Apple is likely to continue the consumerization dance as it applies to the enterprise, according to a leading Wall Street analyst. Gene Munster, a Piper Jaffray analyst best known for his coverage of Apple, outlined 10 key themes for Apple over the next three years. Although Apple TV got the most attention, Munster also touched on the business tech strategy. The biggest business tech takeaway in Munster’s note was that Apple isn’t likely to change its sales approach to the enterprise. And why should it? Apple has invaded the enterprise without even trying. Employees are bringing iPhones and iPads to work. And now corporations—those still handing out smartphones—are increasingly going with the iPhone. Related: CNET: Apple TV slated to debut in December? | How to ... Continue reading →

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware. For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter. Continue reading →

Austin, Texas-based social software company Bazaarvoice announced last night that it would acquire PowerReviews, a social reviews platform, for $152 million. You probably haven’t heard of either company, but know this: the name of the game is customer interaction and insights. Six-year-old PowerReviews’ platform includes capabilities for ratings and reviews, Q&A, loyalty, discovery, and measurement. The company services about 1,100 retailers — primarily small and mid-size North American retailers, but also big dogs like Gap, R.E.I., Staples and Toys ‘R’ Us. The acquisition gives Bazaarvoice — which is primarily focused on larger online retailers like Costo, Home Depot, Best Buy and Crate & Barrel — an opening to sell to PowerReviews’ extensive list of small- and medium-sized retailers as well as a turnkey technology platform ... Continue reading →

Was that you who was named as a defendant by Raw Films for downloading Bareback Street Gang using Bittorrent? Chances are, if you download enough free porn, you’ll eventually become one of the 220,000 (and counting) defendants in piracy lawsuits filed by porn publishers. These plaintiffs have had mixed success enlisting the courts to compel ISPs to disclose names of customers based on their IP addresses. If you live in the Eastern District of New York and Magistrate Judge Gary Brown catches the case, you’re in good shape: he recently slapped down an attempt to sue multiple anonymous porn pirates. You’re out of luck, though, if you live in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where U.S. District Court Judge Mary A. McLaughlin ruled that “A ... Continue reading →

Scan this QR code and you'll discover Shire Hall was used as a location for the 2008 Doctor Who Christmas special. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Monmouthshire County Council) The Internet continues to escape from its virtual confines. Clothing hangers hook into Facebook. Twitter comes printed on toilet paper. And now, Wikipedia has its own town. Monmouth in South Wales has a population of less than 9,000, but plenty of tourists come to see the local castle and walk the historic streets. Those tourists will be able to plug into Wikipedia articles about the town through special QR code plaques placed in strategic locations. The River Wye has its own QR code. (Click to enlarge.) (Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Mrjohncummings) The project is turning Monmouth into Monmouthpedia. So far, the ... Continue reading →

Amid a wave of legislative measures that came close to to crushing online file-sharers backed by copyright owners and entertainment companies, it would likely come as little surprise to see music, film and television studios featuring on the high-end of the list of those issuing takedown requests to search engines like Google. But of all companies, Microsoft hit the number one spot of all companies asking Google to remove search results that could be used to download its products and software illegally. Ergo, Microsoft does more to ‘censor’ the Web than most copyright holders put together. Each year, Google releases a transparency report in efforts to open the doors to how the complex, dominant market figure conducts business. While government takedown requests have been noted ... Continue reading →

We humans love to root for the underdog — David and Goliath, anyone? — and in the business intelligence space, there are a lot of hulking giants. To address the better-than-a-spreadsheet but not-quite-an-aircraft-carrier market, Ann Arbor, Mich.-based startup GPX Software has released a business intelligence tool suite called Xambrosius that it says is designed and priced specifically for small businesses, e.g. accountants, consultants, and bankers. (Where’s the name come from, you ask? Xambrosius is derived from Ambrosius, one of the names for the soothsayer of Arthurian legend. He’s more popularly known as Merlin the wizard.) The GPX team hopes that its software-as-a-service offering is positively ambrosial (sorry, couldn’t resist) compared to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, thanks to tools that help forecast balance sheets, income statements ... Continue reading →

Amid a wave of legislative measures that came close to to crushing online file-sharers backed by copyright owners and entertainment companies, it would likely come as little surprise to see music, film and television studios featuring on the high-end of the list of those issuing takedown requests to search engines like Google. But of all companies, Microsoft hit the number one spot of all companies asking Google to remove search results that could be used to download its products and software illegally. Ergo, Microsoft does more to ‘censor’ the Web than most copyright holders put together. Each year, Google releases a transparency report in efforts to open the doors to the complex, dominant market figure. While government takedown requests have been noted in its annual ... Continue reading →

As of last week, this was the old Polycom: As of today, this is the new Polycom: The company still calls itself “the global leader in open standards-based unified communications solutions for telepresence, video, and voice,” but the approach is all different. It doesn’t take a graphic designer to understand the differences in the logos above. (And to be clear, a logo is just one component of branding. But it’s the hood ornament to the whole thing.) The old Polycom stood for a 22-year-old tech stalwart that appeared to do its job in a no-bull matter. The triangular shield and serif font said, simply, “this is what we do, we don’t care how it looks, all we care about is trust.” The usual enterprise M.O., ... Continue reading →

Quiterian, a European developer of predictive analytics software for business, announced this morning that it was partnering with Wipro to bring its products to to the Indian IT giant’s clients on all corners of the globe. For Quiterian, it’s a quick way to stoke growth beyond its EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) home region; for Wipro, it’s a way to bring advanced analytics development under its own roof — at least temporarily. (If you’re familiar with our daily business coverage here on ZDNet’s Between the Lines, you’ll know that these partnerships often, but not always, result in acquisitions down the line. No predictions here, but just saying.) Quiterian’s main product is called, simply, Analytics 3.0. It’s a self-service platform that integrates data from multiple sources ... Continue reading →