Thoughts on the New 3G iPhone

A Post from our Field Service Engineer Anthony Edwards:

I was following Steve Jobs announcement on Monday regarding the new 3G iPhone. We will potentially see a lot more of the iPhone in the corporate environment now that new version is being reported that it will definitely and properly support Exchange via active synch. A couple things to note:

1. The price cut on all the new 3G iPhones (with Exchange and Cisco support) will definitely entice corporate users; however it will only still be tied to one carrier here in the USA (AT&T). Therefore, we have to see if users are willing to jump ship as far as carriers go.

2. Larger companies that have investments in BlackBerry Servers will still probably shun away from this phone (There is an expected ‘battle-royal’ between the new 3G iPhone and BlackBerry Thunder later this year as Apple tries to make ground in the enterprise arena against BlackBerry and Windows Smartphone). Also, there are newer Windows Mobile 6.1 devices due this year to rival the iPhone. See below item#3.

3. Windows 6.1 devices with new interfaces to match that of the iPhone are due later this year (HTC Diamond, HTC Diamond Pro, Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, Samsung SHG-i900 Omnia, LG Vue to name a few)

All in all, the starting price of the new 8GB 3G iPhone for $199.00 is pretty attractive. It will face stiff competition later this year from the upcoming Window Mobile 6.1 devices however. Below are some of the negatives the phone already has before its release:

Negatives:
1. No word on whether you will be able to connect to laptop and use as a modem or to get online.
2. As a new device sporting 3G technology, it is limited to HSDPA 3.6Mbs download speeds. Most of the new Windows Mobile 6.1 devices previously mentioned will do 7.2Mbs download speed (dependent on and as carriers continue their infrastructure upgrades)
3. No MMS support (not really critical in a business environment I guess)
4. Same 2 mega-pixel camera (Windows mobile device have up to 5 mega-pixel cameras, some even with LED flash and facial recognition)
5. No video calling (only one camera)

Positives:
1. Initial price of $199.00 starting for the 8GB version
2. Large internal storage - 8GB, 16GB, & 32GB
3. 3G support (even though limited to 3.6Mbs)
4. Fully functioning Exchange support (finally) and Cisco IPSEC VPN support

The buzz throughout the Internet has the show down match up as new 3G iPhone vs. BlackBerry Thunder vs. HTC Touch. The winner is expected to be the BlackBerry Bold at the corporate level, possibly even the HTC Touch. For the regular consumer, it will be will be a tossup. The iPhone may have the slight edge based on initial pricing. No actual pricing is known for the new Win mobile devices except possibly the LG Vue. However, early thought has it that that on the consumer side the winner might still be the HTC Diamond/HTC Diamond Pro or the Xperia X1.

Microsoft Flashes Brief Glimpse of Windows 7

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer revealed on Tuesday a few details on the software company's next operating system, Windows 7, at the D: All Things Digital conference in San Diego.

The company has maintained a disciplined silence about the upcoming OS -- a marked contrast to the constantly changing plethora of information released during the five years it took Microsoft to develop and launch Windows Vista.

"With the last release, many of the technologies Microsoft executives talked about and got everybody excited about didn't make it into the product," Michael Cherry, lead analyst at Directions on Microsoft, told TechNewsWorld.

Although the company is still giving little if anything away about the application's security, performance , networking and other so-called "under-the-hood" functionalities, during their keynote address, Gates and Ballmer presented a demonstration of the multitouch user interface the software maker plans to add to the OS.

That Touchy Feeling
Based on some of the technology developed for the Microsoft Surface, the multitouch fingertip user interface for Windows 7 covers a range of applications. Users will be able to enlarge and shrink photos, paint pictures with the new "Touchable Paint" application, and arrange, examine or write on digital photographs as well as map their location and search for specific places such as the nearest Starbucks.

Some of the features, including the two-finger zoom, single finger thumbnail panning and flicking through a slideshow, are reminiscent of Apple's iPhone.

"They developed this previously for another product, Microsoft Surface, which was built on Windows, so it's not a surprise that they are using this work in Windows 7," Gary Chen, a Yankee Group analyst, told TechNewsWorld. "I think it's a great leap forward in terms of the UI (user interface). It will make using a computer much more intuitive and collaborative.

However, Cherry said the UI "looked interesting" but there just aren't enough details about the technology for him to be enthusiastic about it.

"We don't know what it entails. Were the applications specially modified to work with it? Right now I'd say it looks interesting. They've demonstrated a lot of things, and I don't see any guarantee that that's a feature that will be in [Windows 7] or will require new hardware," he said.

Windows 7 Wish List
Outside of the show-and-tell session at the conference, Microsoft's silence regarding Windows 7 and its features is in part due to the development process being in the early stages.

"It's early, and you don't really want to commit publicly to something that hasn't been firmed up. Microsoft is still deciding a lot of things with Windows 7, and with their position in the market, it's best to keep mum until you know what and when you can really deliver something," noted Chen.

However, he added, Microsoft needs to give people a "reasonable lead time" about what they should expect in the new version. "I expect in 2009, we'll have a much better idea of what Windows 7 will be," Chen continued.

With details on Windows 7 sketchy at best, the one feature Chen said he hopes Microsoft will include in the OS is virtualization.

Meanwhile, Cherry just hopes that Microsoft does a better job of "managing expectations and only claim those things they really have accomplished, and if there are hard problems they have yet to solve, say that.

"The fact that they're not telling me anything right now, I don't care. What I'm more interested in is that the information they do give me be incredibly complete and accurate. What I don't want is a quick demo that says, 'Isn't this exciting?' What I want is specific details. And I want accurate scheduling information. When can I really get my hands on it?" he stated.
Windows 7 scheduling, however, appears murky based on conflicting remarks from Microsoft. Microsoft plans to release the new OS in late 2009, according to Ballmer; however, Windows Engineering Chief Steven Sinofsky told Cnet the launch would happen in January of 2010.

Lesson: Don't Over-Promise
Large enterprises and small businesses alike are in the midst of making very strategic decisions about their Windows desktop roadmap, explained Benjamin Gray, a Forrester Research analyst. That said, customer optimism is high for new information on the future of Windows.
However, with Windows 7, Microsoft is taking a tighter approach to communications. This approach stems from the lessons Microsoft learned from its Windows Vista experiences, Gray told TechNewsWorld.

"Let's face it, Microsoft was burned for promising too much for too diverse a crowd with Windows Vista, and it's going to be a little more disciplined about when and how it discloses information on Windows 7.

"Obviously, Microsoft is still in the throes of development and testing for Windows 7, so it's still too soon to come to any conclusions. And while the touch capabilities that Mr. Ballmer and Gates demonstrated were neat, they aren't going to help businesses with this decision-making process," Gray noted.

"At the end of the day though, Forrester recommends that most companies deploy Windows Vista eventually, because Windows 7 is clearly going to be an evolutionary update that is built on the Windows Vista foundation. So the challenges that organizations are experiencing with Windows Vista today will likely occur with what's coming next, and you're better off preparing for the future now than later," he concluded

By Walaika Haskins
TechNewsWorld
05/28/08
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Microsoft-Flashes-Brief-Glimpse-of-Windows-7-63183.html?welcome=1212701908

Windows Server 2008 Evaluation and Hyper-V RC 1 Now Available!

IT professionals face increasing pressure from rapidly changing technology, increasing costs and security concerns, and expanding business needs. Windows Server 2008 helps alleviate these pressures by automating daily management tasks, tightening security, improving efficiency and increasing availability. It also offers virtualization solutions that will enable IT professionals to reduce costs, increase hardware utilization, optimize their infrastructure, and improve server availability.

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, the next-generation hypervisor-based server virtualization technology, allows you to make the best use of your server hardware investments by consolidating multiple server roles as separate virtual machines (VMs) running on a single physical machine. With Hyper-V, you can also efficiently run multiple different operating systems—Windows, Linux, and others—in parallel, on a single server, and fully leverage the power of x64 computing.

Windows Server 2008 Evaluation and Hyper-V Release Candidate 1
Download the Windows Server 2008 Evaluation and get the latest information on the Hyper-V Release Candidate 1 as well as the download.

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