Azure: it’s Windows but not as we know it
If Microsoft Azure is just Windows in the cloud, is it easy to move a Windows application from your servers to Azure?
The answer is a definite “maybe”. An Azure instance is just a Windows virtual server, and you can even use a remote desktop to log in and have a look. Your ASP.NET code should run just as well on Azure as it does locally.
But there are caveats. The first is that all Azure instances are stateless. State must be stored in one of the Azure storage services.
Azure tables are a non-relational service that stores entities and properties. Azure blobs are for arbitrary binary data that can be served by a content distribution network. SQL Azure is a version of Microsoft’s SQL Server relational database. Read more...
Outgoing federal CIO warns of ‘an IT cartel’
In a wide-ranging discussion Friday with President Barack Obama's top science advisors, Federal CIO Vivek Kundra warned of the dangers of open data access and complained of "an IT cartel" of vendors.
He also believes the U.S. can operate with just a few data centers.
Kundra, who is leaving his job in mid-August, offered a kaleidoscopic view of his concerns about federal IT in an appearance before President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
In particular, Kundra is worried about the "mosaic effect," the unintended consequence of government data sharing, where data sets are combined and layered in ways that can strip away privacy and pose security threats. Read more...
Post-Novell, Xamarin readies Mono upgrade for developers
Xamarin, formed in May to take over Mono software development technologies from Novell, plans to roll out an upgrade to Mono this fall. The new version will feature a parallel garbage collector and a C# 5 compiler, as well as offer performance and programming improvements, the company says. Read more...
7 high-tech programs that want to pick your brain
With increasing frequency it seems agencies of the government are looking to tap into the public consciousness to gather information on everything from how you surf the Web to how they can use information generated by you to predict the future. It's all a little creepy, really. Here we take a look at seven programs announced this year that in some cases really want to crawl into your brain to see what's happening in the world. Read more...
Despite Microsoft gains, VMware still dominates virtualization market
VMware is the primary hypervisor for 58 percent of organizations that use x86 virtualization software, with Citrix and Microsoft's Hyper-V splitting the rest of the market, a new survey finds.
Commissioned by virtualization management vendor Veeam and conducted by research group Vanson Bourne, the V-Index survey of more than 500 large businesses found that 92 percent have adopted virtualization, and deployed an average of 470 virtual machines. Although VMware is still the most widely used, it turns out multiple hypervisors in the same data center is fast becoming the norm. And with VMware's latest price increases, Microsoft and Citrix have a chance to chip into its lead.
Fully 58 percent of companies using virtualization call VMware their primary hypervisor, while 20.2 percent put Citrix at the top of the list and 18.6 percent count Hyper-V first. Read more...
Apple iOS still rules but Windows Phone 7 edges Android in user satisfaction
Apple's iOS-based iPhone continues to be the preferred smartphone for nearly 50 percent of consumers, with Android the top choice for about one-third of them. The real surprise is evidence that Microsoft's Windows Phone OS now outstrips Android in user satisfaction.
Even without an announcement about a new iPhone from Apple, nearly half of all consumers planning to buy a smartphone in the next 90 days will be happy to buy the existing iPhone 4, according to survey by ChangeWave, a Rockville, Md., research firm that tracks changes in consumer and corporate electronics buying.
Fully 46 percent of the 4,163 mainly U.S. consumers surveyed say they prefer a smartphone with Apple's iOS firmware. That's up two points from the March survey. One-third of those surveyed (32 percent more precisely) prefer to buy an Android device. That's a one-point improvement over the previous survey. Read more...
Microsoft rolls out One Big Windows strategy
Is Microsoft preparing one Windows operating system for PCs, tablets, and smartphones?
Reading between the lines of what Microsoft execs told 15,000 of the company's partners during their annual conference event this week, it appears that a unified Windows is indeed on the way. But it's unclear how far it will go. The company is likely preparing a common operating system "core" that will allow developers to build applications across multiple devices. Read more...
Google: The one trick pony learns a second trick
Google has a nasty habit of cannibalizing others' businesses based on its own seemingly unassailable lead in search and online advertising. The problem is that each time this involves giving away free software and services to undermine competitors at the expense of growing its own. Or can Google make a business from giving competitors fits?
Let's look at Google's track record. Google Android is intended to be the Apple iOS killer, and it's doing a pretty decent job of taking share, though primarily against RIM, Microsoft, and HP/Palm. Early on Google accomplished this, in part, by paying companies to ship Android. If you were Motorola or HTC, you didn't have the option of shipping an Apple device, and so could either pay for Windows or WebOS or you could be paid by Google to use Android. Read more...
iPhone 5 carrier testing begins with AT&T?
The next-generation iPhone 5 (or 4S) is on the way and is already being tested extensively on the AT&T network, even as Apple [AAPL] watchers continue to speculate on just when we'll see iOS-friendly OS X release, Lion ship.
[This story is from Computerworld's Apple Holic blog. Follow on Twitter or subscribe via RSS to make sure you don't miss a beat.]
What I lost on the Google+ Diet
On July 8, I went on the Google+ Diet, using Google's new social network for all my online communication. As part of the diet, I stopped using Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and several other services. I even stopped using e-mail.
As I explained in my column last week, the purpose of the experiment was to see if consolidating and streamlining all social activity into Google+ was possible and, if so, desirable. (You can follow my experiment here, even if you're not a Google+ member.)
I was able to answer my two questions on day one of my Google+ Diet. Yes, it's possible, and yes, it's desirable.
More interestingly, however, I found out all kinds of surprising things about Google+ and about using Google+ as the one-and-only medium for online communication. Here's what I learned: Read more...