Andy Marken’s Content Insider # 303 - Your Hiding Place

The Best Cloud is a Personal Private Cloud

“The other five hundred and eighty-eight million turned into your dark seekers, and then they got hungry and fed on everybody. Everybody! – Neville, “I Am Legend,” Warner Bros., 2007

On a recent trip I gazed out the plane’s window as we flew over the clouds. It reminded me that most pilots fly over, under and around clouds … not in them. Even with all their technology pilots avoid clouds.

The rest of us fly blind.

We dump everything we can in the cloud because it’s either cheap or free—in spite of the fact that we have plenty of local, safe storage:

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    • Smartphone – 16 - 32GB
    • iPad – 32 - 64GB
    • Ultrabook – 128GB SSD or 500+GB HD

Heck, some of the newest smartphones are being offered with a whopping 128GB of storage, but storage seems to be the one thing we can never get enough of.

Even though most studies show we use our go-anywhere, do-anything devices at home--where we probably have plenty of portable and server storage, people still want more capacity … just in case.

Volume Growth
Extra storage is needed because for some reason your content just grows and grows:

  • Your music library is constantly expanding
  • You keep adding more digital books you really want to read
  • There are TV shows and movies you missed and you’re going to watch as soon as you get the time
  • There are personal/family photos
  • You grab volumes of company/client/market research
  • New gotta-have games, apps keep getting introduced

Home Content – With more than 3 B Internet users, smartphone sales surpassing 2B and 300+M tablet users, it’s little wonder that the volume of content in the home continues to steadily grow. The challenge is to store, use and share it easily, safely.

A byte here, a byte there, it all adds up. That’s why storage is such a neat industry – flash is fast but expensive, HDs are big and cheap. In the right combination … life is good.

And then there’s the big fluffy cloud that will hold everything for you. It’s not only free or cheap, it’s versatile. You can go there to share stuff, post great work, save things for tomorrow.

Cloudy Understanding
As much as people talk about and use the cloud, we were surprised by a recent study by Gartner that concluded most folks don’t really understand what the cloud is or how often they use it.

Respondents said it was related to weather, pillows, drugs, toilet paper (?).

Many Millennials believed that stormy weather could interfere with cloud services.

Even though a lot said they didn’t use it now, everyone said they would use it … someday.

It Is What it Is – Every company worth its salt has a cloud public, private, hybrid storage service. Even MS’s departing boss Steve Ballmer gets excited when he talks about the beauty, the marvel of his company’s offering. It’s just really a big thing.

Even people who sell you cloud services have a tough time telling you exactly what it is, how it works, where it exists.

Neville warned, “You can't go running into the dark.”

Cloud sales people usually end up saying it’s big, it’s good, it works.

The truth is, if you’re online you’re using the cloud for online shopping, research, banking, social media (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn), streaming video and file sharing. The cloud is used to send email, print from mobile devices, exchange medical information, and store stuff … lots of stuff. People who use it every day may not be able to define the cloud, but they certainly know how to use it. Without the cloud you wouldn’t be able to do anything or would be dramatically limited in your day-to-day communications, activities.

Can’t Share Enough – Give 3B plus people a global service, fast/economic devices, platforms to express themselves and watch the data, images, video, stuff roll in every minute of the day.

Tell someone they can’t access YouTube, post to Facebook or use any of “their” online storage, retrieval services and they’ll tell you it’s their God-given right!

Grounded Cloud
All of that storage in the cloud is disk drives – hundreds, thousands of drives–and they sit in data centers … somewhere.

Our unquenchable desire to create, communicate and share is driving cloud storage growth with end-user expectations of anything, anytime, anywhere.

Grounded Clouds – People talk about cloud storage and look up at what’s passing overhead, but that content has to sit somewhere. To keep up with the growing storage requirements, firms are building bigger and bigger data centers around the globe.

To support all that digital activity, there are now more than three million data centers of widely varying sizes worldwide, according to IDC. More are being built every day.

People want their content on any device, without complications, restrictions. The public/personal clouds have become popular places to store files, pictures, notes, content.

Despite their shortcomings and issues, according to IHS, cloud storage services like Dropbox and Google Drive will double their subscription base from 625 million this year to 1.3 billion in 2017.

Stuff Happens
I use the word services only “lightly.”

I know sites will be out of service for a few minutes, few hours or even a few days because of hardware, software or human malfunctions. And it’s always at the worst possible time … for you.

Like Neville said, “It's just... I was saving that bacon!”

The services have also been known to lose data, and that’s tough. They apologize (sometimes) but still, you probably didn’t read your user agreement; did you!

Bad Guys/Gals Tools – Hackers and cyberthieves have gotten really creative and really good at being able to attack and harvest useful, profitable information from the cloud (of course so has social media). As good and as fast as security products are, they are still always one step behind those who want to do physical or fiscal harm with your data.

The thing that makes us shy away from their services is the fact that they’re big, juicy targets for hackers, whackers, cyberthieves. Penetration and theft happens so often it isn’t even news any more.

Your Problem
All the cloud folks offer some protection but according to Trend Micro, cloud providers still say security is the customers’ responsibility.

That’s a big challenge for most of us.

You’re probably “a little irritated” because of the National Security Agency (NSA’s) activities, but every country has laws that allow government agencies free access to data in the cloud. Even with tougher privacy laws than the U.S. has in place, other countries have anti-terrorism laws–cloud data/information access–that make the U.S.’s Patriot Act feel almost cuddly. Government snooping is creepy, but online theft is just plain wrong and impossible to predict/protect against until after it happens.

Of course the Web 2.0 firms that tap all your info and sell it aren’t real cool either. The GM of HP’s enterprise security products said even companies with well-trained security people will be victimized by data theft/loss.

"It's going to happen," he said. "It's inevitable."

At this year’s computer security conference, John Chambers, chairman of Cisco, said the cloud is a “security nightmare” that “can’t be handled in traditional ways.” That makes me feel really confident about storing my stuff in the cloud, John! And it gives new meaning to Neville’s observation, “Social de-evolution appears complete. Typical human behavior is now entirely absent.” Added to that is the hassle of keeping files in sync that are on my tablet, ultrabook and office/home server.

Remote Options
Rather that keep really important personal and business information in the cloud, products like TeamViewer are really great for working from almost anywhere over the iNet on files, materials on my home/office systems.

It works pretty well.

Of course, when you’re across country or overseas, there’s a terrific lag in response between the two systems. Sending stuff to my remote device is fairly easy--as long as I remember to update the files in both locations. Prestaging files in Dropbox or Google Drive and moving them back and forth is a nuisance and it turns out hackers and low-lifes love to hang out in big clouds that have tons of stuff they can dig through. The best way around the problem is a VPN (virtual private network) that many companies deploy. They set up their private network across the Internet so they can send, receive and share information safely and securely.

Personal VPN
It may not be “IT grade” but a good solution I’ve found for our family’s devices and information is NTI’s MiST that was recently introduced.

Personal VPN – Not as robust as a corporate-grade Virtual Private Network (VPN), NTI’s MiST provides individuals, families and even small businesses the same ability of safely, quickly move files and content between the full range of home, office and personal devices to minimize the possibility of data corruption or theft.

We’ve loaded it on all of our devices – smartphones, tablets, ultrabooks, home server.

The kids like it because they can take photos/shoot videos with their smartphones and automatically load them on our home computer over our personal, secured file-sharing network. There’s no need to stop at the public photo/video site they use to use.

I’ve found it great for accessing files, presentations on my server and moving them back and forth when I’m working remotely. The great thing is that the files automatically sync between the two devices so the one I look at is always current. It saves me the hassle of thinking ahead – which seldom happens – to load files and stuff on my neat 1TB WD passport drive. For about what Pandora costs me to stream music to my devices, I can still access/use the material located on our family’s new WD 4TB home cloud.

I agree with Neville, “This is Ground Zero. This is my site.”

If I was really paranoid–O.K. smart–I’d encrypt the files that I send and receive (encryption really ticks off government agencies); but I just don’t think hackers/cyberthieves are that interested in locating my lowly family storage unit when there are big fluffy, juicy clouds out there.

I just avoid the public cloud as much as possible because I’m not as heroic as Neville when he said, “I can help. I can save you. I can save everybody.”

G. Andy Marken is founder and president of Marken Communications

The Dan Bennett Show on HP Workstations

HP’s Dan Bennett is practically Mr. Workstation.

At last week’s 2013 HP Global Workstations Event in New York City, I had the opportunity to buttonhole Dan for several minutes, and this video, dubbed The Dan Bennett Show on HP Workstations, is what I hope would be the first a continuing series of interviews with Dan where he breaks down what’s special about HP Workstations.

© 2002 – 2013, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited

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I asked HP CEO Meg Whitman a Question about HP.com

For a very large IT company, HP.com – the website Winking smile - sucks.

The site almost requires that users take a course in crazy thinking just to navigate.

Finding information is extremely difficult, and can often lead to a frustration with a heat index rivaling that of a billion suns. I have had several people just give up, and try to interact with a salesdroid just to alleviate their suffering.

And I am talking about VARs here. People who are actually vested in buying HP stuff.

Can you imagine how consumers feel?

One of my goddaughters pulled the ripcord after several minutes of her eyes glazing over, and informed me that the only way she would get an HP device if if I configured said device for her!

In case you are keeping score, I did.

Why?

I like HP, and their products are much better than the asinine website.

So, at HP Storage Tech Day 2013 held at the Nth Generation Symposium in Disneyland, when I had the opportunity to ask [HP CEO] Meg Whitman a question, HP.com naturally came up.

 

Safe to say, my angst about the website wasn’t localized just to me. And, it is good that she’s aware of the problem, and working towards a solution.

Which I await.

© 2002 – 2013, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited

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The SmallBizWindows Raxco PolicyLock Review

smallbizwindows2I have been a user of Raxco PolicyLock from the closed beta.

Raxco PolicyLock is, forgive the mobile metaphor, a management utility that aims to help systems administrators set, and enforce, their company’s desktop computing policies for users in their IT environments.

I initially thought it was a consumer product. However, I was disabused of that error by Raxco VP of Marketing, Joe Abusamra.

Suitably chastened – a first for me, I might add, from a Celtics fan – I decided to go along his train of thought, and in doing so, saw a need for it in both small and large enterprises.

What, exactly, does PolicyLock do?
Raxco PolicyLock is a policy rights management utility that allows IT managers and sysadmins to set, lock down, and by so doing, lock out changes a user or group of users can make to their work PCS. This group policy locks apply to both the OS and the user’s desktop productivity applications.

The Raxco video below shows off PolicyLock.

Using PolicyLock
PolicyLock is dead simple to use.

I installed it, and I was immediately pleased at friendly UI.

What was more surprising, pleasantly, I might add, was the collection of preconfigured and prepopulated lockdown options for a very good number of desktop applications in use today. Apart from the very obvious Microsoft Office, Windows Internet Explorer, Skype, and so on, even obscure – to me, but not the general populace, it seems, applications such as the Cisco VPN client, and Mozilla’s Firefox. It even had preconfigs for products that I class as borderline malware: Flash and Java!

These preconfigs allowed me to swiftly roll out locked-down PCs to my test subjects.

The PolicyLock package also includes a PolicyLock Designer suite which allows IT admins to create their own preconfig kits for apps not included.

3 Questions for Raxco on PolicyLock
After PolicyLock went gold (RTM’d), I had a few questions for the company on PolicyLock.

Once again, Joe Abusamra was available to answer.

Why should I care about PolicyLock?

If, as a system administrator, you’re leaving the configuration of desktop and application settings in the hands of the end user, you’ve got a ticking time bomb on your hands. Users will misconfigure their desktops, operating systems and applications – and that means late nights for the system administrator cleaning up after users – or worse, fixing a data or security breach.

PolicyLock prevents user changes and eliminates that late night—or anytime – phone call. PolicyLock maintains the exact security features and configuration options the IT department specifies, instead of leaving it to chance.

What led Raxco to develop PolicyLock? It seems a long way from PerfectDisk and performance optimization.

We’re in the business of helping make IT professionals more effective at their jobs, reducing their workload and helping everyone in an organization be more productive. We’ve been doing so for 35 years, and while many of our products have been strictly around performance, not all have.

With PolicyLock, calls to the help desk and admins are greatly reduced, freeing them up for other, less fire-fighting tasks. This not only makes them more productive, it makes end users more productive, as their systems aren’t messed with – so they don’t get to play system administrator and they can stick to their jobs.

PolicyLock was launched in July – what has the initial reaction been?

It’s really been great – what the product does and the problem it solves is straightforward. System administrator’s we talk to understand almost immediately how PolicyLock can help them. There are some instances where they thing that Group Policy can already do what PolicyLock does, but upon further review, they see that Group Policy has holes – or shortcomings – that PolicyLock fills. For administrators struggling with locking down application settings, at the price points we have, it’s often a “no brainer.” And it fills a couple of needs – productivity (system administrators are always looking for more hours in the day) and security (always a top concern these days).

Conclusions
smallbizwindows2One of the hardest things to do these days is to bring actual innovation to the lives of IT sysadmins and managers.

I have found myself having to educate folks on the differences between an invention, and innovation.

I am continually looking out for those little pieces of software (and hardware) that would make the work of my staff not only easier, but would greatly improve the manageability of the devices that are in our charge.

Raxco PolicyLock is one of those kings of little nuggets. Another group of little apps that have proven their worth just like this product are the superb line of indispensable utilities from Sysinternals, now a part of Microsoft.

This tool’s usefulness is without question, and starts immediately upon install.

For me, the most useful components are the pre-populated lockdown options for apps. I found several locks in there that I hadn’t thought off.

To crown it all, the complete integration PolicyLock has with the Windows Group Policy Management Console not only makes it familiar and easier to use, it also reduces to ramp-up time needed for sysadmins to get up to speed on the product.

This is a very worthwhile utility.

My staff and I have used it over the past several weeks, and the verdict, from the guys who actually work in the trenches, is that Raxco PolicyLock is a superior product.

Resultantly, it has earned the SmallBizWindows Superstar Award.

We recommend it.

© 2002 – 2013, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited

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HP Storage MSA 2040 ChalkTalk

Without a doubt, my favorite storage device from HP is the MSA 2040.

As the successor to the HP Storage P2000, the MSA 2040 carries the heavy mantle placed on its shoulders quite well.

It is easy to configure, and it took mere minutes for even I to get busy on it.

The ChalkTalk video below intros this device.

This video is © Calvin Zito & HP

© 2002 – 2013, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited

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Hostway, Cloud Hosting & SMBs

HostwayAs ‘the cloud’ beacons, a potentially lucrative segment for cloud services providers is the SMB space.

Despite the plethora of choices available however, the road to cloud nirvana is fraught with potholes, as both companies and solution providers step into territory that they are quite unfamiliar with.

While the savvier companies may opt to go with the larger cloud providers, namely Microsoft with Windows Azure, Amazon which owns the market-leading Amazon Web Services, and the HP Cloud, there are a large number of Tier-2 providers, led by Sungard, Hostway, Rackspace, and others.

This past year, I have had a few opportunities to be briefed on a few of the offerings from a good number of the cloud providers listed above. The briefings have allowed me to inform my opinions on their respective products.Azure

Most intriguing of the lot is Hostway, for several reasons.

First off, Hostway is a company that is focused on SMBs. Secondly, it uses Microsoft Hyper-V as the hypervisor for its products, though they run Linux primarily. Thirdly, they have a vibrant reseller program whereby they empower their local VARs to provide solutions hosted on Hostway in order to help end-user customers thrive.

As the CEO and Chief Technology Officer of Logikworx, which is both a managed services provider and a solutions provider in the SMB and midmarket spaces, I was intrigued.

The SMB sector is going through the start of a need to upgrade their computing infrastructure or environments for the future.

It also doesn’t help that cloud and hosting providers are resorting to the basest forms of cloud washing* in order to peddle their wares to an unsuspecting populace.

While my current and future clients have the luxury of having us do the hard work, most do not. Furthermore, it is always good to obtain more knowledge. Consequently when Hostway informed me of a HP Cloudbriefing availability with one of their analysts, I accepted.

Knowledge, they say – and I’ve found out – is power!

Listening to Moor Insights & Strategy on SMB hosting
In a briefing last week, Paul Teich, senior analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy, walked us through some of the trends he is seeing with respect to businesses in the space targeted by Hostway.

According to Paul, SMBs represent an opportunity mainly because of the fact that they commonly do not possess the in-house resources need to determine the best course of action to pursue

His research also revealed that the rôle of hosting is changing, from pure-play hosting firms like GoDaddy and United Internet, to vertically-integrated hosting firms that deliver integrated solutions like messaging, compliance, SharePoint, storage and more, either singly or as a user-customizable package.

What is meaningful here is the clear demarcation between the ‘S’ and the ‘M’ in SMBs in terms of available resources and company actions.

While the larger – id est, medium – firms may be able to make available and deploy resources to solve their IT needs, the small firms are hamstrung in their ability to marshal those same resources.

Stepping into the breach, suggests Paul, would be the small local VARs armed with relationships with hosting companies such as Hostway.

Paul also sees traditional servers and computing infrastructure going the way of the Dodo for the smaller of SMBs. He also sees most new businesses going cloud-first, as a way of getting business going.

So, why Hostway?
Looking at Hostway today, I have to admit that it has several things going on for it that make it incredibly attractive for a small business, and for the VAR servicing them:

i) It has a very good SMB focus.

ii) It has, in place already, a well-defined VAR/reseller program, with clearly enumerated VAR benefits, satisfying the all-important WIIFM factor for solution providers.

iii) It provides several value added services, not just a bare-metal hosting option.

Most importantly, Hostway uses Microsoft Hyper-V as their hypervisor.

For small businesses, most of which cannot afford VMware’s eponymous hypervisor, this allows them to perform the jump-off into the cloud relatively effortlessly.

I also believe Hostway allows partners to ‘own’ the customer, letting the solution provider to perform billing and most tech support services.

What do I think?
I had four reasons for joining the fray, if you will:

  • Gain more knowledge from those in the know – the hosting providers themselves,
  • Gain more knowledge with respect to trends from those in the know – analysts,
  • See if their conclusions in #1 and #2 are aligned with the conclusions of myself and my staff, and
  • Help us, and by proxy, you, make decisions on where to go in this cloud journey, and what platforms and partners to choose.

In all, Hostway and Paul were able to sate my appetite for more information.

I disagree, however, with the portend for traditional IT – client and server – computing infrastructure in small businesses.

As with libertarians in foxholes suddenly discovering God and calling on Him for help the first time they are faced with a fusillade from opposing forces, it is my considered opinion that even the most fervent of believers of cloud computing would clamor for local computing resources once an outage hits. If not even before, when network errors slow computing to a crawl.

My opinion here is derived from my decidedly unscientific survey of our business owner client inventory**.

Conclusions
Hostway has identified a gaping hole in IT services as regards SMBs – remember, small and medium businesses make up a sizeable percentage of new and existing businesses – and has developed products and services to tap into that need.

Which, without a doubt, is ‘A Good Thing’.

Hostway is definitely a company to watch, and if you need more information on trends and I would guess, his research data and methodology, contact Paul at Moor Insights.

Hostway is at Hostway.com.

* Cloud-washing: Cloud-washing is the deliberate and mostly deceptive attempt by a vendor to rebrand an old product or service by associating the buzzword "cloud" with it. Adding "cloud" to the name of hardware or software in order to make it more up-to-date. Starting in the 2008-2009 time frame, cloud computing became a hot IT topic, and a vendor might rename its product to include the word if it were Internet based in any manner. Definition from TechTarget & The Free Dictionary

** Our ‘inventory’ is the list of client businesses that we currently manage, and the numerous businesses that we have performed VAR services for over the years.

© 2002 – 2013, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited

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HP 3PAR Deep Dive at HP Storage Tech Day

LaMills Garrett, Vish Mulchand, Pd Prasad, and Siamak Nazari

Our next stop was a deep dice into HP 3PAR.

First off, a little info to the 3PAR architecture, in this ChalkTalk by Calvin Zito.

 

Next up, a true all-star cast of HP professionals led by the gentlemen below then walked us through.

  • LaMills Garret is a Global Account Segment Manager for HP Storage.
  • Vish Mulchand is Director of Product Management for the HP Storage Division.
  • Siamak Nazari is an HP Fellow and chief software architect with HP Storage.
  • Priyadarshi (Pd) is a Sr. Product Manager at HP Storage.

My take on slides is here.

My take from all the information I have received so far.

By all indications, the strength of HP 3PAR is the foresight – research? – of having being architected from the very start for what the 3PAR founders had believed storage needed to go.

If you look at the current product lineup, you see something no other storage infrastructure can deliver: a true low-end to seriously high-end product line based on the same architecture.

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These results are helped by 3PAR’s proprietary ASIC, now in generation 4, and the use of a common operating system.

The video of the process can be found by following the link below. Warning: the video is over three hours long!

To make matters much better, an apple MacBook Pro being used by one of the bloggers crashed, and had to be rebooted.

Yes, Dorothy, we rebooted a Mac.

Joy, O Joy!

© 2002 – 2013, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited

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Andy Marken’s Content Insider # 296 - Seller’s Remorse

Smartphones … Global Markets with a Local Approach

Around the globe, most people have (or want) a smartphone.

Those who don’t want one have burner phones (and I don’t even want to know what they’re used for).

IDC recently reported that smartphone sales were up 52 percent for the year, but Apple and Samsung marketshares slipped … victims of their own success.

First, let’s set the record straight.

Apple has 100 percent of the iOS smartphone market.

Samsung has about 70-80 percent of the 100-plus version Android smartphone market.

Together, they have about 50 percent of the smartphone market.

The other 50 percent is dominated by LG, Lenovo and ZTE, followed by a few companies you vaguely recall and hundreds of little no-names who are knocking out knock-offs.

The market is so big – and growing – even Alcatel and Huawei are showing double/triple-digit growth.

Of course, they’re all trying to steal the iPhone and Galaxy marketshares because the two take a whopping 90 percent of the smartphone sale profits.

In a few countries – South Korea, Australia, Norway, Sweden, North America (Canada and U.S.) – more than 50 percent of the populations use smartphones.

Over the next couple of years, folks in the rest of the world will slowly come to expect to be constantly connected.

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Smartphone Creep – We look around at the people we work with, associate with and it seems everyone has a smartphone--in fact, one of the latest generations. But globally, there are still huge selling opportunities for phones with the right features, right capabilities, right look/feel and the right price.

The smartphone market is probably the best study of what’s right, wrong and so-so in business …ever.

We give a lot of lip service to “think globally, act locally;” but most of the time, it’s just talk.

The people in the really big markets – China, Africa and India (1B population each) – can’t afford the top-end phones

To date, smartphones have been pretty predictable when it came to the target customer - age groups and household income.

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Profiles – While the study covers smartphone consumers in the Americas, the age and household income is quite similar in other countries--especially when it comes to first-time purchases. By offering a broader range of price/performance smartphone options, manufacturers can capture more first-time users and encourage present users to upgrade to newer, more enhanced devices.

Now, we’ve entered a period where the companies really have to work for their sales because what marketing and Wall Street BSers want most--people upgrading their phones every time the company wants to do a refresh—isn’t happening.

So they have to go after Geoffrey Moore’s Chasm early/late majority and laggard consumers or they steal the other guy’s customer like the mobile carriers do.

And the marketing cost to do it is rising … rapidly.

The lawyer saw the expenses and said, “Okay, fine ... I'm getting out my checkbook”

In addition, marketing people have to understand global economics, individual countries’ GDP (gross domestic product) and consumer optimism as it relates to global and local economy, because they have a strong influence on what consumers are willing to invest on a go-everywhere, do-everything device.

Fortunately both indictors are improving around the globe.

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Positive Direction – All of the major countries are showing an improvement in their GDP (gross data product) or at least a leveling off of the decline. This improvement – even if slight – has caused consumers to be more optimistic about future trends and purchase products they’ve wanted but couldn’t justify in tough economic periods.

But there are still local differences like the average annual income and usage preferences.

Removing the device cost from the equation for a moment there’s the question of the apps they want and the apps they need in their country.

That’s what crippled Blackberry and hasn’t been a whole lotta’ help to Nokia … regardless of the price.

People buy the overly powerful computer-in-the-pocket to stay in touch with friends/family and for more productive work.

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Smart Choices – Even in China, where people spend a major portion of their monthly income to purchase a smartphone to stay in touch with people and improve their productivity, the first applications they download and use most are games, news, entertainment. Similar patterns emerge in every corner of the globe.

Still, the most popular/widely used apps – regardless of country or OS – are games and news.

In China, 56 percent of the users are wrapped up in games, followed by online entertainment and/or news.

Social media sites are quick to say they drive heavy mobile usage because people don’t want to suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out).

All of them are used, but they don’t drive the bandwidth usage carriers need to increase profits.

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3 Minutes or 3GB – It didn’t take wireless carriers long to understand that the three-minute phone call requires more bandwidth than three GB of data, but they also have seen that people are communicating more across the data paths than over voice. And by packing more data onto the line, they can improve their bottom line.

That’s why smartphone sales and game, entertainment and news apps are more important to carriers than the phone.

They keep folks online, keep them connected and keep them using the other important stuff that’s available like cloud storage for photos, videos.

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Growing Opportunities – While mobile PCs and tablets are forecast to produce flat to moderate sales increases over the next few years, the do-everything, go-everywhere smartphone is projected to deliver solid unit growth. In many countries, the smartphone is the only computing/communications device they own.

All the device producers are working like crazy to produce the next WOW-factor, high-profit smartphone that will kick the iPhone and Galaxy to the side of the road.

Like Mooney said, “27 years. 27 years without this!”

But most won’t invest in differentiating themselves or their devices and will settle for huge chunks of the market growth with small (very small) margins.

If they were global/local smart, they’d take a long, hard look at Samsung’s global playbook and what they’re doing in the next big “hot” market – China.

Remember, there’s a long history of “non-love” between the two countries, so they took their time with what now seems to be a thorough Chaebol (family owned conglomerate run with military-like discipline) plan.

Samsung has been determined to not make the mistakes of Japanese manufacturers and remain insular while adapting their plans/activities/products to the local markets.

While it appears Apple is planning a low-cost worldphone, company and local executives meet with Chinese leaders and the state-owned telecom companies and adapt products to meet their unique requirements, needs.

While we’re happy with our Galaxy smartphone, Samsung has models to tempt the high- and low-end customers in the various markets.

The reasoning is pretty flawless.

Upgrade from a feature phone to one of their economic smartphones with limited features/capabilities and give them the best service/support possible (your mileage may vary) to produce a sound customer relationship.

When the customer can afford to upgrade, he/she will look for the brand they’re happy with.

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Ready to Upgrade – While hundreds of millions of people can barely afford a flip or feature phone, they all want to take advantage of the smartphone’s broader features and capabilities. Satisfaction with their present company’s device makes the firm’s upgrade their first choice and it’s the one they recommend to others.

That’s why Ethan said, “He's the one on the cell phone, you idiot.”

And as research by Temkin Group recently pointed out, they’ll not only build customer loyalty but will get added customers because of word-of-mouth recommendations.

The hundreds of “hometown” producers will focus on making the devices cheap and … well, that’s about it.

Apple will be Apple and the rest will sell their flavor of the month Android or Windows smartphones.

Samsung?

They already have local market activities going on in the other two billion-person countries – India and Africa – as well as Russia, Brazil ...

When you want support you won’t hear them respond like Jessica, “You've got the wrong family! You've got the wrong family!”

G. Andy Marken is founder and president of Marken Communications.

© 2002 – 2013, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited

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HP Storage Tech Day–Intro by Calvin Zito

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Calvin Zito Twitter: @HPStorageGuy) introduced us to this event.

What I liked about Calvin’s introduction was the way he wove HP’s previous forays, trials and tribulations included, into where HP Storage is today, and melded them with his personal experiences working with and in HP’s storage efforts over the three decades that he has worked there.

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After the history lesson – thanks, Professor Z. – we got to it.

Before anyone else got the bug, HP has been developing, fine-tuning, and evangelizing the concept of a converged infrastructure for years. For years!

Seriously, they have.

I was first introduced to HP’s Converged Infrastructure back in 2009 at HP Tech Forum.

At that time, the concept seemed quite esoteric, especially for me.

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Over the years, they have refined it, but still kept the basic precepts that make it attainable.

Going forward, HP informed us that they have identified the following major infrastructure trends:

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These trends, without a doubt, should be quite obvious to any industry observer.

Converged infrastructure, is the key.

I believe that anyone or company that makes an error in their selection of a converged infrastructure will come to rue that decision.

While you can make in-line changes to your software-defined datacenter, and you can probably replace your cloud platform and/or provider without a burp in the delivery of services to your users, if the foundational part of your computing environment isn’t sound, you would have built yourself a house of cards.

Conclusions
During the frantic bidding that led up to the purchase of 3PAR by HP, I often wondered if HP wasn’t needlessly overpaying. This, despite having guest of 3PAR before the initial Dell deal was announced, and see the great technology 3PAR had.

It has made sense since.

It makes even more sense now.

Why?

When I talk to folks in storage within and outside HP, the general consensus is that Dell just missed out on the steal-of-the-century at the initial merger price, and that kudos were in order to HP for the swift integration of 3PAR.

More importantly, the 3PAR acquisition has allowed HP to be able to further fine-tune HP converged infrastructure, and make the creation of its software-defined datacenter offerings an easier task.

That has created a new dynamism around HP Storage that is palpable, infectious, as one sees long time HP staffers such as Calvin Zito and LaMills Garrett (Twitter: @BitsBytesMills) get pretty pumped about what they currently offer, and what they have in their pipeline.

Now on to the 3PAR deep dive in Part II of this blog series on HP Storage Tech Day 2013.

© 2002 – 2013, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited

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2013 HP Storage Tech Day, Disneyland

black_stretch_logoI am in beautiful Disneyland, in Anaheim, California, for the 2013 HP Storage Tech Day.

I am with an impressive group of independent blogger attendees, and from the event schedule, we will be listening to a very impressive group of distinguished speakers and presenters.

This HP Storage event is led, as usual by the able Calvin Zito (Twitter: @HPStorageGuy), and Teri Shiozaki, HP SoMe manager.

The bloggers are;

  • Nate Amsden
  • Nina Buik; @ninabuik
  • David Hurst; @the_Super_Dave
  • Ray Lucchesi; @raylucchesi
  • Jake Luddington; @jakeluddington
  • Robert Novak; @gallifreyan
  • Jeff Powers; @geekazine
  • Derek Schauland; @webjunkie
  • Bob Stein; @activewin

And Yours Truly, of course.

The HP Storage presenters are

    • Calvin Zito; The HP Storage Guy @hpstorageguy
    • LaMills Garrett; The Storage Connoisseur @bitsbytesMills
    • Gary Bergo
    • Dale Degen
    • Dr. Sam Fineberg
    • Richard Jacobik
    • Lee Kaminski
    • Dr. Kimberly Keeton
    • Vish Mulchand
    • Siamak Nazari
    • Pd Prasad
    • John Shields

I am looking forward to this!

© 2002 – 2013, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited

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The AbsolutelyWindows HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8 Preview

2013-07-14_HP_Proliant_MicroServer_Gen8_016x[1]I am in receipt of the new HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8.

We currently have the 1st generation Proliant MicroServer at MedikLabs, and we have actually been very successful in implementing that at client’s locations, with most of them running Windows Storage Server, and provisioned as backup devices.

For the Gen8 Proliants, we will try something different.

HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8
At HP Discover 2013, HP EVP Dave Donatelli presented the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 as part of a trio of new Proliant servers.

Calling it “Baby’s 1st Server” because of the very low entry price of $449, Donatelli then Introduced Jim Ganthier of HP ISS who told us more about the device.

I immediately thought of the MicroServer to place in a new compute role, utilizing it not just for backups. Subsequent to that day, I have identified several uses for the Proliant MicroServer that I am ready to test against.

I requested a unit, and presto, a MicroServer was delivered last week.

NOTE: The HP Proliant MicroServer arrived with the HP Networking PS1810-8G managed Switch, for which I will be delivering on OOBE post next week.

For this review, I intend to actively lead the test scenarios.

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As a low-cost entry server, and one that is destined for the small businesses and connected homes of today and tomorrow, the HP Proliant MicroServer is available with a number of factory-colored bezels to fit the mood of the end-user.

Riffing off Dave Donatelli’s “Baby’s 1st Server” remark, I decided to change the the bezel of the MicroServer Gen8 to fit my baby’s, who just happens to be My Princess.

Her favorite color was not available. However, my buddy Jared came to the rescue, and the Proliant MicroServer has the new duds shown here.

The HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8 OOBE

The MicroServer Gen8 arrived in a snug-fitting, but well-protected shipping box, as is normal, and very ‘green’ with HP nowadays.

As I mentioned above, I wanted to try something new with the Proliant MicroServer Gen8, so I decided to go with HP’s default installation options.

I removed the server from the box, inserted a Windows Server 2012 R2 disk into the optical drive, and off I went.

My first task was configuring the HP SmartArray controller embedded into this review system. I created a RAID1 volume with the included 2TB disks.

Next up, was HP’s server management tool, iLO, in version 4.

As I tweeted on Tuesday night “I could say that there's a faster, easier way to provision a ‪#‎Proliant with Windows Server than using ‪#‎iLO, but I'd be lying.

It is really that easy!

Even with the beta of Windows Server 2012 R2, I only needed to answer a couple of questions, enter in the product key, the administrator password, and sit back.

That was it.

About 25 to 30 minutes later, Windows Server 2012 R2 (beta) was up and running on Proliant MicroServer Gen8 without a fuss.

I applied the Desktop Experience pack, connected to the network, and that was it.

No fuss, no muss.

Conclusions
The HP Proliant MicroServer R2 is a fine piece of kit. Loaded up as it is with iLO4 and other goodies I have come to expect from Proliants such as the ‘Sea of Sensors’, it looks to be in every way capable of running a small branch office, home business, or home.

Our series of tests will help us determine that.

Consequently, there will be a series of blog posts on this Proliant server, and all the other Proliant servers mentioned in my post here.

In the meantime, I will be keeping you abreast of what we are doing with MicroServer Gen8 as part of our Cloud Onramp project, including the numerous other Proliants we have here.

What I have determined in my little test, is that I am going to need briefings on HP iLO, and the HP SmartArray controller.

In fact, as I uncover more components that merit attention, I will request briefings from the PMs responsible for the components in order to bring a fuller picture of the devices to you.

An AbsolutelyWindows Freestyle with Jim Gantier can be seen here.

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© 2002 – 2013, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited

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A Betrayal at The Orbiting O’Odua!

Sometimes, you don’t know where the hit is coming from!

After using Windows Mobile from v5.0, and Windows Phone from its inception until now!

One of the reasons why we hit it off was because she was very tech savvy.

I liked that.

Fast forward to this past weekend when she dropped a decision that hit with the force of a high-yield atomic bomb:

She’d like to move from Windows Phone to an iPhone.

What?

What??

WHAT???

My wife!

An iPhone!

Using a spoiled fruit product?

Why, begged Yours Truly?

Answer: her clone is getting an iPhone 5 as well!

That’s it?

Are you freakin’ kiddin’ me?

Not too long ago, I seem to remember that when she was asked, “Do you take this wonderful guy to be your husband, to love and obey?” she answered, “I do.”

Now, all that is forgotten just because she wants the same phone as her identical twin?

This is more than wrong.

It is a betrayal.

I’m broken.

What’s next, having my kids drop their Windows Phones for iPhones as well?

Seriously though, her secondary reason for making the change lies with the cellular reception we get from Sprint here in NE Colorado: it is totally crappy.

Apart from Verizon Wireless, all other mobile telcos are crap. VZW not only has total cellular coverage, but they also have 4G service.

To punish her for her betrayal, I shall be sleeping on the couch for the next few!

UPDATE: My brother informs me he that distinctly heard the priest say “…love & cherish…”
Whatever! I know what I heard the Padre say, and I don’t need no stinkin’ videotape to remind me!

© 2002 – 2013, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited

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Please make Xbox Music ubiquitous, Microsoft!

XBMWhy is Windows Media Player STILL alive?

Seriously, why?

One of the really cool apps in Windows 8, and one which has gotten a lot better in Windows 8.1 Preview, is the Xbox Music app.

The interface is, as is with most of Microsoft’s own Windows 8 Metro apps, very intuitive, as well as welcoming, and easy to use.

Music discovery is almost automatic, and the included music matching service brings further, and Zune-like. The added Xbox Radio component of the app is easy-peasy to use.

As long as you use Windows 8 Metro.

<phonograph needle screeches to a halt>

<Arnold asks, “Whatcha’ talking about, Willis?” >

Yes, People of Terra, Xbox Music is NOT available for Windows 8 desktop!

For that, you have to use Windows Media Player, with all of that player’s groundbreaking UI!

<drippin’ sarcasm…>

To mollify users, there’s supposedly a web-based Xbox Music app in the works.

But, is that enough?

Why isn’t there a Windows desktop/legacy/whatever-it-is-called version of the Xbox Music App, with all of the attendant goodies?

Why?

Right now, Windows 8 has a miniscule overall market share, while all other version of Windows combined have, what, 80% or more.

Why not release a Windows desktop version of Xbox Music acquires the user’s permission to replace Windows Media Player with itself?

Wouldn’t that take a page from the playbook that Apple used to make that steaming of kaka called iTunes the market leader it is today?

In fact, I confidently proclaim that if Microsoft desires any traction for Xbox Music, making it ubiquitous is the only way to go.

I knew someone else thinks the same way, and going into the Wayback Machine, I was able to retrieve the following tweet.

Last evening, I tried to listen to music on my system from the desktop, and was jarringly greeted by Windows Media Player.

Not good, people. Not good!

Come on, Microsoft.

Do the right thing by Xbox Music!

© 2002 – 2013, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited

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