Microsoft Will Finally Have Its Own Devices After Buying Nokia

Tim Banting

Summary Bullets:

• In order to increase revenue in the “post-PC” era, Microsoft needs to create a compelling proposition to attract consumers and business buyers in foundational smartphone and tablet markets.
• To fulfill its vision of becoming a devices and services company and to maximize profit, Microsoft needs to decouple its reliance on its current platform partners through building its own hardware. Nokia provides the much needed means of doing so.

My old school badge on my blazer read “Nemo Sibi Nascitur” (Latin: “No one is born unto himself alone”) highlighting the need to work together and support each other, something that true partnerships are all about.

The Public Cloud May Be Smarter Than You Think

B. Shimmin

Summary Bullets:

• Traditionally, public cloud collaboration services offer little customization options outside of white label branding.
• Partner- and customer-led PaaS ecosystems are ushering in new opportunities to both integrate and extend collaboration services in the cloud.

Cloud-borne services have proven their value time and again in cutting infrastructure costs and soothing the upgrade, downtime and support aches and pains traditionally suffered by IT on a daily basis. Of course, as with most gift horses of this caliber, it’s best not to look them too closely in the mouth. Upon closer inspection, enterprise customers of full-on multitenant, software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings have found a distinct lack of flexibility. They may be able to apply custom branding, conduct basic back end data queries, and in some cases modify the UI to display select components, but that’s typically where the sidewalk ends in terms of customization.