Un laptop à un euro pour bientôt?

Un modèle initié par les opérateurs téléphoniques

Mon premier téléphone portable (un sorte de grosse brique grise signée Bouygues Telecom) était onéreux à l'achat et s'accompagnait d'un forfait non moins onéreux.

Puis les opérateurs téléphoniques, sans doute soumis à un marché de plus en plus compétitif, firent progressivement évoluer leur modèle vers une approche où le coût du périphérique était absorbé par le prix de l'accès au service. On vit alors surgir des offres où, sous réserve d'engagement longue durée, on offrait un mobile d'entrée de gamme pour un euro symbolique.

La déclinaison sur les smartphones

Le marché des smart phones semble connaître aujourd'hui le même type de mutation avec des périphériques "low-cost" toujours plus puissants associés à des offres longue durée (24 mois en règle générale).

Le "cloud", nouveau champ de bataille

Bref, ce n'est plus le plus le matériel que l'on vent, mais le service et l'accès à celui-ci. Les grands acteurs - Apple, Google, Microsoft et bien d'autres - l'ont bien compris et ont déjà déplacé la ligne de front vers le "cloud".

Google et même allé plus loin, en proposant le ChromeBook, laptop "low-cost" nativement connecté et entièrement conçu autour de son offre de service.

Alors, à quand un laptop à 1€?

A short history of smartphones - in video...

A short history of smartphones...

... in video on <link> 

Surface Pro 3 : le nouveau vaisseau amiral des tablettes Microsoft

Une tablette ciblée pro, par Microsoft

Avec cette nouvelle tablette, Microsoft peut envisager de se tailler la part du lion dans le domaine pro. C'est là sans doute un formidable gisement en terme de parts de marché et l'occasion de (re)venir dans la course. D'autant plus que l'écosystème de développement (Windows / .NET) est mature et la stratégie d'infrastructure (Azure), claire et dûment assumée.

À voir ici en vidéo

Microsoft: Azure can beat Amazon and IBM cloud solutions | News | TechRadar

As an echo to a previous article (Cloud-computing : Microsoft is in da house) : Via TechRadar : link 

Cloud computing : Microsoft is in da house

I recently played with Microsoft Azure and it clearly was impressive. Here below are some thoughts about it

Waouh effect

I tried the platform for almost 24 hours. During these three days, I was able to implement a small cloud infrastructure with:

- on network (Burgundy) with its own DNS and Active Directory server (Vougeot)

- a SQL Server 2008 R2 server (Pommard)

- a Sharepoint 2013 server (Gevrey)

Tested infrastructure

I am clearly not an OS nor a network engineer, but I did it quite easily using standard virtual machines provisioned on Azure.

Why three days? mainly because I passed half of my time configuring my SharePoint site and browse trough the different pages offered by Azure administration tool to discover the platform capacities.

By the way, what about the administration tool? I would say that it took me 1 hour, no more, to discover it by myself and understand the main principles of it. A great work has been done here to simplify the administration and make it as simple as possible.

I used Google App engine some months ago, and clearly, it was not as mature as Azure is, proposing a set of services to host application in an PaaS approach, but having impact on produced code.

I use a bit iCloud from Apple but it is mainly a SaaS approach with a continuous approach between device software and cloud storage.

Microsoft on its side propose a global approach, with provision of hardware and software, on a transparent and global approach.

So yes, Azure clearly does the "Waouh effect". If you want to check, just do it. It's free.

Free, you said?

Yes, the trial is free. You get 150€ of service credit and a 30-days limit to use it. Mine was used in 3 days, due to the SQL Server resource that was costing a lot.

Cost repartition

As you can see above, SQL server service represent around 70% of global cost. This is mainly due to the fact that SharePoint is particularly greedy in SQL transactions and as I played a lot with it in order to obtain the configuration I wanted, it costed me a big part of my credit.

Having seen that, a proper alternative may be SharePoint online, but I didn't had the opportunity to test it yet.

RSLN Mag : Un jeu pour retrouver l'agilité après un AVC

A tout ceux qui ont un proche qui a connu ce type d'accident, une initiative plus qu'intéressante à suivre…

http://www.rslnmag.fr/post/2014/02/03/un-jeu-pour-retrouver-l-agilite-apres-un-avc.aspx

Apple updates iWork for Mac and iOS with read-only sharing modes and much more

Via 9to5mac : Apple updates iWork for Mac and iOS with read-only sharing modes and much more

After Microsoft announce of Office availability on iPad, Apple answered quickly...

So Microsoft is delivering Office on iPad. Pretty cool! But what is behind?

This was a rumour for a long time now, but Microsoft finally did it and this is not a little announce that Satya Naddala, new Microsoft CEO did there. Office is now available on iPad. And for free... or almost.

Office or Office 365 by the way?

My first reaction was "what does MS want to do on iPad" as they are doing so much effort on the other side to promote their mobile platform through Windows 8. I see two objectives there:

1. Apple is losing more and more market shares this last months, facing Androïd aggressive strategy. Nevertheless, iPad is still a credible mobile device in business market on which it address executives and commercial population. In a strategy consisting to still being a market leader in business market, this does have a sense for Microsoft to provide tools continuity between desktop tools and mobile ones on its leading suite. Helping Apple to keep its leader position in this market today is another way to avoid facing a potential massive Androïd competitor in the next year. This is not the first time that Microsoft deploy such a strategy with Apple, for those who remember 1997's Apple keynote.
2. Here, Microsoft does not promote iPad, nor even Office. If you read the little lines at the bottom of the contract, you'll see that free provided features are read-only ones. For a complete set of features, you have to buy an Office 365 license, which clearly echoes on the recent Microsoft strategy to target the cloud market that I recently observed during the french MS TechDays. What a big stone in iCloud garden by the way... and a clear response to Apple to provide a continuous suite between MacOS and iOS.

There may be several other reason for which deploying MS Office on iPad would not be a strategic mistake from Microsoft. But these two first ones seems sufficient for me. Microsoft strategy is now clearly heading cloud services and mobile devices are only one way among others to access these services. As a major actor in business market, Apple is a mandatory partner and competitor on it.

Apple lance iOS in the Car avec Ferrari, Mercedes et Volvo

Ca y est, c'est officiel, Apple lance "iOS in the car". Pas de chance pour les marques françaises qui ratent le coche. Tout comme les marques américaines d'ailleurs, ce qui est plus étonnant.

Google, lui, s'est associé à Audi, Honda, General Motors et d'autres pour former l'Open Automotive Alliance.

De son côté, Microsoft vient de présenter un pré-version de "Windows in the car" dont les fonctionnalités semblent équivalentes mais qui nécessite encore de petits coups de tournevis pour être fiable...

Toujours est-il que le créneau de la voiture "intelligente" semble bel et bien devenir un enjeu majeur de la compétition entre les grands noms du secteur.

• iOS in the car sur iGen : iOS in the car
• Windows in the car sur iGen : Windows in the car
• Open Automotive Alliance sur TheVerge : Google open automotive alliance

Support for Windows XP and Office 2003 ends

Microsoft reportedly dropping licensing fees for Windows 8.1 amid competition from Apple and Google

Google and Apple definitely shaked the PC market.

A new strategy for Microsoft?

We just heard about Steve Ballmer leaving that Microsoft announces the acquisition of Nokia. What may be considered as a good opportunity for these two companies reveals a strong change in Microsoft strategy for mobile web market.

Taking aside the painful experience of Surface tablet, Microsoft have never been considered (yes "considered" - just have a look at the secret history of Microsoft hardware - to see their hardware realizations beyond mices and keyboards) as a pure player in hardware. But it was at least not a fully vertically integrated one.
On its side, Apple, with a converging OS for Mac, iPod, iPhone and iPad proposed a fully integrated (locked) vision to its end-users from years now. One like it or not, but such is the proposal.
Google, which once was its is a full software provider is now selling tablets, smartphones... on an integrated (but open) schema.

So times are changing and Apple vision of a vertically integrated model providing services to end-users through a cloud model seems to be promising.
Google understood some months ago and is clearly in first position. Apple stays on its positions but loses drastically market shares as the time goes by. Microsoft, on its turn, is changing its mind and strategy, acquiring one of the most experienced company in mobile phone devices. Won't it be to late?

Related articles

• Roundup: What's next for Microsoft? Tech executives speak out (techrepublic.com)


• For Steve Ballmer, a lasting touch on Microsoft (tech.fortune.cnn.com)


• Microsoft may be desperate enough to offer Windows Phone and Windows RT for free (pcworld.com)