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  • Skype and IBM collaborate on LotusLive


    Skype has announced that it is to integrate Skype functionality with IBM’s LotusLive.

    The new cloud services from IBM are designed to help individuals build communities to work more effectively and efficiently across and beyond their own companies.

    Effectively, Skype’s voice and video calling adds real-time communications capabilities to LotusLive.

    Employees of companies using LotusLive will be able to use Skype to initiate voice and video calls by clicking on their contacts’ Skype names or phone numbers within LotusLive.

    Future possibilities include the ability to import Skype contact information into IBM cloud services to enhance online collaboration.

    Scott Durchslag, Skype’s chief operating officer, said the collaboration showed how serious Skype is about bringing the benefits of ‘anytime, anywhere, any mode’ Internet communications to the enterprise environment.

  • ParaScale CEO Says 2009 To Be Year Cloud Storage Breaks Out


    Cloud computing – including cloud storage – will transform the industry and become the predominant way in which IT is consumed.

    That’s the prediction of Sajai Krishnan, CEO of Silicon Valley start-up ParaScale.

    He said there has been a rapid heightening of interest recently in all things cloud – applications, computing and storage.

    As a result enterprises are increasingly turning to cloud storage as a way to enable flexible computing power over the Internet, according to Krishnan.

    "We believe the impact of cloud technologies will be transformational and cloud will be a major way by which IT is consumed as we move forward," he said.

    Sajai Krishnan, CEO ParaScale

    Krishnan said a company could buy cloud storage – where the company builds a private or internal cloud – or rent it – where the company rents by the GB per month from a public cloud storage service provider.

    Regardless of whichever method was chosen, he said the advantages of cloud storage would soon be as mainstream as the architectures that came before it, including 3-tier web applications, client/server and mainframe.

    But like most emerging technology there had been some initial hesitancy towards adopting it.

    Krishnan said that in 2008, many companies were wary of the risks and vulnerabilities of participating in the cloud computing model.

    So despite the buzz around the technology being high, adoption was feathered.

    “This all changes in 2009 – the economic downturn and the addition of private cloud solutions to complement public offerings are creating an environment that enables incremental adoption of cloud storage on a very broad scale," he said.

    Krishnan said discussions with end users had shown that the overwhelming majority indicate they are considering both public and private cloud storage.

    He identifies several considerations driving the adoption of storage clouds. These include:

    • Building storage clouds is becoming as simple as installing a new application on your laptop. This is enabling service providers and the enterprise to embrace this technology with minimal effort.
    • Cloud storage can start small and scale-up as needed. Organizations are no longer over-building to address the potential for rapid growth. Instead the drive is to put in place an architecture that is extremely flexible and that can scale on demand using commodity hardware and standard client access.
    • Clouds are designed to be self-managing and don’t require heavy IT manpower. Storage tiering, provisioning, and data movement are
    • time consuming tasks that are automated in cloud storage.
    • Storage clouds can be tuned for specific uses or applications. For example, clouds can be tuned for archival very cost-effectively, or
    • for streaming media performance.

  • Campbell Joins Hitachi Global Storage Technologies


    Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has appointed Steven Campbell as Chief Technology Officer.

    Campbell will have global responsibility for all aspects of the company’s product development and technical vision.

    As the top technology executive for Hitachi GST, he will play a strategic role in the company’s future direction and business growth.

    With 30 years of experience in the electronics and data storage industry, he served in senior executive roles at Western Digital Corporation and technology management roles at Quantum and Hewlett-Packard.

    Most recently he was Chief Executive Officer of Singapore listed Innotek Limited and Innotek’s subsidiary Magnecomp Precision Technology, a strategic component supplier to major hard drive companies.

    His experience at Western Digital included serving as General Manager of the Desktop Solutions Line of Business, Senior Vice President of Engineering, Vice President of New Product Introduction and Chief Quality Officer.

    He will be based at Hitachi’s San Jose, California headquarters.

  • SanDisk and LG Offer Flash Storage Services for Mobile Networks


    SanDisk Corporation and LG Electronics have demonstrated a new technology for mobile phones that offers multimedia-rich services using removable flash memory cards.

    It enables mobile network operators (MNOs) to distribute preloaded and downloaded content on removable memory cards, while restricting the accessibility of such premium content to their network subscribers.

    The content protection service is made possible by enabling memory cards to authenticate user credentials via data on the SIM card.

    SanDisk and LG Electronics demonstrated the technology using the new LG KC910 Renoir.

    It ensures that content preloaded in the cards can only be used in approved handsets.

    The two companies have worked closely to implement this new technology.

    SanDisk’s technology brings flexible storage-based services to network operators by allowing IP connectivity to the memory card in the handset.

    The memory card serves as a network node that is remotely manageable by the operator using industry-standard TCP/IP and OMA Smart Card Web Server.

    Amir Lehr, senior director of business development at SanDisk, said the technology would allow handset manufacturers and MNOs to meet the increasingly sophisticated demands of consumers who want easy access to premium content on their mobile devices.

    He said it marks the beginning of a new era in mobile phone service and content distribution.

    LG Electronics’ adoption of new technologies like the OMA SmartCard Web Server (SCWS) standard, allows the subscriber’s SIM card to be used as an authorization server.

  • Troubled Seagate Offers Free Firmware Upgrade


    Seagate is to provide a free firmware upgrade for customers whose 1TB Barracuda drives have failed.

    The storage company said it has isolated a "potential firmware issue" that is believed to be responsible for a high rate of drive failure globally.

    A free data recover serviceis also to be offered to those affected.

    Seagate said in a statement that the firmware problem affects "some" Barracuda 7200.11 hard drives and "related drive families based on this product platform".

    It notes that "in some circumstances, the data on the hard drives may become inaccessible to the user when the host system is powered on".

    Consumers are being advised to contact Seagate’s support site, its call center or to send an email.

    While the company insists the firmware problem should not cause data loss it is offering to help in the event that it has been.

    "There is no data loss associated with this issue, and the data still resides on the drive," said the statement.

    "But if you are unable to access your data due to this issue, Seagate will provide free data recovery services."

    Last week Seagate announced that it was laying off 10 per cent of its worldwide staff and that long-serving chief executive, Bill Watkins, had resigned.

    Company chairman, Stephen Luczo, is to replace Watkins as CEO.

    Seagate is to report its results on 21 January.

  • XO Communications Names Wagner As New Head of Business Services


    Daniel Wagner has been appointed head of XO Communications’ Business Services unit.

    The appointment, which is effective immediately, will see Wagner focus on accelerating the division’s profitability and revenue growth.

    Key to this is expected to be the intergration of new and different approaches to delivering voice, data, converged and managed services for businesses and enterprises.

    Wagner is an industry veteran, including fourteen years of combined experience at Global Crossing and Frontier Communications.

    Dan Wagner, XO Communications

    Most recently, he served as Global Crossing’s executive vice president of Enterprise and Collaboration Services.

    He also played a significant role in Global Crossing’s Regional Direct Sales, Government Services, Collaboration Services, Indirect Channels and Sales Engineering divisions.

    He is credited with increasing sales productivity and customer-focus, streamlining business processes and developing a metrics-driven culture.

    Wagner also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

    XO’s Business Services group recently installed VoIP services at a milestone 15,000 businesses and continues to develop its Session Initiation Protocol trunking solution – XO SIP.

    In 2008, XO Communications secured USD $780 million in financing.

  • MyGlobalTalk Adds Symbian And Android – Apple Next?


    i2Telecom has announced that its MyGlobalTalk service is now available for the Symbian S60 operating system.

    The service has just been approved for inclusion on Android’s Marketplace and has been submitted for approval on the iPhone App Store.

    The US company’s MyGlobalTalk is an advanced mobile VoIP application that targets the wireless handset market.

    Symbian is used in mobile phone devices built by Nokia, Samsung and other mobile phone manufacturers.

    Paul Arena, i2Telecom’s chairman and CEO, said MyGlobalTalk will provide Symbian customers with a first-rate calling experience at a fraction of the cost of traditional long-distance calls.

    "We are pleased with initial sign-up rates for the application, and we are offering 20 minutes of free calling for new MyGlobalTalk customers that download the application from the MOSH website," he said.

    MyGlobalTalk is internally developed patent-pending mobile VoIP technology.

    Approval to Apple’s iPhone App Store would be a major step for i2Telecom if the sales success of other third-party apps is anything to go by.

  • Choice of VoIP iPhone Apps Growing


    The options for VoIP calling on the iPhone are expected to continue expanding with both Skype and Truphone expected to join a growing list of VoIP apps for the Apple handset.

    Truphone already provides an app for the iPhone which enables users to make low-priced international calls via the GSM network even when the smartphone is not connected to the Wi-Fi network.

    But the company announced at the recent Macworld 2009 that callers will soon be able to use Truphone to make and receive Skype calls and instant message.

    Not to be left out, Skype itself announced at CES that it is also developing a native client for the iPhone.

    The subsidiary of eBay said that a version of its Internet calling and instant-messaging software is available for Google’s Android cell phone platform as a free download – and an iPhone Skype program is expected shortly.

    Fring also has an app that you make Skype calls using the iPhone.

    Keep them coming?

  • Cisco Preparing 320Mbps Cable Modem With VoIP


    Cisco is developing a 320Mbps cable modem – the DPC3212.

    It will be one of the first to use the DOCSIS 3.0 standard to pass 300Mbps.

    Equipped with a new Broadcom chip, it joins eight – rather than four – cable channels together to reach the maximum speed.

    Capable of 120Mbps upstream, the cable modem lets Internet providers ramp up speeds progressively by limiting how many channels are used until the network can handle the load.

    The DPC3212 also carries space for two lines on cable providers with VoIP service.

    The network hardware producer expects to submit the DPC3212 to CableLabs for approval before the spring.

    It would then be available by mid-2010.

    The technology should lead to increased speeds for DOCSIS 3 services.

    Services such as Comcast’s in the US currently tops out at 50Mbps but upgrades to modems and the network could see them reach 160Mbps.

  • EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Eric Mergy, CEO of navigation software company ZorroGPS

    Zorro Confident Free GPS Software Download Will Capture Market Share

    Giving potential paying customers 48 hours to try out your product is a smart move – especially when you’re an unknown GPS navigation software company trying to break into new territory.

    That’s just what ZorroGPS is doing in an attempt to capture a chunk of the European and North American GPS markets.

    The company provides "on-board" navigation software that’s compatible with Windows Mobile devices – PNDs, smartphones and GPS mobile phones.
    It is already firmly established in China, where it launched a year ago and has its headquarters.

    Eric Mergy, CEO of ZorroGPS, told smartphone.biz-news that as a result of a partnership with Ritu Information Systems – which he described as the Chinese equivalent of TomTom – his company would be the leading GPS navigation software provider in China in 2009.

    Ritu supports more than 100 device brands and Mergy said it was gradually migrating ZorroGPS’s software to its product range.

    "Now we are launching into the European and North American markets, with Navteq as our partner," he said.

    "We have a special business model, which is mainly based on Internet downloads for mobile phones."

    Free software trial

    Mergy said since ZorroGPS is a newcomer and unknown to western consumers, users can download the software for a free 48-hour trial period from 19 January.

    He said they were aiming at the mass market and, for that reason, were offering easy-to-use software that was "very cute and attractive".

    "People do not know our software, but if they download it we are confident that they will be very happy with it," he said.

    Low Price Adds To Product’s Appeal


    Mergy, who trained as an engineer, said they are initially offering 28 country packages, with each solution containing detailed regional maps.

    ZorroGPS runs NAVTEQ MAPS for Europe, North America and Mexico and Ritu maps for China.

    The Frenchman believes their products are bringing something new to what are already fairly mature markets.

    "The most obvious thing is price – we are quite low compared to other products," he said.

    Key to ZorroGPS’s strategy in these new markets are those customers who buy 3G contract-free handsets.

    "There are those who are not interested in paying a high monthly charge with a telecom operator," said Mergy.

    "We are targetting customers who buy 3G mobile phones with unlocked SIM cards. In this case they have no navigation software.

    "Normally if they want to buy it, it will cost USD $100 for a whole country. We are selling that for USD $20."

    ZorroGPS expects to be able to offer its software to RIM handsets within the next six months and then to Symbian-based phones.

    Unique Features

    Clearly enthusiastic about his company’s potential, Mergy is refreshingly candid about the product.

    "We are not saying we are better than anybody else. But ZorroGPS functions very well and at a fifth of the price," he said.

    "Based on that we hope to attract people by offering some very attractive and unique features.

    "We truly believe we have some very new and interesting functions."

    These include being able to using your finger to map scroll during navigation, cartoon navigation, and day-time calculation.

    Other features include:

    • Calculation speed: 2,000km in 5 secs
    • Different user interfaces
    • Screen rotation
    • POI and text search
    • Radar and camera alerts: TTS
    • Highway and City guidance

    ZorroGPS software is available to download from 19 January, initially for France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the UK.
    Over the next few weeks it will be rolling out a total of 28 countries, including the US.