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Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft’

The share of Google in the enterprise email market presently swings around at 1% which Gartner, a technology research company, predicts to reach 10% within the next few years.

Gartner says Google is getting ground with enterprises which contain more than 5,000 seats. Gartner also named several users in public and in private sectors with 10,000 or more Gmail seats.

Huge companies that utilized Gmail include the US General Services Administration having 17,000 users, Motorola Mobility with 22,000 users, Jaguar Land Rover having 15,000 users, the Los Angeles City Government with 17,000 and the Intercontinental Hotel chain with 10,000.

Gartner analyst Matthew Cain says this is the start of a major escalation amidst the email war.  According to the research firm, cloud-based email systems make up for roughly 4 % of the overall enterprise email market.

In 2010, a cloud-based exchange service was released by Microsoft. This year, a more expensive cloud was offered named Office 365.

In the meantime, more improvements are being made in Google’s platform at an intense pace. In fact, substantial changes in the platform have reached more than a dozen for the past 12 months.

The upgrades include advances in manageability and in security. Security features improvements add in the ability to reset the users sign-on cookies. Manageability improvements include the faculty to manage policy by user groups.

The newest and major version of Microsoft’s operating system Windows 8 has opened this week and has just made one the biggest changes in the platform history.

At a Microsoft’s conference, they have spent more than two hours to discuss in detail the next OS. The software is yet to be released and used by consumers next year. However, a clearer picture of Microsoft’s position to the industry, shifting their purchases from personal desktops to handy notebooks, and now, they’re open to more portable devices like smartphones and tablets.

In other words, Microsoft’s ace in broadening their landscape is Windows 8. It is a powerful product which works on almost all machines with a convenient interface which adapts along the way. With that vision, we can differentiate Microsoft’s purpose to that of Apple’s. Apple has created a different OS for their portable, and kept a different one for their Intel-based devices.

But then, the separation affected consumer’s views on operating systems, the frequency of updates, and introducing of features after years or months of purchase. If OS’ are separated, the maker can iterate quickly, and they could provide major releases every year while still continuing to offer updates on Mac OS X.

For Microsoft, they have been releasing new versions of Windows every few years. But users are more used to having frequent service updates. Apple and Android are proofs of providing users frequent software updates.

Microsoft denied that the workers protest at Foxconn Technology Group has something to do with the dispute in Wuhan, China. Workers held a protest on their contract manufacturer because of their working assignment and transfer policies, and not on their working conditions. 

It was last week when more than 150 workers gathered above the rooftop of a building to protest at Foxconn factory in Wuhan. According to Chinese media reports, workers threatened to commit suicide by jumping off the building if their compensation demands were not met.

Microsoft conducted their own investigation about the matter by interviewing workers along with Foxconn management as well. In a statement, the company said they understood the workers’ protest and suggested an option for workers. They have offered the workers to be transferred to alternative production lines or resigning so they would receive their due salary and bonuses basing on their length of service. This was the only option they could give because of regular production adjustments at Foxconn.

Foxconn also said the dispute only came after it was announced that they will be transferred to another unit due to production lines shift.  As of this writing, there are 45 workers who decided to resign.

By early next year, Microsoft will start to silently upgrade their Internet Explorer. The company announced that all Internet Explorer running on Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP will be upgraded. The move is a strategy already used by Google Chrome starting 2009.  This also means that latest versions are upgraded without needing to ask for permission from the user.

As for now, Microsoft normally asks for permission before installing an upgrade to its Internet Explorer. This is despite the fact that automatic upgrades are enabled by Windows users. But as announced by Microsoft, starting January 2012, all updates are upgraded without the fuzzy dialogue boxes.

Users still have a choice. They can opt to decline the installation of IE8 and IE9 through Windows Update.  Also, users may uninstall the updates if they want to. And lastly, a customer may be able to block the update to their own fit.

In addition, the future version of IE offers an option which would allow users to block automatic upgrades. These blockers are also included in automatic updates which are available to organizations who may want to stick with old versions of browsers.

On the other hand, IE’s rival Chrome lands as the most popular browser in the world. According to StatCounter, a Web analysis firm, Google Chrome 16 is the most-used browser today.

Chrome 15 owned 23.6 percent of the market worldwide. It topped out Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 which only took 23.5 percent of the market. The next browser which came close is Firefox 8 with 12.12 percent market share.

As Skype proposes their purchase of a mobile messaging startup, a new Microsoft Web 2.0 project seems to be also on the rise.

A mobile messaging named GroupMe will be bought by Skype which allows users to organize contacts into groups. The business a fund amounting to $10.6 million.

Skype is also “set” to be purchased by Microsoft for $8.5B.

With GroupMe, a user can put up private chats. One can also share photos and their location. Using its old voice service, users can set up conference calls with their contacts.

This mobile messaging service works on Android, Blackberry, iPhone, and Windows Phone.

The terms of their agreement have not been made public. However, reports say Skype is expecting $85M from it.

Skype has already bolstered out their defenses against other similar services from Google Huddle, Apple iMessage, Facebook Messenger, and Blackberry messenger.

Founders of the tiny GroupMe are said to have cashed rather than facing the possibility of getting crushed by other social media giants.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s We’re In may not be too bright. We’re In only works for Windows phone while GroupMe runs on devices other than Windows Phone.  Skype however continues to work on platforms other than Microsoft.

Google decided to start populating users search results having posts shared publicly through their Google+ connections.

This new feature will only work when users have signed in to their accounts. The aim of this service is to tailor the results according to individual taste. The theory of such feature is if a user posts links on Google+ about a website, a news story, a video link, a restaurant or a retail store’s site, most likely Google+ connections would be interested to see this site as well.

Google wrote on a blog post a sample of such case. In one of the circles in Google+, a contact posted a note on a Chinese restaurant located in New York. When a user looks into Google about the restaurant, the note would appear in the results indicating that one of his contacts shared a note about that establishment.

This gives a review on the web, and also shares recommendation on the establishment.

Microsoft’s Bing also launched the same features which elevated results having “likes” from a Facebook friend. This only works when a user is logged in to his/her Facebook account. Also, when a friend clicks the “thumbs up” icon for like, the shop, product, or service  liked will immediately show up in Bing search results.

The complete idea of this feature for both Google and Microsoft is to make the virtual world like the real world where people usually rely on friends in trying out new products, places, and more.

Acer, the Taiwanese PC maker has announced on press time its plans to acquire iGware Inc- a California-based cloud-computing technology developer for $320 million in cash. The deal includes an exchange of cloud-based products and other services. Acer also reveals its future plans of acquisitions.

Since 2007, iGware is Acer’s second acquisition in the United States market. Four years ago, it acquired PC maker Gateway Inc. for $710 million. In 2008, Acer acquired seventy-five percent of Packard Bell and E-ten Information Systems Co.- both are Taiwan companies. In 2009, they acquired 29.9 percent of Italy’s Olidata S.p.A.

The acquisitions were brought about by the major changes in their senior executives which include Gianfranco Lanci’s departure earlier this year. Afterwhich, the company appointed Jim Wong last April as their corporate president. Along with the company’s changes, they have announced last May that it will reserve $150 million as charge to earnings to settle disputed accounts in Europe which attacked their inventory management.

The idea of using cloud computing technology spurred from the increasing popularity of mobile gadgets like smartphones and tablets. The cloud technology technically allows their users to access the Internet and store these data on the internet without having to use their gadget’s internal memory. Other major tech companies have already been using such technology such as Hewlett-Packard Co., Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Intel Corp.

According to experts, this market is projected to grow 27 percent annually for the following five years and may reach $73 million in 2015.

Stocks is going to be challenged to show the tide of the latest selling in a few days as political jousting around is bound in bringing up the worsening debt ceiling of United States.

Investors have now become discouraged by the absence of development concerning the debate between the Republican-majority House and Democrat that controlled the White House. With this, investors choose to move around to a safer perception of cash assets.

S&P 500 index’s benchmark now noted its worst weekly deficit in five straight days.

As the squabbling of debt ceiling has become the focus, this season the earnings are projected to heat up right after a stable preliminary week.  Based on the data revealed by Thomson Reuters, thirty nine business companies have reported 74% earnings in the S&P 500 index’s benchmark. This outdone the estimation of Wall Street.

The House Speaker of the Republican in Congress, John Boehner stated that the Democrats together with Pres. Obama still did not lay down a solid debit plans. Boehner underlined the hostility in consultations to ward off the default status of the government.

S&P 500 concluded down by 2.1% as for the current week while Dow cut down by 1.4%. Nasdaq also went down by 2.5%.

Moreover, companies included in the index are predicted to illustrate a rise of 6.5% over the 2^nd quarter of the year 2010 when the entire reports are finally in.

In addition to the quarterly reports, ten Dow Companies along with major companies for finance such as Morgan Stanley (MS.N), Goldman Sachs (GS.N), American Express (AXP.N) and Bank of America Corporation (BAC.N) are also due to present their earnings. Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.O), Intel Corporation (INTC.O) and Apple Incorporated (AAPL.O) are also scheduled to report quarterly earnings.

A full web-based version of Microsoft Office 2010 will be included for the first time in the new software of the online corporate of the Microsoft Corporation. This offer is an effort to hold off the competition against Google Inc. when it comes to business accounts.

At an event in New York yesterday, the Chief Executive officer of Microsoft Steve Ballmer, the Office suite with 365 programs has been introduced. The cost of a one month package is $6 for small businesses. The package includes applications on Office Web and software on Exchange e-mail. If companies choose a full version of the Office with programs on Excel and Word, they can $12 a month.

The Microsoft based in Washington is doing its best to keep the office-productivity of Google in making advances on government and corporate clients with their business applications. Microsoft aims to fight with Google in satisfying customers and providing them with better applications based on a cloud—network-based info rather than saving it on a hard drive. Office’s complete online version is sticking up with the web apps released last year.

According to an analyst in Seattle Sid Parakh, in financial terms, the plan of Microsoft in launching Office in the cloud will take time before it becomes significant. Yet, the apps will surely provide a new way of delivery of the company’s mainstream products. In addition, it may reach parity with Google Apps. Parakh recommends buying shares in Microsoft.

Yahoo is facing big problems right now. The company is suffering from a decline in their revenues during the past years. Meanwhile, Facebook is enjoying the credit of being the top seller of online advertising on display. This report is according to eMarketer, a lead research which keeps track on online ad expenditures.

For this year, the number one social networking site also became the number one in display ads scraping $2.2 billion for their ads. On the other hand, Yahoo only raked $1.6 billion. Last year, Yahoo was number 2 generating $1.4 billion. Yet, Facebook only gathered $1.2 billion.

Yahoo has been experiencing the hardship of management turnover and huge blunders for years. One of those includes a merge with Microsoft last 2008. Microsoft could have given Yahoo $45 billion, but Yahoo’s CEO Jerry Yang then, has refused to accept the over. Yahoo’s value now is less than half the said amount.

In 2009, Bartz linked up with Yahoo. He was expected to fix the house and impel a turnaround for the sick internet icon. Unfortunately, over those years, the stock price of Yahoo did not even shift higher. In fact, their revenues has declined to $6.3 billion last 2010 from 2008’s $7.2 billion. Recently, analysts supposed that Yahoo will suffer another decline yet only a bit.

As analysts notice it, the best asset of Yahoo is not their core business of content delivering through websites. They believe that the 40 percent stake in Alibaba Group has kept them alive since their acquisition of the said Chinese company last 2005. It is expected to help them increase four times the value by the year 2015.