Author Archive
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Autotask Keynote & Product Liveblog
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed our live blog yesterday covering the announcements and notes.. Today we actually get to hear about what is coming from Autotask in 2012/2013 in great detail so stay tuned. In the meantime, here is the teaser slide Mark Cattini used yesterday to describe what’s coming up. Looking forward to the details – [...]
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Autotask Community Live! LiveBlog
Front row, check. Tune in here and our Twitter feed (@LooksCloudy) throughout the conference for live updates and coverage. Getting started in about 15 minutes! 8:31. 700+ attendees.. waiting anxiously for Mark to start momentarily. 8:38. Len DiConstanzo, customers in over 53 countries. Tons of first timers. Interesting question: “How many of you already do [...]
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The reason MSPs are obsessed about mobile
LooksCloudy certainly spends more than the fair share of the airtime to discuss mobility and it’s impact on the MSPs and business computing. We also don’t shy away from the fact that you – actual service providers – are telling us about MDM being all hype and little play. This is not something RMM vendors [...]
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Siri, should I trust the cloud?
The debate over data privacy has been going on long before the cloud. Even when the data was being stored on your desktop or the server companies had to worry about whether the information was being encrypted, password protected or otherwise secure. Fast forward to 2012 and we have “features” that automatically compromise any notions [...]
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Google acquisition of Motorola complete: What now?
Google officially took Motorola under it’s wings today after an extended regulatory review and government inquiries worldwide. Google now has a hardware component – a huge one at that – to match up it’s software and services division. Sounds like where Microsoft wanted to go a few years ago? It’s important to note that most [...]
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Google Chrome is now bigger than Internet Explorer
In the news that will not surprise any techies, Internet Explorer has finally been dethroned as the king of web browsers. For the first time since taking out Netscape, Microsoft will be in the #2 spot despite Redmond’s marketing trying to promote it. I know I’m not the only one that found the advertisements weird [...]
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Google changes mobile strategy
Once upon a time Google decided it would change the way cell phones were sold, in a bid to make cell phones more free. They offered their Google Nexus phone online and sold it directly first on TMobile and then on tons of other platforms. Turns out the consumers weren’t as confident in those early [...]
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When social eliminates the need for IT services
Ten years ago, if you wanted to operate in a groupware environment you needed a beefy Internet connection, expensive hardware, team of people to maintain it and lots of expensive training or software. The need to collaborate securely created a huge boom in demand for IT personnel and made IT among the most powerful department [...]
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Is Comcast Flirting with Net Neutrality
I’ve noticed that couple of blog entries have popped up on the internet this week regarding Comcast rewriting DSCP bits that pass through their services. So as Berg and Rayburn point out and document this action violates the spirit of net neutrality. Obviously, we have no proof that they’re actually taking action these tags beyond [...]
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Would you put your home in the cloud?
AT&T thinks you will. Few years ago most businesses and individuals couldn’t comprehend putting important data in the cloud. This was a fact despite the fact that they already used webmail, Blackberry, instant messaging, online banking and more. Now the cloud wants to absorb your entire house: The above is an AT&T iPad app meant [...]
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Windows Phone Developer Summit
Microsoft has started sending out invitations for its Windows Phone Developer Summit, which will be held in June. The topics they plan on covering have not been announced. However, folks are buzzing about the possibility of discussing Windows 8 during the event. Back in February some of the features of the OS leaked some of [...]
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Blackberry 10: Revolution?
At LooksCloudy we like to look at how technology impacts consumers more than just vendor PR. Let’s face it, corporate/IT departments make purchasing decisions for entire businesses but they are still people after all. And when ordinary people make consumer cults at their own free will (Apple, Facebook, Zappos, Starbucks, etc) the corporate adoption is [...]
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Microsoft invests $300 million in Nook spinoff
We’re going to try to make sense out of this one for you: Microsoft made a huge play by investing $300 million in a B&N Nook spinoff for about 17% share of the company. Nook is an Android-powered ebook reader that is more expensive than the market leading Amazon Fire, has less than 30% share [...]
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Mythbusting CISPA
At Looks Cloudy we don’t discuss politics. Unless the political topics explicitly make an effort to raise significant concerns for service providers and cloud users in general. So today, without prejudice, we’re offering you some interesting reading about CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. Much like it’s predecessor (SOPA) which was defeated after [...]
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The Microsoft SMB Parallax
When you look at Microsoft dead on they look like the most successful technology company in the world across all regions and all consumer spectrums. Nearly everyone is touched by their solutions, software, entertainment, games and more. They are far from perfect and boy do they stumble – Vista, Windows ME, Windows Phone after 5.0. [...]
