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Paul Merrell

U.S. knocks plans for European communication network | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...ications-idUSBREA331W820140404

surveillance state NSA EU EU-cloud USTR WTO digital-privacy

shared by Paul Merrell on 08 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • The United States on Friday criticized proposals to build a European communication network to avoid emails and other data passing through the United States, warning that such rules could breach international trade laws. In its annual review of telecommunications trade barriers, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative said impediments to cross-border data flows were a serious and growing concern.It was closely watching new laws in Turkey that led to the blocking of websites and restrictions on personal data, as well as calls in Europe for a local communications network following revelations last year about U.S. digital eavesdropping and surveillance."Recent proposals from countries within the European Union to create a Europe-only electronic network (dubbed a 'Schengen cloud' by advocates) or to create national-only electronic networks could potentially lead to effective exclusion or discrimination against foreign service suppliers that are directly offering network services, or dependent on them," the USTR said in the report.
  • Germany and France have been discussing ways to build a European network to keep data secure after the U.S. spying scandal. Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone was reportedly monitored by American spies.The USTR said proposals by Germany's state-backed Deutsche Telekom to bypass the United States were "draconian" and likely aimed at giving European companies an advantage over their U.S. counterparts.Deutsche Telekom has suggested laws to stop data traveling within continental Europe being routed via Asia or the United States and scrapping the Safe Harbor agreement that allows U.S. companies with European-level privacy standards access to European data. (www.telekom.com/dataprotection)"Any mandatory intra-EU routing may raise questions with respect to compliance with the EU's trade obligations with respect to Internet-enabled services," the USTR said. "Accordingly, USTR will be carefully monitoring the development of any such proposals."
  • U.S. tech companies, the leaders in an e-commerce marketplace estimated to be worth up to $8 trillion a year, have urged the White House to undertake reforms to calm privacy concerns and fend off digital protectionism.
  • Paul Merrell on 08 Apr 14
     
    High comedy from the office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The USTR's press release is here along with a link to its report. http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/press-releases/2014/March/USTR-Targets-Telecommunications-Trade-Barriers The USTR is upset because the E.U. is aiming to build a digital communications network that does not route internal digital traffic outside the E.U., to limit the NSA's ability to surveil Europeans' communications. Part of the plan is to build an E.U.-centric cloud that is not susceptible to U.S. court orders. This plan does not, of course, sit well with U.S.-based cloud service providers.  Where the comedy comes in is that the USTR is making threats to go to the World Trade organization to block the E.U. move under the authority of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). But that treaty provides, in article XIV, that:  "Subject to the requirement that such measures are not applied in a manner which would constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination between countries where like conditions prevail, or a disguised restriction on trade in services, nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to prevent the adoption or enforcement by any Member of measures: ... (c)      necessary to secure compliance with laws or regulations which are not inconsistent with the provisions of this Agreement including those relating to:   ... (ii)     the protection of the privacy of individuals in relation to the processing and dissemination of personal data and the protection of confidentiality of individual records and accounts[.]" http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/26-gats_01_e.htm#articleXIV   The E.U., in its Treaty on Human Rights, has very strong privacy protections for digital communications. The USTR undoubtedly knows all this, and that the WTO Appellate Panel's judges are of the European mold, sticklers for protection of human rights and most likely do not appreciate being subjects o
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

The Cloud vs. Open Source - Datamation - 0 views

www.datamation.com/...the-cloud-vs.-open-source.html

cloud open source

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 13 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 13 Jun 15
     
    "For years, Linux and free software were perceived as threatened by cloud computing, the online storage of data. However, over the last few years, something ironic happened -- free software became a major player in cloud computing."
Gary Edwards

Microsoft's Next Big Thing; Rich MS Client / MS Cloud of Servers - 0 views

www.cio.com/...Microsoft_s_Next_Big_Thing

craig-mundie microsoft client-server Cloud-Computing MOSS

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Mar 09
     
    CIO Magazine has an extensive interview with Craig Mundie, the man responsible for nailing down the next generation of monopolist profits: "You talk about technology waves. What will be the next big wave? What happens in waves is the shift from one generation of computing platform to the next. That platform gets established by a small number of killer apps. We've been through a number of these major platform shifts, from the mainframe to the minicomputer to the personal computer to adding the Internet as an adjunct platform. We're now trending to the next big platform, which I call "the client plus the cloud."

    That's one thing, not two things. Today, we've got a broadening out of what people call the client. My 16 years here was in large measure about that. And then we introduced the network. The Internet was a place where you had Web content and Web publishing, but other than being delivered on some of those clients, the two things were somewhat divorced.

    The next thing that will emerge is an architecture that allows the application developer to think of the cloud plus the client architecturally as a single thing. In a sense, it is like client/sever computing in the enterprise. It was the homogeneity that existed between some of the facilities at the server and the client end that allowed people to build those applications. We've never had that kind of architectural homogeneity in this cloud-plus-client or Internet-plus-smart-devices world, and I'm predicting that will be the next big thing.
Paul Merrell

Snooper's charter has practically zero chance of becoming law, say senior MPs | UK news... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...oopers-charter-zero-chance-law

surveillance state UK EU NSA-blowback cloud computing

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Paul Merrell on 27 Jun 13
     
    Finally, acknowledgement that the growth of the cloud computing industry will likely be affected greatly by disclosures of widespread US and UK storage and surveillance of digital data. But will this be enough to turn cloud computing companies into staunch advocates of reining in the NSA and GCHQ? Note that the emerging E.U. position creates an economic advantage for cloud computing companies with their server farms located in the E.U. (likely excluding the UK). 
Paul Merrell

US websites should inform EU citizens about NSA surveillance, says report - 0 views

www.computerweekly.com/...t-NSA-surveillance-says-report

surveillance state NSA NSA-blowback EU cloud computing whistle-blowers

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • All existing data sharing agreements between Europe and the US should be revoked, and US web site providers should prominently inform European citizens that their data may be subject to government surveillance, according to the recommendations of a briefing report for the European Parliament. The report was produced in response to revelations about the US National Security Agency (NSA) snooping on internet traffic, and aims to highlight the subsequent effect on European Union (EU) citizens' rights.
  • The report warns that EU data protection authorities have failed to understand the “structural shift of data sovereignty implied by cloud computing”, and the associated risks to the rights of EU citizens. It suggests “a full industrial policy for development of an autonomous European cloud computing capacity” should be set up to reduce exposure of EU data to NSA surveillance that is undertaken by the use of US legislation that forces US-based cloud providers to provide access to data they hold.
  • To put pressure on the US government, the report recommends that US websites should ask EU citizens for their consent before gathering data that could be used by the NSA. “Prominent notices should be displayed by every US web site offering services in the EU to inform consent to collect data from EU citizens. The users should be made aware that the data may be subject to surveillance by the US government for any purpose which furthers US foreign policy,” it said. “A consent requirement will raise EU citizen awareness and favour growth of services solely within EU jurisdiction. This will thus have economic impact on US business and increase pressure on the US government to reach a settlement.”
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Other recommendations include the EU offering protection and rewards for whistleblowers, including “strong guarantees of immunity and asylum”. Such a move would be seen as a direct response to the plight of Edward Snowden, the former NSA analyst who leaked documents that revealed the extent of the NSA’s global internet surveillance programmes. The report also says that, “Encryption is futile to defend against NSA accessing data processed by US clouds,” and that there is “no technical solution to the problem”. It calls for the EU to press for changes to US law.
  • “It seems that the only solution which can be trusted to resolve the Prism affair must involve changes to the law of the US, and this should be the strategic objective of the EU,” it said. The report was produced for the European Parliament committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs, and comes before the latest hearing of an inquiry into electronic mass surveillance of EU citizens, due to take place in Brussels on 24 September.
  • Paul Merrell on 27 Sep 13
     
    Yee-haw! E.U. sanctuary and rewards for NSA whistle-blowers. Mandatory warnings for customers of U.S. cloud services that their data may be turned over to the NSA. Pouring more gasoline on the NSA diplomatic fire. 
Gary Edwards

Cloud Storage Users Share Pros and Cons of Leading Services | CIO - 1 views

www.cio.com/...-cons-of-leading-services.html

wordSDK Office-365 Sync-Share-Store

shared by Gary Edwards on 22 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 22 Sep 14
     
    Good review comparing the leaders in the sync-share-store file category. Some very interesting comments from users in the pro-con sections. "Dropbox, Box, OneDrive and Google Drive are among the most popular cloud services for storing, syncing and sharing files. Picking the best service for your organization can be a challenge, but this guide will help determine which cloud service is right for you."
  • Paul Merrell on 22 Sep 14
     
    I still maintain that any file sync service that doesn't do end-to-end encryption should be avoided like the plague. However, my love affair with Wuala is nearing its end. Comcast has been having difficulties with keeping me online lately and I discovered that Wuala requires that you be both logged in and *online* or you have no access to your synced files. None. I'm in the process of switching over to Barracuda Networks' Copy, https://www.copy.com/ which stores local files in a local directory structure, rather than in a JRE virtual drive.
Gary Edwards

Two Microsofts: Mulling an alternate reality | ZDNet - 1 views

www.zdnet.com/n-alternate-reality-7000016916

Microsoft microsoft-monopoly Judge-Thomas-Penfield-Jackson

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Judge Jackson had it right. And the Court of Appeals? Not so much
  • Judge Jackson is an American hero and news of his passing thumped me hard. His ruling against Microsoft and the subsequent overturn of that ruling resulted, IMHO, in two extraordinary directions that changed the world. Sure the what-if game is interesting, but the reality itself is stunning enough. Of course, Judge Jackson sought to break the monopoly. The US Court of Appeals overturn resulted in the monopoly remaining intact, but the Internet remaining free and open. Judge Jackson's breakup plan had a good shot at achieving both a breakup of the monopoly and, a free and open Internet. I admit though that at the time I did not favor the Judge's plan. And i actually did submit a proposal based on Microsoft having to both support the WiNE project, and, provide a complete port to WiNE to any software provider requesting a port. I wanted to break the monopolist's hold on the Windows Productivity Environment and the hundreds of millions of investment dollars and time that had been spent on application development forever trapped on that platform. For me, it was the productivity platform that had to be broken.
  • I assume the good Judge thought that separating the Windows OS from Microsoft Office / Applications would force the OS to open up the secret API's even as the OS continued to evolve. Maybe. But a full disclosure of the API's coupled with the community service "port to WiNE" requirement might have sped up the process. Incredibly, the "Undocumented Windows Secrets" industry continues to thrive, and the legendary Andrew Schulman's number is still at the top of Silicon Valley legal profession speed dials. http://goo.gl/0UGe8 Oh well. The Court of Appeals stopped the breakup, leaving the Windows Productivity Platform intact. Microsoft continues to own the "client" in "Client/Server" computing. Although Microsoft was temporarily stopped from leveraging their desktop monopoly to an iron fisted control and dominance of the Internet, I think what were watching today with the Cloud is Judge Jackson's worst nightmare. And mine too. A great transition is now underway, as businesses and enterprises begin the move from legacy client/server business systems and processes to a newly emerging Cloud Productivity Platform. In this great transition, Microsoft holds an inside straight. They have all the aces because they own the legacy desktop productivity platform, and can control the transition to the Cloud. No doubt this transition is going to happen. And it will severely disrupt and change Microsoft's profit formula. But if the Redmond reprobate can provide a "value added" transition of legacy business systems and processes, and direct these new systems to the Microsoft Cloud, the profits will be immense.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Judge Jackson sought to break the ability of Microsoft to "leverage" their existing monopoly into the Internet and his plan was overturned and replaced by one based on judicial oversight. Microsoft got a slap on the wrist from the Court of Appeals, but were wailed on with lawsuits from the hundreds of parties injured by their rampant criminality. Some put the price of that criminality as high as $14 Billion in settlements. Plus, the shareholders forced Chairman Bill to resign. At the end of the day though, Chairman Bill was right. Keeping the monopoly intact was worth whatever penalty Microsoft was forced to pay. He knew that even the judicial over-site would end one day. Which it did. And now his company is ready to go for it all by leveraging and controlling the great productivity transition. No business wants to be hostage to a cold heart'd monopolist. But there is huge difference between a non-disruptive and cost effective, process-by-process value-added transition to a Cloud Productivity Platform, and, the very disruptive and costly "rip-out-and-replace" transition offered by Google, ZOHO, Box, SalesForce and other Cloud Productivity contenders. Microsoft, and only Microsoft, can offer the value-added transition path. If they get the Cloud even halfway right, they will own business productivity far into the future. Rest in Peace Judge Jackson. Your efforts were heroic and will be remembered as such. ~ge~
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Jun 13
     
    Comments on the latest SVN article mulling the effects of Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's anti trust ruling and proposed break up of Microsoft. comment: "Chinese Wall" Ummm, there was a Chinese Wall between Microsoft Os and the MS Applciations layer. At least that's what Chairman Bill promised developers at a 1990 OS/2-Windows Conference I attended. It was a developers luncheon, hosted by Microsoft, with Chairman Bill speaking to about 40 developers with applications designed to run on the then soon to be released Windows 3.0. In his remarks, the Chairman described his vision of commoditizing the personal computer market through an open hardware-reference platform on the one side of the Windows OS, and provisioning an open application developers layer on the other using open and totally transparent API's. Of course the question came up concerning the obvious advantage Microsoft applications would have. Chairman Bill answered the question by describing the Chinese Wall that existed between Microsoft's OS and Apps develop departments. He promised that OS API's would be developed privately and separate from the Apps department, and publicly disclosed to ALL developers at the same time. Oh yeah. There was lots of anti IBM - evil empire stuff too :) Of course we now know this was a line of crap. Microsoft Apps was discovered to have been using undocumented and secret Window API's. http://goo.gl/0UGe8. Microsoft Apps had a distinct advantage over the competition, and eventually the entire Windows Productivity Platform became dependent on the MSOffice core. The company I worked for back then, Pyramid Data, had the first Contact Management application for Windows; PowerLeads. Every Friday night we would release bug fixes and improvements using Wildcat BBS. By Monday morning we would be slammed with calls from users complaining that they had downloaded the Friday night patch, and now some other application would not load or function properly. Eventually we tracked th
Gary Edwards

A Cloudy Forecast for the Enterprise - Here comes Google | InternetNews Realtime IT News - - 0 views

www.internetnews.com/...3752411

cloud-computing enterprise20 google

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Jun 08 - Cached
  • Cloud computing will give rise to the 'power collaborator', who will "connect with people and find dispersed information across an organization and make it relevant," said speaking in Boston at the Enterprise 2.0 conference continuing through Thursday. The concept of cloud computing and Enterprise 2.0 Web-based applications and interactivity has apparently struck a positive chord with a fair number of businesses. Up to 69% cite collaboration as a key reason for the appeal of such environments, according to a survey released this week by AIIM, a non-profit group that tackles issues involving document management, content, records, and business processes. Other factors include: Improved agility and responsiveness (56%), faster communications (55%); increased innovation (39%); and a reduction in IT costs (36%).
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Jun 08
     
    Google moves into the Enterprise Cloud arena, and has some interesting things to say: Cloud computing will give rise to the 'power collaborator', who will "connect with people and find dispersed information across an organization and make it relevant," said speaking in Boston at the Enterprise 2.0 conference continuing through Thursday.
  • anonymous on 28 Sep 13
     
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Paul Merrell

Emergence of Cloud Technology Raises Complex Copyright Issues, Lawyers Say | BNA - 1 views

www.bna.com/-cloud-technology-n12884903629

cloud computing copyright law RIAA piracy

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • NEW YORK—The emergence of cloud technology as an electronic content infrastructure in the entertainment industry raises complex copyright issues, attorneys said at a Sept. 15 panel discussion.Increased reliance on cloud-based distribution platforms and business models in the industry “creates novel and inevitably ambiguous copyright issues,” according to Daniel E. Schnapp, who moderated the discussion at a Copyright Society of the U.S.A. luncheon.At stake is the balance between copyright holders' exclusive rights to reproduce and publicly perform their works versus the ability of consumers and service providers to make lawful use of the content through emerging technologies without infringement, he suggested.
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Sep 11
     
    The recording industry is worried about cloud computing. Hollywood was probably there too. 
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 02 Oct 11
     
    Entertainment Industry should care more about quality, accessibility and price of their productions instead of being always blaming technology and forcing restrictive legislation...
Gary Edwards

Cloud computing and the return of the platform wars | The Open Web takes on the Open Cl... - 0 views

blogs.zdnet.com/Hinchcliffe

Cloud-Computing Open-API Open-Web

shared by Gary Edwards on 31 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 31 Mar 09
     
    Excellent article on Cloud Computing and the need for an Open API from Dion Hinchcliffe. Solid analysis, deeply linked, with some good graphics: "....The final outcome of this struggle, as it's been in many earlier platform battles over personal computer hardware, operating systems, databases, and even the Web itself, will be the result of a fairly predictable and oft-repeated cycle of events (see diagram below) for which a small number of large winners are likely to emerge victorious...." "When we look back many years from now, it's probable that cloud computing will be regarded as both a momentous and major change of course in the history of software; many future computing platforms will be created and operated by what seemingly amount to utility companies. While this might seem like a boring future for computing, it's a necessarily pragmatic evolution as the very size and scope of modern software requires new economic models in order to remain cost effective. Virtually any online application these days has to scale to a few million users as quickly and inexpensively as possible....."
Maluvia Haseltine

OpenNebula :: The Open Source Toolkit for Building Clouds - 0 views

www.opennebula.org/doku.php

CloudComputing OpenSource

shared by Maluvia Haseltine on 28 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Maluvia Haseltine on 28 Jul 09
     
    OpenNebula is a Virtual Infrastructure Manager that orchestrates storage, network and virtualization technologies to enable the dynamic placement of multi-tier services (groups of interconnected virtual machines) on distributed infrastructures, combining both data center resources and remote cloud resources, according to allocation policies. OpenNebula provides internal and Cloud administration and user interfaces for the full management of the Cloud platform.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Cloud Servers Are More Secure Than Your Data Center. Here's Why. - Datamation - 0 views

www.datamation.com/...r-data-center.-heres-why..html

cloud servers safer more secure than autonomous data centers

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 30 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 30 Mar 16
     
    "Without the expertise, experience and security commitment a cloud vendor, your company's data center is unlikely to match the cloud for security."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

OpenStack by the numbers: Who's using open source clouds and for what? | Network World - 1 views

www.networkworld.com/...ource-clouds-and-for-what.html

open source network cloud OpenStack use

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 27 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 27 Apr 16
     
    "IT vendors and telecos are heaviest users of open source cloud software"
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 27 Apr 16
     
    "IT vendors and telecos are heaviest users of open source cloud software"
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Home » OpenStack Open Source Cloud Computing Software - 0 views

www.openstack.org

open source cloud computing internet

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 10 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 10 Mar 14
     
    " Software OpenStack Software delivers a massively scalable cloud operating system. Community Join our global community of technologists, developers, researchers, corporations and cloud computing experts"
Gary Edwards

Microsoft Office whips Google Docs: It's finally game over | Computerworld Blogs - 0 views

blogs.computerworld.com/...gle-docs-its-finally-game-over

MSOffice google docs

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 25 Jun 14
     
    "If there was ever any doubt about whether Microsoft or Google would win the war of office suites, there should be no longer. Within the last several weeks, Microsoft has pulled so far ahead that it's game over. Here's why. When it comes to which suite is more fully featured, there's never been any real debate: Microsoft Office wins hands down. Whether you're creating entire presentations, creating complicated word-processing documents, or even doing something as simple as handling text attributes, Office is a far better tool. Until the last few weeks, Google Docs had one significant advantage over Microsoft Office: It's available for Android and the iPad as well as PCs because it's Web-based. The same wasn't the case for Office. So if you wanted to use an office suite on all your mobile devices, Google Docs was the way to go. Google Docs lost that advantage when Microsoft released Office for the iPad. There's not yet a native version for Android tablets, but Microsoft is working on that, telling GeekWire, "Let me tell you conclusively: Yes, we are also building Android native applications for tablets for Word, Excel and PowerPoint." Google Docs is still superior to Office's Web-based version, but that's far less important than it used to be. There's no need to go with a Web-based office suite if a superior suite is available as a native apps on all platforms, mobile or otherwise. And Office's collaboration capabilities are quite considerable now. Of course, there's always the question of price. Google Docs is free. Microsoft Office isn't. But at $100 a year for up to five devices, or $70 a year for two, no one will be going broke paying for Microsoft Office. It's worth paying that relatively small price for a much better office suite. Google Docs won't die. It'll be around as second fiddle for a long time. But that's what it will always remain: a second fiddle to the better Microsoft Office."
  • Gary Edwards on 25 Jun 14
     
    Google acquired "Writely", a small company in Portola Valley that pioneered document editing in a browser. Writely was perhaps the first cloud computing editor to go beyond simple HTML; eventually crafting some really cool CSS-JavaScript-JSON document layout and editing methods. But it can't edit native MSOffice documents. It converts them. There are more than a few problems with the Google Docs approach to editing advanced "compound" documents, but two stick out and are certain to give pause to anyone making the great transition from local workgroup computing, to the highly mobile, always connected, cloud computing. The first problem certain to become a show stopper is that Google converts documents to their native on-line format for editing and collaboration. And then they convert back. To many this isn't a problem. But if the document is part of a workflow or business process, conversion is a killer. There is an old saw affectionately known as "Reuters Law", dating back to the ODF-OXML document wars, that emphatically states; "Conversion breaks documents." The breakage includes both the visual layout of the document, and, the "compound" aspects and data connections that are internal to the document. Think of this way. A business document that is part of a legacy Windows Workgroup workflow is opened up in gDocs. Google converts the document for editing purposes. The data and the workflow internals that bind the document to the local business system are broken on conversion. The look of the document is also visually shredded as the gDocs layout engine is applied. For all practical purposes, no matter what magic editing and collaboration value is added, a broken document means a broken business process. Let me say that again, with the emphasis of having witnessed this first hand during the year long ODF transition trials the Commonwealth of Massachusetts conducted in 2005 and 2006. The business process broke every time a conversion was conducted "on a busines
Gary Edwards

Can C.E.O. Satya Nadella Save Microsoft? | Vanity Fair - 0 views

www.vanityfair.com/...-gates-steve-ballmer-microsoft

Microsoft-Cloud

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • he new world of computing is a radical break from the past. That’s because of the growth of mobile devices and cloud computing. In the old world, corporations owned and ran Windows P.C.’s and Window servers in their own facilities, with the necessary software installed on them. Everyone used Windows, so everything was developed for Windows. It was a virtuous circle for Microsoft.
  • Now the processing power is in the cloud, and very sophisticated applications, from e-mail to tools you need to run a business, can be run by logging onto a Web site, not from pre-installed software. In addition, the way we work (and play) has shifted from P.C.’s to mobile devices—where Android and Apple’s iOS each outsell Windows by more than 10 to 1. Why develop software to run on Windows if no one is using Windows? Why use Windows if nothing you want can run on it? The virtuous circle has turned vicious.
  • Part of why Microsoft failed with devices is that competitors upended its business model. Google doesn’t charge for the operating system. That’s because Google makes its money on search. Apple can charge high prices because of the beauty and elegance of its devices, where the software and hardware are integrated in one gorgeous package. Meanwhile, Microsoft continued to force outside manufacturers, whose products simply weren’t as compelling as Apple’s, to pay for a license for Windows. And it didn’t allow Office to be used on non-Windows phones and tablets. “The whole philosophy of the company was Windows first,” says Heather Bellini, an analyst at Goldman Sachs. Of course it was: that’s how Microsoft had always made its money.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • Right now, Windows itself is fragmented: applications developed for one Windows device, say a P.C., don’t even necessarily work on another Windows device. And if Microsoft develops a new killer application, it almost has to be released for Android and Apple phones, given their market dominance, thereby strengthening those eco-systems, too.
  • At its core, Azure uses Windows server technology. That helps existing Windows applications run seamlessly on Azure. Technologists sometimes call what Microsoft has done a “hybrid cloud” because companies can use Azure alongside their pre-existing on-site Windows servers. At the same time, Nadella also to some extent has embraced open-source software—free code that doesn’t require a license from Microsoft—so that someone could develop something using non-Microsoft technology, and it would run on Azure. That broadens Azure’s appeal.
  • “In some ways the way people think about Bill and Steve is almost a Rorschach test.” For those who romanticize the Gates era, Microsoft’s current predicament will always be Ballmer’s fault. For others, it’s not so clear. “He left Steve holding a big bag of shit,” the former executive says of Gates. In the year Ballmer officially took over, Microsoft was found to be a predatory monopolist by the U.S. government and was ordered to split into two; the cost of that to Gates and his company can never be calculated. In addition, the dotcom bubble had burst, causing Microsoft stock to collapse, which resulted in a simmering tension between longtime employees, whom the company had made rich, and newer ones, who had missed the gravy train.
  • Nadella lived this dilemma because his job at Microsoft included figuring out the cloud-based future while maintaining the highly profitable Windows server business. And so he did a bunch of things that were totally un-Microsoft-like. He went to talk to start-ups to find out why they weren’t using Microsoft. He put massive research-and-development dollars behind Azure, a cloud-based platform that Microsoft had developed in Skunk Works fashion, which by definition took resources away from the highly profitable existing business.
  • They even have a catchphrase: “Re-inventing productivity.”
  • Microsoft’s historical reluctance to open Windows and Office is why it was such a big deal when in late March, less than two months after becoming C.E.O., Nadella announced that Microsoft would offer Office for Apple’s iPad. A team at the company had been working on it for about a year. Ballmer says he would have released it eventually, but Nadella did it immediately. Nadella also announced that Windows would be free for devices smaller than nine inches, meaning phones and small tablets. “Now that we have 30 million users on the iPad using it, that is 30 million people who never used Office before [on an iPad,]” he says. “And to me that’s what really drives us.” These are small moves in some ways, and yet they are also big. “It’s the first time I have listened to a senior Microsoft executive admit that they are behind,” says one institutional investor. “The fact that they are giving away Windows, their bread and butter for 25 years—it is quite a fundamental change.”
  • And whoever does the best job of building the right software experiences to give both organizations and individuals time back so that they can get more out of their time, that’s the core of this company—that’s the soul. That’s what Bill started this company with. That’s the Office franchise. That’s the Windows franchise. We have to re-invent them. . . . That’s where this notion of re-inventing productivity comes from.”
  • Ballmer might be a complicated character, but he has nothing on Gates, whose contradictions have long fascinated Microsoft-watchers. He is someone who has no problem humiliating individuals—he might not even notice—but who genuinely cares deeply about entire populations and is deeply loyal. He is generous in the biggest ways imaginable, and yet in small things, like picking up a lunch tab, he can be shockingly cheap. He can’t make small talk and can come across as totally lacking in E.Q. “The rules of human life that allow you to get along are not complicated,” says one person who knows Gates. “He could write a book on it, but he can’t do it!”
  • At the Microsoft board meeting in late June 2013, Ballmer announced he had a handshake deal with Nokia’s management to buy the company, pending the Microsoft board’s approval, according to a source close to the events. Ballmer thought he had it and left before the post-board-meeting dinner to attend his son’s middle-school graduation. When he came back the next day, he found that the board had pulled a coup: they informed him they weren’t doing the deal, and it wasn’t up for discussion. For Ballmer, it seems, the unforgivable thing was that Gates had been part of the coup, which Ballmer saw as the ultimate betrayal.
  • what is scarce in all of this abundance is human attention
  • And the original idea of having great software people and broad software products and Office being the primary tool that people look to across all these devices, that’ s as true today and as strong as ever.”
  • Meeting Room Plus
  • But he combines that with flashes of insight and humor that leave some wondering whether he can’t do it or simply chooses not to, or both. His most pronounced characteristic shouldn’t be simply labeled a competitive streak, because it is really a fierce, deep need to win. The dislike it bred among his peers in the industry is well known—“Silicon Bully” was the title of an infamous magazine story about him. And yet he left Microsoft for the philanthropic world, where there was no one to bully, only intractable problems to solve.
  • “The Irrelevance of Microsoft” is actually the title of a blog post by an analyst named Benedict Evans, who works at the Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. On his blog, Evans pointed out that Microsoft’s share of all computing devices that we use to connect to the Internet, including P.C.’s, phones, and tablets, has plunged from 90 percent in 2009 to just around 20 percent today. This staggering drop occurred not because Microsoft lost ground in personal computers, on which its software still dominates, but rather because it has failed to adapt its products to smartphones, where all the growth is, and tablets.
  • The board told Ballmer they wanted him to stay, he says, and they did eventually agree to a slightly different version of the deal. In September, Microsoft announced it was buying Nokia’s devices-and-services business for $7.2 billion. Why? The board finally realized the downside: without Nokia, Microsoft was effectively done in the smartphone business. But, for Ballmer, the damage was done, in more ways than one. He now says it became clear to him that despite the lack of a new C.E.O. he couldn’t stay. Cultural change, he decided, required a change at the top, and, he says,“there was too much water under the bridge with this board.” The feeling was mutual. As a source close to Microsoft says, no one, including Gates, tried to stop him from quitting.
  • in Wall Street’s eyes, Nadella can do no wrong. Microsoft’s stock has risen 30 percent since he became C.E.O., increasing its market value by $87 billion. “It’s interesting with Satya,” says one person who observes him with investors. “He is not a business guy or a financial analyst, but he finds a common language with investors, and in his short tenure, they leave going, Wow.” But the honeymoon is the easy part.
  • “He was so publicly and so early in life defined as the brilliant guy,” says a person who has observed him. “Anything that threatens that, he becomes narcissistic and defensive.” Or as another person puts it, “He throws hissy fits when he doesn’t get his way.”
  • round three-quarters of Microsoft’s profits come from the two fabulously successful products on which the company was built: the Windows operating system, which essentially makes personal computers run, and Office, the suite of applications that includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Financially speaking, Microsoft is still extraordinarily powerful. In the last 12 months the company reported sales of $86.83 billion and earnings of $22.07 billion; it has $85.7 billion of cash on its balance sheet. But the company is facing a confluence of threats that is all the more staggering given Microsoft’s sheer size. Competitors such as Google and Apple have upended Microsoft’s business model, making it unclear where Windows will fit in the world, and even challenging Office. In the Valley, there are two sayings that everyone regards as truth. One is that profits follow relevance. The other is that there’s a difference between strategic position and financial position. “It’s easy to be in denial and think the financials reflect the current reality,” says a close observer of technology firms. “They do not.”
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Oct 14
     
    Awesome article describing the history of Microsoft as seen through the lives of it's three CEO's: Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Satya Nadella
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Fedora 22 Advances Linux for Cloud, Workstations, Servers - 0 views

www.eweek.com/...loud-workstations-servers.html

fedora advances linux cloud servers workstations

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 29 May 15 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 29 May 15
     
    "The open-source Fedora 22 Linux distribution, which became generally available May 26, provides desktop, cloud and server users with an updated array of technologies and capabilities. Fedora is Red Hat's community Linux distribution and often serves as an incubator and a proving ground for the latest and greatest open-source technologies. "
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 29 May 15
     
    "The open-source Fedora 22 Linux distribution, which became generally available May 26, provides desktop, cloud and server users with an updated array of technologies and capabilities. Fedora is Red Hat's community Linux distribution and often serves as an incubator and a proving ground for the latest and greatest open-source technologies. "
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Will Cloud Foundry be the Linux of the Cloud? | Linux.com - 0 views

www.linux.com/...ndry-be-the-linux-of-the-cloud

Cloud Foundry linux GNU_Linux cloud foundry

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 25 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 25 Apr 15
     
    "I have known Sam Ramji since his days spreading open source religion at Microsoft. At that time, Linux and Microsoft were clearly on opposite ends of the spectrum, but Sam had the courage to step into the lion's den and keynote the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Review: Puppet vs. Chef vs. Ansible vs. Salt | InfoWorld - 0 views

www.infoworld.com/...s-chef-vs-ansible-vs-salt.html

review configuration management orchestation puppet chef salt ansible

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 26 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 26 Apr 15
     
    "The leading configuration management and orchestration tools take different paths to server automation By Paul Venezia Follow InfoWorld | Nov 21, 2013 RELATED TOPICS Data Center Cloud Computing Server Provisioning The proliferation of virtualization coupled with the increasing power of industry-standard servers and the availability of cloud computing has led to a significant uptick in the number of servers that need to be managed within and without an organization"
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 26 Apr 15
     
    "The leading configuration management and orchestration tools take different paths to server automation By Paul Venezia Follow InfoWorld | Nov 21, 2013 RELATED TOPICS Data Center Cloud Computing Server Provisioning The proliferation of virtualization coupled with the increasing power of industry-standard servers and the availability of cloud computing has led to a significant uptick in the number of servers that need to be managed within and without an organization"
Paul Merrell

With Microsoft Midori, Platforms Take Shape In The Cloud -- Cloud Computing -- Informat... - 0 views

www.informationweek.com/...showArticle.jhtml

cherrypal cloud-computing desktoptwo eyeos g.h.o.st google icloud midori operating systems xcerion youos

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Aug 08 - Cached
  • Meanwhile a Mountain View, Calif.-based startup called CherryPal just released a new mini-PC, known as the CherryPal, that is designed to operate solely via a Firefox browser. While the new machine, which will run on just 2 watts of power, has an embedded Linux-based OS, it's hidden from the user and is used mainly to boot up the browser to access common applications.
  • Several startups and open-source projects have built cloud-based operating systems, also known as WebTops, such as DesktopTwo, EyeOS, G.ho.st, and YouOS. To date these have mostly been of interest to the open-source development community, but the advent of browser-based "thin clients" like CherryPal and of projects like Midori indicates that fully cloud-based computing could make its way to the masses. Google is also said to be at work on a cloud OS, while a Swedish startup called Xcerion has gained attention for its hybrid, an XML-based system called iCloud.
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