June 9, 2010
HTC buys Abaxia, gets cozier with carriers in the process
Engadget
Chris Ziegler provides details around HP’s recently announced acquisition of French software company, Abaxia.
“French software firm Abaxia has made a name for itself create white-label modules that help carriers brand phones — its two flagship products are search and active home screen apps — so the fact that HTC has shelled about $13.1 million for the company this week should offer you a solid clue where this is all headed. Naturally, HTC isn’t talking about exactly how Abaxia will fit into the big picture, but boss Peter Chou says that the acquisition will ‘deepen and broaden [their] software development capabilities so that [they] can innovate at an even faster pace.’”
IBM: A World with 1 Trillion Connected Devices
Read Write Enterprise
Alex Williams writes about the multitude of connected devices over the next few years and what that means for users.
“By 2015, it’s estimated there will be one trillion connected devices. People with pacemakers will be monitored by wireless systems. In the near future, automobiles will run on 64-bit, multi-core processors, running millions of lines of code. It’s a future that IBM believes will be increasingly dominated by a ‘system of systems,’ where software scales on devices that interconnect to create a convergence of mechanical, electronic, and digital technologies.”
Watch out Google: Microsoft delivers free Office Web Apps one week early
Network World
Jon Brodkin writes about Microsoft’s Office Web Apps service offering.
“Microsoft’s Office Web Apps is a consumer service composed of free online versions of Microsoft’s productivity applications, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote. When Microsoft announced the newest versions of Office and SharePoint back in May, the company said Office Web Apps would be available June 15. Instead, Microsoft made the cloud-based version of Office available on Monday to Windows Live users in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Ireland, with support in English, Spanish and French. The tools will be released in more languages and to more world regions over the next few months. Office 2010 is still on track for a June 15 release.”
