Cloud Computing

Photobucket Outage

April 13, 2011

Updated 4/14/2011, 4/15/2011 and 4/19/2011 - see below.

Originally posted 4/13/2011

Apparently my Photobucket account is one of the ones unavailable due to maintenance. I have come to rely on this cloud-based photo sharing service more and more as it works on iOS and the Sony Dash. There is an Android app as well which I have found doesn't display photos as well as it does on other operating systems. Here is the message the company gives when I try to login via the web.

Update 4/14/2011: Its been more than 24 hours and the site is still out. This is without a doubt one of the challenges of moving to the cloud - but that doesn't mean as a customer of a free service I feel I have such a strong right to complain.

Jim Goss, the company's VP of Operations expressed his apologies (see below) for the site being inaccessible via the Sony Dash, the web and iOS - I've tried all three.

Posted in 4G, Apple, Broadband, Cloud Computing, Consumer Electronics, Facebook, Gadget, Google, HTML5, IP Communications, Social Networking, Technology, Unified Communications, Verizon, Yahoo

Voice Carrier Wants a Big Piece of the SMB VoIP Pie

April 14, 2011

The business VoIP market has a tremendous amount of growth potential based on a recent FCC report I highlighted last week. And perhaps the most exciting aspect of the market is there is no single leading player which comes to mind – especially for the SMB. And losing and gaining marketshare in the segment can be done quite rapidly if you aren’t careful. Case in point are Comdial and Inter-Tel: two major players in the SMB CPE space just a decade-and-a-half ago.

Posted in Apple, Avaya, Broadband, CRM, Call Center, Cloud Computing, Consumer Electronics, FCC, Financial, Gadget, IP Communications, Merger/Acquisition, Microsoft, Nortel, Open Source, SIP, Speech Technologies, Technology, Unified Communications, VoIP, Wireless

Is Apple Telegraphing A Tablet Market as Large as PCs?

April 21, 2011

I'm Predicting 500,000,000 tablets sold by 2015 (updated - an eagle-eyed reader noticed I left out 3 zeros for the various iPad estimates throughout!)

Through informal research I have seen iPad owners not giving up on their PCs – in fact they generally use both machines at different times for different purposes. For example, website surfing to sites which utilize Flash often requires a PC or laptop as they may not work on an iPad. Moreover, iPads and iPhones require PCs which they must plug into to receive software updates, etc. Many people find that they need to type large amounts at one time or another and they often choose a PC or laptop for this task – either not realizing they can purchase a keyboard for their iPad or just not caring.

Another important point I have noticed is iPads are being utilized by younger users more often than comparable laptops or PCs because they are so easy to operate and the App Store makes it a breeze to try new software. And another plus for tablets is they also act as a book replacement - as Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. reminds us.

Posted in 4G, Android, Apple, Blackberry, Cloud Computing, Consumer Electronics, Facebook, Financial, Gadget, Google, HTML5, Social Networking, Technology, Wireless, iPad

Amazon EC2 Outage: What The Experts Tell Us

April 27, 2011

The recent Amazon outage of its EC2 service affected a number of leading-edge companies who in some cases used the fact that they housed little to no infrastructure on their premise as a selling point to investors. Certainly, the cloud computing market is in what we could call a post-evangelism phase where there seems to be universal agreement that the cloud has a role in most organizations – at least to help with some tasks – if not all. We know the concept of hosted solutions isn’t new – many companies outsource payroll for example or tax preparation.

But certainly, when the largest company providing cloud infrastructure has a major outage of one of its availability zones lasting days, it’s time to sit back and reflect on the challenges of moving wholesale to the cloud without thinking the concept fully through.

Posted in Broadband, CRM, Call Center, Cloud Computing, IP Communications, SaaS, Technology, Unified Communications, Verizon

Interop 2011 Day One Wrap Up

May 11, 2011

Day one of Interop has been great so far – I had video and written interviews with a number of companies such as Juniper Networks, Siemens, Brocade, ShoreTel, Navisite, Broadcom and Cisco. The videos will be posted soon – I will alert you when they are up or just go to our video page and click on the forthcoming Interop 2011 tab.

One point which came up repeatedly in my meetings is the micromanaging of budgets by CEOs – not just in small companies but some really big ones. It seems CXOs are scrutinizing new spending like at no time I have ever seen.

Posted in Android, Avaya, Broadband, Call Center, Cloud Computing, IP Communications, Networking, SIP, Social Networking, Unified Communications, Video, VoIP

Tehrani Stuck on Train

May 17, 2011

Remember that swanky Metro North train I bragged about a few minutes ago? well it's now broken. Damn Murphy's Law. We've been stuck on the track for 20 minutes or more. This is why you fully charge your devices at night. Hopefully we get moving soon. The conductor (no matter how new the train, every conductor sounds like he is speaking with a mouthful of jelly beans) says the mechanics are looking at the problem. Luckily I left very early for my 9:00 am Avaya meeting but at this rate I am getting concerned.

Location:Century Trail,Harrison,United States

Posted in Avaya, Broadband, Cloud Computing, IP Communications, Microsoft, Networking, Nortel, Security, Technology, VoIP

An Honest Critique of Microsoft and Steve Ballmer

May 26, 2011

For the last five years there have been calls for Steve Ballmer to step down from Microsoft and I have refrained from comment until today because a confluence of news and events has made commentary necessary. Specifically, David Einhorn, an influential hedge fund manager – whose firm Greenlight Capital owns almost 9M shares of Microsoft, said (video) Ballmer is stuck in the past and is ruining Microsoft’s stock.

Technologist Vs. Businessperson: One compliant about Steve Ballmer is that he is more a businessperson than a technologist and as a result, new and innovative products have been developed much more slowly. This point is very tough to argue with and more importantly, what is Ballmer’s vision for Microsoft?

Posted in 4G, AT&T, Android, Apple, Blackberry, Broadband, Cloud Computing, Consumer Electronics, Facebook, Financial, Microsoft, SIP, Search, Skype, Social Networking, Speech Technologies, Technology, Unified Communications, VoIP, Wireless

Mitel to Come Out Swinging, Will They Connect?

June 1, 2011

This past January I wrote a piece which compared Mitel to ShoreTel titled Is ShoreTel filling the Nortel Void and since the post Mitel has been in a state of flux with a new CEO Rich McBee recently joining. When the opportunity presented itself to come to the Mitel Business Partner Conference titled Mitel Freedom – in Florida, I jumped at it in order to get more perspective on Mitel’s strategic direction and future.

The conference officially kicks off tomorrow morning but I wanted to give my readers as much information as possible before things got going. Tonight I had a sashimi (no, the other one – without the rice) dinner with Ron Wellard, GM and EVP of Mitel Communications Solutions, Jim Davies the CTO and Jay Nichols the VP of Sterling Communications – the PR firm handling Mitel.

Posted in Android, Apple, Avaya, Broadband, Call Center, Cisco, Cloud Computing, Conference, Financial, IP Communications, Marketing, Networking, Nortel, Open Source, SIP, SaaS, Speech Technologies, Technology, Unified Communications, VoIP, Wireless

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next

Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com

Cloud Computing