During the course of an interview, Google Android pioneer Andy Rubin made sure so say that the Android Market will be a whole different ballgame compared with the iPhone Apps Store. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Even though Apple released iPhone developers from its overly strict nondisclosure agreement, there is still a lot of grumbling going on in Apple’s orchard. The approval process remains to be a mystery, with Apple approving and disapproving of applications seemingly at whim. Apple may have “opened up” the iPhone, but it is still maintaining strict control of the ecosystem surrounding its darling device.
Google, says Andy Rubin, will not play things that way. BusinessWeek interviewed him recently and reports that “Google won’t impose many of the restrictions Apple developers have been grumbling about. Unlike iPhone aficionados, developers using Android Market will, for example, be able to allow consumers to try their applications for free before they buy them. This may seem like a small thing, but developers name lack of free trial as one of the biggest reasons behind their lukewarm App Store sales.”
Sampling products before you buy them is by no means a revolutionary idea. Many of the network operators’ content can be previewed or sampled before users commit to purchasing it or subscribing to certain services. That Apple does not allow iPhone users to sample applications before they buy them is odd, especially considering that Apple allows iTunes users the ability to sample 30-second snippets of songs before buying them. Why doesn’t Apple allow apps to be sampled?
The Android Market is following the model set by the existing content delivery platforms of the major network operators, and that is a good thing. There are definitely a few applications that I paid for for my iPhone that I am less than thrilled with. Sampling them, even for a few moments, would have been enough to allow me to make a more informed purchasing decision and possibly even save some money.
There, he said it. Microsoft is interested in making money. That’s what CEO Steve Ballmer said in reference to Microsoft’s motivation in the mobile space. Google and Nokia, on the other hand? Who knows what their goal is with all their not charging people for mobile operating systems, Ballmer said.
Microsoft plans to continue charging licensing fees from handset makers for using its mobile operating system and not follow the free offerings of Google and Nokia, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on Tuesday.
The pressure on Microsoft’s high licensing fees has increased over 2008 with Google rolling out free Android technology and Nokia offering to buy out others from Symbian and also make its software royalty-free.
“We do,” Ballmer told Reuters, when asked whether his firm would stick with licensing fees. “We are doing well, we believe in the value of what we are doing.”
Who Benefits?
“It’s interesting to ask why would Google or Nokia, Google in particular, why would they invest a lot of money and try to do a really good job if they make no money. I think most operators and telecom companies are skeptical about Google,” he said.
Google tries to promote Web surfing on phones and the use of their services such as e-mail and search so they make advertising revenue.
“In the case of Nokia — are they really open sourcing, or are they really making Symbian their own operating system? We have to wait and see,” Ballmer said in an interview.
Motivated by Money
Microsoft’s market share in smartphone operating systems has stayed at about 10 percent for several years, despite the U.S. technology giant’s efforts to win more.
Microsoft charges US$8 to $15 per phone, according to Strategy Analytics.
“Handset makers are skeptical of Nokia, operators are skeptical of Google, I think by actually charging money people know exactly what our motivations are,” Ballmer said.
Not Into Hardware
He said there was no reason to expect Microsoft to enter the mobile phone making business, like some analysts foresee.
“I do not anticipate us building a phone. Sorry, we are not going build one,” Ballmer said.
Firm urges two IT budgets: one based on execs’ guidelines, another for growth should the economy improve
IT spending is faring better than the overall economy, and the sector “will avoid a recession in 2008,” according to Gartner Inc. But in a report sent to clients this week, the analyst firm said it believes IT budgets will show “very low year-over-year growth rates until business growth significantly improves.”
Gartner and Forrester Research Inc. do not see tech spending traveling into negative territory, but the word “slow” and “slowdown” is used often enough in their reports to get the message across about what’s ahead. Forrester released its forecast last week.
Gartner is nonetheless advising clients to hedge a little and not assume that the economy won’t improve next year. It’s recommending that IT managers prepare two budgets: one “based on guidelines and directions of senior executives,” and another “growth budget for 2009 in the event that healthier economic growth rates begin to return next year.”
Gartner said that overall U.S. economic growth and IT growth are moving at two different speeds and that the tech industry may be “even more resilient than we had originally imagined.”
In the Gartner report, analysts Ken McGee and Mark McDonald cite government data, results of a survey of about 1,000 CIOs, and recent quarterly reports from top vendors to reaffirm an assessment made earlier this year that IT spending won’t turn negative. Tech stocks have taken a beating on Wall Street but have recovered some this week.
Gartner noted in the report that after the last recession, U.S. IT budgets grew slowly. But it said that “executives should not blindly follow history and automatically cut IT costs in 2009 until they are certain that IT’s current counter economic-trend performance isn’t being contributed to, in part, by their competitors.”
In a Sept. 24 report, Forrester said technology purchases were stronger in the first half of 2008 than its projections, but that it was cautious nonetheless. “The U.S. recession and the resulting tech market slowdown have only been delayed, not cancelled,” the report said.
Forrester projects a slowdown in tech purchases in the remainder of this year and that the trend will carry into the first half of 2009. But it has now raised its forecast in 2008 growth in the purchases of IT goods and services by business and government to 5.4%, compared with its May forecast of 3.4%. But it has lowered its projected growth rate of 10% for next year to 6.1%. Forrester noted that software and outsourcing are two strong areas.
The Forrester report’s author, analyst Andrew Bartels, said with regard to financial firms, he expects 10% cuts at most in IT where firms have been acquired or merged. In the case of the bankrupt firms whose assets where purchased, the IT reductions could be as much as 20% to 30%, he said.
Oracle is adding to its retail software lineup by acquiring Advanced Visual Technology, a maker of 3D space planning software for retailers.
AVT, based in Hertfordshire, England, sells a product called Retail Focus, which lets retailers plan store floors and shelf space. An add-on product, called Retail Focus Merchandiser, gives retail planners a three-dimensional view of retail space that they can “walk” through virtually.
No terms were disclosed. Oracle said the transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2008.
Oracle plans to add AVT’s employees and management to its Retail Global business unit. AVT’s products will be combined with Oracle Retail’s application suite. The company said it expects the combination will help retailers to increase their profits through better space allocation and monitoring of sales.
Breaking with its preferred business model, Apple has released an unlocked version of the iPhone 3G in Hong Kong, allowing users to pick their preferred carrier.
The phones will go on sale in Hong Kong at prices of $695 for the 8GB model and $798 for the 16GB version. If those numbers look strikingly high, it’s only because Apple’s business plan has been to pair the iPhone 3G with a carrier in a given market–for instance, AT&T Mobility in the United States–which subsidizes the cost of the phone because customers are required to sign a service contract and pay for data plans.
Previously, the iPhone was only available in Hong Kong paired with a two-year service contract from Hutchinson, and included a $188 monthly fee. Now customers will be able to put their old SIM card into the iPhone and activate it in iTunes. It’s not clear whether this gamble will pay off, though it could put more pressure on Apple to unlock the phones in other markets.
Contrary to rumor, Microsoft will indeed give developers the alpha version of Windows 7 at next month’s developers conference, the company confirmed. Microsoft usually slips devs primitive copies of in-the-works operating systems to give them a heads-up on what to expect, what to work on, and how to take advantage of new features.
Developers attending Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference, set for Oct. 27 through 30 in Los Angeles, will leave with an alpha version of the software maker’s upcoming Windows 7 operating system (OS), the company confirmed Wednesday.
Microsoft has historically offered up early versions of upcoming OSes to developers. However, this recent promise dispels rumors that Redmond was planning to skip its traditional alpha release due to timing issues in developing Windows 7.
“This is common. It would have been a bigger deal if they had not given the people attending PDC the code,” said Michael Cherry, lead analyst at Directions on Microsoft.
The rumor, Cherry told TechNewsWorld, stated “that [Microsoft] was not going to release it. Had they not, it would be taken as a sign that they were behind on their development plans. [Microsoft] can’t win. If they give people code at PDC, then everyone will evaluate it and start to comment on what they think Windows 7 will be. If they don’t give code, everyone will assume they cannot get it shipped. So they’re in a no-win situation. In this front, it is hard to be Microsoft.”
Discovery Zone
Developers heading to PDC next month now know they will be able to take a rough version of the next Windows OS for a test drive. However, Microsoft has divulged few details about what it plans to show off to developers, save that they will “see advances across the full range of Windows — including the kernel, networking, hardware and devices, and user interface.”
However, once they have the pre-beta code in hand, developers will have a wealth of information they will use to decide whether and how to optimize their software to function with Windows 7.
“Developers are just eager to see what things Microsoft is changing, but will wait for a more stable build before they begin their work. Others will be looking to see what this means in terms of what they can do with their applications — and whether to try and exploit Windows 7 with their applications,” Cherry explained.
Specifically, developers expect performance improvements to the .NET framework and more Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) controls, said Jeffrey Hammond, a Forrester Research analyst.
“I think support for new interaction model interests developers, and then specifically for ISV developers, there’s interest in being able to continue to take full advantage of frameworks like DirectX,” he told TechNewsWorld.
With the Windows 7 alpha code released, Microsoft hopes to receive feedback from developers on the OS.
“The more feedback they can get early in the process, the better. By the time you get to formal beta, it’s often pretty hard for software development shops to make real substantive changes — the feedback period becomes more about fixing defects and taking input for the next release planning cycle,” Hammond pointed out.
Something to Work With
Software developers are not looking for Microsoft to make a host of changes with Windows 7 but are interested in what their programs can take advantage of. Given Vista’s well-reported compatibility issues, they will definitely be looking to see that Microsoft has remedied the problem in Windows 7, Cherry said.
“Developers are looking to have their applications run wherever there are the most places for them to run. So right now, if your application runs on Windows XP and probably runs OK on Vista, you’re probably covering the largest set of places where an application can run,” Cherry noted.
What developers want is for Vista, and then Windows 7, to really take off — and pull their applications, designed to take advantage of the operating system’s features, with it, Cherry said. They want to know whether it will be worth it to optimize their applications to work with a particular version of an operating system.
Many developers need a larger installed base to sell their software to than currently exists with Vista. Meanwhile, with Windows 7, Microsoft needs to get developers to write software that takes advantage of new features to make the new OS attractive to upgraders, Michael Silver, a Gartner analyst, told TechNewsWorld.
For instance, many developers are increasingly making investments in rich Internet applications (RIAs). That makes the choice of desktop less important than choice of browser, noted Hammond.
“This is one of the reasons Microsoft is investing in Silverlight — to provide a consistent programming model for desktop apps and Web apps. This serves two purposes. It makes it easier for developers to move to rich client apps based on WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), but it also gives Microsoft a .NET development play that is independent of the operating system,” he concluded.
Microsoft on Monday announced its latest software release, Windows HPC Server, at the 2008 High Performance on Wall Street Conference in New York. The application, aimed at industries like financial services, marks Microsoft’s latest entry into the high-performance computing (HPC) market.
The software is designed to give firms an easy-to-deploy, cost-effective and scalable HPC solution during a time when companies are seeking more efficiency from their IT resources without undercutting their competitive position in the market, said Bill Laing, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Windows Server and Solutions Division.
The announcement comes in the wake of news last week that supercomputer manufacturer Cray and Microsoft have teamed to offer a deskside-sized supercomputer for less than US$60,000. Those machines will come preloaded with Windows HPC Server 2008.
HPCs on Deck
HPC Server 2008 picks up for Microsoft where Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 (CCS) left off. CCS was the first HPC cluster technology offering from the company, designed to enable businesses to deploy multiple computers in a high-performance compute cluster in order to achieve supercomputing speeds.
Based on Windows Server 2008, HPC offers administrators simplified deployment and improved productivity of systems administration and cluster interoperability. The software will also speed application development through its integration with Visual Studio 2008.
It also supports standard interfaces, including OpenMP, multiprocessor interconnect (MPI) and Web services, along with third-party numerical library providers, performance optimizers, compilers and debugging toolkits.
How Super, Really?
The term “supercomputer” has lost a great deal of its power lately since most “high-performance computing” is done with clusters of small computers that can be indistinguishable from those running non-HPC workloads, explained Gordon Haff, an Illuminata analyst.
“Microsoft and Windows have limited presence in ‘classic’ HPC — large pools of systems in academia or national research labs,” he told TechNewsWorld.
That said, however, more and more HPC workloads are being run in regular companies that design and build products, Haff continued.
“These are mostly smaller installations than you find at a Los Alamos [National Laboratory], but they’re still huge computing resources by historic standards,” he noted.
As Microsoft owns some 90 percent of the traditional desktop computing environment and offers users as well as developers a high level of familiarity, its push into the HPC market should start with those facilities, he said.
“Whether for reasons of familiarity, developer tools, or software compatibility, these sorts of sites are often more amenable to Windows than is the case elsewhere,” Haff concluded.
Scientists expect startup glitches in the massive, complex machines they use to smash atoms.
But the unique qualities of the world’s largest particle collider mean that the meltdown of a small electrical connection could delay its groundbreaking research until next year, scientists said Sunday.
Because the Large Hadron Collider operates at near absolute zero — colder than outer space — the damaged area must be warmed to a temperature where humans can work. That takes about a month. Then it has to be re-chilled for another month.
As a result, the equipment may not be running again before the planned shutdown of the equipment for the winter to reduce electricity costs. That means Friday’s meltdown could end up putting off high-energy collisions of particles — the machine’s ultimate objective — until 2009.
“Hopefully we’ll come online and go quickly to full energy a few months into 2009 so in the long term, this may not end up being such a large delay in the physics program,” Seth Zenz, a graduate student from the University of California, wrote on the site of the U.S. physicists working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN.
“It’s obviously a short-term disappointment, though, and a lost opportunity,” he wrote.
CERN spokesman James Gillies said the repair operation will last until close to the usual winter shutdown time at the end of November. There has been some discussion that the new equipment could operate through the winter, but no decision has been made, he said.
The melting of the wire connecting two magnets Friday would have taken only a couple of days to repair on smaller, room-temperature accelerators that have been in use for decades, Gillies said.
Gillies said particle accelerators using superconducting equipment at Fermilab outside Chicago and at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York state had similar problems starting up, but have been operating smoothly since then.
“Once they settled in they seem to be pretty stable,” Gillies said.
At the Sept. 10 launch of the collider, beams of protons from the nuclei of atoms were fired first at the speed of light in a clockwise direction though a fire-hose-sized tube in the tunnel. Then proton beams were fired in the counterclockwise tube.
Jos Engelen, CERN’s chief scientific officer and deputy director-general, said the startup showed that the LHC can handle complex operations.
“We have encountered a weakness in one particular connection during very final hardware commissioning,” Engelen told The Associated Press by e-mail. “It is tough, but it can happen. We will make the repair and resume the very successful operation of the accelerator.”
A transformer failed outside the cold zone about 36 hours after the collider’s launch. That was repaired and the machine was ready again a week after it was shut down.
But the goal of the LHC — shattering protons to reveal more about how the tiniest particles were first created — was still weeks away because the equipment has to be gradually brought to the higher energies possible at full power.
“This was the last circuit of the LHC to be tested at high current before operations,” Gillies said. “There are an awful lot of these connections between wires in the machine. They all have to be very well done so that they don’t stop superconducting, and what appears to have happened is that this connection stopped being superconducting.”
Superconductivity — the ability to conduct electricity without any resistance in some metals at low temperatures_ allows for much greater efficiency in operating the electromagnets that guide the proton beams.
Without the superconducting, resistance builds up in the wires, causing them to overheat, he explained.
“That’s what we think happened,” Gillies said. “This piece of wire heated up, melted, and that led to a mechanical failure.”
Gillies said experts have already gone down into the 27-kilometer (17-mile) circular tunnel under the Swiss-French border to inspect the damage.
“By Monday I suspect we’ll know more,” he said.
Gillies said there is plenty for scientists at CERN to do between now and the startup of experiments, including studying cosmic rays that pass through collider’s massive detectors.
Microsoft has informed some of its partners that it has had to delay Windows Mobile 7, a much anticipated update to its cell phone operating system.
Although Microsoft has not publicly said when to expect Windows Mobile 7, partners who had expected to have a final release in their hands by early next year have been told now that it won’t be ready until the second half of next year, sources told CNET News.
The delay is a significant blow for the software maker, which has been counting on the next version of Windows Mobile to enable devices that better rival Apple’s iPhone. Among the features widely expected to be part of the release is advanced gesture recognition, perhaps along the lines of the iPhone, but possibly also using the camera as a means for reading gestures. Microsoft’s Tellme unit, which focuses on speech input, has also been working on Windows Mobile 7 features.
The delay also comes amid stepped-up competition. Google is preparing Tuesday to launch the first phone running its Android operating system, while Apple has its updated iPhone 3G, and new models are also debuting from BlackBerry maker Research In Motion.
Microsoft, for its part, declined to comment on its plans. In an interview, group product manager Scott Rockfeld noted that CEO Steve Ballmer and mobile unit head Andy Lees did meet with 17 of the company’s largest cell phone maker and carrier partners.
“They all expressed their excitement of what we are doing in the short term and the long term,” Rockfeld said.
Microsoft is not expected to have a major update to its core operating system ahead of Windows Mobile 7. However, other improvements are expected to debut sooner, most notably an improved browser that brings the rendering engine of Internet Explorer 6 onto Windows Mobile. That update, still expected this year, should pave the way for Windows Mobile phones to display rich Web pages, including those that are home to Flash content and Ajax applications.
In addition, a number of carriers and handset makers have been working with Microsoft to add new touch interfaces and other features, separate from Microsoft’s operating system updates. The T-Mobile Shadow was one of the first devices to benefit from such work, while more recent products from HTC also have their own custom interfaces above and beyond those included in the most recent version of Windows Mobile.
“Customers don’t have to sit back and wait,” Rockfeld said. “There’s tons of stuff coming from us and our partners.”
Rockfeld also tried to make the case that Microsoft’s business model is friendlier to hardware makers and cell phone carriers than those of rivals, including Google.
“The thing that they are trying to do is they are trying to own the services,” Rockfeld said, saying that is a move that has plenty of carriers worried. “They don’t want to sit there and just become a dumb pipe.”
Microsoft, he said, is willing to work with carriers to power their own services. “We’re happy sharing the limelight,” he said.
As for Windows Mobile 7, Microsoft has said very little publicly. Ballmer did make reference to it in a speech to enthusiasts in April.
During the speech, he talked about how Windows Mobile would outsell Apple and RIM during 2008. He then added: “And I think that certainly this should be a good year for us for sales, but the work we’re doing on Windows Mobile 7, which is the next major release of Windows Mobile, not just in the Windows Mobile team, but across Windows Mobile, in Silverlight, the development platform, the e-mail, the back-end, I think you’ll continue to see that as an area of major excitement and innovation for the company as we move forward.”
