We all know how great it is to create and collaborate online with Google Docs. But of course the greatest part of Google Docs - the Internet connection - is also a real downside when you don't have it. But not anymore!
Google Docs is slowly rolling out an "unplugged" option. Using the Google Gears platform, a limited number of you (and more of you soon!) will have the option to save and work on Google Docs locally when you have no Internet connection. So if you're on a plane, at your folks' cabin in the mountains or the barista accidentally plugs the espresso machine into the wireless router, you can still work.
The offline version of Docs currently only supports the English language and is not extended to Google Spreadsheets or Presentations. But that will come later. Offline Google Docs pretty much works in the background - your docs are synced with your Google Apps account as soon as you have an Internet connection again.
For more information about using the power of Google Docs online or offline please contact us here at SADA Systems, Inc. at 818.766.2400.
We've been watching the movement to make social networking more open for a while now. The Washington Post reports a major step in that direction Tuesday.
Google has joined forces with Yahoo as well as MySpace to create the OpenSocial Foundation. The Foundation will support the technology developed by Google that allows developers to create applications that work across many social networking platforms such as MySpace, LinkedIn, Orkut, etc.
This is an exciting development for users who have often found themselves having to create multiple profiles via various networking sites in order to take advantage of specific applications or to link up with various friends and associates.
For over 230 years the mission of the United States Navy has been successfully defending America's shores and its interests at sea. When this branch of the armed forces decides to go with Google Apps, its definitely a "Victory at Sea" for the platform.
According to FCW.com, the Navy's Maritime Domain Awareness program has licensed Google Apps for 5000 users.
The Maritime Domain Awareness program keeps an eye on all types of oceanic traffic, shipping, etc. to scan for potential threats to the US at sea. It also works to coordinate a number of humanitarian efforts.
The Navy will use the collaborative power of Google Apps to share information among various units, government agencies and international partners. It will also integrate much of this information with it's Google Earth Enterprise initiative.
Whether at sea or on dry land, Google Apps is a useful tool to help accomplish any mission. To see how we can put it to work for you, contact us at SADA Systems at 818.766.2400.
Personal Trainer Gets Results with SADA Systems, Inc.
Advertising is great, but nothing speaks more to a company's ability to deliver than the words of it's clients.
Jack Witt is a personal fitness trainer and consultant based here in our hometown of North Hollywood. Jack's goal was to increase the size of his business; reaching out for more clients and new business opportunities. Jack engaged SADA Systems, Inc. to redesign his website at http://www.getfitwithwitt.com/ The redesign project also including adding e-commerce options to Jack's site and engineering it around search engine optimization (SEO) strategies and techniques. Jack's site was developed by SADA Senior Designer Eric J. Seaton, a veteran designer who has worked on numerous site redesign and SEO projects for SADA.
"I recently had a new client join for my personal fitness training services. She wasn't referred, didn't know me from any of my business networking organizations, nor see a flyer of mine anywhere around town. She lives in North Hollywood and Googled "North Hollywood Personal Trainer" and my website came right up. She really liked what she saw and "felt" from the site and immediately hired me and pre-paid 40 sessions in advance. Through that one transaction, my initial website expenses paid off. Thanks SADA!"
SADA develops cutting-edge technology tools for business that meet a marketing and/or operations need and add directly to the bottom line whether it's cost savings, additional business or even tools that can generate revenue themselves (ask us!).
If you'd like SADA to give your site a "workout" like we did for Jack, please call Michael Higby at 818.942.1094. If you need to give your self a "redesign" call Jack at (818) 760-3891.
Put your ear to the proverbial rails in the world of IT News and you'll likely hear rumblings of the giant, broad-reaching issue of “network neutrality.” The question of neutrality has been debated for about the last 8 years. On one side of the argument are advocates of neutrality. Behind the regulating, restricting, and monitoring network activity are the major providers and telecoms.
While definitions of what it means to be neutral vary somewhat, it can be generally understood to mean a broadband network free of restrictions on the following:
What equipment may be attached
Allowed modes of communication
The type of content that may be found online
The question of neutrality has recently been returned to the spotlight by Comcast Internet. Comcast has begun limiting the bandwidth speeds of certain sites that make use of the file sharing protocol, BitTorrent. Like other peer to peer file sharing networks BitTorrent allows users to download and then share out any kind of content. Unlike other file sharing networks, BitTorrent reduces the load of a single file by splitting the transmission over a theoretically limitless number of computers. Movie downloads have become particularly popular. By making use of BitTorrent users can transmit files that are even several gigabytes relatively quickly, and certainly faster than the same download might be from a single server or shared computer.
Comcast claims that the network resources required to share files in this manner clog the network and cause bandwidth problems for customers not engaged in file sharing activity. This sounds reasonable, but there's no evidence that any such clogging of network resources takes place due to file sharing or any other activity. It does raise some ethical questions as throttling back certain activities means Comcast has to take more than a cursory look into the private transmissions of its users.
So, what does this mean for the average Internet consumer? This could go one of two major directions.
If providers are allowed to limit bandwidth at their discretion it means that service providers could set their price structures based on content, not just bandwidth. In other words, access to websites that feature streaming video would cost more than access to Wikipedia, for example. This assumes the service provider doesn't have an online knowledge base that competes with Wikipedia.
If the 'net remains neutral it means that service providers would be required to set prices based on available transfer speeds alone, and not discriminate based on content. The downside is the government could become involved in the regulation of the offerings of service providers, and by extension the Internet.
Either way this is a complex issue full of subtleties, with consumers caught between the interests of big telecom companies and the government. In whatever manner this issue is resolved, it's a fair bet the Internet will be changed forever.
For more information about the pro-neutral argument visit: www.savetheinternet.com Formore information about the argument against neutrality visit: www.handsoff.org
Correction: Cisco UC 500 will not support 96 users
Well, sorry all – looks like we had a little bit of misinformation about the plans to expand the capabilities of the UC 500 to support 96 users. We were recently sent the correct information about the upcoming capabilities directly from the UC 500 product manager at Cisco. It reads:
“As part of continued interest to offer flexibility to our SMB market, Cisco plans to introduce license-based “user count” upgrades for all the currently shipping Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series. This enhancement would allow a field deployed 8 user version (desktop form factor) of the Unified 500 Series to be upgraded to the 16 user version. Similarly, the 24, 32 user systems, available in the 19” rack mount form factor, can be upgraded to the 32 and 48 user version of the system.”
So – not as good as the ability to scale to 96, but even still – nice to know that you can upgrade your system from 8 to 16, or 16 to 32, etc… with a simple software upgrade, and NO NEW hardware! Yet another advantage a fully digital system of this type has! More info to come.
Apple made a major announcement today – not only releasing the SDK for the iPhone (which means finally, many real, legit applications will be created for the iPhone), but as exciting, announcing “enterprise” support for the iPhone – meaning direct support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync! Hell hasn’t frozen over quite like this since the first time Apple released iTunes/iPod for the PC!
So, for all of those IT managers who have been resisting the iPhone – all of those excuses are about to go out the window (no pun intended). Here is a list of typical ActiveSync features, coming soon. Like some of the recent hype, I believe this is going to allow Apple overall to gain traction in the Enterprise again, and be accepted as a business tool – I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – Apple will have 20% market share in the desktop computer/laptop space by 2013.
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Enterprise features in iPhone 2.0 software beta.
Upcoming iPhone support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and industry-standard corporate security standards will allow IT professionals to seamlessly integrate iPhone into their enterprise environments. New features include:
Google Calendar Sync with Outlook - now available!
Sometime today Google quietly released a new and free application which allows your Outlook calendar to be in Sync with your Google Calendar! Wow! You would think for such a major announcement they would have made noise! They didn't even tell the partner community yet.
Both Microsoft and Google are challenged in figuring out ways to manage, and profit from the looming move by a lot of business to a lot more hosted applications, and a lot less on-premise infrastructure. It's undeniable this is the way forward (at SADA, we have term for this, something we've been working on for 3 years, called ZEROi - or Zero Infrastructure - computing delivered like electricity). The industry is changing - rapidly - so look sharp!
So, here is how things are stacking up:
Build/maintain channel:
Google: needs to build a channel, a more formal program, and figure out ways for their partners to be paid not only in implementation services, but in 'reselling' hosted services.
Microsoft: needs to build out a brand new channel strategy which won't cannibalize the traditional channel they have had for years.
Hosting/infrastructure strategy:
Google: has always hosted applications in-house. Results in greater peace of mind for customers. Google doesn't go down, and regardless of which partner helps them get on-board, they know their data is with Google. Google is not going to go out of business.
Microsoft: up until recently, developed an SaaS strategy which said "MS Partners could build server farms, and charge customers for hosting and SaaS". At first glance, good for partners. But only large partners can build out hosting infrastructure, and even then, Microsoft is not the protector of that data - the partner is. The partner is more likely to go out of business than Microsoft. Changing their tune to say that now MS will host - threatens Channel.
On-premise requirements for customers:
Google: got an internet connection? Good. Oh, you had a bunch of Dell servers and Microsoft software before? So what? Got a thin client? A $200 linux desktop for your employess? That'll do.
Microsoft: Wait, you mean if you adopt my SaaS, you'll need much less hardware and software licensing? Wow... but that's where most of my revenue is generated from, and it's what my Partners make money at installing. You don't need lots of processing power, OR Vista to run web applications.... Oh yea, it's also why traditionally Intel loves us, and we love them. Our more complex, multi-server deployment methodologies require lots and lots of processing power. You mean you won't need that any more?
Platform:
Google: platform independent, doesn't care about the end-point. They know the OS is not going to matter.
Microsoft: surprise! Still likes IE better than Firefox, and Windows better than anything else. They are moving towards platform independence, but it hurts so baaad! Admitting the OS doesn't matter seems contradictory, and can cost Billions.
Tools:
Google: tools not as rich as MS, though purely web-based, and build from the ground up to be all about collaboration and content, not pretty fonts. Knows the way people work is changing. It takes 2 steps to make my presentation made with Presently embed in my Blog or website.
Microsoft: more familiar looking tools, but continues to want to make people buy MS Office, which is a cash-cow. Doesn't yet realize that most people don't use 80% of the features of Word 2007. Try to embed your Powerpoint into your Blog...
Extensibility:
Google: API's don't care what you use - Java, .NET, Python, PHP (okay, so there is a slight bias towards Python....). Highly extensible, and customizable, with more API's being released all the time.
Microsoft: Have to use .NET and Visual Studio. And have you looked at the Office SDK? Geez...
Biggest risks:
Google: Apps is seen as a fad, and never adopted by portions of the Fortune 500. Though even then, the SMB could still be a huge paying customer for Apps. Also, they could fail to build a solid channel, and make partners upset by moves like the recent one - offering Postini direct to customers at less than Postini partners buy the product. Ouch.
Microsoft: Destroys channel AND it's own source of revenue by incorrectly bringing SaaS to market. But there are some very very smart people at MS - so let's not count them out.
Microsoft finally responds to the rise of Google as a serious player in the productivity application and collaboration space - I suppose it was the release of Sites (a direct threat to SharePoint in some markets) which finally drew a response out of Microsoft. But as these articles below indicate - most of what we hear are things Microsoft has been talking about (just not doing) for years.
Microsoft seems to have finally decided to take the SaaS service delivery into its own hands - though it has allowed partners to host Microsoft applications for customers since 2002. The one major problem Microsoft has that Google (at least today) does not is this - just the thought of Microsoft hosting the applications directly is a major potential disruption to its basic business model, which is all about using Microsoft Partners and the Channel to do this kind of work! I guess we'll see in the next few months what the fall-out may be - meanwhile, enjoy the articles below!
