cloud

At the end of that Cannes Lions video, Kostas takes a photo and it is immediately uploaded to Windows Live SkyDrive. That ability is going to be key to Windows Phone 7 as well as anyone who uses Office Live Workspace. And combined with Sharepoint, you have some serious cloud computing going on.

In short, we just got word that Office Live Workspace will be combining with SkyDrive to offer that additional 25GB of storage space, as well as further integration with Hotmail and Messenger, allowing seamless manipulation of documents and photos.

The merger is scheduled to occur over the "next few months", no doubt in preparation for Windows Phone 7.

[Thanks, Mark W, for the tip!]

We gave a brief review of CloudFiles, the first Dropbox client for Windows Mobile, a few days ago. Bottom line: we're impressed, very impressed.

As we mentioned, we expected it to "1.0" any day now and sure enough, that day is upon us. The app is priced less than $10, which is fair. In fact it is normally priced at $6.99 but till at least May 25th, you can grab it for 20% off at $5.49.

Too much? Too little? All depends on how much you rely on Dropbox. For some, it's a requisite and that $5.49 is well worth the cost. They accept (thankfully) PayPal and you can grab it right here.

[via 1800pocketpc]

Back on Oct. 5, Dashwire announced an exclusive partnership with Best Buy to offer its services for free to new customers buying smartphones. Certainly a unique choice. But with Microsoft's MyPhone being nearly ubiquitous now, we suppose not so much a good one.

The bad news is for you existing Dashwire users.  Evidently on Dec. 31, 2009, Dashwire will stop working.  You apparently have the option to back up your data to a desktop and/or "...migrate your information to services from Dashwire licensees if you’re interested" -- though we're not too sure how to do that just yet nor are we sure if it'll cost anything.

Anyways, now may be a good time to explore alternatives.  Dashwire, we wish you luck with that Best Buy thing.

By now you've  undoubtedly heard about the rather catastrophic data loss involving the Sidekick. If not, the short, short version: All of the data on the Sidekick is stored on the device or on servers run by Danger (which, of course, was purchased by Microsoft). During a recent upgrade, the Storage Area Network, or SAN, wasn't backed up before being upgraded. Basically, standard operating procedure was ignored. (This is, for the same reason, why we repeat over and over to backup your data before upgrading your Windows phone.)

Today, Microsoft issued the following:

REDMOND, Wash. — Oct. 13, 2009 — We are thankful for the continued patience as Microsoft-Danger works to preserve platform stability and restore all services for our Sidekick customers. We have made significant progress this past weekend, restoring services to virtually every customer. Microsoft-Danger has teams of experts in place that are working around the clock to ensure this stability is maintained.

T-Mobile and Microsoft-Danger continue to do all we can to recover and return customers’ lost personal content. Recent efforts indicate that recovering some lost content may now be possible. We will continue to keep you updated on this front; we know how important this is to you.

T-Mobile will send a $100 customer appreciation card to those who have experienced a significant and permanent loss of personal content. This appreciation card will be in addition to the free month of data service customers have already been given. The card can be used toward T-Mobile products and services or a customer’s T-Mobile bill. Details will be sent in the next 14 days to customers who fit this category — there is no action needed on their part. We, however, remain hopeful that personal content can be recovered for the majority of our customers.

Sidekick customers can visit T-Mobile Forums regularly to access the latest updates as well as FAQs regarding this service disruption.

So how much is your data worth? Apparently $100, though some users are getting their data back.

Is this damning on cloud computing? Yep. On Danger and Microsoft? Double-yep. Does that mean the end of cloud computing, Danger, Microsoft, or the world as we know it? Certainly not.

Back up your data. Period. Nothing is infallible.

That little maintenance outage Microsoft My Phone underwent? Turns out it was an update to the Web portal. And alongside that will come an update to the phone client.

Oh, and the service is moving to an open beta. From the My Phone Team blog [via]:

With today’s release, we’re opening the beta to all users -- no more waiting list or promotional codes!

Can't put it any more plainly than that. So if you're looking for a way to sync your contacts, photos, text messages and more to the cloud and didn't get in on the closed beta, head on over to myphone.microsoft.com and give it a shot.

Some news is appearing (thanks to the Web site Neowin) ahead of Mobile World Congress next month in Barcelona, namely in the form of mobile cloud services that should take on Apple's MobileMe service.

First up is SkyMarket, which was discovered last fall thanks to a couple of job postings. And as we learned then, this is still expected to be Microsoft's mobile app store.

The bigger news comes in the form of SkyBox — think of it as "one cloud to rule them all." You'd get automatic backup and restore services, cloud syncing with your contacts, calendars, pictures and the like. Nothing groundbreaking there, except that it's Microsoft offering all of this in a tidy little package, and we'd expect it to be pretty slick.

What is pretty interesting is that Microsoft would offer SkyBox on devices that don't run Windows Mobile. (Hello, Android?) The SkyMarket app store, however, would still be limited to WinMo devices, which makes sense.

Finally there's SkyLine, the business version of SkyBox.

Neowin also says that Windows Mobile 6.5 should be officially unveiled at MWC.

No word on pricing or release dates yet, but we should have plenty to look forward to in Barcelona.

Via Engadget

Various leaks of Windows Mobile 6.5 seem to be popping up everywhere. Now it's appeared on the funny looking Compulab Exeda, the crazy little guy that runs Windows Mobile and Android. OK, the phone's not really a looker. But it's the interface we're after here. What we're seeing is a different take on that honeycomb interface, so we're pretty much expecting some variation of that when the real thing's released.

It's possible that this is still an alpha build of the OS, but we're still expecting an official announcement about 6.5 (and all those cloud services) soon at Mobile World Congress. Will the syncing be seamless like Microsoft says? Or will we have just another skinned Windows Mobile phone in our pockets? Let us know what you think in the comments

Via Engadget

We're big fans of cloud computing here at WM Experts, be it Google and the myriad ways to sync to it, Microsoft and its new Live Mesh, Dashwire, Yahoo Go, Apple's Mobile Me or any of a number of other ways to keep your data stored safely off your device and in the ether.

Friday's New York Times brings word that IBM (you've heard of them, right?), is spending $360 million for one data center in North Carolina and another in Tokyo to offer cloud services to corporate types.

Writes Steve Lohr:

The I.B.M. statement says its North Carolina facility will afford its lucky customers “unparalleled access to massive Internet-scale computing capabilities while gaining the cost and environmental protection advantages of I.B.M.’s industry-leading energy efficiency data center design.” Yes, yes, a veritable technological second-coming.

The future. It's coming. Eventually.

Read "Commercializing the Cloud"