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Microsoft Gets Another Android Vendor to Pay UpIf anybody’s making money off of Android, it’s Microsoft, which has just signed another licensing deal with another Android merchant. This time it’s Pegatron, which is gonna pay Microsoft to run Android and Chrome on its e-readers, tablets and phones. How much is secret like Microsoft’s other licensing arrangements. Nailing Pegatron means Microsoft now has four of the top five Taiwanese ODMs, according to Microsoft deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez. That would give it 70% of all US Android devices.
webhosting.sys-con.com | 28-Apr-2012 19:00
Book Review: Designing Silverlight Business Applications
If I could change one decision Microsoft has made, it would be the one they made to drop Silverlight. Silverlight is the prefect line of business application platform for the enterprise, and this book shows us how to take full advantage of it. Although the author does an excellent job of building a case for using Silverlight over HTML5 in many scenarios, the key ingredient missing that would allow me to build Silverlight applications for my customers is support from Microsoft. Why read this book then? Because XAML is here to stay and I don't want to skip a release. I want to stay completely current even if there is no chance of building Silverlight applications with my current customers. Microsoft not saying it is dead, is not enough for them. They need to hear it will be supported before they use it again. Since that isn't happening anytime soon, neither will a Silverlight project.
webhosting.sys-con.com | 20-Apr-2012 22:10
MapR Adds Hadoop Connectors
MapR Technologies, the Hadoop start-up, says it’s got a “comprehensive set of data connection options for Hadoop enabling a wide range of data ingress and egress alternatives for customers.” Fancy vocabulary that. It means direct access from databases, files, data warehouses and applications. The widgetry includes direct file-based access using standard tools and file-based applications; direct database connectivity; Hadoop-specific connectors via Sqoop, Flume and Hive; and direct access to popular data warehouses and applications using custom connectors. MapR has also cuts alliances with Pentaho and Talend to provide direct integration with its Hadoop Distribution and entered into a partnership with data warehouse and business intelligence platform vendor Tableau Software to ensure customers benefit from its data connection options. These partners join Informatica to deliver connectivity alternatives for Big Data analytics.
webhosting.sys-con.com | 25-Mar-2012 22:45
The Political Side of Silverlight’s Death
I believe Silverlight within a year will be known as the “S” word, and we won’t be using it anywhere except in conversations about how painful Microsoft made that initiative. Let us say MS supports Silverlight for the next 10 years. That is great. But that means nothing to the customers I work with. Microsoft's poor communication over the past months built the coffin and BUILD put the nails in it when it was not even listed as a product. I lost a contract about 9 months or a year ago because of Bob M.'s comments, rebooted two Silverlight and one WPF project because of BUILD.
webhosting.sys-con.com | 16-Sep-2011 18:12
The Political Side of Silverlight’s Death
I believe Silverlight within a year will be known as the “S” word, and we won’t be using it anywhere except in conversations about how painful Microsoft made that initiative. Let us say MS supports Silverlight for the next 10 years. That is great. But that means nothing to the customers I work with. Microsoft's poor communication over the past months built the coffin and BUILD put the nails in it when it was not even listed as a product. I lost a contract about 9 months or a year ago because of Bob M.'s comments, rebooted two Silverlight and one WPF project because of BUILD.
webhosting.sys-con.com | 16-Sep-2011 18:12
Microsoft Profits Up 30% No Thanks to Windows
Microsoft narrowly beat the Street on the revenue side but trounced any public expectations of its earnings when it reported its fiscal Q4 results Thursday. It earned $5.874 billion, up 30%, or 69 cents a share, up 35%, on a record $17.378 billion, up 8% year-over-year. The punters thought it would do 58 cents on $17.238 billion. Apparently the tax rate attributed to its net. Windows revenue declined 0.9% to $4.74 billion, and its operating income was off 4% at $2.943 billion, which Microsoft attributed to slow PC growth, which it reckons was down 2% in developed markets. It figured 40 million PCs went to emerging markets, where it fetches lower prices and experiences more piracy. Still sales are up there.
webhosting.sys-con.com | 23-Jul-2011 17:00
Can PowerBuilder Leverage Mono?
If you’ve been following my recent editorials, you’ll know I have some concerns with HTML5 as the silver bullet for all web / mobile development. As a result, I’ve been a proponent of rich GUI applications for both web and mobile. To that end, I’ve been supportive of adding Silverlight as a deployment target for PowerBuilder applications for web support. I also had been hopeful that Silverlight adoption on mobile devices would enable PowerBuilder to deploy to those devices as well. Recent indications are that although Silverlight may end up being a solution for web applications (and may even displace WPF for desktop applications), all indications are that few mobile devices will support it other than perhaps Windows Phone. If we are going to be able to develop for mobile devices with PowerBuilder, and we don’t believe that HTML5 is the only way to do that, what other options might we have?
webhosting.sys-con.com | 07-Jul-2011 18:00
Office 365 on Tap
Microsoft is going to launch its cloud-ified Google Apps-targeting Office 365 that combines Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Lync in New York City on Tuesday June 28. The thing’s been in public beta for the last couple of months. Subscriptions are supposed to start at $6 a month per user. The event will be webcast at 10-11am EDT at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/office/online/Default.aspx . Microsoft’s cloud-lofted Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) hit the ground Wednesday for about three hours. Microsoft said on Twitter it was some kind of networking and hardware snafu in North America. It’s happened a number of times before. Folks’ll have to see if Office 365 is better.
webhosting.sys-con.com | 26-Jun-2011 16:15
Supremes Rule Against Microsoft
The US Supreme Court Thursday ruled that Microsoft has to pay the $290 million patent infringement judgment awarded to little Toronto-based i4i two years ago after a Texas jury found that Word 2003 and 2007 willfully trod on its XML IP. Microsoft tried arguing that the bar for deciding whether a patent is invalid or not based on new evidence was set too high and that the district court judge in the i4i case should have instructed the jury to use the “preponderance of the evidence” rule rather than the “clear and convincing” evidence standard. The argument got a lot of backing from the high-tech industry – it filed a lot of support briefs in hopes of quashing some noisome patents, particularly troll patents – but it didn’t cut it at all for any of the justices.
webhosting.sys-con.com | 12-Jun-2011 16:30