Tag Archives: Twitter

Google, Tech

Google Launches the Closest Thing to a Real Time Machine

Remember watching those time-lapse videos of growing plants in science class? They look pretty dated once you’ve checked out the same sequence through Google’s new “GigaPan Time Machine” application, which lets you zoom in and out of a time-lapse video without losing resolution.

 



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“With Time Machine, the cameras capture these image mosaics at regular intervals to create a video with hundreds of millions or even billions of pixels in each frame. The result is a video that viewers have the ability to zoom in on while it’s playing and see incredible detail,” Google wrote in a blog post (see video demo below).

For example, Google links to a video of potted plants growing from seed to full bloom. You can target where you zoom in and out to focus on certain leaves or flowers (you may even be able to spot a catepillar taking a chomp of a leaf). The panorama was created by taking photos every 15 minutes for 26 days, using a Canon PowerShot G10 mounted on an Epic Pro.

The application, created by a team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, uses GigaPan photo technology, which involves “stitching” together high-resolution photos to create a panorama. You might have come across it while spying on people at President Obama’s inauguration. It was also built using HTML 5, making it optimal to use with Chrome 7.0+, Google wrote. It works on Safari 5.0+ as well.

“Science has always been about narrowing your point of view — seeing a particular experiment or observation that you think might provide insight,” Illah Nourbakhsh, an associate professor of robotics at CMU told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

In the future, Noubakhsh also said he expects upgrades whereby high-resolution photographs, stitched together into a vast panorama, can be taken in fractions of a second to better examine fast-paced events like sports or volcanic eruptions.

Check it out at GigaPan’s website, where you can also create your own time-lapse videos using stock photos.

iPhone, Microsoft, Tech

How to See the Secret Tracking Data in Your iPhone

Coverage of the iPhone tracking “feature” has ranged from concern to outrage. “I don’t know about you, but the fact that this feature exists on an iPhone is a deal-killer,” wrote PCMag Columnist John Dvorak, shortly after news broke. PCMag Executive Editor Dan Costa drew a softer line, writing, “Apple may not be actively tracking you, but it did turn your phone into a tracking device without telling you.”

 

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As frustrating as it is to learn that your iPhone has been spying on you, collecting an unencrypted treasure trove of your travels, the truth is we knew this was happening. Last June we reported that Apple updated its privacy policy, stating that it could, “collect, use, and share precise location data, including real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device.” How precise that location data is remains in question. What is clear, however, is that the update arrived alongside the release of iOS 4—the OS affected by the tracking feature—and identified the four devices (iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPad with 3G) affected by the tracking feature.

I’m not about to give Apple a pass on disclosure or execution. Who combs through an Apple privacy statement when the latest iOS software awaits? And, to “collect” and “share” user data is one thing; to retain it in an unprotected file is quite another.

However, I think it’s important that, with a few days’ hindsight, we move beyond the bombast, pin down the facts, and see what’s actually there. To do this, I’ve taken a close look at what’s at risk and, in empirical spirit, borrowed fellow PCMag software analyst Jeff Wilson’s iPhone 3GS to see what I could learn of the man and the travels using Pete Warden’s iPhoneTracker app.

UPDATE: While I tested the tracking feature using the OS X-based iPhoneTracker, Windows users can access their data using iPhoneTrackerWin.

What and Who Is At Risk?
First, the bad news: if you’re running iOS 4, your location-based data—latitude and longitude coordinates, coupled with timestamps—is stored on your phone in a file called “consolidated.db;” that file is automatically transferred to any machines with which you sync (and back up), and it’s probably flowing back to Apple in some form or another. The worse news: if you haven’t encrypted your backups, that data is unprotected.

Now, for the not-so-bad news. There’s no confirmation that that data is leaving your custody and no evidence that Apple’s harvesting it towards nefarious ends. More likely, it’s being used for two things: Apple’s reportedly tapping location information to build a database, which may actually be for your own good; and other apps, such as Maps, require geo-locational data to play. To halt both in their tracks, you can disable Location Services.
World

Furthermore, the data is far from “precise.” In fact, Apple’s data collection is both inconsistent and imprecise. Rather than using GPS, location information logged in consolidated.db is determined by triangulation via cell-phone towers, a notoriously loose method. Update times run the gamut, left to the whims of cell-phone towers and phone activity. Finally, the location data available on your phone is limited by several variables:

* it dates back to the release of iOS 4, less than one year;
* only affects iPads with 3G or the iPhone 3G, 3GS, and 4;
* while data is timed to the second on your iPhone, you can only browse within a single week of activity using Pete Warden’s iPhoneTracker application

The final point is important: let me show you why. (Click “Next” below to keep reading.)

Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Tech, Twitter

Office 365 Beta Testers Run into Mobile, Mac Issues and Other Headaches

It’s been two days since the public release of Office 365 beta and Microsoft forums are lively to say the least. On the Office 365 community forum there are heaps of technical questions and complaints around some very specific problems that beta testers are encountering, as well as a smattering of compliments about the service.

 



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The majority of complaints—the threads with 10 or more posts; focus on issues with Sharepoint Online, Lync interoperability with Mac, and Exchange mobile syncing.

Microsoft beta testers seem to be having a hard time, especially with SharePoint Online. Several posters reported that their initial setup of Office 365 hangs during the SharePoint portion of setup:

“We are doing the standard setup of Office 365 and the SharePoint is hanging.”

“I am having the same issue, seeing ‘..this may take a few minutes’ on the sharepoint online site creation, now waiting for appox. 48 hours.”

“Two days later the sharepoint site has successfully been created. It just seems to take much more than a ‘few minutes’, but otherwise is fine now.”

Another big SharePoint issue, one that is generating multiple threat posts, is a problem with SharePoint sites:

“[The]SharePoint site doesn’t seem to exist. When I login, it either goes into a loop between windows live login and sharepoint.com…”

“None of the user accounts I created can access the sharepoint public or team sites.”

Some of the SharePoint access issues are actually problems with DNS records and not specifically with Office 365.

The majority of beta testers are technology professionals. Many of them have existing Exchange on-premise servers or are currently Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) customers. BPOS users have no choice but to adopt Office 365 since Microsoft is requiring them to transition within 12 months. One poster complained about a problem he encountered after migrating from BPOS, and that he can no longer send email from an external source to Office 365 after adding his company’s domain to the service.

There is an interesting post from a user experiencing problems setting up an Android phone with Exchange online. The user writes that he followed Microsoft’s instructions for configuring the device to sync with mail, calendar, and contacts. After doing so, he got only the cryptic error, “Failed to create the account, Please try again later.” The user noted that the same phone was previously able to sync with an on-premise Exchange 2007 server. A moderator on the forum, presumably from Microsoft, suggested the device be set to accept all SSL certificates and also suggested testing the validity of the connection to the online Exchange server. No response yet from the user if the suggestions worked.

Complaints are also being made about lack of support and the time it is taking to get an email invitation to test the service:

“This is IMO unacceptably slow service: ‘You will receive an email invitation from us as soon as your account is ready. We anticipate that the average wait for an account is approximately 2-4 weeks during the Beta period.'”

“I filed a support ticket…and got the answer to instead post my problem here in the forum.”

Questions abound about interoperability with Mac, particularly with Microsoft’s Lync client. A forum mod responded that while Lync 2010 is not supported on Mac, the Lync Web App—which can respond to Lync invites but not initiate them—can run on Safari and Firefox on Max OS 10.4.8+.

The comments are not all gloomy. One poster called Office 365 a “pretty great service” and another stated that “I’m pumped about being here and being part of the Beta, I also enjoy some of the challenges as I feel they keep your sharp.”

It’s important to note that Office 365 is still in beta and hopefully, Microsoft will have these issues worked out before final release. In the meantime, we have a request for comment out to Microsoft and will update this piece when they respond.

Facebook, Google, Tech, Twitter

Facebook Fixes Spamming Glitch

Facebook has fixed a glitch that reversed selected email notifications for some users.

Typically, Facebook users can customize which emails or text notifications they receive, whether it’s for friend requests or new Facebook events. But on Tuesday, users began complaining that their selected email notifications had been reversed. For instance, those who had opted not to receive emails for events, were suddenly receiving emails about them, while those who’d checkmarked that box were not receiving emails at all.

 

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This prompted Facebook to post the problem on its “Known Issues on Facebook” page on Tuesday night: “Some people are suddenly receiving email notifications for settings they had turned off, and the checkboxes are now checked. We are currently working on a solution to this problem.”

By Wednesday afternoon, Facebook apologized and declared the problem resolved.

“Yesterday evening, we discovered a bug that caused a small number of people to start receiving notifications they had previously turned off. We have since resolved the issue and apologize for any inconvenience,” a spokesperson said.

Last Friday some Facebook users also reported seeing an error message when trying to access their “Notifications” menu, which Facebook said it resolved within 24 hours.

On Monday, U.K.-based security company Sophos published an open letter to Facebook on its blog, Naked Security, urging Facebook to improve its opt-in privacy schemes, vet app developers (where many phishing scams originate), and turn on a secure connection (HTTPS) standard.

MCTS Training, Microsoft, Office, Oracle, Tech, Twitter, Uncategorized, Windows 7, Xbox

How to Recycle Your Technology

The Best Places to Recycle Tech

e-Stewards
This program is run by the Basel Action Network (BAN), a non-profit dedicated to confronting environmental injustice caused by toxic chemicals worldwide. BAN helped expose the atrocious things happening in Asia and Africa caused by the so-called “recycling” of e-waste exported there. With help from some corporations and citizens, it created e-Stewards to address what it says the government doesn’t: “prevent the toxic materials in electronics from continuing to cause long term harm to human health and the environment.” BAN and its group of e-Stewards Recyclers even recently called on the United States to halt all export of e-waste generated by the federal government alone; BAN says the feds buy around 500,000 new computers a year, making it “the largest source of electronic waste in the world.” Washington should lead by example. By checking out the list of e-Stewards Recyclers on the site, you can be reassured that you are taking your digital detritus to someone you can absolutely trust to recycle it in the safest way possible.

 

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Best Buy
The nationwide electronics retailer has, arguably, the best recycling program going. Its Web site details what exactly it’ll take (small tube TVs, Bluetooth headsets, software, UPS battery backups, to name a few) and what it won’t (projection TVs, rooftop dish antennas, hard drives, old cassettes and 8-tracks, go figure.) Small items such as ink/toner, old cables, and batteries can go in recycling kiosks right by the door.

The list of items it’ll take is tremendously long, and even if it won’t take it in store, it might pick it up. That goes for several large kitchen appliances, plus old CRT televisions over 32-inches in size. Check the listing for your state, however, as what Best Buy accepts could differ depending on local laws.

What’s the catch? Not much. You can take in up to 3 items per day. It doesn’t matter if you bought it there or not. It’s mostly free: if you bring in a small tube TV or CRT monitor, they charge you $10 to take it… then turn right around and give you a $10 Best Buy gift card. Again, state rules can apply.

Even smarter: check Best Buy’s Trade-In calculator to see if what you think is junk could be used to offset buying some new toys.

Staples
Bring in as many as 10 ink/toner cartridges per month and you get $2 for each in Staple Rewards to spend. Staples will also take any other old office electronics, like computers, monitors, and printers, for $10 per large piece of equipment. If the electronics are smaller, such as input devices, phones or cameras, the recycling is free. For items with the Dell brand, all recycling is free. Staples does not take TVs or big copiers.

Staples also offers a service called EasyTech to move data from an old computer you want to get rid off to a new PC. Plus, it sells a line of Sustainable Earth products, such as remanufactured toner cartridges.

Office Depot
At Office Depot, you can buy what it calls a Tech Recycling Box. You can put as much electronic junk in one of these boxes as you want, as long as it will close. Then bring the box back to the store unsealed and drop it off for inspection. Office Depot will ship it off to waste management partners to do the rest. It promises to break the devices down to components of glass, plastic, copper and aluminum to reuse. The boxes come in different sizes and costs: small (8x15x18 inches) is $5, medium (20x16x16 inches) is $10, and large (24x18x18 inches) is $15. Check out its FAQ PDF of items it accepts and items doesn’t (which includes such obvious items as devices covered in or leaking liquid and anything radioactive).

Mobile phones, PDAs, batteries, and ink/toner cartridges can be dropped off for free with any sales associate, however. Or if you go to OfficeDepot.com, you can buy boxes—for the price of $0.00, including delivery to your home—to directly recycle laser toner and inkjet cartridges by mail.

E-Cycle
It’s no surprise that the company that was on site at MacWorld to take old iPhones when Verizon Wireless announced it would sell the current iPhone 4 is in the market to get your old iProducts. E-Cycle will buy iPhones and iPads from individuals or organization. Just go to its site, tell it what kind of device you have, and it’ll generate a quote. It’ll even take broken devices. You simply mail it in a pre-paid box E-Cycle provides, and then payment shows up in the mail. I got a quote of $145 for a working condition first generation iPad with Wi-Fi and 16GB memory; $315 for an iPhone 4 with 16GB, which is more than most people pay for them brand new (with a contract). E-Cycle will take other phones if you ask, but won’t pay you for them.

Call2Recycle is a non-profit program specifically for collecting and safely disposing of rechargeable batteries. Visit the site and enter your zip code and it will display any number of retailers that have a Call2Recycle drop off location. Partners include Lowes, Home Depot, RadioShack, Sears, and Best Buy, to name a few. This goes for not just your electronics, but all those rechargeable batteries on your tools and flashlights as well—none of them are doing us any favors in the landfill. Plus, it’s free. Precious metals are recovered from the dead batteries and turned into useful stuff. For example, the kitchen flatware you eat with may once have been powering your drill or phone.

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How to Recycle Your Technology

We love our computers and electronics. That is, until they stop working. Then these computers and their peripherals, from printers to monitors, not to mention your handhelds, batteries, and accessories, often become digital garbage.

These things aren’t made to last after all. (No computer or phone maker is going to mind if you buy an upgrade every year or two.) Consequently, all of this junk ends up in the back of your closet or stored in your garage, collecting dust, because you aren’t sure what to do with the stuff. The best thing to do with this growing accumulation of old electronic equipment is to either donate or recycle it.

 



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Donate your old computers and phones whenever you can to groups that will fix and clean them up and then put them back to good use. Even the oldest computer, something you consider the most obsolete of digital dinosaurs, can probably be used by someone.

There are times, though, when a device is too far gone and there’s nothing else that can be done to bring it back to life again. Even a charity doesn’t want your unusable junk. That junk—called e-waste—is potentially dangerous. Electronics are filled with “heavy metals” (read: toxic metals) and carcinogenic chemicals that are fine when you’re using them, but not so much when sitting in a landfill or, worse, when people try to recycle them incorrectly. Thousands of tons of e-waste is shipped overseas yearly to countries like China and India where it gets dumped and maybe burned, which puts mercury and lead into the air.

So on this 41st Earth Day, we want to point out the places you can take your old or even dead electronics, so they can end up either being used by someone in need or safely recycled.

Tech

Sprint to fork over $1 billion to Clearwire

Sprint Tuesday agreed to pay Clearwire $1 billion for the right to wholesale access to its WiMAX network over the next two years.

Under the new agreement, Sprint will pay Clearwire a minimum of $300 million in 2011 and $550 million in 2012 for wholesale rights. Sprint will also pony up $175 million in “pre-payments for wholesale services” that will be used in both 2011 and 2012.

 



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Sprint, which is a 54% owner of Clearwire, has been haggling for months over what it will pay the company for wholesale rights. This has come at a time of significant turbulence for Clearwire, as the company acknowledged late last year that it would need a large capital injection in order to remain solvent this year.

ANALYSIS: Can Clearwire escape financial doom?

Clearwire’s operating expenses have soared over the past three years, going from $514 million in 2008 to $1.5 billion in 2009 to $2.8 billion in 2010. The company says that the vast majority of its capital expenditures over the past three years were incurred from network build-outs that have helped Clearwire bring its WiMAX services to every major market in the U.S. Even so, Clearwire’s revenue has failed to keep up with the increased operating costs, resulting in a $2.3 billion loss in 2010, nearly double the $1.25 billion loss posted in 2009.

These dire numbers led the company to project that it does not expect to see any positive cash flows over the next year and that its cash would be depleted as soon as mid-2011 if it failed to raise any additional capital. In announcing its third-quarter financial results last year, the company said it would save money by letting go of 15% of its workforce and that it would enact plans to raise short-term capital to stay solvent.

Former Clearwire CEO Bill Morrow announced that he would be leaving the company last month, citing “personal reasons” for stepping down. Clearwire also announced that its Chief Commercial Officer Mike Sievert and its CIO Kevin Hart were leaving the company last month to “pursue other opportunities.” The company is currently headed by interim CEO John Stanton, who had served as chairman prior to Morrow’s resignation.

Clearwire and Sprint first formed a joint WiMAX venture in 2008, when they secured $3.2 billion in total investments from several major tech and communications companies, including Google, Intel, Comcast, Time-Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. Since then Clearwire has worked to build out a nationwide network that spans all major U.S. markets and that covers 120 million points of presence. The majority of Clearwire WiMAX customers get their access wholesale from third-party providers such as Sprint, Comcast and Time-Warner Cable.

Tech, Windows 7

My First 48 Hours with iPad 2: One CIO’s Story

After weeks of waiting for an iPad 2 on back order, CIO Rob Rennie of Florida State College at Jacksonville finally got his hands on the slick, new device. “My assessment so far is, I love it because it is faster, lighter and the FaceTime capability makes a lot of difference for me,” Rennie says.

 

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More than just a cool consumer device, the iPad has become a critical piece of technology at the college. Rennie has helped usher hundreds of iPads into the hands of executives, IT staff, administrators, faculty and students. Executives use them for reporting purposes, project tracking, staffing issues. Last summer, Rennie told CIO.com about five surprises during his iPad enterprise rollout.

“We are having great success with them in science labs and other academic environments where a laptop is impractical,” Rennie says. “Leader management types are making good use of them as part of a larger paperless initiative.”

As an early iPad champion, Rennie waited anxiously for his iPad 2 to arrive-which it did this week. The top-of-the-line iPad 2 64GB with 3G has enough storage space to handle Rennie’s huge media content needs. He also chose to go with 3G, rather than use his iPhone as a hotspot, because he feared hot-spotting would run down the iPhone battery.

“The 3G data plan works well for me, making the iPad a fully independent device,” he says.

So what does a CIO who has staked much of his reputation on the iPad do in the first couple of days with the iPad 2 (other than cartwheels and including a business trip)?

In this interview, Rennie gives the lowdown on what apps took priority (for both work and personal use), what he thinks of the magnetic Apple case, and what he hopes will show up in iOS 5, expected to be announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference on June 6.

What apps took priority on your iPad 2?

Rennie: In addition to the standard apps, including email and calendar, I went first for iAnnotate PDF ($10-a PDF reader and annotation tool), Fluent News Reader (free-newspaper aggregator app), Keynote ($10-Apple’s presentation app), Office2 HD ($8-Word and Excel app), Dropbox (free-cloud storage app), Evernote (free-cloud-storage, note-taking app), Numbers ($10-Apple’s spreadsheet app), OmniGraffle ($50-diagram-creating app) and various music apps such as Amplitude HD ($2-app for amplifying sound).

I use all but the music apps for work. With Keynote, Numbers, iAnnotate, Office2 HD, and Dropbox, I have a fully mobile work environment on the iPad. I don’t need a laptop except in extreme cases. Evernote is great for keeping all my notes synced. (For iPad newbies, here are 15 must-have iPad apps.)

Additionally, we have built a series of custom apps for our organization that replaces our decision support, ERP reports and several other ready references. Our tech plan and project-by-project fiscal analysis is in iBooks. Dropbox is great for file sharing.

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My First 48 Hours with iPad 2: One CIO’s Story
By Tom Kaneshige, CIO
April 19, 2011 02:17 PM ET

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After weeks of waiting for an iPad 2 on back order, CIO Rob Rennie of Florida State College at Jacksonville finally got his hands on the slick, new device. “My assessment so far is, I love it because it is faster, lighter and the FaceTime capability makes a lot of difference for me,” Rennie says.

More than just a cool consumer device, the iPad has become a critical piece of technology at the college. Rennie has helped usher hundreds of iPads into the hands of executives, IT staff, administrators, faculty and students. Executives use them for reporting purposes, project tracking, staffing issues. Last summer, Rennie told CIO.com about five surprises during his iPad enterprise rollout.

STUDY: Ready or not, iPad, other tablets are in the enterprise

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You mentioned that you’re a big FaceTime fan, and the iPad 2 brings FaceTime to the tablet. How important is this feature?

Rennie: FaceTime delivers a good, quick videoconference from any wireless environment. It has become a favored tool for work. We do quick video conferences and show whiteboards and physical spaces. When I travel, it’s nice to call home and see everyone. I use FaceTime at least three to four times a week.

Did you get any accessories with your iPad 2?

Rennie: I didn’t get a keyboard because the virtual keyboard works fine for me. I did get a camera connection kit ($30)and a HDMI digital AV adapter ($40) to connect to large monitors around the office and in conference rooms. (Check out these five iPad productivity tools for under $5, reports CIO.com.)

Rennie: I have a problem with the awkwardness of the cover. Although it appears to be a great idea, it starts to lose its luster when you are holding (the iPad) in your hand and walking around. The cover is kind of clumsy. I’ve also had the cover disconnect at the magnet hinges a few times. It’s a little weird on airplanes where the absence of rigidity of position is problematic.

I am trying to adjust to the cover, but if I don’t really soon then I will start evaluating other options.

On the iOS side, Apple apparently will introduce iOS 5 at this year’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference. From a CIO’s perspective, what do you want to see?

Rennie: I know the iPad is an individual’s device, but it is also great for classes, labs and healthcare applications where having more than one user per device is essential. Yet there’s no easy way to share an iPad across classes and work shifts that keeps common data and apps and allows multiple authenticated users with their personal profiles.

For example, with an iPad in a clinical or medical environment, you’ll want to keep the patient information and charts (the same for workers changing shifts) but would like the user to authenticate and have their unique calendar, email and subscriptions. This would make enterprise management of the devices a lot easier.

MCITP Training, MCTS Certification, MCTS Training, Microsoft, Office, Tech, Windows 7, YouTube

InfoWorld preview: Office 365 beta

In spite of what you may have heard, Microsoft isn’t betting the farm on Office 365. But Redmond is certainly sacrificing its largest cash cow to the cloud gods.

With Office 365 available in open beta today, everyone has a chance to see what’s new, what’s old, and what’s in desperate need of improvement. Permit me to point out some of the high spots. I’ll also show you how to avoid a few pitfalls I encountered when getting started.

 

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[ Microsoft’s Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Lync Online combo is good. Is it good enough to cost you your job? See “Will Office 365 get you fired?” | Follow the latest Windows developments in InfoWorld’s Technology: Microsoft newsletter. ]

A few pitfalls notwithstanding, the beta itself seems quite stable. I had no problems with any part of the beta using Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4, or Chrome 10, and I used all of them extensively.

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Best of all, Microsoft has done a remarkable job of making Admin functions accessible to people with no Exchange, SharePoint, or Lync experience. Individuals and small companies that have shied away from the big server tools now have a chance to catch up with the large corporate installations, without breaking the bank or seconding an employee to full-time server servitude. That’s a notable achievement.

What, exactly, is an Office 365?
The best way to explain Office 365 to your boss is that it includes Office 2010, if you want it. But mostly, it includes cloud-based versions of the server glue that ties the Office pieces together: Exchange for email, SharePoint for document collaboration and Team Sites, and Lync for live communications.

For smaller organizations, Office 365 means getting all of those glue-together pieces without running your own servers or hiring network admins because Microsoft provides simplified forms for controlling the glue, as well as providing all of the server oomph your organization needs over the Internet.

There are lots of good things in the glue. For instance, Exchange lets you get at all of your email through the Outlook Web App, so you can move freely back and forth between Outlook on your PC or Mac and Outlook in a browser or on a phone or iPad. Actions you take on one device (such as sending or deleting an email) show up on the others. Exchange also lets you share calendars and contacts. SharePoint supports central document storage and collaboration in Team Sites. It even has a click-and-drag, rudimentary Web page construction application. Lync covers instant messaging, VoIP calling, and videoconferences, and it ties into Outlook and SharePoint Team Sites.

For larger organizations, Office 365 can, at least in theory, off-load some of the work currently performed by your network admins and make it considerably simpler to set up far-flung locations. Even a single location can mix Office 365 and non-Office 365 users. If your company is eyeing Exchange 2010, SharePoint 2010, and Lync 2010, Office 365 makes the deployment simpler. Microsoft guarantees backup, security, and uptime. There’s a great deal of debate as to how much of the network admin function should be off-loaded to Microsoft. And the process of moving from in-house servers to Microsoft’s servers in the sky promises to be a fertile, lucrative ground for specialized consultants for the next decade or two.

Google, MCTS Certification, MCTS Training, Microsoft, Oracle, Tech, Twitter, Uncategorized, Windows 7, Xbox, YouTube

Google’s first quarter earnings miss projections as expenses spike; Page makes brief appearance

Google’s first quarter earnings fell short of Wall Street expectations as the company continued to invest heavily in data center infrastructure and headcount.

Google reported first quarter earnings of $2.8 billion, or $7.04 a share, on revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs of $6.54 billion (statement, preview). Non-GAAP earnings were $8.08 a share. Wall Street was expecting earnings of $8.10 a share on revenue of $6.32 billion.

 



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Google CEO Larry Page made a brief appearance on the company’s conference call. He said the reorganization has gone as planned and the team has “hit the ground running.” Page added that the quarter worked out well and he was excited about moves to “simplify our org.

“I’m very optimistic about our future,” said Page. Here’s what Page said in full:

It’s great to take just a few minutes with all of you. We’ve had a tremendous quarter, 27% year over year revenue growth in Q1. I’m really excited about that and I think it shows the strength of our business and our continuing — kind of continuing growth really in the tech industry. It’s really still at the beginning from a user perspective. There’s tremendous improvements to be had in our core products and our core business, and we are really excited about that. I also wanted to mention a little bit about the management team. Everything we told you last quarter has happened as we expected. It’s all working very well, exactly as we planned. I’ll just reiterate that quickly I am managing the day-to-day operations of Google as CEO, working very closely with my team, and I’m really excited about the progress we’ve had there. I think we really hit the ground running. Eric (Schmidt) of course is focused externally on the government partnerships, government relations, and partnership outreaches. Last quarter alone, he was in Germany, Brazil, Argentina and Spain. He’s been just doing tremendous things for the Company. Sergey, as we mentioned, is working very intensely on a few emerging projects for us. Like I said, this is all exactly as we planned, and I’m very, very excited about those changes. I’d also mention we made a number of changes to just simplify our org and improve our velocity and execution, basically simplify our reporting structures and such. Now I’m very excited about Google and our momentum, and I’m very, very optimistic about our future. I also just want to mention we have Jonathan Rosenberg, who’s usually done this call, is transitioning out of the Company as we have announced a while ago. I really wanted to thank him for all of his insights and hard work and all of the fine communication with all of you. And so we will clearly miss him, and we really want to thank him from the bottom of our hearts. So those are the main things I wanted to say. I’m tremendously excited about all of the things that lay before us as a company, and I also want us to say you’re in very good hands with the team here.

With Google it’s a tug-of-war between earnings today and investments for tomorrow. Indeed, Google beefed up a good bit and ended the first quarter with 26,316 employees compared to 24,400 at the end of the fourth quarter. That level of investment has investors worried about profit margins.

CFO Patrick Pichette kept Google’s common refrain going. “It’s clear that our past investments have been crucial to our success today–which is why we continue to invest for the long term,” he said. “We will continue to make capital investments.”

All units at Google are expected to show productivity as they invest, said Pichette. Pichette was making the case that Google closely watches expenses, but analysts were skeptical.

On the conference call, Pichette was upbeat about Google’s progress and cited Android, display ad progress and YouTube develop as a win-win platform.

Highlights from Google’s earnings call:

* 350,000 Android devices activated every day.
* Google is investing in marketing the Chrome browser. Why? It’s a locked in user and that lowers traffic acquisition costs. Google is tracking the lifetime value of a Chrome user and there are real returns there.
* Enterprise business continues to grow.
* Japan hurt international revenue.
* New hires are working on areas  “In fact, over half the [newglers] who joined this quarter are going to be working in high potential and revenue growth areas like YouTube, mobile, Chrome, commerce and local, and enterprise,” said Jeff Huber, senior vice president of commerce and local at Google.
* Social is a important as a search results signal.

By the numbers:

* Google’s owned and operated sites generated $5.88 billion in first quarter revenue, or 69 percent of total sales. AdSense delivered first quarter sales of $2.43 billion, or 28 percent of revenue.
* International revenue was 53 percent of the total sales pie in line with the year ago percentage.
* Paid clicks were up 18 percent in the first quarter compared to a year ago. Cost per click was up 8 percent.
* Data center expenses—or other cost of revenue—were $897 million, or 10 percent of sales.
* Google ended the quarter with $36.7 billion in cash and equivalents.

2011 Q1 Google Earnings Slides

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