Cloud doyen Salesforce.com Tuesday fielded Desk.com, a new on-demand social and mobile help desk platform that’s supposed to let businesses deliver personal customer service by unifying support channels including Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, the phone and the web via a Desk.com Agent Desktop. Basic pricing starts at $49 a month per full-time agent for unlimited usage. Flex pricing runs $1 an hour per part-time agent. Users can reportedly respond to cases themselves on the go, re-assign, change groups, change status, change priority for cases and modify customer information associated with cases.

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Some companies get it. Others wander around in the fog and think that it's a "Cloud". In case you've missed it, 2012 has been the year of some amazing strategic moves by Dell. If you think Dell isn't a software vendor, you're dead wrong. Dell "gets it" - SaaS, Software & Cloud. Dell is making some exciting waves in the "solutions" business. Building on the momentum as a result of the acquisition of Perot Systems some years ago and a buying spree where they acquired a host of best-of-breed software solutions such as Boomi (Cloud-based Integration Platform),Dell has just announced a newly created Software Division and has appointed veteran John Swainson as president, reporting to Michael Dell.

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Tilera, the wannabe many-core Intel server replacement, said Monday that it’s delivering the expected 16- and 36-core versions of its new 64-bit low-power proprietary TILE-GX processors along with evaluation systems it hopes will give Intel something to worry about. The things should be in volume by mid-March. They’re Tilera’s first 64-bit chips capable of using more memory than its original 32-bit widgets – like 512GB or 1TB. They’ve been shipping in limited quantities – alphas – since September. The start-up claims to have 20 design-wins and 80 “deep” engagements for the GX family that it expects will turn into design-wins – probably this year – because they’re do-or-die mission-critical projects. Forty-seven are in the US, 13 in Europe, and 20 in APAC, mostly China.

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At its GoingNative 2012 event, Microsoft announced a new, open specification to help C++ developers tap into the compute power of graphics processing units (GPUs). - Microsoft is making it easier for C++ programmers to take advantage of the computing power in graphics processing units (GPUs) with a new, open specification called C++ AMP. The software giant announced the new specification at its GoingNative 2012 event on Feb. 3, which focused on C++ development....

Every company should plan regular architecture capability maturity assessments using a model. These should provide a framework that represents the key components of a productive enterprise architecture process. A model provides an evolutionary way to improve the overall process that starts out in an ad hoc state, transforms into an immature process, and then finally becomes a well-defined, disciplined, managed and mature process. The goal is to enhance the overall odds for success of the enterprise architecture by identifying weak areas and providing a defined path towards improvement. As the architecture matures, it should increase the benefits it offers the organization. Architecture maturity assessments help to determine how companies can maximise competitive advantage, identify ways of cutting costs, improve quality of services and reduce time to market. These assessments are undertaken as part of the Enterprise Architecture management.

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This article introduces the concepts of Component Oriented Development and Assembly (CODA) using the OSGi Service platform with an example application. The article starts with an introduction to software components, elaborates with an example application, followed by an overview of the OSGi Service platform, and an implementation of the example application using this platform. Components are parts that can be assembled to form a larger system. Electronic components such as ICs (Integrated Circuits) are assembled together to build an electronic system; similarly software components are assembled together to build a software system. Software systems have a static form as well as a dynamic runtime form. Software components can be assembled either in static form or dynamic form. In either case, the software component is an independent unit of development, deployment, and assembly. Using components to build software systems will provide many architectural advantages apart from promoting ease of reuse.

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Google's Android operating system is regularly blasted for fragmentation. It won't be mistaken for Apple iOS, but it might not be as bad as we originally thought. - Much of the negative conversation concerning Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android platform is predicated on the fact that it's fragmented. Specifically, the concern is that there too many operating system builds spanning Android 2.0 to Android 4.0, too many devices and handset makers clogging an a...

Adobe says it will deliver its Adobe Creative Cloud offering this spring, featuring Adobe Creative Suite 6, Adobe Touch Apps, Muse 1.0 and a new preview of Adobe Edge, among other things. - Adobes new cloud initiative aimed at creative professionals, known as Adobe Creative Cloud, will go live this spring. Adobe announced the Adobe Creative Cloud at its MAX 2011 conference last October. In an interview, Heidi Voltmer, director of product marketing for Web and interactive solutions at ...

Mozilla's Firefox 10 is relatively light on new user features, but includes a variety of new tools for developers, particularly those creating multimedia experiences. - In keeping with its rapid release cadence, Mozilla has released Firefox 10.0 for Windows, Mac and Linux. While the latest browser version features relatively few cosmetic changes, there are some under-the-hood additions that could prove vital for developers trying to create next-generation Web exper...

AccuRev announces Kando, a new platform that integrates the open source Git software configuration management (SCM) system with commercial SCM platforms. - AccuRev, a maker of tools for managing the software development process, has released a platform that integrates the open-source Git revision control system with commercial enterprise configuration management systems. AccuRevs new Kando, an enterprise security and compliance platform for Git, c...

With HTML5 and CSS all the rage with developers, particularly Web developers, a new site has emerged to advise them on the use of features in the programming languages. The HTML5 Please site offers expert advice on which features to use and not to use when developing apps. The site breaks its advice down into three categories: use, use with caution, and avoid. Additionally, it tells developers which features they should use with fallbacks or polyfills. The bottom line is that the new site gives developers recommendations on which HTML5 and CSS3 elements they can safely use to create apps and sites that are effectively supported across a range of browsers. Because HTML5 is a moving target and many of its elements are too new to safely use for cross-browser support, HTML Please is a welcome aid to developers who want to color inside the lines. The HTML5 Please site is a community project created by Divya Manian, Web opener for Opera Software; Paul Irish, developer programs engineer on the Google Chrome team; Tim Branyen, a software engineer at Bocoup; Connor Montgomery, a Web developer and computer science student at St. Louis University; and a host of others. This slide show takes a look at the HTML5 and CSS3 elements that HTML5 Please says are completely safe for developers to use. - ...

Google's Chrome browser growth leveled off through January, ending the first month of the year with just under 19 percent market share. Microsoft's Internet Explorer grew to 53 percent. - Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Chrome is having an inauspicious start to 2012, slipping a tad to 18.9 percent market share through January from 19.1 percent through December, according to Net Applications. Mozilla's Firefox browser, meanwhile, continued its slide, dropping nearly a full percentage po...

These past few weeks, I published several blogs pointing out problems with static rule based correlation, their current limitations, their high TCO, etc. Because these solutions have been sold for many years as the end all be all to security problems, it has created false expectations in the industry and among clients. But SIEM as a general discipline holds plenty of promises, let’s not throw the baby with the bathwater.

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Sumo Logic, a startup providing cloud-based log management and analytics services, has emerged from stealth mode with $15 million in funding. - Startup Sumo Logic has emerged from stealth mode to unveil its cloud-based log management and analytics service that leverages big data to deliver real-time IT insights. Sumo Logic's software-as-a-service (SAAS) solution eliminates the need for expensive premises-based solutions, time-consuming...

cVidya Networks, a provider of Revenue Intelligence solutions for Telecom, Media and Entertainment service providers, has announced the release of DRMap, a complete data retention solution that enables CSPs to comply with current regulations and swiftly fulfill law enforcement requests. With its current positioning in the revenue assurance and fraud management spaces, cVidya was able to leverage its capabilities to create a solution which by nature collects richer sets of information as part of existing applications deployed at CSPs. With the necessity to ensure compliance with increasing regulations, such as the EU Data Retention Directive 2006/24/EC requiring CSPs to store data for up to 24 months, it is imperative that CSPs have fast, secure, and compliant data retention systems. According to a leading research firm white paper, the majority of CSPs are spending a lot of time and money trying to adapt their current systems to meet the regulations. cVidya is leveraging Oracle Exadata Database Machine, allowing CSPs to benefit from the extreme performance, speed and scalability offered by Oracle. cVidya's DRMap V1.0 has also achieved Oracle Exadata Ready status through Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN). This demonstrates that cVidya has fully tested and supports DRMap V1.0 on Oracle Exadata Database Machine.

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DS Data Systems UK Ltd. is pleased to announce the release of KonaKart v6.0.0.0, a Java-based eCommerce shopping cart application that provides an extensive set of features to enable retailers to successfully sell their products over the internet. KonaKart is a Java / JSP / XML based solution with comprehensive easy to use java, SOAP, RMI and JSON APIs that allow you to quickly integrate eCommerce functionality into your existing systems. The customizable parts of KonaKart are Open Source and available under the GNU LGPL.

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Amazon’s cloud, which, let’s face it, is still pretty much developer turf, broadened its push into the enterprise Wednesday with the introduction of AWS Storage Gateway, a beta virtual appliance nominally meant to automate enterprise data backup to S3 while creating a comfort level with the cloud among the leery. It’s the first time Amazon has proposed putting its own software on the ground inside a corporate data center. And the stuff’s targeted at large corporations. Amazon says some customers asked for such a solution. It also expects resellers to offer the service. It is of course proprietary and a competitive problem for other cloud storage and gateway suppliers. Come to think of it, Amazon as repository of corporate data is a problem for a lot of people.

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Intel last year bid billions trying to get the Nortel patents. Thursday RealNetworks said Intel was paying it $120 million cash for 190 “foundational media” patents, 170 patent applications and next-generation video codec software good for stuff like streaming. The IP is apparently supposed to brace Intel’s Ultrabook, smartphone, tablet and digital media interests. Intel’s also picking up Real’s video codec engineering team. Real retains “certain rights to continue to use the patents in current and future products.” RealNetworks and Intel signed an MOU to collaborate on future support and development of the next-generation video codec software and related products.

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As more enterprises are adopting clouds, the nature of cloud computing is changing. Previously, clouds were used to test applications or for non-mission critical applications. Today, enterprises are using clouds for cost-saving advantages and launching more mission critical applications that have defined performance needs. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Eric Shepcaro, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Telx, will discuss how distributed computing has many advantages. It would allow organizations to have a cloud at various data centers instead of one cloud at one datacenter. Costs are reduced significantly since one big Internet pipe is not needed.

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Joyent’s SmartDataCenter IaaS platform is going to be sold to Italian VARs and service providers by ICOS, an Italian value-added distributor, for private cloud infrastructure or value-added private cloud services. SmartDataCenter’s local storage is supposed to reduce the TCO of cloud data centers. It’s designed to manage tens of thousands of virtual machines, a k a SmartMachines, and supports a multi-tenant PaaS. ICOS means to develop its own cloud infrastructure for channel partners too so they don’t have to build their own cloud data center. JoyentCloud.com delivers public cloud services to LinkedIn, Gilt Groupe and Kabam and licenses its cloud software to service providers that include Dell, FirstServer, XYBase, ClusterTech and Uniserve. Its offerings include a Platform-as-a-Service based on Node.js, the open source server-side JavaScript development environment that’s been embraced by Microsoft.

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