Samsung's Trio of ATIV Tablets Show Microsoft's Splintered Future

 While a lot of the hype at yesterday's Samsung Unpacked event was around the new Galaxy Note 2, PC users will be taking a keen look at the company's Windows RT and Windows 8 tablet PCs with a range of underlying technologies. 

A Three-Pronged Unified Approach? 

So, this is what Microsoft's unified Windows 8 dream has come down to, a major partner offering three tablets, running three different processors and two different operating systems. These are potentially very crazy times for buyers. 

Samsung showed off three Windows tablets under the all-things-Windows 8 brand of ATIV, they are called the Tab, Smart PC and Smart PC Pro. They run on ARM with Windows RT, Intel Atom with Windows 8 and Intel Core i5 with Windows 8 Pro respectively.

 

The three devices look substantially similar, with a stylish, executive, aesthetic, but will sit at three very different price points with various screen sizes, resolutions, storage and memory options. The Tab comes with a dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4, 10.1" screen, 2GB of RAM and up to 64GB of storage expandable via a microSD slot. 

Playing Happy Families

A dedicated tablet, compared to its PC-in-disguise larger brothers, it is the acid test of Microsoft's new strategy. Will users really buy a Windows-with-MS-Office tablet that isn't quite a full PC when there are so many other options? With an army of rival modestly-priced tablets out and on the way, selling these for around €699 ($875) is a big ask. 

 

The Smart PC and Smart PC Pro are competing in the more traditional PC space (see more spec details on the official site), albeit in a very tablet style, with the detachable keyboard likely to be a standard feature on most devices come next year. Even these will be under huge pressure as the first full wave of Ultrabooks offers full-spec, lightweight computing, and prices start to come down. 

 

Perhaps it is a masterstroke for Microsoft and partners, but it looks like a recipe for consumer confusion. If you go into a store and ask for a PC today, you can get a rough idea of price/performance, but with dozens of competing models like Samsung's ATIV family on the shelf, things could hardly be less clear. 

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Forrester Wave: IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce Build Online Collaboration Lead

Yesterday we took a look at the first part of the Forrester Wave: Cloud Strategies Of Online Collaboration Software Vendors, Q3 2012, report where we saw that many enterprises are concerned about the feasibility of using online collaboration services, Today, we will take a brief look at the companies and products that made it into the this Wave.

Leading Trends

The interesting thing about this Forrester report is that despite all the talk in the market place about collaboration and even online collaboration there are only eight vendors that made it into the Wave, of which five made it into the Leaders segment: Box, Cisco Systems, Citrix Online, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce.com and Yammer.

It is hardly surprising, then, that this market displays all the hallmarks of one that is only starting to evolve. It is currently in a state of flux where vendors are still refining, tweaking and improving their offerings with a number of clear leaders and the rest following in their wake.

IBM, Microsoft, and Salesforce.com

IBM, Microsoft, and Salesforce.com are leading the field, using their previous experience in the enterprise collaboration space to develop strong strategies for their online collaboration offerings. Both Microsoft and IBM have long histories in collaboration, while Salesforce is the pioneer in SaaS enterprise-grade collaboration, building on top of its customer relationship management and PaaS offerings.

Box, Yammer, Google

All three bring consumer experience to the enterprise with many collaboration service providers finding their way into the enterprise through knowledge workers who were adopting the tools to solve very specific problems. All three rode this wave with tools that were easy to use. Box and Yammer help potential customers to adapt to this kind of collaboration by providing easy integration into on-premises systems, while Google is making it easy to drop on-premises systems completely.

Cisco Systems and Citrix Online

These final two both possess collaboration portfolio’s that are still evolving. Both have evolved and are moving from purely conferencing services to fully fledged collaboration services. This has required a change in the way they think about collaboration and issues like integration, customization, access controls and encryption. Cisco is dealing with this under the WebEx brand while Citrix is beginning the collaboration journey as it integrates its recent ShareFile and Podio acquisitions.

Before diving into the report, Forrester recommends that potential customers look at all offerings and not just those that are in the Leaders segment. It is often the case that specific functionality will be found in the portfolio of vendors that fall outside the Leaders category.

Forrester Wave: Online Collaboration scores

Online Collaboration Leaders

IBM

IBM has been working for some time on integrating internal and external collaboration and appears to have found the right mix with the rebranded SmartCloud for Social Business offering. With it users can choose between a multitenant, and dedicated offering from a globally distributed data center. A significant part of its functionality can be accessed through most mobile devices and platforms, including iOS, Android and BlackBerry. Its Social Business Toolkit can both customized and extend its online portfolio.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com