tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79967331352739825712012-01-05T00:45:00.714-05:00Consumer and business technology insight; marketing and communication services.Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.comBlogger201100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-46514135490199344932011-12-05T17:50:00.001-05:002011-12-06T01:36:37.783-05:00

Recent speculation about the next-generation of Apple TV is making its way around the blogosphere. What Steve Jobs once called a hobby, Apple TV continues to be sold with little marketing support. The second-generation device reduced the size of the product dramatically, but it also made the hockey-puck-like appliance basically invisible. Sure, the on-screen interface is all Apple, but the

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-81973829758792101612011-06-30T13:44:00.000-04:002011-09-24T14:50:45.573-04:00

I'm a big fan of the Pew Research Center, particularly the Internet & American Life Project surveys and reports, but I'm wondering about its most recent report about e-book readers. According to Pew, 12% of US adults now have an e-reader of some kind, such as Amazon's Kindle or the Nook from Barnes & Noble. In contrast, the organization says that tablet purchases -- think Apple's iPad -- have

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-43588789370601056042010-03-16T06:46:00.001-04:002011-09-24T14:50:06.130-04:00

It's fascinating to look at the technology world and Microsoft's role in it through the lens of the battle for control of the smart phone market. This struggle illustrates both how Microsoft is trying to take a leadership position with aggressive new offerings (while breaking with many products and strategies of its past) and how far behind the company has fallen. In this context (and in this

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-5062362791437923302010-03-15T18:59:00.002-04:002011-09-24T14:48:24.211-04:00

One of the vocal and nasty debates in the technology world these days is the appropriate "openness" of platforms (this is largely thought of as the ability to install any software a user wants on a given device). Ironically, vocal supporters of Microsoft offerings cite the Apple iPhone/iPod touch and soon to be released iPad as examples of closed systems due to Apple's control of application

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-90618919751265829832009-06-10T16:30:00.071-04:002009-06-12T15:28:27.488-04:00

On Monday, during the keynote speech at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), company executives, led by SVP of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller (not CEO Steve Jobs, who is still on medical leave), made several major important announcements. The three most interesting were:A new model of iPhone, a price drop for the old device, and the ship date for the updated software.

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-49944121297498721232009-06-10T15:51:00.011-04:002011-09-28T10:35:28.287-04:00

You may have noticed a slight change in the layout of the site. For many years, the NRG site was hosted by the Small Business group at Yahoo! The original content management system was based off of an integrated (that is, built-in component of the YSB package) Movable Type 3.x instance. However, Yahoo! has chosen not to upgrade its MT CMS/blog software to the 4.x code base (NRG and other YSB

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-66623799309976730092009-06-03T13:54:00.085-04:002009-06-12T15:27:29.401-04:00

This weekend, Palm and its wireless partner Sprint will make the Pre mobile phone available to subscribers in the US (Palm product site here; Sprint page here). The phone was first publicly discussed back in January at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, and it has generated tremendous interest with the technology media and in the community of interested technophiles due to its

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-24466506919634254982009-05-28T17:35:00.110-04:002009-06-10T15:36:39.354-04:00

Yesterday, at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, Google unveiled a "developer preview" of a future offering called Google Wave. Wave is a re-imagination of an email system - from the backend server to the messaging protocols to the client interface. It is designed to do what Google thinks a modern communication system should do (it was conceived by the Rasmussen brothers, the

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-31122873039299223352009-05-28T08:49:00.082-04:002009-06-12T18:44:23.574-04:00

Microsoft is about to deliver a new brand to the world: Bing. The name is for the company's refreshed Internet search service (it replaces the current Live Search moniker). Like Microsoft's other nonsensical consumer brand, Zune, Bing is one of those made up names that doesn't tell you anything about the product -- a brand that can only be successful through a combination of user adoption and a

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-2406083587599950202009-05-12T14:36:00.013-04:002012-01-05T00:38:35.238-05:00

Marketing professionals at software and hardware vendors, whether experienced VPs or 20-somethings fresh on the job, are quick to extol the value of social networking services for their businesses. Technology pundits and consultants echo this sentiment, reinforcing the perception that not having company-sponsored Twitter or Facebook accounts will doom an organization. But despite all this

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-77218948126284527152008-10-10T17:05:00.023-04:002009-06-15T22:55:45.509-04:00

For decades, companies and government agencies have been adding location data to content, enabling users of geographic information systems (GIS) to analyze content based on physical location and visualize the content by plotting it on maps. But while GIS was largely confined to a relatively small market niche, the maturation of geography and mapping standards combined with the increasing

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-70306241018091872182008-05-13T18:47:00.012-04:002009-06-10T15:35:35.840-04:00

Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Electronic Data Systems Corporation (EDS), the Plano, TX-based service giant famous for being founded by former presidential candidate Ross Perot, and known in its early days for its military-like culture and strict dress code, announced today that HP will purchase the company for "an enterprise value of approximately $13.9 billion" (read the press release here). The deal

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-41196425671364512682008-05-12T15:26:00.006-04:002009-06-10T15:50:14.997-04:00

Microsoft Corporation and Canadian Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of the Blackberry line of phones and the software (see the product page here) that enable the devices to work with Microsoft Exchange servers (among other options), announced plans to integrate Blackberry devices with the Windows Live services (see the product page here). According to the two companies, by this summer,

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-5142579233477715052008-04-10T13:20:00.007-04:002009-06-12T15:08:15.199-04:00

Last month, Relativity Technologies announced a significant addition to its product family -- the Modernization Workbench Enterprise Edition (see the press release here in PDF format). This new product enables development organizations to make a significant choice: To keep the Modernization Workbench on individual developer desktops, or to implement a server-based solution that will enable teams

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-3435410529416195402008-03-31T15:36:00.007-04:002009-06-10T15:49:17.895-04:00

In early March, Apple Inc. held one of its typical splashy media events to announce the June availability of the vendor's most significant update to its iPhone line of smart phones -- the iPhone 2.0 software with "enterprise features" (see the press release here). In its brief existence, the iPhone has generated an enormous amount of publicity, from its initial preview in January of last year, to

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-388047882475649972008-01-16T13:35:00.009-05:002009-06-11T13:46:09.442-04:00

This week, MuleSource Inc., known for its open source enterprise service bus (ESB) offering, announced a trio of product updates and new offerings. In addition to enhancing the Enterprise version of the company's namesake Mule Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), the vendor debuted a tool for monitoring transactions and a registry. The enhanced lineup now enables MuleSource to embed itself deeper into

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-33079899467519863762008-01-03T15:09:00.001-05:002009-06-12T15:12:02.228-04:00

Yesterday, New Rowley's sister company, innerbridge, launched its own blog (read it here). innerbridge is dedicated to delivering marketing services -- offering marketing strategy advice; planning and implementing digital marketing programs, such as email campaigns and Web site design and enhancement; and developing and managing vendor blogs. While NRG will continue to deliver research and

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-86815502774317391932007-11-26T15:12:00.009-05:002009-06-12T15:24:16.128-04:00

Seattle-based online retail giant Amazon.com, Inc. and Marlboro, Massachusetts-based software startup Kinset, Inc. are hoping to redefine their respective markets, just as the iPod/iTunes/iTunes Store redefined the music industry in the digital age.Amazon, fresh on the heels of unveiling its own digital rights management (DRM)-free music store , announced a new hardware product, the Kindle eBook

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-29159487263352327502003-10-22T22:38:00.007-04:002009-06-15T22:48:07.260-04:00

Whether your organization is a die-hard Microsoft shop or is looking for the first opportunity to ditch the Microsoft Windows operating systems and Office productivity suite – or anywhere in between – there is no good reason why someone in your organization should not be keeping an eye on the free and easily downloadable OpenOffice.org productivity suite.The OpenOffice.org offeringOpenOffice.org

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7996733135273982571.post-69681651304405974692003-10-07T22:30:00.004-04:002009-06-15T22:49:04.624-04:00

Last month, Sun Microsystems announced a new software offering called the Sun Java Desktop System (JDS), a bundle of enhanced open source software to compete with Microsoft’s dominant Windows operating system and Office productivity suite.Most of the business and technology media and analysts seemed unimpressed. Some even said that it was doomed because they considered the product to be a desktop

Tom Rhinelandernoreply@blogger.com0