Arsenal Linked With Shock £17m Move to Sign Real Madrid Legend

Emirates Stadium side keen to
bring in hugely experienced star
this summer.
Arsenal are reportedly ready to
make a shock move to sign Real
Madrid keeper Iker Casillas
according to the Daily Star .
The Bernabeu skipper has been
dropped in recent months and
enjoys a fractious relationship with
boss Jose Mourino, which may
lead some to believe that the one
club man could leave the La Liga
giants this summer.
This source claims a move for the
31 year old could cost the Gunners
up to £17m, which would break the
North London club’s transfer
record.
Though Lukasz Fabianski has
impressed since making a
comeback to the Arsenal first-
team, with Wojciech Szczesny
failing to impress this season,
Arsene Wenger is keen to bring in
an experienced custodian to field
behind his defence and there can
be few better keepers in the
business than Casillas.
Mourinho opted to bring in Diego
Lopez to beef up his goalkeeping
options and Casillas suffered a
hand injury to add further woes to
the Spanish international’s poor
season.
The World Cup and double
European Championship winner
has started just two La Liga
matches thus far in 2013 and was
dropped completely from Real
Madrid’s Champions League
quarter-final squad to face
Galatasaray last week.
Casillas is into his 14th season in
Real Madrid’s first team set-up
and has made over 650
appearances for Real Madrid,
helping them to five La Liga titles
and two Champions League
triumphs in the process.

Cristiano Ronaldo: "I have a lot to give to Real Madrid and the club can count on me"

"It is possibly the best form that
the team has been in this season",
said the Portuguese
Realmadrid.com
Cristiano Ronaldo came on in the
second half and scored the third
Real Madrid goal. The forward
spoke about his stats: "My aim is
always to help Real Madrid with
assists or goals. To be going at a
goal per match makes me very
happy, this is my profession and I
try to always do my best. I feel
good and I want to continue like
this until the end of the
championship. I still have a lot to
give to Real Madrid and the club
can count on me because I'm
always available. The important
thing is winning, playing and Real
Madrid, and my future does not
matter".
The Whites’ forward spoke about
the team’s form: "It is possibly the
best form that the team has been
in this season. We have a full
squad with everyone available and
that is very positive news, the
coach can pick the best team. We
have to respect his decisions. In
football many things are possible,
we have to have the desire to win
because it gives us a morale boost
for the Champions League".
About the next European match
against Galatasaray, he said: "It
will be a difficult match,
qualification is not guaranteed.
Three goals is a big lead, but we
have to go and play and score at
least one goal. We have to go step
by step, match by match, but I
think we have a good chance of
getting to the final".

Is Android in the business world to stay? Security, fragmentation concerns persist, but Android smartphone and tablet choice a big lure

It's official, and
it's been official for a while --
Android is far and away the most
popular smartphone OS in
America. Ever since January
2011, when the platform
surpassed RIM to take the top
spot for the first time in
comScore's monthly market share
rankings, Google's operating
system has continued to grow its
user base, which accounts for
52% of the market as of this
January.
This growth has been created on
the back of substantial software
upgrades, in the form of Ice
Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean
(Android 4.0 and 4.1,
respectively), as well as
increasingly impressive hardware
from OEMs like Samsung, HTC,
Sony, Motorola and LG. Last
year's Samsung Galaxy S III was
the first phone to dethrone the
iPhone in total quarterly sales in
years, according to research from
Strategy Analytics, though the
subsequent release of the iPhone
5 saw Apple retake the top spot
quickly thereafter.
[ DO'S AND DON'TS: Using
Android in business
IN PICTURES: 8 things you might
not know about Android ]
It's easy to find a host of reasons
for Android's ascendance among
consumers -- a wide variety of
devices offers more choice to
prospective buyers, stronger
hardware and bigger screens
appeal to fans of the latest and
greatest, and as of Android 4.0
and 4.1, the interface is arguably
more impressive than the latest
version of Apple iOS.
What's less simple, however, is
figuring out why that dominance
has taken such a long time to
translate into broader uptake in
the business world -- the
conventional wisdom is that the
iPhone supplanted the BlackBerry
as the enterprise smartphone of
choice thanks to its own wave of
popularity with the consumer,
which gave rise to the bring-
your-own-device phenomenon.
In contrast, Android has only
recently begun to become a
popular option for business
users, despite its ballooning
overall sales numbers. So what
gives?
New management, new use cases
For starters, the perception of
security issues in the Android
platform have limited its appeal
to businesses and made IT
departments jumpy about a large
number of Android devices
accessing the network.
However, the past year or so has
seen big changes in that state of
affairs, says Morten Grauballe, an
executive vice president in charge
of corporate development and
strategy at Red Bend Software,
which provides over-the-air
firmware update capability to
many top Android OEMs.
"Android had a disadvantage in
the enterprise compared to iOS
because iOS was just more
secure," Grauballe says. "What's
happened over the last 12
months is that the mobile device
management solutions that
evolved around both iOS and
Android ... [have] grown in
functionality when it comes to
supporting the devices, so I think
CIOs in enterprises are feeling
more comfortable letting Android
devices on their network."
Along with improved
manageability, Forrester analyst
David Johnson says that a new
crop of use cases is helping
broaden Android adoption in the
business world. One such new
application is what he calls
"Android-on-a-stick," which is
designed to provide a full
desktop experience for highly
mobile users like college students
and consultants.
"Basically it's a headless Android
device -- complete with quad-
core CPU, but it's on a stick that
has an HDMI end on it," Johnson
explains. "[Users] can plug it into
most any monitor or television
that has an HDMI port and it
works, but is powered by a USB
port. Embedded Bluetooth and
Wi-Fi allow it to connect to a
keyboard and mouse, and gain
access to a network."
Moreover, the idea of dedicated-
use consumer devices running
Android is beginning to get more
popular, he says.
"There is significant interest in
using low-cost, consumer-grade
tablets and smartphones for a
whole host of new uses, from
movie ticket scanning at the
theater front door, to electronic
on-board recorders (EOBR) for
truckers," according to Johnson.
"In applications where the device
needs to be fully ruggedized,
Android is preferred because
manufacturers can build the
devices precisely to suit the
need."
Custom devices aside, the cost
advantages of Android are
substantial for this type of
bespoke application, particularly
in the tablet sector. To give an
example: A Google Nexus 7
tablet, as of this writing, retails
for $200. That buys a 7-inch,
216ppi display, 16GB of storage
and 1GB of RAM. By contrast,
the cheapest iPad option
available, at $329, is the basic
version of the iPad Mini, which
has a larger but lower-resolution
screen and half as much
available RAM with the same
amount of storage.
Android popular now, but plenty
of future demand for Apple
A recent survey of nearly 10,000
global IT workers performed by
Forrester Research offers a clear
indication that Android adoption
in the enterprise has grown --
along with several statistics that
could mean that growth will be
short-lived.
According to the February Mobile
Workforce Adoption Survey,
Android has actually surpassed
Apple as the most-used type of
business smartphone, as shown
below:
Credit: Forrester Research
While that's clearly an important
milestone, particularly in light of
the fact that nearly half of
respondents said they used
smartphones in the course of
their duties, the study also found
that one-third of those wanted an
iPhone for their next work device,
compared to just 22% who
wanted an Android phone.
Credit: Forrester Research
Despite the aforementioned
economic advantages for Android
tablets, the business tablet world
still appears to be Apple's. The
iPad's usage share among
Forrester's respondents is more
than double the size of
Android's.
Credit: Forrester Research
The numbers also show that
Apple tablets are more desired by
the IT workers surveyed, by a
ratio of about 2:1. (As a side
note, there's a surprisingly large
amount of interest in Windows
tablets, outstripping both Android
and Apple.)

Clearly, while Google's platform
has made progress in the
business world, there are major
hurdles to overcome.
iOS users dipping toes into
Android
The case of one user, who
primarily uses iOS but has taken
baby steps toward Android
adoption, is illustrative. Banner
Engineering is a Minneapolis-
based manufacturer of industrial
equipment like sensors, machine
safety systems and wireless
controllers. The company's
enormous selection of available
products -- more than 30,000
individual SKUs -- means that
providing detailed information on
each one is a challenge for sales
representatives in the field.
   "The old story was our sales reps
and distributors would travel
around in their cars with trunk
loads full of literature and
product material," says IT
Director Kellie Christensen. "If
you go to a customer and they
ask about a certain product
application opportunity, you may
or may not have that material
handy."
Obviously, this was far from an
optimal solution, so Banner
embarked on a project that
brought these reams of
documentation to the digital
realm. The company now issues
iPads to sales staff, who can use
them as a reference and
presentation tool.
"One of our specialties is
[working] with our customer to
specialize products -- so we'll
have a standard product ... and if
they need a slight modification to
that product, or even an
extensive one, we work with that
customer to create what we call
product specials," Christensen
says.
With just one device
manufacturer to support, iOS
seemed like the logical choice.
"Internally, we chose iOS because
it's a lot more predictable, a lot
more secure. It's really been
quite easy for us to support," she
says. "We're a smaller shop, we
have a smaller IT group here, and
[Android] would just be too much
for us to support."
However, Banner works with
channel partners as well as its
own sales staff. And not all of
those partners wanted to use the
iPad. Christensen says that the
company used a third-party
developer to translate the app
over to Android.
The process was pleasantly
straightforward, she notes.
"It actually was fairly easy to
port [the app] over to Android
devices. The biggest thing that
we were dealing with from a
design standpoint was that the
screen was different ... and
making sure that those buttons
were still friendly to use and that
everything could be seen on the
screen," Christensen says.
Mobility vets: Don't sweat
security, fragmentation too much
CompanionLink Software
Marketing Director Rushang Shah
says that this multi-platform
environment has its own appeal
to businesses, complexity issues
aside.
"The business audience we've
always catered to is one that
values options more than being
tied into one system like Apple,"
he argues. "That is one of the
major drivers of Android's growth
in the business market --
business users want options."
CompanionLink has made mobile
device sync software since the
days of Palm OS. Shah says CEO
Wayland Bruns was one of about
30 people present at Palm's first
developer conference, 18 years
ago.
While the conventional wisdom
holds that the two main factors
holding back Android growth are
security and platform
fragmentation, Bruns and Shah
say they question how valid
those concerns still are.
According to Bruns, the issues
caused by the complexity of the
Android environment -- different
devices, different software
versions, etc. -- have been
evaporating of late.
The credit for this goes to Google,
he says. Ever since Android
versions 2.2 and 2.3 (Froyo and
Gingerbread), the company has
been energetically attacking
fragmentation problems.
          
"The API functions are better
than ever at allowing us to add a
new feature for new phones, and
still be able to run the same
software on older phones. Two
years ago, we were bombarded by
bugs and incompatibilities
related to obscure phone
models," Bruns says. "It has now
been months since we have had
such problems, even though we
support the older phones as well
as the newest Jelly Bean phones
and tablets."
As to security, Shah says, there's
nothing intrinsically less secure
about the Android platform than
iOS.
"Inherently, I don't think there's
anything about the Android
platform that's more risky than
iOS. Yeah, Apple has this aura of
'we lock down things' but ... it's
just as risky," he says.
Android/Chrome?
But will Android still be Android
tomorrow? Rumors that Google
would merge the mobile OS with
its growing Chrome ecosystem
started in earnest after the news
in mid-March that longtime
Android chief Andy Rubin would
be making way for Sundar Pichai,
who heads up Chrome and
Google Apps.
The answer, for the moment, is
yes, according to Google
Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt,
who said that the two products
would remain separate during a
recent trip to India.
That said, tight integration with
Google's existing product
infrastructure -- from Gmail to
Google + to any number of other
offerings -- has long been a
hallmark of Android, and further
blurring of the lines between
Chrome and Android is far from
impossible.

Facebook and Minnovation

Well, I don't
know about you but I was
pretty disappointed by
Facebook's announcement on
Thursday. I was expecting
something more meaty than
what Mark Zuckerberg,
Facebook's CEO, described as
"a set of apps."
Now perhaps I'm being a
little harsh as I know full well
my expectations were
artificially raised by the hype
and rumor mill that preceded
Thursday's announcement,
but, on the other hand, a set
of apps for Android called
Home? That's the big
announcement?
Given that Facebook is still
struggling to figure out how
to justify its IPO share price I
would have thought we'd get
something with a little more
"wow" factor. What we got is
a mobile-oriented Facebook
interface with "Chat
Heads" . . . pop-up
notifications with pictures.
Zzzzz.
Zuckerberg enthused: "On one
level, Home is the next
mobile version of Facebook.
On the other, it's a change in
the relationship with the next
generation of computing
devices." What utter
nonsense. But that's pretty
common nowadays; all of the
big players' "big"
announcements are now
merely iterations of existing
products.
So where's the next iPhone
coming from? Where's the
next iPod? Where's the
next ... I was going to cite
something from Microsoft but
it's been a long time since
Redmond produced a real
"wow!"
Perhaps the problem is we're
all out of innovation in the
computer products world.
Where the mass market is
concerned, the computer
industry has become
minimally innovative, or, if I
might coin a term, it has
become "minnovative"; it's
turned into a flood of tiny,
incremental improvements
and the reason is very
simple: For the majority of
the world, Windows XP was
and still is good enough.
Sure, the latest computer
hardware has staggeringly
fast processors and
unbelievably huge memory,
but we've reached the point
where, for most computer
users, last year's hardware
can run this year's
applications perfectly well
with cycles and storage to
spare. Indeed, hardware from
the year probably can too, or
even from the year before
that.
Those of us who can and
actually do use all of that
performance and dream of
having more do exist, but
we're a tiny minority. The rest
of the world's computer users
not only barely scratch the
potential of whatever
computer they use, they
barely understand what it is
they're using!
Even so, the hoi polloi are
eschewing regular desktops
and laptops in favor of
smartphones and pad
computers at a remarkable
rate for three main reasons:
The first is simplicity,
because managing one of
these new devices is generally
far simpler than managing
Windows, OS X or Linux. The
second reason is that apps
for iOS and Android are
cheap or free. And the third
reason is all of the fancier
stuff users might want to do
is out there in the endlessly
hyped "cloud," again for free
or dirt cheap.
But the truth is that precious
little of that fancier cloud
stuff isn't really that fancy.
It's more of the same old
stuff you can do on the old
and new hardware but
prettied up. It's got its new,
sexy party frock on, but it's
still dancing to the same old
tunes of word processing,
spreadsheets, databases,
image editing, email and
social media.
So, where's the real
innovation going to come
from? I have no idea, but I
know given Thursday's
performance, it ain't going to
be coming from Facebook.
Gibbs is underwhelmed in
Ventura, Calif. Does your
mileage differ? Tell him at
backspin@gibbs.com and
follow him on Twitter and
App.net (@quistuipater) and
on Facebook (quistuipater).

Facebook and Minnovation

Well, I don't
know about you but I was
pretty disappointed by
Facebook's announcement on
Thursday. I was expecting
something more meaty than
what Mark Zuckerberg,
Facebook's CEO, described as
"a set of apps."
Now perhaps I'm being a
little harsh as I know full well
my expectations were
artificially raised by the hype
and rumor mill that preceded
Thursday's announcement,
but, on the other hand, a set
of apps for Android called
Home? That's the big
announcement?
Given that Facebook is still
struggling to figure out how
to justify its IPO share price I
would have thought we'd get
something with a little more
"wow" factor. What we got is
a mobile-oriented Facebook
interface with "Chat
Heads" . . . pop-up
notifications with pictures.
Zzzzz.
Zuckerberg enthused: "On one
level, Home is the next
mobile version of Facebook.
On the other, it's a change in
the relationship with the next
generation of computing
devices." What utter
nonsense. But that's pretty
common nowadays; all of the
big players' "big"
announcements are now
merely iterations of existing
products.
So where's the next iPhone
coming from? Where's the
next iPod? Where's the
next ... I was going to cite
something from Microsoft but
it's been a long time since
Redmond produced a real
"wow!"
Perhaps the problem is we're
all out of innovation in the
computer products world.
Where the mass market is
concerned, the computer
industry has become
minimally innovative, or, if I
might coin a term, it has
become "minnovative"; it's
turned into a flood of tiny,
incremental improvements
and the reason is very
simple: For the majority of
the world, Windows XP was
and still is good enough.
Sure, the latest computer
hardware has staggeringly
fast processors and
unbelievably huge memory,
but we've reached the point
where, for most computer
users, last year's hardware
can run this year's
applications perfectly well
with cycles and storage to
spare. Indeed, hardware from
the year probably can too, or
even from the year before
that.
Those of us who can and
actually do use all of that
performance and dream of
having more do exist, but
we're a tiny minority. The rest
of the world's computer users
not only barely scratch the
potential of whatever
computer they use, they
barely understand what it is
they're using!
Even so, the hoi polloi are
eschewing regular desktops
and laptops in favor of
smartphones and pad
computers at a remarkable
rate for three main reasons:
The first is simplicity,
because managing one of
these new devices is generally
far simpler than managing
Windows, OS X or Linux. The
second reason is that apps
for iOS and Android are
cheap or free. And the third
reason is all of the fancier
stuff users might want to do
is out there in the endlessly
hyped "cloud," again for free
or dirt cheap.
But the truth is that precious
little of that fancier cloud
stuff isn't really that fancy.
It's more of the same old
stuff you can do on the old
and new hardware but
prettied up. It's got its new,
sexy party frock on, but it's
still dancing to the same old
tunes of word processing,
spreadsheets, databases,
image editing, email and
social media.
So, where's the real
innovation going to come
from? I have no idea, but I
know given Thursday's
performance, it ain't going to
be coming from Facebook.
Gibbs is underwhelmed in
Ventura, Calif. Does your
mileage differ? Tell him at
backspin@gibbs.com and
follow him on Twitter and
App.net (@quistuipater) and
on Facebook (quistuipater).

Windows 8.1: What's in a name (and why it matters) The name for this summer's first rapid-response OS upgrade raises questions on future support, licensing

The more
information that leaks about
Windows 8's expected
summer upgrade, dubbed
"Blue" by Microsoft, the more
questions that pop up,
analysts said today.
And with very few exceptions,
customers don't have
answers.
The latest tidbit about
Windows Blue -- disclosed
earlier this week -- was that
the upgrade would be named
"Windows 8.1," a convention
reminiscent of rival Apple's
system of numbering its
versions of OS X as, for
example, 10.7 for Lion, 10.8
for Mountain Lion.
Apple then adds a third
number to signal each
update. Mountain Lion, for
instance, is currently at
10.8.3 , meaning it has been
updated three times since its
July 2012 debut.
Calling the first upgrade
Windows 8.1 may not seem
important, but to analysts
well-versed in Microsoft-ese,
names matter.
"How you use numbers in
naming conventions is
important," argued M3
Sweatt, who works in a
Microsoft group aimed at
improving partner and
customer satisfaction, on
Twitter Tuesday.
The experts agreed:
Microsoft's licensing policies,
but more importantly its
support practices, are linked
to names, or more
specifically, name changes.
As soon as an enterprise
places newly-named Windows
Server software into
production, it must also
immediately update all CALs
(Client Access Licenses), the
rights required for individual
client PCs -- desktops,
notebook, tablets -- said Wes
Miller of Directions on
Microsoft.
That's why he and others at
the research firm believe that
Microsoft will not dare to
name an upgraded server OS
something like "Windows
Server 2013," but will instead
stick with "Windows Server
2012" as the name even after
the code also gets a Blue
project refresh this summer.
The most likely moniker is
Windows Server 2012 R2, the
analysts said, because the
"R2" designation has been
used before by Microsoft and
doesn't trigger the new-CAL
requirement.
On the desktop, licensing has
less effect, mainly because
relatively few enterprises
carry Software Assurance, the
annuity plan that provides
rights to future upgrades, on
the client OS. But there may
be some support fallout from
a name change.
Microsoft has historically
issued Service Packs (SP) for
Windows, collections of bug
fixes that sometimes also
include new features. Those
SPs always started a clock
that gave customers 24
months to upgrade from the
prior version -- either the
original, termed RTM, for
"release to manufacturing," or
an earlier service pack -- to
the new SP.
In fact, Microsoft will do just
that next week, as it retires
Windows 7 RTM and supports
only Windows 7 SP1, the
upgrade that launched in
early February 2011.
But SPs are apparently
persona non grata, to be
replaced by Blue and
Microsoft's plan to pick up
the release pace.

        So what happens for
support? No one knows.
"With Blue, does that mean to
get support on Window 8, I
have to have Blue?" asked
Michael Cherry, also of
Directions on Microsoft,
referring to the code name for
what will be Windows 8.1.
Rob Helm, another Directions
on Microsoft analyst, reeled
off more questions that
Windows 8.1, nee Blue,
poses.
"Is the new release going to
be required for support, like
service packs have been?"
Helm asked. "Will Microsoft
restart the [10-year] support
clock? Will Blue expire from
support the same day as
Windows 8, or will it expire a
year later than Windows 8?"
Historically, Microsoft has
supported Windows for at
least 10 years, with any
service packs hewing to the
original deadline. In other
words, while Windows 7 SP1
appeared 16 months after
Windows 7 RTM, the former
will fall off the support list
Jan. 14, 2020, the same date
originally pegged for soon-
to-be-retired Windows 7
RTM.
But the new and faster
Windows development may
not observe the older rules,
which is what concerns
Cherry, Helm and Miller.
"And what apps will be able
to run on Blue?" Helm
wondered. "Will some come
out that won't run without
Blue? Microsoft's done that
at times with service packs."
Questions, it seems are
plentiful, but answers are
not.
"This is all tied together,"
said Cherry. "And there are
no answers."
Microsoft has been mum,
even though it has
acknowledged Blue and said
it will now pursue a faster
development and upgrade
cadence, one that the
company's top public
relations executive called
"continuous" in a blog post
last week.
So enterprises remain in the
dark about Windows'
accelerated development.
Microsoft's core constituency
and its most important
revenue source, business,
already has reason to worry
about the faster pace: By
nature, corporations loath
operating system changes
because of their cost and
potential for disruption.
To be fair, few companies
have adopted Windows 8 for
anything more than small-
scale pilot programs, and
today's mystery could well be
solved tomorrow. And
psychologically, "Windows
8.1" will go down easier than
would have "Windows 9."
Still, the pattern of Microsoft
rushing where enterprises fear
to tread is troubling.
So much so that Microsoft
may find it hard selling the
quicker tempo to enterprises.
"They're going to [be] under
pressure to keep corporate
customers happy, and still
have a viable consumer OS
that keeps up with the fad of
the year," said Patrick
Moorhead, principal analyst
at Moor Insights & Strategy,
in an interview last week. "It's
going to be really tough."

Nonstop cloud computing price war: Amazon, Google both drop rates again

Just as
industry watchers have
predicted, the race to the
bottom for cloud computing
prices continues.
On Thursday, while
announcing that the beta tag
has been removed from the
Google Compute Engine
(GCE) cloud service, Google
also reduced prices for the
on-demand virtual machines
by 4% across the board.
Not to be outdone, about 12
hours later -- almost as if it
was waiting for a competitor
to make such a move --
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
announced a 26% drop in
prices for its Windows virtual
machines (VMs) on demand.
Take that Google, AWS
seemingly said.
[ MORE CLOUD: Amazon's
biggest competitor in the
cloud: Salesforce.com? ]
Like most of the price
reduction announcements
from AWS, the market-leading
cloud computing
infrastructure as a service
(IaaS) provider, this week's
announcement of a price drop
on AWS virtual machines
(VMs) applies to only a
subset of its services, this
time focusing on its Microsoft
Windows products.
Pricing for the default small
VM running Windows OS
dropped from $0.115 per
hour to $0.091 per hour, a
21% drop. Other Windows VM
types also fell in price, in
some cases by an even higher
percentage, including high-
memory (now $0.51 per
hour) and high-CPU (now $
0.225 per hour).
The news of AWS's price
reduction was seemingly in
response to the
announcement by Google that
same day of its Amazon-
competitor cloud. In a blog
post earlier in the day on
Thursday, Google engineers
said the beta tag has been
taken off the company's GCE.
The IaaS on-demand VM
service complements its
Google App Engine (GAE)
platform as a service (PaaS)
already available on the
market. Customers can now
use GCE without being invited
to do so by Google and
without special arrangements
from a salesperson, it said.
There is a catch though: It
requires a Gold support
package, which costs $400 a
month and includes 24/7
phone support and
consultation on architecting
the service.
As part of announcing the
semi-general availability of
its GCE, Google also
announced a 4% price
reduction of GCE prices. A
standard GCE VM now costs
$0.132 per hour, compared to
$0.138 previously -- a 4.3%
reduction in price. Though
slightly more expensive than
AWS's default VM, GCE's
standard single-core VM
packs more compute power
than AWS's standard VM
offering. GCE's base-level VM
comes with 3.75GB of
memory and 420GB of local
disk, while AWS's standard
offering comes with 160GB of
local storage and 1.7GB of
memory. Both AWS and GCE
offer high-capacity VM sizes
as well.
[ MORE: 100GB of free cloud
storage ... with a catch ]
In a blog post announcing its
price reduction on Windows
VMs, Amazon said the move
represents a focus the
company has on offering
Microsoft products and
services from its cloud. In
recent weeks the company
has also advanced support
for SQL Servers that run in its
cloud by adding new drivers
that increase performance
and the number of supported
volumes instances can
handle, for example.
The effort to focus on
Microsoft has been seen by
some as one piece of
Amazon's strategy to butter
up its cloud services to entice
enterprise buyers. Business
Insider recently reported that
Amazon is hiring sales reps
pushing into the enterprise
market faster than any other
company selling to the
enterprise, for example.
Network World senior writer
Brandon Butler covers cloud
computing and social
collaboration. He can be
reached at BButler@nww.com
and found on Twitter at @
BButlerNWW.
Originally published on
www.networkworld.com . Click
here to read the original
story .
Reprinted with permission
from NetworkWorld.com .
Story copyright 2012 Network
World, Inc. All rights
reserved.

Alonso, Ramos could still be charged

UEFA says it may yet charge
Real Madrid's Xabi Alonso and
Sergio Ramos with deliberately
picking up yellow cards during
Wednesday's 3-0 Champions
League quarter-final first leg
victory against Galatasaray.
- Train: Jose right to be wary
Alonso and Ramos were both
booked for dissent late in the
game, which means they can
serve bans in next Tuesday's
second leg in Istanbul, leaving
them free from the threat of
suspension for Madrid's
presumed Champions League
semi-final and possible final. It
has been alleged that the players
deliberately sought yellow cards,
although Ramos and Blancos
boss Jose Mourinho both denied
this after the game.
A UEFA source told AS on
Thursday that its Control and
Disciplinary Body would study
the report of referee Svein Oddvar
Moen before deciding whether or
not to act.
"We still have not made any
decision," the source said. "The
committee is waiting for the
referee's report. But even if
nothing is mentioned, there is
still a possibility that the control
body can act by themselves."
Englishman Barry Bright, who
was UEFA's delegate at the
Estadio Santiago Bernabeu on
Wednesday evening, could also
play a role in determining
whether charges are brought.
Alonso and Ramos picked up
similarly convenient late
bookings during a 2010-11
Champions League group game
at Ajax. A UEFA inquiry then
found they had attempted to
'play the system'. It handed out
extra one-game bans and fines
to both players, and to Mourinho,
for what was a more blatant
abuse of the rules.
The regulations around such
actions were tightened in June
2011, and the current UEFA
statute calls for "suspension for
two competition matches or for a
specified period for clearly
receiving a yellow or red card on
purpose". Proving intent may be
more difficult on this occasion,
but the committee regularly
makes similar judgements, for
example in relation to intentional
handballs and diving.
UEFA is also considering
sanctioning Madrid for allowing
Galatasaray fans in the
Bernabeu's away section to light
a significant number of flares
during the first half of the game.
A fine is expected, although AS
reported that the authorities may
be lenient with the La Liga club
as Spanish law prohibits security
staff from carrying out body
searches on fans entering the
stadium.

Marcelo signs new Real Madrid deal

Real Madrid left-back Marcelo has
agreed terms on a new three-year
extension with the club.
His previous deal was due to
expire in 2015 but the Brazilian
will now stay in Madrid until the
summer of 2018.
The new deal is worth a reported
£3.4m per year after tax and he
joins Angel di Maria as a long-
term fixture, with the Argentinian's
contract also expiring in 2018.
Marcelo has been at Real since
January 2007.

Apple is a change agent

“If you're going to try, go all
the way. Otherwise, don't even
start." -- Charles Bukowski
What's the difference between
impossible and improbable? If
you listen to the analysts,
Apple [AAPL ] faces an
impossible task maintaining
its record for disruption,
innovation and change. But is
this perception correct?
The doors of perception
Possibility is all about
perception, perhaps nothing
more than an inner projection
based on prior experience or
opinion. Defying the
conventional limitations of the
possible isn't easy, but
humans do it daily: the Moon
Landings; fire walking by the
Sawau clan; Aron Ralston's
survival of a mountain fall.
In his attempt to explain the
human capacity to achieve the
impossible, Nietzsche
imagined the Overman, a
person who could become fully
actualized in the here and
now.
So is Apple ready to actualize?
The company has frequently
succeeded in delivering
solutions that defined an
industry. History shows it
doesn't always get there first,
but history also shows it then
delivers elegant, effective
solutions that define those
sectors it does enter.
The Macintosh spawned the
PC.
The iPod defined digital music
players -- and still does.
The iPhone ignited the
smartphone explosion.
The iPad remains the only
tablet most people want.
Were these achievements
impossible, improbable or
unlikely?
The new familiars
Design supremo, Jony Ive, has
described (to paraphrase) how
well designed devices fit so
snugly into a user's existence
that the user gets the
sensation their new electronic
gadget has always been there.
With that in mind it's hard to
define the probability of any
device through its present
existence: you need to cast
your mind back to before the
device got there.
Take the iPhone: before its
introduction everyone knew
Apple was working on a
phone, but no one could quite
foresee what it would be.
The introduction of an elegant
touch-based user interface
within a phone design then
streets ahead of anything else
available to the market won
praise and criticism. But few
could imagine the nature of
the product before it arrived.
We spent the months previous
to the introduction reading
endless rumor reports, opinion
columns and positive and
negative analyst and industry
comment.
We're at a similar point today.
Why?
Shock of the new
We believe Apple has a raft of
products in development, but
we don't know what they will
consist of -- we have rumor,
conjecture and opinion on
devices that haven't once been
fully described.
These example headlines
suggest what's being said:
Apple focused on iOS 7
development as new products
loom
Apple plans summer iPhone
release, second model follows
--WSJ
iPad price cuts: A signal Apple
is about to release new ones
Apple iTV 60-inch television to
launch this year, analyst says
AAPL: ‘iWatch’ Coming This
Year, Says Topeka
Apple planning summer launch
for iRadio?
Each of these products and
services has generated
massive speculation.
Analysts, critics, fans and
pundits like yours truly have
pontificated, proselytized and
panned them, pulling them to
pieces as effectively as a
horse-torn execution at the
court of Ghengis Khan.
That's despite us knowing
nothing substantial about any
of these new products or
services.
The iPhone 5S may have NFC;
The iPhone mini may be
available in colors;
The (perhaps) 50-inch Apple
television may be controlled
by "The Precious," aka,
"iRing."
We don't know for sure. Just
like that time before launch of
iPhone, we're in a new realm
of doubt and uncertainty.
Those who can't...
We do know that without the
assistance of Gordon Ramsey,
there's something cooking in
Cupertino's kitchens. We
recognize competitors are
waiting to be "inspired" by
whatever dishes the company
serves up.
What we don't know is what
they will offer.
We can't be certain Apple will
deliver whizz-bang new
features/services within these
new products. These things
might simply exist as
extensions to what is here
already.
Despite all the unknowns,
there's plenty of anticipation
and a goodly chunk of pent up
demand for these new
electronic toys.
So what's Wall Street's
response as Apple rests in the
catbird seat for future
opportunity?
Apple Has Become a Lemon;
Can It Make Lemonade?
Inside the box
There's an adage about
teachers (one I consider
unfair), which is: "Those who
can, do. Those who can't,
teach."
In this case, Apple is preparing
to execute while Wall Street
sells on the rumor in hope,
perhaps, of buying on the
news.
Some might see events around
Apple as comprising a losing
battle for mobile market share
and a desperate attempt to
introduce new products
designed to transform new
industries.
Others might remark that
industry watchers are unable
to take the imaginative leap it
will take to consider just
what's possible in Apple's new
product fleet.
You don't achieve the
impossible by sticking to the
rules, using tried and tested
tools, or staying safe within
the box. You need the
commitment to go all the way,
or else you shouldn't even
start.
I suspect we're about to see
some of the other things Apple
has been working on across
the last decade.

Google takes on FBI, fighting against National Security Letter

Google is taking on the FBI by
challenging a National
Security Letter that demanded
a user’s private data. The
Mountain View giant
petitioned the court to “set
aside legal process” on March
29. The petition was filed
under seal in San Francisco
with the same U.S. District
Court Judge Susan Illston who
recently ruled (pdf ) that NSLs
coming with a gag order are
unconstitutional.
Just a few weeks ago, on
behalf of a
telecommunications company,
the EFF had challenged the
constitutionality of NSLs that
come with a gag order . . .
97% of them are delivered with
that stipulation. On March 14,
Judge Illston ruled that the
NSL gag order requirements
“significantly infringe on
speech regarding controversial
government powers.” Such
NSLs "violate the First
Amendment and separation of
powers principles." She further
ordered the FBI to stop issuing
NSLs and to stop enforcing the
gag provision “in this or any
other case." Her decision was
stayed for 90 days in order to
give the Justice Department
an opportunity to appeal.
Last month, on March 5,
Google published a new
transparency report that
disclosed a summary range of
0 – 999 NSLs it had received
from the FBI for each year
from 2009 to 2012. Google
Legal Director Richard Salgado
wrote , "Our users trust Google
with a lot of very important
data, whether it’s emails,
photos, documents, posts or
videos. We work exceptionally
hard to keep that information
safe." He explained:
When conducting national
security investigations,
the U.S. Federal Bureau
of Investigation can issue
a National Security Letter
(NSL) to obtain
identifying information
about a subscriber from
telephone and Internet
companies. The FBI has
the authority to prohibit
companies from talking
about these requests. But
we’ve been trying to find
a way to provide more
information about the
NSLs we get—particularly
as people have voiced
concerns about the
increase in their use since
9/11.
It was a bold move and the
first time a company released
such data. By deciding to fight
an NSL, Google takes another
big first in the fight for users’
rights and a move against
government secrecy.
Bloomberg reported :
Google filed a petition to
set aside a “legal process”
pursuant “to 18 U.S.C.
Section 3511 (a) and (b),”
according to a March 29
filing in federal court in
San Francisco seeking a
court order to seal its
request. Petitions “filed
under Section 3511 of
Title 18 to set aside legal
process issued under
Section 2709 of Title 18
must be filed under seal
because Section 2709
prohibits disclosure of the
legal process,” Kevan
Fornasero, Google’s
lawyer, said in the filing.
Marc Rotenberg, president and
executive director EPIC, told
Bloomberg, “We are in this
interesting in-between moment
in which the government is
still able to enforce its
authority. I suspect that this
filing is an effort to push the
issue further.”
In the past, very few entities
have challenged NSLs. Calyx
Institute Founder Nick Merrill
did on behalf of a small ISP;
after fighting the Patriot Act
and winning, Merrill has
promised privacy when he
launches a surveillance-free
ISP. The librarians also
challenged an NSL as did an
“ unknown tech company ” last
year. In fact, of the 300,000
NSLs issued since 2000, “only
four or five recipients have
challenged the letters.” EFF
attorney Matt Zimmerman
said, “The people who are in
the best position to challenge
the practice are people like
Google.”
Neither the FBI, nor Google
have publicly commented yet
on the NSL fight.

Another, um, satisfied customer

Tech quits his job in this IT
department, so someone has
to pick up his support duties
-- and this pilot fish draws the
assignment.
"There was not much to do,"
fish admits. "I did that for a
year and got one phone call in
all that time.
"About 12 months in, the task
was moved to someone else.
Six months after that I got a
call from a supervisor who
couldn't find the help-desk
person but found me and
would like to chase the
progress on an open ticket one
of his staff has pending."
Fish is ready to grumble, but
instead he pulls up the
ticketing system and checks
the supervisor's ticket number.
Turns out the problem
description on the ticket is
pretty vague, but it can't be all
that dire -- it was assigned
nearly two years ago to the
guy who quit, and the user
never followed up with fish
during the year he was in the
crosshairs.
Still, fish says he's happy to
follow up with the user and
see what can be done. The
supervisor gives fish the user's
phone number, which wasn't
on the trouble ticket, and a
few minutes later the user is
telling fish that he can't make
his mainframe terminal work.
Fish: "Do you get anything on
the screen at all?"
User: "I don't know."
Fish: "Any messages? Splash
screens? Legal disclaimers?"
User: "I don't know."
Fish: "Where is the terminal
compared to where you are
sitting? Can you see it?"
User: "Yes. It's in front of me."
Fish: "Is it switched on?"
User: "I don't know."
Fish: "Can you see any lights
on the terminal? Blinking
lights?"
User: "Yes."
Fish: "OK, press the XMIT key."
User: "OK. Done."
Fish: "Is there a message on
the screen now?"
User: "I don't know."
Fish: "You can see the
screen?"
User: "Yes."
Fish: "Well, is there anything
written on it?"
User: "I don't know."
Fish: "You are looking directly
at the screen right now and
you don't know what's written
on it?"
User: "Yes."
Fish: "What color is it?"
User: "I don't know."
"I was aware we had a couple
of blind field workers on staff,
but this one told me more
than once he could see the
screen so that couldn't be an
issue," says baffled fish. "I
suddenly realized what it was
that our former support guy
forgot to do before he left.
"I told the user to leave it with
us, hung up and marked the
ticket 'resolved.' Then I passed
a note to the new help-desk
guy, because I didn't hate him.
"But to my knowledge, years
later, no one has followed up
on the follow-up."

Windows Phone still fails in the enterprise, says Citrix report

Windows Phone still hasn't
managed the crack the
enterprise, and has only a 7%
share in new adoptions in
corporations, according to a
recent report by Citrix. That
number hasn't budged since
the last report, showing
Microsoft still hasn't managed
to figure out how get
corporations to buy into the
platform.
The report only includes iOS,
Android, and Windows Phone/
Windows Mobile devices,
leaving out BlackBerry, which
means that Windows Phone
(and iOS and Android) true
share of the enterprise market
is smaller than the report
shows. Citrix compiled the
report based on data it
gathered from customers who
use Citrix cloud-based
enterprise mobility
management tools. BlackBerry
has its own means of
deployment, and so isn't
included in the report.
The report says that Microsoft
has a 7% market share in new
adoptions, compared to 58%
for iOS and 35% for Android.
iOS gained two points
compared to last quarter, while
Android lost two points, and
Windows Phone/Windows
Mobile was unchanged.
The news wasn't all bad for
Windows Phone/Windows
Mobile. It dominates the oil
and gas industry, with more
than 90% of new adoptions,
and has more than 10% of new
adoptions in the utilities
industry.
But that's about all the good
news. In no other industry
does it have a 10% market
share, and in many industries,
its numbers are so minimal
they don't even show up on
the charts Citrix put together.
The Citrix report also
examined blacklisted apps,
which enterprises ban, and
whitelisted apps, which
enteprises favor. Interestingly,
Microsoft's Skype made both
lists.
The numbers are not just bad
news for Windows Phone, but
for Windows 8 and Windows
RT as well. Microsoft is
attempting to put together a
single integrated ecosystem
spanning all those platforms.
The Citrix numbers show that
it's not working, and that
could hurt Windows 8 and
Windows RT adoption in the
enterprise as well. It's also a
sign that the strategy of
having a single unified
interface among all the
platforms hasn't paid off in
the way that Microsoft had
hoped, either.