The Clouds of Change

The SME Guide to Moving to the Cloud

Useful and Clear information on Moving to Cloud

Video Drives Higher Sales

10 Facts to know on Social Media

Smartphone Buyers vs Sellers

The pace at which smartphones are being marketed and sold is a history in the making within itself for the companies that sell it. Gartner report says "Sales of Android Phones to Approach One Billion in 2014", and that’s just Android. 

Worldwide sales of smartphones to end users totaled 968 million units in 2013.

People are so obsessed with these devices, that even though it’s a strain for us we find ways not to accept it.

I understand the argument of health and technology is controversial, and if i am to advocate for health then I had to live in stone age with hindsight. Yes your right! Technology over than health! 

The problem I have with these devices are its prices. 

You get more than what you ask for these days, and that is a problem! With sapphire crystal which do not come with "Your iPhone is break proof for life", or 64GB which you don’t use completely, or the metal body which of course scratches if you drop it (which you will), and much more. Being a consumer its hard to compromise and be cleaver at the same time.

No differences in price choices

Yes, Samsung fights with Apple and Android fights iOS in terms of market share. But those are’t a benefit to us, yet the prices are sky rocketing every year with smartphones. Now, the smartphone companies have put a mantra that it’s completely useless to use a mobile for more than 2 years. And a few are producing resolutions more than what a human eye is capable of seeing, and even though they manufacture a 40 mega pixels camera, we are obsessed in taking selfies with the front camera (which . We love our phones metal body, but we cover it with a case and later sell it (virgin Mary right there!). With the 10000 songs in our playlist, we only listen to that one song which sounds good at that moment of time. With the fitness app in mobile phones, we just don’t jog anymore (well most of us!). And finally, even with the 4G capabilities, we always look for free WIFI!

The marketing activities of these smartphones are brilliantly crafted, that we believe it is more of a necessity. But its not!. And the truth is they are making us a lot dumber than we think we are. Maybe we have to stand up and be clever in making some tough choices, rather to believe the non sense what these smartphone companies and tech savvy people advocate for.

Some simple tips:

I understand a smartphone is a must these days.

But do you need an upgrade?

Well, you have to answer that whether you have used your current phone for 1 or 2 or 4 years. If you still want a new one, plan for how long you should be using it, and based on that decide the price. Its always better to invest big if your to use it long enough, only then real value is delivered for the money (no virgin marry this time!). 

And RESEARCH for months!.  Its big investment and its worth spending time to arrive at a conclusion.

Don’t go for a feature which is not worth paying.

Finger print, water proof, 40 pixels camera, fitness, health band, watch, 64GB.. Decide the one which you need.
Do you need it? if your confused, please don’t. You just wont use em'.

Features that are not worth paying

Good you have chosen one, take the least spaced phone available in that particular model (high end gamer? Go buy xbox or a PS!). If  it’s a 5S, go for the 16 gig, as the cloud storage these days the cheapest.

Trust me the fight for market share in cloud storage between Amazon, Google Drive, icloud, Dropbox, OneDrive is brilliant for us. Just pure awesomeness, the price. At 2$ for 100 GB, what more you need? store documents, pics and much more without even opening your computer. And access your files right there every time. By this you have saved plenty of cash, you will still listen to that one song and plenty of pics (thanks to cloud).

Just don’t spend ridiculous amount on cases, after a while you will eventually remove it. If you need protection buy a cheap case (you can even have up to 10, rather than to buy a branded one and not use it later). 

And don’t buy on the fact that we are here to upgrade it for 1-2 years what the tech savvy people say, they say it because they have to say it for a living. More new products, more new reviews, more traffic, more cash. Simple as that!. 

Be clever, find the right value for money, and don’t get into the circus of smartphone marketers.

Infographics: Social Media Challenges and Area of Focus

This particular infographics acts as a  helpful reminder of   industry standards for Social media.

Courtesy : Ciceron

Landing Page Tips and Tricks

Its an infographics on how landing page needs to be created for increasing the conversion by Quick Sprout.

No SQL Databases

A NoSQL database provides a mechanism for storage and retrieval of data that is modeled in means other than the tabular relations used in relational databases. Motivations for this approach include simplicity of design, horizontal scaling and finer control over availability.

NoSQL databases are finding significant and growing industry use in big data and real-time web applications. NoSQL systems are also referred to as "Not only SQL" to emphasize that they may in fact allow SQL-like query languages to be used. – Wikipedia

NoSQL Database Types:

The Benefits of NoSQL:

When compared to relational databases, NoSQL databases are more scalable and provide superior performance, and their data model addresses several issues that the relational model is not designed to address:

• Large volumes of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data

• Agile sprints, quick iteration, and frequent code pushes

• Object-oriented programming that is easy to use and flexible

• Efficient, scale-out architecture instead of expensive, monolithic architecture   

Exclusive list of NO SQL Database: http://nosql-database.org/

 Kristof Kovacs comparison of NoSQL databases (Best facts listed out for architect to choose from)

Nadella will never be the answer to Microsoft Prayers.

Nadella will never be the answer to 

Microsoft Prayers.

We all wanted Microsoft to perform exceptionally well. Why?. Part of what we are today is defined by them. During the early 90’s only “the Engineers”, Doctors, businessman’s sons and daughters get to use these computers, it was Microsoft who made it accessible for us. Now our entire community is using computers, without it now our world is unthinkable. True that Microsoft robbed the GUI (look and feel) of Apple Mac, and they have done a few questionable things with other corps as well, but who gives a shit, it wasn't Apple who made us what we are today, Its MICROSOFT. 

Now a days innovation is the prime agenda in pretty much any company’s portfolio. Sadly for Microsoft, innovation in recent years (the Ballmer era 2001-14) was a disaster. Good that Microsoft got rid of Ballmer. For most of the people out there who still believe that Apple's tab, iPod, iPhone were the pioneers in terms of innovation during the early 2000's, your wrong. Microsoft has these products in their portfolio in 2000. They had a 8 pound Windows XP tab (I am not kidding!), their music player had a technology superior to Apple that you listen and download music online with monthly subscriptions (Napster and all), even if you lose the player it gets incorporated in your music account (Apple had this update recently), these products were cheap too unlike Apple, Microsoft had good smart phones as well (Motorola Q). Microsoft had a vision, but they were piss poor in terms of executing these innovations. The only company that runs their Windows OS in mobile is the only company that they bought (Nokia). How pathetic is that!, also they had a software installed in their mp3 players, only god knows where is it now. Even today, their not up with the leaders, its Apple. Now their playing catch up with the likes of Apple, Google, Sony in terms of next gen devices.

Now you have “the cloud” in place, Windows Azure. 

Windows Azure is a great product as well, in terms of revenue it has fetched around $19 Billion, companies will move to cloud eventually, Azure is the next big thing in cloud, blah blah blah! 

As a cloud computing professional myself Azure is good product, but then they are no where near the likes of AWS (Amazon web Services) and Rackspace, when you ask executives which cloud do you use for your app(s) its always AWS or Rackspace. Even in the cloud there is catching up to do.

The only good product Microsoft is selling is their Xbox 360 and Xbox One (its a video game console, most enterprise or personal customers don't care about it).

Put all these into perspective, and why don't you judge Steve Ballmer. You tell Ballmer Windows Vista, 8, 8.1, mobile OS or Surface needs some serious fixes, all he says is “No , their alright and your wrong”. This degrading company do not do anything which the average people wants (which defined their success back in the heydays 1990-00).

And now they made Satya Nadella as their CEO to look forward. I was happy that they finally replaced Ballmer, but when i read Satya Nadella’s resume “ a 22 year Microsoft veteran..”, that was it. Again you hire a Microsoft fan boy?? Common!.. You need a person who has got this kick-ass marketing attitude (like our beloved Jobs), not a programmer. You need a person who asks for the unthinkable in terms of what the market needs, it is up to the programmers to code it. That is what vision is, and you drive innovations from there. Nadella will look upon to innovate from his employees head which is rusty like my Hyundai for more than 10 years. I checked few of his interviews, it was more like watching WWE (or the good old WWF), like this pre written scripts “yes i’m a learner, i always listen to employees to drive innovation, its challenging and all”. No that cannot be the answer to our questions. Okay, then there is Tim Cook (Apple CEO), similar to Nadella but that’s for a different day. 

Is geek as a CEO that Microsoft really needs now? 

I just don't think so.

Kinvey - Mobile Cloud Backend-as-a-service

Kinvey (rhymes with "convey") is a Backend as a Service provider that makes it ridiculously easy for developers to setup, use and operate a cloud backend for their mobile apps.

Kinvey makes a fully-featured Backend as a Service solution, offering 3rd party data integrations, multi-platform support, push notifications, and custom business logic on a platform that allows developers to reduce dramatically the time and cost of bringing mobile apps to market. Offer editions designed for individual developers and enterprise developers alike..

Kinvey Linkedin Page: http://www.linkedin.com/company/kinvey

App Cost Estimator: http://www.kinvey.com/app-cost-estimator

Google & Kinvey Partnership:

Google is broadening its reach into the mobile app development world today through a partnership with Kinvey, which will provide an enterprise backend-as-a-service (BaaS) layer on top of Google App Engine. 

With Kinvey, Google App Engine will support iOS, Android and HTML 5.

Kinvey, which will integrate with Google’s new Mobile Backend Starter, a basic backend platform for Android apps, offers a set of features appealing to enterprise developers who need to integrate their organizations’ data and authentication systems into their mobile apps.

Ref: Techcrunch  &  Readwrite

Big Data Survey by Jaspersoft

About Jaspersoft

Jaspersoft empowers millions of people every day to make better decisions faster by bringing them timely, actionable data inside their apps and business processes. Its embeddable, cost-effective reporting and analytics platform allows anyone to quickly self serve to get the answers they need, while scaling architecturally and economically to reach everyone. 

Jaspersoft’s commercial open source software has been downloaded millions of times and is used to create the Intelligence Inside hundreds of thousands of apps and business processes. Jaspersoft is a privately held company with offices around the world. For more information visit http://www.jaspersoft.com and http://community.jaspersoft.com.

SaaS Growth - 2010 - 2015

Quick Sprout - Website Analyser

Are you looking for a tool that analysis your website ???

Then its time to check QuickSprout tool , Which gives you the full details along with ur competitor comparison.

Their Tag line:

                                             DO YOU WANT MORE TRAFFIC?

"LEARN THE NUMBER 1 REASON YOU ARE NOT 

GETTING ENOUGH TARGETED TRAFFIC TO YOUR 

WEBSITE!"

Check In

Social Media Evolution

Its Social media age, We promote, engage and communicate using social media a lot these days. Here is a perfect infographics on Social media evolution by ProhibitionPR.

The list of game changers in social media...

Market for Online Videos

2 - 3 min product promotional videos are trends these years to show case your product and service offering to the world in a minute.

This infographics give you overall view on "The market for Online Video" and the "Result" they generate.

Infographics: Quicksprout

Mobile app Opportunity in 2013

Infographics by http://www.vserv.mobi/

For detailed information on Mobile Application developer in 2013 Click here

Top SaaS Companies - 2013

Best Performing Cloud Computing Stock of Companies ( Dec 30 2013 - Jan 3 2014)

Best Performing Cloud Computing Stock of Companies ( Jan 2013 - Jan 2014)

The list of Top SaaS Companies according to Bessemer Venture Partners‘s Cloud Index

Courtsey : Forbes, onbile

PhoneGap - Open Source Framework

PhoneGap is a free and open source framework. It allows you to create mobile apps using standardized web APIs for the platforms you care about.

It enables software programmers to build applications for mobile devices using JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS3, instead of device-specific languages such as Objective-C.  The software underlying PhoneGap is Apache Cordova.

Stable Release : Nov 28, 2013 & its been purchased by Adobe Systems.

Installation

Startup Videos

Hi Readers,  are you looking out for great video of start-up companies ??

I came across a website which list all major collection of start-up videos named Startup Videos. 

They showcases the very best of startup related promotional videos and recognizes the designers/agencies who create them through interviews and community news. 

Do check and explore it.

My Favorite Pick: PENCIL

Text to Audio Convertor - Free & Easy Tool

Have been working with designing team to create a promotion video for the company product.  We tried recording our own voice which didn’t work out due to external noise.

Started searching for free tool in google that converts text to audio and which can be downloadable,  After multiple searches and trying out various tools available in market, I found tool named LISTEN.

It’s really easy to use and download as mp3 file.  So my search for free tool for text to audio conversion ended here,.

Enjoy using it 

FYI:

• Listen uses Google Translate's Text To Speech API to play back the written text into spoken voice.

• Voice: Naturally-sounding female voice.

• Limitation: It accepts only 100 characters or less as input ( It helped us as we merged as needed for our use)