Market Dynamics

Virtualized desktops in the cloud age

Virtualization is a major component of cloud computing, but the primary focus has been on virtualized server instances running on cloud providers such as Amazon EC2.

There is little argument that applications running in the cloud offer many attractive advantages, but ultimately users need to be able to access their data from any device and the data itself must maintain the highest levels of synchronization and integrity.

One of the big challenges is the fact that users are comfortable with fat applications (generally meaning, not browser-based) for a large number of tasks. And while Google Docs and the like are great supplements for large apps like Microsoft Office, they've yet to supplant them completely.

To avoid disrupting users too much, and avoiding the necessity of rewriting applications to be browser-based, many IT organizations turned to desktop virtualization tools to solve the problem.

Desktop virtualization was supposed to solve one the biggest headaches in IT: managing and securing corporate desktops in a more effective way. From IT's perspective, it's much quicker and easier to manage all the company's virtual desktops than physical distributed desktops. When it comes time to roll out a software update, they can automatically deploy it to all virtual desktops at once, rather than going machine-to-machine and uploading the software manually.

There are many options when it comes to desktop virtualization, but generally the "solution" most people think of is virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

VDI has a number of strengths such as cost reduction and management efficiency as well as a number of drawbacks, such as a lack of offline capabilities. But the core problem is that VDI puts an entire desktop that's not built for the cloud into the cloud. It just doesn't make sense to take your fat desktop and OS and stick it right onto the cloud. … Read more

Turn your iPad into a Web server

Japanese software development shop FreeBit recently announced "ServersMan HD," an application that makes your iPad act like a Web server--allowing documents and files to be uploaded, downloaded, and viewed on the device.

Currently, the primary way to get files on and off of the iPad is through iTunes syncing or e-mail, or by using an online service such as Google Docs that stores your files in the cloud.

And while odds are you won't be building an iPad-based data center anytime soon, this application, like others, helps to prove the use case of cloud-based storage for tablets … Read more

'R' language bringing statistical analytics to the masses (Q&A)

I recently had the chance to discuss the open source 'R' programming language with Revolution Analytics CEO and founder Norman Nie.

Revolution is the commercial organization supporting the open-source project and contains a number of technology bigwigs, including Nie himself, who was the co-founder of analytics firm SPSS and led the company as CEO/chairman of the board for more than 40 years before selling it to IBM in 2009 for $1.2 billion. The company has enjoyed some outstanding press mentions, despite the fact that the product appeals to a very specific user base.

R is similar to other programming languages like Java and C, but holds particular appeal for statisticians because it contains a number of built-in mechanisms for organizing data, running calculations, and creating graphical representations of data sets.

Considering predictive analytics is not on the tip of most people's tongues, I set up a Q&A with Nie to get a basic overview of why R matters and how Revolution plans to commercialize the software. The edited transcript follows:

Q: What exactly is 'R' and why does it matter? Nie: Simply put, R is the most powerful statistical computing language on the planet; there is no statistical equation that cannot be calculated in R. This gives it unparalleled ability to sort through data sets and do predictive modeling. This is particularly relevant in today's business intelligence environment, given the explosion of big data and the increased emphasis organizations are putting on advanced analytic techniques.

R is also open source, so there is a community that is over 2 million users strong behind it. It is particularly well entrenched in academia, where today's university students (and tomorrow's future statisticians) are being trained almost exclusively on R. … Read more

NoSQL goes mobile with the help of CouchDB

If there is one aspect of mobility that has yet to live up to user expectations, it's the ability for data to be accessible in near real-time across multiple devices.

Despite all the advances in technology, including a wealth of Wi-Fi and 3G networks, many devices become impotent without an Internet connection.

This issue becomes even more apparent when you are dealing with browser-based applications and smartphones that don't have multithreading functionality to maintain state across applications and data stores.

I recently had the chance to chat with Damien Katz, the creator of CouchDB and CEO of Couchio, … Read more

Sourceforge eats its open-source dogfood

You might not recognize the name Geeknet, but you probably know its popular tech sites such as Sourceforge, Slashdot, Ohloh, Think Geek, Freshmeat, and the recently acquired Geek.com.

When Geeknet opened a new data center in Chicago two years ago, the network operations team wanted to centralize management of hundreds of systems serving the Geeknet Web network.

Geeknet's servers run 100 percent open-source software, including CentOS Linux, and a number of open-source Web servers, mail servers, databases (MySQL, Postgres, Memchache), along with a large number of source code repositories running Subversion.

The company needed a monitoring and management … Read more

Virtual goods revenue continues to climb

New survey data from research firm Magid and Associates and in-game commerce provider PlaySpan shows that virtual goods sales continue to grow, with games leading the way to monetization.

Virtual goods remain a promising alternative to advertising, and even to subscription revenue for many games and social networks. As mobile games continue to play an important role in gaming revenue, I would expect to see the sales of virtual goods continue to skew toward mobile devices as users seek instant gratification and bite-sized chunks of high-quality gameplay.

The follow-up to last year's survey reveals that buying habits aren't … Read more

Mobile-gaming revenue to hit $11.4 billion in 2014

Gaming on cell phones has long promised to be an important revenue generator for mobile carriers and game developers, but it took quite awhile for it to drive real revenue in the U.S. But worldwide, especially in Asia, mobile gaming has been emerging as an important revenue generator for a number of years.

Last week, research firm Gartner predicted that worldwide mobile-game revenue will grow 19 percent, reaching $5.6 billion in 2010 with an expectation to more than double to $11.4 billion in 2014.

Mobile gaming is a very broad classification which also includes new and interesting … Read more

How Google is redefining the enterprise

With all of the talk about Android, the open Web, and video taking place at this week's Google I/O conference, big software vendors could have easily been lulled into underestimating how much Google is actually targeting enterprises with new and updated offerings.

That would be a mistake.

Google has become such a prolific creator of technology that suits its own business needs, somewhere down the line it crossed over into the future of the enterprise, or at least a version of the future--one that develops software to consume and manage IT services and resources without having to build … Read more

HP brings performance testing to the cloud

With more applications being built for the Web, performance testing is critical to determining the proper approach to scaling both applications and infrastructure. But for many years performance testing was largely a rich-man's game, primarily because of the expense of setting and maintaining a large server infrastructure that can simulate real-world traffic.

Hosted testing solutions make a lot of sense from both the user and provider perspective. Considering the vast computing power available at your fingertips there are few reasons why you would want to own the infrastructure, or not take advantage of the latest offerings from providers both … Read more