Attention Turns to Tim Cook: The tech industry shared a collective gasp — and then began Tweeting like crazy — when Apple Steve Jobs resigned as Apple CEO Wednesday. His spot will be taken by Tim Cook, previously Apple's chief operating officer. Although Jobs didn’t say so explicitly, it seems clear the health issues that have plagued him for years have now made it impossible for him to live up to his own high expectations on a day-to-day basis. Cook, who is 50, joined Apple in 1998 and was promoted to COO in 2004. He has headed shareholder meetings and earnings calls with Wall Street, and has acted as a figurehead at product introductions. Cnet Who Wants HP’s PC Business? A list of potential buyers of HP’s PC division is starting to take shape. First up is Samsung, which has been trying to build a PC business since 1997, when it acquired AST Research. Acer, Lenovo, Sony and even archrival Dell could all make bids for what is seen as an $8 billion business. AllThingsD China Is Now the Largest Market for PCs: PC shipments in China rose 14 percent to 18.5 million units during the second quarter. That’s the first time they surpassed the number in the U.S., where they fell 4.8 percent to 17.7 million. Next year will be the first full year in which China bests the U.S. While HP is getting out of the PC business, China’s Lenovo Group doubled its quarterly profit. China accounted for 22 percent of the global PC market in shipments, 1 percentage point more than the U.S. It will end at 72.4 million shipments for the year. Bloomberg New Gadgets Have Only Days to Succeed: HP killed the TouchPad after just 48 days. Microsoft killed the Kin mobile phone after 48 days. Google canceled Wave after 77 days. In 2007, Palm’s Foleo never even made it to market. What’s going on? Call it the Apple phenomenon. Gadget watchers have grown accustomed to blockbuster hits, and like Hollywood’s products, if a new release doesn’t do boffo box office within a few days — or doesn’t come out of the gate with a lot of apps — it’s considered a flop. Things have changed since 2005, when Microsoft showed great patience with the Xbox and ultimately enjoyed great success with it. The New York Times Bunchball 'Gamifies' Salesforce.com: Software developer Bunchball wants to “gamify” every website in the world through tools that make them more game-like, and that includes cloud-based business apps. Nitro for Salesforce.com uses game-like rewards to motivate salespeople, driving up adoption, engagement and performance. It integrates with Force.com, and is scalable and customizable. So far it has 100 customers with millions of users. VentureBeat Facebook Gets Competitive with New Privacy Features: Google+ made a splash by emphasizing privacy and intimate groupings of close associates and offering the kinds of private friend lists Facebook never had. Now Facebook is fighting back with new controls for sharing personal information, including tools to manage who can see information about each user. A number of privacy controls will be moved to home pages and profile pages and be far more obvious. Changes include adding icons to individual posts so users can control who gets to see each post. Users will also gain the ability to change their minds about who has permission to see a post after it has gone out. The Wall Street Journal Upcoming Tech Events Dreamforce 2011 August 30 - September 2 — San Francisco Dreamforce brings together leaders in cloud computing to collaborate, connect, and inspire. Every year attendees learn how the next wave of cloud computing can help their businesses soar. Enjoy breakout sessions, hands-on training, and networking events, as well as keynotes, interactive demos, in-depth discussions, technical training, and more. Dell IT Executive Leadership Summit August 31- September 2 — Austin Attendees can create their own agenda over the two day event, selecting from a number of sessions led by Dell IT and the CTO’s office. Attendees also have the chance to hear guest speakers from Dell and around the IT world. Enterprise Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity - HA/Resilient Infrastructure September 8 — Chicago Learn strategies and tactics to successfully build a highly available/resilient DR/BC infrastructure. Seminars offered include Enabling the Resilient Enterprise, Aligning Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity with Business Objectives, Avoiding Data Center Disasters, Testing the Resiliency of Your IT Infrastructure, and Justifying Funds for Your High Availability Environment. SAP TechEd September 12 - 16 — Las Vegas This is the essential technical training and networking conference for IT professionals who develop, implement, optimize, and upgrade SAP systems. Add value to your company by unlocking the power of the SAP NetWeaver technology platform and SAP BusinessObjects solutions. Plus, discover how to mobilize your enterprise, integrate on-demand solutions, and run better with SAP In-Memory Computing technology. Roundup: Observers Consider Apple's Future
Attention Turns to Tim Cook: The tech industry shared a collective gasp — and then began Tweeting like crazy — when Apple Steve Jobs resigned as Apple CEO Wednesday. His spot will be taken by Tim Cook, previously Apple's chief operating officer. Although Jobs didn’t say so explicitly, it seems clear the health issues that have plagued him for years have now made it impossible for him to live up to his own high expectations on a day-to-day basis. Cook, who is 50, joined Apple in 1998 and was promoted to COO in 2004. He has headed shareholder meetings and earnings calls with Wall Street, and has acted as a figurehead at product introductions. Cnet Who Wants HP’s PC Business? A list of potential buyers of HP’s PC division is starting to take shape. First up is Samsung, which has been trying to build a PC business since 1997, when it acquired AST Research. Acer, Lenovo, Sony and even archrival Dell could all make bids for what is seen as an $8 billion business. AllThingsD China Is Now the Largest Market for PCs: PC shipments in China rose 14 percent to 18.5 million units during the second quarter. That’s the first time they surpassed the number in the U.S., where they fell 4.8 percent to 17.7 million. Next year will be the first full year in which China bests the U.S. While HP is getting out of the PC business, China’s Lenovo Group doubled its quarterly profit. China accounted for 22 percent of the global PC market in shipments, 1 percentage point more than the U.S. It will end at 72.4 million shipments for the year. Bloomberg New Gadgets Have Only Days to Succeed: HP killed the TouchPad after just 48 days. Microsoft killed the Kin mobile phone after 48 days. Google canceled Wave after 77 days. In 2007, Palm’s Foleo never even made it to market. What’s going on? Call it the Apple phenomenon. Gadget watchers have grown accustomed to blockbuster hits, and like Hollywood’s products, if a new release doesn’t do boffo box office within a few days — or doesn’t come out of the gate with a lot of apps — it’s considered a flop. Things have changed since 2005, when Microsoft showed great patience with the Xbox and ultimately enjoyed great success with it. The New York Times Bunchball 'Gamifies' Salesforce.com: Software developer Bunchball wants to “gamify” every website in the world through tools that make them more game-like, and that includes cloud-based business apps. Nitro for Salesforce.com uses game-like rewards to motivate salespeople, driving up adoption, engagement and performance. It integrates with Force.com, and is scalable and customizable. So far it has 100 customers with millions of users. VentureBeat Facebook Gets Competitive with New Privacy Features: Google+ made a splash by emphasizing privacy and intimate groupings of close associates and offering the kinds of private friend lists Facebook never had. Now Facebook is fighting back with new controls for sharing personal information, including tools to manage who can see information about each user. A number of privacy controls will be moved to home pages and profile pages and be far more obvious. Changes include adding icons to individual posts so users can control who gets to see each post. Users will also gain the ability to change their minds about who has permission to see a post after it has gone out. The Wall Street Journal Upcoming Tech Events Dreamforce 2011 August 30 - September 2 — San Francisco Dreamforce brings together leaders in cloud computing to collaborate, connect, and inspire. Every year attendees learn how the next wave of cloud computing can help their businesses soar. Enjoy breakout sessions, hands-on training, and networking events, as well as keynotes, interactive demos, in-depth discussions, technical training, and more. Dell IT Executive Leadership Summit August 31- September 2 — Austin Attendees can create their own agenda over the two day event, selecting from a number of sessions led by Dell IT and the CTO’s office. Attendees also have the chance to hear guest speakers from Dell and around the IT world. Enterprise Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity - HA/Resilient Infrastructure September 8 — Chicago Learn strategies and tactics to successfully build a highly available/resilient DR/BC infrastructure. Seminars offered include Enabling the Resilient Enterprise, Aligning Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity with Business Objectives, Avoiding Data Center Disasters, Testing the Resiliency of Your IT Infrastructure, and Justifying Funds for Your High Availability Environment. SAP TechEd September 12 - 16 — Las Vegas This is the essential technical training and networking conference for IT professionals who develop, implement, optimize, and upgrade SAP systems. Add value to your company by unlocking the power of the SAP NetWeaver technology platform and SAP BusinessObjects solutions. Plus, discover how to mobilize your enterprise, integrate on-demand solutions, and run better with SAP In-Memory Computing technology. 
