You are worth 125 dollars for Facebook

Posted: March 13, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: News, Social media | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Facebook is on the eve of the largest stock exchange listing in modern time for a technology company. Preliminary trading in the company’s shares reveal that Facebook is valued at around USD 100 billion!

According to the latest figures and in the second-hand trading taking place with Facebook shares in online marketplaces such as SharesPost and SecondMarket, the company was valued at USD 98 billion as of February 14. How the actual valuation will turn out on listing is hard to predict since the preliminary trading that is now in progress is not accessible to the general public. Facebook should be a stock with enormous potential popularity among a large spectrum of private persons, not least thanks to their extensive knowledge and the sheer number of users. How many companies that started operating in the first decade of the 21st century have more than 400 million daily users and more than 800 million fans?

As a comparison, we can look at LinkedIn (the largest social media site with focus on companies) which was listed in 2011. In preliminary trading the share was trading at 45 dollars. The first day when the share was publicly traded the share price rose to 122 dollars to close at 94 dollars at day’s end. Today (17/2), just over one year later, LinkedIn is trading at 93 dollars.

So if we start from the assumption that Facebook is not worth anything without its users, which is a reasonable argument, we can say that USD 100 billion divided by 800 million users means that each individual Facebook user is worth USD 125.

With that in the back of one’s head, it is perhaps easier to understand how you can use  Facebook on your computer and phone without being charged a dime! Quite simply, you are worth gold to all those who own shares in Facebook.

Here is a fantastic infograph on the Facebook IPO prepared by Greg Voakes:

Created by: AccountingDegreeOnline.net

Please note that I do not make any recommendation regarding whether an investment in Facebook shares is a good idea or not.

Thank you for reading this article and please leave your comments below.

Introduction to The New Ipad 3 – Look – Speed – Screen – Price

Posted: March 10, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Hardware, News | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

The other day Apple released the new Ipad to the world. As always when Apple does this the expectations was huge. It can´t be easy to be Apple this days with a brand with extreme expectations and demanding fans. However there is a reason for it. Smart people building a huge brand and great products, products that are at least in my opinion not so innovative that Apple claims themselves but the fact remains, they are just a little bit better than their competitors. Being better gives a lot of possibilities like high pricing and advantages like massive volumes, which of course is a strong combination in all businesses. People simply accept paying extra for having the best product out there in a particular segment, whether it´s a smartphone, computer or tablet.

So back to the latest new product launch of New Ipad 3 taking place Wednesday 7 March. I will give you some short headlines of the most important news that you should know about. Within short ThessanW is publishing a longer article “IPad 3 (New iPad) vs iPad 2 – Do I need to buy the latest model?” and my guess is it will go deeper in to the technical issues and compare Ipad 2 vs The New Ipad 3. I´m sure It will be worth reading. Don´t miss it.

Look – The New Ipad 3

The look of the New Ipad 3 is very similar to the Ipad 2. It´s a little bit thinner but on the other hand a little bit heavier. To be honest. I´m not sure there is so much more to improve about the look, at least not thickness and screen. If it gets thinner It will break and the screen is pretty much covering the entire width and height of the Ipad already.

But the look of the new Ipad 3 is definitely an improvement, however a small one. But since the Ipad 2 was the best looking tablet on the market before this is now the best looking tablet on the market.

The New Ipad 3 size and weight:

  • Height: 9.50 inches (241.2 mm)
  • Width: 7.31 inches (185.7 mm)
  • Depth: 0.37 inch (9.4 mm)
  • Weight: 1.44 pounds (652 g)

Connections and speed - Wi-Fi and 4G – The New Ipad 3

The new Ipad 3 is equipped with ultra fast 4G LTE = Hyperfast connection to the Internet.

The earlier Ipad has been delivered with different connection options, wi-fi and wi-fi + 3G. First came the wi-fi Ipad were you had to be at your office, home or some other wi-fi spot to connect to the Internet. Depending on how you use your Ipad this will be various important but in my opinion tablets without a constant access to the Internet is a joke in 2012. At least when it comes to personal use.

With 4G we will come to a point where we stop thinking of the speed of our Internet connection. Remember just a few years ago  every one talking about what bandwith you had at the office or at home. Does days are over, right? we are so used to high speed connections so it´s not an issue anymore. We can download and stream unlimited GB without any problem. With 4G growing we will see the same phenomena with our handheld connections in tablets and phones. So that the New Ipad 3 has 4G is a necessity. I will definitaly not invest any money in a budget Ipad without 4G. At start the 4G options will be limited to AT&T and Verizon.

My guess is that wathing TV and movies with tablets over the Internet will explode with 4G LTE. Samsung is one step ahead launching Samsung S2 with 4G and their tablet Samsung Tab with 4G before Apple and the other competitors. But as Apple proven before it´s not all about being first. It´s more important to be better.

The chip in The New Ipad is new and called A5X. Apple A5X has dual-core with quad-core graphics. Can´t say much about the actual experienced speed yet.

Screen – The New Ipad 3 with Retina screen

The screen is definitely one strong factor for The New Ipad 3 with a new Retina screen with 4 times more pixels than Ipad 2. In short that means better details and feel for graphic. That rimes well with my guess that we will use tablets more and more for watching movies or TV. Then the screen will be of huge importance. The resolution is amazing 2048 x1536. Remember that HD TV for example is 1920 x 1080. The screen is exactly 9,7 inch and Apple managed to deliver 3.1 million pixels in this limited space. That just has to look great.

Price – The New Ipad 3

Pricing starts at $499 with the Ipad with Wi-Fi and 16GB memory.  32GB-version is $599 and 64GB is $699. With Wi-Fi + 4G and 16GB $629, 32GB $729 and 64$ 829$. In my opinion there are only two interesting bundling to choose from and that is the $729 and the $829 versions. With all new free cloud services for storage of video and pictures (for example Dropbox – read our article “Five reasons to us Dropbox“) i think the $729 is a smart buy.

Conclusions – The New Ipad 3

The New Ipad will stay around and the version with 4G LTE technology feels future-proof. I don´t think we will understand the power of the new Ipad 3 until we have better availability to 4G. So depending on where you live and what timeframe you have in mind the new Ipad 3 is a great buy, and particularly the 4G – 32GB version. And remember that without 4G there will be limited possibility to get well paid for it, when it’s time to replace it with a new gadget.

So what about that strange name “The New Ipad” ? My guess is that the reason for Apple not naming it Ipad 3 is simply because the single biggest improvement (from a user perspective) is 4G, and it would be confusing mixing number 3 with 4 :) So The “New Ipad” isn´t that bad after all.

Thank you for reading this post. Please comment below! What´s your opinion on the features and looks of The New Ipad 3? Don´t forget to check out our free Ipad guides with smart tips and tricks at http://www.comaroundfree.com/?query=ipad

Related links:
Free guides and tips http://www.comaroundfree.com/?query=ipad
Apple Store – Buy The New Ipad 3 http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_ipad/family/ipad
Apple The New Ipad 3 release video http://youtu.be/AEngFNb5CRU
Five reason to use Dropbox http://comaround.wordpress.com/?s=dropbox

Why you should move to the cloud – 5 good reasons

Posted: March 9, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Company stuff, Software | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

This week Inspiration Day Cloud 2012 is being held in Stockholm. The purpose is to inspire decision-makers to take the step into the cloud. The question is for whom the cloud is suited, when is the right time to take the step and, of course, what do we gain by going to the cloud?

We at ComAround have, for example, ever since 1999, worked with deliveries of software via the Internet (Software as a Service or SaaS) so the cloud as a concept is not a wholly new phenomenon. What is new, however, is that one now moves the whole operation and the entire IT environment to the Internet or to the cloud. Preconditions that enable this step include a considerably improved infrastructure with faster connection times, new more intelligent software and enhanced security.

Why move to the cloud? – Why not?

The simple answer why you should move to the cloud is quite simple: because you can. Or try to answer “why not?” Previously it has been possible to answer the question with the arguments mentioned above i.e. – we don’t have sufficiently good connection speed, the operation is too unstable and it is too unreliable. But today these arguments don’t stand up. In many respects an own operating environment is considerably more unreliable from the viewpoint of operating reliability, at least for small and medium-sized companies. The trend is also that it is just these small and medium-sized companies that have moved to the cloud most rapidly. Larger companies, on the other hand, have made substantial investments in their own operations which it has not been possible to replace as quickly. Frequently, moreover one is stuck with long service agreements with sub-contractors that over many years have done everything they can to become irreplaceable.

An educated guess is that we  shall see a rapid consolidation of the number of data centres and some experts believe that in just a few years we shall have ten or so large data centres in the world that will handle all operations. The reason is quite simply that there are such enormous  economies of scale in this activity; indeed it is the same trend which means that there are benefits for companies in placing all – or at least large parts – of their IT environment in the cloud instead of running it themselves. We shall also see solutions where the basic operation is handled in-house and then cloud services are utilised to handle peak loads.

5 reasons to go to the cloud:

  1. Price (most self-evident for SME’s)
  2. Can focus on core operations
  3. Enables simple and rapid growth in line with operations
  4. Enhanced accessibility
  5. Because it can be done 

Many are competing to deliver cloud computing

Here are certain of the large cloud computing suppliers that expect to be involved in running our IT operations.

Desktop virtualisation leads straight to the cloud

Desktop virtualisation using PC’s as thin clients, which means that software lies on a server instead of a client computer, has also reduced the gap between the old traditional local PC and external clients operated in the cloud.

One thing is certain. The cloud affects us deeply and the younger generation now entering the workplace views accessibility via the Internet and thereby the cloud as something self-evident. There are clear advantages with shorter “get-started times”, the possibility of only paying for what one  uses and the prospect of having capacity expand as activities and needs change.

Cloud packaging services still immature?

The problem, at present, is still that there are too many different ways of presenting the cloud as an option. A consolidation is required where these are divided up more clearly on the basis of target group and demand and where it is possible to present the right solution for the right customer. Today, in my view, there is too much general talk from suppliers of advantages in general without demonstrating ready and practical solutions. One is pushing on an already open door! One conjecture is that cloud services will soon enter a more mature phase and thereby also the cloud computer offers available to small and medium-sized companies. When that day arrives I shall gladly choose to scrap our HP Server with Microsoft SBS!

Should you have examples of companies that actually have clear-cut packages for cloud services, I am hoping you will be able to share this information. Yes, I do look forward to the cloud but, in the meantime, I am happy to take things easy here in a cloudless environment.

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