Liquid-Cooled 2-in-1, Chromebook Headlines Acer's Refreshed Lineup

The Switch Alpha 12 Convertible Notebook

The Switch Alpha 12 is a liquid-cooled, fanless, 2-in-1 for businesses, consumers or schools. The Windows 10 machine features 6th-generation Intel Core i7, i5 or i3 processors, a 12-inch In-Plane Switching touch-screen display (2,160-by-1,440), Intel HD graphics and an aluminum chassis. The notebook, which will be available in May for $599, can be configured with 4GB or 8GB of LPDDR3 SDRAM memory and 128GB, 256GB or 512GB solid-state drives (SSDs) for data storage. Also available are an optional backlit keyboard, an optional Acer Active Pen for writing on its screen, and several optional docking stations for individual or multiple business users.

Source: eWeek

A Look Into IBM's OpenStack Meritocracy

VIDEO: Angel Diaz, IBM vice president of Cloud Architecture and Technology, discusses how Big Blue has earned its place in the OpenStack community.

AUSTIN, Texas–IBM is one of the biggest contributors to the open-source OpenStack platform, which helps to serve as a core component of IBM’s cloud efforts. Helping to lead IBM’s cloud efforts is Angel Diaz, vice president of Cloud Architecture and Technology, who has taken a very developer hands-on approach to make sure IBM leads by example.In a video interview with eWEEK, Diaz discusses the role that IBM plays in the OpenStack community and why it matters to IBM’s overall business. Diaz said that IBM has over 200 developers working upstream in OpenStack. He also noted that IBM helped to start the OpenStack Foundation back in 2012, shaping the organizational and governance structure to help the group succeed.”We helped to start the foundation, but when we did that we weren’t given a single committer,” Diaz told eWEEK. “We had to earn our right in the community through the meritocracy.”In open-source communities, a code committer is a valued and trusted position that is based on an individual’s ability to write and contribute code as well as the person’s commitment to a given project. Diaz noted that IBM now employs multiple project technical leaders (PTLs) of OpenStack projects, and those individuals and IBM itself have earned the respect of the community.

“It’s how we do business–we contribute,” Diaz said. “We’re not open-source leaches.”

Watch the full video interview with Angel Diaz below:

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.
Source: eWeek

Tech Complexity Giving IT Professionals Headaches

The management challenges IT teams are most worried about include mobile devices and wireless networks, cloud apps and virtualization, according to an Ipswitch survey.

Two-thirds of IT professionals believe increasingly complex technology is making it more difficult for them to do their jobs successfully, according to a global Ipswitch survey.The goal of the research, in which more than 1,300 respondents were surveyed, was to gain insight into the current IT management challenges facing today’s IT teams, specifically regarding what they need to monitor, how they accomplish it and where they believe improvements could be made.”What we found most surprising was that 88 percent of respondents reported that they want IT management software that offers more flexibility with fewer licensing restrictions,” Jeff Loeb, chief marketing officer for Ipswitch, told eWEEK. “It is surprising because with such a high level of dissatisfaction, we think that vendors would have offered alternative solutions earlier. Also, while vendors have focused on single-pane-of-glass solutions that allow you to visualize complex problems, the underlying software license model has not evolved.”The IT management challenges teams report being most worried about include mobile devices and wireless networks (55 percent), cloud applications (50 percent), virtualization (49 percent), bring your own device (BYOD) (43 percent) and high-bandwidth applications (41 percent), such as video or streaming.

“Business needs are constantly changing, so monitoring needs to be flexible to adapt to these changing business priorities,” Loeb said. “IT teams often have one-off challenges, like troubleshooting a unique problem, so having the flexibility to adapt to these one-offs without having to buy new tools is crucial.”

He noted monitoring flexibility is important so businesses can see where software licenses can be fully utilized without becoming shelfware and unused capacity can be split across technology silos, avoiding waste.IT teams reported they were not monitoring everything that they would like to to ensure control. Top reasons for this include budget (28 percent), lack of staff (18 percent) and the complexity of the IT environment they have to deal with (15 percent).Finally, 54 percent said IT management software licensing models are too expensive, inflexible and complicated to deal with.Overall, the research found IT teams are concerned about losing control of their company’s IT environment as new technologies, devices and requirements are added on a regular basis.”BYOD devices consume bandwidth on networks, which can tremendously slow down performance of business applications and introduce security vulnerabilities,” Loeb noted. “It’s much harder for IT teams to enforce security policies for devices they do not control.”
Source: eWeek

Consumer Software Deals Power Tech M&A Market

The industry’s largest transaction to date this year is Cisco Systems’ acquisition of Jasper Technologies for $1.4 billion, according to Berkery Noyes.

The software industry merger and acquisition (M&A) deals volume increased 7 percent, with a total of 523 transactions, over the past three months; however, overall value decreased 81 percent to $21.6 billion from $111.5 billion, according to independent mid-market investment bank Berkery Noyes’ “Q1 2016 Software Industry M&A Report.”Of note, the industry’s largest transaction to date this year is Cisco Systems’ acquisition of Jasper Technologies for $1.4 billion.Aggregate value declined 9 percent on a year-over-year basis, and in the past five quarters, deal volume reached its peak in Q3 2015. Deal value reached its peak in Q4 2015.”In general there have been fewer megadeals, but middle-market transaction volume should continue at a steady pace as acquirers look for innovative technologies to help expand their product offerings,” Mary Jo Zandy, managing director at Berkery Noyes, told eWEEK.

Most notable in Q4 was Dell’s announced acquisition of EMC Corp. for $67.5 billion. If these four deals are excluded, deal value would have only decreased by 15 percent.

“Much of the activity in the consumer software sector was driven by mobile application deals,” Zandy said. “High-profile, mobile-based transactions in Q1 included Microsoft’s announced acquisition of Swiftkey, which provides predictive keyboard technology for Android and iOS devices, with a reported purchase price of approximately $250 million; GoPro’s announced acquisition of video editing apps Replay and Splice for $105 million; and Spotify’s acquisitions of Soundwave and Cord Project, as the digital music service looks to bolster its social and messaging capabilities.”Other notable acquirers were Snapchat with the announced acquisition of Bitstrips, which allows users to create personalized emojis and carton avatars, for a reported $100 million, and Facebook, with its announced acquisition of Masquerade, a face-swapping application.The infrastructure software segment’s deal volume decreased 21 percent in Q1 2016. One noteworthy deal was Micro Focus’ announced acquisition of Serena Software for $540 million.The consumer software segment’s deal volume increased 22 percent in Q1 2016 for its third consecutive quarterly rise, while the business software segment’s deal volume increased 18 percent in Q1 2016.”We expect this momentum to carry on throughout the rest of the year and into 2017, with a focus on companies that can provide new customers, new technologies or access to new markets,” Zandy said.
Source: eWeek

Facebook Rides Mobile Ads to 52 Percent Revenue Surge

Q1 net income was $1.51 billion, nearly triple that of the $512 million it profited in Q1 last year.

Facebook continues its winning ways, reporting a whopping 52 percent surge in revenue in its Q1 2016 earnings report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission April 27.The bottom-line numbers for the social network spoke for themselves: revenue of $5.38 billion, up 52 percent over $3.54 billion a year ago; and net income of $1.51 billion, nearly tripling the $512 million it profited last year.Shares of Facebook stock, which have risen 33 percent during the past year, spiked up 9.5 percent to $119.28 in after-hours trading following the earnings release.The results were in stark comparison to those of fellow Silicon Valley superstar companies such as Apple, which reported its first quarterly drop in revenue in 13 years; Yahoo, which lost $99 million last quarter; Twitter, which missed first-quarter revenue expectations; and Google parent Alphabet Inc., which also missed analysts’ projections.

Facebook, which now has 1.65 billion monthly users, continues to ride the strength of its mobile ad sales—which it started selling in earnest in 2012—and the rising popularity of its video ads to the new profitability. The rapidly expanding development of its Messenger platform to connect users with businesses also is gaining traction and is expected to start contributing to the bottom line soon.

Video ads are selling as advertisers channel funds from print and television budgets. Video ads on Facebook cost about $4 per 1,000 views during the first quarter, up from $3.44 in 2015 and higher than the $3.14 average across Facebook, according to marketing technology company Kenshoo.The company also announced it is proposing to create a new class of nonvoting capital stock, known as the Class C capital stock. The proposal is designed to create a capital structure that will, among other things, maintain 31-year-old CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s leadership role at the company for years to come, according to the company.

If the Class C proposal is OK’d by shareholders, the company said it would issue two shares of Class C capital stock as a one-time dividend for each share of Class A and Class B stock.Facebook’s success isn’t just attributable to the social network. In fact, analysts were extremely impressed with the company’s other platforms. In particular, they were pleased to see Facebook is starting to make money from its 410 million Instagram users, and argued it could help the company generate an additional $4 billion to $5 billion in the next two years.WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger also are growing rapidly, which analysts say will only add to the revenue the company generates.

Source: eWeek