BlackBerry 10 goes on sale in the U.S.

　　BlackBerry began a fight to regain share in the key U.S. market on Friday with the debut of the first phone running its BlackBerry 10 operating system.
　　The BlackBerry Z10 went on sale nationwide at stores of AT&T, the country's biggest cellular carrier. It's scheduled to launch at T-Mobile and Verizon stores next week.
　　BlackBerry 10 represents a complete restart for the company.
　　At an AT&T store on San Francisco's Market Street, in the heart of the city's financial district, there were none of the long lines and whooping customers that symbolize iPhone launches.
　　But no one really expected that.
　　As the store opened at 9 a.m., just one of three customers waiting in line was there to buy the BlackBerry Z10.
　　(See a video report from the AT&T San Francisco store launch on YouTube.)
　　But the individual, who declined to be interviewed, wasn't the only BlackBerry customer in the queue.
　　San Francisco resident Darlene Henderson was clutching her current phone, a BlackBerry Torch, in her hands as she spoke to a reporter.
　　"I'm upgrading and actually, I'm leaning towards the Samsung instead of BlackBerry 10," she said. "I heard about it, read about it, the reviews are great, so I'm waiting for my income tax [refund] so I can upgrade."
　　The choice of Henderson to leave BlackBerry represents one of the big challenges facing the company. The prolonged development of BlackBerry 10, which suffered delays and took more than a year to get to market, meant some users got impatient and have already switched to Apple and Android.
　　BlackBerry needs the Z10 and the Q10, a yet-to-be-launched handset with a physical keyboard, to be impressive enough to convince existing customers to stick with the platform. To that end, the company has poured millions of dollars into encouraging app developers to get applications on the OS to better match competitors.
　　Another big challenge it faces is signing up new customers.
　　BlackBerry doesn't have a chance of matching the momentum of Apple and Android any time soon, so it's in a battle with Microsoft for the third-place position in the market. Microsoft launched Windows Phone 8 in late 2012.
　　"We do know that there's BlackBerry loyalists out there who are going to love this phone," said John Britton, director of media relations at AT&T, speaking outside of the San Francisco store.
　　"We've seen lines -- obviously iPhones are the biggest lines we've seen. We've had lines for some other launches too," he said. "I think lately we've seen more people pre-ordering online. It's just an easier way to do it, it comes to them or they go to the store and pick it up."

To higher realize the problems consumers

　　As the tempo of in-car technology increases and infotainment units grow to be extra complicated, the quantity of auto purchasers perplexed by the most recent bells and whistles is developing.
　　Even though automakers have pushed for more vendor training to help you buyers comprehend and run these programs, there is nonetheless a understanding lag -- and however, many people really don't discover challenges until finally right after they’ve acquired the car.
　　To resolve this -- and to minimize potential buyers remorse and enhance brand name loyalty -- a number of automakers have stepped up their activity in offering tech assistance. Luxurious brand names especially have begun staffing dealerships with distinctive engineering specialists.
　　Last calendar year, Lexus added Vehicle Technological know-how Specialists when it introduced the tech-laden GS, and Cadillac did exactly the same in the event the XTS and its new Cue method went on sale. Thieving a webpage -- and name -- from Apple, in February BMW said it might incorporate a “genius” at its dealerships to help you prospects with tech issues.
　　Last 7 days, GM introduced that it would double its tech-support initiatives by employing 25 Linked Client Specialistsassigned to dealerships across the country, bolstering the twenty five it added very last November. If your purchaser prefers to contact to resolve an issue as a substitute of driving back again on the dealership, GM has setup a special rapid-response staff at its Infotainment Middle in Austin, Texas.
　　At the new SXSW Interactive technology meeting in Austin, which GM co-sponsored, I received a close-up take a look at the automaker’s cutting-edge tech-support efforts. On the rear with the sprawling GM Infotainment Heart can be a little, dimly lit area with a dozen customer-service agents sitting at personal computer workstations and speaking with car entrepreneurs by wi-fi headsets. This is often where Tom Kanable, director of tech assist in the facility, oversees GM’s remote Geek Squad-like team.
　　Kanable commenced by conveying that his workforce prefers to keep the lights low. “Geeks like doing the job inside the darkish,” he informed MSN Autos, grinning. He also explained that low-level white sounds is pumped into your area that can help protect against a caller from hearing the conversations of adjacent agents. “It’s not like that coldness you receive after you contact the cable corporation,” he reported.
　　The GM tech-support representatives also undertake the lexicon with the caller. “I could call the buttons on the car’s in-dash display icons,” Kanable mentioned. “My grandmother may possibly simply call it a doo-dad. When we communicate to prospects and hear them say, ‘Well, the doo-dad around the display screen …’ we halt calling it an icon and begin expressing doo-dad. This fashion we start to develop rapport with consumers making sure that they can walk us [through the problem] using their terminology.”
　　To higher realize the problems consumers are possessing with linked products, a desk in the heart of the area has standalone operating products of GM’s present infotainment units, such as Cadillac Cue and Chevy MyLink. Scattered close to these are typically dozens on the hottest portable gadgets that car entrepreneurs may well join for their automobiles.
　　Kanable also identified that should the workforce notices that certain concerns repeatedly pop up, they're able to be identified and solved a lot more rapidly utilizing a collective strategy. Problems that happen to be “trending” are exhibited on 3 huge screens on a single wall with the place. “The brokers can see on the screens when traits start off to type,” he explained, “and be a lot more warn to determining them."
　　Figuring out recurring issues together with hearing buyer feed-back can also direct product designers to alter an infotainment process in the future. “Customers tell us every one of the time the things they want of their motor vehicles,” Kanable stated. “They say, ‘This should really seriously function this way.’ We ship these concepts to engineering, marketing and advertising and merchandise advancement. So a sizable customer-service centre then becomes an personal awareness base.”

The final OUYA retail console is ready, we go hands-on

　　It's been a long time coming, and now the Android-powered, Kickstarter-funded OUYA video game console is finally heading to backers. Sure, the final retail units for non-backers won't be available until June, but around 50,000 lucky folks who pledged over $99 to OUYA's massively successful campaign will be receiving their units in the coming days. We've already heard what developers have to say about it, but this week we got our first hands-on with the miniature, Tegra 3-powered game console we've been hearing so much about since last summer.
　　Is it the "best Tegra 3 device on the market," as OUYA's claimed? Let's find out!
　　Our first-blush impressions of the gamepad, unpaired from the console, are mostly positive. The controller has a good heft to it, doesn't feel cheap and the buttons / analog sticks are appropriately clicky and maneuverable. The only real issues are the shoulder buttons and triggers, which both look and feel cheap -- the triggers were actually a sticking point for OUYA with the development kit that launched last December, and it seems the company's still got some kinks to iron out there.
　　The faceplate on each side of the controller's face detaches, which is where you replace the two AA batteries that power it. OUYA also says it'll offer customizable faceplates, but, well, we're just not that excited by the prospect. Additionally, since it's simply a Bluetooth controller, the OUYA gamepad can be used on any Bluetooth-compatible device; to that same end, any Bluetooth-enabled controller works wirelessly with OUYA (so, Sony's DualShock 3, for instance, but not Microsoft's Xbox 360 gamepad -- you'd have to plug in a wired 360 gamepad via USB).
　　The console itself is incredibly small. It's less than half the size of the gamepad, actually. What it lacks in size, however, it makes up for in density. The OUYA is a heavy little box, intentionally weighted to support the various cables you'll plug into its rear to hook it up to your television. It's also incredibly quiet -- with no discs to spin and a fan that rarely kicks up dust, the OUYA runs whisper-quiet. Beyond just quiet and heavy, though, the OUYA is a pretty little thing. The brushed aluminum on its four sides looks sharp, and the tinted, glossy plastic up top gives the console a quality look. Hiding the fan on the bottom is another nice touch -- Jawbone Jambox designer Yves Béhar sculpted a final product that both stands out and subtly fits into existing media centers.
　　Software
　　OUYA's software UI is, to put it lightly, very sparse. Just four submenus branch from the main dashboard: Play, Discover, Make and Manage. The Manage menu is little more than a way to directly access the hidden Android settings -- it brings up a standard Android settings menu, which we're told will be swapped for a custom screen in the future -- so let's put that aside for now. Play acts as your content manager, where both games and applications that you've downloaded reside. It's essentially a file dump, organized into visual tiles -- not thrilling, but certainly serviceable for current purposes. Discover is perhaps the most interesting of the areas -- it's a stand-in for "place where you purchase content" -- and it's a curated store helmed by recent hire Kellee Santiago. Not only does it allow for various categorical organization and featured games, but it also enables popular games to bubble up naturally via thumbs-up icons that users can employ for each game. Make is another unique twist, offering a section for devs to upload builds of their games for all to play; call it a glorified beta section, but its promise is what excites us most. Not only can devs upload and crowdtest their games, but players can test out their own builds on the fly through sideloading.
　　Troubling, however, is the noticeable lag between the game controller and the OUYA. From games to UI, the lag was a noticeable issue -- other journalists we spoke with encountered the same issue. It's not something that's impossible to fix, of course. Even Nintendo's speeding up its Wii U software issues in an upcoming patch, so it wouldn't be a huge surprise to see OUYA correcting the lag issue before June's retail launch.
　　It's also hard to fault what is -- for now -- a niggling issue with a $100 game console that went from Kickstarter to available in around 10 months. The promise of the console is far more appealing, and the time we've spent with the OUYA has us even more excited for its unknown future.

Working closely together with the Head of Team

　　To get deemed for this purpose it's essential to be ITIL competent to Qualified or Practitioner stage; please guarantee this really is plainly indicated on the CV.
　　A novel possibility has arisen for a qualified IT Products and services Supervisor to hitch a successful, progressive and steady firm. This can be a good chance to have a remarkably noticeable, determination generating situation for an organization whose principal interests lie within the know-how market.
　　The remit of the role should be to control the existing IT Help and Community expert services group (12-15 people) and be certain which the company?ˉs core enterprise aims are satisfied on time and so are delivered towards the maximum feasible standard.
　　A crucial factor of this role are going to be to create the support delivery framework for the crew to stick to which include the procedures, policies and processes; you should ensure proof of this is plainly outlined on the CV.
　　The position will match a self-confident IT Solutions Manager with clear eyesight and superb working experience mixing tactic, man-management and complex competencies. The profitable prospect can have practical experience controlling IT Help inside of a multi-site environment ¨C ideally pan-European ¨C and supporting a number of hundred consumers.
　　Working closely together with the Head of Team Stability the place is liable for keeping the security and integrity of the group?ˉs infrastructure, guaranteeing compliance with pertinent restrictions and methods.
　　You need to also have experience handling substantial budgets, placing goals and putting the two short and long-term technique into place.

Microsoft touts Office 365 wins, but customers want more

　　Microsoft is trumpeting Office 365 customer successes at its U.S. Public Sector CIO Summit on Wednesday, but some of those otherwise happy clients have a wish list of features and enhancements they’d like to see in the vendor’s cloud email and collaboration suite.
　　Microsoft announced eight Office 365 government and education customers, including the governments of Kansas City and Seattle, the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority and King County, Washington.
　　The company also said that more than 1 million workers are now using Office 365 in federal, state and local government agencies.
　　A couple of the customers announced on Wednesday touted a variety of benefits and efficiencies derived from the use of Office 365, including lower IT maintenance and equipment costs from turning off on-premise servers, as well as improved employee collaboration and communication.
　　However, they’re also looking forward to continued Office 365 enhancements in areas like compliance with security regulations, usage analytics, software upgrade procedures, system administrator tools and service outage information.
　　The King County government has licensed Office 365 for about 10,000 employees, and is primarily using SharePoint Online for collaboration and Lync Online for IM, presence and videoconferencing.
　　The organization has more than 1,000 SharePoint sites for team collaboration, document sharing and project coordination, and Lync is being used widely to do live virtual meetings and record training videos, according to King County CIO Bill Kehoe.
　　King County plans to take its on-premise intranet to the cloud using SharePoint and will adopt the suite’s Exchange Online component for email next year in order to turn off its on-premise Exchange 2010 system.
　　King County began using Microsoft hosted software with Office 365’s predecessor, BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite) in early 2011. It moved to Office 365 in February of last year.
　　“One efficiency has been that we don’t have to build out an on-premise server environment for SharePoint and Lync,” Kehoe said. “We rely on Microsoft’s infrastructure, and they do the software upgrades and take care of the system maintenance.”
　　“When we get our intranet fully into the cloud and move email to the cloud, over time those efficiencies will grow even more,” he added.
　　Going forward, Kehoe wants Microsoft to make sure that Office 365 is as fully compliant as possible with U.S. government security regulations, such as the new Criminal Justice Information Service requirements.
　　“If we have to have a hybrid environment, where we have to build out on-premise servers for certain departments and agencies, that cuts down on our return-on-investment,” he said. “The more we can put into the cloud, the more efficiencies and savings we’re going to get.”
　　Kehoe also wants Microsoft to beef up the usage analytics on SharePoint Online, which is essential for business managers to determine how effective their collaboration sites are.
　　A more robust, native enterprise search capability in Office 365 would also be welcome by King County, especially once it rolls out its cloud-based intranet, he said.

　　Kehoe also thinks Microsoft could improve its process for updating Office 365 on its back end by giving customers more advance notice that these upgrades are happening and what changes they’ll introduce, so IT departments are ready.
　　“Microsoft has been unable to pinpoint for us when a specific upgrade will occur given the cloud environment of Office 365,” he said. This makes it difficult for his department to alert the agencies it serves about possible impacts to SharePoint services stemming from the upgrade. Luckily the upgrades themselves have gone smoothly so far, he added.
　　His team is also working with Microsoft to make sure King County’s network connectivity is designed optimally to work with Office 365, to avoid performance issues, which affect the satisfaction and efficiency of end users. In the past, King County had video conferencing quality problems because its network wasn’t configured properly to work with BPOS.
　　Unlike King County, the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority is using Office 365 mostly for email and calendaring. This has allowed it to free up IT department staffers from doing routine administration and management tasks on its now shut down on-premise Exchange servers, and instead focus on more valuable, airport-specific IT work.
　　“There’s a lot of time and effort involved in the care and feeding of on-premise servers, including applying patches, updating the OS, doing security upgrades, and so on,” said Howard Kourik, IT director at the Airport Authority.
　　Kourik would like Microsoft to be more proactive and detailed whenever it has an Office 365 outage or performance glitch, because he finds that the system status website doesn’t provide enough clarity and information in these instances.
　　Other improvements Kourik would like to see are better functionality for system administrators to search email inboxes and archives in response to public information or legal requests, as well as better features for recovering files that end users delete by mistake.

IT and BPO industry towards the up coming amount

　　Sri Lanka is scheduling on creating an IT field linked service centre in Aged Tripoli Sector, Colombo. The job is funded from the Urban Advancement Authority and also the development of your task is anticipated to start soon. The Sri Lanka Navy has undertaken the development of proposed centre.
　　The complete thought is usually to establish a standard spot exactly where IT and Know-how marketplace similar corporations can be accommodated. This might assist to obtain to learn the several concepts of business specialists to go ahead and take IT and BPO industry towards the up coming amount. Sri Lanka Navy‘s involvement with the development from the centre would scale back the task charge by two third,?±a senior official reported. The construction of a Awareness Park in Hambantota is likewise in progress below the Hambantota Development Job.
　　Talking in the occasion Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa explained：It is essential that Sri Lankan organizations in many sectors also, dedicate by themselves to this development drive by promoting new ventures and likewise even more generating expansion opportunities all through the region. There are several sectors wherever Sri Lanka has huge opportunity. IT and BPO sectors are two of these kinds of examples.
　　You can find by now several neighborhood corporations that have created a mark internationally, by developing substantial standard software items. The vast majority of software package engineers and other experts who had made these items experienced been educated and qualified right here, as had been the business owners who produced alternatives for them to develop robust careers in this particular discipline. Given that the country moves forward, more and more this kind of prospects need to be exploited. Sri Lanka has extraordinarily proficient gurus in many fields, which includes accountancy, engineering and medication.
　　They require extra avenues where they might make use of their skills. As major experts in the IT and BPO sectors, I'm confident that lots of of you can enjoy an important element in building these kinds of possibilities.
　　For its section, the federal government has become engaged within a large-scale development drive to generate a favourable setting for enterprises. City development is just one this kind of critical place with this regard.

Microsoft talks publicly about Blue and Build 2013

　　It's a new world at Microsoft these days. The latest proof points: Company officials are talking about both the next wave of Windows releases (Blue) and the next Windows developer conference (Build 2013) in a timely manner.
　　First up is Build. The next Microsoft Build conference is happening June 26 to 28 in San Francisco. Registration for it will open on April 2 at 9 am PDT. According to Microsoft's Build site, early bird registration (for the first 500) will be $1,595. Full registration will be $2,095.
　　That seems like perfect timing if rumors about Windows Blue and its timing have been on the money (which they have, so far). Windows Blue could be ready for a preview build of some sort right around late June. Word is there would be two Blue milestone builds, followed by a public preview and then release to manufacturing around August 2013.
　　(Update: The not-so-perfect part about the timing, as a couple readers have noted, is that Build 2013 is overlapping with TechEd Europe, which is June 25 to 28 in Madrid.)
　　There've been a lot of leaks about Blue -- including this past weekend's leak of a recent internal Windows Blue build that shows off some of the user interface changes coming to the next version of Windows. It's also known that other "Blue" wave products are in the pipeline, including Windows Phone Blue, several Windows Server Blue variants, and Blue versions of Windows apps and services like Skydrive and Outlook.com.
　　But the way we've known all this -- up until today -- has been thanks to leaks and tips. Now Micorosft officials are starting to tell the Blue story publicly, as a March 26 blog post from Corporate Communications Vice President Frank Shaw make clear.
　　Shaw's post reiterates a lot of what I've been trying to make clear in my posts about Blue, namely, that Blue is about more than a set of interrelated products that are timed to ship within a specific window (pun intended) of time. Blue is also significant because it signifies a move by Microsoft officials to turn Redmond into a devices and services company that is delivering updates in a more timely fashion.
　　"Our product groups are also taking a unified planning approach so people get what they want – all of their devices, apps and services working together wherever they are and for whatever they are doing," Shaw noted. (There's that collaboration theme, again.)
　　It should be an interesting Build this year, with plenty of new goodies to keep the (hopefully this time) less soggy developer masses busy.