The smartphones in our pockets are far more powerful than the desktop computers we dreamed of in the 1980s. This year they are outselling PCs – and soon they could replace our wallets as well.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/05/smartphones-killing-pc
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
Windows 8 Proves Web Apps Are the Future of Computing
http://techreview.com/blog/mimssbits/26841/?p1=blogs
Sunday, April 5, 2009
10 skills developers will need in the next five years
If you’re a developer looking to get ahead in your field (or in some cases, to simply stay employed), this is not a good time to be complacent. Justin James lists the skills you’ll want to work on now to maximize your future job prospects.
________________________________________
With the recent changes in the economy, a lot of developers are focused on their short-term job prospects. At the same time, it’s important to make sure that you get the most bang for your buck when it comes to taking the time and energy to learn new skills. Here is our list of 10 skills you should be learning right now to make sure that your resume is relevant for the next five years. The list is hardly exhaustive, and there are huge swaths of the industry it won’t cover (mainframe developers, for example). Nonetheless, for average mainstream development, you can’t go wrong learning at least seven of these skills — not only to the point where you can talk convincingly about them at a job interview, but actually use them on the job.
1: One of the “Big Three” (.NET, Java, PHP)
Unless there is a radical shift in the development world (akin to an asteroid hitting Redmond), most developers will need to know at least one of the Big Three development systems — .NET (VB.NET or C#), Java, or PHP — for the near future. It’s not enough to know the core languages, either. As projects encompass more and more disparate functionality, you’ll need to know the associated frameworks and libraries more deeply.
2: Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)
Love it or hate it, in the last few years, Flash is suddenly being used for more than just animations of politicians singing goofy songs. Flash has also sprouted additional functionality in the form or Flex and AIR. Flash’s competitors, such as JavaFx and Silverlight, are also upping the ante on features and performance. To make things even more complicated, HTML 5 is incorporating all sorts of RIA functionality, including database connectivity, and putting the formal W3C stamp on AJAX. In the near future, being an RIA pro will be a key resume differentiator.
3: Web development
Web development is not going away anytime soon. Many developers have been content to lay back and ignore the Web or to just stick to “the basics” their framework provides them with. But companies have been demanding more and more who really know how to work with the underlying technology at a “hand code” level. So bone up on JavaScript, CSS, and HTML to succeed over the next five years.
4: Web services
REST or SOAP? JSON or XML? While the choices and the answers depend on the project, it’s getting increasingly difficult to be a developer (even one not writing Web applications) without consuming or creating a Web service. Even areas that used to be ODBC, COM, or RPC domains are now being transitioned to Web services of some variety. Developers who can’t work with Web services will find themselves relegated to legacy and maintenance roles.
5: Soft skills
One trend that has been going for quite some time is the increasing visibility of IT within and outside the enterprise. Developers are being brought into more and more non-development meetings and processes to provide feedback. For example, the CFO can’t change the accounting rules without working with IT to update the systems. And an operations manager can’t change a call center process without IT updating the CRM workflow. Likewise, customers often need to work directly with the development teams to make sure that their needs are met. Will every developer need to go to Toastmasters or study How to Win Friends and Influence People? No. But the developers who do will be much more valuable to their employers — and highly sought after in the job market.
6: One dynamic and/or functional programming language
Languages like Ruby, Python, F#, and Groovy still aren’t quite mainstream – but the ideas in them are. For example, the LINQ system in Microsoft’s .NET is a direct descendent of functional programming techniques. Both Ruby and Python are becoming hot in some sectors, thanks to the Rails framework and Silverlight, respectively. Learning one of these languages won’t just improve your resume, though; it will expand your horizons. Every top-flight developer I’ve met recommends learning at least one dynamic or functional programming language to learn new ways of thinking, and from personal experience, I can tell you that it works.
7: Agile methodologies
When Agile first hit mainstream awareness, I was a skeptic, along with many other folks I know. It seemed to be some sort of knee-jerk reaction to tradition, throwing away the controls and standards in favor of anarchy. But as time went on, the ideas behind Agile became both better defined and better expressed. Many shops are either adopting Agile or running proof-of-concept experiments with Agile. While Agile is not the ultimate panacea for project failure, it does indeed have a place on many projects. Developers with a proven track record of understanding and succeeding in Agile environments will be in increasingly high demand over the next few years.
8: Domain knowledge
Hand-in-hand with Agile methodologies, development teams are increasingly being viewed as partners in the definition of projects. This means that developers who understand the problem domain are able to contribute to the project in a highly visible, valuable way. With Agile, a developer who can say, “From here, we can also add this functionality fairly easily, and it will get us a lot of value,” or “Gee, that requirement really doesn’t match the usage patterns our logs show” will excel. As much as many developers resist the idea of having to know anything about the problem domain at all, it is undeniable that increasing numbers of organizations prefer (if not require) developers to at least understand the basics.
9: Development “hygiene”
A few years ago, many (if not most) shops did not have access to bug tracking systems, version control, and other such tools; it was just the developers and their IDE of choice. But thanks to the development of new, integrated stacks, like the Microsoft Visual Studio Team System, and the explosion in availability of high quality, open source environments, organizations without these tools are becoming much less common. Developers must know more than just how to check code in and out of source control or how to use the VM system to build test environments. They need to have a rigorous habit of hygiene in place to make sure that they are properly coordinating with their teams. “Code cowboys” who store everything on a personal USB drive, don’t document which changes correspond to which task item, and so on, are unwelcome in more traditional shops and even more unwelcome in Agile environments, which rely on a tight coordination between team members to operate.
10: Mobile development
The late 1990s saw Web development rise to mainstream acceptance and then begin to marginalize traditional desktop applications in many areas. In 2008, mobile development left the launch pad, and over the next five years, it will become increasingly important. There are, of course, different approaches to mobile development: Web applications designed to work on mobile devices, RIAs aimed at that market, and applications that run directly on the devices. Regardless of which of these paths you choose, adding mobile development to your skill set will ensure that you are in demand for the future.
________________________________________
With the recent changes in the economy, a lot of developers are focused on their short-term job prospects. At the same time, it’s important to make sure that you get the most bang for your buck when it comes to taking the time and energy to learn new skills. Here is our list of 10 skills you should be learning right now to make sure that your resume is relevant for the next five years. The list is hardly exhaustive, and there are huge swaths of the industry it won’t cover (mainframe developers, for example). Nonetheless, for average mainstream development, you can’t go wrong learning at least seven of these skills — not only to the point where you can talk convincingly about them at a job interview, but actually use them on the job.
1: One of the “Big Three” (.NET, Java, PHP)
Unless there is a radical shift in the development world (akin to an asteroid hitting Redmond), most developers will need to know at least one of the Big Three development systems — .NET (VB.NET or C#), Java, or PHP — for the near future. It’s not enough to know the core languages, either. As projects encompass more and more disparate functionality, you’ll need to know the associated frameworks and libraries more deeply.
2: Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)
Love it or hate it, in the last few years, Flash is suddenly being used for more than just animations of politicians singing goofy songs. Flash has also sprouted additional functionality in the form or Flex and AIR. Flash’s competitors, such as JavaFx and Silverlight, are also upping the ante on features and performance. To make things even more complicated, HTML 5 is incorporating all sorts of RIA functionality, including database connectivity, and putting the formal W3C stamp on AJAX. In the near future, being an RIA pro will be a key resume differentiator.
3: Web development
Web development is not going away anytime soon. Many developers have been content to lay back and ignore the Web or to just stick to “the basics” their framework provides them with. But companies have been demanding more and more who really know how to work with the underlying technology at a “hand code” level. So bone up on JavaScript, CSS, and HTML to succeed over the next five years.
4: Web services
REST or SOAP? JSON or XML? While the choices and the answers depend on the project, it’s getting increasingly difficult to be a developer (even one not writing Web applications) without consuming or creating a Web service. Even areas that used to be ODBC, COM, or RPC domains are now being transitioned to Web services of some variety. Developers who can’t work with Web services will find themselves relegated to legacy and maintenance roles.
5: Soft skills
One trend that has been going for quite some time is the increasing visibility of IT within and outside the enterprise. Developers are being brought into more and more non-development meetings and processes to provide feedback. For example, the CFO can’t change the accounting rules without working with IT to update the systems. And an operations manager can’t change a call center process without IT updating the CRM workflow. Likewise, customers often need to work directly with the development teams to make sure that their needs are met. Will every developer need to go to Toastmasters or study How to Win Friends and Influence People? No. But the developers who do will be much more valuable to their employers — and highly sought after in the job market.
6: One dynamic and/or functional programming language
Languages like Ruby, Python, F#, and Groovy still aren’t quite mainstream – but the ideas in them are. For example, the LINQ system in Microsoft’s .NET is a direct descendent of functional programming techniques. Both Ruby and Python are becoming hot in some sectors, thanks to the Rails framework and Silverlight, respectively. Learning one of these languages won’t just improve your resume, though; it will expand your horizons. Every top-flight developer I’ve met recommends learning at least one dynamic or functional programming language to learn new ways of thinking, and from personal experience, I can tell you that it works.
7: Agile methodologies
When Agile first hit mainstream awareness, I was a skeptic, along with many other folks I know. It seemed to be some sort of knee-jerk reaction to tradition, throwing away the controls and standards in favor of anarchy. But as time went on, the ideas behind Agile became both better defined and better expressed. Many shops are either adopting Agile or running proof-of-concept experiments with Agile. While Agile is not the ultimate panacea for project failure, it does indeed have a place on many projects. Developers with a proven track record of understanding and succeeding in Agile environments will be in increasingly high demand over the next few years.
8: Domain knowledge
Hand-in-hand with Agile methodologies, development teams are increasingly being viewed as partners in the definition of projects. This means that developers who understand the problem domain are able to contribute to the project in a highly visible, valuable way. With Agile, a developer who can say, “From here, we can also add this functionality fairly easily, and it will get us a lot of value,” or “Gee, that requirement really doesn’t match the usage patterns our logs show” will excel. As much as many developers resist the idea of having to know anything about the problem domain at all, it is undeniable that increasing numbers of organizations prefer (if not require) developers to at least understand the basics.
9: Development “hygiene”
A few years ago, many (if not most) shops did not have access to bug tracking systems, version control, and other such tools; it was just the developers and their IDE of choice. But thanks to the development of new, integrated stacks, like the Microsoft Visual Studio Team System, and the explosion in availability of high quality, open source environments, organizations without these tools are becoming much less common. Developers must know more than just how to check code in and out of source control or how to use the VM system to build test environments. They need to have a rigorous habit of hygiene in place to make sure that they are properly coordinating with their teams. “Code cowboys” who store everything on a personal USB drive, don’t document which changes correspond to which task item, and so on, are unwelcome in more traditional shops and even more unwelcome in Agile environments, which rely on a tight coordination between team members to operate.
10: Mobile development
The late 1990s saw Web development rise to mainstream acceptance and then begin to marginalize traditional desktop applications in many areas. In 2008, mobile development left the launch pad, and over the next five years, it will become increasingly important. There are, of course, different approaches to mobile development: Web applications designed to work on mobile devices, RIAs aimed at that market, and applications that run directly on the devices. Regardless of which of these paths you choose, adding mobile development to your skill set will ensure that you are in demand for the future.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Stolen: Google employees' personal data
Google has confirmed that personal data of U.S. employees hired prior to 2006 have been stolen in a recent burglary.
Records kept at Colt Express Outsourcing Services, an external company Google and other companies use to handle human resources functions, were stolen in a burglary on May 26. An undisclosed number of employees' details and those of dependents such as names, addresses, and Social Security numbers were on the stolen computers. It is understood that Colt did not employ encryption to protect the information.
It's still unclear how many more of Colt Express' clients were affected by the breach. CBS' CNET Networks, publisher of News.com, was also affected by the burglary, with about 6,500 employees' details stolen.
Although there is no evidence of misuse of the data to date, the information obtained could be used by identity thieves to create fake accounts and identities.
It's only come to light now that Google was one of the companies affected. Google itself was not burglarized, nor were any of its internal systems compromised.
Danny Thorpe, former chief scientist at Borland and engineer at Google who now works for Microsoft, was informed of the theft on July 1.
A letter from Google said personal data of Google employees hired prior to December 31, 2005, may have been stolen in the May 26 burglary of Colt Express Outsourcing Services. No credit card numbers were in the stolen data; just names, addresses, SSNs--all the information needed for a thief to open a credit card account under another's name.
According to Thorpe, Google has offered to cover the cost of a one-year subscription to a credit report and identity theft-monitoring service. Similar benefits were offered to CNET Networks employees.
ITWorld reported last week that Colt Express Outsourcing Services was in financial difficulty and could not help those affected. The company's CEO, Samuel Colt III, said in a statement "We do not have the resources, financial and otherwise, to assist you further."
"We take the security of our employees very seriously and require outside vendors to meet appropriate security standards. We review and update these standards on an ongoing basis," a Google representative said. "Google is not currently using Colt's services and had made this decision long before this incident."
Records kept at Colt Express Outsourcing Services, an external company Google and other companies use to handle human resources functions, were stolen in a burglary on May 26. An undisclosed number of employees' details and those of dependents such as names, addresses, and Social Security numbers were on the stolen computers. It is understood that Colt did not employ encryption to protect the information.
It's still unclear how many more of Colt Express' clients were affected by the breach. CBS' CNET Networks, publisher of News.com, was also affected by the burglary, with about 6,500 employees' details stolen.
Although there is no evidence of misuse of the data to date, the information obtained could be used by identity thieves to create fake accounts and identities.
It's only come to light now that Google was one of the companies affected. Google itself was not burglarized, nor were any of its internal systems compromised.
Danny Thorpe, former chief scientist at Borland and engineer at Google who now works for Microsoft, was informed of the theft on July 1.
A letter from Google said personal data of Google employees hired prior to December 31, 2005, may have been stolen in the May 26 burglary of Colt Express Outsourcing Services. No credit card numbers were in the stolen data; just names, addresses, SSNs--all the information needed for a thief to open a credit card account under another's name.
According to Thorpe, Google has offered to cover the cost of a one-year subscription to a credit report and identity theft-monitoring service. Similar benefits were offered to CNET Networks employees.
ITWorld reported last week that Colt Express Outsourcing Services was in financial difficulty and could not help those affected. The company's CEO, Samuel Colt III, said in a statement "We do not have the resources, financial and otherwise, to assist you further."
"We take the security of our employees very seriously and require outside vendors to meet appropriate security standards. We review and update these standards on an ongoing basis," a Google representative said. "Google is not currently using Colt's services and had made this decision long before this incident."
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Microsoft SharePoint Sales To Hit $1 Billion In 2008
Microsoft Sharepoint is one of the hottest product of Microsoft.
Microsoft said it has now sold more than 100 million SharePoint licenses since launching the product in 2001. Microsoft sold 75 million through the end of 2005 and 25 million more in the last two years -- meaning the suite has enjoyed a compound growth rate in license sales of about 15% over the past two years.
Click here for more...
Microsoft said it has now sold more than 100 million SharePoint licenses since launching the product in 2001. Microsoft sold 75 million through the end of 2005 and 25 million more in the last two years -- meaning the suite has enjoyed a compound growth rate in license sales of about 15% over the past two years.
Click here for more...
Monday, May 5, 2008
6 factors that will decide the fate of Silverlight
Microsoft's Web development technology may have tough time gaining on Flash
http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9077660&intsrc=hm_list
http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9077660&intsrc=hm_list
Friday, January 25, 2008
PUCIT Lectures - Free for all
Kindly visit http://lectures.pucit.edu.pk/
You can download different lecture contents about programming and other educational stuff.
Thanks
You can download different lecture contents about programming and other educational stuff.
Thanks
Download Visual Studio 2008
Get download Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 from Microsoft official site.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/products/aa700831.aspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/products/aa700831.aspx
Country Manager Pakistan bring Bill Gates to Pakistan
Mr. Jawwad RehmanInterview Country Manager Microsoft Corp. Pakistan
We have been working actively to promote Pakistan internally in Microsoft in the right light. As a result of that Bill Gates was eager to meet President Musharraf and they met in last January in Switzerland. Mr. Shoukat Aziz then Finance Minister & present Prime Minister and Mr. Ishrat Hussain, Governor State Bank of Pakistan, were also present in the meeting. This meeting has brought Bill Gates and our top executives a lot closer and more aware of Pakistan’s potential. I guarantee you that Bill Gates will be here and this is something I would personally like to do as well but it requires that his trip is worthwhile and there are some great things happening in Pakistan in the IT Industry so that we can fully leverage his presence here. Bill Gates is a busy man and sometimes his schedule is full for 20 months in advance. At the same time something big and relevant enough should happen that brings Bill Gates to Pakistan, I am trying my best to make that happen here.
For complete interview Click
Microsoft Education Plan
Here is some links of MICROSOFT WINDOWS LIVE visit it, YOu'll find all new services and Microsoft Education Plan.
http://get.live.com/edu http://student-partners.com/
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/academia/students/student-partners/default.mspx
http://get.live.com/edu/schools http://www.imagine-wl.com/Education/en-US/
http://research.microsoft.com/aboutmsr/labs/asia/default.aspx
ABOUT THE IMAGINE CUP. What is the Imagine Cup? UNESCO Endorsement
http://imaginecup.com/ http://get.live.com/mail/ms_liveMail_demo
Hope this helps.
Thanks
http://get.live.com/edu http://student-partners.com/
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/academia/students/student-partners/default.mspx
http://get.live.com/edu/schools http://www.imagine-wl.com/Education/en-US/
http://research.microsoft.com/aboutmsr/labs/asia/default.aspx
ABOUT THE IMAGINE CUP. What is the Imagine Cup? UNESCO Endorsement
http://imaginecup.com/ http://get.live.com/mail/ms_liveMail_demo
Hope this helps.
Thanks
Friday, October 5, 2007
What's Next for Google
Google ponders its next steps in an e-commerce environment shaped by mobile, social networking and, yes, search.
The typical American business executive likes incremental changes, like, perhaps, an 18 percent speed increase. Or maybe a little bit more efficiency over here, and some additional functionality over there.
PowerPoint slides to the contrary, a paradigm shift is the last one thing most executives honestly want because, to the typical executive with a large company, any monumental shift raises the frightening possibility that the company will end up a lot smaller than it is today.
That's why it's typically the startups and the small niche players that embrace big-picture change, if only to get someone to listen to them.
But what if one of those small companies that embraced big change—say, the Internet and its subsidiary, the World Wide Web—got big?
That's the question—and the challenge—facing $11 billion search giant Google. At a recent media day at Google's New York offices, Google executives and managers discussed the enormity of the current e-commerce conundrum, and how the company is struggling to find the best way to deal with it.
Consider this: In the early days of e-commerce, a typical retailer and manufacturer might have been marketing between eight and 12 products, especially with search-engine links. Today, that same company would typically be doing the same kind of Web marketing with some 12,000 products, said Tim Armstrong, who serves Google as its president of advertising and commerce for North America.
This new environment, Armstrong and other Google people said, requires a very different approach. Google's answer is something called an Asset Map, a way to visually lay out every single one of a retailer's assets, including all of its products and services. This, theoretically, allows a company to see not only which of their products are not covered, but to try and project some kind of return-on-investment analysis.
Armstrong argues that this is morphing ad budgets into operational budgets. Is a Google ad akin to a traditional piece of advertising—something that an ad budget should fund—or is it closer to the cost of a car dealer building a new showroom and dealership?
Google is making the argument that their auction-driven pricing model is more than a marketing cost. Google execs argue that it's actually a tool to help match inventory and purchase patterns with inventory. That's because, they argue, the variable pricing allows budgets to fluctuate with consumer interest.
In theory, that should allow better real-time information about demand, in a much more predictive way than simply examining purchases. In other words, if the number of times consumers look at ads for SUVs fluctuates in the same way during different months (or during different weather patterns), that can help influence core business purchasing decisions.
Another core change for e-commerce is the explosion of social networking and video sites—primarily launched for a younger audience—including Facebook, MySpace and YouTube (now owned by Google). These sites create the potential for customized, focused campaigns in a way that simply didn't exist a decade ago.
Armstrong said the social networking sites caught him off-guard—"the traffic is really incredible," he said—because he didn't initially expect search to be a factor. He saw videos as something people would merely browse. The high demand for video searches was "a very nice surprise."
Then there's the mobile movement, which places limits on ads (minimal screen size, less RAM and much slower bandwidth) but also opens up possibilities by being with a consumer at all times, and including very precise location information.
The typical American business executive likes incremental changes, like, perhaps, an 18 percent speed increase. Or maybe a little bit more efficiency over here, and some additional functionality over there.
PowerPoint slides to the contrary, a paradigm shift is the last one thing most executives honestly want because, to the typical executive with a large company, any monumental shift raises the frightening possibility that the company will end up a lot smaller than it is today.
That's why it's typically the startups and the small niche players that embrace big-picture change, if only to get someone to listen to them.
But what if one of those small companies that embraced big change—say, the Internet and its subsidiary, the World Wide Web—got big?
That's the question—and the challenge—facing $11 billion search giant Google. At a recent media day at Google's New York offices, Google executives and managers discussed the enormity of the current e-commerce conundrum, and how the company is struggling to find the best way to deal with it.
Consider this: In the early days of e-commerce, a typical retailer and manufacturer might have been marketing between eight and 12 products, especially with search-engine links. Today, that same company would typically be doing the same kind of Web marketing with some 12,000 products, said Tim Armstrong, who serves Google as its president of advertising and commerce for North America.
This new environment, Armstrong and other Google people said, requires a very different approach. Google's answer is something called an Asset Map, a way to visually lay out every single one of a retailer's assets, including all of its products and services. This, theoretically, allows a company to see not only which of their products are not covered, but to try and project some kind of return-on-investment analysis.
Armstrong argues that this is morphing ad budgets into operational budgets. Is a Google ad akin to a traditional piece of advertising—something that an ad budget should fund—or is it closer to the cost of a car dealer building a new showroom and dealership?
Google is making the argument that their auction-driven pricing model is more than a marketing cost. Google execs argue that it's actually a tool to help match inventory and purchase patterns with inventory. That's because, they argue, the variable pricing allows budgets to fluctuate with consumer interest.
In theory, that should allow better real-time information about demand, in a much more predictive way than simply examining purchases. In other words, if the number of times consumers look at ads for SUVs fluctuates in the same way during different months (or during different weather patterns), that can help influence core business purchasing decisions.
Another core change for e-commerce is the explosion of social networking and video sites—primarily launched for a younger audience—including Facebook, MySpace and YouTube (now owned by Google). These sites create the potential for customized, focused campaigns in a way that simply didn't exist a decade ago.
Armstrong said the social networking sites caught him off-guard—"the traffic is really incredible," he said—because he didn't initially expect search to be a factor. He saw videos as something people would merely browse. The high demand for video searches was "a very nice surprise."
Then there's the mobile movement, which places limits on ads (minimal screen size, less RAM and much slower bandwidth) but also opens up possibilities by being with a consumer at all times, and including very precise location information.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Next Stop, Elastic Architecture !!
Very good article, easy and simple to understand as well. So what i understood is
Elastic computing is all about creating a virutal server, process stuff, and when that server is not needed, shut it down. The point is all has to be done by using an API, that is why that server is called a virtual server. Great concept.
Now after reading that article first question came into my mind was : What does it mean by a SERVER ?
Isn't this concept is same as allocating some memory when you need that by using new() keyword or by anyother means which is supported by the language, use that memory and deallocate when it is not required any more. But i think this is something different.
The difference is :-
Virtual Sever should behave like a SEVER means :-
Get the Memory +Processing Power + Take part in clustring + Perform load balancing + may have some kind of fail safe mechnism + anything that you can imagine with a SERVER
ALL BY USING APIs.
But i think the capability of those VIRTUAL SERVERS will be limited to the capability of available hardware.
Your thought / Comments are welcome.
Amrat Nandlal
Elastic computing is all about creating a virutal server, process stuff, and when that server is not needed, shut it down. The point is all has to be done by using an API, that is why that server is called a virtual server. Great concept.
Now after reading that article first question came into my mind was : What does it mean by a SERVER ?
Isn't this concept is same as allocating some memory when you need that by using new() keyword or by anyother means which is supported by the language, use that memory and deallocate when it is not required any more. But i think this is something different.
The difference is :-
Virtual Sever should behave like a SEVER means :-
Get the Memory +Processing Power + Take part in clustring + Perform load balancing + may have some kind of fail safe mechnism + anything that you can imagine with a SERVER
ALL BY USING APIs.
But i think the capability of those VIRTUAL SERVERS will be limited to the capability of available hardware.
Your thought / Comments are welcome.
Amrat Nandlal
Microsoft looks to remake itself!!
Stock Spotlight: Software giant looks to regain glory days of growth by becoming competitive in booming markets like online advertising and gaming.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In an era where the Web is king, Microsoft is no longer regarded as a growth stock. But if the company's bets on new businesses pan out, it could become one again.
Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500) has has had to play catch-up in many areas - video games, MP3 players and online advertising - with varying degrees of success.
The company's new "Halo 3" game and Xbox console are increasingly important for Microsoft. The entertainment and devices division makes up 12 percent of Microsoft's revenue and is the company's fastest growing, with revenues increasing 28 percent in fiscal 2007, compared to overall sales growth of 15 percent.
But the Zune MP3 player, which is also part of the entertainment and devices division, failed to capture the attention of the iPod generation.
Microsoft has also seen faced legal setbacks in Europe. The recent court ruling upholding the European Union's order to offer a version of its Windows operating system without its Windows Media Player software is a major blow to the company since it bundles features with Windows.
Google and Microsoft go to Washington
Of course, Microsoft is still a corporate giant - with annual revenues of more than $50 billion and cash on hand of more than $20 billion. Its core businesses are doing well, thanks to the release of Vista, its latest operating system, and a new version of the Office suite of tools.
But even in these established businesses, Microsoft faces challenges. Office, in particular, faces increased competition from Google and IBM.
Although Microsoft has the cash to muscle its way into competitive new growth areas, it remains to be seen whether it really can become a growth stock again.
The emperor's new clicks
Microsoft has looked mainly toward online advertising and gaming to invigorate its sales and earnings growth.
Microsoft is a distant third in the lucrative business of online search. According to the most recent rankings from Web tracking firm comScore, Microsoft's market share in search was just 11.3 percent in August compared to 56.5 percent for Google (Charts, Fortune 500) and 23.3 percent for Yahoo (Charts, Fortune 500).
Earlier this year, Microsoft was in talks to buy DoubleClick, a top digital marketing company, but was outmaneuvered by Google, which agreed to purchase the company for $3.1 billion in April.
Not to be outdone, Microsoft then paid $6 billion to buy another top digital marketer, Seattle-based aQuantive, in May. It was the largest acquisition in the company's history.
Former aQuantive CEO Brian McAndrews has been tapped to run the engineering section of Microsoft's online advertising business, a move that Wall Street hailed.
Microsoft upgrades search engine
"The aQuantive acquisition gives (Microsoft) a team of people who really understand the business," said Sid Parakh, an analyst with McAdams Wright Ragen.
Microsoft also announced Thursday that it had launched an improved version of its Live Search in order to better take on Google. The redesigned search engine includes a significant increase in the number of Web pages indexed and an expansion of Live Search's rich answers" section, which provides responses to specific questions.
On the gaming side, the company has brought in new talent from outside of Microsoft to invigorate the division, which faces a tough battle from Nintendo and Sony. Microsoft hired former Electronic Arts executive Don Mattrick in February as an advisor to its video game group and appointed him head of it in July.
Halo 3 to Nintendo Wii: Check your rearview mirror
This week it launched "Halo 3", which amassed pre-orders of 1 million copies. Goldman Sachs analyst Sarah Friar wrote in a research report that strong demand for the game could contribute $50 million or more to the company's sales in the first quarter of fiscal 2008, which ends in September.
Microsoft has invested heavily in the division, anticipating long-term gaming trends as far as 10 years out. But the investments have not panned out for Microsoft's bottom line yet. The entertainment and devices division, despite its impressive sales growth, posted an operating loss of $1.9 billion in fiscal 2007.
Computers still at the core
Although growth has been slower for core products like Microsoft Windows and Office 2007, this year saw substantial revenue gains in both divisions because of their recent releases. Sales in the Windows division climbed 14 percent to the fiscal year ending June 30, while sales of Office were up 13 percent.
"The PC market has done tremendously well this year, so you're seeing that flow through Microsoft's numbers," said Morningstar analyst Toan Tran. "Vista is tracking toward expectations and Office 2007 is doing better than I thought it would."
The planned 2008 release of Windows Server should speed adoption of Vista, Tran believes, because executives like to upgrade individual computers and servers at the same time.
In addition, Microsoft is cracking down more aggressively on global piracy, which could spur the sale of more Windows and Office licenses. The company also plans to offer more premium editions of its software for clients who need for features, another possible revenue boost.
But several big-name companies have developed free software that could threaten Microsoft's stranglehold on the office software market.
Google Docs, the free Web-based offering from the search giant, has basic word processing and spreadsheet functions and allows easy sharing of documents. IBM (Charts, Fortune 500) is relaunching spreadsheet software Lotus Symphony as a free download, using the new Open Document Format standard, a favorite of governments.
"These new software packages are definitely more of a long-term threat - something that could happen five to seven years from now," said Tran. "Currently the online suites don't have the level of features that someone working in a business environment would need."
Can Microsoft ever be a growth stock again?
If Microsoft wants its stock to head significantly higher, analysts said the company is going to have to get a stronger foothold in markets like advertising and gaming.
Fortunately for investors, Microsoft pays a dividend that yields 1.5 percent, a healthy yield for a tech company. And Wall Street has a positive opinion of the company, with 29 of 38 analysts surveyed by Thomson One giving it at least a "buy" rating.
The stock also looks reasonably valued, trading at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 17.1, a discount to software rivals Oracle (Charts, Fortune 500) and SAP (Charts), which trade at 17.3 and 25.4 times next year's earnings estimates respectively.
Microsoft is more expensive than IBM, which trades at 15.8 times earnings estimates. But the slower-growth IBM is more than just a software company since it also has big hardware and services divisions.
Goldman Sachs' Friar has a 12-month price target of $37 on the company, which implies about 25 percent upside to its current price.
And Microsoft is starting to show some signs of healthier growth again. According to Thomson One, analysts expect earnings to increase 16 percent to $1.73 per share in fiscal 2008, which ends next June, and that sales will increase 12 percent to $57.3 billion.
"Microsoft faces a number of challenges, but we think the stock is a below-average-risk investment given the firm's dominant position in its major markets," wrote Tran.
It's no secret that the company is not going to return to its peak growth levels, but it still may have prosperous days ahead of it.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In an era where the Web is king, Microsoft is no longer regarded as a growth stock. But if the company's bets on new businesses pan out, it could become one again.
Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500) has has had to play catch-up in many areas - video games, MP3 players and online advertising - with varying degrees of success.
The company's new "Halo 3" game and Xbox console are increasingly important for Microsoft. The entertainment and devices division makes up 12 percent of Microsoft's revenue and is the company's fastest growing, with revenues increasing 28 percent in fiscal 2007, compared to overall sales growth of 15 percent.
But the Zune MP3 player, which is also part of the entertainment and devices division, failed to capture the attention of the iPod generation.
Microsoft has also seen faced legal setbacks in Europe. The recent court ruling upholding the European Union's order to offer a version of its Windows operating system without its Windows Media Player software is a major blow to the company since it bundles features with Windows.
Google and Microsoft go to Washington
Of course, Microsoft is still a corporate giant - with annual revenues of more than $50 billion and cash on hand of more than $20 billion. Its core businesses are doing well, thanks to the release of Vista, its latest operating system, and a new version of the Office suite of tools.
But even in these established businesses, Microsoft faces challenges. Office, in particular, faces increased competition from Google and IBM.
Although Microsoft has the cash to muscle its way into competitive new growth areas, it remains to be seen whether it really can become a growth stock again.
The emperor's new clicks
Microsoft has looked mainly toward online advertising and gaming to invigorate its sales and earnings growth.
Microsoft is a distant third in the lucrative business of online search. According to the most recent rankings from Web tracking firm comScore, Microsoft's market share in search was just 11.3 percent in August compared to 56.5 percent for Google (Charts, Fortune 500) and 23.3 percent for Yahoo (Charts, Fortune 500).
Earlier this year, Microsoft was in talks to buy DoubleClick, a top digital marketing company, but was outmaneuvered by Google, which agreed to purchase the company for $3.1 billion in April.
Not to be outdone, Microsoft then paid $6 billion to buy another top digital marketer, Seattle-based aQuantive, in May. It was the largest acquisition in the company's history.
Former aQuantive CEO Brian McAndrews has been tapped to run the engineering section of Microsoft's online advertising business, a move that Wall Street hailed.
Microsoft upgrades search engine
"The aQuantive acquisition gives (Microsoft) a team of people who really understand the business," said Sid Parakh, an analyst with McAdams Wright Ragen.
Microsoft also announced Thursday that it had launched an improved version of its Live Search in order to better take on Google. The redesigned search engine includes a significant increase in the number of Web pages indexed and an expansion of Live Search's rich answers" section, which provides responses to specific questions.
On the gaming side, the company has brought in new talent from outside of Microsoft to invigorate the division, which faces a tough battle from Nintendo and Sony. Microsoft hired former Electronic Arts executive Don Mattrick in February as an advisor to its video game group and appointed him head of it in July.
Halo 3 to Nintendo Wii: Check your rearview mirror
This week it launched "Halo 3", which amassed pre-orders of 1 million copies. Goldman Sachs analyst Sarah Friar wrote in a research report that strong demand for the game could contribute $50 million or more to the company's sales in the first quarter of fiscal 2008, which ends in September.
Microsoft has invested heavily in the division, anticipating long-term gaming trends as far as 10 years out. But the investments have not panned out for Microsoft's bottom line yet. The entertainment and devices division, despite its impressive sales growth, posted an operating loss of $1.9 billion in fiscal 2007.
Computers still at the core
Although growth has been slower for core products like Microsoft Windows and Office 2007, this year saw substantial revenue gains in both divisions because of their recent releases. Sales in the Windows division climbed 14 percent to the fiscal year ending June 30, while sales of Office were up 13 percent.
"The PC market has done tremendously well this year, so you're seeing that flow through Microsoft's numbers," said Morningstar analyst Toan Tran. "Vista is tracking toward expectations and Office 2007 is doing better than I thought it would."
The planned 2008 release of Windows Server should speed adoption of Vista, Tran believes, because executives like to upgrade individual computers and servers at the same time.
In addition, Microsoft is cracking down more aggressively on global piracy, which could spur the sale of more Windows and Office licenses. The company also plans to offer more premium editions of its software for clients who need for features, another possible revenue boost.
But several big-name companies have developed free software that could threaten Microsoft's stranglehold on the office software market.
Google Docs, the free Web-based offering from the search giant, has basic word processing and spreadsheet functions and allows easy sharing of documents. IBM (Charts, Fortune 500) is relaunching spreadsheet software Lotus Symphony as a free download, using the new Open Document Format standard, a favorite of governments.
"These new software packages are definitely more of a long-term threat - something that could happen five to seven years from now," said Tran. "Currently the online suites don't have the level of features that someone working in a business environment would need."
Can Microsoft ever be a growth stock again?
If Microsoft wants its stock to head significantly higher, analysts said the company is going to have to get a stronger foothold in markets like advertising and gaming.
Fortunately for investors, Microsoft pays a dividend that yields 1.5 percent, a healthy yield for a tech company. And Wall Street has a positive opinion of the company, with 29 of 38 analysts surveyed by Thomson One giving it at least a "buy" rating.
The stock also looks reasonably valued, trading at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 17.1, a discount to software rivals Oracle (Charts, Fortune 500) and SAP (Charts), which trade at 17.3 and 25.4 times next year's earnings estimates respectively.
Microsoft is more expensive than IBM, which trades at 15.8 times earnings estimates. But the slower-growth IBM is more than just a software company since it also has big hardware and services divisions.
Goldman Sachs' Friar has a 12-month price target of $37 on the company, which implies about 25 percent upside to its current price.
And Microsoft is starting to show some signs of healthier growth again. According to Thomson One, analysts expect earnings to increase 16 percent to $1.73 per share in fiscal 2008, which ends next June, and that sales will increase 12 percent to $57.3 billion.
"Microsoft faces a number of challenges, but we think the stock is a below-average-risk investment given the firm's dominant position in its major markets," wrote Tran.
It's no secret that the company is not going to return to its peak growth levels, but it still may have prosperous days ahead of it.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Windows Service Pack Craze!!! Now a XP SP3 Update
With the news of Vista Servic Pack 1 being released First Quarter 2008, and the beta possibly dropping in 2 weeks, Microsoft has quietly said Windows XP Service Pack 3 will be made available for download within the next 2 weeks!! Everyone got a taste of it few weeks ago when someone leaked a copy of it, but it look as if MS is gonna do this officially! Here is the news excerpt from Softpedia News, and I quote...........
"Now Microsoft has confirmed that the full beta of the service pack for Windows Vista will be available for download via Connect to some 10,000 to 15,000 testers. Additionally, the Redmond company also announced that the first actual beta of Windows XP SP3 will be delivered to all TechNet and Microsoft Developer Network subscribers. The third refresh for XP is planned for limited availability by mid September. At this point in time, Microsoft failed to reveal if a public beta of the service pack will be offered to users, in a manner similar to that of Windows Vista SP1.
However, unlike Vista SP1 which only now had its final availability date confirmed for the first quarter of 2008, Windows XP SP3 was scheduled all along for the first half of the coming year. In mid July, Microsoft delivered to a select pool of testers Windows XP SP3 pre-beta build 5.1.2600.3180 (xpsp.070718-2058). The version was subsequently leaked to peer-to-peer file sharing networks. Microsoft emphasized that the third service pack for Windows XP, as well as the first service pack for Windows Vista, would not impact considerably the users’ experience on each of the two operating systems. Still, XP SP3 is long overdue as Microsoft delayed the product from 2006, to 2007 and then to 2008. The last refresh, for Windows XP, SP2 was made available back in 2004."
"Now Microsoft has confirmed that the full beta of the service pack for Windows Vista will be available for download via Connect to some 10,000 to 15,000 testers. Additionally, the Redmond company also announced that the first actual beta of Windows XP SP3 will be delivered to all TechNet and Microsoft Developer Network subscribers. The third refresh for XP is planned for limited availability by mid September. At this point in time, Microsoft failed to reveal if a public beta of the service pack will be offered to users, in a manner similar to that of Windows Vista SP1.
However, unlike Vista SP1 which only now had its final availability date confirmed for the first quarter of 2008, Windows XP SP3 was scheduled all along for the first half of the coming year. In mid July, Microsoft delivered to a select pool of testers Windows XP SP3 pre-beta build 5.1.2600.3180 (xpsp.070718-2058). The version was subsequently leaked to peer-to-peer file sharing networks. Microsoft emphasized that the third service pack for Windows XP, as well as the first service pack for Windows Vista, would not impact considerably the users’ experience on each of the two operating systems. Still, XP SP3 is long overdue as Microsoft delayed the product from 2006, to 2007 and then to 2008. The last refresh, for Windows XP, SP2 was made available back in 2004."
Microsoft working on Mind-Reading Software
Microsoft researchers are working on a MIND-READING SYSTEM -- hardware and software that can "interface directly with the human brain." The company's R&D department has figured out how to use a "low-cost electroencephalograph" for "detecting specific forms of brain activity." Research papers associated with the project say that "knowing the state of the user as well as the tasks they are performing may provide key information that would allow us to design context sensitive systems that adapt themselves to optimally support the state of the user." The technology might also "know the precise intention of a user who searches for an ambiguous term."
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