Citrix has retired the Citrix Branch Repeater and released the new Citrix CloudBridge this week. Read more:
Citrix is pleased to announce the new WAN-optimization appliances: CloudBridge 2000 and CloudBridge 3000. These appliances come loaded with our WAN-optimization and XenDesktop acceleration technologies including rich protocol optimization, advanced TCP flow-control, adaptive compression and smart acceleration.
I am very happy that Richmond, VA was picked as an IBM Smarter City 2013 and won grant money. Richmond, VA is approximately 1.5 hours from Virginia Beach, VA and a beautiful city. Great award and honor for Richmond, VA!
Below is the announcement:
Smarter Cities Challenge 2013 winners
IBM has selected 31 cities worldwide to receive IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grants in 2013. The Smarter Cities Challenge, now in its third year, is IBM's single largest philanthropic initiative, valued at US $50 million. Over three years, the program is deploying teams of top IBM experts to work with 100 cities around the world.
During immersive, 3-week engagements, teams of 5 to 6 experts in a range of disciplines work in their host cities to deliver detailed recommendations addressing key urban issues identified by local elected officials and other stakeholders.
The grant recipients were announced at an invitation-only Smarter Cities Challenge Summit in Palisades, New York that brought together mayors and city leaders with IBM experts and urban policy leaders. The nearly 20 mayors in attendance, representing every inhabited continent, included those from cities that were previously awarded Smarter Cities Challenge grants, as well as those whose cities have been named 2013 winners.
At the Summit, leaders of 2013 winning cities collaborated with previous winners from around the world and with IBM's Smarter Cities experts, many of whom are Smarter Cities Challenge alumni, to discuss lessons learned from the first 2 years of the program and share successful strategies on topics ranging from transportation and economic development to sustainability and citizen participation. They also reviewed innovative solutions to the major challenges facing cities today, such as identifying financing, refining operating strategies, improving productivity, driving organizational change, and using data and technology effectively.
Barracuda Networks updates list of countries that cannot purchase their technology. See quote from letter to sellers:
- Prohibited uses: When permissible, items destined for nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons proliferation will require a U.S. or other government license or permit. Licenses can take as much as 60 days to obtain and there is no guarantee a license will be granted.
- Technology Restrictions: Barracuda encrypted products classified as 5D002, 740.17(b)(2) will require licenses for government and military end users not located in Supplement 3 countries: (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom). For a list of the classifications of our current products, visit our website:http://content.barracudanetworks.com/e/10742/tradecompliance/xssqv/314065545.
Note the following VMware announcement:
VMware Announces End of Availability Date for VMware vSphere® ESX hypervisor 4.x and VMware Management Assistant Versions 1 and 4.
On November 28, 2012, VMware is notifying customers of an End of Availability ("EoA") date for VMware vSphere® ESX hypervisor 4.x and for VMware Management Assistant ("vMA") versions 1 and 4. The end of availability date is August 15, 2013. This is a follow-on communication to the general announcement made in July 2011 in connection with the launch of vSphere 5.0.
This notification has NO IMPACT on existing vSphere ESXi 4.x environments, and your customers are NOT required to take any action. However, it is recommended that customers make a backup or keep an archived copy of these binaries and generate any necessary license keys in order to maintain or expand a vSphere ESX hypervisor version 4.x or vMA versions 1 and 4 environment. These steps should be completed prior to August 15, 2013. VMware will not provide any binaries or license keys for vSphere ESX hypervisor 4.x or vMA versions 1 and 4 after August 15, 2013.
Last night, we upgraded ITBlog Virtualization to MovableType 5.2 for enhanced features. Most of these features will be enabled over the upcoming weeks.
Stay tuned...
Dell acquires Quest Software. Quest Software makes the popular PowerGUI script editor--my favorite! Here is the letter that went out to Quest Software customers:
Dear Valued Quest Customers:
I want to inform you that today Quest announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Dell. Please see the press release that was disseminated this morning for further details. But first, I'd like to offer my perspective and explain what this means to you as a Quest customer.
This agreement is great news for our customers and partners worldwide. Dell's distribution, reach and brand are well recognized in the industry. Dell is acquiring Quest as the foundation to their software business. As you may know, Dell is the third-largest technology company in the world. They have chosen Quest because our focus on systems management and security align so well with their overall software strategy. As a customer, combining Quest's award-winning products and people with Dell's considerable influence means you will have access to increased IT knowledge and resources to help your company succeed.
The entire Quest team is excited about joining Dell. The Quest products and technology are an excellent fit with Dell's software strategy. On a personal note, however, customers have always been our first priority. Solving key customer pains and supporting our customers relentlessly are the driving forces behind our success and frankly, why we love to come to work every day. Those things will not change as we begin making this transition.This is merely the beginning of the process and the acquisition is subject to standard closing conditions. We will update you with more information as appropriate. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please reach out to me or to your Quest sales team.
Best Regards,
Vinny Smith
Guy Kawasaki was scheduled to speak on Venture Capitalism 2 days after the death of Steve Jobs. Instead, he changed his topic to 12 Lessons Steve Jobs Taught Guy Kawasaki on the fly. Guy was the Apple Evangelist two different times at Apple. Guy is now one of the sought after Venture Capitalist in the world. This was a very interesting speech--and intriguing (the stories of Guy and Steve working together).
