Business News Holding

Blog

  • iPhone: Not A Top 20 Handset For Browsing And Buying On The Mobile Web


    The iPhone sits outside the top 20 when it comes to the most popular phones for browsing and buying content on the mobile web worldwide.

    Nokia’s 3110c is the top handset, followed by the Samsung M800 and then Nokia’s 6300, according to statistics released today by Bango. The iPhone appears as 24th on the list.

    The data represents the activities of major brands and businesses as their consumers browse to mobile websites and buy mobile content and services.

    Ray Anderson, CEO of Bango, said the stats will be of interest to businesses that monetize their mobile content and services across a wide demographic as spending by iPhone users is restricted to the Apple App Store.

    Bango detected a total of 1,811 different types of handsets accessing the mobile Internet in just one month (February).

    The Bango Top 20 Handset chart shows that smartphones account for 30 per cent of handsets in the Top 20.

    "The iPhone has done a lot to encourage people to browse the internet on their phones," said Anderson.

    "But to get the most out of their mobile marketing spend, companies who are riding the iPhone wave, attracted by its excellent features and user demographics, need to optimize their mobile websites for all phones.

    "Without this, they will be missing out on the mass market."

    Anderson said marketers need to choose their best channel to market and consider sales projections from the leading manufacturers.

    Based on the number of handsets projected to be sold by the end of 2009, outside of Japan and Korea, he said Nokia is the leader with sales of the S60 likely to reach 300m, followed by Windows Mobile and iPhone at 40m, RIM at around 25m and Google around 5m.

    "What is clear is that mobile marketers need to better understand their users," he said.

  • ADVERTORIAL: Record-breaking Attendance Expected At East Africa Com


    More than 600 telco leaders are due to attend East Africa’s premier learning and networking event which gets underway on Wednesday.

    East Africa Com is a two-day, multi-streamed conference with a 40+ stand networking exhibition.

    The conference is the only event to represent the East African region and evolved from the highly successful GSM>3G World Series.

    Any biz-news subscribers taking the opportunity to reserve last-minute tickets will receive a 25 per cent discount (details below).

    Among the speaker panel of 37 are 19 operator CxOs and ministers, including:

    • Raed Haddidin, Commercial Director, East Africa Region, Zain Group
    • Michael Joseph, CEO, Safaricom, Kenya Peter Reinartz, Deputy-CEO,
    • Orange Telkom Kenya Tushar Maheshwari, CCO, Warid Telecom Uganda Ali
    • Bin Jarsh, CEO, Canar Telecom Sudan Noel Herrity, Director General,
    • Zantel, Tanzania Nkateko Nyoka, Chief Officer: Regulatory and
    • Government Relations, Vodacom Group Shiletsi Makhofane, Acting Chief
    • Executive Officer, Africa Online Holdings Deng Malok, Managing
    • Director, Bilpam Telecommunications Co. Ltd, Sudan Charles J.K
    • Njoroge, Director-General, Communications Commission of Kenya Joe
    • Kimani, CEO, Flashcom, Kenya

    Part of the Com World Series, the conference reflects the changing mobile communications market, where previously well defined boundaries between wireless and fixed technologies and providers are becoming increasingly blurred.

    The organisers, Informa Telecoms & Media, say that broadening the remit allowed attendees to benefit from a more all-encompassing prospective whilst still delivering focused, actionable and incisive intelligence.

    "Moreover, our technology agnostic stance embraces the global nature of the changes the market is experiencing but is careful to apply it specifically to our markets to allow a 360 degree view of the future landscape within the distinct territories in which we operate," according to the organisers.

    Among the innovations this year are:

    • New Keynote sessions, by popular demand, extra plenary speakers on the
    • morning and closing afternoon – your chance to hear directly from even more C-
    • level speakers
    • More interactive sessions: more engaging panels, Q+A and industry debate to
    • ensure the most productive use of your time
    • New topics: convergence, broadband strategies, value-added services backed
    • by our in-depth analysis
    • More of the region’s telecommunications ecosystem represented; more ISPs,
    • more fixed and wireless operators, more CxOs, all under one roof for you to
    • meet and do business with

    To take advantage of the biz-news subscriber discount, email [email protected] and quote "Biz News" for your 25 per cent discount off the ticket price.

    Conference details:
    East Africa Com
    1 – 2 April 2009
    Nairobi, Kenya
    www.comworldseries.com/eafrica

    View the very latest agenda

    Join our group on Linked-In

    —————————
    Other dates for your diary:
    —————————

    West & Central Africa Com 17-18 June 2009 – Abuja, Nigeria

    North Africa Com 27-28 October 2009 – Cairo, Egypt

    Africa Com – 18-19 November 2009 – Cape Town, South Africa

    View all ComWorldSeries 2008 events

  • Skype Announces iPhone App,Video Calling Coming Soon?


    STORY UPDATED: see below

    Skype is now available for the iPhone – and will be coming to BlackBerry in May.

    The VoIP app on the iPhone is intended to only work over Wi-Fi and not 3G. It will allow iPhone subscribers to use phone numbers in their existing iPhone address book – without the need for duplicate lists.

    As always, it allows free calls between Skype users and charges for calls to landlines or mobiles.

    The VoIP app allows iPhone subscribers to use the phone numbers in their existing iPhone address book – without the need for duplicate lists.

    News of the VoIP client coming to the iPhone and Blackberry was first reported by Gigaom ahead of this week’s mobile-centric CTIA conference in Las Vegas.

    The application for the BlackBerry platform will work in a similar fashion to that for the iPhone.

    The iPhone and Blackberry apps are being seen as part of Skype’s efforts to expand beyond its PC stronghold.

    Skype Chief Operating Officer Scott Durchslag said getting the app onto the iPhone was the top request from customers.

    He said there was "pent-up demand" for the service on the Apple handset.

    Skype has already been announced for Nokia and Android phones, as wel as handset operating Windows Mobile.

    The service will also work on later versions of Apple’s latest iPod Touch device, which has Wi-Fi links but no cellular connection.

    While Skype video is very popular with desktop customers, Durchslag said that the company is still considering whether it will offer video for the iPhone or other phones.

    "We’re considering video carefully but we have a really high bar on the quality," and how the user interaction will work with other applications on iPhone, he said. "If we do it we will have to do it incredibly well."

    Some other pieces of functionality are missing.

    While Skype is certain its native client will provide superior audio quality – there is no need to route through another server and transcode audio – the app is missing text messaging, file transfers and integrated voice mail.

    This will undoubtedly help multi-function apps like Fring and NimBuzz maintain a healthy presence on the iPhone, which famously doesn’t allow for multiple programs running concurrently.

    UPDATE: Since being released on Tuesday it has emerged that Skype on iPhone does works over 3G, despite being intended only for use with WiFi.

    Users report it working over the 3G data connection if the beta 3.0 firmware is being run.

    Since VoIP over the 3G cellular is clearly forbidden in the SDK rules, it’s obviously due to a bug on 3.0 that it works.

    This raises the question of how long it will be before Apple closes the hole?

    But also, how did was the app "approved" and certified by for the App Store without first "testing" if Skype would work on the 3G connection?

  • ADVERTORIAL: Record-breaking Attendance Expected At East Africa Com


    More than 600 telco leaders are due to attend East Africa’s premier learning and networking event which gets underway on Wednesday.

    East Africa Com is a two-day, multi-streamed conference with a 40+ stand networking exhibition.

    The conference is the only event to represent the East African region and evolved from the highly successful GSM>3G World Series.

    Any biz-news subscribers taking the opportunity to reserve last-minute tickets will receive a 25 per cent discount (details below).

    Among the speaker panel of 37 are 19 operator CxOs and ministers, including:

    • Raed Haddidin, Commercial Director, East Africa Region, Zain Group
    • Michael Joseph, CEO, Safaricom, Kenya Peter Reinartz, Deputy-CEO,
    • Orange Telkom Kenya Tushar Maheshwari, CCO, Warid Telecom Uganda Ali
    • Bin Jarsh, CEO, Canar Telecom Sudan Noel Herrity, Director General,
    • Zantel, Tanzania Nkateko Nyoka, Chief Officer: Regulatory and
    • Government Relations, Vodacom Group Shiletsi Makhofane, Acting Chief
    • Executive Officer, Africa Online Holdings Deng Malok, Managing
    • Director, Bilpam Telecommunications Co. Ltd, Sudan Charles J.K
    • Njoroge, Director-General, Communications Commission of Kenya Joe
    • Kimani, CEO, Flashcom, Kenya

    Part of the Com World Series, the conference reflects the changing mobile communications market, where previously well defined boundaries between wireless and fixed technologies and providers are becoming increasingly blurred.

    The organisers, Informa Telecoms & Media, say that broadening the remit allowed attendees to benefit from a more all-encompassing prospective whilst still delivering focused, actionable and incisive intelligence.

    "Moreover, our technology agnostic stance embraces the global nature of the changes the market is experiencing but is careful to apply it specifically to our markets to allow a 360 degree view of the future landscape within the distinct territories in which we operate," according to the organisers.

    Among the innovations this year are:

    • New Keynote sessions, by popular demand, extra plenary speakers on the
    • morning and closing afternoon – your chance to hear directly from even more C-
    • level speakers
    • More interactive sessions: more engaging panels, Q+A and industry debate to
    • ensure the most productive use of your time
    • New topics: convergence, broadband strategies, value-added services backed
    • by our in-depth analysis
    • More of the region’s telecommunications ecosystem represented; more ISPs,
    • more fixed and wireless operators, more CxOs, all under one roof for you to
    • meet and do business with

    To take advantage of the biz-news subscriber discount, email [email protected] and quote "Biz News" for your 25 per cent discount off the ticket price.

    Conference details:
    East Africa Com
    1 – 2 April 2009
    Nairobi, Kenya
    www.comworldseries.com/eafrica

    View the very latest agenda

    Join our group on Linked-In

    —————————
    Other dates for your diary:
    —————————

    West & Central Africa Com 17-18 June 2009 – Abuja, Nigeria

    North Africa Com 27-28 October 2009 – Cairo, Egypt

    Africa Com – 18-19 November 2009 – Cape Town, South Africa

    View all ComWorldSeries 2008 events

  • Avaya Announces SIP Architecture That Connects Users, Applications and Systems


    Avaya today announced the launch of a new SIP-based architecture that integrates communications across multi-vendor, multi-location and multi-modal businesses.

    Called Aura, the company said it is centered on the new open standards Aura Session Manager, which centralizes communications control and application integration.

    Session Manager orchestrates a wide array of communications applications and systems by decoupling applications from the network.

    The software simplifies complex communications networks, reduces infrastructure costs and delivers voice, video, messaging, presence, Web applications to employees anywhere.

    Kevin Kennedy, CEO and president Avaya

    Kevin Kennedy, president and CEO of Avaya, said that as a result, services can be deployed to users depending on what they need rather than by where they work or the capabilities of the system to which they are connected.

    He said Session Manager instantly reduces complexity and provides the foundation for broader unified communications strategies.

    "With Avaya Aura, organizations can achieve rapid returns on their business communications investment, while simplifying the development and deployment of applications that improve operational performance," he said.

    "We’ve seen some organizations use SIP routing to reduce trunking costs by 20 to 60 per cent.

    "With this new architecture, for the first time, the way we communicate is defined by the applications and the user, not the network."

    Avaya Aura will be available globally in May 2009.

    The company said Avaya Aura offers the following benefits:

    • Ability to create new applications and quickly extend them to users anywhere
    • Map applications to individual employee profiles, making the appropriate features globally available regardless of the location, system or device to which they are connected
    • Reduce costs through centrally managed, enterprisewide dial plans and on-net calling, global least-cost routing and PSTN access from the most cost-effective location.
    • Eliminate local application servers and optimize software licensing across the full breadth of the enterprise rather than for a single location
    • Massively scale to 250,000 business users and 25,000 locations.

  • VOICECON: 8×8 Intros Enterprise Version of Hosted IP PBX Service


    8×8 today announced the availability of an enterprise version of its hosted IP PBX phone service.

    The solution is intended for deployment in larger organizations located in either a single building, a campus environment or distributed across multiple locations.

    Called 8×8 Virtual Office Enterprise, it is the latest generation of 8×8’s broadband agnostic hosted IP PBX business phone solutions.

    Bryan Martin, 8×8 chairman and CEO, said that unlike premise-based PBX phone systems that require a significant financial investment plus management and maintenance resources, the business phone solution delivers advanced PBX calling features combined with cost-effective IP dial tone service.

    He said this eliminated the need for expensive on-site equipment.

    "Core enhancements to the Virtual Office hosted PBX platform and additional redundancy in our network now enable us to offer this solution to larger organizations that are analyzing the cost and functionality of their current telecommunications infrastructure alongside a requirement for high quality, availability and redundancy from this mission critical service," he said.

    8×8 recently upgraded its service infrastructure, deploying a new triple redundant architecture across three independent data centers with each data center connected to redundant IP access providers.

    Martin said this new architecture allows for failure of any software component, server, cluster or even a complete data center failure without affecting service to the end customer.

  • Hitachi Beats Competitors with Fastest Midrange Storage System


    Hitachi Data Systems Corporation has announced that its next-generation midrange storage platform, the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage (AMS) 2000 Family, achieved overall best-in-class Storage Performance Council (SPC-1) benchmark results for a midrange storage system.

    In SPC-1 benchmark testing, the Hitachi AMS 2500 achieved the fastest throughput results among all midrange storage competitors with dual controllers.

    It had a throughput result of 89,491.81 SPC-1 IOPS and an 8.98 millisecond average response time.

    Mike Walkey, senior vice president of channels, Hitachi Data Systems, said that with key business applications such as Microsoft Exchange, SQL, Oracle, SAP or any other online transactional processing application, the AMS 2500 allows users to more effectively scale their workloads at a best-in-class price point.

    The Hitachi AMS 2100 achieved among the best SPC-1 Price-Performance ratio in its class at $5.95/SPC-1 IOPS.

    Walkey said it brought high performance to a new affordable price level and allowing customers to realise a lower total cost of ownership.

    He said that with companies scrambling to find ways to manage data growth without increasing storage expenses or performance penalties, this price-performance ratio reiterated Hitachi’s efforts to help customers establish a path towards optimising their storage environment.

    This results in greater return on their storage asset investments and lower overall power and cooling consumption.

  • Cloudera Aims To Capture Data Center Market With Hadoop Cloud Solution


    A startup software dealer is bringing cloud-computing technology used by the likes of Yahoo, Facebook and Google to regular enterprise data centers.

    Silicon Valley-based Cloudera plans to make big data-processing capabilities accessible and affordable for all companies, writes Samantha Sai for storage.biz-news.

    Mike Olson, CEO of Cloudera, said Hadoop is a cloud-computing technology used to store and process petabytes of data on systems consisting of hundreds or even thousands of servers.

    "Processing this kind of big data has been too expensive or too technically difficult for all but the most sophisticated IT organizations until now," he said.

    IDC speculates that the global IT expenditure on cloud services will expand approximately threefold in the next 2-3 years, when it is estimated to total USD $42 billion and account for close to 9 per cent of revenues in five important market sectors.

    IDC also predicts that expenditure on cloud computing will pick up pace throughout the next 2-3 years, and will most likely secure 25 per cent of IT spending growth in 2012.

    This is expected to grow the following year and capture at least a 1/3rd of the market.

    David Smith, Gartner’s vice president, thinks that cloud computing still has some way to go and the competition is just starting.

    "Cloudera is not the only company supporting Hadoop. HP is doing a lot of work with Hadoop, as is Yahoo," he said.

    However, there is a major difference between Cloudera and the others like Yahoo.

    Cloudera is set up as a specific one-stop shop for the free Java software structure that presently sanctions the cloud.

    Christophe Bisciglia, Cloudera’s founder and former manager of Google’s Hadoop cluster, said that listening to the community, he consistently hears that Hadoop installation, configuration, and deployment needs to be easier.

    "That’s the primary reason why we built the Cloudera distribution for Hadoop," he said.

    "But furthermore, a distribution fosters community growth by providing a common platform to share code, experience and, most importantly, innovation."

    Cloudera’s latest Web-based configuration tool will facilitate enterprises to produce custom-tailored packages that meet their exact wants.

    In addition, Cloudera is making a preconfigured VMware image liberally offered for assessment and use with the company’s complimentary online teaching.

    "The Cloudera distribution of Hadoop gives you the same tools you already know to provide standardized packaging and automatic configuration," said Bisciglia.

    He said that Cloudera’s sharing of Hadoop has always been founded on a established code of reliability.

    "We enable users to limit upgrades to major project milestones built on code that is tried, trusted, and proven reliable," he said.

    Finally, there will always be a few users who will need assistance in setting up and using the software for some critical adventures and this is where Cloudera will make up the money.

    "These enterprises need a company to stand behind the package, and help them find and fix problems when they come up," said Olson.

  • Storage Market Slows, Modest Growth Forecast


    Well, it was only a matter of time. The data storage market has slowed down – and much more than anticipated, writes Samantha Sai for storage.biz-news.

    IDC revealed last week that global external disk storage systems’ factory revenues dropped by a half per cent in the fourth quarter.
    This is the first quarterly drop for data storage in more than 5 years.

    According to IDC, EMC, HP, Dell and Hitachi did grow a little in the last quarter, as expected.

    However, IBM, NetApp and Sun Microsystems all posted year-over-year sales declines.

    In the 4th quarter, external system revenues dropped slightly to USD $5.3 billion, while the total disk storage system market dropped 5.9 per cent to USD $7.3 billion chiefly due to limitations in server system sales.

    The other big decline was seen in the total disc storage system capacity, which peaked at 2,460 petabytes, a growth of only 27.3 per cent, but this was down by 50 per cent compared to the growth rate in the past.

    Natalya Yezkhova, IDC research manager for storage systems, said: "Because of the global economic crisis, the last quarter of 2008 was tough for the disk storage systems market, resulting in a market decline from the same quarter last year."

    She said that high-end storage sales were upset by a chill in the end-user expenditures and longer acquisition cycles.

    But some low-end and midrange storage sectors have continued to sale well, "as end users broadened their search for storage solutions in these lower-cost segments to satisfy their increasing storage needs while optimizing investments in storage infrastructure."

    EMC continues to hold the leadership with its external systems market share lead of nearly 23.3 per cent of revenue in the fourth quarter, followed by IBM and HP, with 15.7 per cent and 13 per cent respectively.

    Dell did not fare well and ended the quarter in the fourth position with a 9.3 per cent share.

    Hitachi and NetApp followed with 7 per cent growth, while Sun had 5.2 per cent.

    In the Open SAN market, which only grew 2.2 per cent, EMC was again in the lead with 24.2 per cent of the market.

    IBM followed next with 16.5 per cent.

    The NAS market has grown steadily and recorded a 8.6 per cent rise.

    Again, EMC led the pack with 43.8 per cent, followed by NetApp at 24.1 per cent.

    The sum network disk storage market (NAS combined with Open SAN) grew a modest 3.6 pe cent to USD $4.1 billion in revenues.

    EMC again claimed a 28.6 per cent revenue share, followed by IBM at 14.5 per cent.

    So what are the expectations for the rest of 2009?

    Enterprise Strategy Group and IDC both speculate a modest growth of 2-3 per cent for both the data storage industry overall IT spending.

    In an industry, which has always seen green, adjustment to single digit profits may not sit well for many people.

  • Will HP and Dell Follow Xyratex And Support Savvio's SFF HDDs?


    Xyratex recently announced support for Seagate’s Savvio 15K.2 and Savvio 10K.3 Small Form Factor (SFF) enterprise hard disk drives.

    As a result, Seagate’s Savvio 2.5 inch hard drives have been completely incorporated into Xyratex’s OneStor SP1224s, 2U 24 drive storage system, writes Samantha Sai for storage.biz-news.

    Currently, this is the only fully integrated external storage subsystem to convey the high-performing, energy resourceful drives for enterprise storage systems.

    Xyratex says that when compared to the standard 3.5-inch drives, these SFF drives burn up less power with twice the functioning density.

    The company says this makes the OneStor SP1224s perfect for transaction-intensive use, allowing consumers to get enhanced time to data devoid of any penalties with decreased capacity or higher electric bills.

    IDC is anticipating that 2.5-inch drive consignments will overtake 3.5-inch ones later this year – largely because of their improved performance and lesser power profile.

    This raises the prospect of both HP and Dell coming out with storage products using the 15K.2 Savvios.

    Both companies provided supporting quotes in the Seagate release.

    The 2.5-inch Seagate Savvio 10K.2 enterprise hard drive offers up to 146-GB capacity and has the premier consistency rating in the world.

    Savvio 10K.2 drives are 70 per cent smaller than 3.5-inch drives, enabling more drives per system for improved performance per U (vertical usable space) and optimized performance per watt.

    The Savvio drive also uses less power and enables more airflow to cool faster processors.

    Carla Kennedy, vice president of enterprise PLM at Seagate, said Xyratex and Seagate were committed to meeting the key data center requirements of reduced power consumption and improved system performance with Small Form Factor hard drives.

    "In addition to delivering the highest performance and largest capacity SFF drives in the industry, these new drives enable new levels in system efficiency when the market needs it most," she said.

    The Xyratex OneStor SP1224s is the SFF companion of the company’s highly flexible OneStor Extensible Storage Platform family. The SP1224s is a 2U, 24-drive storage system supported on 2.5-inch drives and make available eighty-five percent proficient power translation.

    While no set time for the shipment has been planned, both the 15K.2 and 10K.3 drives may be ready to go out sometime in December.

    However, the self-encrypting versions won’t be released at least until the beginning of 2010.