As the niche, developing wearable computing market continues to spin, it will still be some time yet until consumers will embrace this new branch of technology. 

When Google Glass was announced in 2012, it was shown off in all kinds of leisure activities — from photo taking to video filming — and a range of personal activities that would bridge the gap between handheld devices and the real world. There was even the occasional skydive, suggesting anyone with Glass can go anywhere and do anything.

But Glass was not pitched to the enterprise or corporate world, and has yet to find its niche within the walls of business. And it likely won't — at least for the near future.

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Google Glass is far from a refined product and has a way to go before it will have any meaningful impact in the consumer space. But while Google continues its public, paid-for and lengthy beta-testing process, it only has the consumer in mind.

It's an experiment that, like other services it has built on over time, could eventually be developed further to include business-minded types. But even then it would have to be, particularly at this early stage in development, a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) requirement rather than an IT budget spending all-out endeavor.

Yes, you can search things on the go. With developer support you could argue that it could boost e-commerce on the shop floor. Maybe it could act as a second or even third display for number crunching. All of these suggestions banded around ZDNet's New York bureau this afternoon seem rather weak, do they not?

There's no doubt that Google Glass could be big business for the search giant, but in turn how it reflects on other business remains at best minimal, and unlikely to dent any significant usage in the enterprise.

By creating apparently more problems than Glass actually solves, the primitive device has seen a significant amount of controversy and concern surrounding whether Glass could breach privacy, record people, invade people's personal space, and all the encompassing features that defines a "glasshole."

Developers: App makers hold the key to Glass' success. Its current bare-bones approach to search and access to its own product range circle isn't enough to bring in the business crowd — even if you're a Google Apps company. Until there's a hearty ecosystem that developers can plug into, there's little point in even taking on the platform. The ecosystem can only thrive with users. It's a one-way street, which becomes a symbiotic relationship.

There is a case that if enterprises fling open the doors to Glass and develop their own internal apps for the device, there's a case in point. But again, there are very few reasons why at this early stage in development 

Android: Glass supports Android, also iPhones. Android is creeping into cubicles across the land, but it's still void of any measurable enterprise-grade security. Some Android phones have been certified with FIPS 140-2 government-grade security thanks to the mobile manufacturers themselves — such as HTC — but that's no thanks to Google. Glass will have to reconsider its position on taking security less than seriously if it wants to make any meaningful impact in business, thanks to the Android factor.

(There is an argument that iPhones and iPads were not pitched to the enterprise either, but the business customer chose Apple after it began to bolster its security and functionality.)

Privacy: Government is a crucial enterprise player, at least in terms of security above other major business sectors, even finance. With varying levels of security clearance in the same office — some with higher access than others — the last thing you're going to want is documents floating around on camera that may or may not be currently filming away. Unless Google tackles this very basic privacy problem, Glass will remain a problem child in the workplace.

The 'stand out' (or lack of): Normally with any enterprise-based product, feature, or service, there's a pitch. Google isn't marketing Glass as an enterprise product, nor should it. There's very little in terms of value that the next-generation specs can actually offer ordinary workers. It doesn't boost productivity. It's a gimmick. Consumers love gimmicks because it's something they can choose to use a product or feature when they like.

For the enterprise, it's a core part of the workflow. Glass doesn't have one single feature or productivity factor that stands out and screams, "use me." If there were, we'd be harping on about it. For now, or at least until Google Glass 2.0 begins to embrace the worker population, there's little to offer in terms of 'stand out' quality.

Cost: Considering all of the above, the cost of the device alone is an enterprise turn-off, but also the very fact that the weak reasons that could be thrown in Glass' direction to justify even a small rollout across a corporate base. There may be some industries that may benefit from Glass, but if those benefits are limited to having something within your immediate eyesight rather than fetching your smartphone from out of your pocket, frankly you need to get less picky, more productive employees.

You don't need a million reasons to justify Glass. You just need one, and there don't appear to be any.

Related:

• Gallery: Exploring Google Glass: A fitting appointment, step-by-step
• Exploring Google Glass: A non-nerd's guide (and wish list)
• I/O 2013: Google Glass designers predict possibilities for wearable tech market
• Jason Perlow: Google Glass: Obnoxious and invasive at any price
• Charlie Osborne: Congress demands answers from Google over Glass privacy concerns

Yahoo has made an offer to acquire popular streaming video website Hulu, according to a new AllThingsD report.

The news comes days after the company announced that it would acquire microblogging network Tumblr for $1.1 billion.

The tech (media?) giant is hardly alone in the race; DirecTV, Time Warner Cable, William Morris Endeavor, KKR, Guggenheim Digital and The Chernin Group all seek a piece or all of the pie, Peter Kafka reports. Today, the site is jointly owned by News Corp., Disney and Comcast.

Readers should know that CBS Corp., parent company of ZDNet, has relationships and/or competes with a number of these companies. But that fact is precisely what makes this so interesting: while Hulu isn't a company we would typically cover on these business technology-oriented pages, the potential deal is interesting because it represents Yahoo's increasing move away from by-the-books technology and toward media.

In recent years, both Yahoo and AOL have spent considerable sums of money and time refashioning themselves into businesses that have reputations built on Web 1.0 technology but revenues built on advertising dollars. As with Tumblr, Yahoo's interest in Hulu demonstrates the company's eagerness to own the channels and sell against them.

Which prompts a simple question: What is a "technology company" these days, anyway?

The BBC, Britain's public broadcasting service, has reportedly suspended chief technology officer John Linwood after declaring its five-year, 100 million project to convert the organization's extensive video archives a failure.

The project, dubbed the Digital Media Initiative, intended to create a working production system that also gave its users easy access to volumes of archival footage. But the project was nothing but trouble, according to a report in The Guardian, blocking editors' access to footage for inclusion in high-profile breaking news reports and causing them to literally carry, via public transit and hired taxi, tapes from the company's physical archive in northwest London.

Tara Conlan and Charles Arthur report:

In an email to all BBC staff on Friday, director-general Tony Hall said he was halting DMI and admitted: "We have a responsibility to spend licence-fee payers' money as if it was our own and I'm sorry to say we did not do that here."

One insider called the DMI project "the axis of awful", while another source said: "The scale of the project was too big and it got out of hand."

Linwood, a Yahoo and Microsoft veteran, was responsible for the project. He has temporarily been replaced by BBC News head of technology Peter Coles.

Damningly, one BBC Trust member wrote to a member of parliament that the publicly-funded organization was "throwing good money after bad." The 98.4 million project was projected to save 95.4 million by halving the amount of video-handling needed to call up such footage, and was apparently 21 months behind schedule after only 24 months of development.

One member of Y Combinator's Hacker News community had tough words for the project.

"It serves as both a cautionary tale on outsourcing and a good example of when to recognise a sunk cost," jumblesale7 wrote. "The technology surrounding what they were trying to achieve has changed massively in that time frame but doesn't excuse them from delivering nothing of value."

Google has already demonstrated its interest in making high-speed Internet across the United States with through the Fiber project, but it looks like the tech giant has a global plan too.

See also: Google aims to push tablets as part of new education initiative

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the Mountain View, Calif.-based company is working on a monetary fund to build wireless networks in emerging markets.

Google hasn't commented publicly on the report or the fund yet.

But according to the WSJ story, based on unnamed sources, these are the main points to know.

The fund is expected to fuel wireless infrastructures primarily in rural areas where wired Internet connections aren't available, especially in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

It still remains to be seen how Google plans to go about this project, either by building the networks itself or partnering with local wireless companies -- or some balance of both, depending on the market.

Such an initiative does fall in line with some of Google's more philanthropic schemes and rhetoric, much of which CEO Larry Page reiterated at Google I/O in San Francisco last week.

But getting more people online and enabling them with wireless connectivity also has possibility to boost the mobile user base in these regions, outfitting them as prime consumers for low-cost Android smartphones, featurephones, and even tablets.

See also: Salesforce Q1 earnings: in line; $893m revenue | Salesforce intros mobile apps for federal, state and local gov't response

Intellectual Ventures, which invests in and works with investors and technology businesses to drive innovation and invention, owns the rights to a portfolio of nearly 40,000 patents.

The most important points to know about these patents is that they cover products, solutions, and ideas from more than 50 technology verticals.

Beyond corporate partners, IV also works closely with government agencies, which are becoming highly sought-after customers as they finally start making the leap from legacy hardware infrastructures to integrating cloud platforms. Salesforce, along with the likes of IBM, Oracle and many more tech behemoths, have been busy pushing out new cloud schemes to attract government agencies.

IBM, for example, recently inked a 10-year agreement to elevate the infrastructure for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Under the deal with IV, Salesforce will have the option of accessing Intellectual Ventures intellectual property for Defense program. Thus, it is very possible we'll see more government-minded solutions rolled out by the CRM giant in the near future.

First reported by AllThingsD, Parsey will be leaving Yahoo for greener pastures, and Yahoo has confirmed that the executive will be finishing at the tech firm this week.

The design chief's LinkedIn page says that his job at Yahoo involved both management and design, Parsey's ethos described as:

"This is about weaving a global UX and UER organization from the existing 200+ designers and researchers that today support an array of different businesses. It's part of a rather cool broader corporate transition project. It's also very much about establishing design as a potent, world-class entity that’s fun to be part of."

Although the designer says that he is very excited about "the correlation between internal cultures that are truly ‘meaningful’ to designers ( and other functions ), and world-class design innovation," recent changes to Yahoo have been met with criticism by users. The resdesign of Flickr this week, for example, prompted thousands of users to demand that Yahoo revert the design; in addition, the use of high resolution images has resulted in the website suffering outages.

Pasey has previously worked at establishments including Apple, Microsoft and Motorola.

According to Bloomberg, the search engine giant is interested in the Israeli startup, which produces an app that gathers and correlates data from online communities and forums in order to improve driving directions. The map software provider has also caught Facebook's eye; earlier reports suggesting that the social media company is looking to pay up to $1 billion to acquire Waze. Google is considering the same figure.

Citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter, the publication says that Waze is seeking over $1 billion from potential bidders, and multiple firms have expressed interest in the startup; more parties coming forward once the potential Facebook deal became public.

Although several companies are interested, none are close to securing a deal with Waze.

It is not certain whether the startup will choose to be acquired or remain independent; instead deciding to pursue additional venture backing to expand the firm's mapping services. To date, the company has managed to secure $67 million in funding.

As mobile devices become increasingly popular, map and navigation services have become extremely important for companies looking to get ahead of the competition. If Google manages to secure the startup, not only will it keep Waze information, subscribers and technology out of rival company hands, but real-time updates could become a valuable addition to Google's popular Maps service.

Apple is not part of the talks, although past rumors suggested the company was gunning to buy Waze for $400 million.

Waze, coming in to its fourth year, currently has 100 employees -- 11 of which are based in the U.S., whereas the remainder are stationed in Israel. The company uses satellite signals from 47 million Waze community member smartphones to correlate data and offer real-time traffic and navigation updates, alternative routes and alerts users to the presence of speed cameras and road works. The service is free but supported with advertising.

Salesforce, the U.S. enterprise software company, this afternoon reported quarterly earnings per share of $0.10 on revenue of $893 million for the quarter ended April 30, 2013.

That's in line with analyst expectations of earnings of $0.10 per share on revenue of $887.1 million.

Numbers to know:

• Subscription and support revenues: $842 million, an increase of 29 percent over the same period a year ago
• Professional services and other revenues: $50 million, an increase of 25 percent over the same period a year ago
• Total revenue for the quarter was up 28 percent over the same period a year ago.
• Cash and equivalents totaled $3.1 billion. Interestingly, the company raised $1.15 billion through the issuance of convertible 0.25% senior notes, due in 2018.

In terms of outlook, the company projected Q2 revenue between $931 million and $936 million, an increase of 27 to 28 percent year over year. For the fiscal year 2014, it projected between $3.835 billion and $3.875 billion.

The company's stock (CRM) was immediately down five percent in after-hours trading as investors punished it for guidance that reflects slowing revenue growth, even as it revised its annual guidance upward. Exacerbating the drop may have been a run-up on the company's shares just before the closing bell.

Chief executive Marc Benioff offered little color in prepared remarks: "Salesforce.com delivered another quarter of strong growth, with constant currency revenue, deferred revenue, and operating cash flow all growing 30 percent or more year over year."

Salesforce's performance has been mostly positive over the last four years, and it beat investor expectations 11 of the last 15 quarters, with only one major miss. Historically, it has regularly posted strong growth numbers, thanks to increasing adoption of its Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and Marketing Cloud offerings.

But that progress has been eroded by rising marketing and R&D costs as the company pushes into new areas of business, particularly for Marketing Cloud, which is positioned to address companies' growing interest in marketing over social media channels.

Indeed, in Q1 the company's marketing expenses rose to $466 million (from $370 million the same period a year prior) and its R&D costs rose to $132 million (from $95 million the same period a year prior).

Box announced on its blog on Thursday it has acquired Folders, an app for Apple's iOS, which will be part of a push by the cloud service to further bolster its mobile offering.

As part of the deal, the enterprise cloud storage firm has also hired Folders' developer Martin Destagnol to help integrate his product into Box's iOS app. 

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Folders currently works on iOS, allowing users to open non-native files on their iPhones and iPads. Users can manage multiple accounts — such as Google Drive and Dropbox — and copy, move, transfer, search, sort and email files very easily. With a slick user interface and a bevy of functionality, it shows that Box is keen to increase not only its feature base with the Folders buy, but also to further bolster its user aesthetic.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Box vice president of engineering Sam Schillace said there were "many factors," but it boiled down to the "amazing impact" that the products had on the overall Box user experience.

He added that Box's mission was to make enterprise software that "doesn't suck," while making its applications as user friendly, refined, and as innovative as they can be.

The company said it has 15 million people at 150,000 businesses using the enterprise service. 

The deal, announced on Thursday, marks Box's third acquisition to date. It comes just two weeks after Box said it was acquiring Crocodoc, a HTML5 document embedding service that converts Microsoft Office and PDF files to the Web standard. 

MENLO PARK, CALIF. -- The Facebook Platform celebrates its six year anniversary on Friday, and engineers for the world's largest social network offered a behind-the-scenes look at where the infrastructure is going next.

See also: Understanding Unicorn: A deep dive into Facebook's Graph Search | Facebook translates natural language interface under Graph Search

The update, held at Facebook's Silicon Valley headquarters, also shed light about the company's evolving B2B strategy, which got a boost with the recent acquisition of Parse.

To recall, Facebook bought Parse, a startup with a cloud-based platform of scalable cross-platform services and tools for developers, back in April.

Specifically, Parse came with tools designed for development on iOS and Android devices.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Facebook reps asserted via email at the time that "this is an acquisition – not a talent deal."

"Facebook can become this horizontal tier that brings people to those third-party applications," Purdy remarked.

For reference, the Facebook Platform was built to enable third-party developers to integrate their apps with the Social Graph, according to Doug Purdy, director of product management at the social network.

Looking toward the immediate future through at least 2014, Purdy outlined that Facebook's Platform strategy will be held up by the following four pillars: Identity (social plugins, logins, etc.), Open Graph (Timeline, News Feed, Graph Search), Ads, and App Services.

"Facebook can become this horizontal tier that brings people to those third-party applications," Purdy remarked.

The last pillar, Application Services, is where Parse comes in.

Ilya Sukhar, co-founder and former CEO of Parse, acknowledged that developing for mobile is "really hard" given the sheer amount of devices, mobile operating systems, apps, use cases, and everything else possibly related to the form factor.

Prior to the acquisition, Sukhar explained that his startup's biggest competition came from companies choosing to build apps in-house.

Sukhar asserted that Parse's SDK is designed to make things "dramatically easier" for independent third-party developers and small businesses, backing that up by citing that more than 200 million devices have installed apps built using the Parse SDK.

With Parse onboard, Facebook will be able build up its own developer ecosystem with more tools to dish out to third-party developers (and, by extension, advertisers).

Yet, Sukhar specified that Parse will actually continue to operate independently -- to some extent at least.

For instance, even though Parse already offers the option for integrating the native Facebook Login dialog, Sukhar replied that Parse won't require developers to integrate Facebook services in the future. (For example, developers could still use Twitter for login services instead of Facebook.)

Furthermore, Parse's back-end infrastructure is based on Amazon Web Services. Even though Facebook is building its own datacenters around the world (most recently Iowa), Sukhar explained it will be "business as usual," and that there aren't plans to move.

Going back to the original core focus on iOS and Android developers, Sukhar also admitted that "a majority" of the apps built with Parse tools are not built for Facebook.

Purdy followed up by reiterating that with the Parse merger, the key is making apps "cross-platform" for all people.

Therefore, the benefits to App Services, according to the Facebook Platform team, are threefold: Developers should be able to easily build cross-platform apps. Users should be able to interact with contacts on any device, and Facebook plainly gets more cross-platform apps within its ecosystem.

"We believe that applications and application experiences that focus on users are just simply better, and we knew that we couldn't build all of those experiences." admitted Purdy.

To grasp how the Facebook Platform has grown since 2007, Purdy highlighted social gaming, citing that there are approximately 250 million people playing games on Facebook every month.

He added that more than 550 million people have personalized experiences (related to Facebook) on apps and sites each month, whether it be from sharing content or logging in to a website via Facebook Connect.

Speeding up to 2011 when the Open Graph was introduced at F8, Purdy explained that the evolution to this step unleashed new possibilities for third-party developers while enabling users to share the stories they want to share on or from third-party sites.

"We believe that applications and application experiences that focus on users are just simply better, and we knew that we couldn't build all of those experiences." admitted Purdy.

Purdy said that there are now more than one billion stories from apps and sites shared each day.

But over the last year, Facebook leaders (most notably CEO Mark Zuckerberg) have been most vocal about the mobile-first movement.

In 2012 alone, Facebook pushed out iOS 6 integration, a native Facebook login dialog, and mobile install ads.

The last of which, Purdy suggested, might present the most value of anything Facebook has released for third-party developers to date.

HTC's latest flagship device has become the first HTCpro certified device in the U.S., pitching a broad range of business features to enterprise customers.

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The company has been building enterprise-level security enhancements, mobile device management (MDM) and productivity features in order to gain further traction with its business customers — likely in order to gain some share over Apple, the current main player.

The Taiwanese phone maker continues to pitch to the enterprise market with HTCpro, a mobile solution provider for companies and their employees, by ensuring that certified devices are plug-and-play business ready. 

The smartphone, released in March, can be used with an array of mobile enterprise features, pitched at chief information officers (CIOs) and security personnel alike, such as virtual private networking (VPN) functionality that allows users to work from home and connect virtually to their offices through a secure connection.

For the IT manager, the back-end mobile device management (MDM) solution allows for secure password policies and lock-out functionality. HTC partnered with a number of enterprise-focused MDM vendors, such as AirWatch and MobileIron, in order to offer service that allows secure working at home or in the office.

HTCpro executive director David Jaeger said in prepared remarks:

As the first HTCpro Certified device available in the U.S., the critically acclaimed HTC One delivers style and substance with industry-leading innovations and enterprise-ready solutions that meet today’s demanding needs for everything work and life throws at you.

It's also good news for Google, which owns and develops the Android mobile platform included in the HTC One. Though Android remains fragmented and often a headache for enterprise IT managers, Android continues to gain momentum in the enterprise space, thanks to a burgeoning bring-your-own-device (BYOD) population.

Apple's iOS 6, the latest iPhone and iPad operating system was the latest major platform to be certified as FIPS 140-2 compliant in recent weeks. Adding yet another Android device to the mix is certainly going to give governments, above all else, something to think about when procuring new devices.

At Google I/O last week, the Silicon Valley giant announced Google Cloud Datastore, a fully managed offering for storing non-relational data.

It's based on Google's App Engine High Replication Datastore, which has been around since 2011 and now processes an eye-popping 4.5 trillion transactions per month—with 99.95 percent uptime, no less.

In a blog post this morning, the company decided to celebrate by dropping App Engines HRD and Cloud Datastore prices up to 25 percent.

For stored data in the Datastore, the new price will be $0.18 per gigabyte per month. That's down from $0.24.

For operations, write will cost $0.09 per 100,000 operations (down from $0.10), read will cost $0.06 (down from $0.07) and small will remain unchanged, at $0.01.

"Was there something wrong with it? And, do you need a replacement? We can get you a replacement, no problem," signaling to holler over a fellow colleague. But I declined.

"There's nothing wrong with the tablet," I said. "I suspect it's actually a problem with me."

Within the 14-day period in which Apple consumers are granted a stay of financial relief on their purchases, I returned my tablet not with a heavy heart but nonetheless with a feeling of disappointment in myself. It's not that I didn't like the iPad. The build quality was excellent, the software functionaliy was superb, and there was nothing but the highest of intent for burgeoning productivity potential.

It was that I simply didn't need one. And not just an iPad, a test case as it turns out, but any tablet for that matter.

Cue the back story. 

I fell into the Apple ecosystem. At first, anyway. But I don't think of myself as an Apple user. I am the kind of person who will use whatever tools that are necessary for the job in hand. It just so happens that I've become accustomed to the way these devices work together, just as other same-brand ecosystem devices do.

Almost two years ago I bought a MacBook Air. Still to this day, it has become a crucial, necessary, ultraportable laptop that has, granted with its occasional failings, has served me well. The battery life is acceptable, so long as certain conditions are met, but in spite of the likely unique gripes rather than hindrances, it's a fine piece of kit.

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But above all else, OS X was the driving force for change. Gone are the days where apps weren't available. That's the cloud's business now. And thanks to the App Store, many previously unavailable apps have migrated to the Mac. 

Pleased with the design and the quality, but above all else the OS X operating system that had become so simple to use yet powerful by design, I ripped out the cords on my desktop machine — that whizzed and whirred in the corner of my home office with a subtle yet constant background-fading drone — and I replaced it with a Mac mini.

It was all too easy. I looked for a catch, but there wasn't one. 

A staunch Windows user for my adolescent and early adult life, there should've been a level of discomfort and disconcertedness. But there wasn't. With fond memories of blue screens and translucent windows, I began to prefer a sense of simplicity.

The last step was my eventual move to the iPhone, albeit for a second time. The first was not the best of experiences but as a result of my confidence in the Apple ecosystem, I thought it was at least worth another try. And it was worth it. 

We can tick off the MacBook Air, the Mac mini — and all the peripherals to really go all-in — and the iPhone. (In between, I'd also bought an Apple TV, but it just makes sense when you're downloading TV and movies). The next logical step, surely, was to get an iPad.

With glee and excitement, I picked it up from the Grand Central store the following day on my way to work. I configured it, I synchronized my music, my pictures, apps and everything else. 

And then I went back to work. 

Not on my iPad, but my MacBook Air, which I take with me to work. I took my iPad home and it was sat there on my coffee table for three days until I picked it up again. It wasn't that I was avoiding it, and I wanted to use it, but I didn't have any particular reason to use it. 

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There is absolutely nothing wrong with the iPad. And, I suspect there is nothing particularly wrong or different with any other tablet. It simply doesn't fit into my lifestyle.

My iPhone is my primary email communication device, plus my music. That sticks me firmly in the "prosumer" category. But because of my job, I require a keyboard. Granted, typing on the iPad is not the most difficult thing to do in the world, but it's less natural than a keyboard. I'm automatically drawn to a keyboard.

That said, it's a fine device but I have, as part of my one-brand ecosystem, other devices that at least for me are better suited for purpose.

Even for "play" and non-work reasons, there was nothing drawing me to it that I couldn't already do on my ultra-portable iPhone, my keyboard-enabled yet still light and portable MacBook Air, or my work-personal life separating Mac mini that allows me to walk away from it at any point.

If I were a financier, a marketer, or an artist, a tablet may be perfect. But not for me. 

And you know what? That's OK. It's my problem, and not the fault of the tablet. 

While there's an obvious point: "Why did you buy it in the first place?" The simple answer is: you often don't know how something is going to fit into your lifestyle unless you try it first. 

There are, believe it or not, some business takeaways from this. After all, as a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) employee and a "prosumer," much of these apply to me as much as the wider general business population.

The key takeaways:

• Don't rush into a tablet-buying decision. As simple as it sounds, don't get caught up in the trends. If you're a CIO or IT buyer, above all else find a purpose for investing in tablets. Survey your staff, or monitor BYOD usage.
  
  
• On that note, BYOD should be actively encouraged first and foremost. It cuts down on IT budgets, particularly if you invest in a back-end mobile device management (MDM) solution to organize and secure those tablets. Any formal corporate tablet rollout should come second. It gives staff the flexibility to bring their own device first before IT spenders fork out precious budget for something that may not be used.
  
  
• Don't discount the PC yet. Latest market figures suggest that there is a massive consumer decline in PC shipments. But enterprise and business figures are still widely unknown. Anecdotal reports suggest that PCs are still core to desk-work productivity, which makes sense as tablets can suit one industry and not another. Also, people love using tablets for sitting on the sofa and winding down. Any decline in PC shipments in the enterprise is likely to come in the coming few years. Never underestimate the power of a physical keyboard.
  
  
• Finally, while iPads may be recognized as "the" tablet for business and enterprise customers, following successful major deployments across the banking and finance sectors — besides government, it's considered to be the most security-focused industry — but don't put all your eggs in one basket. Smaller and cheaper may be more effective and efficient, and a widescale iPad rollout may not justify the costs. Get a small test pool in order and rotate across staff to determine which device is better suited for different kinds of workers.

In a press note published by the EU executive body, the New European Industrial Strategy for Electronics will help mobilize €100 billion ($129bn) in new private investments through 2020, including €5 billion ($6.45bn) through a joint public-private partnership to support chip manufacturing.

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The logic behind the move is that the electronics sector "underpins Europe's wider industrial competitiveness [...] for other sectors, from energy to automotive to health."

EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in prepared remarks that she wants to "double" chip production to take a 20 percent slice of the global production. "I want Europe to produce more chips in Europe than the United States produces domestically," she added. "It's a realistic goal if we channel our investments properly."

The move comes just months after GlobalFoundaries chief executive Ajit Manocha told attendees at an event in San Francisco, California that on the continent.

Just recently in April, the EU sent a formal statement of antitrust charges

Intel was also fined €1.06 billion ($1.4bn) by EU authorities. The chip maker was accused of anti-competitive behavior that ultimately harmed AMD. As a result, the rival chip manufacturer suffered delays and poor sales.

Following an agreement between the U.K.'s academic network Janet and Microsoft, U.K. universities can now benefit from a private link to Microsoft's Windows Azure service.

Aimed at benefiting more than 18 million students in the U.K., the cloud-based service will allow U.K. colleges and universities to bypass the insecure, sluggish public Internet in favor of its own separate speedy and secure network.

The new arrangement connects the Janet network and Microsoft's Windows Azure datacenter in Dublin, routed through an exchange point in London, cutting out the need for data to travel over the public Internet. This opens up a number of advantages, such as using Azure's platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offerings.

What this means is students and academics alike can begin to take advantage of the outsourced cloud service for data crunching, storage and other cloud-based IT services over a high bandwidth connection.

The agreement between the software giant and Janet was signed at Goldsmiths, University of London, on Tuesday. 

The devil is in the details, however.

Sovereignty, data ownership concerns?

First off, there's the issue of data sovereignty, such as who owns the data and who can access it. The data is transferred to a Dublin-based datacenter, which means it falls under Irish law. The good news is that it remains under wider EU data protection laws, but simply transferring data outside the U.K. throws out yet another complicating factor to the mix over U.K. privacy laws and potentially personally identifiable research data.

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But because Azure will remain a service, therefore Microsoft as the data processor, the universities will retain hold of the ownership of the data. 

Secondly, those who have already signed research contracts with third-party sponsors may not be allowed to use the Azure service due to the conflicts between U.S. anti-terror and snooping laws and the EU-wide data and privacy laws.

Such issues relating to the U.S. Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) have been noted in the European Parliament at numerous points in the past two years. Numerous EU member states have banned Microsoft and Google outsourced IT services citing such fears, as well as major private companies, such as defense giant BAE.

Microsoft recently opened up a new datacenter in Australia, going back on its previously stated "imaginary issue" position on data sovereignty.

In expanding to the region, Microsoft admitted that data sovereignty is a "legitimate concern" for customers, but customers should nonetheless be wary knowing that as Microsoft remains a U.S.-headquartered company, it is just as subject to U.S. law in Australia as it is at home.

SoftBank plans to give the U.S. government control over Sprint's board of directors should the takeover bid for Clearwire go ahead.

First reported by The Wall Street Journal, a concession will be made to the U.S. government in light of security concerns raised over networking security. The government will be allowed to nominate one member of Sprint's board in order to oversee national security issues and ensure that the firm complies with security protocols being negotiated with federal agencies.

Citing sources familiar with the matter, the publication says that the government is also hoping to be permitted the right to approve Sprint's future equipment purchases -- and wants Chinese products, such as those produced by Huawei, removed from the network of one of Sprint's affiliates, Clearwire.

Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son told U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers that the company would comply. Clearwire uses Huawei radio base stations to cope with data transfer and phone calls, but the Chinese manufacturer's products are not core to the carrier's operations. Removal and replacement of this equipment could cost the firm up to $1 billion.

The U.S. government has made its mistrust of both Huawei and ZTE equipment known. The House of Representatives' Intelligence Committee released a report last year which cautioned U.S. businesses to avoid using the firm's products, citing fears that malicious code could be built into networking equipment.

Sprint is one of several contenders vying to purchase struggling carrier Clearwire. Sprint has offered $3.40 a share -- as majority shareholder SoftBank recently lifted a bid cap of $2.97 a share -- and this is the Sprint's "best and final offer." However, satellite provider Dish Networks has also made a pass for the firm, offering $3.30 a share. The acquisition would give the companies additional subscribers and spectrum resources.

Dish has also made an offer to buy Sprint for $25.5 billion.

Sprint shareholders plan to vote on the deal in June.

Lenovo has released its financial results for the fourth fiscal quarter and full-year ending March, 2013.

The world's second largest PC maker posted full-year sales of $34 billion -- up 15 percent year-on-year -- as well as earnings of $635 million post-tax (up 34 percent year-on-year), despite "a challenging macro-economic environment and ongoing PC industry transformation."

In the fourth quarter, the Chinese PC maker recorded revenues of $7.8 billion, a four percent growth increase year-on-year. Lenovo posted gross profit of $963 million and net profit of $126.9 million, up from $66.8 million a year ago -- a 90 percent rise in quarterly profit which goes beyond analyst expectations of $108.1 million. Basic EPS equates to $1.22 per share.

Operating profit in Q4 was $169 million, up 67 percent year-on-year. Operating profit for the full fiscal year was $800 million, a 37 percent jump. As of March 31, Lenovo has net cash reserves of $3.1 billion.

For the 2012/13 fiscal year, PC shipments grew 10.2 percent year-on-year, in comparison to an overall industry decline of 8.1 percent, according to the Chinese firm. Overall, Lenovo said it shipped 52.4 million PCs worldiwide, and has now snagged global marketshare of 15.5 percent.

While many tech firms have tightened their belts in the face of economic fragility, Lenovo has spent heavily on acquisitions to try and bolster its positon in the PC market. The firm has bought firms including electronics maker CCE, Medion, and IBM's PC business in 2005. Lenovo plans to battle in order to keep its top spot in the PC business, but will also focus on smart devices including smartphones and tablets as well as enterprise hardware in the future.

Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing commented:

"Not only were we the fastest growing among all major PC players, with record market share, revenue and profitability, more importantly, our smartphone and tablet businesses saw dramatic growth.

In fact, smartphone shipments were 3.7 times greater than last year globally and we are now number two in the China smartphone market. This has laid a solid foundation for the successful transformation of Lenovo into a PC Plus leader. Going forward, we will focus our investments on the fast-growing tablet, smartphone and enterprise hardware areas, while working to enhance the profitability of our core PC business."

Ireland's finance minister has blasted recent a recent Congressional report which investigated Apple finances, calling the research "flawed" and insisting that the country will not be the U.S.'s "whipping boy."

Apple CEO Tim Cook testified in front of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee this week, to explain why the firm has not brought billions in profit back to U.S. soil. Congress found that Apple created a complex web of subsidiaries worldwide in order to dodge hefty tax bills, using subsidiaries ran only by executives to declare the majority of the firm's profits in countries with low taxation rates.

The finger was pointed mainly at Ireland, which allowed Apple to obtain the "holy grail of tax avoidance."

The Senate says that due to a past deal with the Irish government, Apple has paid only two percent in tax on profits of $74 billion, far lower than the 35 percent markup imposed in the United States for fund transferred back to the iPad and iPhone maker's home soil. Apple claims it does not use "tax gimmicks" and pays roughly $6 billion into U.S. coffers, but Sen. Carl Levin believes that as the Cupertino, Calif. firm is one of the largest American firms, based on the company's profit margins, this simply means Apple is one of the country's "biggest tax avoiders."

At Tim Cook's hearing, Ireland's EU affairs minister Eamon Gilmore said that the Ireland was "not to blame" for Apple's tax tactics. Now, Irish finance minister Michael Noonan has defended the country further, saying that senators have got their figures wrong, as reported by Reuters.

At a parliamentary committee meeting, Noonan claimed that repeating the accusations was putting Irish jobs at risk, and that he does not want "to be the whipping boy for some misunderstanding in a hearing in the U.S. congress."

"The central point the committee proceeded to speak of was an Irish special tax rate of two percent or less. The two-percent annual rates are got by dividing the tax charged by branches in Ireland by the entire profit of the companies concerned. This is clearly wrong and misleading."

While the Senate subcommittee railed over three Irish-registered Apple subsidiaries which have no tax residency in Ireland -- one of which that has paid no tax whatsoever -- Noonan stated that Apple simply used a tax loophole present between two different tax jurisdictions. When asked whether Apple's tax planning was akin to magic, the finance minister commented:

"Maybe there was a magician, but the magician wasn't living down in Cork. Because they are not tax resident in Ireland, they are not liable to Irish tax."

Apple is simply the latest corporation to have its tax practices scrutinized by governing bodies. In the U.K., Google, Starbucks and Amazon have come under the spotlight due to the little or no capital tax the companies pay on British soil, and opposition Labor party leader Ed Miliband has accused Google in particular of going to "extraordinary lengths" to avoid paying tax.

Next month at the G8 summit, tax avoidance is likely to be a priority topic for European leaders to debate.

The electronics maker announced today in a press release that after being launched worldwide on April 27 this year, the smartphone is being sold and shipped at a rate of four units per second.

The Galaxy S4, which is now Samsung's fastest selling smartphone to date, has smashed through previous records set by the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy S2, which took 50 days and five months retrospectively to reach the same figures.

The ten million sales figure is based on global channel sales rather than purely purchases by consumers. The smartphone is currently available in 110 countries, but will eventually be rolled out to 155 countries based on 327 partnerships.

Reuters analysts believe that Galaxy S4 sales will remain strong; allowing the South Korean firm to record record earnings in the current quarter. In Q1 2013, Samsung declared an operating profit of $7.9 billion based on strong smartphone sales, but expects this figure to decline due to fierce competition within the market.

According to recent Q1 Gartner figures, worldwide smartphone sales totaled 210 million units, which is up 42.9 percent quarter-on-quarter. Samsung snagged 30.8 percent of global smartphone market share, whereas rival firm Apple accounted for 18.2 percent.

In addition to white and black, the Galaxy S4 will also soon be available in blue, red, purple and brown this summer.

While she maintained much of the optimistic rhetoric during the quarterly conference call on Wednesday, Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman didn’t mince words when it came to admitting HP needs to continue working harder.

Pointing towards recent news surrounding Project Moonshot and converged infrastructures, Whitman remarked these will form the “backbone of tomorrow’s cloud.”

See also: HP's Whitman reiterates 'multi-year journey' amid Q2 revenue miss

But for the moment, she described that the problem is balancing the "power of the past" with the "power of the future" for every enterprise unit from servers to storage.

According to HP's second quarter earnings report, its enterprise services (application and business services along with IT outsourcing) revenue declined by eight percent annually while the enterprise group overall was down by 10 percent.

The latter department covers networking, business critical systems, technology services, storage, and industry standard servers revenue.

In regards to these figures, HP’s chief financial officer Cathie Lesjak admitted that the quarter was “not what we expected it to be.”

But the converged infrastructures unit was a bright spot and was up 48 percent up year-over-year.

Whitman described the converged infrastructure market as "highly competitive" with many other tech stalwarts competing for share.

"For me, this all comes down to our willingness to win, and we are committed to winning," Whitman declared.

Without specifying more details nor a roadmap, Whitman noted that HP leaders are working on "revamping business models" to give its sales teams more tools and agility to adjust pricing.

Whitman hinted we'll hear more about these particular efforts later this year.