Microsoft Launching Windows 8 Now, Watch Live

       The computing world won't change overnight with the launch of Windows 8, but in a few years time, the digital environment could be influenced heavily by what Microsoft shows today in New York. 

The Big Day is Here

It is kind of odd watching a Microsoft software launch, we've seen the operating system in action since the first builds, developer betas, public trials and all the way up to RTM. So, there isn't a huge amount for Microsoft to amaze us with.

But, combined with all the new hardware that's coming, Microsoft can still pull off a few tricks. And it has to both amaze, inform and delight with the launch, as hundreds of millions of perfectly happy Windows 7, Vista and XP owners remain to be convinced.

You can watch the webcast here, and we'll update with product and feature news as it happens. With Microsoft having taken over a chunk of Times Square for the whole day, it could be quite a long running series of events. 

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

EU Issues Cloud Strategy, Aims to Add 2.5 Million New Jobs

The European Commission (EC) has its collective heads in the clouds — and sees millions of new jobs there — thanks to a new strategy designed to help increase the adoption of cloud computing across the continent.

The strategy,  "Unleashing the Potential of Cloud Computing in Europe" aims to create 2.5 million new jobs for the European Union (EU) member nations — through greater adoption of cloud computing technologies. The agency says that the increase could lead to an annual boost of EUR 10 billion, or about 1 percent of the EU GDP, by 2020.

Cloud Partnership

In order to reach that promised land in the sky, the strategy recommends several actions. These include the identification of technical standards that help cut through the current mishmash related to interoperability, data portability and reversibility.

It also calls for EU-wide certification for “trustworthy” cloud providers, development of model “safe and fair” cloud computing contracts with Service Level Agreements and the creation of what it calls a European Cloud Partnership.

The Cloud Partnership would be between EU member countries and leading companies in the industry, and it would use the public sector’s buying power to boost the European cloud market. The strategy notes that 20 percent of all IT spending in the EU runs through the public sector, and recommends that focusing this market power could “boost the chances for European cloud providers to grow to achieve a competitive scale, and deliver cheaper and better eGovernment.”

Cyber Security Next

In a statement accompanying the strategy, EU Vice President Neelie Kroes described cloud computing  as “a game changer for our economy.” Without a concerted action by the EU, she said, “we will stay stuck in national fortresses and miss out on billions in economic gains.”

The cloud strategy is part of a series of efforts by the EU to stimulate the digital economy and create a digital single market for member nations. In January, the EU proposed a comprehensive reform of the 1995 data protection rules, in order to strengthen online privacy rights and decrease the administrative costs of different privacy implementations among the 27 member states.

In the next few months, the EU is expected to propose a European Strategy for Cyber Security. In 2010, the U.S. federal government, in a move to promote cloud computing in the government, issued a “cloud-first” policy that directed its agencies to use cloud-based solutions whenever feasible.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Movable Type Unveils Version 5.2: An Improved Rich Text Editor, Cloud Support Top the Updates

Movable Type, the popular blog software, has released version 5.2, with added support for cloud computing environments.

Movable Type is a popular open source content management and online publishing platform for creating blogs and websites, and it is free for redistribution, use or modification.

Revised Rich Text Editor

First released in 2001, Movable Type was designated as free software under the GNU General Public License in 2007. There are now more than a thousand plugins available for the platform, and it is used by such sites as BarackObama.com, Oracle’s blogs, NBC Universal and BritneySpears.com.

New features in version 5.2 include a revised rich text editor for web pages and blogs, which is designed to be more customizable, browser-friendly and AJAX-friendly.

Version 5.2 can be used under the nginx+PSGI environment, providing support across a range of server environments, including cloud computing virtual servers, CMS servers or content servers. The update also enables collections of blogs to be managed in a multi-blog environment, such as combining data from multiple blogs via the enhanced template language.

A user dashboard now helps to centralize functions commonly used by admins, authors and moderators. There is a new revision history of such CMS objects as blog templates or entries, improved AJAX-based sorting and searching features, and an enhanced list management framework for dealing with large amounts of data.

Authenticated SMTP, Browser Support

With new sitepath restriction, a System Admin can limit the publishing of content to the part of a given file system that is used by the Movable Type server. Email notifications can be sent with authenticated SMTP, and custom fields’ performance has been improved in order to provide faster rebuilds of custom field data.

The update officially supports the Google Chrome browser, starting with the latest version, Internet Explorer 8 and 9, and the latest versions of Safari and Firefox.

Other changes include a mandatory requirement that a system email setting be defined and, if it hasn’t been, the system will prompt for a system email address. A starting day of the week can be set for the calendar by the user, so that each week starts with that day. If none is set, Sunday is used as the default.

Six Apart's acquisition in 2010 left many wondering what would happen to Movable Type where it didn't really seem to fit into the plan, but it has remained an active open source solution with an active community. Japanese subsidiary Six Apart KK has taken over complete responsibility for the web content management system and we are finally seeing more updates as a result.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Big Differences in Mobile Support for the Social Enterprise

If there is one feature that everyone can agree upon in the Social Enterprise market, it’s mobile computing. IT professionals think it’s an important part of the Social Enterprise landscape and vendors fervently concur. As always, the devil is in the details.

Although everyone agrees on the importance of providing for mobile endpoints, mobile platform support from social collaboration software vendors varies greatly.

Support Plays Favorites

The good news is that mobile is considered a basic function of social software. The bad news is that there are “haves” and “have-nots.” While almost every vendor supports Apple’s iPhone, Android implementations are spottier. This variance is surprising given the increase in Android endpoints over the past few years.

Tablet support is emerging but, again, iPad support is more common than Android tablet implementations. Support for RIM’s Blackberry devices is a hit-or-miss affair as well. Blackberry implementations of social collaboration software are more likely to come from ISVs with established enterprise applications, such as IBM or SAP, rather than from newer companies. As RIM’s problems have increased, the Blackberry is clearly being pushed to the end of the list for social collaboration vendors. Overall, mobile support is inconsistent among vendors.

Spotty Solutions

The mobile and tablet user experiences are, arguably, different from the desktop or laptop experience. The user interface (UI) of mobile and tablet products differ, often dramatically, from the desktop UI. Smaller screen sizes, lower bandwidth, a plethora of platforms and a different set of needs by on-the-go end-users drives user interface design choices. For some vendors though, these choices amount to limiting features rather than reimagining the UI in terms of the mobile or tablet environment.

The unfortunate result of inconsistent support for mobile platforms is that many mobile users still cannot access their social software on the go or can do so only in a very limited manner. Some vendors are looking for solutions that can supplement or supplant their native mobile platform applications.

HTML5 has emerged as the lowest common denominator for reaching all end-points — including desktop/laptop platforms — in the absence of native applications. While native mobile applications have a number of advantages including offline operation and integration with special features of the mobile device, HTML5 brings a rich user experience to any platform that supports a compliant browser, albeit at a higher need for bandwidth.

As the Social Enterprise market evolves, mobile computing is evolving with it. Support for current and new platforms as well as HTML5 will be on the rise and will be a core part of the Social Enterprise feature set.

Editor's Note: Another article by Tom Petrocelli you might enjoy is:
— Microsoft SharePoint Powers Social Applications

About the Author

Senior Analyst Tom Petrocelli covers the Social Enterprise for the Enterprise Strategy Group. He has more than 27 years of experience in technology, technical marketing, and management. Tom is the author of the book Data Protection and Information Lifecycle Management as well as many articles and two blogs dealing with technology and business.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Cloud Computing is Confusing to Americans

A national survey shows Americans are confused about the idea of cloud computing with 95 percent of those who said they don't use the cloud acutally being shown to do so.

Fifty one percent of respondents thought a storm could interfere with cloud computing. While the public at large, who responded to the survey via email no less, may be confused about what exactly the cloud is, enterprises and savvy consumers are both well ahead of them.

Cloud Opportunities Abound

Even if people pretend to know what the cloud is when they really don't (22 percent of respondents admitted to this), it's worth noting those people get the idea is at least important enough to fake knowing about. In other words, the cloud is here to stay even if the masses don't get some of its finer points. 

For enterprises, there are mixed signals in some cases, but many are adopting the cloud for a variety of purposes. The main roadblock, according to the survey, is actually cost, with security and privacy concerns following close behind.

The Cloud doesn't compute for a wide swath of the American public.

Citrix, an IT infrastructure company, commissioned Wakefield Research to conduct the survey and among the benefits people said they saw for businesses, improvements in consumer engagement were number one. 

BYOD Front and Center

Being able to get critical information, documents and access to work tools from just about anywhere is changing the way companies do business, and society is responding accordingly. The cloud is seen as a great way to engage customers, clients and coworkers and to allow them access to content from a variety of places. 

One big takeaway from the survey is nearly 60 percent of respondents said they felt the workplace of the future will exist entirely in the cloud. That's a pretty optimistic number, though we don't know how far into the future those people may have been thinking. Tell us in the comments if you work 100 percent in the cloud or how long you think it will be before this is the case. 

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Google Invests In Electronic Signature Vendor DocuSign

If electronic signature has never been one of the sexier components of cloud computing and not attracted much media coverage, we’ve watched interest in it grow steadily over the past three years. The announcement by Google that it is investing in DocuSign suggests that e-signatures are about to become a lot more interesting.

Google, DocuSign

To be more precise, Google Venture, Google's investment arm,  is investing in DocuSign, which has launched a Series D funding round to continue its ongoing expansion.

DocuSign, if you're not familiar with it, is a San Francisco-based e-signature company that has been developing and marketing its products since 2003, and which now has offices in Seattle and London.

Clearly Google can sense a change in the air for electronic signing. It joins Accel Partners, Comcast Ventures and SAP Ventures in the funding round which has been led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. DocuSign says it has raised US$ 55.7 million so far, although it hasn't specified how much Google invested.

But let’s get back to electronic signatures and the cloud. While cloud development has attracted a great deal of attention in the past couple of years, so too have the concerns many companies have around cloud security.

Sometimes the fears were justified and sometimes they were built on a lack of understanding of how the cloud works and what the potential risks actually are.

The result is that many companies were reluctant to send sensitive documents into the cloud or complete business transactions there.

Cloud-based E-Signature

However, there is evidence that suggests this is changing. Companies are now happy to go the cloud route, even if it’s only because of the perceived lower costs of cloud-based software as opposed to on-premises software.

This is where electronic signature vendors are finding their niche: companies that want to go whole hog and do business in the cloud need legally verifiable signatures that can be sent through the cloud.

DocuSign has been building that business from the start and as cloud and social business become increasingly popular, so too will electronic signatures and the companies that provide that capability.

For DocuSign this has translated into considerable growth.

According to its own figures, 60,000 new users are joining the DocuSign Global Network every day, and 20 million users have DocuSigned more than 150 million documents in 188 countries.

DocuSign says it will use the cash to grow its SaaS platform, to accelerate international expansion and invest in more research.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com