When I think business class laptops, I think Lenovo Thinkpad followed by HP’s Elitebook. When I think business class desktop’s I think of HP followed by Dell. Lenovo is looking to change that.
The Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z touts it’s ease to upgrade as well as a low price point. The A70z ThinkCentre design is just what I have come to expect from Lenovo. Sturdy, simple and well designed even when it comes down to the packaging.
Until the last few years I was a big Dell supporter. I recommended Dell to the majority of my business clients as well as anyone looking for a home machine. At the time I had no problems with the brand and they were usually one of the low price leaders in their class. I had clients buy Servers, Monitors and Desktops without blinking an eye.
I have noticed over the years the same customers I gave my recommendation to were complaining about increased problems but I just shrugged it off. I then was given 30 machines from around 1999 – 2001 to build a temporary training class with, half HP, Half Dell. I had problems with almost each one of the Dell’s. Everything from not posting to the heat sink clip being broken. The HP’s also had a couple of issues but not near as many as the Dell’s.
I thought at the time it might have been a coincidence, until my company decided to buy 500 off lease Dell GX260’s for a fresh build out. I was horrified, not because they were Dell’s but because they were old and ratty. We made due with what we were given and put them out to production and have seen nothing but issues. Everything from BIOS batteries going out to smoke coming out of the power supply. We have between 4 – 6 of these off lease Dell’s go bad every month and at least 2 of them have “caught fire” from the power supply.
Now I hear that Dell knowingly covered up that they sold faulty motherboards? Not just one or two, but 11.8 million! How can I recommend for anyone to get a Dell product when they try to sweep this under the rug? How am I to know that they didn’t cover up a faulty power supply design in the GX260’s that we have so many issues with and they just haven’t been caught yet?
If you are looking for a new build out of any type I would steer clear of Dell, I know I will be for quite some time.
Ever since the iPhone supported Exchange, I’ve been a huge supporter. I’ve spent two good years on the iOS with my iPhone 3G. My job bought it for me back in 2008 and I got it shortly after launch. It was a solid phone with a lot of good things to say about it. I evangelized to everyone I knew about how they should get an iPhone, how it’s the best smartphone around. I got a 3GS for my wife, I’ve told countless other family members to get one. In most ways, when it was introduced, it was the best thing around. But things have changed.
When the iPhone 4 was announced, I followed the WWDC keynote with great anticipation. I ooh’d and aah’d at all the advances in design and software. When pre-orders started, our company bought 11 to start, and we waited until last week when they finally arrived (early) from AT&T. I rushed across campus to rip open the box and activate my new toy (err) tool. There it was, the iPhone 4, before most anyone else on the planet had their hands on one. I took pictures, I tweeted about how amazing it looked, how the screen was fantastic (it is) and how fast it was compared to my 3G.
Taking it home that night, I started to notice something was a little off with my phone. In Kansas City, AT&T really is the top carrier, and with my 3G, reception was never an issue. I can think of only one place in the city where coverage is any type of issue, and it’s not an area I frequent. So with the iPhone 4, the fact that I was only holding 4 bars at maximum, and typically 3, seemed a bit odd.
Later, I realized I was on EDGE service with hardly a bar to see, for most of my time before I jumped on my home wireless. As I started reading the news on various gadget blogs, I quickly realized I was suffering from the antenna problems that were plaguing almost ever other early adopter.
I dropped a few calls that weekend, including one to my father who seem’d to have lost my mother, but I could make due. The view from most of the people within the Apple world was that it was firmware related, and would be quickly fixed. Then Steve Jobs opened his mouth.
“You’re holding it wrong.” … or something to that affect.
Excuse me? (more…)
…because the answer is still, and forever will be, NO! I am in and out of many businesses throughout my work week, and it seems that I’m asked this same question at least once or twice a week. People, please, stop falling for the …”but its pretty” or, “I saw this guy who had one and…” traps. Yes, it’s sleek, and yes, you saw someone else using one, but believe me, its beauty is only skin deep, and the person you saw using one, they now understand that previous statement all too well, and it’s killing them.
To put it bluntly, the iPad is a glorified e-reader. Nothing more. The list of things that you can’t do with it far outweighs the list of things that you can. Why would anyone opt for a device that costs a whopping $699, and doesn’t include mobile broadband connectivity (the same unit with a 3G radio costs $829), has no webcam, will likely never never have full flash support (thanks Steve /rolleyes), can’t connect to any USB device (no USB ports), and has a maximum capacity of 64GB? BUY A NETBOOK!
Did you get that last sentence? Buy a netbook already, seriously. If you need ultra-portability, and want to actually be able to use your device in a productive environment, then a netbook is most certainly more in line with what you need. And guess what? You can get an awesome netbook for much less than the cheapest 16GB iPad. But please, don’t take my word for it. A simple Google search will reveal that I’m not alone in my opinion of the iPad.
Research, inform yourself, take a look at reviews, such as CNET’s recent compilation, and then make the right decision based on what you actually want to achieve with the device. But please, if you’re a business user, stop asking your IT people what they think of the iPad, because we think it’s a toy, and that you should grow up, oh, and chill on the Axe, it reeks.
I am on the ground in Las Vegas at the HP Tech Forum 2010 at the Mandalay Bay. This event will show HP and their partners newest technolgoy and how they plan on making the “Converged Infastrucure” that we have been hearing about fall in line.
I will be attending keynotes, hands on sessions as well as trolling the floor and talking to the many HP Partners that will be presenting at the expo. I will be tweeting about anything I hear and see that I find interesting and snapping shots and uploading them to Flickr as the day goes by.
If you have anything you would like to see or if you want to get answers about specific technology from HP Execs let me know!
Disclaimer: HP has provided my flight and accomidations for this event. However they have no control over the content I produce. My opinions, tweets and blog posts are my own.
For the majority of my adult life I have owned and adored Windows Mobile phones. I remember the first one I saw was from HTC dubbed the Blue Angel. At the time this device seemed way to large and bulky to carry in your pocket on a daily basis so I passed. Soon after, I started to hear about the MPx200 and loved the specs and size. As soon as they became available in my local AT&T Wireless store (which turned into Cingular, and is now back to AT&T) I picked one up and I didn’t look back…. until last week.
I received my previous Windows Mobile device, the Touch Pro 2, last October. Overall it has been a good device and it lasted me over 6 months without a major problem. An impressive feat considering most devices only last 3 months without my need to seek out a replacement. I was getting bored with the Touch Pro 2 and Windows Mobile and so I got the choice of a HTC Snap (oh heck no), a HTC Hero or a Samsung Moment. I didn’t particularly like the design of the Moment so I went with the Hero.
I love some of the new features of the new Android device, like Visual Voicemail, push email on multiple types of email accounts and merging contacts/calendars from multiple sources. All of these items are things I wish Windows Mobile offered but never could find a way to do it.
After using the Hero for a week I am beginning to think the Moment might have been a better choice. Sense UI seems to cause some problems on the underpowered Hero processor and the on screen keyboard has been hard to get used to. Some of the features I am surprised that are missing are features enterprises would look for, like enforced security options as well as remote wipe and remote lock. I know these are available as third party apps but without these features built into a centralized console security conscious businesses will continue to shy away from the Android platform.
If Google wants to continue to pull business away from the Google Apps platform I think they need to figure out how to include these advance security features into Android as well as Google Apps.
Microsoft will be adding a plethora of interesting features to Hotmail this summer. Chief among them is support for Exchange ActiveSync. This will allow users of any mobile device with ActiveSync support to receive push email, as well as synchronize calendar and contact information. Previously this feature was only available on Windows Mobile phones, and only in a limited fashion. Also coming soon is full SSL encryption on the Hotmail website, instead of just the Live authentication process. Microsoft is also expected to add conversation view, think Exchange/Outlook 2010, but in Hotmail. All of these features are things that Google has offered on Gmail for a while now and that Microsoft needs to play catchup with power users.
Microsoft has also announced that it will be providing full support for HTML5 video in Internet Explorer 9, and will be doing so using the H.264 protocol. Recently Apple has also been throwing support behind H.264 as the HTML5 video codec of choice for Safari. Apple has somewhat famously taken on Adobe in recent weeks saying Flash video is no longer the preferred option for Internet users going forward. Awkwardly, Microsoft agreed.
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS was released on April 29. The latest version is a long term support release, meaning updates will be published for 3 years on the desktop and 5 years on the server versions, compared to only 18 months with standard Ubuntu releases. This makes LTS a great platform for business deployments where doing full release upgrades every 6 to 12 months can be a major hassle. The latest version is lighter on features than normal Ubuntu releases are, but still sports the latest stable and public versions of GNOME, X.org and the Linux kernel. It also features a refreshed theme, ditching the brown and orange for a purple and black theme. There is also a new optional “lighter” theme that has a hint of brown instead of the standard Ubuntu color scheme. Boot times, especially on SSD drives have also been dramatically improved.
Palm is dead. Well, actually, HP purchased Palm for $1.2 billion. The only hope for the WebOS platform now rests with HP and their commitment to “double down” and release new and improved hardware. Pending regulatory approvals, the deal is expected to close rather quickly in July of this year. Hopefully we’ll start seeing some HP branded WebOS devices starting this fall or winter.
I just got back to my hotel room after a first full 12 hour day of Interop goodness. I started out the day at the 1st Keynote session with HP talking about their converged infastructure (something we have heard a lot of recently) moving on to Avaya talking about how they are handling all aspects of communications and then Cisco talking about Borderless Networking.
I attended a number of sessions throughout the day talking about Virtualization and Outsourcing security as well as a walk through the expo floor. You can see some of the pictures as well as the tweets here. Tomorrow I have appointments with Avocent, HP and a few other companies to talk about their current technology as well as where they feel the overall direction of the industry is going. I will be tweeting live from the floor and posting a overview on TechVirtuoso of day 2 at Interop.
I am traveling to Las Vegas for Interop 2010 April 26th – April 29th. Interop is a global business technology event that combines in-depth educational programs, workshops, real-world demonstrations and live technology implementations. Interop is focused towards business technology professionals or anyone who deals with business technology.
While at Interop I will be posting about everything I see as well as tweeting about everything I see from the keynotes to the expo floor and the conference tracks. I have scheduled some time with companies like Avocent and DisplayLink to discuss their upcoming products. If you would like us to check anything out while we are there just send me a message or post a comment. For those of you heading to Interop you shoud checkout the Spiceworks contest. I am sure you will get some attention if you are one of the winners!
Microsoft has recently uncovered some of the upcoming features of Exchange 2010 SP1. While SP1 will contain all of the roll-up packs that have been released, using customer feedback they’ve identified problem areas that will be addressed, as well as enhanced some of the features of Exchange.
Most of the enhancements center around archiving/discovery, Outlook Web App (OWA) and mobile management. There will be a beta of SP1 for download in parallel with TechEd North America this June, giving administrators a chance to test it in their development environments prior to full production. (more…)
Copyright © 2009-2011 TechVirtuoso, LLC. All trademarks are property of their respective owners.