Infosys | Microsoft

Leveraging Social networks for Enterprise Collaboration

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 10:07:43 +0000

Enterprise Collaboration in today's world has become a reality and many organizations are effectively utilizing the power of this collaboration. Along with Enterprise Collaboration, the trend is focusing towards 'Enterprise Social Collaboration'.

Windows 8 (yet again!)

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:18:37 +0000

Since the time Microsoft announced Windows 8 and showed glimpses of it few years back, it has been highly talked about. I have had my fair share of blogs and papers on it.

Now with roughly half a year since Surface RT hit the retail stores and Surface Pro more recently making its presence on the shelves, the discussions around Windows 8 are anything but slowing down and most of the messages that I am hearing are around disappointment of people with it.

Do we really need Tablet Devices?

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 11:50:19 +0000

It is a very controversial question to ask, given that we have had 52.5 million devices sold as of Q4 of 2012 (IDC Report).

Windows Phone 8 Support Cycle

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 05:10:52 +0000

A colleague just shared this. When Microsoft had released Phone 8 they had talked about 18 months cycle before a new version will be made available. Phone 8 support ending in July 2014 is what it probably meant. Unlike regular desktop OS, in phone space, I believe once they release a new OS, they aren't really bothered about the earlier one. They probably took a different stand for their first version and did bring out Phone 7.8 (but with very limited new features).

Looks like this smart phone space will have very different dynamics. What do you think?

Patchy Updates

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 05:38:56 +0000

As I was just reading that Surface RT machines are hit by update issues, I ended up recalling that Windows Phone 7 had some early update issues. The devices had also run into issues in being able to download and update the firmware.

Is there a lesson to be learnt here? Is MS who has tranditionally dealt with PCs and workstations which typically involved over the LAN or CD based updates, not being able to manage over the wire updates? But surprisingly the Windows update service has been running well for many years now.

Let's hope that Phone 8 isn't hit by similar issues.

Smartlets or Tabphones

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 11:24:57 +0000

Smart phones are becoming bigger and tablets are becoming smaller. Feature functionality vise they today already overlap and many apps in the market place today are designed to run on both smart phones and tablets.

Will these seemingly disparate devices eventually merge into a single Smartlet or Tabphone device? What's your view?

Panasonic 4K Tablet @ CES 2013

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 11:09:09 +0000

Panasonic showcased prototype 4K resolution 20" Tablet at CES 2013. Read about it here, here, here and here. At 20" is that really a tablet? In this era when existing tablet makers are trying to go for smaller screen, does this 20" TV Monitor like screen make sense?

Given the size, it surely isn't portable as well. Also such high resolution will not be of much use as of today as application will appear too tiny on it and impossible to read and operate.

What do you make of it? Would a device like this succeed? Does it even qualify to be called as a tablet? What really is a tablet?

SharePoint 2013 and Intranet Legacy Applications

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 05:08:35 +0000

SharePoint 2013 has come up with App infrastructure. Very briefly, Apps are independent entities that can interact with SharePoint. They are treated as separate entities from SharePoint security perspective. This basically means that Apps have their own authentication and authorization with SharePoint. From Microsoft guidelines "App should be something that solves a business problem". In this blog we will try to figure out how Apps can give a new lease of life to existing legacy applications in an organization's intranet

Migration/Upgrade to SP 2013 - As Is or Re-Design

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 04:13:24 +0000

With each new release of SharePoint, comes the associated issue of migration. Microsoft on its part tries to make the experience as easy as possible. This is typically done by providing some kind of backward compatibility. The sole intention here is that the organization can quickly move to the next version and then explore the new feature set and make changes to their SharePoint structure, customization and content accordingly. But, does this really happen?

Considerations for Building Windows 8 Apps

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 05:23:19 +0000

My paper on key considerations to build apps for Windows 8 is live now. You can access it here. Do share any comments you may have for the same.

Should CIOs care for Apps in App Store?

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 09:57:27 +0000

I was reading an article about What Windows 8 Tablets mean for CIOs, and mostly agree to the points there. Security, ability to access existing applications, and BYOD will probably be key decision factors. I however don't agree that CIOs need to be concerned about number of apps in the market place.

CIOs will need to worry about access to the enterprise applications and not really how many apps exist on the market place. That is a factor employees will need to consider when deciding which tablet to buy for themselves. Their choices will mean that CIO will need to worry about supporting disparate devices in the enterprise. What do you say?

Demystifying few terms

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 09:25:22 +0000

In the last few months, I have repeatedly seen people getting confused with some of the new terms that Microsoft has unleashed on the industry with the launch of Windows 8. They bring in new terms, and sometimes later, change some of them as the product launches in the market. In our internal conversations also I see some element of confusion. So thought to explain some of these.

Windows 8 - Will it Succeed?

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 08:30:25 +0000

Forrester suggests that Windows 8 has had limited sale and organizations aren't yet inclined to move to Windows 8. The expected push seemingly will come from consumers via BYOD options. [Update] Microsoft reports a sale of 40 million licenses since its retail launch last month.

What is your take? Do you think it would have been good had Microsoft kept the modern UI restricted to Windows Surface (tablet) and the current desktop UI as is for desktops and laptops?

Experiencing Windows Phone

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 05:41:05 +0000

With 17+ years of experience on Microsoft Technologies, with my current work focus on Kinect, PixelSense, Windows 8 and Phone 8, with having access to Kinect and Windows 8, but using an Android smart phone instead of Windows Phone isn't something that is appreciated. With Phone 8 now in market, I have been thinking of replacing my phone and my wife was happy enough to take my earlier android phone for herself.

However I could also just not go and buy a new Phone 8 device, so thought of first playing around with one for few days to figure out how it felt. Since we got a new Phone 8 device in our Lab, I had the earlier HTC Phone 7.5 device available for experimentation. Here are some of the things I felt about using the Phone 7.5 device over few weeks.

Getting Started with Phone 8

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 11:05:29 +0000

Microsoft had announced the much awaited Phone 8.0 SDK release and Phone launch during their recently concluded Build 2012 conference. You can get access to Phone 8.0 SDK here or if you have MSDN Subscription, then from here. Note that this SDK is 64 bits only, and runs on Windows 8, so you need to have Windows 8 to be able to develop for Phone 8.0 for now. The Phone 8.0 Emulator requires a SLAT PC and Hardware Virtualization enabled in the BIOS as well.