Jun 19

Microsoft reveals Surface Windows 8 tablets

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Microsoft launches bid to compete with Apple in tablet market with new devices that will run versions of forthcoming OS

 


The tablet computers run the new touch-friendly Windows 8 operating system. Link to this video Microsoft launched a series of tablet computers on Monday as the tech giant fought to regain ground lost to Apple’s iPad.Having announced last week that the firm was set to make a key announcement, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft‘s chief executive, unveiled two new tablet PCs at a closely guarded press event in Los Angeles.He said the new devices – called Surface – were part of a “whole new family of devices” the company is developing. The devices will run versions of Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows 8 operating system, a system the company hopes will allow it to make up ground in mobilecomputing lost to Apple and Google’s Android.

“We want to give Windows 8 its own companion hardware innovations,” Ballmer said.

Analysts gave the as yet unpriced devices a cautious welcome. “From a design perspective it looks great,” said Carolina Milanesi at Gartner.

She said the device looked like a serious competitor to Apple’s best-selling iPad but success would depend on price and the apps available for the devices.

The 9.3mm thick device has a magnesium case, features a 10.6-inch HD widescreen display, an integrated kickstand and weighs less than a kilo (1.5lbs). The device comes with a detachable keyboard and trackpad that attach magnetically to the tablet.

Apple has so far seen off most of its competitors in the tablet computersmarket including Blackberry maker Research in Motion and Hewlett Packard. Amazon’s Kindle has challenged Apple’s dominance but with a far less versatile and powerful machine. In 2011 Apple sold over 40 million iPads, out of worldwide tablet sales of 60 million.

At the presentation, Ballmer and Steven Sinofsky, the president of Microsoft’s Windows division, stressed Surface’s computing power.

Sinofsky called the device a “tablet that’s a great PC – a PC that’s a great tablet”.

Milanesi said the Surface might appeal to business users already used to Microsoft software, an area where Apple has been making inroads with iPads and iPhones. “It is certainly a very competitive product in that space,” she said.

The company did not reveal pricing or release dates but at the event Sinofsky said it would be “priced like comparable tablets.” Milanesi said she expected the Surface to cost less than $699 (£446) in the US and be launched before the all-important Christmas selling season.

The tech firm has a spotty record in launching its own hardware products and has usually left the making of hardware to partners such as Dell or Hewlett Packard. While Microsoft’s Xbox video gaming system is a world leader, its iPod rival Zune and Kin telephones proved disasters.

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Jun 15

Dreamforce/Cloudforce Opening video: Welcome to the Social Enterprise

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Dreamforce Opening Video: Welcome to the Social Enterprise (Metallica) from Chris Cranis on Vimeo.

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Jun 08

Facebook’s App Center makes its first appearances on iOS

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As noted by TechCrunch, some users of Facebook’s app for iOS have noticed the social network’s new “App Center” tab showing up in the navigation menu within the app. The feature is designed as a one-stop destination for app discovery on a variety of platforms, with recommendations based on Facebook’s editors’ selections and personalized by drawing from the usage of each person’s friends.

Similar to the interfaces that the company showed off in early May when it announced the App Center plans, you can see a left-hand navigation feature within Facebook’s feature-heavy iOS app. Apps with unread notifications appear in the top section. If you click through, you see the App Center (and you’ll note that the logo in the screenshot also matches what Facebook has previously released).


Within the app center, a “Social Picks” tab offers apps based on what the user’s friends have used, while a “Top Apps” tab contains picks from Facebook’s editors as determined by quality and popularity. The listings include iOS, Android, HTML5, and desktop apps, with users able to click directly through to the App Store or other marketplaces to download apps.


The Next Web argues that the addition of App Center will be a major boost for Apple, helping quality apps to surface from among Facebook’s hundreds of millions of users and those top apps to be easily accessible to other users.

By launching this App Center, Facebook is actually doing Apple a gigantic favor in two regards. First, it will become a serious point of distribution for Apple developers, secondarily it will be a great avenue to talk Facebook developers into building iOS apps if they haven’t so far. [...]

Facebook’s App Center won’t be clouded by anything other than actual data and usage. Imagine that, apps will actually bubble up to the top based on how often people engage with them.

After several years of what has appeared to be a tenuous relationship between Apple and Facebook, it certainly appears that the two companies are now moving to work more closely together. At the D10 conference late last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted at Facebook integration and perhaps other announcements in that vein, urging users to “stay tuned”.

For us, we want to provide customers simple and elegant ways to do the things they want to do. Facebook has hundreds of millions of customers. So, anyone that has an iPhone or iPad, we want them to have the best experience with Facebook on those platforms. So stay tuned.

Just a few days after Cook’s comments, it was reported that Apple will indeed show off Facebook integration in iOS 6 at next week’s Worldwide Developers Conference, making it much easier for users to post photos, status updates, and other content to the social network from within iOS.

With Facebook also feeding back into the App Store through its own App Center on iOS, it certainly seems that the companies are moving quickly to solidify their relationship for their mutual benefit and to the benefit of the millions of users who rely on both Apple devices and Facebook’s social network.

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May 18

Facebook, Zuckerberg ring in first day of trading from Menlo Park headquarters

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After the most successful technology IPO in history, Facebook prepared Friday for its first day on Wall Street, possibly pushing its record $104 billion valuation even higher.

Facebook cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg rang the opening bell for the Nasdaq stock exchange a stage set up outside at the company’s Menlo Park headquarters at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time Friday, after employees spent all night coding in one of the company’s regular “hackathons.” Zuckerberg was joined on the stage by Chief Operating OfficerSheryl Sandberg and dozens of other employees.

Zuckerberg then turned to his own creation to celebrate the moment, posting a Facebook status update that read “Mark Zuckerberg listed a company on Nasdaq,” tagging Sandberg, Vice President of Product Chris Cox and three other executives.

The company’s stock is expected to start trading about 8 a.m.

Facebook completed its initial public offering Thursday, pricing the stock at $38 and selling 421 million shares, which raked in $16 billion at a record valuation for a U.S. company at IPO time. The world’s most popular social network is likely to sell another 63 million shares, known as an overallotment, to bring the total proceeds to $18.4 billion, the second highest total in history for a U.S. company.

 

Early interest in the new stock was so feverish that Facebook this week raised the potential range of its IPO price, which was originally listed as $28 to $35. At the final price of $38, most of the shares sold in the IPO went to institutional funds and other big clients of the IPO’s underwriters.

There is little doubt the stock will rise from the $38 price investors paid for IPO stock once it appears on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol FB, but how much is anyone’s guess.

“Given the demand that they had, it doesn’t take a genius to predict the stock is likely to have a pretty good day,” said Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia. “How high does it go? It’s hard to tell.”

The frenzy for Facebook’s IPO began while engineers were hacking away in the wee hours of Friday morning, with several satellite and TV truck set up at the company’s Menlo Park campus just after midnight.

Around the grounds, thousands of cars, including luxury and specialty sports cars, filled the massive parking lot as private security guards patrolled the campus in pickup trucks. Employees could be seen inside the buildings working, eating and running on treadmills, with some working in roped-off sections of the parking lot under large flashlights.

Chefs were outside taking cigarette breaks while the kitchens were open behind them. Large luxury buses shuttled people to and from the headquarters’ entrance.

Outside the entrance, at least three Menlo Park police cruisers sat waiting in a parking lot on Willow Road.

By 6 a.m., press and employee parking lots were full and there were 13 satellite trucks parked at the company’s headquarters, with 3 helicopters hovering overhead.

Zuckerberg was not the only person talking about Facebook’s IPO on the social network: Cofounder Eduardo Saverin, whose relationship with Zuckerberg was at the center of the Oscar-winning film “The Social Network,” congratulated his college classmate in a Facebook post that included a picture of an “About” page from the nascent social network in 2005.

“Congrats to everyone involved in the project from day one till today, and I especially wanted to congratulate Mark Zukerberg (sic) on keeping tremendous stead-fast focus, however hard that was, on making the world a more open and connected place,” Saverin wrote.

Mercury News staff writers Mike Rosenberg, Brandon Bailey and Bruce Newman contributed to this report. Contact Jeremy C. Owens at 408-920-5876; follow him at Twitter.com/mercbizbreak.
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May 10

Facebook has a Valuation Problem

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Finally, a Facebook skeptic.

Facebook’s valuation is “significantly overpriced” when compared to other tech giants, says Brian Hamilton, chief executive at Sageworks, a firm that analyses privately-held companies. Last week, Facebook set the price range for initial public offering at $28 to $35 a share, targeting a valuation as rich as $96 billion. That would be a record debut for an American company.

“”This is a rich valuation and exposes investors to downside risk,” Hamilton says.

For instance, when Microsoft went public, its valuation was over $500 million and its trailing annual sales were $140 million, a multiple of about 4, he says. The average valuation of a tech company in recent years has been around four to ten times its trailing sales figures, Hamilton says. By comparison, Facebook is asking for 25 times sales.

“Facebook is significantly overpriced and this is clear by looking at the price of the company relative to either sales or earnings,” Hamilton says. ”Investing in the Facebook IPO may turn out to be a great investment, but right now, the stock is clearly not a bargain.”

Wall Street analysts have started releasing their views on Facebook, which is scheduled to begin trading on May 18. The consensus has been overwhelming bullish, so far. Sterne Agee on Monday initiated coverage at “buy.” Wedbush Securities, the first firm to rate Facebook, on Friday assigned it an “outperform” rating and a $44 price target. Evercore Partners said the company should be valued between $140 billion and $160 billion.

But Hamilton maintains Facebook has a valuation problem. He even attempts to put Facebook’s valuation into perspective by comparing it to Apple, the most valuable company by market capitalization in the world.

“If Apple, which manufactures tangible products, was valued at a multiple comparable to Facebook, Apple’s market capitalization/value today would be approximately $2.7 trillion,” he says.

As of Wednesday’s close, Apple had a market cap of $532 billion, according to FactSet Research.

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Apr 12

Social Media Infographics

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Apr 12

Employees push IT to accept social networks

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IT execs aim to comply with worker demands to use social networking tools on the job.

By Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld - As more and more corporate workers use their favorite social networking tools for job-related tasks, IT executives are left with little choice but to quickly find ways to manage the consumer software.

The number of social network users is huge and still growing: Facebook claims some 850 million members around the world; Twitter is said to have 140 million-plus active users; and Google said in January that its Google+ social network had reached 90 million people less than a year after its launch.

Over the past year or so, corporate employees have increasingly used texting tools and Twitter microblogs to communicate with co-workers and business partners, and they’ve used Facebook and the Foursquare mobile social network to keep colleagues updated on their whereabouts during business travel.

“There’s a [social] experience that our customers are having in their personal lives, and they’re increasingly impatient to see it reflected in the way they work,” said Peter Hirst, executive director of executive education at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

The school has launched a pilot collaboration program using the AvayaLive Engage platform from Avaya.

Other IT executives have also taken notice of the trend, and many are hard at work finding and implementing ways to control the technology and how it’s used.

“It’s pretty hard for us to control the evolution of technology,” said David Nettles, director of IT architecture and compliance at Rayonier, a Jacksonville, Fla.-based forest products company.

“At first we say, let’s control it all. We say, ‘You can’t post to Facebook while you’re at work.’ But they can. They just pull out their smartphone,” he said. “To think you can stop them is a little naive.”

Nettles said Rayonier is gradually implementing an enterprise social collaboration plan, laying the groundwork with Microsoft SharePoint software and Google Apps cloud-based services.

Observers note that any corporate social networking plan must include support for mobile devices along with desktop and laptop systems.

“Our job is to provide access to information and resources as quickly and painlessly as we possibly can,” said Angela Yochem, chief technology officer at London-based pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. “If that means providing communication access through mobile devices of any sort, or Google TV, or a desktop or laptop, we want to be able to provide that.”

Yochem added that she’s found that users tend to get frustrated if they can’t use their social networks when and how they want to.

Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group, said the move toward enterprise use of social networking tools is simply another step in the corporate technology adoption process. “IT needs to respond by providing the tools that the business side needs to foster the collaboration they desire,” he said.

Olds explained that prior to the widespread adoption of social networking tools — by new and veteran employees alike — IT managers had a difficult time coming up with strong corporate collaboration plans because “they didn’t have any good examples to point at to show what they needed.”

Today, Olds said, “the task is a bit easier because folks on the business side can now say they need a specific feature like one they use in Twitter or Facebook or Google+.”

This version of this story was originally published in Computerworld‘s print edition. It was adapted from an article that appeared earlier onComputerworld.com.

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Apr 10

The real reason why Facebook is buying Instagram

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You might have heard by now that Facebook has acquired Instagram for nearly a billion dollars in cash and stock. Incredible, isn’t it? I have received text messages of awe and shock from many people in the Valley, for no one saw this coming.

A few days ago it was rumored to be valued at $500 million. A few months ago it was $300 million. Its last round — just a year ago – valued the company at $100 million. The rising valuation of the company was reflective of the growing audience it has been garnering, despite being just on the iPhone. It had reached nearly 30 million registered users before it launched an Android app, a turbo-charging event for the company.

So the question is:  Why did Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s level-headed but mercenary founder, buy Instagram at twice the valuation that professional venture investors were putting on it? The answer is found in Zuckerberg’s own blog post:

This is an important milestone for Facebook because it’s the first time we’ve ever acquired a product and company with so many users. We don’t plan on doing many more of these, if any at all. But providing the best photo sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together.

My translation: Facebook was scared shitless and knew that for first time in its life it arguably had a competitor that could not only eat its lunch, but also destroy its future prospects. Why? Because Facebook is essentially about photos, and Instagram had found and attacked Facebook’s achilles heel — mobile photo sharing.

Here is what I wrote when Instagram launched the Android app.

It is pretty clear that thanks to the turbocharge effect of Android, Instagram’s user base is going to blast past the 50 million mark in a couple of weeks. Just before the company launched its app in October, I had pointed out that there was going to be a mobile-only, photo-oriented social platform that will challenge the established social giants. It will be a summer to remember for this tiny company.

Here is another little bit from one of my Om Says newletters:

The company had announced an API in February, and since then a raft of new apps have come up to capitalize on it. While filters might have jumpstarted Instagram, the company, which already has over 4 million subscribers, has to focus on its core value proposition – community and the social interactions around unique visual experiences.

I hope Instagram allows more apps to export directly to its network. By opening itself up to other apps and services, it has the potential to slowly become the hub of our mobile photo experiences. And in the end, that’s what would make Instagram so much more valuable and in the process become the Flickr of mobile photos.

In other words, if there was any competitor that could give Zuckerberg heartburn, it was Systrom’s posse. They are growing like mad on mobile, and Facebook’s mobile platform (including its app) is mediocre at best. Why? Facebook is not a mobile-first company and they don’t think from the mobile-first perspective. Facebook’s internal ideology is that of a desktop-centric Internet company.

Instagram is the exact opposite. It has created a platform built on emotion. It created not a social network, but instead built a beautiful social platform of shared experiences. Facebook and Instagram are two distinct companies with two distinct personalities. Instagram has what Facebook craves – passionate community. People like Facebook. People use Facebook. People love Instagram. It is my single most-used app. I spend an hour a day on Instagram. I have made friends based on photos they share. I know how they feel, and how they see the world. Facebook lacks soul. Instagram is all soul and emotion.

It is one of the reasons I connected with the app even before it launched. It went deeper than just a photo app. Over the years, Kevin shared his grand ambition about Instagram and building a much larger platform, so from that perspective I guess I am a little surprised – though I thought Kevin and his team would go a lot further, for as Erica pointed out last week, the best is yet to come for mobile photos.

More importantly, it cracked the code where Facebook itself failed: viral growth on mobile. From that perspective I wonder if Kevin sold too soon, though I know it is easy for me to say. But then the road from product and a platform to a business is long, twisted and full of potholes. Perhaps that explains why the Instagram team decided to cash in their chips.

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Apr 06

Friday Fun: Adobe to win Glass Project Competition Vs Google

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As soon as Google announced its augmented reality Google Glass project, Adobe has started working on its competing dimished reality project: Photoshop Glass.

Photoshop Glass will come as stylish pair of glasses with Airbrush Live by Photoshop fully integrated and available even in areas with no cell or wifi connectivity and instantly transform your regular world into the glamourous world we should be entitled to. The first prototype gave the following results:

Not a good omen for Google, Apple won the Smartphone battle and it seems the Adobe will win the Glass battle!

UPDATE: we also know from a reliable source that Adobe is currently working on Photoshop Goggle: the underwater version with textile removal capability. Stay tuned and trade your Google shares for Adobe shares!

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Apr 05

Apple and Facebook Should Be Terrified Of Google-Tinted Glasses

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Google’s augmented reality eyewear is coming to disrupt your face and your business model. If you don’t even have to pull your phone out to take a photo, get directions, or message with friends, why would you need to buy the latest iPhone or spend so much time on Facebook?

It could be a year before Google eyewear reaches stores, but that’s why these and other tech companies need to strategize now. If they wait to see if the device is a hit, the world could be seeing through Google-tinted glasses by the time they adapt. Apple and Facebook’s bet might be to team up…

If you haven’t heard, Google today announced it is beginning public tests of augmented reality glasses with the codename Project Glass. A mouthwatering mock-up video of what the device might eventually be capable of shows someone using voice commands to send messages, take photos, share to Google+, see the locations of friends, view maps, get directions, set calendar reminders, and more.

Cramming all the functionality into a sleek set of glasses is going to take time and effort, but the Google(x) skunklabs is on it. There’s a dozen ways the product could flop, most obviously if the glasses are awkward and unstylish, but also if they’re too heavy, expensive, fragile, or the world is just not quite ready. Let’s forget those for a second. Say Google figures it out and the retail version of Project Glass becomes wildly popular. How will this disrupt Apple and Facebook, and what should they do to defend themselves?

Here’s what I see as their best courses of action:

Apple Should Compete

Project Glass takes a ton of the things you use your iPhone and iPod for and puts them into your glasses. The glasses will likely run a version of Android and since they’re voice controlled, they could turn into Google’s competitor to Siri. People might buy Google glasses rather than snapping up the latest Apple device.

But Apple is the world’s greatest hardware company. Hopefully somewhere deep inside its headquarters there are some scientists figuring out how to turn an iPhone into glasses, not just a wristwatch.

Apple should seek to capitalize on Google’s lack of hardware experience, and spend some of its cash reserves to lock up critical component manufacturers. Even if Project Glass ends up an ugly mess, Apple could still make eyeglass computing beautiful. This technology sure seems like the future, so Apple needs to be ready to pounce.

Facebook Should Team Up With Apple

Facebook is no hardware company and isn’t big enough to become one. Not having its own mobile OS or device is hurting Facebook, and eyeglass computing could turn into round 2. The video already showed Google+ as the preferred sharing method. Unlike an Android phone where you could just open the Facebook app, Project Glass won’t necessarily allow third-party apps, at least at first, and could make them harder to access than Google+ which will be baked in.

Though Facebook and Apple have been on strained terms so far, and Facebook hasn’t even gotten directly integrated into iOS like Twitter, the two companies could bond over the common threat of Project Glass. Apple needs somewhere to share the content you’d create with its glasses, or why create it in the first place? Facebook needs to make sure Apple lets it get deeply embedded, with or without Twitter alongside it. (Though, Facebook, should probably start with today’s iOS).

Postscript: If Apple or Facebook consider eyeglass computing as marketable to mainstream in the next few years, today should give them a jolt. It’s early though, so they’ll only need to be scared if they don’t plan.

BUT HERE’S THE KICKER…

Despite its lack of hardware experience, Google is the best positioned company to make, or at least provide the software for eyeglass computers. It has Android, Google+, Maps, Gmail, Gcal, Latitude, and more. Glass might go belly up, but if not it could breathe life into some of these sluggish services. That’s why it’s ridiculous when people call Project Glass a diversion or waste of resources. Seems to me like Google’s vision is 20/20.

 Source: Techcrunch
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