While Microsoft has begun detailing some of the planned packaging and pricing for its Office 365 suite of cloud-hosted applications, a few details still remain murky.
One of those is whether Microsoft will carry over from its current Business Productivity Online (BPOS) suite the “D” (dedicated) and “F” (federal) SKU options.
I’ve heard from some of my contacts that Microsoft is poised to offer a public beta of Office 365 the week of April 18, in anticipation of its early June launch of the Office 365 suite. So maybe we’ll hear more about the company’s SKU plans next week. Or maybe not….
Check out Office 365 in pictures: 70 slides showing SharePoint Online, Lync Online, Exchange Online and more
Office 365 is Microsoft’s successor to BPOS, its bundle of hosted SharePoint, Lync (unified communications) and Exchange services. It is Microsoft’s head-to-head competitor with Google Apps.
With BPOS, Microsoft currently provides users with a choice of “S” (standard, i.e., mulitenant); “D” (dedicated); and “F” (federal) SKUs. The BPOS-F option is a highly locked-down bundle of Microsoft-hosted SharePoint, Exchange and Communications Server. (“Physical access to those (BPOS Federal) systems is limited by biometric access controls to a small number of individuals who, in compliance with International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), must be citizens of the United States who have undergone rigorous background checks, including fingerprinting,” according to the Microsoft press release announcing BPOS-F last year.)
When Office 365 ships, those three SKUs may not carry over, from what I’m hearing from some of my contacts.
When I asked the team whether there’d still be S, D and F options with Office 365, I received this rather vague response from a spokesperson:
“There will definitely be an offering for those government organizations that have additional regulatory needs, like ITAR-compliance (included in the FAQ on the Office 365 website), but Office 365 for enterprises works well for most federal, state and local governments, because the services have been certified as compliant with ISO 27001 standards, completed SAS70 Type I and II audits, and achieved the EU Safe Harbor seal. Microsoft has also added controls for helping customers comply with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act).”
So does that mean there will be an Office 365 D offering or not? Your guess is as good as mine. I (kind of) think there will be some kind of F option for Office 365, but again, I am not 100 percent sure.
BPOS-D currently requires a minimum of 5,000 seats and requires an automatic three-year licensing agreement. It offers users more options for customization. BPOS-S has a minimum requirement of five seats and is the version of BPOS that Microsoft targets at SMBs.
Any customer out there care if Microsoft does away with the Dedicated option for Office 365?
Read the views of online Certification Experts, which provide the real questions and correct answer and explanation for the students / professionals who are seeking or enhancing their level of expertise. more at certkingdom.com
April 16, 2011
RIM BlackBerry PlayBook: The Unboxing
Next week, RIM's first tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook, will finally go on sale. Before we took the PlayBook to the labs for testing and itsfull review, we unboxed the tablet and played with it, taking photos all along the way, to give you a look at what you'll get if you buy a PlayBook when it becomes available on April 19th.
At launch, you can buy one of three versions of the tablet, all identical except for varying amounts of built-in storage. All current models are Wi-Fi-only, but 3G and 4G models are on the way. The 16BG model will sell for $499.99, the 32GB for $599.99 and the 64GB for $699.99—the same prices and capacities as the Wi-Fi-only Apple iPad 2.
Included with the PlayBook is a soft carrying pouch. And we also got our hands on optional rubber and leather cases from RIM. None of the cases have magnets or special interactions with the tablet, unlike the Apple iPad Smart Cover, which can wake up the iPad or put it to sleep by simply moving the cover on or off the tablet's screen. The cases have cutouts for the Volume and Power buttons, and for the front- and back-facing webcams. Pricing has not yet been announced for either case.
The PlayBook runs a new operating system, optimized for tablets, called the BlackBerry Tablet OS. In the past few months, other competitors have redesigned their mobile operating systems to be optimized for tablets as well (like Google's Android 3.0 and HP's upcoming WebOS 3.0 for the HP TouchPad.)
Check out our full BlackBerry PlayBook review to see how the latest tablet stacks up against the competition. And hit the slideshow below for the unboxing photos.
At launch, you can buy one of three versions of the tablet, all identical except for varying amounts of built-in storage. All current models are Wi-Fi-only, but 3G and 4G models are on the way. The 16BG model will sell for $499.99, the 32GB for $599.99 and the 64GB for $699.99—the same prices and capacities as the Wi-Fi-only Apple iPad 2.
Included with the PlayBook is a soft carrying pouch. And we also got our hands on optional rubber and leather cases from RIM. None of the cases have magnets or special interactions with the tablet, unlike the Apple iPad Smart Cover, which can wake up the iPad or put it to sleep by simply moving the cover on or off the tablet's screen. The cases have cutouts for the Volume and Power buttons, and for the front- and back-facing webcams. Pricing has not yet been announced for either case.
The PlayBook runs a new operating system, optimized for tablets, called the BlackBerry Tablet OS. In the past few months, other competitors have redesigned their mobile operating systems to be optimized for tablets as well (like Google's Android 3.0 and HP's upcoming WebOS 3.0 for the HP TouchPad.)
Check out our full BlackBerry PlayBook review to see how the latest tablet stacks up against the competition. And hit the slideshow below for the unboxing photos.
April 15, 2011
AV-Comparatives Releases Latest Antivirus Test Results
Austrian antivirus testing lab AV-Comparatives.org tests up to 20 antivirus technologies four times per year. The tests alternate between on-demand detection of current malware and retrospective detection that attempts to measure the product's ability to detect new threats. This week AV-Comparatives released results for its latest on-demand test, which used about 400,000 samples, none more than six months old.
With this test, AV-Comparatives switched from a fixed-threshold rating system to a system that clusters similar results. On a fixed threshold plan, a product that detects 94.9 percent of threats might rate lower than a product with the near-identical score of 95.0 percent. Clustering avoids this problem, putting threshold-change values in the gaps between clusters.
Products that pass the test rate STANDARD, ADVANCED, or ADVANCED+, depending on how well they did. A product that doesn't pass gets the rating TESTED. False positives (valid files identified as malicious) can drag down a product's rating by one level or even more.
Ratings Go Up and Down
Seven products attained the ADVANCED+ rating: Avira, BitDefender, eScan, F-Secure, Kaspersky, McAfee, and TrustPort. Kaspersky, Trustport, and McAfee all moved up, having rated ADVANCED in last August's on-demand test.
Avast!, ESET, G Data, and Panda would have received the same top rating, but false positives knocked them down to ADVANCED. Microsoft, Norton, and Sophos also rated ADVANCED. That's a step down for Symantec, which rated ADVANCED+ in the last test.
AVG and PC Tools passed the test, receiving a STANDARD rating; both scored better in the last test. Qihoo, which also rated STANDARD, doesn't have many users in this country, so PCMag hasn't reviewed it.
Surprising Failures
Three products failed to reach STANDARD: K7, Trend Micro, and Webroot. K7 simply scored low for detection; it achieved a STANDARD rating last time. Webroot, tested for the first time, also scored low, and suffered false positives to boot.
I was surprised that Webroot's results didn't track more closely with Sophos, since Webroot licenses Sophos technology. AV-Comparatives.org's Peter Stelzhammer briefly explained that "Webroot equals Sophos minus cloud." Webroot plans to incorporate that cloud technology within the next 60 days.
As for Trend Micro, their representatives have made it clear that they don't approve of these scheduled tests by AV-Comparatives, nor of my own tests for PCMag. Trend Micro doesn't participate in the retrospective tests at all. They argue that "independent test labs [should] source threats live from the Internet at the time of the test."
The odd thing is that Trend Micro's detection rate would have merited a score of ADVANCED. The problem was that it led the pack in false positives, naming 290 valid files as malicious. False positives, not poor detection, caused Trend Micro to fail this test.
AV-Comparatives also timed how fast each product scanned files. The fastest scanners, in descending speed order, were avast!, Panda, K7, and Webroot. Microsoft and PC Tools were the slowest of this bunch. You can view full test results in detail at the AV-Comparatives.org Web site.
With this test, AV-Comparatives switched from a fixed-threshold rating system to a system that clusters similar results. On a fixed threshold plan, a product that detects 94.9 percent of threats might rate lower than a product with the near-identical score of 95.0 percent. Clustering avoids this problem, putting threshold-change values in the gaps between clusters.
Products that pass the test rate STANDARD, ADVANCED, or ADVANCED+, depending on how well they did. A product that doesn't pass gets the rating TESTED. False positives (valid files identified as malicious) can drag down a product's rating by one level or even more.
Ratings Go Up and Down
Seven products attained the ADVANCED+ rating: Avira, BitDefender, eScan, F-Secure, Kaspersky, McAfee, and TrustPort. Kaspersky, Trustport, and McAfee all moved up, having rated ADVANCED in last August's on-demand test.
Avast!, ESET, G Data, and Panda would have received the same top rating, but false positives knocked them down to ADVANCED. Microsoft, Norton, and Sophos also rated ADVANCED. That's a step down for Symantec, which rated ADVANCED+ in the last test.
AVG and PC Tools passed the test, receiving a STANDARD rating; both scored better in the last test. Qihoo, which also rated STANDARD, doesn't have many users in this country, so PCMag hasn't reviewed it.
Surprising Failures
Three products failed to reach STANDARD: K7, Trend Micro, and Webroot. K7 simply scored low for detection; it achieved a STANDARD rating last time. Webroot, tested for the first time, also scored low, and suffered false positives to boot.
I was surprised that Webroot's results didn't track more closely with Sophos, since Webroot licenses Sophos technology. AV-Comparatives.org's Peter Stelzhammer briefly explained that "Webroot equals Sophos minus cloud." Webroot plans to incorporate that cloud technology within the next 60 days.
As for Trend Micro, their representatives have made it clear that they don't approve of these scheduled tests by AV-Comparatives, nor of my own tests for PCMag. Trend Micro doesn't participate in the retrospective tests at all. They argue that "independent test labs [should] source threats live from the Internet at the time of the test."
The odd thing is that Trend Micro's detection rate would have merited a score of ADVANCED. The problem was that it led the pack in false positives, naming 290 valid files as malicious. False positives, not poor detection, caused Trend Micro to fail this test.
AV-Comparatives also timed how fast each product scanned files. The fastest scanners, in descending speed order, were avast!, Panda, K7, and Webroot. Microsoft and PC Tools were the slowest of this bunch. You can view full test results in detail at the AV-Comparatives.org Web site.
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