Stories by Galen Gruman

Showdown: Windows 8 vs. OS X Mountain Lion

With the final version of Windows 8 now complete, how does Microsoft's great hope for reinventing itself for the post-PC world compare to Apple's new flagship? The short answer: not well. But lest you think that it's a simple case of sainted perfection versus preordained disaster -- the peanut gallery's running themes for Apple and Microsoft, respectively -- think again. OS X Mountain Lion has some unwelcome flaws, whereas Windows 8 has some virtuous aspects.

Written by Galen Gruman16 Aug. 12 14:30

In Pictures: Mac OS X's 9 lives

In 21 years, Apple's reinvented Mac OS has pushed computing in vibrant new directions. Now a new version is imminent

Written by Galen Gruman09 July 12 08:44

Mocana joins iOS app management party

2011 was all about mobile device management (MDM), helping IT feel comfortable about all those iPhones, iPads, and the pending wave of Android devices on which their BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) tool couldn't enforce password, encryption, and other such policies. That's old hat now -- pratically a checklist technology to support mobile device heterogeneity. 2012 instead is shaping up to be about mobile application management (MAM), with a variety of vendors offering tools to control the apps themselves.

Written by Galen Gruman12 April 12 00:22

RIM to return to business focus; new BlackBerry strategy promised

Research in Motion's future is getting iffier each quarter as it signs on fewer new customers and has had to discount large numbers of BlackBerry smartphones and PlayBook tablets to clear inventory. The company revealed today that its revenue dropped 25 per cent in the last fiscal quarter versus a year earlier, a decrease of $5.6 billion, with the decline in revenues accelerating after it launched its BlackBerry 7 smartphones in fall 2011 and had to deeply discount the poorly selling PlayBook tablet in the same period.

Written by Galen Gruman30 March 12 10:20

BYOD: IT claims security fears but blocks Angry Birds instead

Did you know that Angry Birds and Facebook represent the biggest mobile app concerns within IT? That's what Zenprise's analysis of its Zencloud mobile device management (MDM) users found. Ironically, companies are much less likely to block Cloud storage apps such as Dropbox and Box.net or Cloud-based note-taking apps such as Evernote that some claim pose a significant threat of sensitive corporate data being lost.

Written by Galen Gruman01 March 12 22:11

Making sense of mobile device, app, and information management

Smartphones, tablets, social networks, and cloud services are all popular, incredibly useful -- and a security risk. These days, the security focus is on mobile devices, as they tend to be used a lot to work with corporate information, but the variety of platforms, the fact many are employee-owned, and uneven security capabilities all add up to a real -- sometimes impossible -- challenge to manage them in the same way as the corporate PC.

Written by Galen Gruman01 March 12 01:46
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