Izenda Embedded Analytics and Technology Blog

Aug 28
0

Who Should Be the Next Microsoft CEO? Sanjay Bhatia Weighs In

By | Microsoft

Who should take the helm post-Ballmer?

Those of us in and outside of the Microsoft community have had plenty to talk about since last Friday’s surprising announcement that the company’s CEO Steve Ballmer will be retiring sometime in the next twelve months.

Was he forced out after the debacle of a $900 million loss on the Surface RT tablets? Why is he leaving right after Microsoft’s major reorganization? What will his legacy look like? Will his exit bring a fresh wind to the company, a chance for reinvention?

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Jul 03
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Microsoft Unveils Internet Explorer 11, Officially with WebGL Capabilities

By | For Developers, IT and Engineering, Microsoft

The Big Unveiling

There’s a lot to pore over in the official demos of Internet Explorer 11. The IE team at Microsoft has sought to make the newest iteration “fast, fluid, and perfect for touch,” said Internet Explorer corporate vice president Dean Hachamovitch.

IE11 in action, with side-by-sideย browsing. Side by side website pages

There’s a whole laundry list. But the biggest news for web developers is a little five-word phrase: “hardware accelerated 3D web graphics.” In other words, WebGL capabilities.

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Jul 01
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Web Development Round-Up: June Edition

By | For Developers, IT and Engineering, Microsoft

Catch up on the fresh stuff.

Summer’s the perfect time to brush up on some web development skills, news, and rumors. Around the internet, we’ve seen some conversation on methods, best practices, and upcoming language and dev space changes, and to make it easy on you, dear reader, here’s a round-up of some of the highlights.

Spend a little extra time on your web dev education — we know you want to.

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Jun 20
0

The Great Shift to SaaS, for Consumer and Enterprise Alike

By | Business, For Developers, IT and Engineering, Microsoft, The Cloud

The Shift to SaaS

Maybe you’ve noticed the shift. If you haven’t yet, give it a year or so and you’ll definitely be seeing it (and probably experiencing it firsthand).

SaaS which stand for Software as a ServiceWe’re entering the SaaS era. Software as a Service (SaaS) structure allows you access to software and its functionality remotely, which you pay for with a monthly subscription fee and access via the web. You pay less overall for full use of the software, saving on licensing fees, while the company over time gets a sustainable revenue stream, rather than one-time payments every few years. This is how it is supposed to work, in theory.

SaaS has been an ideal model for the enterprise software industry for awhile already. We offer it for our partners and customers, as do many others. But it’s been making a big splash in the world of home consumer electronics and home and professional software recently, with the conversion of two giants: Adobe and Microsoft.

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Jun 12
0

The Lowdown on SQL Server 2014

By | Microsoft

SQL Server 2014Forty-six percent of the databases deployed worldwide are now SQL Server, according to Microsoft officials. Even if that’s exaggerated, it’s hard to ignore the market impact of SQL Server, and certainly exciting to hear about the new features that have been revealed for the company’s new release.

SQL Server 2014 is expected to ship early next year, with a preview due out mid-June, within days. So what will change with SQL Server 2014? A few upgrades, more integration options across Microsoft tools, all good things.

Big Stuff

Many tech blogs have been talking about the “Hekaton,” the engine that will enable in-memory OLTP (online translation processing) ย in the new SQL Server. These new technologies are being designed to complement existing in-memory data-warehousing and BI capabilities already in SQL server, officials reported.

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Jun 05
0

Cloud Capabilities Will Quadruple the Power of Xbox One

By | IT and Engineering, Microsoft

Microsoft’s Xbox One News

Xbox One console and controllerBuy one Xbox One console, get three virtual consoles along with it — those companions will be stored in the cloud.

That’s the news to come out of Microsoft since its announcement of the Xbox One. Xbox Incubation and Prototyping program manager Jeff Henshaw said that for each console built, the company will provision the CPU and storage equivalent of three consoles in the cloud. Sources on the subject conclude this will allow for immense resources for developers to build bigger on and for the new console.

Sources have also been quoted purporting the new system to be ten times more powerful than the Xbox 360, and “effectively forty time greater” in terms of processing capabilities, because of the cloud.

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Jun 03
0

What’s Next for .NET?

By | For Developers, Microsoft

Microsoft .NET logoWe thought we’d bring this discussion back around, following Rockford Lhotka‘s somewhat fatalistically-titled post, asking the question: Does .NET have a future?

The short answer is, of course. But theย WHYย part of the “of course” answer is the truly interesting part. Yes, it’ll stick around for awhile, because the infrastructure of today’s development is built around it, indeed, .NET is deeply entrenched in many industries and products. So the quick “of course” response is primarily because successful technologies, like .NET, take years, decades or longer to fade away.”

.NET, Azure, and the Future of Development

With the success of Windows Azure, it is important for developers and independent software vendors on the .NET platform to take stock of where Microsoft is headed with the framework. Check out the DotNetConf .NET Open Source Panel discussion that took place in April to hear what a few industry guys had to say.

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May 15
1

SQL vs NoSQL: Which is Better for Your Business Data?

By | Customer Success, Microsoft

The Relational Database Dance

For the past few decades, the relational database has been the dominant model for database management. But non-relational — the “cloud” or NoSQL option — is gaining ground now, as a strong, viable alternate as businesses see that a relational database model may not be the best solution for all.

drawing of person choosing SQL vs noSQLIt cannot be ignored: choosing SQL or NoSQL to manage your database is important. If your data matters, then it also mattersย whichย query language is applied to your databases. You cannot afford to leave it to the IT experts alone.

Each has its strengths and weaknesses, its benefits and drawbacks for your enterprise.ย So which one is best? That depends on what you need it to do.

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May 13
0

The Hunger Games Interactive Website: Cutting-edge Web Technology

By | For Developers, IT and Engineering, Microsoft

Internet Explorer hits the mark for web engagement with The Hunger Games Explorer. The film adaptation ofย Catching Fire, the second in theย Hunger Gamesย trilogy, doesn’t come out until November. But Internet Explorer partnered with theย Gamesย web team and RED Interactive Agency to give fans an edgy, interactive online portal that gives them everything they need to whet their appetite while they wait.

Hunger games website screen shotThe team built this site on some of the very latest web technologies, and it’s especially designed for the touch-screen, tablet experience. There’s all the regular stuff, like trailers and exclusive photos, but there is also content to keep users coming back. Fans can sign up and get their own District ID, and go behind the scenes on the making of the film via this futuristic online content portal.

The team took special pains to ensure the technology lives up to the demand for excellent user experience. This comes across in the responsive grid layout designed to be just as engaging no matter whether the user is on a mobile phone or tablet. “Taking a mobile-first approach [to back-end design] allowed us to ensure we used a single code base across multiple platforms and devices,” the behind-the-scenes website reveals. The grid was built using JavaScript.

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