Beefy Fedora could use a dash of miracle whip
If you’re called Beefy Miracle, you better pack a punch. And when the Fedora crew christened their next Linux desktop, that was certainly the plan.
On the menu was “over and under the bun improvements that show off the power and flexibility of the advancing state of free software.”
While Fedora 17 is certainly beefy, what's been delivered with this first and only beta is not particularly miraculous. Read more...
IBM cuts more than 1,000 U.S. workers
IBM has laid off just over 1,000 employees so far this week, and more layoffs may be possible, according to an employee organization.
IBM never comments on the specifics of any cuts, and the only reason that the company's job action is noticeable is due to the Alliance@IBM/CWA Local 1701, which gathers its data directly from IBM employees.
The alliance keeps a running tally of cuts by business units while affected employees post comments on a bulletin board.
An alliance spokesman was uncertain as to how many employees will lose their jobs in this latest round of cuts. The employees are from multiple business units and locations in the U.S., and nearly half of the employees "are mobile or work from home," according to a union spokesman. Read more...
Microsoft seeks to woo developers with Windows 8 store
Microsoft is looking to woo application developers to its Windows 8 software store with more flexible licensing than usual, and a purported larger user base.
Speaking at an event in San Francisco, Antoine Leblond, vice president of Windows Web Services, said that Microsoft would allow developers much greater flexibility than other stores, including in-game purchasing, subscriptions, and free applications supported by advertising. In addition, once an application has generated more than $25,000 worth of revenue, Microsoft will cut its commission from the industry standard 30 per cent to 20 per cent. Read more...
Cloud’s new rules promise old-school satisfaction
Cloud computing is big business, in part because companies are happy to shell out lots of cash to buy themselves time and development flexibility.
In this quest to displace the operations bottleneck that exists within enterprises, developers are taking on more of the operations role for themselves and to reduce this new burden have started a mad rush to run anything and everything in the cloud.
We've long talked about the need to outsource everything but one's core business, but it's developers who are doing this far more than any other group within the enterprise.
Now we have databases in the cloud, logging in the cloud, and even network monitoring, thanks to Boundary's new service, in the cloud. Read more...
Google buys Admeld
Hoping to further boost its position in display advertising, Google scooped up Admeld, a company that aims to simplify the display ad buying process, the companies said Monday.
They did not disclose the value of the deal.
Admeld lets publishers connect from one place to a variety of ad networks, demand-side platforms and agency trading desks. Ad buyers from those sources compete for impressions through Admeld's unified auction. Admeld also offers real-time analytics. " Read more...