Google Launches Infrastructure Service: Compute Engine

There's a new infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), pay-as-you-go offering to compete with Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, or EC2. On Thursday, Google introduced its Compute Engine.

The new service, which was announced at the Google I/O developers conference taking place in San Francisco, allows users to create virtual  machines. Google says it provides 50 percent more power per dollar than Amazon's service. The technology giant had previously offered a wide range of services and products in the cloud , but not a pure rent-our-servers offering.

Limited Preview

Compute Engine is currently being offered in a "limited preview," meaning that only a limited number of users can sign up. A general availability date has not been announced. Google said its service, even in this limited launch, is well suited for computationally intensive tasks, such as scientific research, because of its ability to scale to thousands of processor cores.

On-demand Linux virtual machines are offered in one, two, four, and eight virtual cores, with each virtual core having 3.75GB of RAM. Storage will be on local disks, persistent block devices, or in Google's Cloud Storage. Pricing starts at $0.145 per hour for a 1 core, 3.75 GB RAM virtual machine .

On the Google Compute Engine Web page, the company cites three initial use cases for its service -- batch processing, data  processing and high-performance computing. Users can manage their projects via the Google APIs Console.

Google's App Engine, which provides a platform for developing applications, had pointed to this IaaS opportunity, said Urs Holzle, the company's infrastructure architect. Holzle told the conference that users of the App Engine, which does not offer pure use of virtual machines, had indicated their desire for an infrastructure service that provided virtual machines for long-term use.

Linux Only

App Engine requires that applications be designed for specific application programming interfaces, while Compute Engine will allow users to develop and run almost anything they choose.

A variety of new features for the App Engine platform were announced Wednesday, such as the ability to work with geospatial data. When it launched in 2008, App Engine only supported applications written in Python, but later added other capabilities, such as support for Java.

Google will handle scalability and performance issues in Compute Engine, and will utilize its extensive, worldwide network  of data centers. Initially at least, Compute Engine will only support virtual engines running Linux, in contrast to Amazon, which supports both Windows  and Linux.

In addition to Amazon, other IaaS competitors include AT&T , GoGrid, Softlayer, Rackspace, Hosting.com, and Verizon's Terremark. Amazon is the market leader  in this category, having undertaken these services six years ago and currently providing services to thousands of established and start-up companies. By some estimates, Amazon's services may power as much as 1 percent of the entire Internet.

Compute Engine becomes part of a group know as Google Cloud Platforms, which includes App Engine and the company's Cloud Storage service.

Nokia releases Windows Phone update for Lumia 800 and 710

Nokia has started rolling out a Windows Phone software update for the Lumia 800 and the Lumia 710, which includes Wi-Fi tethering and a feature that silences incoming calls and messages when the phone is turned face down, the company said in a blog post on Wednesday.

Owners of the Lumia 800 and the Lumia 710 may not be getting Windows Phone 8, but that doesn't mean new features won't be added to thesmartphones.

Just like on other smartphone operating systems, Wi-Fi tethering -- or Internet sharing as Nokia calls it -- turns the Lumia 800 and the Lumia 710 into a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot. Users can share their mobile Internet connection over Wi-Fi with up to five other mobile devices or computers, according to Nokia.

The feature that silences incoming calls and messages when the phone is turned face down is called flip-to-silence.

When the software feature has been installed, other new features can be added via Microsoft app store Marketplace, as well.

These include what Nokia calls Camera Extras, which enhances the camera capabilities of the device.

As Nokia looks for ways to differentiate its smartphones from the competition, the 3 Comments it will focus on going forward.

The extras allow users to, for example, take better group shots. By pressing the camera button once, a user can snap five shots and then select the best shot for each person, turning the result into a single composite image.

There is also a new panorama mode and a mode for taking better pictures of movement and action, Nokia said.

The Windows Phone update will become available during June and July, and the camera features will be rolled out worldwide by the end of July, according to Nokia.

To get the update, users need to connect their phone to either a PC running the Zune software or a Mac running the Windows Phone 7 connector.

Internet Sharing and flip-to-silence are already available on the Lumia 900 and Lumia 610. The new camera features are already available on those phones in the U.S. and China, and will come soon elsewhere, according to Nokia.

Nokia will also roll out Windows 7.8, which is what existing Lumia owners are getting instead of Windows Phone 8. The update will includes a more flexible start screen on which users can choose the size of their live tiles more freely.

Nokia isn't yet ready to say when the update will become available, a spokeswoman said via email.

Google Glasses Link Virtual, Real Worlds

Google is looking to make science fiction real when it ships its computerized eyeglasses by 2014.

On Wednesday, Brin told the keynote audience at the company's annual Google I/O conference in San Francisco this week that developers in attendance would be able to order the Explorer Edition for $1500 and they would receive the prototypes in 2013.Sergey Brin, a Google co-founder, said the glasses will ship to consumers about a year after the prototype Explorer Edition makes its way to developers, according to an interview he gave Bloomberg TV.

Brin noted that the consumer version of the glasses would be cheaper than the prototype.

"Since we've showed it to the public in April, we've gotten so many great ideas and so much feedback, we found it so valuable," Brin told Bloomberg. "We want to take that to the next level by letting other people, who are dedicated and serious and willing to be on the cutting edge, letting them do their own experimentation ... and affect our future designs and software."

Google made a huge splash at the opening day of the conference on Wednesday when it showed off the glasses by having two skydivers wear them while jumping out of a plane flying over the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco where the conference is being held. The glasses, which are equipped with a processor, memory, cameras, microphones and speakers, live-streamed video of the jump to giant screens onstage at the keynote.

"We created Glass so you can interact with the virtual world without distracting you from the real world," said Google designer Isabelle Olsson. "We don't want technology to get in the way."

Brin told Bloomberg he's really excited to give computing a whole new place in people's lives.Olsson noted that the Android-based glasses have a small screen, which they positioned right above one of the user's eyes so it adds to their experience without blocking their senses.

"It's the notion of taking computing, which has moved from giant mainframes to laptops to phones, to perhaps an even lighter and more free form factor," he said. "Google X is about doing brand new risky technological things that are really about making science fiction real. We're not thinking about other existing products that are on the market today. We're trying to do risky things that may or may not work out, but it's got to be something that's really bold."

Google X is lab where the company's engineers and designers can work on future-leaning projects.

Google TV armed with more entertainment options

Google at its I/O conference is emphasizing its growing number of music, movies and TV shows available for Android tablets and smartphones through its Play store, and those entertainment options will be available on Google TV devices in the future, the company said this week.

Users who own Google TV boxes will be able to stream movie content from the Google Play store in the next few months, the company wrote in a blog entry. Users will be able to rent a movie on a tablet or smartphone, which can then also be viewed on televisions via Google TV.

Google TV is software available in set-top boxes and TVs and tries to solve the challenge of bringing classic TV and Internet functionality closer. For example, when searching for a specific movie, Google TV jointly lists results from broadcast, DVR and the Internet. A TV set can also be used to surf the Internet, run Android applications, or to stream movies from websites such as Netflix or YouTube.

Users will be able to access 100,000 movies and TV content through Google Play, wrote Catherine Liang, product marketing manager and Ossama Alami, developer relations manager, in the blog entry. The feature will be available in the coming months.

Earlier this week, Sony and Vizio introduced companion set-top boxes with the latest Google TV software. Sony is taking orders for the Internet Player with Google TV, which is priced at $199. Vizio introduced the Co-Star box, which is $99. LG earlier this year introduced new TVs with the Google TV software.

The new devices from Vizio and Sony run a second-generation of Google TV software, a follow-up to original software in 2010 for devices running on Intel chips. The revised software is a reboot from the first version of Google TV, which was considered a failure as initial devices like Logitech's Revue set-top box and Sony's Internet TV did not find wide acceptance. Intel also scaled down production of chips for Google TV devices, with ARM-based chip makers like Marvell now filling the void. A lot of the products shown at the Computex trade show in Taipei earlier this month are based on ARM processor designs, with software development kits provided by the chips companies.

More partners will be offering Google TV devices in the coming months, Google said. The latest version of Google TV is based on Android 3.2, which is code-named Honeycomb. Google TV software based on Android 4.0, code-named Ice Cream Sandwich, is on the road map, a Google spokesman said on Friday.

There are some companies already offering TVs or set-top boxes with customized versions of Android 4.0, but they are not officially Google TV devices. Lenovo in China is offering a is television that recognizes voice commands and runs on a customized version of Android 4.0. At the Computex trade show in Taipei earlier this month, a number of companies showed off set-top boxes and TVs based on customized Android 4.0 versions with a Google TV-like interface.

Google at the I/O conference also announced the Nexus Q device, which streams movies and music from the Google Play store to TV sets and stereo systems. The $299 spherical device is a consumer product, while Google TV is directed toward device makers, the spokesman said. Users will be able to choose a Google TV device or Nexus Q to stream movies from the Google Play store on a TV.

Google is also hedging its bet on the second screen strategy for Google TV, where mobile devices like smartphones, tablets will be able to interact with the TV, much like a remote control. Users can browse for videos through a smartphone or tablet, which can then be played back on TV. Google is offering the Google TV remote application through its Play store to make this possible.

Google is also releasing tools for new developers to write applications for Google TV, including APIs (application programming interfaces), libraries, and code, the company wrote in the blog entry.

Agam Shah, Computer World

Google sharpening Analytics' tracking of mobile applications

Google is readying a new set of Analytics usage reports designed specifically for mobile applications, the company announced at its I/O developer conference on Friday.

So far, Google Analytics has approached mobile-application tracking from a perspective that's more tailored to conventional websites, said JiaJing Wang, a Google product manager.

With the new reports, Google Analytics will provide results for iOS and Android applications that include deeper, broader and more specific metrics, he said.

"Application developers and marketers need to have a profound understanding of their mobile applications' usage," Wang said.

One set of reports will focus on measuring new and active users of an application, the different versions in use and the devices it's being installed on, as well as how people are finding it at the Google Play store.

Another set of reports will zero in on engagement data, such as the frequency with which people use the application, the length of sessions and the in-application usage patterns, as well as trends in crashes and bugs.

"You have to know what users are doing before you can make meaningful improvements to your mobile applications," he said.

A third type of report will focus on tracking the attainment of specific outcomes, such as ad clicks, in-app purchases or pre-determined session duration goals.

Since Google is providing the capabilities free, it's likely that the price of more sophisticated mobile analytics products from competitors will drop, which will benefit developers, said Michael Facemire, a Forrester Research analyst.

In addition, the native SDK (software development kit) for both iOS and Android makes it technically easy for developers to link their applications with the Google Analytics engine. "This low barrier of entry for developers from a cost perspective and a technology-effort perspective will make this an appealing offering," he said.

Al Hilwa, an IDC analyst, said Google is seeking a stronger position as an information provider for mobile developers.

"This is a strong play which can win Google a lot of mindshare," he said via email. "It could ultimately pay dividends in Android developer adoption and loyalty even though those tools are also provided for iOS."

Google is responding appropriately to the rising importance of mobile applications, Hilwa said. "The bar is higher now for the kind of intelligence developers should expect from their apps. Real-time information about what parts of the apps are being used [is] increasingly critical for application design and we can thank the mobile app economy for that," he said.

As it continues to extend its mobile application analytics capabilities, Google should focus on deepening the integration between Google Analytics and Google Play, to give increasingly more detailed and granular data to developers who use the company's store to sell their apps, Facemire said.

"The level of integration into Google Play will be key, because that's an integration point that's unique for Google Analytics," he said.

The new reports are expected to be available to all Analytics users by the end of the summer as part of version 2.0 of the Analytics mobile SDK (software development kit).

Those interested in trying out the new reports can send Google a request to be beta testers.

Google will also release a new Analytics application for Android devices so that Analytics users can check their accounts and reports from their Android smartphones.

"Mobile development is an around-the-clock job. Having this analytics information with you at all times is key," Facemire said.

Chrome for iOS snatches top spot on App Store

Google Chrome, released yesterday for the iPhone and iPad, has already snatched the top spot in Apple's App Store.

As of 11 a.m. ET Friday, Chrome held the No. 1 position on both the iPhone and iPad free app download lists.

Google launched Chrome for iOS on Thursday, first announcing the browser at its Google I/O developers conference early in the day, with the app showing up several hours later on Apple's App Store.

Reviews for Chrome have been overwhelmingly positive, with 80% of the more than 3,700 posted so far giving the browser a five-star rating, the highest possible. The average rating is four-and-a-half stars.

The numbers are impressive in light of the fact that Chrome on iOS is essentially Safari in disguise. Because of the rules Apple enforces, all Web-accessing apps, including browsers, must use Safari's rendering engine and iOS's stock JavaScript engine.

In effect, Chrome for iOS is a "skin" -- of Google's user interface (UI) and additional features -- covering Safari.

Benchmark tests run by numerous websites have confirmed that Chrome for iOS is dramatically slower than Safari in handling JavaScript due to the latter's use of a much-improved engine, dubbed "Nitro," that Chrome cannot access. Apple first used Nitro, which includes a "just-in-time," or JIT, compiler with the March 2011 release of iOS 4.3.

All desktop browsers now rely on a JIT compiler to significantly speed up JavaScript execution; many advanced websites and most Web apps depend heavily on JavaScript, so a JIT compiler will render those pages and run those apps much faster.

Google, however, was prevented by the App Store rules from using its own V8 JavaScript engine, which has a JIT compiler. Instead, it had to call the stock WebKit JavaScript renderer, which lacks a JIT compiler.

Some of the App Store reviewers noticed.

"Runs 3.5 times slower doing JavaScript than Safari thanks to the lack of Nitro," said a reviewer identified only as "Reviewergoy" yesterday. "Stick with Safari, folks. Google obviously half-assed another iOS app."

Chrome for iOS, like all browsers in the App Store, lacks support for Adobe's Flash Player. Apple has been adamant about keeping Flash out of its e-mart, and off its mobile devices.

But browsers on other mobile platforms, notably Google's own Android, are also going sans Flash: Chrome for Android, which Google launched in beta in February and shifted into its "stable" channel earlier this week, also lacks Flash.

Yesterday, Adobe confirmed that it will not create a certified edition of Flash for Android 4.1, aka "Jelly Bean," reiterating promises it made late in 2011 that it would abandon development of Flash for mobile browsers.

Thursday, Adobe also announced that it will block new installations of Flash for Android as of Aug. 15, allowing only those users which already have Flash to receive updates.

Chrome can be downloaded free-of-charge from the App Store in versions for the iPhone and iPad.

Google exec claims Chrome is the world's most popular browser

Google yesterday claimed that its Chrome is the world's most popular browser, interceding for the first time in the dispute over browser usage share.

"According to all our metrics and everything we see out there, Chrome is the most popular browser in the world," said Sundar Pichai, vice president of Chrome, in remarks at the second day of Google I/O, the company's annual developer conference.

Pichai's claim was bolder than the one he made last month at the Wall Street Journal's All Thing Digital conference, when he said, "It's fair to say we are No. 1 or [just] barely No. 2 in all countries in the world."

During that interview with Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg, Pichai also said, "Our internal data corresponds pretty well to what StatCounter reported."

StatCounter, an Irish company that supplies website analytics tools -- and uses customers' sites to track browser usage via page views -- said that last month Chrome for the first time surpassed Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) as the globe's most widely-used browser.

According to StatCounter, Chrome accounted for 32.4% of all page views in May, beating IE's cumulative 32.1%.

Since then, both StatCounter and Net Applications, a U.S. Web measurement firm that also publishes browser statistics, have taken shots at each other's methodologies, each arguing that their numbers paint a more accurate picture of browser share.

The root cause of the bickering: Chrome's purported rise to the top of the browser chart.

After StatCounter's knock earlier this month, Microsoft shot back, defending Net Applications and chastising StatCounter for what it called "a personal attack" on Roger Capriotti, who heads Microsoft's marketing efforts for IE.

Today, Microsoft declined to comment on Pichai's claim that Chrome is the planet's most popular browser.

However, a spokeswoman again said Microsoft stood by Net Applications. "We look to Net Applications for the most accurate position on browser market share," she said in an email replay to questions, and pointed to a March blog by Capriotti, the same post that riled StatCounter earlier this month.

Microsoft is a Net Applications customer and, like many other companies, pays the research firm for access to browser usage data that Net Applications does not offer the public or the media.

Although the month is not over, StatCounter currently has Chrome's share for June at 32.7%, a three-tenths of a percentage point increase from the month before, and pegged IE's at 32.3% for June, a two-tenths of a point climb.

The gap between the two browsers -- three-tenths of a point in May -- grew to four-tenths of a percentage point in June by StatCounter's preliminary figures.

Net Applications will not publish its June figures until Sunday, July 1.

RIM stock plunges after $518M loss and BlackBerry 10 delay

Research in Motion's stock price plunged 19% Friday following RIM's announcement late yesterday of a $518 million first quarter loss and that its BlackBerry 10 smartphone has been further delayed.

At the close of markets Friday, RIM's share price finished at $7.39 as investors reacted to Thursday's financial results that showed sharply lower revenue and a $518 million loss in the quarter ending in May.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported overnight that RIM may be considering a switch from its proprietary mobile operating system to the Windows Phone OS for future smartphones.

In an email to Computerworld today, a RIM spokesman said that "Our main priority at hand is the successful launch of BlackBerry 10. We will continue to evaluate partnerships and licensing potential but are focused on BlackBerry 10."

The launch will now come in 2013.

Several analysts Friday cast doubt on the Reuters report, which cited three sources who said continuing financial pressures are forcing RIM executives to consider potentially undesirable options like partnering with Microsoft or even selling its network business. Selling the proprietary global network would open RIM's network operations center to other smartphone providers that could in turn enhance their network security.

Both options, the sources told Reuters, were undesirable to the RIM board, which still wants to push ahead with BlackBerry 10.

"RIM seems unlikely to give up on BlackBerry 10, given how much they emphasized it" during Thursday's earnings call, said Stuart Jeffrey, an analyst at Nomura International.

Still, in a note entitled "Fiddling while RIM burns" sent to investors on Friday, Jeffrey said, "If RIM continues to be run as it is, we believe that the company will eventually fail."

Jeffrey said he doesn't anticipate that RIM will be acquired or will merge with another company, but noted that Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility had seemed unlikely before it happened.

Thus, the note said that a merger or acquisition is "the only reason to not turn negative on the stock."

Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates, said switching to Windows Phone "would make no sense. It would take longer for RIM to get WinPhone working than to continue the path to BB10."

Added Ramon Llamas, an analyst at IDC: "It doesn't make sense for RIM to switch to Windows, because that scenario is a one-way street that benefits only Microsoft, which wants a bigger smartphone footprint globally."

IDC said BlackBerry's smartphone share in the first quarter of 2012 was just 6.4%, about half of its share a year earlier.

Ken Dulaney, an analyst at Gartner, said it would make more sense for RIM to adopt Android than Windows because both the QNX-based BlackBerry 10 OS and Android are Linux derivatives.

He noted that Blackberry users could access the plentiful Android apps and that its ties to QNX via the Linux heritage would allow RIM to add the enterprise-level security features the it uses today.

Llamas is one of very few analysts that see some hope for RIM.

"RIM has lost luster in a lot of quarters, but RIM also still has good brand recognition in a lot of the world," he said, though he added that "it's going to get worse before it gets better."

Llamas also said that RIM should make moves to halt the departures of top executives while focusing on boosting its business in emerging markets like Brazil, India, Indonesia, the Middle East and Africa "where a lot of people are looking to upgrade their BlackBerry phones."

Gold said that aside from the dismal -- and expected -- financial news, "the real bad news is that RIM is slipping BlackBerry 10 shipments into next year. [That] means they will miss both the back-to-school and holiday selling seasons."

At the same time, Gold noted that Windows Phone 8 and iOS 6 are expected to launch in coming months.

"I don't know how long the installed base of users will wait for RIM to get Blackberry 10 out. I suspect many will jump ship for another OS in the next six months, having been disappointed by the delay," Gold added.

Canonical details plans to deal with UEFI Secure Boot

The problem of dealing with UEFI's Secure Boot in Windows 8-certified PCs is still being wrestled with by various Linux distros, and today the Ubuntu team has revealed more about their proposed solution. First up: dropping the GRUB 2 bootloader as a default tool on systems with Secure Boot enabled and generating an Ubuntu-specific signing key to use with UEFI.

That's the word from Steve Langasek, who--along with fellow Ubuntu developers Colin Watson and Jeremy Kerr--posted a detailed message to the [ubuntu-devel] mailing list earlier today.

That Ubuntu would be using its own signing key rather than pick one up from Microsoft via VeriSign is not exactly news: Mark Shuttleworth mentioned the approach in a message to the same mailing list on Wednesday.

"We've been working to provide an alternative to the Microsoft key, so that the entire free software ecosystem is not dependent on Microsoft's goodwill for access to modern PC hardware," Shuttleworth wrote in response to a question posed by my colleague Steven Vaughan-Nichols (who nicely wrote it up along with responses from the Fedora community).

Today's message from Langasek highlights how Canonical will be taking Ubuntu on a different course to solve the issue of Secure Boot.

In a nutshell, here's the issue: Microsoft is requiring OEMs making Windows 8-certified machines to use the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) instead of the venerable BIOS firmware layer. BIOS has been pretty much the sole firmware interface for PCs for a long time.

The UEFI specification is not the problem for Linux. The problem is Microsoft's other requirement for any Windows 8-certified client: the system must support Secure Booting. This hardened boot means that 'all firmware and software in the boot process must be signed by a trusted Certificate Authority."

Meaning that, in such a situation, any user who wanted to dual-boot on a Windows 8-certified machine would be unable to accomplish the task, unless they had a signed key the UEFI secure boot system recognized.

Fedora's proposed solution to this problem is to purchase a Microsoft-signed encryption key from VeriSign for a one-time $99 fee and use a two-stage bootloading process to (1) use the key to boot straight to a modified GRUB 2 bootloader that will (2) then boot to Fedora.

Canonical doesn't like that approach.

"So, the bad news first: at this point, we are not planning to use GRUB 2 by default on systems with secure boot enabled. As a search through its ChangeLog will show, we've put a considerable amount of upstream development effort into GRUB 2 and we hope to carry on doing so, so this wasn't an easy decision," Langasek wrote today.

Their reason? A legal concern--not technical--that a manufacturer mistake could end up requiring Canonical to have to reveal their private key.

Langasek explains:

"The reason we've arrived at a different plan is that Ubuntu has a rather extensive base of preinstalled systems. Microsoft's Windows 8 logo requirements do say that there must be a way for users to disable secure boot or to install their own keys, and we strongly support this in our own firmware guidelines; but in the event that a manufacturer makes a mistake and delivers a locked-down system with a GRUB 2 image signed by the Ubuntu key, we have not been able to find legal guidance that we wouldn't then be required by the terms of the GPLv3 to disclose our private key in order that users can install a modified boot loader. At that point our certificates would of course be revoked and everyone would end up worse off."

So how will this work, exactly? First, for users booting from CD, there will be a loader image signed by Microsoft's WinQual key, which will then chain to the UEFI bootloader efilinux. efilinux will be signed by Ubuntu's key, so the WinQual key won't have to be signed every time a change is made to efilinux.

GRUB 2 won't be going away completely.

"We hope that we'll also be able to make the first stage loader detect whether Secure Boot is enabled and otherwise chain to GRUB 2, to ensure that we don't regress behaviour for those with UEFI systems that do not implement Secure Boot or that have it disabled," Langasek added.

For machines with Ubuntu preinstalled, the process is similar, just more baked in.

"Machines that ship as 'Ubuntu certified' will be required to have an Ubuntu key configured in their UEFI signature databases. The intention here is to allow these systems to receive updates for the revoked signature database, in order to be protected against known-compromised UEFI binaries," Langasek wrote. "We are not planning to provide an alternative to Microsoft's signing infrastructure, only an additional key; so we have no current plans to implement a signing service using the Ubuntu key."

Nothing is set in stone yet, of course, but Canonical has made is abundantly clear that they want to have some measure of control in the Secure Boot process. And there are likely to be more proposals and plans to come.

"…W]e're committed to ensuring that Ubuntu will work smoothly with Secure Boot enabled hardware," wrote Canonical's VP, Professional & Engineering Services Jon Melamut on [the Canonical Blog tot/). "In addition to investigating Microsoft's recommendation to participate in its WinQual program, Canonical has generated an Ubuntu key, and we are in active discussions with partners to implement simple ways for enterprises and consumers to use this key. These conversations have not concluded, and as a result we cannot detail the plans of our OEM partners yet."

 Brian Proffitt, IT World

SUSE Embraces Open Source OpenStack in Private Cloud Offering

Pete Chadwick, senior product manager for cloud at SUSE Linux, explained to InternetNews that his company's private cloud offering is based on the recent OpenStack Essex release.

In addition to the core OpenStack components, SUSE has re-packaged the software to be easier to install as well as to better leverage SUSE's package management and installation tools. SUSE is also utilizing technology from the Dell open source Crowbar effort, which is an OpenStack installer project. Chadwich noted that SUSE developers have been working with Dell to help automate the OpenStack installation process.

"The feedback we got is that OpenStack is hard to install and set up, so we thought that Crowbar would be a good basis to start from," Chadwick said. "But we were able to pull in some of our other installation tools like YAST and Zipper as well."

SUSE is also using its own tools, including the SUSE Build Service, to actually build its version of the OpenStack packages. The Build Service is a SUSE technology that literally builds Linux packages.

SUSE Studio is a tool for creating Linux virtual appliances that can be leveraged as a way to build a virtual machine image capable of running on OpenStack. Chadwick noted that further levels of integration with SUSE Studio are on the SUSE OpenStack roadmap, as is integration with the SUSE Manager management platform.

Kaspersky expects 25 pc revenue from India market

It's been just over three years since the Kaspersky Lab entered Indian market in late 2009. However, during these years, the company has been successful in penetrating the consumer anti-virus market in India, which has been dominated by established players like McAfee, Norton, Trend Micro, Quick Heal and others.

Following consumer segment’s success, the Russian security firm is now increasing focus on the enterprise market with its highly successful consumer strategy. According to Gun Suk Ling, Kaspersky Lab’s director – Corporate Sales for APAC, Indian market is contributing around 15-18 percent sales revenues annually in the Asia Pacific region, which is largely dominated by consumer segment and followed by small, mid businesses and corporate.    

“India is a very critical market for us and we expect the revenue contribution from Indian market to grow over 20-25 percent by 2015,” Suk Ling told CyberMedia News in Mumbai. 

Presently, the consumer segment contributes around 80 percent of the company’s total sales in India.  However, according to Suk Ling, the company wants to continue its focus on consumer segment along with corporate and enterprise market.

“Entering enterprise market takes time as it’s crowded by other players who have been present in India for the past 12-15 years. In doing so, we are relying and using our consumer strategy that includes branding of products for enterprises, re-strategizing partners and fine-tune them as they will help us to enter the enterprise segment,” Suk Ling explained.     

As a strategic move to tap the enterprise market in India, Kaspersky Lab last year teamed up with Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Satyam as technology partners. Presently, the company strengthened its corporate sales team in India.

Globally, the Moscow-based company earns around 60 percent revenue sales from consumer segment followed by 30 percent from enterprise and close to 9-10 percent comes from technology alliances and OEMs.

With the rise in use of computing devices and Internet, Suk Ling pointed that most people install security software or anti-virus on desktops or laptops, but they don’t install or have any security software for tablets, smartphones and mobile devices.

“There’s a lack of awareness and education among people for having an end-point security for tablets, smartphones and mobile devices. Around 60-70 percent people using tablets and mobiles devices for surfing the Internet but without any security software they are at a higher risk of malware attacks and hackers,” Suk Ling observed.

Further, she stressed that it’s more important to educate people on the risks and threats of using mobile computing devices without any legitimate or free security solutions. “Educating people remains the first concern rather than selling products,” Suk Ling said.

Besides security products for workstations, laptops, netbooks, servers and virtualized enviornment, Kaspersky offers end-point security solutions for Andriod-based devices, Symbian and Windows OS mobile phones along with BlackBerry smartphones.

Google Wallet launches support for subscriptions

Google Wallet launched support for recurring subscription payments and has begun automatically assigning the lower of two fees for processing payments, Pali Baht, Google Wallet product manager for digital goods said at the I/O conference on Wednesday.

Baht said support for subscriptions had been the single most asked-for feature for the digital wallet app. The feature will allow developers to support users in buying in-game currencies or access to online content.

When used through the Web, Google Wallet has up till now charged vendors a 5 percent fee on all charges to process payments. But it changed on Wednesday afternoon to a 5 percent fee, which favors for small transactions, or a 1.9 percent rate plus 30 cents, which is more favorable for larger transactions. Google will eliminate the need for the vendor to choose between the rates by automatically assigning the lower of the two rates for every transaction. The decision-making process factors in currency exchange rates for transactions in currencies other than U.S. dollars.

The changes initially apply only to digital goods and purchases through the Web, not to real goods or sales made using the mobile app that relies on an NFC (near-field communication) sensor and stores the payment information locally rather than on the cloud.

Robin Dua, Wallet's head of product management for consumer payments, said Google doesn't make money on purchases made through the mobile app.

Google gives Google Docs offline capabilities

One of the big disadvantages to using cloud-based office apps is that you have to be connected to the Internet to use them.

Well, Google took care of that issue today.

At its annual Google I/O developers conference on Thursday, Google announced that it is adding the ability to work offline to Google Docs, the company's cloud-based office apps.

That means people working on shared documents will be able to do their work offline and then when they are back online, their document will automatically sync up with the cloud.

Such offline capability could be handy for people who might need to work while travelling by plane without wireless Internet access, as well as for people who need to keep working when the network goes down.

Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group, said this is a good move for Google Docs but he's not sure why it took Google so long to do it.

"Offline access is something that Google should have made a priority and delivered before now," Old said. "Web access isn't nearly as ubiquitous as some might think and being able to do useful work offline is critical to most business people."

Google has been embroiled in a competition with Microsoft, which also has been pushing cloud-based apps for the enterprise. Microsoft, which has an obvious foothold in the enterprise with its Office software, has taken those apps to the cloud with its Office 365 suite.

Both companies are going after the lucrative enterprise market and they're using office-related applications to help them get there.

Olds said adding offline capabilities to Google Docs could boost Google's enterprise efforts. "The lack of offline use was certainly a big stumbling block for many potential Google Docs business users," he added. "Now that they have it, Google might see adoption pick up a bit over time."

CloudSigma Lets Customers Match Cloud Service to Existing Data Center

While major cloud service providers—such as Amazon Web Services, Rackspace, Google and soon Microsoft—get all the attention, CloudSigma approaches the market by giving customers more choice on how they can configure their cloud is service.

CloudSigma, which was founded in 2009 and launched its service in 2010, lets customers control their own software configurations, network optimization or server demands for their cloud deployment. In essence, it lets the customer set up their cloud environment to most closely match their on-premise data center setup.

“If you look at these clouds such as Rackspace or AWS and most of the big guys out there, they all have similar infrastructure and you’re giving up a lot of control over the software layer, over the networking or the [tailoring] of hardware. These are the things that you have in dedicated hosting and you lose that in the cloud,” said Robert Jenkins, co-founder and chief technology officer of CloudSigma.

It turns out that IT professionals actually prize flexibility over cost savings of cloud computing. According to a 2011 survey by the Cloud Industry Forum, 53 percent of those surveyed cited flexibility as the main driver of their decision to move to the cloud. Only 16 percent cited cost savings as the main driver.

Flexibility is an important advantage for CloudSigma to offer because customers have a better idea of what cloud configuration works best for them than a giant cloud service provider, Jenkins said.

“You can take advantage of the knowledge base that you have within your company or organization in terms of what runs best, performance optimization, all the things that you have when you build up [your data center] over the years and you can deploy that in the cloud,” he said.

With rigid deployment options, pricing schemes and resource bundles, the larger IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-service) vendors often force companies to change their computing infrastructure when moving to the cloud. What’s more, by bundling their cloud computing with related areas such as storage, these large providers often aren’t able to offer best-of-breed solutions that may be elsewhere on the market, Jenkins said.

Microsoft is likely to follow the same inflexible model as Rackspace, Amazon or the others when it offers Windows Azure–the cloud version of Windows Server–as an IaaS product; Azure is already the centerpiece of Microsoft’s PaaS (platform-as-a-service) offering.

Interestingly enough, Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the Windows Azure application platform, described the Azure cloud on a June 7 Web cast as “a really powerful and flexible way to do [cloud].”

But flexible is a relative term, said Carl Brooks, a research analyst in the Internet Infrastructure Services area at Tier 1 Research, a unit of 451 Research. He says there’s some truth to CloudSigma’s argument that it offers a more flexible cloud service to customers than can the big service providers.

“One of the things that differentiates CloudSigma is that they are able to uncouple and recouple, compute, memory and disk-sized instances in almost any variety of configuration that you want,” Brooks said. “That’s not a technologically amazing feat, but it is different than you get when you sign up with Amazon or Rackspace where you get a sort of T-shirt sized approach of small, medium, large or extra-large in a predefined format.”

On the other hand, the big cloud providers have a significant advantage over companies such as CloudSigma in their ability to scale, Brooks said.

“You’re better off at one of the bigger cloud providers if you want access to a global scale platform. The great benefit that Amazon has is that, one, it pioneered this model of selling IT and, two, it operates a truly global platform where you get the same experience in Singapore that you can get in Virginia or in Oregon,” he said.

New Asus PC Comes with Ubuntu Linux Preloaded

The announcements may be coming fast and furious out of Google I/O today, but the Nexus Qand other products unveiled there aren't the only exciting new technologies to appear on the horizon this week.

One of particular interest for Linux fans, in fact, was quietly rolled out by Asus recently, apparently without any fanfare at all.

It's the new EeePC 1225C, an 11.6-inch netbook device that features the all new Intel Atom Cedar Trail dual-core CPU and Canonical's popular Ubuntu Linux operating system.

Sound interesting? Read on.

15 Percent Faster Speeds

It's becoming increasingly common to see PCs preloaded with Ubuntu, and it wasn't long ago that I wrote about a few new examples from Linux-focused vendor System76.

Asus, it should be noted, already has a Linux-friendly history, too; this time last year I was writing about a MeeGo-based offering in its lineup, for example.

Now, this latest entry from Asus adds another compelling choice to the mix.

Originally spotted by Liliputing, the new device offers an 11.6-inch LED backlit LCD screen, a Chiclet keyboard, and a multi-touch pad. The new Intel Atom Cedar Trail dual-core CPU delivers 15 percent faster processing speeds and a threefold increase in graphics performance, Asus says, while built-in 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and optional Bluetooth 3.0 make connectivity easy.

Also included are 2GB of memory, up to 500GB of hard disk space, a 0.3 MP camera, and optional USB 3.0.

A Fresh Windows 8 Alternative

Available in five colors, the EeePC 1225C is available on Amazon for $422, albeit without the free operating system installed. When the full lineup will be available, and at what price, isn't yet clear.

Still, as Windows 8 approaches, there are bound to be plenty of consumers out there looking for an alternative. I'm thinking there's going to be a growing need for machines like these.

Google Nexus 7 Could Heavily Impact Tablet Wars

With Wednesday's launch of its Nexus 7 tablet, Google gives the current tablet market a much-needed jolt of energy.

The Nexus 7 is the tablet that Google should have launched with a year ago. The Nexus 7 packs a high-performance, no-compromise set of features at attractive prices--$199 for the 8GB model and $249 for the 16GB model.

This winning--on paper--combo will immediately put the Nexus at center stage. It also will make all current Android tablet makers reevaluate their own offerings on the market. But selling a tablet directly to consumers online, with no clear changes to the app ecosystem behind it, won't be enough for Google to gain market share at Apple's expense.

Google Nexus 7

Manufactured by Asus, the Nexus 7 tablet represents the first commercial manifestation of Nvidia's Project Kai. Nvidia designed the Kai reference platform to provide manufacturers with a shortcut blueprint of how to create a competitive tablet at consumer-friendly pricing.

At CES 2012, when Nvidia and Asus announced plans to produce a Tegra 3 tablet for $250, the two companies clearly had the Amazon Kindle Fire in their sights.

Amazon Kindle Fire

The Kindle Fire, which shipped last fall, is the best-selling Android tablet thanks in large part to its low price of $199. But the Kindle Fire takes a lot of heat for its mediocre 1024-by-600-pixel display, its forked Android operating system, its limited specs (no camera, little onboard storage, no expansion), and its slow performance. Sales numbers for the Kindle Fire have dropped off since the initial burst of enthusiasm from consumers; but no other Android tablet has made a significant impact, either.

Google's move into the tablet arena with its own branded Nexus tablet is significant for several reasons. First, it shows that the company recognizes how important it is for an OS maker to be deeply involved in creating hardware that complements its own software.

For evidence, look no further than the mess of compromises and mediocrity we've seen from Android tablets over the past year, including poor choices in weight, processors, display, and design.

In today's Apple-dominated, post-PC age, a tablet with hardware designed independently of its operating system is unlikely to emerge as an impressive flagship device. And certainly that approach isn't the way to generate the Apple-level frenzy that every tablet maker yearns for.

Microsoft Surface tablet

That's why Microsoft jumped into the PC hardware fray for the first time in 37 years, with last week's introduction of the Microsoft Surface tablet.

And it's why Google is expanding on what it already offers with itsNexus phone line by now offering its own tablet. The company should have taken this step last year when it launched Android 3.0 Honeycomb, the first operating system designed specifically for tablets, instead of crossing its fingers and hoping for the best with the spectacularly unimpressive Motorola Xoom tablet.

To what extent the Nexus 7 embodies Google's vision of a tablet is unclear. One area where Google may have influenced its design is in the tablet's inclusion of near-field communication capability. But beyond that, the core specs for the Nexus 7 are the ones that Nvidia and Asus talked about as far back as CES.

Back then, Asus went so far as to introduce the Asus Eee Pad MeMo 370T with specs, price, and a time frame for availability that are quite similar to the Nexus 7's. Since CES, however, Asus has said nothing more about its MeMo plans. Now we know why.

Clearly, all parties recognized that for the Android tablet OS to succeed, something had to change. And the reality of Kai should have a significant impact on current tablet makers.

How can Toshiba's Excite 7.7 tablet, priced at $550 and carrying a 1280-by-800-pixel display, compete with Google's Nexus 7 when the latter offers the same screen resolution and costs $300 less? The Toshiba does have a 0.7-inch larger screen, but both have 16GB of memory and both run on an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor.

Meanwhile, Amazon is rumored to be prepping its coming Kindle Fire replacement for a midsummer launch. Whether Amazon will step up its game with that tablet remains to be seen; but based on today's news, we believe that the company will need to have a competitive answer to remain firmly in the mix.

Here's a chart that compares the specs of the Google Nexus 7 to five other tablets:

The Missing Elements

So far, Google hasn't indicated that it will sell the tablet anywhere except at its Google Play online store. Consequently, consumers who want to do their own hands-on comparison of the Nexus 7 with other tablets will be out of luck.

Google's approach with the Nexus 7 addresses a relatively small subset of the problems facing the Android tablet market. Among the other issues to be resolved in the bigger picture are better-resolution displays and improved, lighter designs.

Perhaps most significantly, Google's conference has as yet lacked any discussion of the OS- and device-fragmentation issues that plague developers. I routinely hear these issues cited as the number-one reason that developers choose to make an iPad app instead of an Android app; and the tiny market share that Android tablets have thus far achieved has done nothing to convince developers to fully embrace the Android tablet ecosystem.

Google played up the fact that the company now lists some 600,000 apps in the Play store; but it didn't say how many of those apps are optimized for and work well on a tablet.

Google Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)

The app ecosystem, unfortunately, still remains a sticking point for Android tablets--and a key factor that makes it harder to recommend an Android tablet to consumers eager for the next great, cool app.

The bottom line is Android still has a long way to go to surpass Apple's iPad. But when we look back, the delivery of the Nexus 7, with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, may mark a turning point in the Great Tablet Wars.