Computing » Is Microsoft Linux's New BFF?

"M$ hates Free Software of any kind," asserted blogger Robert Pogson. "They have attacked Linux, the GPL, copyleft, etc. -- stuff that would be of no interest to them at all except their customers see the advantages of Free Software. What the world does with Linux, the GPL and copyleft is the world's business, not M$'s. We should not do any more than allow M$ to use Free Software if they want."

Those of us who have been around the block a few times here in the Linux blogosphere have seen it many times before: With one hand, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) holds out a small olive branch to the Linux community, while with the other it prepares a new patent attack, posts a "cautionary" FUD-filled video, or perpetrates some other kind of anti-FOSS mischief.

That's why it felt like deja vu all over again last week, when we learned not only that Microsoft is apparently one of the top contributors to the Linux kernel, but also that it had sent an early birthday present to Linux in the form of an apparently lighthearted video.

'Microsoft and Linux?'

Featuring cartoon versions of Bill Gates and Tux, the video begins by recounting the "rocky start" the two experienced, including the famous Halloween Documents exchanged among Microsoft executives about Linux and the "bickering" that continues today.

Also shown is Tux throwing a rock at Gates' "window."

"There's no truce in sight," the video reads... "Or is there?"

The final line then concludes by changing the text "Microsoft vs. Linux?" to "Microsoft and Linux?" followed by birthday wishes.

Is it conciliatory? Is it touching? Is it passive-aggressive? Linux bloggers have been struggling to decide.

'Pigs Still Don't Fly'

"Is it time to start trusting Microsoft?" was the title of an open ballot over on TuxRadar, for example, and respondents weren't shy with their opinions.

"No way!" exclaimed kaaposc, for instance. "Remember, pigs still don't fly."

"Nope," agreed mfraser. "Under no circumstances should we start trusting them, they are still trying to use their patent portfolio to extract money from companies making Android phones."

'I Needed a Good Laugh'

On the other hand, "they can be trusted... sort of," countered Vredfreak.

"Microsoft can be trusted to do one thing: whatever it takes to make money," Vredfreak added. "For years they accomplished it by simply exercising its monopoly on the desktop space. There are too many avenues open for this to work anymore, so they have to find new strategies, mainly patent trolling and the appearance of integration and cooperation with competitors."

Then again, "trust Microsoft?" wrote reup. "wharfff wharfff wharfff ! Cool, I needed a good laugh today."

TuxRadar's post was soon followed by a two-part series on OStatic (here and here) on much the same topic, so it quickly became clear the topic was gaining momentum.

Linux Girl took to the heavily air-conditioned Broken Windows Lounge to learn more. Was the birthday video a genuine gesture -- or just one more Machiavellian maneuver?

'They Need to Quit with the Lawsuits'

"It really did seem conciliatory, especially when they referenced some of their own contributions to the hostility, such as the Halloween Documents," consultant and Slashdot blogger Gerhard Mack told Linux Girl.

Still, "if they really want to make peace, they need to quit with the patent threats and lawsuits," Mack added.

Others took a stronger view.

'Nothing But a Series of Lies'

"Passive-aggressive doesn't begin to cover it," Hyperlogos blogger Martin Espinoza told Linux Girl, for example.

"The first hostility in the video is a penguin (Tux?) throwing a rock at a Windows-logo window with Bill Gates behind it, followed by Microsoft trying to 'scare' Linux 'at Halloween,'" Espinoza explained. "This is immediately followed by the assertion that Microsoft found Linux's ideas 'childish,' which directly contradicts the stance of the Halloween Documents, which prove that Microsoft saw Linux as a threat."

Chronologically, "this video is nothing but a series of lies presented to make Microsoft look like the good guy, which could not possibly be further from the truth," Espinoza concluded.

'The Thin Edge of the Wedge'

Indeed, "M$ hates Free Software of any kind," blogger Robert Pogson agreed. "They have attacked Linux, the GPL, copyleft, etc. -- stuff that would be of no interest to them at all except their customers see the advantages of Free Software.

"What the world does with Linux, the GPL and copyleft is the world's business, not M$'s," Pogson added. "We should not do any more than allow M$ to use Free Software if they want."

Accepting any kind of offering from Microsoft is "the thin edge of the wedge," Pogson cautioned. "Their hypervisor is of value to M$'s customers and it does not hurt freedom to have M$'s customers using GNU/Linux. We should, however, also promote and improve KVM, which is pretty cool."

Finally, "for any who think M$ is just a business competing in the real world on price/performance," Pogson offered the following reminders:

" M$ paid UUNET Pipex, an ISP, big bucks to ship Internet Exploder so as to cut Netscape out of the market";

"M$ has a deliberate policy of shortening the life of PCs to maximize revenue"; and

"M$ charges different prices for essentially the same technology."

A 'Tarnished' Reputation

Chris Travers, a Slashdot blogger who works on the LedgerSMB project, had a more measured outlook.

"What's going on here is that Linux has become deeply embedded in the server market," Travers told Linux Girl.

That, in turn, has created two problems for Microsoft, he suggested.

"First, they have invested a LOT of effort trying to keep that from happening," he pointed out. "This has reduced their credibility regarding further attacks on Linux."

Second, however, is that while it's getting better, "Microsoft has not been the best at interop in the past," Travers added. "This too has tarnished their reputation."

Bottom line? "What I think Microsoft is trying to do here is make an about-face to undo the embarrassment that they are facing."

'Why Would the Community Care?'

Last but not least, Slashdot blogger hairyfeet answered Linux Girl's question with another question: "Why would the Linux community care one way or the other?"

The fact that it does indicates a "serious problem" in the Linux community, hairyfeet suggested: "the community fixates on the last war instead of trying to plan for the next one.

"Want to see the most likely future for MSFT in 15 years? Look at IBM (NYSE: IBM) now," he asserted. "Once upon a time everyone was scared of old 'big blue' -- nobody dared to try to mess with the big dog. Now? Just another company -- a big company, but just a company."

'Say Thanks and Move On'

Microsoft will likely "rule the desktop" for as long as there is one, hairyfeet opined, "but more and more of people's lives are being held off of the desktop, in tablets and phones."

Rather than adapt to that new market, meanwhile, Microsoft "shows their 'I don't understand my customers' problem by putting Windows 8 on everything, including ARM (Nasdaq: ARMHY), instead of focusing on making winPhone a top notch OS," he said. "They are gonna royally burn their customers."

So why should the community care about the video birthday greetings?

Hairyfeet's advice: "Just say 'gee thanks' and move on."

Computing » How Google Could Murder Your Digital Identity

Until Google puts in place a clear customer service organization, make sure you keep a copy of your stuff on your own hardware. This is likely good advice for any online service. Google really needs to start focusing on customer satisfaction, though. Its current perceived position of "hey, it's free -- take what we give you" isn't likely going to work in the long term.

I'm in the midst of doing the biggest tablet review I've ever attempted, and I have to admit I'm rather impressed with a number of the Android offerings. The funny thing is, the ones closest to the phone work the best, suggesting there is a bit of a Windows XP/Vista event going on in this space.

While I was doing this, I was sent a link to a Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) customer who got royally screwed when Google effectively gave the death penalty to everything he had stored across Google's online applications. There is a huge warning here.

I'm going to make the product of the week the best of the Android tablets I was sent, and that's the Asus Transformer -- largely due to the keyboard integration and extra battery (the thing has been running for more than two days unplugged).

Google Warning

Let's start out with the Google warning. Evidently, Dylan M., who goes by the name "Thomas Monopoly" on Twitter, had a bit of a problem with Google. A long-time supporter, he recently woke up to find Google had pulled the plug on his digital identity.

Now he had pretty much converted everything to Google services. He used its storage (and paid for extra capacity), used its social network, used its email and used its applications. He is a grad student and had more than 500 articles cached for research in his Google reader (gone); he had migrated all of his bookmarks to Google bookmarks (gone); he had consolidated on Google his 200 contacts (gone), his backup files (gone) and his docs (gone).

The guy even put all of his calendar items (doctors' appointments, meetings, dates) onto Google, and they are now gone. He had used Google Maps extensively, and all of those records are gone. Oh -- and it isn't just access to new items either. His entire mail account and documented history have been deleted.

In effect, and you can read it in his words here, Google wiped his digital life from existence. Google pretty much gave him the digital death penalty, and there was no due process, no warning, and no real explanation.

Now he doesn't have access to his files, can't get his email, can't contact his friends, and is pretty much screwed. Google doesn't provide someone you can call, and so getting reinstated has been problematic. Actually, a better way of saying this is there is no real appeal process. In effect, he was tried and told about the guilty verdict after his digital identity had been executed -- and, apparently, he has no recourse.

I'd put this down as an isolated instance, but there is a great deal of hacking going on at the moment. My own MSN account was hacked a few months back. Someone phished through MSN support and got my password reset and entered that way. Fortunately, MSN has live bodies you can call -- otherwise, I would have been as SOL as Dylan.

My point here is that someone hacking into your account could cause you to be terminated by Google depending on what happened -- or termination could be a random thing based on a metric Google hasn't disclosed.

So, word of warning: Until Google puts in place a clear customer service organization to deal with issues like this -- and maybe even if it does -- make sure you keep a copy of your stuff on your own hardware. This is likely good advice for any online service.

Google really needs to start focusing on customer satisfaction, though. Its current perceived position of "hey, it's free -- take what we give you" isn't likely going to work in the long term. Just wait till Google screws some senator or billionaire's kid, or pisses off Anonymous. That'll be the gift that keeps on giving.
Tablet Wars: iPad Rules, Android Getting Better, Windows Has a Shot

I'm currently reviewing the Asus Transformer, Acer Iconia, Samsung Galaxy 10, Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) 7" and 5", and have an iPad 1 and 2 for comparative reference. I was one of the first reviewers of the Motorola (NYSE: MMI) Xoom, I've kept up on the HP (NYSE: HPQ) Touchpad reviews, and I was briefed on both the Lenovo IdeaPad and ThinkPad tablets but haven't tried them myself yet.

My overall take was that the first Honeycomb release, which the Xoom exemplified, was Google repeating Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Vista mistake and trying to outshine that company with sloppy work. Honeycomb 3.0 made Vista look good. The 3.01 helped a bit, but the recent 3.1 drop eliminated most of the OS problems.

Ironically, the Dell Streak tablets, which are based on Android 2.2, have been more consistently reliable and more useful than the Honeycomb products. This is because they have access to the full smartphone application set (the Honeycomb products get a vastly smaller number of applications), and that older platform is now comparatively mature (crashes less often).

The products with the most promise for business are the coming Panasonic Toughbook tablet, which has an outdoor viewable screen, and the Lenovo ThinkPad tablet. Both of these have digitizers and were designed to meet a higher quality standard. I should have them to review when they launch later this year, and I think they are worth waiting for.

Overall, the Android products were great for videos (once I figured out how to get videos on them), great for music and browsing the Web, great for light games ("Angry Birds") and had wonderful all-day battery life. However, productivity apps sucked (no spell checkers in the word-processing apps for instance), and a number of the applications that came with them crashed or simply didn't work.

Only one, the Lenovo K, ran Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) -- and I couldn't get it shipped to arrive in time for this review. My sense is these are still generally best for folks who like to tinker. They aren't where they need to be for a general customer, but they are closer than they were a few months ago.

Based on all of this, I have drawn a few conclusions. One is that the tablet market remains an iPad market for this round. Two, the hardware for the Android products is more than competitive, but the software and services aren't where they need to be to truly compete with Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) yet. Three, Google needs a tighter focus on customer satisfaction. And four, all of this suggests that Microsoft still has a shot -- and my experience with the Dell products clearly shows it could have had one of the top tablets this year if it had offered a Windows Phone 7 tablet. (Currently, Windows Phone 7 has higher customer satisfaction than Android).

Wrapping Up: Google Needs to Step Up

Google shut down its Labs this week to better focus on existing products, and it desperately needs that focus. Part of that focus needs to be on customer satisfaction. It is lagging badly both with Android and with customer protection, as poor Dylan pointed out, for its services.

The massive legal challenges, issues with antitrust, and problems with customer care and product quality indicate a company in trouble, and these troubles could all peak at once and cripple the firm. In short, Google needs to step up or step out of some of these efforts.

Google's No. 1 problem isn't Apple, Microsoft, or the U.S. Government -- it remains Google itself. With its customers' support, there are few things Google can't do, but there are few things it will be able to sustain if it doesn't start taking better care of those customers.

One final comment: Apple isn't standing still, and the recent filing of a 3D patent application suggests it will be making another breakout move with the iPad 3 or 4.

Product of the Week: Asus Transformer

Product of the Week Building a better iPad is a losing game, and most of the competing products are iPad-like slates. The most different of the products I'm currently reviewing is the Asus Transformer.

This product is amazing, and what makes it so is the keyboard integration. The keyboard not only attaches securely to the tablet, turning the result into a small laptop, but also has enough weight so that touch still works. Part of this weight is a second battery, creating truly legendary battery life.

It has multiple SD card slots (full SD in the keyboard and micro SD in the tablet), an HDMI port out, and even a full USB port on the keyboard. It actually has a better port out than a MacBook Air when it has the keyboard attached.

The product does have some issues: One of my key applications, Netflix, isn't available on it yet. Also, the Asus desktop sync application and calendar don't work, and the included word processor doesn't appear to have a spell checker.

These problems can largely be fixed with third-party Android apps -- and with Netflix approved on Lenovo's Android tablets, hopefully it will soon show up on the others.

Asus Eee Pad Transformer

On Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), the price for the Transformer tablet is US$489 (32 gig version). For the keyboard/dock, it's $155, or a little over $640 for both. That compares to the 32 GB iPad without keyboard for $669. Its keyboard and epic battery life make the Asus Transformer my product of the week. It is just geeky cool.

Computing » Android Apps and the Honeycomb Holdup

Android Honeycomb, the version of the mobile OS built specifically for tablet devices, was first rolled out many months ago. Several Honeycomb tablets are on store shelves. Yet the number of Android apps built specifically for Honeycomb remains relatively small compared to the tens of thousands of iPad apps Apple claims. What's the holdup?

Android Honeycomb tablets are now on store shelves and vendor websites. Six months from Honeycomb's release, tablet makers have finally optimized their hardware to fit the new made-for-tablets OS version to their larger-than-smartphone screens.

But where are the apps? Buyers of shiny new 8- and 10-inch touchscreen Android tablets suffer from a glaring lack of Android 3.0 -- aka "Honeycomb" -- apps specifically designed to use the increased functionality of the latest tablet-sized OS. Consumers now enjoy a growing number of tablet choices other than the iPad. But the Android market comes nowhere near matching Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) claim of 100,000 apps made specifically for the iPad.

Tablet developers are promising consumers, however, that Honeycomb-quality apps are on their way. And if you believe the hype, these apps will have matching screen resolution. That means Android users will not see blurry interfaces or apps that sit in a tiny window in the center of a big screen as often happens with current Android smartphone apps that run on the tablets.

"It's a similar pattern to what we saw when the iPad first came out. Clearly, there is a lack of apps that are optimized for the Android tablets. We already see this changing quite a bit," Amit Rohatgi, principal architect for mobile at MIPS, told LinuxInsider.


Android Antics

From an app developer's viewpoint, the situation facing the Honeycomb release mimics similar sluggish starts of any new technology. Until the dust settles, app writers have little impetus to rush Honeycomb apps to market.

But by the end of this year, the Android app market will clearly explode, Rohatgi said.

"We are already seeing it happen in Asia. It is falling to the local developers to bring forward applications for those devices," he explained.

Slow Go

The scarcity of Honeycomb-specific apps has something to do with the way the OS was released. Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) released the first- and second-generation Android code almost immediately. This created a feeding frenzy for apps as Android phones proliferated.

"Google started out withholding the Honeycomb code from a lot of device makers. This is still the case. Google started out targeting the Honeycomb code specifically for the tablet. In the past Google would release code as open source within four weeks," Kevin Kitagawa, marking director for digital homes for MIPS, told LinuxInsider.

This strategy was Google's way to prevent fragmentation of the Android platform. That plan seems to be based on the notion that only developers who agreed to support both the tablet and the smartphone would get the Honeycomb code, he said.

MIPS is not an app developer. The company provides OEMs with processor IPs. Even so, MIPS had to sign Google's anti-fragmentation agreement to get an early access license, said Kitagawa.

More Push Needed

The current state of Android's Honeycomb market compared to iPad's offerings might be an opportunity for Android to become better than the Apple App Store, according to Giles Nugent, financial technology expert at SAE Institute. He has over 20 apps for iPad in the App Store but so far is not developing for the Honeycomb platform.

"I haven't found it worthwhile to develop apps for the Android tablet market because there aren't that many people who buy them or use them," Nugent told LinuxInsider.

That view, he contends, speaks to the general condition of the Honeycomb market today. Consider iPhone versus Android phones.

"Obviously Android is exploding fast. Android is a great market. But some of its weaknesses are magnified by the user base that you have," he said.

Leveling the Landscape

The pre-Honeycomb Android market has been plagued with apps that work on some phones and tablet devices but not on others. Andorid 3.0, or Honeycomb, will correct that issue. The hardware is now in place.

"This will encourage app developers to start doing one or two things or both together. They will either start developing apps for the Honeycomb tablets or start migrating their existing apps to higher resolutions," suggested Rohatgi.

Apple is going to continue being the dominant player in the tablet marketplace for a period of time. But that will change, according to both Rohatgi and Kitagawa. In a short period of time, there are tons of OEMs out there who will start to turn out devices.

Pixel Pleasure

Some evidence of better-performing apps for Honeycomb is seen in recent notes Google put on its website. Google appears to have standardized specs about pixel density and settings for certain parameters for differing device sizes.

"That alone will drive developers to create apps for paid and advertising-based support. It is a pure money game so they can get more eyeballs on it," said Rohatgi.

Google's Android blog recently announced the next upgrade of Android will have a button to re-size an app's interface on a tablet. Is that the cure, or is it just a temporary solution?

Maybe and Maybe Not

"That is part of the way there. It may be all of the way there. It will come down to seeing it is believing it, due to the second part of that solution," said Nugent.

As an app developer, he needs to know how it re-sizes. For instance, does it just stretch everything? Or can the developer dictate how it does it between the phone and the tablet?

"So just stretching it is a help. But the real issue is, how does it stretch things?" Nugent noted.

More To It

Not only is the pixel count important. The process Honeycomb will use is essential.

For example, let's say you are playing "Angry Birds." The ratio of the screen X:Y on a phone is not going to be the same as on a tablet. On an iPhone, is it 2:3. On a tablet it is 3:4. The width is three-fourths of the height, Nugent explained.

Secondly, it would help if it did the stretching automatically for you. So the user experience isn't necessarily as good, he said.

Is this a real solution, or just a half-measure? It seems like it would be a one-up on the way iPad handles iPhone apps -- they look highly pixelated when expanded to full screen. But running a phone app on a tablet is still different than using a tablet app on a tablet, regardless of whether its appearance has been cleaned up.

For example, since tablet apps are designed with more screen real estate in mind, they're capable of offering more detail and finer interfaces.

"I don't know that that is a show stopper. But it makes you wonder what other issues will evolve. It is an unknown. Certainly up until now that has been a problem," said Nugent.

Does Core Count?

Another issue still unresolved is whether Honeycomb tablets will come pre-installed with a core set of specifically optimized apps for Android 3. Unlike desktop and laptop computers, OEMs have yet to settle on a standard library of installed apps. That is also true for the iPad.

"I find that that there are some core apps on the iPad, but most of it is user-selected. It is more about custom apps for the user. It is just a mobile device just like the phone. Each user tweaks it," said Nugent

On the desktop and laptop computers -- either Mac or PC -- the core products are geared to labor-intense data entry. That is not what you do with smartphones and tablets, he added.

Random Reality

Tablets so far rely on a random set of applications. The question, as Nugent sees it, becomes, what is the range of available products for the user to enjoy on a tablet versus the iPad, and how well do those applications work?

"I hear no noise about the Android tablet. I hear a lot of noise about the Android phones in terms of available apps," he said.

Related to this issue of Honeycomb-specific apps is the current lack of a consistent marketplace for Android tablets and phones, noted Nugent. Consumers don't want to have to hunt very hard for apps.

"So that is just a huge advantage for the Apple Store. And until the Android -- and Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) is trying to do it -- consolidates into a single market store delivery platform, it will be very difficult for people to get comfortable with Android tablets," warned Nugent.

Fracturing Factors

Discontent about a not-yet-there store of Honeycomb-specific apps may not be as critical for consumers as other factors. The software and user interface issue will be resolved by the developer ecosystem within the next year or so, according to Nizar Assanie, vice president of research at IE Market Research Corporation in Canada.

"The real crucial issues are the pricing, sales channel and product differentiation issues around Android tablet devices," Assanie told LinuxInsider.

For example, his company's surveys show that 65 percent of U.S. consumers feel that price is an important issue when they are making a decision to purchase a tablet device. The average price consumer expect to pay is only about US$250, down from over $550 only one year ago, he said.

According to responses from 1,500 U.S. consumers, the number of available applications is one of the three most important features to only 25 percent of U.S. consumers. That is nowhere near the purchase cost or data plan contract flexibility in deciding on a tablet purchase, concluded Assanie.

Computing » Fulcrum Microsystems - Levering Up Intel's Cloud Ambitions

The expanding role of 10 GbE in cloud computing environments is the bigger story here. Intel's Xeon CPUs play critical roles in the vast majority of cloud and hyper-scale computing infrastructures and are critically important to cloud service providers of every sort. The company is also working closely with cloud storage vendors to enhance performance and efficiency.

Intel's (Nasdaq: INTC) recently announced plans to acquire Fulcrum Microsystems, a privately held fabless Ethernet semiconductor company, may seem counterintuitive to some. Founded in 1999, Fulcrum develops integrated, standards-based 10- and 40-Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) switch silicon designed to deliver low latency and workload-balancing capabilities, along with superior network speeds.

By way of explanation, Intel said that Fulcrum's silicon complements its processors and Ethernet controllers, thereby enhancing solution performance, energy efficiency and service delivery. Intel also noted that 10-GbE networks are one of today's fastest-growing data center market segments, and that they can also be used to support evolving cloud architectures and converged enterprise networks.

Good enough. But what does any of this have to do with Intel -- a vendor that most associate with PCs and servers?

Change may be inevitable, but public understanding of IT vendor evolution is mostly apparent in its absence. Businesses typically succeed by creating quality products and brands, and establishing them in the public consciousness via clever marketing 6 Ways to Use Social Media for Business. Free Guide. campaigns. Those memorable impressions tend to stick to businesses long after they have expanded into other markets or focused on other areas of interest.

Intel's Bigger Story

Why bring up Intel here? First, the company's "Intel Inside" campaign has long been recognized as one of the IT industry's signature advertising strategies, driving more fundamental value (both in brand recognition and revenues) than virtually any other IT vendor promotional effort. Intel Inside cemented the company's qualities in the minds of consumers and business owners, and helped its Pentium solutions literally dominate personal computing.

However, its value in other Intel efforts was less clear -- or even questionable, as when the company shifted attention toward wireless connectivity and ultra-mobility solutions.

Moreover, it has had little impact on the server and other solutions developed by Intel's Data Center Group (DCG). Not that it did anything to hinder those efforts, either. Depending on which market research firm you talk with, sales of various Intel server CPUs have roughly doubled over the past decade and occupy some 90 percent (by volume) of servers sold worldwide.

That point is certainly well known in the IT industry, but the company is also a major, if less recognizable, leader in numerous other data center markets.

Data storage has been a key Intel success story over the past few years, with its Xeon and other silicon powering everything from home and small office solutions (often based on Intel reference architectures) to a large majority of leading enterprise-class storage systems and RAID controllers.

Similar Intel success stories exist for other DCG focus markets including virtualization, cloud and supercomputing.

Look for the Intel Lining

The company's market leadership position also casts light on the Fulcrum deal. Intel collaborates with numerous networking vendors, including Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Brocade (Nasdaq: BRCD), and Fulcrum isn't the first networking technology company it has acquired. But the move reflects a pair of core Intel strategies.

The first is a bet on high bandwidth Ethernet -- the architecture of choice for growing numbers of networking companies and enterprises. Fulcrum's no/low latency and workload-balancing capabilities should make the company's offerings attractive to a variety of 10-GbE and 40-GbE solution providers and their customers.

Still, the expanding role of 10 GbE in cloud computing environments is the bigger story here. Intel's Xeon CPUs play critical roles in the vast majority of cloud and hyper-scale computing infrastructures and are critically important to cloud service providers of every sort. The company is also working closely with cloud storage vendors to enhance performance and efficiency (its collaboration with EMC (NYSE: EMC) on Atmos is a good example).

With these and other points in mind, Fulcrum should provide Intel with many of the technologies required to develop and deliver a broad portfolio of highly integrated, optimized, end-to-end cloud silicon solutions. That, in turn, will be of interest to Intel's traditional server, storage and networking OEM partners, as well as cloud service providers that prefer "rolling their own" system components.

A generation ago, Intel Inside described the company's singular effort to enhance any user's personal computing experience. Today, the company's acquisition of Fulcrum Microsystems underscores Intel's ambitious goal of being inside every part of the cloud.