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Enters competition with Microsoft and Google

IBM will reportedly sell a suite of Web-based applications, including instant messaging, contact management and file sharing programs for businesses. This is part of the company's biggest effort in trying to sell software as a service, a move that has been announced on Wednesday and which has put IBM in a direct competition with other leading companies, including Microsoft, Google and privately held Zoho.

According to a recent news-article reported by Reuters, companies that will start using IBM's software will be charged between $10 and $45 per month, as the applications will be hosted on IBM's servers and delivered via the Internet. According to the company, the suite will be available on April 7. “What you are seeing are the beginnings of the whole IBM company moving toward cloud computing,” IBM Vice President Sean Poulley said.

IBM's move is somewhat to be expected, especially since cloud computing is becoming one of the industry's biggest buzz concepts. The term is associated to a practice by which a variety of IT companies provide end-users with various computing services by using the Internet and remote data centers. The cloud refers to a virtual space that is used to access the data that is stored on a number of data centers worldwide. To access that data, users are required only to have an Internet-capable device, thus further minimizing the need for high-end computer systems that take a lot of space and are power hungry.

According to the latest estimations by tech research company Gartner, the global market for cloud-based computing services, software and storage will total about $10 billion in 2009. However, on the other side, the traditional business software model will account for about $223 billion, according to Gartner estimations. Still the industry is increasingly interested in the development and adoption of cloud computing, which will probably become the standard business model in the near future.

Yet to be released

Over the past weeks, Acer has quietly introduced a number of new netbook systems, including the Aspire One D250 and the 531, both of which have been designed with a 10-inch display. However, according to some details that have recently surfaced on the Internet, the PC vendor is planning to add another small-sized system that will be powered by an Atom processor. The Aspire One 751 is, however, going to boast a larger
11.6-inch LED backlit display, capable of a higher resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels. With the new version, Acer wants to add some diversity to a market that is currently dominated by 10-inch and 9-inch netbooks.


Although the system hasn't been officially announced yet, some of its technical specifications have already been made available over the Internet. According to a recent news-article on bit-tech, the Aspire One 751 comes as a combination of a netbook and a fully fledged notebook, providing users with the performance capability of Intel'z 1.33GHz Z520 or 1.6GHz Z530 processors. The system is based on the now familiar Intel GMA500 chip and will be provided with a three-cell battery pack, which should give users about four hours of runtime. There will also be an option for a higher, 6-cell battery, for those who are looking for a more reliable netbook system.


Unfortunately, as with the other new Aspire One netbooks, we have few to no details about the system's pricing or availability, but when this will be released, it will certainly provide users with a Windows operating system. A Linux-version could also be available, but that is yet to be confirmed.

Given the number of new netbook models Acer has prepared for this year, we could say that the company has taken some inspiration from ASUS, which is known for its large lineup of Eee PC netbooks. However, that could affect the company's sales in a bad way, as users could get confused by the large number of configuration options.

The service debuted back in 2004

The start of April 2009 was synonymous with the first five years since Google introduced its email service to the public. Dubbed Gmail, the service was offering at that time no less than 1 GB of storage space for emails. In time, storage space for accounts has grown continually, and users are now enjoying in excess of 7.3 GB of space. According to the Mountain View search giant, tens of millions of users are currently using a service that debuted as an internal tool. Gmail was launched on April Fools' Day back in 2004.


“We want to give a big thank you to all of you who use Gmail every day, to those who've been around since the beginning, to those who were using an AJAX app before the term AJAX was popular, to those who started chatting right in your email and then video chatting a couple years later, to those who changed your theme on day one, and to those who have turned on some of the 43 experimental Gmail Labs features (and put up with the occasional bugs they introduce)...we couldn't have gotten here without you,” revealed Todd Jackson, Gmail product manager.

Despite celebrating its fifth anniversary on the market, Gmail continues to be in Beta stage. Still, the service is evolving at a rapid pace, with new additions introduced on a regular basis. The latest feature that made its debut this month is Search Autocomplete, available through Gmail Labs. It is still experimental, revealed Ibrahim Bokharouss, Google software engineer, and has to be turned on under Gmail Settings, and Labs tab.

“One of the most popular searches in Gmail is for names or email addresses, so the first kind of suggestions you'll see are contacts,” Bokharouss explained. “Gmail also offers a bunch of advanced search operators, which provide a powerful way to find that one message you have in mind. You can search in specific places (e.g. in chats or sent items), or search for messages with attachments of a certain type (e.g. docs or photos).”

The service debuted back in 2004

The start of April 2009 was synonymous with the first five years since Google introduced its email service to the public. Dubbed Gmail, the service was offering at that time no less than 1 GB of storage space for emails. In time, storage space for accounts has grown continually, and users are now enjoying in excess of 7.3 GB of space. According to the Mountain View search giant, tens of millions of users are currently using a service that debuted as an internal tool. Gmail was launched on April Fools' Day back in 2004.


“We want to give a big thank you to all of you who use Gmail every day, to those who've been around since the beginning, to those who were using an AJAX app before the term AJAX was popular, to those who started chatting right in your email and then video chatting a couple years later, to those who changed your theme on day one, and to those who have turned on some of the 43 experimental Gmail Labs features (and put up with the occasional bugs they introduce)...we couldn't have gotten here without you,” revealed Todd Jackson, Gmail product manager.

Despite celebrating its fifth anniversary on the market, Gmail continues to be in Beta stage. Still, the service is evolving at a rapid pace, with new additions introduced on a regular basis. The latest feature that made its debut this month is Search Autocomplete, available through Gmail Labs. It is still experimental, revealed Ibrahim Bokharouss, Google software engineer, and has to be turned on under Gmail Settings, and Labs tab.

“One of the most popular searches in Gmail is for names or email addresses, so the first kind of suggestions you'll see are contacts,” Bokharouss explained. “Gmail also offers a bunch of advanced search operators, which provide a powerful way to find that one message you have in mind. You can search in specific places (e.g. in chats or sent items), or search for messages with attachments of a certain type (e.g. docs or photos).”