Technology Ramblings

On Nov 2, MS released a preview of it's latest Team Collaboration tool called Teams for Office365 business customers across various license tiers. Productivity and Collaboration tools have been a main stay of the Microsoft portfolio for years now.  Office and Office365 are a $23B business to MS and is the single largest line of business. And while one can argue that Office is the leader in Productivity - meaning content creation via Word, Excel and PowerPoint - MS has just flailed around over the last 10 - 15 years in the "Collaboration" space. Looking back I have probably used everyone of MS's Collaboration Tools. First it was Exchange - which gave use Email and Calendaring.  Then came SharePoint that provided Doc Libs, and Web Parts for communities and ingesting content from Excel or SQL, or whatever using the Individual, Team and Corporate site model.  Then came Office Communications Server (OCS) which became Lync.  They provided real time communication ...

Today, Nov 3, MS released the first of the newly named "Creators Update" (previously known as Redstone 2) builds to Fast Ring Insiders.  The build number is 14959 and is for PC and Mobile platforms. 14959 contains about half a dozen or so fixes for both PC and Mobile. Specifically for Mobile this release used MS's new Unified Update Platform (UUP) to deploy. UUP is designed to shrink the size of the cumulative updates normally released by creating a "differential" download package based on only the differences between the current build you are on and the new one. What I noticed was that it took a while on Mobile from the time you clicked on check for updates, saw the new build and then the build actually starting to download.  In fact for a few minutes I thought I may have experiencing the same 0% download problem that plagued build 14951.   I really can't say that the download itself or the update preparation phase were any quicker using UUP than ...

With Microsoft's recent announcement of the Surface Studio All-in-One desktop, they now have a direct competitor to the Apple iMac. So which one would you buy ?    Like with the MacBook Pro vs Surface Book comparison I did in a previous post - let's let at both from a hardware, software and ecosystem standpoint... First the hardware.    Like with the MBP / SB comparison - we'll compare the top end models. The new Surface Studio supports 6th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU and can support up to 32Gb RAM.  The iMac also supports 6th gen Core i7 CPU and 32GB of RAM. The Surface Studio uses 28" Pixel Sense Monitor with 4500 x 3000 resolution with DCI-P3 color support and 10 Point Touch and Pen Support.  GPU is via Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M with 4Gb of RAM.    The iMac uses a 27" Retina Monitor with 5120 x 2800 resolution with no Touch or Pen Support and uses an AMD Radeon R9 M395X GPU with 4Gb of RAM Surface Studio has 2TB Hybrid drive and iMac has 3T...

Over the last two days both Apple and Microsoft announced refreshes to their laptop lines. So now we have two bright shiny and very expensive top end laptops to compare..  Let's look at then from a a hardware, software and ecosystem standpoint. First the hardware.  We'll compare the top end offerings from each.. Both the new MacBook Pro (MBP) and Surface Book are based on the 6th generation Intel Core CPUs know as SkyLake and support up to 16GB of RAM. Both come with PCI SSD with Apple supporting all the way to a 2TB model while the Surface Book stops at 1TB. The Surface Book comes with a 13.5" 3000 x 2000 (267 PPI) screen with 10 Point Touch and Pen Support.  The screen is driven by an Nvidia GTX 965M GPU with 2GB RAM and is detachable and can used as a tablet or flips 180 degrees. The MacBook Pro 15.4"  2880 x 1800 (220 PPI) screen with no touch or pen support.  The screen is driven by an AMD Radeon Pro 455 with 2GB of RAM. Optionally you...

Today Apple announced the new line-up of MacBook Pro (MBP) laptops.  The line has been relatively static for several years since the introduction of the Retina editions and sales have slowed.. The new line-up is thinner and lighter than the previous models and are based on Intel's 6th generation Skylake CPU.  There are two sizes - 13" and 15".  They also come with 4 x Thunderbolt 3 ports - so no more traditional USB. 13" models come with 8GB of RAM, Intel Iris GPU, 256 or 512GB of PCI SSD storage along with a 2560×1600 resolution screen.  Pricing ranges from $1,499 to $1,999 15" models come with 16GB of RAM, AMD Radeon Pro GPU, 256 or 512GB PCI SSD along with 2880×1800 resolution screen. Pricing ranges from $2,399 to $2,799. The big features for this refresh are Touch ID and the Touch Bar.  Apple has added the T1 chipset from the iPhone to support touch ID identification to the MBP and the new Touch Bar has effectively replaced the Function Key row ...

IDC released their preliminary Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report for Q3 2016. And here is where we stand... Worldwide Smartphone sales remain relatively flat with a 1% year over year growth rate.  362.9M units were sold in Q3 of 2016 vs 359.3M in 2015.  This was in spite of the massive recall involving the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Looking at the top 5 vendors... Samsung is still #1 worldwide even with a 13.5% decline in unit sales - 72.5M in 2016 vs 83.8M in 2015.  Worldwide market share is 20%.   Sales of Galaxy S7/S7 Edge and the mid range J series made up for some but not all of the Note 7 issues. Apple is #2.  As I reported in an earlier post Apple sold 45.5M units - a 5.3% drop from the 48M sold in 2015 and maintains a 12.5% market share. The big gains continue to come from the big 3 Chinese players, Huawei, Oppo and vivo. Huawei saw unit sales grow 23% to 33.6M units while Oppo and vivo saw triple digit growths of 121.6% (25.3M unit...

Yesterday, MS held their Fall Hardware Event in NYC.  During the event one big theme rang through and that was a focus on "creators" and many of the new announcements reflected that theme.. First, MS announced that the Windows 10 Redstone 2 branch will now be officially called the Creators Update when it releases in March/April of 2017. Next MS placed a focus on 3D with several new announcements starting with a revival of one of Windows oldest included apps - Paint.  The new Paint 3D is completely new app with the capability to work with included and captured 3D images and insert existing 2D content.   There will also be new mobile apps that will allow you to capture 3D images.  MS demo'd walking around a model castle capturing the 3D image into Paint 3D and then working with the content.   Paint 3D will also support direct 3D printing. Continuing on the 3D theme MS announced new VR headsets coming from major OEM partners Dell, HP, Lenovo, Asus and Acer. ...