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Android users are a happy lot

In all, 67% of Android users surveyed said they would recommend the platform to their friends and family, according to the report.

Smartphone users tend to hold strong opinions about the various mobile platforms out there, often displaying feverish loyalty to the one they use and outright disdain for all others. That’s particularly evident these days in the competition between iPhone and Android.

British firm ICM Research set out last fall to better understand Android users’ perceptions of their phones, and it recently published a white paper including the resulting data.

Based on a survey of more than 2000 U.K. consumers in October, ICM’s findings uncover some interesting insights about today’s Android users.

A full 45% of the Android users polled by ICM said they chose an Android phone because it runs on open source software.

“Being open source it means it is quite social,” one respondent noted. “I like the idea of Google writing software and putting it out there and anyone can write apps for it.”

Around 60% said Android phones offer more opportunities for customisation, and 58% feel the platform’s handsets are more logical and intuitive to use, ICM reported.

Seventy percent of ICM’s respondents said that Android phones offer better value for the money, and 48% agree that an Android device is a better long-term investment than those on other platforms are. Sixty-one percent, meanwhile, said that the wide range of handset choices makes Android the best mobile platform.

Apps were a factor as well. Though a need for better categorisation was frequently noted regarding the Android Market, 45% of current Android users said the market offers the widest range of apps and 43% felt the apps available for the platform are better than those created for other smartphones, ICM found.

In all, 67% of Android users surveyed said they would recommend the platform to their friends and family, according to the report.

“A phone that is going to stay up-to-date and always have the newest features… the only one that is going to do that is the Android and… you can do what you want with it!” one respondent told ICM.

Cisco invests in cloud chip maker

Cisco has invested in Tilera, a developer of multicore processors for cloud computing and communications, as part of the chip maker’s $45 million round announced this week.

Founded in 2004, Tilera makes general purpose multicore processors for networking, wireless, and multimedia infrastructure applications. Tilera’s processors are based on the company’s iMesh architecture, which is designed to scale to hundreds of RISC-based cores on a single chip.

It is not clear if Cisco will use the Tilera technology or if its investment is simply that — an investment. If it did use the technology, the Tilera processors could emerge in a future generation of Cisco servers for data centers and cloud computing environments.

But Cisco has invested or acquired other chip companies through the years, like Celeno, which makes semiconductors for multimedia home networking; Procket Network, which made high-speed packet processors for routers; and CoreOptics, which makes digital signal processors for 100Gbps optical transport networks. The Procket technology is at the core of Cisco’s QuantumFlow processor, which debuted with the ASR 1000 router line in 2008 and is also included in the new CRS-3 core router.

Tilera has been shipping multicore processors since 2007 and has two product lines: TILE64 and TILEPro processors, with another — the TILE-Gx line — planned for early 2011. A TILEPro based 512-core server is now available and TILE-Gx, which includes a 100-core processor, will begin sampling this quarter.

Tilera said it is operating near breakeven and expects to reach profitability later this year. The $45 million round will be used to accelerate the development of its fourth-generation processor line, expand sales and marketing, and develop other new products.

The round was led by Artis Capital Management. In addition to Cisco, the round included WestSummit Capital Management and Comerica Bank; existing investors Walden International, Bessemer Venture Partners and Columbia Capital; and Samsung Venture Investment Co.

Samsung and Cisco join previous strategic investors Broadcom, NTT Finance, VentureTech Alliance, and Quanta Computer.

Tilera is headquartered in San Jose, with offices in Westborough, Mass., Yokohama, Shanghai and Beijing.

Facebook apps for non-smartphone users

Facebook users who want to access the social-networking service on the go, but don’t have smartphones, now have an app of their own in some countries.

On Wednesday, Facebook introduced a mobile app for feature phones, the less-expensive, Internet-capable phones that far outnumber smartphones in many parts of the world. Like Facebook apps for the Apple iPhone and other smartphones, the Facebook for Feature Phones app is designed to provide easy navigation, fast scrolling of status updates and photos from friends, and synchronization of contacts with the phone. The app was announced in a Wednesday entry to Facebook’s official blog.

While smartphones are widely used in the U.S. and some European and Asian countries, many mobile Internet users elsewhere rely on feature phones. Last year, Facebook launched the mobile website http://0.facebook.com, a stripped-down site for users on slower networks and less-advanced phones. It is designed to work faster by using only text. Now Facebook is offering those users a dedicated application with more graphical content.

The new app works on more than 2,500 handset models from Nokia, Sony Ericsson and other vendors, according to Facebook. But it won’t immediately be available everywhere. Facebook initially will offer it through 14 carriers around the world, with nine of those offering the app immediately. They include operators in Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Poland, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Tunisia, Dominican Republic and Romania. Soon after, carriers in Canada, India, Mexico, Brazil and Bulgaria will make it available.

For the first 90 days after launch, those service providers won’t charge for data use with the new app, Facebook said.

When Facebook launched its slimmed-down mobile site, it announced 50 carrier partners in 40 countries, offering at least 12 months of free data use. At the time, it said the U.S. was left out of the launch because Facebook was doing well with media-rich smartphone applications and was looking to provide a deeper experience to those users.

Mobile is Facebook’s biggest growth engine, mobile products head Eric Tseng said at a conference last July. At that time, the company had about 150 million mobile users out of a total of 500 million members, he said.

Obama, Ballmer urge China to step up IP enforcement

Barack Obama, President, United States of America.

Obama, Ballmer urge China to step up IP enforcement

U.S. President Barack Obama and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer pressed Chinese President Hu Jintao yesterday to step up enforcement of intellectual property rights in his country.

In a move that indicates China’s decade of efforts to crack down on software piracy has failed in the eyes of foreign businesses, Ballmer met with Obama and the Chinese leader at the White House to push the issue. Hu is currently on an official visit to the U.S.

“So we were just in a meeting with business leaders, and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft pointed out that their estimate is that only one customer in every 10 of their products is actually paying for it in China,” Obama told a news conference in Washington.

Obama indicated that Hu had agreed to take action.

“I appreciate his willingness to take new steps to combat the theft of intellectual property,” the U.S. president said.

Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft

Under pressure from foreign business leaders over the past 10 years, China periodically arrests the manufacturers and sellers of counterfeit DVDs and CDs. Some discs, often sold on street corners or in public markets, are Microsoft operating systems sold at fractions of the market price. Other fake discs are sold online.

China also pledged in October to take up the issue as the U.S. attorney general visited Beijing.

Companies from Europe, Japan and the United States have all urged China to boost enforcement. Chinese authorities sometimes hesitate to bust counterfeit rings as they help support local economies.

Ballmer himself weighed in at the meeting between the two presidents and U.S. business leaders, according to statement on Microsoft’s blog.

“At the meeting, Ballmer highlighted the importance of intellectual property, or IP, to the future success and economic development of both countries, and noted the serious IP piracy problems that currently exist in China,” the statement said.

King Saud University joins SAP’s University Alliance program

Abdul-Raheem Bawazeer, MD of SAP KSA

King Saud University has signed an agreement with global business software leader SAP to join the SAP University Alliance program, providing students at the university with the skills to be prepared for the Kingdom’s growing modernisation and economic diversification, creating opportunities for IT services in a range of key industries.

King Saud University becomes the fifth educational institute in the Kingdom to become a member of the SAP University Alliance program, joining Jubail Industrial College, Yanbu Industrial College, King Fahd University for Petroleum and Minerals, and Dammam College of Technology.The university will join approximately 150,000 students from 700 tertiary institutions located around the world already learning SAP solutions.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is recognised globally for its rapidly developing, and thriving economy, and SAP is dedicated to generating a base of highly-skilled workers capable of building an IT infrastructure to support this expanding economy,” commented Abdul-Raheem Bawazeer, managing director, SAP KSA.

“Through the University Alliance Program, students from King Saud University will have the tools needed to support the rapidly developing technology sector in the Kingdom,” continued Bawazeer.

The SAP University Alliance program is a global endeavour that provides university faculty members with the tools and resources necessary to teach students how technology can enable integrated business processes and strategic thinking, giving students the skills to add immediate value to the marketplace.

“The progress of our nation has always been strongly associated with knowledge and learning,” commented Professor Abdullah A. Alothman, Rector, King Saud University.

“We believe that the SAP University Alliance program will greatly benefit our students and help develop expert IT professionals, with the competitive edge needed, to support the growth of our country’s technological infrastructure,” continued Professor Alothman.

Members of the SAP University Alliance Program are given exclusive access to SAP’s business solutions to use in the classroom, enabling students to put theory into practice through demonstrations, problem-solving, case studies, and research programs. Upon graduation, students have a clear understanding of how technology can facilitate integrated business processes and strategic thinking, and graduates from the program will improve their opportunities to secure senior posts in the IT job market.

SAP University Alliances member schools gain access to the SAP Business Suite family of solutions, including SAP ERP. This comprehensive business software suite supports business, engineering, and information technology programs, enabling students to put classroom theory into practice through demonstrations, exercises and problem-solving, case studies, and research programs.

Through hands-on experience with SAP solutions, program members gain insight into how technology can empower a business to optimise key processes such as accounting and controlling, human capital management, project planning, plant and materials management, and sales and distribution.

iPad accounts for 90% of all tablets in Q3 2010

IDC predicted that growth in the media tablet sector would "accelerate significantly" in Q1 2011.

Apple’s iPad is almost single-handedly pushing the media tablet sector to new heights, according to figures released on Tuesday by IDC.

Shifting 4.2 million iPads in the third quarter of 2010 alone, Apple accounted for 87.4% of the media tablet sector worldwide. Overall, 4.8 million tablet devices were sold in Q3 2010, up from 3.3 million in Q2.

“The media tablet market’s rapid evolution will continue to accelerate in 4Q10 and beyond with new product and service introductions, channel expansion, price competition and experimentation with new use cases among consumers and enterprises,” said Susan Kevorkian, research director, Mobile Connected Devices at IDC.

IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Media Tablet and eReader Tracker defines a media tablet as a device with a screen between 5in and 14in running lightweight operating systems such as iOS or Android OS.

However, the figures do not include what IDC defines as tablet PCs, which run a full PC operating systems and are based on x86 processors.

IDC predicted that growth in the media tablet sector would “accelerate significantly” in Q1 2011 with the introduction of the Motorola Xoom and the BlackBerry PlayBook.

IDC also said that global ereader shipments increased to 2.7 million units in Q3 2010, representing 40% growth over the previous quarter. Amazon’s Kindle still dominates the ereader market with a 41.5% share.

Jordan’s banking IT budgets total $110m: Arab Advisors Group

A ground breaking Arab Advisors’ survey reveals that the Jordanian banking sector’s cumulative IT budgets totalled US$ 110 million in 2008, 2009 and 2010, averaging 37 million US$ a year.

The survey on IT usage patterns in banks in Jordan was concluded by the Arab Advisors Group in January 2011. The survey report, A Survey of IT Usage Patterns in Banks in Jordan provides the results of a major comprehensive survey of IT usage patterns in banks in Jordan. The survey covered different IT-related areas such as server usage, networks, Internet, websites, online banking (e-banking) and phone banking and ICT policies.

In addition, the survey covered ICT expenditure on ATMs, Internet, data services, voice and video conference solutions, hardware maintenance and upgrade, computer equipment and software, annual licensing for software and training for software and networking.

 

Microsoft launches OneNote iPhone app

Microsoft has released OneNote, its first Office app for iOS.
OneNote is similar to apps like Evernote: It allows you to create different kinds of notes and then save them to the cloud. From there, you can access them from any Mac or iOS device.
OneNote has been available as part of the Office desktop suite for Windows for years (since Office 2003); there hasn’t been, and still isn’t, a Mac desktop client. Last year, Microsoft introduced a Web-app version of OneNote (along with Web versions of its other Office apps; you have to use that online version in your browser (Safari or Firefox) if you want to use OneNote on a Mac. And that Web app requires a free Windows Live account.
The new iOS app isn’t as capable as the Web version or the Windows desktop client. On the iPhone, you can create notes containing plain text, checklists, or embedded photos. The Web app supports those plus tables, hyperlinks, uploaded graphics, and clip art; it also supports formatted text, using a ribbon-based interface like the Mac Office suite’s. Unfortunately, some of those advanced data types and formats won’t show up when you view those notes on your iPhone.
The OneNote app runs on all iOS devices though it’s not optimised for the iPad’s larger screen. It’s available from the iOS App Store for free, though Microsoft says that pricing will be for a “limited time.”

China, India compete on global delivery: IDC

IDC says Chinese government initiatives to tip balance in favour of China.

Chinese cities, in particular Shanghai and Beijing, will emerge as the most ideal global delivery locations by 2014, according to analyst firm IDC’s latest Global Delivery Index.

Noting an increased competition coming from the Indian and dragon cities, IDC says both nations are working towards creating a long-term sustainable competitive advantage.

IDC’s Asia/Pacific Global Delivery Index, 2010, also indicates that these countries are investing in technology, infrastructure and talent development.

The Chinese government is leveraging its foundation of the 1000-100-10 initiative that was rolled out in 2006 by the Ministry of Commerce. This initiative aimed to accelerate the country’s information technology outsourcing (ITO) and business process outsourcing (BPO) services.

Through this project, 22 cities now have been identified as software and outsourcing locations in China.

Investment by government

The government of China has made investments to promote a convergence of fixed line, cable and broadband services and cloud technologies, particularly in Shanghai and Beijing.

IDC expects investment in this convergence known as Triple Play to tip the global delivery scales in favour of the Chinese cities by 2014. Tiger nation, India, has thousands of trained professionals and this gives it a competitive edge in the talent forte.

Apparently, the local governments in India recognise the importance of education to build a strong economy and they are therefore investing heavily in technology schools to churn out graduates with the right skill sets to meet market needs.

“Infrastructure investments, particularly in terms of key technologies, will drive foreign direct investment, which in turn will bring with it foreign talent. If this talent is capitalised upon and can be used to train locals, there will be experienced talent available in China within the next five to seven years, placing the dragon in a dominant position on the global delivery map,” said Suchitra Narayan, research manager, services, IDC Asia Pacific.

“India cannot rest on its laurels and rely on its existing differentiators of ‘low cost’ and ‘availability of talent’. It is currently in a position to capitalise on the best practices and years of experience to build out/automate future technologies and solutions that may stand it in good stead for the future. Strategic growth and investments are key for future dominance,” added Narayan.

Mixed shore solutions

IDC has also noticed more requests for “mixed shore” solutions, whereby services are delivered from more than one location.

Businesses are focused on diversifying risk and according to Narayan, the global delivery landscape is set to move towards ‘Offshore 3.0’, a mixture of shoring solutions, platforms, best practices, risk diversification, and new technologies such as cloud.

“The economic downturn of 2008-2009 only served to highlight the need for global diversification, to limit the exposure to political instability, currency fluctuations, and the potential unavailability of skill sets,” she added.

IDC forecasts further demand for the upcoming services offered in the emerging Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. Hangzhou and Shenzhen in China and Hyderabad and Cochin in India are set to strengthen their positions on the global delivery map by 2014.