Atul Abraham instantwebmeetings.com at the DLD Stage via Seesmic
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Atul Abraham instantwebmeetings.com at the DLD Stage via Seesmic
PALO ALTO, Calif., November 10, 2008 – VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter, today announced plans to bring virtualization and its many proven benefits to mobile phones through the new VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP). Built on innovative technology acquired from Trango Virtual Processors in October 2008, VMware MVP will help handset vendors reduce development time and get mobile phones with value-added services to market faster. In addition, end users will benefit by being able to run multiple profiles – for example, one for personal use and one for work use – on the same phone.
“VMware is excited to extend the benefits of virtualization, which we pioneered for x86 hardware, to the mobile phone market,” said Paul Maritz, president and chief executive officer of VMware. “By abstracting the applications and data from the hardware itself, we expect that virtualization will not only enable handset vendors to accelerate time to market but can also pave the way for innovative applications and services for phone users. We look forward to working closely with our partners to bring new mobile solutions to market faster.”
“Gartner sees virtualization in the mobile space as a very promising and potentially a fast emerging market,” said Monica Basso, research vice president, at Gartner. “We predict that by 2012, more than 50% of new smart phones shipped will be virtualized (1). Virtualization can enable enterprises and consumers to easily manage and secure their phones and it can also help handset vendors reduce bills of materials and shorten development cycles to allow for faster releases.”
What is VMware MVP?
VMware MVP is a thin layer of software that will be embedded on a mobile phone that decouples the applications and data from the underlying hardware. It will be optimized to run efficiently on low-power-consuming and memory-constrained mobile phones. The MVP is planned to enable handset vendors to bring phones to market faster and make them easier to manage.
Benefits to Handset Manufacturers
Benefits to Businesses and End Users
Visit www.vmware.com/mobile for additional information about VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform
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VMware to Bring Virtualization to Mobile Phones
This week Microsoft gave evidence that it will continue to be a major force for at least the next decade. The company outlined its products and strategies that more fully embrace the “cloud,” such as the Azure set of cloud services; Web-based, lighter-weight versions of Microsoft Office applications; and the latest iteration of the Live Mesh middleware. Google may have won the search war, but Microsoft isn’t about to cede the global cloud to the search engine giant.
Ray Ozzie explains Azure to CNET News correspondent Ina Fried.
As in past epochs in its 33-year history, Microsoft ties its success to the developer community, having an army of loyal, or at least well or modestly compensated, software warriors. The Microsoft mantra is: “Build a platform and an ecosystem of developers, partners, fans, and people willing to spend their money will follow.” A compelling platform and the potential to reach a large audience of buyers, which Microsoft can deliver, attract the developers, who build the applications and services that attract consumers and business users.
Microsoft also now understands that its platform must span every kind of device–PC, notebook, smartphone, car, home, etc.–and offline scenarios. Microsoft missed the Web search revolution, but it’s not going to miss out on the much bigger revolution–the move to the cloud over the next two decades.
Google is building a competing ecosystem from the ground up with similar characteristics and a desire to attract millions of developers. Amazon is pushing its elastic computer cloud, and Rackspace, EMC, IBM, and many other companies are trying to get a piece of the action. Most the cloud companies are focused on hosting services, but the biggest piece will be platforms-as-a-service with developers creating and running their applications for on a cloud operating system.
An early example of this trend is Salesforce.com’s proprietary Force.com platform. Sun Microsystems, the company that coined the phrase “The network is the computer,” has all the pieces to construct a planetary cloud but seems to be missing from the discussion. As my friend Steve Gillmor notes, Sun is on the ropes.
Openness is a major issue as the global cloud materializes. Businesses don’t want to be locked into a particular cloud, and also want various clouds and services to interoperate via standards. Speaking at the Professional Developers Conference last week, Microsoft’s chief software architect Ray Ozzie said that the foundation level in the operating system cloud would run in Microsoft’s data center, but SQL services, .NET, and Live services can be mixed and matched by developers inside and outside of the company’s datacenters. The Azure cloud is also cross-platform, but the various clouds will extract a toll and by nature it won’t be dead simple to move applications using foundation services from one cloud to another.
Microsoft’s cloud computing efforts have gotten off to a slow start compared with competitors, and it’s on the scale of a Manhattan Project for Windows. Azure is in pre-beta and who knows how it will turn out or whether consumers and companies will adopt it with enough volume to keep Microsoft’s business model and market share intact. But there is no turning back and Microsoft has finally legitimized Office in the cloud.
Ray Ozzie has a track record of slowly but surely getting things done and Microsoft is famously persistent and cash rich. But building a platform, or Internet operating system, at planetary scale supporting billions of users and trillions of transactions per day, and having fleet Google as a primary competitor will be a major test of Microsoft’s brain trust and resolve. Don’t be surprised to find a recharged Bill Gates parachuting into the fray as Azure evolves and the cloud war for developers escalates.
See also:
Scoble: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner
Excerpt from:
Microsoft?s Manhattan Project
LOS ANGELES – After dragging its feet for years, Microsoft says it plans to offer Web-based versions of its Office programs that let people create and edit documents inside a browser.
The surprise move, announced here this morning, is a sharp change for one of the Redmond company’s oldest and most profitable franchises. Traditional versions of Microsoft Word, Excel and other programs dominate the market, and Microsoft has been reluctant to offer functional online counterparts — even as Google and other rivals have beaten it to the punch.
It’s part of Microsoft’s broader move toward online services, coming a day after the company announced plans for a new “cloud computing” platform, Windows Azure, that will let software developers create and deliver programs over the Internet from Microsoft’s data centers.
Taken together, the moves reflect a new era for Microsoft under the leadership of Ray Ozzie, the online services guru who has replaced Bill Gates as the company’s chief software architect.
However, the company says it’s not looking to abandon its traditional software businesses. Microsoft describes the Web-based Office applications as “lightweight” versions that aim to complement the standard Office programs without replacing them.
Microsoft says it will offer Word, Excel, PowerPoint and the OneNote note-taking application as Web applications. The company isn’t say when final versions will be made available in final form, except that they will come with the next wave of Office programs. Microsoft says it expects to conduct a private technical preview of the Office Web applications this fall.
An existing Microsoft offering, Office Live Workspace, offers online document sharing and collaboration, but without full-fledged authoring and editing capabilities.
The Web-based Office applications will come with an on-screen interface reminiscent of their PC-based counterparts, with a variation of the “ribbon” navigational menu that was introduced in the most-recent release of the traditional Office programs.
The company isn’t disclosing pricing or other specifics. The Web-based Office programs will be available to consumers through the existing Office Live service, which offers programs and services under both advertising- and subscription-based models. Microsoft says it will offer the applications to businesses through subscriptions and volume licensing agreements.
The programs are expected to be demonstrated this morning at the company’s Professional Developers Conference here. Also at the conference, Microsoft is giving the first detailed look at Windows 7, the next version of the company’s flagship PC operating system.
The Web-based Office applications will come with an on-screen interface reminiscent of their PC-based counterparts, with a variation of the “ribbon” navigational menu that was introduced in the most-recent release of the traditional Office programs.
The company isn’t disclosing pricing or other specifics. The Web-based Office programs will be available to consumers through the existing Office Live service, which offers programs and services under both advertising- and subscription-based models. Microsoft says it will offer the applications to businesses through subscriptions and volume licensing agreements.
The programs are expected to be demonstrated this morning at the company’s Professional Developers Conference here. Also at the conference, Microsoft is giving the first detailed look at Windows 7, the next version of the company’s flagship PC operating system.
Continued here:
Microsoft taking Office to the browser
(Credit: CNET News)Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign launched an iPhone application on Thursday that turns the vaunted device into a political recruiting tool.
The most notable feature “organizes and prioritizes your contacts by key battleground states, making it easy to reach out and make an impact quickly,” according to the software.
On my phone, the application ranked contacts in Colorado, Michigan, and New Mexico at the top; at the bottom was a friend whose cell phone has a Texas number, though she actually lives in California.
The application anonymously reports back the number of calls made this way: “Your privacy is important: no personal data or contacts will be uploaded or stored. Only the total number of calls you make is uploaded anonymously.”
The software is the latest effort by politicians to capitalize on technology, joining other examples such as ads distributed through YouTube, Web-based fund-raising, Facebook pages and fan groups, and e-mail recruitment drives.
The Obama for America iPhone application is available for download through Apple’s iTunes store, said Raven Zachary, an iPhone consultant who’s directing the launch effort.
A “get involved” feature uses the phone’s GPS-based location sensing to find the nearest Obama campaign headquarters, and “local events” likewise pulls up a list of activities sorted by proximity.
A “media” section provides links to video and photos, but beware: YouTube showed errors following some of the links. Perhaps the newer videos hadn’t been prepared for iPhone display yet.
The application also shows Obama statements to the news media and a guide to Obama’s positions on various issues.
Update 8:50 a.m. PDT: The application shows how many calls have been made nationwide and how many you made. Those statistics are the kind that can motivate people–they can feel like they’re part of something bigger. That may sound a bit silly as a motivational tool, but consider that Smule’s Sonic Lighter application for the iPhone is popular, despite the fact that it costs 99 cents more than its free competition, likely because people can see where else on the globe people are using it and because the longer you run the application, the bigger your own spot on the map becomes. It’s a kind of competition.
Update 9:28 a.m. PDT: The campaign added an Obama iPhone app Web site, too.
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Obama releases iPhone recruiting, campaign tool
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Microsoft?s BlueTrack mice are here ? laser bids a tearful goodbye
Sure, we’ve seen some blurry videos and managed a few stolen glimpses when Andy Rubin demonstrated this beast, but now we’ve gotten our hands on a slew of pictures showing off a very real T-Mobile-branded Dream in all its Android-running glory. Not only does this confirm the design spied in those FCC docs as well as show off that nearly-done version of Android, but it seems to confirm the fact that this will be headed to T-Mobile, and sooner rather than later judging from the looks of the above device. Needless to say, our inner-geeks are completely geeking out right now. Hit the gallery below for a handful of other views of the phone.
[Thanks, Michael]
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HTC?s Android-driven Dream revealed in glorious spy photos
Pursuing the Next Level of Artificial Intelligence
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Pursuing the Next Level of Artificial Intelligence
This chart says it all. A new study discovers that the vast majority of Facebook apps are an utter waste of time. But oh yeah — Facebook is worth $9 billion, or $15 billion. And Slide is worth half a billion because it makes that super important FunWall application. Um, right. Kids, let’s face it. Facebook is Webkinz for adults. Facebook is a Ponzi scheme. A handful of VCs have created the illusion of an actual market by funding apps companies and then doing deals with each other — passing cash back and forth among to make it look as if money is being made.
What really freaks me out is that when you mention this to the VCs, they say, “So what? What’s wrong with that?” I used to think they were being coy. But I’ve come to believe that they actually don’t know what’s wrong with that. Worse yet, they all give me this sad look, like I’m some crazy old uncle at Thanksgiving dinner who just doesn’t “get” the whole Web 2.0 thing.
Sigh. Maybe they’re right. I guess I’m getting old. But I really miss the days when people in the Valley made actual products.
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The problem with Facebook
