Huawei Teams With Intel For Server Program In 2012

With the launch of its Tecal V2 servers with Intel Xeon E5 processors inside, Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei has announced its server product plans for 2012, including rack, blade, data center servers and application acceleration solutions.
Huawei's new server products will reportedly be mainly based on Intel's chips. Tecal V2 servers use the newest Intel Xeon E5-2600 processors and focus on the enterprise information technology and data center sectors. By adhering to energy-saving concepts, Huawei Tecal servers received a "Restriction of Hazardous Substances Certificate" and the first "China's Environmentally Friendly Product Symbol Certificate".
According to comments made to local media by Chen Shijun, general manager of Huawei Server Product Domain, Huawei's new servers feature more powerful performance, larger storage capacity, and better scalability. Chen said that server development strategy plays a very important role in Huawei's ICT strategy. Cloud computing technology has brought about profound changes in IT infrastructure. As the cornerstone of IT infrastructure, server is the ladder to the cloud. Tecal servers have witnessed outstanding growth in the past three years. With a wide range of products including rack server, blade server, high density and scalability data center server, Huawei servers serve clients in various industries such as Internet, government, medical, and energy.
At present, Huawei's major clients are from data center and Internet sectors; however, the Chinese company plans to expand its server market and enter the overseas market.
During the first three quarters of 2011, Huawei reportedly realized contractual value of USD185 million for server products, a year-on-year increase of 136%. For the entire year of 2011, the company expects to achieve contractual value of USD250 million.

Google Cloud is here

Google finally released it's long awaited 'Drive' service yesterday, (24/04/2012).
Drive allows people to store photos, videos, data and other digital files in Google's 'cloud'.
Google are offering 5GB of storage free at drive.google.com, with larger storage upgrades available at a cost.
"The model is really designed at the core to help people live their lives in the cloud," Google vice president for Chrome and Apps Sundar Pichai said on a conference call with reporters.
"Google Drive is something we see as central to the online experience at Google."
Google Drive software has been tailored for Windows and Macintosh computers as well as smartphones or tablets powered by Google-backed Android software.

Story Source: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/google-joins-cloud-data-storage-165548207.html

Nokia Lumia 900 out in 2 weeks

Phones4u has confirmed it will be the first UK stockist for the Nokia Lumia 900 Windows smart phone from May 14th.
This is 2 weeks later than the first date given, apparently due to a bigger than expected demand in the US.
The Lumia 900 won CNET.com's Best smartphone of CES in January.
It has a 4.3in touchscreen, weighs 160g, an 8MP main camera and boasts fast internet connection says Nokia.
Check out the spec at; http://www.nokia.com/gb-en/products/phone/lumia900/specifications/

Story Source: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/45429/nokia-lumia-900-phones4u-14-may-on-sale

Microsoft invests in ebooks in latest deal

Microsoft announced this week that it is to invest a massive $300 mill, (£185 million), in a deal with US book firm Barnes and Noble.
This buys Microsoft a 17.6% stake in a new subsidiary temporarily named 'Newco' which will look after the digital and college side of the Barnes and Noble book business.
The biggest news concerning this deal is that Windows 8 will be bundled in with the Nook digital bookstore and the app will work on every new Windows 8 tablet and computer.
"The formation of Newco and our relationship with Microsoft are important parts of our strategy to capitalise on the rapid growth of the Nook business, and to solidify our position as a leader in the exploding market for digital content in the consumer and education segments," said William Lynch, CEO of Barnes & Noble.
"Microsoft's investment in Newco, and our exciting collaboration to bring world-class digital reading technologies and content to the Windows platform and its hundreds of millions of users, will allow us to significantly expand the business."

Story Source: w.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17896534

Sony's first Ultrabook due out in June

Sony has unveiled their first Ultrabook, the VAIO T13.
Due for release in early June, The T13 screen measures 13inches, offers nine hours of battery life and runs Intel's i3-2367M Sandy Bridge processor.
The Ultrabook can be used to charge a smartphone or other device, even if the VAIO T13 is switched off.
For more details, check it out at; http://presscentre.sony.co.uk/content/detail.aspx?ReleaseID=7589&NewsAreaId=2

Story Source: http://presscentre.sony.co.uk/content/detail.aspx?ReleaseID=7589&NewsAreaId=2

Ubuntu Linux Now In Dell's Chinese Sales Arsenal

Canonical, developer of the open source operating system Ubuntu, has announced that Dell will sell PCs with the pre-installed Ubuntu operating system in its over 100 new retail stores in China.
The operating system will be first pre-installed in Dell's business models and then expanded to consumer PCs.
Maria Bonnefon, market development and channel director for Canonical, said that Ubuntu will cooperate with the full range of products at Dell. The two parties started cooperating in 2009 and the cooperating range is not limited to the Chinese market. Bonnefon said millions of Dell's products with the Ubuntu operating system will be sold every year, covering laptops, desktops, and servers. The company's cooperation with Dell is both on the Internet and in retail stores.
According to Canonical's employees in China, the cooperation between Ubuntu and Dell's retail stores in China started from October 2011 and it is now focusing on the development of the eastern regions in China. It is expected that Dell PCs with the Ubuntu system will be available in its over 100 Chinese retail stores.
Ubuntu is an open source operating system which can help PC manufacturers reduce the prices of their low-end products. According to related policies, PCs must have a pre-installed operating system. Many manufacturers currently choose the Windows operating systems developed by Microsoft, but it will, to a certain extent, increase the costs of PCs.
Founded by Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical is a private company that focuses on the development of the open source operating system Ubuntu. The company currently has over 450 employees and has expanded its businesses into over 30 countries and regions. Headquartered in London, it now has branches in Boston, Montreal, Taipei, and Shanghai. In addition, it plans to launch a new office in Beijing.

HP's PC Market Share Drops In China

During the fourth quarter of 2011, PC shipments from major manufacturers saw significant changes in China with HP dropping to fifth place.
The statistics showed that in the fourth quarter of 2011, Lenovo, the Chinese local PC maker, led the market with 35.3% market share, followed by Acer and Dell, which gained 9.5% and 9.4% market share, respectively.
Meanwhile, Asus ranked fourth for the first time in the Chinese PC market with a 5.7% market share; and the performance of HP in China continued to decline to the fifth position with a mere 5.3% market share. This was reportedly the worst statistics for HP in China in recent years. In the third quarter of 2009, the company's market share in China reached about 15%.
IDC said that HP's previous seesawing PC strategy affected its channels and led to the decline of market share in the fourth quarter. By contrast, Asus' performance was contributed by good products and channel distribution.

March's Patch Tuesday notification

Microsoft has issued it's advance notification for March's Patch Tuesday, with only 6 patches, 1 of which is classed as critical.
The critical patch addresses a fix for a remote code execution vulnerability for all Windows operating systems.
3 other patches address Windows vulnerabilities and the remaining 2 target a privilege vulnerability in Visual Studio and a remote code execution in Expression Design.

For further details, check out; http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms12-mar

Story Source: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms12-mar

iPad 3 is here

As expected, Apple announced the new iPad yesterday at it's much hyped event in San Fransisco.
The latest tablet includes retina display, a 3.1. million pixel HD screen and a 5 megapixel camera.
It also features a super fast quad-core A5x chip, which Apple say, will increase the speed by up to 4 times compared to the iPad 2's processor.
The iPad 3 will also offer a high speed 4G LTE network connection, unfortunately UK providers won't accomodate this till next year.
Apple's Tim Cook also unveiled an updated Apple TV box at yesterday's event.
The third iPad will be released on March 16th.

Story Source: http://www.apple.com/

Lulzec hackers arrested, leader charged

An International swoop by police has resulted in several arrests in the US, UK and Ireland of suspected Lulzec hackers.
This follows the charging of the hacking group's suspected leader, Hector Xavier Monsegur, (nicknamed Sabu), of conspiracy to engage in computer hacking according to Reuters.
Reuters also suggested that Sabu had co-operated with the US Government prior to today's arrests.
According to the court papers filed in Manhattan, Mr Monsegur formed Lulzsec last May. It said he acted as a "rooter", identifying vulnerabilities in victim's computer systems.
Lulzec, along with Anonymous, are thought to be responsible for a series of hacking attacks on high profile firms such as Sony, PayPal and ebay amongst others.
Last month Anonymous published a recording of a private telephone conversation between FBI agents and London detectives talking about Lulzsec suspects.

Story Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17270822#TWEET94638

AMD shoots for the cloud with SeaMicro buy

AMD will takeover low-power microserver vendor SeaMicro in a $334 million deal.
The processor giant said the acquisition will allow the company to accelerate its route to market with server technologies, specifically for data centres that rely on the cloud. SeaMicro’s fabric technology will position AMD to deliver “industry-leading server building blocks” to handle workloads such as dynamic web content and social networking.
AMD CEO Rory Read said in a conference call announcing the acquisition that the move was in reaction to increasing levels of cloud computing being used to reduce power consumption and costs in today’s data centres. As data centre and server structures continue to morph with the adoption of the cloud, AMD wants to position itself as a leader in the space, he told listeners.
"We are clearly skating to where the puck is going," Read said.
AMD said its own Opteron server technology combined with SeaMicro’s will yield a range of low-power server processors to help reduce data centre cost and complexity, while providing an overall boost in performance. The company plans to launch its first Opteron processors based on a combined AMD and SeaMicro architecture during the second half of 2012.
Andrew Feldman, CEO of SeaMicro, will become general manager of AMD's newly created Data Centre Server Solutions business.
"SeaMicro was founded to dramatically reduce the power consumed by servers, while increasing compute density and bandwidth,” Feldman said in a statement. “By becoming a part of AMD, we will have access to new markets, resources, technology, and scale that will provide us with the opportunity to work tightly with our OEM partners as we fundamentally change the server market."
Despite the restructure and appointment of Feldman, Read said AMD remains “firmly committed” to its traditional server business. The CEO also said that the acquisition of SeaMicro will have no impact on AMD's 2012 financial guidance.

ASRock Prepares Intel Z77 Chipset Motherboards

ASRock is busy preparing its latest round of motherboards based on the Intel Z77 chipset. First up is the ATX form-factor Z77 Extreme6 motherboard, which is targeted at computer enthusiasts. The Z77 Extreme6 features two PCIe 3.0 x16 slots along with a PCIe 2.0 x1, two PCI and one mini PCIe slot, supporting both Quad SLI and Quad Crossfire set-ups. The board supports provides a total of four SATA 6Gbps ports via an ASMedia controller (one is combined with an eSATA connector) and four SATA 3Gbps ports. The Z77 Extreme 6 also includes 7.1 channel audio and DisplayPort, DVI, HDMI and VGA ports. Connectivity is covered by USB 3.0 (four ports on the rear panel), USB 2.0, Firewire (one port) and Gigabit Ethernet support. Four DDR3 DIMM slots provide plenty of space for memory while a clear CMOS button on the rear I/O panel aids overclocking enthusiasts. The board has an 8+4 PWM circuit complete with heatsinks and a heatpipe. The Z77 Extreme 6 is finished in a black and silver colour scheme with gold detailing.

The other boards are both aimed at PC gamers, being marketed under the Fatal1ty brand. The ATX Z77 Fatal1ty Professional is similar to the X77 Extreme6 but seems to have some minor changes, including an extra PCIe x1 slot replacing the mini-PCIe slot, more PWM phases, dual-ethernet ports and less display outputs (DisplayPort and HDMI only). The smaller micro-ATX apparently maintains the same display outputs as the Z77 Extreme6 and also features three PCIe 3.0 slots, one ethernet port and less PWM phases. Both Fatal1ty boards have the distinctive red and black colour design. More details regarding the boards should surface at CeBIT next week.

Half of UK IT professionals awarded pay rise and bonus in 2011

Almost half of UK IT professionals received a pay rise last year, according to TechTarget’s CIO/IT Strategy Media Group IT salary and career survey.
The survey of 600 UK companies, in November 2011, found 46% of respondents received a pay rise. Furthermore, 33% said they received a bonus. Only 0.6% said they had experienced a pay cut.
Senior executives, including CIOs, CTO, VPs and CISOs, averaged their current salaries at£64,000, rising to £93,000 with bonuses and commission. The average base wage came to £45,500, rising to £50,500 with bonuses and commission.
Some 46% of respondents anticipated a pay rise in 2012. The survey found 36% expected another bonus, with only 0.2% predicting a pay cut.
However, Jim Albert, managing director of IT staffing and recruiting agency Modis International, said he had not witnessed large raises in salaries and bonuses: “Most people move jobs for the same money or are taking pay cuts to move in to roles they feel will develop them further in their career through learning new and different skills.”
IT recruitment agency Computer People produce a monthly trackercovering IT job vacancies, salaries and jobs that are most in demand. In contrast to TechTarget’s findings, Computer People’s February report found permanent salaries took a nose dive with declines recorded against all key IT positions, apart from web developers (increase of 0.09%) and project managers (increase of 0.001%).
Sid Barnes, executive director of Computer People, said: “While we saw sharp salary increases at the beginning of 2011, 2012 started off a little slower due to cautious spending. But it appears that hiring managers are willing to pay for quality.”
Malcolm Cowley, CEO of technology provider, Performance Horizon Group, said that, as a technology start-up it recognises the importance of rewarding staff with monetary incentives, including bonuses and pay rises.
"We believe to keep ahead of the game in the technology industry that monetary rewards are as important as a happy and balanced work life, especially as we work through the end of a difficult recession,” said Cowley.

South Lanarkshire Council seeks IT services worth £40m

South Lanarkshire Council is looking for a provider to implement a wide variety of IT equipment and services for its education establishments.
An online tender outlines that the deal will be worth about £40m.

IT equipment and support services are required for 17 secondary schools, 124 primary schools, 57 nursery classes, 10 youth facilities and 25 public libraries in the area.
The chosen vendor will be expected to provide local area networks (LANs), managed wireless LANs, hardware – including PCs, printers and other peripherals – and software and training.
The initial contract is set to last for seven years, beginning in October 2013, but there is an option for a five-year extension if the council is satisfied with the service provider's performance.
Interested parties have until 19 March to participate in the tender

Windows 8: Make or break for Microsoft

The most hotly anticipated announcement at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona was not the next big thing from Apple – that is going to happen next week – but Microsoft's big push into the tablet market.
The company that has made billions providing the Windows operating system for desktop and laptop computers is entering the next era in its long and largely successful history. At MWC, it unveiled the Windows 8 Consumer Preview for users to download and try out.
This is not yet another version of Windows – Microsoft must adapt to the consumerisation of IT and it is pinning its hopes on Windows 8.
“Windows 8 is a critical part of Microsoft's history. The operating system can potentially unify its fortunes,” said Richard Edwards, principal analyst at Ovum.
According to Edwards, Microsoft's success came about due to consumer pressure. When IBM attempted to establish OS/2 in the early 1990s, home PC users put pressure on businesses to adopt Windows instead.
“Windows was Microsoft's route into the enterprise," he said. "Now Microsoft is pinning its hopes on power users who want the power of a PC with the flexibility of a tablet device.”

Operating system on the go

The Windows 8 Consumer Preview appears to take the same approach as mobile platforms such as Apple's iOS and Google's Android. There are appsin the Windows Store, with Microsoft clearly hoping to emulate the huge success of Apple's AppStore and the Android Marketplace. Users also need a Microsoft Live account to access cloud-based services such as cloud storage, e-mail, calendar and contacts.
The so-called Metro touch-based user interface shows that Microsoft is taking the tablet market seriously, while under the covers there is built-in support for low-powered hardware.
Windows 8 supports the ARM Cortex-A9 processor. Graphics chip maker Nvidia has integrated a graphics processor in its Tegra3 quad-core mobile processor. There are many variations based on the ARM architecture, each vying to capture a piece of the tablet market.
Yet, while it borrows from tablet trends, unlike iOS or Android, Windows 8 will be a fully fledged operating system, capable of running sophisticated client applications.
According to Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live division at Microsoft, the Windows 8 Consumer Preview delivers a "no-compromises approach to using your PC”.

New style of web browsing

Oke Okaro, general manager and head of mobile at Bloomberg, admitted that the new Microsoft offering is impressive, with its attempt to give users an optimal tablet and PC experience on one device.
“In the two years since the iPad's launch, growth in the PC market has slowed. Windows 8 is trying to bridge the touch-based tablet world and the traditional PC world,” he said.
Okaro said Windows 8 has the potential as a new platform for Bloomberg's news and television service. “Our goal is to deliver essential news and information that business executives need to make better informed decisions. As a result, we need to be on the device platforms with an experience that is optimal, as long as there is a critical mass on that platform.”
He recognised that as Windows has a very large installed base, and traditionally there is a rapid uptake, the new operating system will gain critical mass quickly.

In addition, Okaro said Windows 8 is a game-changer for traditional web browsing. “[Windows 8] will provide Bloomberg and many other companies [with an opportunity] to start the redefinition of the web experience as a result of the desktop PC and tablet worlds merging.”

Making a mobile push

When it was launched in 2009, Windows 7 was a big step forward for Microsoft and a huge improvement over its predecessor, Windows XP. It was the last version before Apple convinced everyone to buy an iPad.
Three years on, Microsoft desperately needs to regain control over client-side computing. It is no longer about the desktop and laptop. Smartphones are almost ubiquitous and tablets have established a new form of client-side computing.
Craig Cartier, an analyst for ICT practice at global consultancy Frost & Sullivan, said:“Windows needs a foothold in the mobile space if it is to continue to be one of the world's premiere technology brands, and it is desperately grasping for one.”
Cartier pointed out that while Microsoft dominates market share in PC operating systems, it has struggled in the smartphone sphere, never surpassing low single-digit share in the mass-market smartphone era.
He added that Microsoft's partnership with Nokia has potential, but has yet to reap any benefits.