Google Serves Notice... Upgrade Your Browser

In order to push the agenda on HTML5 and cloud computing, Google has decided that it will no longer support older versions of your favourite browser, what ever that may be. In a statement on The Official gmail blog Venkat Panchapakesan, Vice President of Engineering at Google, said yesterday that "...Google Apps will only support modern browsers. Beginning August 1st, we’ll support the current and prior major release of Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari on a rolling basis."

This, in my opinion, is a good thing. Hopefully it will encourage internet users to stay up to date with their software updates and provide developers with a stable road map upon which to plan the development and support of their applications. Of course it also pushes the Google agenda but I've seen far to many users out there still running IE 6!

Google I/O Day 1 Keynote

In case you missed the keynote speech from Google I/O yesterday here is it's entirety. For those who are unsure what Google I/O is... in it's 4th year now, Google I/O is a conference held by Google to introduce to developers what the company has been focusing on and how these developers might take advantage of these products and services. Last year it was all about Android and this year Android will make it into more than phones and tablets, the cloud is more important than ever, plus near field technology, and more...

Google To Institute Two-Factor Authentication

According to this article in TechCrunch, Google is planning on rolling out an optional two-factor authentication to it's Google Apps Premiere, Education, and Government edition customers and then to the rest of us in the coming months. Two-factor authentication requires not only a password but also a six digit verification code that you've created when turning the extended security feature on. Many large business already employ such measures, usually relying on hardware dongles to generate and display random temporary codes, Google's system won't require the additional hardware and will be particularly handy if you access the companies services (gmail, docs, etc.) from your mobile device.

TechCrunch also says "Google has built a ‘Google Authenticator’ application for Android, the iPhone, and Blackberry — fire up the application, and it will give you the six digit verification code that you enter back into your browser (the system can also send you a SMS message or give you the code via voice call)."

Makes sense that we would want such authentication now that we are moving more and more into the cloud, and accessing our account via multiple devices via hot spots and various other networks. I think I like it!

Working In The Cloud

Google is bringing 16 new apps to the Google Apps Marketplace. Six months ago this would not have meant anything to me, today however my work largely happens in the cloud as my current employer has embraced the idea wholeheartedly. We are a Google apps shop, gmail handles our mail, calendar our schedules, sites and documents our files. At first it was a bit of a change for me having moved from a Microsoft Office environment, but day by day I'm learning the virtues of life in the cloud.

The Official Google blog provides a link to this video which explains how to add an app to your domain.

According to their post "We’ve added some great new apps since we launched in March and today we’re bringing you 16 new apps to the Marketplace." Three of the featured apps are:

* Jive: Jive Social Business Software combines collaboration, community and social networking software, allowing you to engage employees, customers and the social web.

* Harvest: Harvest is a simple time tracking application that makes it fast and easy for businesses to track billable hours and create invoices.

* Floorplanner Pro: Floorplanner Pro provides a quick and easy way for real estate agents and facilities professionals to create and share interactive floor plans in both 2D as 3D.

Life in the cloud is not as scary as we all thought it would be and Google is making the addition of new apps as easy as adding an app to your smartphone.

Microsoft To Make Heavy Cloud Computing Investment, Expecting No Real Returns For 2 To 3 Years

"From the perspective of investment internally, interest from customers and engagement clearly the cloud will be an area of focus," Bob Muglia, the president of the server and tools business said on Tuesday. "But in the next two to three years that is not what will drive financial growth in server and tools. It is essentially zero percent of our current operating revenue."

The company which only this month began billing users of its Azure cloud platform environment expects that it's revenue drivers will continue to be Windows Server and SQL Server, in the short run. "The big dogs are driving it, but the rest of the portfolio is doing well." said Muglia.

More at Infoworld.com

Google Groups - The Upgrade

Google is listening to it's clients and tuning up it's collaboration tool, Google Groups, in it's push to get us all working in the cloud. With a recent roll out of improvements Google Groups has been tweaked to make sharing of calendars, sites and documents with multiple people easier. Primarily, instead of adding people one at a time, you can share your calendar, site, spreadsheet, etc., with an entire Google Group. On the other hand, when someone joins or leaves a Google Group, they automatically gain or lose editing privileges to the application. Nice!

Source: Official Google Blog

Twitter Execs Hacked - Secrets Leaked

In what I would call a severe blow to cloud computing, a major breach of Twitter executives e-mail, calendars, and documents was reported yesterday by company officials after the hacker sent documents about Twitters plans and finances, confidential contracts, and job applicants to two tech blogs, TechCrunch and Korben. The breach occurred about a month ago with a simple breach of a password providing access to an administrative employee’s e-mail account from where access was gained to the employee’s Google Apps account, where Twitter shares spreadsheets and documents with business ideas and financial details.

This must have a lot of IT managers saying I told you so!

Source: NYTimes

Google Appologizes For Slugish Service

"We're very sorry that it happened, and you can be sure that we'll be working even harder to make sure that a similar problem won't happen again," said Urs Hoelzle, Google's senior vice president of operations in response to an interruption in service or poor performance on the companies sites for millions of users. "An error in one of our systems caused us to direct some of our traffic through Asia," Hoelzle added.

The incident has cast doubt by some about the viability of cloud computing. "Maybe companies that are thinking about a cloud strategy - such as Google Apps - need to look into backup clouds" said Sam Diaz, a senior editor at technology news site ZDNet.

Source: BBC News

Azure - Microsoft's Operating System For The Cloud

Microsoft unveiled plans on Monday for a new cloud computing operating system dubbed Azure. Microsoft's Ray Ozzie made the announcement in front of 6500 software developers attending the annual Microsoft Developers Conference in Los Angeles. “Every time there is a major platform shift in our industry, it has turned into new opportunities for my apps and my business.” said Ozzie. Not everyone was as optimistic as Mr. Ozzie however, “Today’s announcement of Azure is the same Microsoft, keeping developers locked into their proprietary solutions, and failing to grasp the true power of cloud computing,“ said Mark Benioff, the chief executive of Salesforce.com. Whatever your take on the OS is, it will be interesting to see who follows. NY Times story.

Live Mesh - Microsoft's Web Vision

On the heels of other mega corporations who have already laid plans for cloud computing, Microsoft has finally unveiled it's vision called "Live Mesh". Live Mesh will "connect and bring devices together... to work in concert" says Microsoft's Amit Mital. "This new software-plus-services platform enables PCs and other devices to 'come alive' by making them aware of each other through the internet," said Mr Mital. Not only will users be able to synchronize their own devices but Live Mesh is also designed to facilitate the sharing of media online between different users according to this BBC article. I expect we'll hear from the RIAA and movie industry insiders shortly about that little feature. Live Mesh is said to be initially geared to Windows XP and Vista users but will eventually be made available to Apple owners as well. "Users will have 5GB of personal online storage and unlimited peer-to-peer data, for synchronising information between devices." Sounds promising!