Grazed from Reuters. Author: Chandni Doulatramani.

Network equipment maker Ciena Corp said it expects strong growth in cloud computing and higher use of smartphones, and forecast stronger-than-expected revenue for the current quarter. Ciena shares jumped as much as 15.5 percent on the Nasdaq on Thursday morning. Shares of rival Finisar Corp were up 5 percent while those of Juniper Networks Inc were up about 1 percent.

Ciena, which makes switches to route internet traffic and broadband access products, said it expects to grow faster than the overall market helped by a "fundamental shift in network architecture." "Mobile data volumes are expected to continue to increase dramatically in the very near term. And machine-to-machine connections are forecast to reach 24 billion over the next several years," Chief Executive Gary Smith said on a conference call with analysts...

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Maureen O'Gara.

In what would be a major strategy shift Apple is reportedly considering selling a "lower-end" iPhone later this year to meet competition from Android, which has been eating Apple's lunch with its multiple models. The Wall Street Journal said late Tuesday that the cheaper iPhone, which could impact Apple's healthy margins unless it attracts the non-iPhone consumer, could look like the classic iPhone but come in a polycarbonate plastic case rather than the iPhone 5's up-market aluminum housing.

The paper also said "other parts could remain the same or be recycled from older iPhone models." The company recently introduced an iPad mini that's smaller and cheaper than the standard iPad but there's only been one iPhone with different storage capacities since the dingus was first introduced...

This year, prices of IT devices such as tablet computers and smartphones are set to fall as Asian manufacturers undercut western IT companies.  At the end of last year, even top-of-the-range Apple products such as the iPhone 5 were being heavily discounted by electronics retailers in the United States such as Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Radio Shack and Target.

Wall Street analysts from Pacific Crest, Canaccord Genuity, Mizuho Securities, UBS and Jeffries & Co swiftly sliced between US$50 (Dh183) and $100 from their Apple share targets, believing this to be the start of an inexorable drop in IT prices. The US technology investment bank Pacific Crest cut its sales expectations for Apple from 174 million devices to 151 million for this year, and from 181 million to 161 million for 2014...

Grazed from Sys Con Media. Author: Maureen O'Gara.

Microsoft Thursday launched the biggest, most dramatic makeover of its operating system since Windows went graphical, perfuming the effort with a billion-dollar marketing budget. Windows 8 will be on the street Friday, October 26. It has to best the competition from the smartphones and iPads that have helped Apple and Google suck up a lot of Microsoft's business.

If the new un-Microsoft-like operating system doesn't catch on - it has no familiar Start button or menu - it could be curtains for CEO Steve Ballmer and maybe even the company. Microsoft has been late to the Internet, search and mobile and looks to be an old relic, whose stock barely moves anymore, compared to Apple, Google and Amazon...

Grazed from CIO. Author: Bernard Golden.

Analyst firm IHS published an important study last week. It predicts that, for the first time ever, PC shipments would drop year-over-year; for 2012, total shipments will drop 1.2 percent. IDC and Gartner agree, noting that third quarter PC shipments fell 8 percent. It's the steepest drop since 2001.

While it's clear that use of new form factors such as smartphones and tablets has been skyrocketing over the past few years, this study is the first that indicates that this growth, far from incremental, is taking share from the previously dominant form factor. Of course, some may not accept the study's findings, feeling that rumors of the death of the PC have been overstated. It may be the case, too, that the total number of PCs sold in 2012 won't really shrink but may, instead, end up showing modest growth...

Most of us are familiar with the adage by George Santayana, who, in his biography said, ”Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” You may recognize it as, “Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it.” Either way, I agree.

This truism is applicable to the high-tech industry, specifically when it is applied against transformational technologies. For example, the change from mainframe computing to client-server computing. Or, for those of you old enough to remember, the move from Codasyl databases to relational databases. Companies that remain steadfastly adhered to old architectures (e.g. ADR or Cullinet – who were unassailable technology giants in the early 80’s) are eventually upended and replaced by companies with new technology architectures (e.g. Oracle)...

Grazed from Adotas. Author: Kristi Carter.

Just about everyone has seen advertisements for cloud computing services and most people can even recognize the blue cloud-shaped symbol that symbolizes it. However, not many people understand how it works. In a nutshell, cloud computing is a complicated infrastructure that allows end-users to sync and organize their personal data (movies, contacts, emails, etc.) with multiple devices.

In essence, your personal cloud (a computing service model that is protected by a firewall and only available to a select number of users in an organization) connects to a public cloud (a computing service model that provides service to the general public or anyone on the web). Companies like Azaleos, a managed service company, realize that these connections can be vulnerable to attacks and have developed systems to secure private clouds so no one can gain access without your permission...

Grazed from Manufacturing Business Technology. Author: Bob Vormittag.

Those who make the investment in BI and the cloud will realize improved cost and operational efficiencies, expanded real-time collaboration with customers, vendors and partners as well as faster and more personalized customer relationships. But how do you get there?

New advances in business intelligence (BI) and mobile cloud technology are transforming ERP as we know it. Bolstered by new innovation, ERP has become an even stronger business asset, and this is changing how mid-market customers define successful ERP implementations.

Key mid-market industries – such as manufacturing, retail, distribution, food, and services – are eager to harness the power of cloud computing to implement cost-efficient IT solutions that ultimately drive improved bottom-line benefits to their organizations...