those with several software apps from BlackBerry and the KeyOne is worth a look if you're shopping for a new smartphone, particularly if you spend a lot of time on email, social media or messaging.The handset is produced by TCL, a Chinese phone maker that recently acquired rights to the BlackBerry brand for smartphones. BlackBerry, based in Canada, is still responsible for the software.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Manufacturing jobs (any jobs, really) are a hot-button topic these days, and our President has made no secret of his desire for big companies, and Apple in particular, to make more products here. In a Wednesday interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC’s Mad Money, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that Apple is creating a fund to promote advanced manufacturing in the United States, and seeding it with $1 billion to start.CBNC.com has the video and a complete transcript of the wide-ranging conversation, and it’s worth a watch. These are the points that most piqued our interest—OK, and one that just made us laugh.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
NEW ORLEANS -- As the head of product for Facebook Messenger, Stan Chudnovsky is responsible for one of the most popular consumer products in the world. And yet, despite Messenger’s 1.2 billion monthly active users, he’s convinced that the app can continue its growth and add more functions if users and business embrace the app as a channel for business-to-consumer communications.More than 60 million businesses have a presence on Facebook and at least 20 million are active on Messenger today, but Facebook continues to develop APIs, bots and other means to expedite connections between people and business, Chudnovsky said this week at the Collision conference. “We need to make it obvious that you can make a connection between people and businesses,” he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years of covering Android, it’s that most people don’t know half the stuff their phones can do—even when it comes to the platform’s most basic features.For business users in particular, some of Android’s foundational options can enhance productivity and eliminate annoyances. So look over this how-to collection and see if there’s anything you’re missing or maybe forgot—then hang onto it as a reference for friends, family members, and colleagues who ask for advice in the future.[ Android is now ready for real usage in the enterprise. Read InfoWorld’s in-depth guide on how to make Android a serious part of your business. | Get the best office apps and the 38 best business-worthy apps for your Android device. | Keep up on key mobile developments and insights with the Mobile Tech Report newsletter. ]
1. How to find and manage files on your phone
IDG
Solid Explorer File Manager offers advanced features for managing your phone’s files.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
While Gmail alone can dramatically improve your email efficiency, Gmail and Chrome together make a one-two productivity punch that’s hard to beat. Here are four Chrome extensions that help reduce the time you spend in your inbox so you can focus on the work that really matters.Send from Gmail
Typically when you click on an email address link, it will open your default email client and you have to toggle between it and your browser to compose your message and cut-and-paste any links. Send from Gmail saves you time and keystrokes by streamlining this process.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Swing and a missImage by Victor GrigasMost businesses are ill prepared to handle a ransomware attack. In fact, according to a new study released by Carbonite, 68 percent of survey respondents believe their company is “very vulnerable” or “vulnerable” to a ransomware attack. Respondents stated that if their company didn’t pay ransom, it was because they had a full and accurate backup. Without backup, they have no other way to get their most valuable asset back.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Several years ago, I was asked, “How do we actually make money from digital transformation?” In response, I tactfully answered with a question: If you want to put away more money in your retirement fund, how do you do that? The answer is simple: Make more money while spending the same (or even better, spend less), and put the difference into your retirement account.Deriving financial value from a digital transformation is simply leveraging digital capabilities to drive more revenue and saving on your operating expenses. How digital can drive incremental revenue
The first way to grow a business is to acquire new customers who will bring new revenue.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here