Izenda Embedded Analytics and Technology Blog

Nov 07
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Microsoft Announces G-Series, Cloud Space and Cloudera

By | Microsoft, Technology, The Cloud

Big news coming out of Redmond (by way of San Francisco) as Microsoft announces a host of new technology to play with in the upcoming months. Here are a few of the highlights.

G-Series Virtual Machine Sizes

One of the big announcements was the new sizes of virtual machine sizes that are coming out. Microsoft is calling these devices the G-Series and is claiming enhanced performance for “your most demanding applications.” They are upping the stakes by providing a variety of choices in processor cores, ram, and Solid State storage.

The smallest of the group, called the G1, starts out with 2 cores, 28 gigs of ram and 406 Gigs of SSD storage. The list is topped with the G5 that has a whopping 32 cores, 448 gigs of ram and over six terabytes of storage.

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Aug 29
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Microsoft Debuts New NoSQL Features

By | Big Data, Microsoft

Big data graphic of clouds and keywordsWhen one hears the words “Microsoft database” SQL Server usually comes to mind. But the company recently announced two new features that expand support for NoSQL on its Azure cloud platform. Azure DocumentDB is a NoSQL database service that promises to unite the processing and transactional capabilities of a relational database with the flexibility of a NoSQL database. DocumentDB is highly scalable, efficiently indexes heterogeneous documents without requiring schema or secondary indices, and allows for rich query and transaction processing capabilities.

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Aug 11
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Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2014

By | Microsoft, The Cloud

July 2014’s Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington DC had some great advice from Microsoft partners on their strategies – and the challenges they face – in delivering .NET, cloud-based computing services.

First, the challenges. There is the perpetual challenge of getting customers already invested in hardware and software to be proactive in moving off of their existing platforms. Customers tend to be happy with the solution they have, and don’t always see the value in changing technology.

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Oct 28
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The Surface is the Perfect Enterprise Tool

By | Business, Microsoft

Microsoft surface tablet A recent commentary calls the Microsoft Surface tablet a “misunderstood jewel.” Its value, the argument goes, lies not in being a major market competitor to the iPad, but in its potential as a powerhouse machine for enterprise use. As it seems clear it won’t really be giving Apple a run for its money anytime soon, focusing the Surface’s marketing and application in the enterprise sphere might be the best thing Microsoft can do right now, positioning its greatest strengths alongside one of its flagship devices. And the company should do so especially if it wants to see the Surface stick somewhere.

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Oct 22
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A Refreshing Counter to Microsoft-bashing in the Industry

By | Microsoft

In a recent article on Forbes, Matthew Wallaert took issue with the whole premise and tone of the question he is constantly asked by others in and outside the industry: “What’s the worst thing about working at Microsoft?”

He’s been there eleven months, and heads up the Bing for Schools program. And he loves it. And he provided this pertinent commentary on the negativity that is constantly thrown around with regards to the company:

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Oct 21
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Microsoft Predicts Three Strengths Will Ensure It Dominates the Enterprise Cloud

By | Business, Microsoft, The Cloud

Earlier this month, Microsoft cloud and enterprise executive VP Satya Nadella argued that the company will dominate a fair share of the $2 trillion cloud market. The company will prove a cloud powerhouse, he wrote in a blog post, due to several specific strengths, rounded up by InformationWeek:

Microsoft is prepared to lead the enterprise cloud charge, which he characterized as a potential $2 trillion market, because of three strengths: a strong SaaS portfolio that includes Office 365, Bing, Xbox Live and more than 200 others; a massive public cloud in Windows Azure; and a viable hybrid model that provides businesses the tools and infrastructure to explore the cloud while still keeping data secure and extending the use of existing hardware. He said Microsoft is the only cloud provider that can boast these assets and that its new wave of products represent significant advancements across all areas.

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Sep 25
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Microsoft’s Next Moves: Make or Break Time

By | IT and Engineering, Microsoft, The Cloud

Office365A series of takeaways from a recent Microsoft financial analysts’ meeting — the first in two years — reveals what’s ahead for the company. If they’re smart, it’ll be a focus on the enterprise and cloud services.

Last week, Microsoft executives had their first financial analysis meeting in two years, and used it to explain more of the plan for the future of the company. They also hit on many of the topics the media and tech insiders have been speculating about lately. InformationWeek published 11 Takeaways from this meeting on Microsoft’s next moves, and in that spirit, we culled it down to the two biggest takeaways we see from the larger list: the enterprise market and the cloud.

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Sep 11
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Microsoft: a Company in Flux. Where Will the Chips Fall?

By | Business, IT and Engineering, Microsoft

Britain Nokia Microsoft meetingA recent article purports that “With Nokia, Microsoft has no more excuses.” It has all the pieces it needs now to succeed or to fail. We found this assessment quite compelling. Microsoft is not going to become a “Devices and Services” company overnight. It takes a long time for a ship the size of Microsoft (and even bigger with Nokia now in tow) to correct course once the rudder is moved. Between the company’s massive “One Microsoft” reorganization, the eventually “retirement” of CEO Steve Ballmer, the integration of Nokia and the naming of a new CEO, Microsoft is going to be in a state of flux for the foreseeable future.

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Sep 09
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Izenda Reports Runs on Linux: Windows Azure Makes it Happen

By | Izenda Reports, Microsoft, Product Updates, Visualizations

Izenda opens doors by bringing its enterprise reporting tool into the open source community.

Sept. 9, 2013 – Atlanta, GA – In response to a customer request, engineers at Izenda have successfully run Izenda Reports on Linux servers. Windows Azure VMs enabled the team to start the process quickly without acquiring additional hardware. This represents a huge leap for the company, as it takes its product into the open source world.

“Microsoft’s Windows Azure cloud computing platform enables Izenda to rapidly bring new products to market,” said Scott McLeod, VP of Engineering at Izenda. “Azure gives Izenda a competitive advantage by eliminating time consuming hardware procurement and administrative IT tasks, freeing key resources to focus on Izenda’s customers and core business,” McLeod concluded.

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Sep 03
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Microsoft Exec Responds: Critics Are Focusing on the Wrong Things

By | Microsoft

There are some things Microsoft is doing very right.

Since the news on August 23 that Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer will be stepping down within the next year, there’s been a maelstrom of responses across the tech world. We’ve contributed our share, too. In fact, something our CEO Sanjay Bhatia said on Stuart Varney & Co. struck a chord with me, and I heard a similar sentiment in a blog posted this week on the Official Microsoft Blog by VP of Communications Frank Shaw.

While making reference to Charles Dickens and Rashomon, he responded to all the critics and pundits evaluating all of the Rights and Wrongs in Microsoft’s last decade and a half: we’ve all got our own biases and perspectives, and each person will see Microsoft’s lifetime differently. If you’re focusing on all the bad, or calling the company “unfocused,” that’s what you want to see. He is free to see the exact opposite.

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