Open Web Developer News Desk

Virtualization Expo Call for Papers Deadline December 15

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 06:00:00 EST

Delegates will leave Virtualization Expo with a full understanding of the interaction between virtual servers and the rest of the data center infrastructure. Indeed our overall aim is to ensure that all attendees leave the Jacob Javits Convention Center with abundant resources, ideas and examples they can apply immediately to leveraging Virtualization in their own corporate datacenter, on the desktop, and elsewhere. If you wish to submit a speaking proposal for the 8th Virtualization Expo, April 19–21, 2010, then you can do so right here

Cloud Expo New York Call for Papers Deadline December 15

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:45:00 EST

Cloud computing is a game changer. The cloud is disrupting traditional software and hardware business models by disrupting how IT service gets delivered. Entrepreneurial opportunities abound as this classic disruptive technology begins to proliferate, so it is no surprise that SYS-CON's industry-leading International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo series is going from strength to strength.

Google’s New Web Operators: Its Own DNS

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 02:00:00 EST

Remember the image of the Ma Bell telephone operator, red nails, lipstick and counting the minutes until her next cigarette break, sitting on a stool, amid a line of fellow operators, plugging cables into a main switch board to connect a caller in New York with somebody in California? Well, you might say that that old image is akin to today’s Domain Name System, or DNS. The tech is what ISPs use to convert easy-to-remember domain names — into the unique Internet Protocol (IP) numbers — that computers use to communicate with one another.

IBM Betas Test & Dev Cloud

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:15:00 EST

It’s called plainly enough IBM Smart Business Development and Test on the IBM Cloud and will provide compute and storage as a service with Rational Software Delivery Services, WebSphere middleware and Information Management database thrown in. IBM is beta testing a public cloud, based on customizable virtual machines, for application software development. It’s called plainly enough IBM Smart Business Development and Test on the IBM Cloud and will provide compute and storage as a service with Rational Software Delivery Services, WebSphere middleware and Information Management database thrown in.

ThinPrint Offers to Solve Chrome’s Printing Problem

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:30:00 EST

Berlin-based ThinPrint AG, the printer virtualization house, thinks it’s got a cloud solution for the admittedly printing-challenged Chrome OS. It say it will be available in the fourth quarter of 2010 when the Chrome operating system is supposed to be fit for public consumption on special Google-spec’d netbooks.

Oracle Offers the EC a Deal: NY Post

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:00:00 EST

Oracle has offered to cordon off MySQL inside a combined Oracle-Sun to get the European Commission to approve its $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun ahead of a hearing set for next Thursday, according to the New York Post. The paper, quoting two unidentified sources, describes the vague Oracle proposal as a “separate entity” that would put a “firewall” between MySQL and the rest of Oracle and says it could involve a separate board.

Open Systems Provide Way to Exit Money Pit

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:15:00 EST

Now is the time to examine the TCO migrating from Unix to the more cost-effective open systems platforms. This white paper explores the costs associated with legacy data centers and the benefits of migrating to an open systems architecture.

Move Over BI, Here Comes PI - Performance Intelligence

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 21:30:00 EST

"As companies such as MySpace continue to expand the richness of their site, the big thing is trying to seek a higher level of customer experience by replicating "beyond capacity" in a test environment, so that a company can see what it is exactly that they will need when traffic surges to peak levels and beyond, so that they know the "risk points" of their own success," Tom Lounibos, CEO of SOASTA, told SYS-CON's Jeremy Geelan in an interview with Cloud Computing Journal on the day that SOASTA announced a significant test of the newly launched MySpace Music Videos hub using the Cloud.

Option 3G Solution in Google Android 2.0 Development Platform

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:30:00 EST

Option, the wireless technology company, today announced that its GTM501 will be used in MOTO Development Group's Android 2.0 Media Platform (AMP) offering reduced time-to-market for next-generation multi-touch consumer and enterprise electronics device developers. This project further demonstrates the Option's strategy to support innovative Original Equipment Manufacturers and Original Design Manufacturers integrating 3G connectivity.

Google Apps Gets Power Panel, Single Sign-On

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:30:00 EST

LTech, a little friend of Google’s, has spun up the first Power Panel for Google Apps to give enterprises moving to the cloud central administrative functionality. It’s also announced Single Sign-On for Google Apps now that Google Apps are pushing deeper into the enterprise. The Power Panel add-on, which LTech already know is gonna be popular, offers features such as Contact Journal, Shared Contact Search, Quick Links and an integration framework for CRM and enterprise data.

Infobright & Talend Combine on Free Virtual Data Warehouse

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:15:00 EST

They say nobody else can hand you everything you need in minutes. There’s nothing comparable. Still they’re expecting only the usual single-digit percentage upgrades to their paid software. Infobright’s self-managing software is supposed to reduce administrative effort by up to 90%, leverages standard servers, and reportedly needs less storage than rival products because of data compression and the elimination of indexes, data partitioning or data duplication.

Berlin Is The Place To Be in February - at iStrategy 2010

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST

With ever-changing media consumption patterns and the rapid growth of mobile web, social networking, behavioral targeting, vodcasting, email marketing, and viral marketing it can be tough for any company to stay ahead of the competition. Which is why the organizers of iStrategy 2010, to be held 9-10th February 2010 in Berlin, have created the event as an annual gathering for Business, Marketing, Business Development, IT and Creative professionals involved in all aspects of online media and strategic management positions.

Instant Professionalism Online Despite Yourself...with Ulitzer

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:45:00 EST

I read an article by an author on Ulitzer.com and was amazed at the professional image it provided him. I immediately researched Ulitzer to see if there was yet hope for me. I am a technology blogger on the subject of mobile computing strategies. As I was doing research I came across the author Ian Thain, a fellow mobile computing blogger, who had a very professional website on Ulitzer (www.ulitzer.com). Professional envy motivated me to investigate this thing called Ulitzer. Ian's website looked like he had spent a great deal of time and money on it - all things I am short on.

Android and Symbian Platform Technology Development Strategies

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST

Google is strongly pushing its open Android platform. With its market share declining, Symbian has also joined the open OS sector in order to protect its market. Android announced the Android 1.6 - codenamed Donut Alpha - in July 2009, followed by the Android 2.0 version - codenamed Eclair - at the end of October. Symbian also plans to launch new versions once every six months, while its platform is expected to become a fully open platform by mid-2010. This report compares the platform architecture of Android and Symbian, analyzes their licensing models, examines the strategies behind their development, and looks toward future developments of the two platforms.

Google Books Settlement 2.0?

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:30:00 EST

Google has announced a revised settlement [redlined pdf faq pdf] that it hopes will address the concerns raised by the Department of Justice and many other groups. Here's a summary of the summary Google provides [pdf], although IANAL and I encourage you to read the summary, which is written ...

Stanford’s eCorner: Leveling the Intellectual Playing Field

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST

What? Leveling the intellectual playing field with Stanford? The home of elite, wealthy and over-privileged? Suddenly I am inside an auditorium at Stanford University, listening to guest lecturers speaking to a class at the Stanford Technology Ventures Program.

Zend Teams with Varien

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:30:00 EST

Zend has gotten Varien, apparently a hot e-commerce platform, to ship the free Community Edition of Zend Server, the PHP web application server with the free Community Edition of its open source Magento e-commerce software. Varien, in turn, will contribute a number of native e-commerce features such as payment gateways and shipping calculation modules to the open source PHP framework, Zend Framework, which is an integrated part of Zend Server.

Oracle Upgrades its Open Source Database

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:15:00 EST

Berkeley DB Java Edition is a transactional storage engine for key-value pairs written entirely in Java that can be deployed as an embedded or so-called edge database, so developers can build applications that don’t need any manual administration. It now includes new replication features for high availability and scalability and performance improvements for highly concurrent applications.

SecuCloud Chooses OpSource to Help Secure Enterprise Data

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:45:00 EST

OpSource announced that SecuCloud has successfully deployed OpSource On-Demand to bring its business-critical database security and compliance solution to the enterprise. SecuCloud offers a comprehensive and automated database security and compliance solution that is designed from the bottom-up to meet the specific needs of each company or enterprise. SecuCloud chose OpSource On-Demand to provide the infrastructure of the new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) version of this solution because of OpSource On-Demand's unmatched reliability, security and partner-friendly reputation.

Unix Co-Creator Writes New Open Source Programming Language for Google

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:30:00 EST

Ken Thompson and Rob Pike, a couple of the revered old soldiers who wrote Unix, Plan 9 and Inferno at Bell Labs – and programming languages like B, without which C probably wouldn’t exist, and Limbo – have come up with an experimental new programming language called Go that Google, their current refuge, open sourced Tuesday under a BSD-style license. If it catches on, it would be the first major systems language to emerge in a decade.

Google Open Sources its JavaScript Tools

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:00:00 EST

Google Thursday open sourced its Closure JavaScript tools – a compiler, a cross-browser, server-agnostic library and a bunch of precompiled templates – in the name of making web apps easier to build. Recall that Gmail, Google Docs and Google Maps are JavaScript-intensive applications. Well, Google says the Closure widgetry is a key part of the JavaScript infrastructure behind its web apps. And the more web apps, the more of a headache for Microsoft and its ilk.

EC-Oracle Standoff Degenerates to Name Calling

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:00:00 EST

The European Commission Tuesday responded in kind to Oracle’s contention that its decision to potentially block Oracle’s $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun because of MySQL – whose revenues are barely a rounding error in Oracle’s books – shows “a profound misunderstanding of both database competition and open source dynamics.” The EC dismissed Oracle’s argument that “MySQL is open source, it cannot be controlled by anyone. That is the whole point of open source” as “facile and superficial.”

Yahoo Open Sources Traffic Server Code

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:00:00 EST

It says Traffic Server enables the session management, authentication, configuration management, load balancing and routing of an entire cloud computing stack. It’s supposed to offer fast, reliable and scalable access to cached online content and speed responses to requests for stored web objects, such as files, news articles or images, reducing bandwidth usage and costs.

Economy Beginning To Accelerate: Cisco CEO

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:45:00 EST

Cisco CEO John Chambers, who has turned into something of an economic oracle probably because he is more in command of his catbird seat than most big-time CEOs, said Wednesday when Cisco reported its quarterly results that the economy hit a “clear tipping point” before mid-summer and is now accelerating worldwide, enough for Cisco itself to start cautiously spending again. He’s planning targeted hiring.

Likewise Simplifies Upgrade Path for Open Source Authentication Software

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:00:00 EST

Likewise announced that it is offering three starter packs that combine its Likewise Enterprise software with support and training services. The starter packs are designed to help customers move from its open source software to Likewise Enterprise. Likewise Enterprise makes it easy for IT managers to authenticate users, control access to applications and data, centrally manage settings with group policies and create reports for regulatory audits. Likewise Enterprise is also the only solution to provide 100 percent native support for Apple’s Workgroup Manager application.

4th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo Starts Today

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:10:00 EST

A round-up of the wide range of important issues and timely topics due to be discussed by over 130 industry experts at SYS-CON's 4th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, opening today at the Santa Clara Convention Center, November 2-4, 2009. From Building Scalable and Extensible RIAs in the Cloud to Yahoo! Cloud @ Internet Scale.

LA to Go with Google Apps on Condition . . .

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:45:00 EDT

The city of Los Angeles has okayed a $7.2 million deal with CSC to rip out a lot of its existing Novell GroupWise e-mail systems and whatnot and replace it with Google Apps provided CSC agrees to pay a pre-set penalty if there’s a security breach. They still need to dicker about that according to the AP.

Zeus to Manage the Cloud

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:00:00 EDT

Zeus Technology, the Anglo-American concern whose web server ran 3% of the world’s web sites back before the dot.com bubble burst, third in the race behind Apache and Microsoft, was asking around among CIOs, IT director and senior IT managers at large organizations and came to find out that although 75% of them, give or take, are either in the cloud or soon will be, only 27% have a solution in place to manage it and so are basically flying without a net.

Chrome Sued for Patent Infringement

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:45:00 EDT

An Israeli company called Red Bend has sued Google’s Chrome browser for patent infringement in the district court in Massachusetts. It says Chrome’s Courgette differential compression algorithm treads on its widgetry. Courgette, which launched in July, sends just partial application updates to the browser to save on bandwidth and reduce vulnerabilities.

Oracle+MySQL Opponents Take to the Barricades

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:45:00 EDT

Monty Widenius, the creator of the MySQL open source database – which is apparently all that stands between Oracle and its acquisition of Sun – thinks that Oracle shouldn’t have his baby and that the European Commission – whose investigation into MySQL has put the Oracle-Sun merger in limbo – should force Oracle to spit it out to another company.

LA Council Insists On Added Security Breach Penalty As It Oks Move to Google’s ‘Cloud’

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:00:00 EDT

The Los Angeles City Council voted today to move the city's 30,000 email users to a system provided by Google, but only after a provision that the city be compensated if there is security breach in the data held on Google's servers. Consumer Watchdog had said that the security provisions for the Google "cloud computing" system for email and other applications remained untested and opposed the $7.25 million contract. However, the nonpartisan, nonpartisan consumer group had argued that if the contact were approved, it should contain a provision requiring "liquidated damages" or a payment in the event of a security breach. Council voted to add the penalty provision 9-3.

Google Apps: Not as Cheap as They Look

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 06:00:00 EDT

The city of Los Angeles can’t make up its mind whether to trash its clunky Novell system and go with Google Apps for e-mail and office applications, citing costs and necessity. It was supposed to be a showcase account for Google. The decision will now move from LA’s budget and finance committee to the full city council for a vote next week, according to the LA Times.

SproutCore Release Candidate 1 Hits the Streets

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 03:00:00 EDT

Last night I merged the final set of changes for the first release candidate of SproutCore 1.0. I also published a new gem (build 1.0.1008) so you can get the official release quite easily. Just open your terminal [on Mac or Linux] and type:

sudo gem install sproutcore

Then enjoy!

If you just want a taste of what the release candidate can do, check out the demos at:

http://demo.sproutcore.com

Especially try the SampleControls app, where you can see an example of over 300 views rendered on a single page (in the Controls tab).

What’s In the Box?

In case you haven’t heard, SproutCore 1.0 is a major revision of the entire SproutCore platform. New build tools, new data store, new view layer, massively upgraded bindings and property observing and more. Our primary goals for this release were performance and stability. I’m happy to report we achieved both in spades.

Fast, Fast, Fast! Make it fast!

I created SproutCore in the first place was because I wanted to build fast applications on the web. I believe the web is the ultimate application platform, but it will only be so when we can build apps that are just as fast and fluid as their native cousins.

While the 0.9 code I think proved this concept; we hadn’t really achieved parity yet. Our goal with 1.0 was to make sure SproutCore apps could load on any desktop browser in under 3 seconds, even if the app is big and complex and has a large data set.

We passed this goal actually; by 50%. Most SproutCore apps can load in under 1.5 second with the proper deployment. You results may vary; but if they do it is unlikely SproutCore will be the bottleneck.

Here are just a few of the big enhancements we added to make this possible:

The build tools can now automatically combine your JavaScript and CSS to minimize the number of assets you have to download. Usually, you’ll only need to get 2 scripts and 2 stylesheets that’s it.
Output apps are also designed for caching. If you follow our deployment guide, your app will be able to essentially “live” in your user’s browser cache; eliminating network latency issues for the SproutCore part entirely [after first load].
We also made it possible to break your application into loadable bundles that can be deferred until you actually need them. This means if you have a large app you an write portions of it so they only load when they are actually needed; keeping your initial page weight down to a minimum.
On the framework level, our view layer was rewritten specifically around the major performance bottlenecks in IE. Our new layer can render 300 views client side in IE in about 100msec (on my Mac Book Air). It’s even faster in the other browsers.
Once rendered, all views on the page are now displayed using absolute positioning. This not only virtually eliminates cross browser issues for display - it also makes the browser actually render your content faster.
We also rewrote the datastore layer to “lazy evaluate” queries and data changes. This means you can easily shove a large number of records into the data store - some people have been using 50,000 or more records each time their app loads - and we’ll handle it just fine. You can load those records often in just a few hundred msec.
Finally, the code property observing and bindings layer that underpins all of SproutCore was massively optimized. Notifications are sent less often, use less memory, and they are generally 3x faster than the 0.9 code.

All of these improvements essentially mean you can make just about any SproutCore app load and run in just a few seconds. The only piece of your infrastructure we can’t control is the part of your server that delivers actual data. If you can make that component blazing fast as well, your web app will knock the socks off of a native app any day.

If you want an example of this performance, just visit the Tasks app (running 1.0 Beta code on top of Google App Engine) and login as “guest”. You can also checkout the new SproutCore demos linked below.

No More Changes!

SproutCore is a large framework. It has over 25,000 lines of code. We wanted to make SproutCore stable - meaning both the API we published would not change underneath you (or at least it would change in a controlled way) and that features we added would continue to work; even as we introduced new code.

We started on this goal by adding nearly 5,500 unit tests across the entire platform. It’s a lot of unit tests. Currently, on Safari 4 and Firefox at least, every single one of these unit tests pass green. IE7 and IE8 each file 18 tests due to issues with the tests themselves rather than the code they test; we aim to have these tests fixed by the time 1.0 is final as well.

We also massively reworked the entire API, scrubbing it for consistency and cleaning up areas that were confusing or made it too easy to do things wrong or too hard to do things right.

This API review led to a lot of church and instability, ironically, during development which was an endless source of frustration for those few brave souls who were building on 1.0 before it was finished. It was worth the pain, however. The new API is easy to use and generally works well.

We will always want to polish bits of the API here and there, but I’m convinced that we have a clear path to evolve our code now without breaking your existing code in major ways again.

What’s Next?

The release candidate is out. This means we are “done” with the development of SproutCore 1.0. Please test it out if you can and send us feedback. If you find a bug or want a change in, please still submit it. We can take changes up till just before we release thanks to our unit tests.

The core team will be working on finishing documentation on the wiki, validating example applications, and updating the website for our final release. We would also like to have a party in San Francisco for the release.

When these things are ready, SproutCore 1.0 will be fast, stable, and easy to learn (thanks to the new docs and tutorials). Then, finally - after a year of effort - we will be done.

Thanks!

Finally, I want to say a word of thanks to all of those who have contributed to the development of SproutCore over the last year. I went back through the commit logs and its actually a pretty big list. I can name 30 contributors and that doesn’t include the folks who send me patches now and then via email.

But I just want to call out those I can. If I missed you, please forgive me. But your contribution is really appreciated:

Billy Kakes
Brian Cully
Charles Jolley
Chris Hyle
Colin Campbell
Cortlan Klien
Erich Ocean
Evin Grano
Geoffrey Donaldson
James Austin
Jason Ketterman
Jonathan Lewis
Joshua Dickens
Juan Pinzon
Majd Taby
Martin Ottenwaelter
Maurits Lamers
Mike Ball
Mike Subelsky
Mohammed Ashik
Onar Vikingstad
Peter Bergstrom
Peter Wagenet
Ray Bodenhorn
Santosh Shanboque
Sudarshan Bhat
Tanner Donovan
Teresa Tsui
Thomas Langemann
Tom Dale
Trek Glowacki

Most of us get into the software industry to try to build something that is really, truly, great. Like-magic kind of great. It turns out it is really hard to do this. We can turn out good software, but the really great stuff doesn’t come easy or often.

SproutCore 1.0 is really truly great. It’s the best piece of code I’ve never been involved with and it’s thanks to the contributions of the folks above, as well as those who’ve been testing, providing feedback, and brave enough to try to build actual products on our code while it was still in development.

So thank you! I can’t say it enough.

What’s Next Next?

Finally, I can’t leave this post on 1.0 without pointing you who are interested to some of the cool things we are already starting work on for SproutCore 1.1 (code named Quilmes). Now that 1.0 is looking really solid, we get to spend some time on really fun things including:

An awesome new animation layer (already working in alpha form).
A FormView that can automatically generate an editor or browser UI from model objects
A UI builder - like Interface Builder or Atlas. The engine is already finished; we’re just putting together the editor UI.
A new JS loader based on CommonJS SecurableModules. This will make SproutCore usable in server-side code as well as making it easier to suck in external libraries for your own use.

Development is being tracked on the wiki so head on over to take a look.

The Tasks app I linked to earlier is also coming along nicely. The team there has a few more changes lined up, but we will soon be able to use it as our default bug tracker and planning tool for SproutCore.

Last of all, I want to give a shout out to the team at Kiva.org who has been working with us on a new Kiva Loan Browser. Kiva, you might know, is a non-profit that makes microloans to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Microloans are one of the most effective ways to address poverty and Kiva is one of the best.

SproutCore needs a good end-to-end example application and so we’ve partnered with them to build a new Loan Browser - and perhaps more in the long run. I hope that once SproutCore 1.0, you will help us build this app into a really great way for Kiva to find and share loans.

Help others while you learn!

—

So this post has turned into a minor book. Sorry for the length. 1.0 is a big milestone. I can’t wait to see what you build with it.

-Charles

Carl Icahn Resigns From the Board of Yahoo!

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:00:00 EDT

Carl Icahn announced today that he had informed the Board of Directors of Yahoo! Inc. that he was resigning as a director of Yahoo!. Mr. Icahn told the Board that in his view there was not a need at this time for an activist director at Yahoo! Mr. Icahn indicated that there are a number of other companies on which he is currently focused and therefore would not have the time to give to the business and affairs of Yahoo! required of a Board member properly fulfilling his duties. Mr. Icahn stated that he commended Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz on the job she is doing. Mr. Icahn thanked everyone on the Board for acting so responsibly, especially in connection with the search transaction with Microsoft which he strongly advocated and participated in bringing about. Finally, Mr. Icahn indicated that he hoped to continue his relationship with Carol Bartz and the other members of the Yahoo! Board.

Sun To Cut 3,000 Jobs, Blames EC

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:00:00 EDT

Sun said late Tuesday that it will be forced to cut 3,000 jobs worldwide over the next 12 months because of “the delay in the closing of the acquisition of the company,” laying the blame squarely at the doorstep of the European Commission and its prolonged investigation into whether Oracle should be allowed to acquire the Sun-owned MySQL open source database.

Google's Data Liberation Front

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:45:00 EDT

In what can be seen as a major win for users of Google's various cloud services, the company has announced a new website called "The Data Liberation Front" dedicated to be the central location for information on how to move your data in and out of Google products.

According to the site, The Data Liberation Front is an engineering team at Google whose singular goal is to make it easier for users to move their data in and out of Google products. We do this because we believe that you should be able to export any data that you create in (or import into) a product. We help and consult other engineering teams within Google on how to "liberate" their products.

Their mission statement: Users should be able to control the data they store in any of Google's products. Our team's goal is to make it easier for them to move data in and out.

The site's creators point out that project was started as an internal engineering team back in 2007. When the team couldn't agree on the name, they came up with "Data Liberation Front" as a homage to The Judean People's Front, the splinter group in Monty Python's Life of Brian that spends most of its time bickering. In addition, the team indicated that they see themselves as being somewhat subversive, not so much within Google, but insofar as it's unusual for a big company to work to make it easier for their customers to leave them.

The site also points out that there shouldn't be an additional charge to export your data. Beyond that, if it takes you many hours to get your data out, it's almost as bad as not being able to get your data out at all. I would also add if your data isn't usable. For example a 1tb text file is (almost) just as bad as not getting your data at all.

The FAQ answers some interesting questions including that of Data Standards saying "We're working to use existing open standards formats wherever possible, and to document how we use those formats in a clear simple manner."

Personally, I applaud this move by Google, lets hope others in the cloud space follow Google's lead.

Google Goes on Offense against Office

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:30:00 EDT

Google is doing something very un-Google. It's stooping to advertise. What started a few months ago with "Go Google" billboards on 101 in Silicon Valley, the West Side Highway in New York, the Mass Pike in Boston and the Ike in Chicago touting Google Apps went international Monday in France, Japan, the UK, Canada, Australia and Singapore at train stations and airports as well as print ads in the Economist, the New York Time, Forbes and the Daily Telegraph and web sites like FT.com and Times Online. Google's trolling for frustrated, cash-strapped Microsoft and IBM business users and claims to have converted two million businesses - up from 1.75 million in June - and 20 million people - up from 15 million - in over 100 countries and over 40 languages to its cloud-based applications.

Ryan Greives Launches The Social Media Guide on Ulitzer

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:45:00 EDT

Ryan Greives, Media Relations Specialist for Indianapolis-based BLASTmedia, has launched The Social Media Guide on Ulitzer. His industry knowledge and experience covers everything from consumer Internet companies and gadgets to highly complex enterprise software and hardware technologies. He believes a “revolutionary” new product or service can be launched, but unless the right people know, it may become the world’s best kept secret - hence his interest in social media. Having forged solid editorial relationships over the years and perfecting the art of positioning a company to generate the press coverage it deserves, Greives has emerged as an expert in the enterprise media relations space.

Google Voice and Parlay-X

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:10:00 EDT

Google Voice has a useful feature whereby it will call your phone and another number, then link the calls. This is free within the US, and very cheap for international calls (certainly cheaper than dialing out directly from my mobile phone).

read more

Google Apps Lands its Biggest Fish Yet

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:00:00 EDT

Rentokil Initial, an odd combination of a modern-day charwoman who in her off-hours is a courier service, exterminator, insurance adjuster, heating and air conditioning installer and water and electrical tester, has gone with Google Apps, expecting to be the largest deployment of its paid Premier Edition yet. The cloud widgetry will replace Rentokil’s 180 e-mail domains and 40 mail systems – everything from open source to Microsoft – as it rolls out to 35,000 employees in 50 countries and six operating divisions by the end of next year.