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Microsoft Corp. and Yammer Inc. today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Microsoft will acquire Yammer, a leading provider of enterprise social networks, for $1.2 billion in cash. Yammer will join the Microsoft Office Division, led by division President Kurt DelBene, and the team will continue to report to current CEO David Sacks.
The infographic provides background and data about Yammer and SharePoint today, and the opportunities that collaboration and enterprise social networking have to help people work more effectively in today’s workplace.
Yammer Infographic.
The infographic provides background and data about Yammer and SharePoint today, and the opportunities that collaboration and enterprise social networking have to help people work more effectively in today’s workplace.
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WyWallet, the joint venture by the four big mobile network operators in Sweden, covers from start 97% of the mobile users in Sweden. The mobile technology and security behind WyWallet is based on Accumulates mobile financial services platform Mobile Everywhere.
WyWallet, the mobile wallet joint venture by the four largest mobile network operators in Sweden (Telia, Tele2, Telenor and 3), is today officially launched. The mobile wallet service is first of its kind and will from start cover 97% of the mobile users in Sweden.
First services out are:
WyWallet also supports POS payments using NFC and live tests in shops starts in July (next week). Already after this summer more services and features will be launched for the WyWallet mobile wallet users.
Wywallet is from start available on Android, iPhone, Java and after summer also on Windows Phone.
Accumulate has from start been part of the development of WyWallet, and the mobile technology and security behind the WyWallet mobile wallet service is based on Accumulates mobile financial services platform Mobile Everywhere (ME).
Microsoft has introduced its own line of tablets, marking a major strategic shift for the software giant as it struggles to compete with Apple and re-invent its aging Windows franchise. The new tablet line, named Surface, includes a consumer device aimed directly at the Apple iPad, and another, larger machine designed to compete with lightweight laptops. Both include a keyboard that doubles as a cover, and both will be powered by versions of the new Windows 8 operating system.
The move breaks with Microsoft’s operating model of the past 37 years, which has relied on computer manufacturers to make and market machines running Windows. It could throw the world’s largest software company into direct competition with its closest hardware partners such as Samsung and HP. The new software is the biggest overhaul of Windows in years, and features a new touch-friendly interface dubbed “Metro”. It is scheduled to be available for the Christmas shopping season.
The lighter, thinner version of the Surface tablet, built on an Nvidia chip designed by ARM Holdings, will be the first to market at the same time as the general release of Windows 8, and will feature Microsoft’s popular Office suite of applications. It is comparable to Apple’s new iPad, heavier but slightly thinner. It has a 10.6 inch screen and comes in 32GB and 64GB memory sizes.
The iPad’s strength comes from the sheer number of 3rd party apps available through the App Store. Apple lured a crazy number of developers to its platform through the promise of profit-sharing and a fair distribution environment. Microsoft isn’t reinventing app development with the Surface. The tablet runs Windows after all. It is the most dominant computing platform on Earth. At this early stage it seems like a smart move for a developer to jump on the Metro bandwagon. Even if the Surface crashes and burns, there will be dozens of other Windows 8 tablets from the normal players.
Stockholm, Sweden – June 19, 2012. Accumulate and Borica – Bankservice (BO-BS) have signed a strategic agreement to set the technology standard for secure and innovative mobile payment services on the Bulgarian market. The base is Accumulates Card Overlay solution that gives a fast track to secure and flexible mobile payment services. Initial mobile services is transaction history, balance and a card switch on/off followed by mobile payment at POS using one or more cards in the background.
Accumulate Card Overlay is a secure, easy to use and cost effective “card in the cloud” solution aimed at issuers like banks and credit card companies that want to add mobile payment as an option to their existing card payments, including the infrastructure for clearing and settlement. The solution consists of a fully operational mobile payment system that is placed on top of a credit card network system, with a minimum of new integration and implementation changes needed on the existing structure.
“Borica – Bankservice is in a unique situation with its card solution for the 27 commercial banks in Bulgaria. By using Accumulates award winning mobile security platform Mobile Everywhere, we can now help our customers enable best in class, secure and easy to use mobile payment and mobile security services”, says Lubomir Tzekov, CEO of BO-BS
BO-BS’s customers will now have a fast track to enable customer branded, secure and easy to use mobile financial services. Services that can be enabled are:
The mobile payment services are available for all major mobile platforms including Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Java and Windows Mobile/Phone.
It seems Nokia is still not sure about how to be competative in current Mobile war, just few days back Nokia was rumored to be working on a mobile platform named Meltemi for low end devices. Meltemi was expected to power phones which were not capable enough to run Windows Phone platform. Latest reports claim that the company might have already discarded this project.
Nokia never really confirmed Meltemi. They are still launching smartphones powered by Series 40 and Symbian platforms. In addition Windows Phone Tango enables them to offer low end smartphones as well.
The company’s stock007A price has taken a massive beating in the recent times and its market capitalization is currently hovering around USD 10 billion. They just might not have enough time to sustain solely on Windows Phone platform as they face massive competition from Google Android based devices.
Well we hope this former mobile giant (Nokia) can soon come up with a definate startegy.
During their lengthy careers at Google in both senior technical and product management roles, Maneesh Arora and Amit Sangani were able to geek out on products like AdSense, AdWords, and the now-defunct Google Health. Arora tells us that, while his time at Google was defined by smart people and ambitious ideas like these, in development there was often a tendency to “over engineer” without thinking about “the average user.” He said that, while Google employees always had Gchat open and used Google Voice (or Wave while it was still alive), none of these products were able to effectively address the true value prop of communication tools for a mainstream audience: Syncing. Especially when it comes to texting.
Arora says simply, “To me, it makes no sense that I have to have my phone in front of me to communicate … If I leave it in another room, or in the car, or at home, I essentially have to retrieve it to see who is calling or to receive incoming texts.” So, Arora and Sangani set out on a mission to give Android users the ability to view and reply to text messages no matter what device they happened to be using. After several months of beta testing, the duo are today officially launching MightyText — an app that aims to give Android users their own version of Apple’s iMessage.
After introducing as Texty in March 2011, the startup re-branded as MightyText in June. Since then, it’s been more or less in beta and available exclusively as a Chrome extension. Though, the Chrome extension has found some very solid early acceptance, attracting over 250K users, who used to send more than 2 million messages daily. What’s more, Arora says that at the current run rate they are on target to hit one billion messages. Read More
Worldwide Developers Conference has been arranged and conducted and lot of new decisions has been taken by Apple and lots of new things have been adding in the bucket of Apple’s iDevices like iPhone, iPod or iPad. The important features in list that was the part of that WWDC 2012.
OS X for MacBook is out
New iOS:
No sooner has the U.S. version of the Samsung Galaxy S III been made available to pre-order than Apple is back in U.S.
Court trying to get the highly anticipated unit banned from sales in the States. Apple added the device to its motion to have a preliminary injunction placed on the Samsung GALAXY Nexus. Apple is on the warpath having asked the ITC for an immediate ban on 29 HTC devices that the Cupertino based firm claims infringes on its patents.
The Korean electronics manufacturer has been on an upward trajectory lately, and Apple said letting the Galaxy S III hit the U.S. market will cause “irreparable harm” to the Cupertino colossus.
The US company filed for preliminary injunctions on June 5 in the District Court for the Northern District of California to stop the sale of Samsung’s flagship smartphone, Galaxy S III, accusing the Korean electronics giant of infringing on Apple’s user interface patents.
The latest legal action comes after the chief executives of both companies met in the US in late May in a court-directed session aimed at settling their smartphone patent war, which was initiated by Apple in April last year. Apple and Samsung have been entangled in about 30 patent litigation around 10 different countries so far.
“Samsung believes Apple’s request is without merit. We will vigorously oppose the request and demonstrate to the court that the Galaxy S III is innovative and distinctive,” said Samsung in a statement.
In its complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Apple all but comes out and says the new Galaxy — which has been popular where it has already been released, and has garnered favorable reviews from tech media outlets — is a threat to its flagship iPhone. It cites reports that consumers have already placed nine million preorders for the Galaxy S III.
“They’ve been battling each other across the globe, and at this point, Samsung has the edge in terms of smartphone sales,” said R “Ray” Wang, principal analyst and CEO of Constellation Research. “What Apple really feels is that Samsung has really taken and tried to steal the look and feel of the iPhone.” Read More
The newest from Google is it is introducing 3D maps to its standard offering. The connotation here is that the demo will be less than a week before WWDC2012 event at which Apple is expected to introduce its own map app, complete with 3D capabilities, as part of its next generation mobile software, iOS 6. The other piece of the puzzle is that Google is making moves to monetize its services on all fronts, so making the value proposition for its unique offerings is crucial.
Google, and in fact all of the big internet companies, are at a crossroads. As Facebook’s recent buzz has shown counting on advertising as the sole means of monetizing these massive services is not a good idea. The growth of Google’s own text advertising business is slowing and it is unclear how much display and mobile ad revenues will bring in.
Tim Worstall from Forbes has written in these pages about how Google makes more from licensing its software to Apple for use in the iPhone than it does directly from Android. This, of course, will change if Apple replaces Google maps with its own offering. But beyond Apple, Google has begun to charge developers for API access to Google Maps data, which so far has been free for all but the biggest customers, like Apple. Read More
The global launch of the Samsung Galaxy S3 is officially under way, giving the device an early advantage over Apple’s next-generation iPhone.
The South Korean electronics giant’s follow-up to the highly successful Galaxy S2 is now available in 28 European countries, and analysts expect a U.S. launch in June. The company is hoping this momentum will push sales to exceed early expectations and keep it as one of the world’s top phone makers.
The S3 runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and features a 4.8-inch screen, a quad-core processor and new eye-tracking technology that keep the display from dimming when in use.
The S3′s early launch ahead of its Cupertino handset rival repeats the same pattern of its predecessor last year, which proved fortuitous for the Galaxy line and helped boost its strongest sales ever.
When Samsung launched the S2 last year, months ahead of the iPhone 4S, it built up attention and hype with consumers and pundits. As a result, the device enjoyed strong sales that helped propel the company to the spot as the number-one smartphone maker in the world. The strong reviews of the S2 and its subsequent sales made it the iPhone’s number-one competition, but Apple’s launch of the 4S slowed Samsung’s momentum
The 4S was able to catch up to the S2 last year, but with customers and critics eagerly awaiting Samsung’s new device after the success of its predecessor, the S3′s head start could be a difference maker. The S3 will likely build on the achievements of the S2, which sold millions around the world and garnered a reputation as a worthy iPhone competitor. Read More
