While internal reporting indicated things were going surprisingly well – few to no problems – the reality was far different. Rather than taking over a project that was in good shape, Gelsinger was handed a disaster. One of the best managers in the company, having been mentored by Andy Grove and incredibly well regarded, he should have become CEO in the early 2000s, but, instead, he was forced out – though of course he had a successful career at EMC and Dell.

Well, Pat is back running Intel. And now Arc is Intel’s coming GPU line. At Intel’s architecture event this week, they showcased that Arc is no Larrabee; it is a potential game-changer.

Let’s explore Intel Arc (as in Story Arc) this week.

Arc Blending NVIDIA And AMD Constructs

In the GPU market, there are currently two technology providers that dominate the segment. They are AMD and NVIDIA.

NVIDIA tends to be more proprietary in its approach and tends to have higher performance; AMD is more Open Source and cross-platform but often trades off performance to get there. Intel, the last to the table, appears to be cherry-picking from both strategies. Technically advanced like NVIDIA, but also embracing Open Source and cross-platform elements like AMD does.

On paper (and that is all we have now), Intel’s Strategy could eclipse both vendors’ offerings, providing the equivalent of the best of each in the Intel Arc platform. Until there are parts to test, and both AMD and NVIDIA release their next-generation offerings that will compete against Arc, anyone’s ability to point Arc truly being better is minimal.

Strategic Approach: Big Push on Arc

Typically companies, and I’ll include old Intel, like to talk Strategy but operate tactically.  And, up until Arc, Intel’s Strategy seemed to be good enough for the integrated graphics market, effectively locking out their more robust competitors.

Still, with AMD moving to their APU strategy, this relatively safe approach couldn’t be continued, mainly if NVIDIA acquired ARM and did their own APU (a blend of CPU and GPU).

In addition, eventually, on this path, the gap would become too large, and with the market increasingly using GPUs as accelerators for AI loads, Intel could find itself increasingly locked out of the markets it once dominated. To eliminate this long-term strategic risk, Intel, with Arc, has moved to try and take technology leadership.

It’s risky, and neither AMD nor NVIDIA will take this risk sitting down, but the dire outcome if Intel didn’t do this was unacceptable to the company.  Arc is one of the most strategic efforts ever to come out of Intel.

Clear Risk

With Larrabee being a near-perfect example, you can have an over-promise under-execute problem like any new architecture and product. That risk exists with Arc as well.

However, Pat’s experience with Larrabee and its impact on his career should make him doubt that Arc won’t be another Larrabee. You don’t forget an experience like that, and Pat is far from stupid, so he is undoubtedly making sure the same kind of behavior that surrounded Larrabee won’t exist around Arc. Pat will undoubtedly make sure that Intel doesn’t overpromise and not deliver this time.

Wrapping Up

Arc, Intel’s new high-end graphics platform, enters a market currently dominated by AMD and NVIDIA. It is so promising to outperform the products provided by these competitors and offer a better integrated CPU/GPU bundle than NVIDIA can do before merging with ARM. That merger likely represents one of the greatest threats to Intel because of ARM’s dominance with Smartphones and Tablets, which may soon evolve to make PCs redundant.

Intel is working to make sure that doesn’t happen, and their efforts this week at Architecture Day indicate they are on track to surprise the market – and not in a bad way.

The post Intel Arc: Pat Gelsinger’s Revenge appeared first on eWEEK.

In fact, I’ve been waiting for this kind of cloud-based PC ever since Sun demonstrated their old Sun Ray One platform, which was positioned as a Windows killer but, in reality, was anything but.

Shortly after Sun launched their Sun Ray product, I held a CIO roundtable and the Sun team asked to sit in with the understanding they’d be flies on the wall and silent. I brought up the Sun Ray, and that silent team decided they’d speak up about the problems with Windows. Those CIOs took offense, pointing out they’d tested the Sun Ray and thought it was not adequate. They pulled no punches.

They pointed out that the performance was insufficient, as well as compatibility and support, and by the time they were done, it was clear they were not fans. That’s not to say they were happy with Windows NT at the time either, but they liked Sun Ray so much less.

However, there were aspects of the product that were compelling. It retained state, boot time was fast, and it was arguably (because the data was centrally located) far more secure against a breach as a result.

Microsoft set me up with a Windows 365 guest account with the base level configuration, two Xeon cores at 2.6 GHz, and here are my initial impressions.

Performance

The base configuration of the cloud-based Windows 365 performs as you’d likely expect, which means this is no gamer PC or workstation. It fails 3D Mark, PC Mark 10 turned out a score of 2,063, and Geekbench 3 scored 3,952. These aren’t  high performance scores, but they are adequate for basic word processing, spreadsheet work, and email.

Now where it knocked everything I’ve ever tested out of the park was with the Internet Speed Test, where I got a max of 1,125 Megabits down and a whopping 2,053 megabits up top speed. The speeds did vary slightly, but I never got below 849 Megabits down or 1,901 Megabits up. For comparison, I pay for my cable provider’s fastest speed, which is only 329.8 Megabits down and 11.7 Megabits up. That’s 3x the download speed I get and around 200x the upload speed.

This speed creates some interesting issues when logging into social media because it is so fast that Facebook and Twitter had issues. I eventually got around to the Facebook issue, but Twitter freaked out and thought I was some machine trying to log into my account. I’m guessing it is some feature they put in place to catch bots and expect it will get sorted eventually. However, on Facebook, where I often see wait states when I’m typing, it felt like I could work at warp speed way faster than I could from my home machine.

This result suggests the highest performance will be when you work with other online applications like filling out online forms because internet speeds won’t hamper you. Twitter showcased that you may trigger an alert because the system thinks you are too fast to be human. I had no issues with eBay either with near-instant page loads.

Oh, and you log out on one machine, and log back in on another, connect time is a fraction of what it would take to boot a PC, and you are right back where you left off. It retained state. In short, it performed as well as a base desktop or laptop with one exception, with Internet speeds that are well beyond what most of us are capable of getting.

Wrapping Up

I wrote this column in Windows 365 and didn’t notice any delays or latency; it felt like Word was running locally. For someone with modest needs that mostly live in Office, live in the browser, and uses online apps, this is a decent alternative to running those apps on a local machine.

And this approach does have a rather significant security advantage; the files aren’t on the client device, which can be Android, Mac, or iOS.  It should run on a current-generation Chromebook since they’ll run Android apps now (HP has a new Chromebook out, and they indicated Windows 365 would run on it).

Other than gaming, for most of what I do, Windows 365 ran fine with its base configuration and provided an exciting look at what happens when you combine the flexibility of the Windows 10 desktop with the availability of the cloud.

If you get a chance, check this out, it is what that old Sun Ray One should have been, and a little over 20 years later, we finally have that Windows killer; ironically, it is from Microsoft, and it’s still based on Windows.

Oh, and it will get better from here; this is a first-generation offering which typically means there is a ton of performance headroom, particularly when they add GPU options, in store for the future of Windows 365.

The post Living With Windows 365 appeared first on eWEEK.

The event enabled Google, Netflix, Amazon, and many other companies that didn’t exist before its birth, while Brick and Mortar companies that didn’t pivot to the new normal started to fail at scale.

We have another Internet event coming, the birth of the Metaverse or a Matrix-like Simulated environment that will even more deeply engage us. Much like we needed HTML for the Internet to assure website consistency allow browsers to work, we need something similar for this emerging virtual universe so that people can gain the same level of universal access they now enjoy with the Internet.

We now may have the HTML of the Multiverse, it is called Universal Scene Description (USD), and next week at Siggraph, we’ll get a sense of the progress beginning with the NVIDIA Keynote on Tuesday morning.

I was briefed on that keynote this afternoon, and it will be well worth watching.  I can’t tell you what is in the keynote as that would ruin it for you, so let’s instead chat about how the multiverse will be used and how it will change the world much as the Internet did.

Building The Matrix

The concept of the Metaverse is very similar to the concept that was created in the movie “The Matrix” in that it will become a mix of things like Digital Twins, representing the natural world in simulation, and imagined things as Movie and TV producers increasingly see it as a low-cost path to create ever more realistic entertainment.

Benefits will include many lives saved because it is already being used to help with training programs for Autonomous cars and robotics. The first will massively reduce the number of automotive deaths and injuries, and the latter will allow robots to take humans for hazardous jobs.

Simulating the world will allow us to develop more effective ways of preventing things like forest fires and better model and anticipate where a disaster like a fire might spread with more accurate estimates of the resources needed to stop the fire.

The simulations will help develop more targeted responses to both manufactured and natural disasters while increasing our ability to forecast where those disasters might occur with ever more extensive and more accurate weather and geothermal models improving our prediction capabilities.

Microsoft has already showcased how their HoloLens could be used to explore Mars remotely. Still, we’ll be able to model the planet based on what the various Mars Rovers discover and potentially become better able to discover the likely hiding places of life and resources that might make eventual colonization practical.

I expect that the robots trained in this Mars virtual world will increasingly make it unnecessary for people to go there until it is far safer than it is now and allow these people to wait until a round trip was possible.

Over time we’ll have large displays in our homes looking out at real or imagined places as we interconnect the real world with the Metaverse. Someone will figure out how to monetize virtual metaverse adventures, allowing you to travel to emulations of the past, future, or imagined worlds initially in simulators and eventually from our own homes.

As emersion technology increases, eventually, we may be able to live in those worlds, providing an alternative for people who are badly injured or crippled to experience life as if these afflictions didn’t exist.

And finally, we’ll be able to simulate ourselves in these worlds so that a Digital Twin can remain to help our descendants or become a permanent NPC (Non-Player Character) in Metaverse-based video games.

Wrapping Up

At Siggraph next week, you’ll get a sense of how considerable this effort is. You’ll meet the major companies (many of them household names) driving this effort and get a feel for the companies missing this wave as they won’t be attending or presenting.

You’ll also get a feel of how close we are to an Internet-like revolution that could spin much of the tech industry like a top, much as the Internet did in the 1990s.

Siggraph is worth attending most years, but this year, it could be a corporate lifesaver.

The post Siggraph and the Creation Of The Metaverse appeared first on eWEEK.

Ironically, Apple is running at the Enterprise as if it were the 1990s, not the 2020s, and they are doing it during a massive move to the Cloud with a product that is non-standard at scale. By this last, I mean Windows is the Enterprise standard. Getting an enterprise to change standards for users must be driven by those users in conjunction with IT, particularly now when employees have a significant say about what tools they use.

Let’s talk about what is keeping Apple out of the Enterprise this week.

Apple’s Strength

Ironically Apple’s strength, at least it used to be, is their focus on the user while competing platforms like Chrome and Windows also heavily focus on IT.

Apple is a design-forward company with a heavy focus on margins, which means their products, Smartphones, and PCs, at a given performance level, underperform products that exist in a more competitive market like Windows PCs or Chromebooks. You pay more, and you get less.

This model works for luxury products because they sell on status and exclusivity, and Apple products are considered luxury goods that sell on status. Ideally, this approach means that Apple should sell to the individual using status and exclusivity to offset Apple’s higher sales price because IT will certainly not pay more (CapEx) for luxury or exclusivity.

IT Focused Products

Enterprise IT buys in the volume, so they’re used to getting the most favored nations clauses (assuring the lowest price) and are generally held to competitive bidding; both assure a competitive price and that no one is taking advantage of them. You can’t bid Apple against Apple like you can Dell vs. Lenovo vs. HP.  In addition, Apple doesn’t do volume pricing well because they have to preserve their high margins, and IT is aggressively against paying high margins.

In effect, Apple’s model not only isn’t attractive to IT on CapEx, without risky waivers, but IT also can’t easily buy Apple products due to the inability to create a competitive bid of like products from two different vendors.  There is only one Apple.

You may recall that Apple attempted to address this market in the 1990s when they licensed their platform out and watched their business sales migrate to the more competitively priced products from their license partners.  Apple couldn’t compete, and Steve Jobs was right to kill the effort as counter strategic.

IBM Can’t Help

There is arguably no more powerful brand in the Enterprise space than IBM. But whatever PC experts they had after the sale of their PC business went to Lenovo with the subsequent sale of their X86 servers. They were never good with consumer products, and their channel for PCs essentially went with the PC company when it was sold.

In addition, their strategic platforms are all focused on back-office IT, suggesting their ideal product for a desktop solution would again be closer to a terminal tied either to their mainframe back end or their secure IBM Cloud. This concept is far closer to Google’s Chromebook and almost perfect for Microsoft’s latest Windows 365 offering.

Even when IBM had the IBM PC Company, their most successful product was the ThinkPad. They had successive failures with high-margin PCs for the consumer business. The PC Jr. was one of their most catastrophic failures but the closest thing they arguably ever made to an Apple product.

So the IBM sales channel isn’t equipped to sell a high margin luxury product to users, and, as noted, it is the wrong product for their Backoffice focused IT sales force.

As a side note, there is some irony, given IBM has pivoted from being a lock-in vendor and towards Open Source and interoperability. IBM and Apple’s current business models are almost directly opposed to each other.

Wrong Product Wrong Channel Wrong Business Model

To sell a product to any distinct market, you need to define what that market wants and develop a product and related service that outperforms what is out there. Apple did that with the iPod and iPhone.

With Smartphones, Steve Jobs realized that someone was eventually going to blend the iPod with a Smartphone and that the market wanted a consumer-focused device that targeted individual needs. This situation was while the products of the time were business-focused, and thus the iPhone was born.

In both successful cases, Apple targeted an identified missed market requirement with a breakout offering they marketed at levels thought to be unsustainable, resulting in huge successes. Whatever they are doing with this IT effort doesn’t have the same focus or level of effort behind it.

This latest effort takes products designed to appeal to affluent status-oriented buyers and force feed them to an IT market that doesn’t want them. What IT wants is far closer to Google’s Chromebook and especially Windows 365 because they minimize Capex costs, have huge service advantages at scale, and the users will accept them.

Until Apple addresses the needs that IT has, they are far better off continuing to focus on consumers. Releasing a report showcasing OpEx advantages against CapEx disadvantages when these corporate buyers are currently trading off CapEx for OpEx in terms of services and Cloud hosting is just foolish. Forrester, in particular, should know better because the report goes against current market trends.

From the failed Lisa until now and including their failed server effort, Apple has never successfully sold to IT.  This inability isn’t just about their sales channel; it is because their heavy focus on margins and lack of focus on Enterprise-class requirements like security and manageability make them unacceptable to the vast majority of Enterprise buyers.   Until and unless that changes, they’ll continue to fail in this space.

The post Why Apple’s Enterprise Efforts Always Fail appeared first on eWEEK.

Given the diversity of solutions and the fact the market is bifurcated between Microsoft Teams, WebEx, and Zoom at the moment, I prefer hardware solutions that are agnostic. You don’t want any artificial barriers to connecting or collaborating on top of the natural barriers of having to do these things remotely.

Let’s talk about the Konftel C2030 this week.

A Green Product

One of the interesting, and to date, unique aspects of the Konftel C2070 is that it is presented as a Green product. Not only is the company aggressively mitigating its climate impact overall, but the product comes shipped in highly recyclable packaging. Konftel embraces the Climate Neutral Standard, which means they have offset their greenhouse gas emissions.

With Global Warming now doing substantial damage to the environment, more and more companies are demanding products from companies who are aggressively fighting the related pollution. Konftel is doing more than most to stand out as one of the greener companies thanks to their being certified to carry the Climate Neutral brand on this product.

Konftel C2070

In contrast with some of the other huddle room products I’ve tested, which were highly integrated one product offerings containing speakers, microphone, and camera, the Kofitel C2070 is a bundle of three products that distribute the functions better for larger and particularly longer rooms.

The Camera (Konftel Cam20) that comes in the bundle is impressive, as it is a 4K camera with an 8K zoom and has, at 123 degrees, one of the wildest viewing angles of any of the cameras I’ve so far tested in this class.

The 8X zoom is handy for focusing on things more pronounced in the room, thus the long room advantage mentioned above. The image quality is impressively good; there is simply a massive advantage with 4K cameras in this space because you can zoom in to the image remotely while retaining an impressive amount of detail.

The speaker and microphone are in the Konftel 70 voice system, which places both in the center of the table much as we did, and still does, with conference room speakerphones.  The sound quality is excellent with the speaker. The Beamforming microphones and central placement are arguably better than the all-in-one solutions that place both the speaker and the microphone with the camera, making it far harder for someone in the back of the room to hear or be heard.

The final component is the OCC Hub which connects the Speakerphone and camera into a single break-out box and provides a single USB cable for laptop connectivity to connect the laptop you are presenting from and use that laptop as the host for the video conferencing service. It also comes with a wireless remote to manage and control the experience even if you aren’t sitting next to the PC.

Installation

Installation was straightforward, and I was up and running in 15 minutes. I did have trouble downloading updated drivers, but the system seemed to work fine without them as I had no issues getting the camera, microphones, and speaker to work for a video conference call.

I do wish they had included cable ties, though, as there are several cables to manage several that could be neatened up into bundles. The kit also came with Velcro to more solidly attach the conference phone and the hub to the table.

Wrapping Up

As far as Huddle Room solutions go, the Konftel C2070 solution, priced at $749, is one of the best I’ve ever tested. It is a bundled system allowing you to distribute the components around the room, arguably making the solution far easier to use and have far better sound and camera coverage for larger, and particularly longer, rooms.

It will work with all of the large video conferencing providers and works particularly well in larger and particularly deeper huddle rooms and small conference rooms. If you need something for an even bigger room, they have the Konftel C5070 with an even more impressive camera at $1,299, but I haven’t tested it.

If you need a Huddle room solution that puts the microphone and speakers in the middle of the table where they are generally more effective, check out the Konftel C2070. The fact that it is a relatively green solution makes it that much sweeter.

The post The Konftel C2070: Green Huddle Room Video Solution appeared first on eWEEK.

Windows 365 is the beginning of the evolution for this offering which should, eventually, given Microsoft’s Cloud-centric focus, become the dominant form of Windows, finally creating that blend of Mainframe security and reliability coupled with desktop ease of use and flexibility that the market has wanted since PCs first took out terminals.

This cloud OS move represents the beginning of the most significant desktop change we have so far seen. It promises to result in eventual massive changes in where and how we do personal computing.

Terminals vs. PCs

Back when we had terminals tied to central computers, users didn’t worry about patches, updates, maintenance, security (outside of physical security and protecting passwords and IDs), or buying your hardware, because we didn’t have the Internet back then and working from home was just a dream few employees could realize.

However, word processing was a nasty joke where you had to code a document, much of our computing was done in batch, and MIS (which became IT) pretty much told you what you could do, not the other way around. The apps were horrid.

We flipped to PCs, and suddenly we had a ton of freedom; we no longer needed IT to develop apps (many of us just bypassed IT and bought software off the shelf), modems allowed us to work from home, and we could buy our computers. However, security became a nightmare, users had to become their support initially, and reliability went to hell.

The market wanted was the good from Terminals and the good from PCs but none of the bad. Over the years, through the different versions of Windows, it became far more reliable, far more secure, easier to use, IT stepped up to providing support, and hardware went from being ugly to becoming attractive (something we never really had with terminals).

Exploits kept pace, however, and we continue to have security issues; we still don’t have that appliance-like experience we had with terminals, and we are still dealing with patches and updates.

Well, Windows 365 promises to close those final gaps, and it is a game-changer.

Windows 365

Windows 365 is Windows in the Cloud. You get a virtual PC instance that ranges to workstation specs and will eventually (not initially) allow you to pick your GPU. Trial clients (Nunavut Canada) have indicated that they have cut provisioning from 3-4 weeks to just a couple of hours with Windows 365. Since this is a cloud implementation, it will retain State, which means you can break mid-task, login later with another device, and finish your work right where you left off.

Patching and updates are handled by someone else, either Microsoft or IT depending on how the solution is configured. Other than assuring your credentials and protecting your screen, security is primarily also handled by others.

Now, we don’t have pricing yet (that will be announced on August 1^st). The product isn’t even available to most of us yet because Microsoft is going to General Availability on August 2^nd.

There will, initially, be two versions of Windows 365 Business for those without a Microsoft Enterprise account (mainly miniature to medium business) and an Enterprise edition for the firms that do. One exciting benefit is that this may work better for some with low bandwidth than Windows on a PC does now. This benefit is because the solution is designed to work over any network that can reliably stream Netflix. Still, the web instance connects at Microsoft’s network speed which is blindingly fast.

However, be aware that while Windows 365 (with the proper hardware) can support up to 16 monitors, that will increase the bandwidth requirements to the user. Provisioning is similar to other Microsoft web tools where you click on a few boxes to provision each instance. IT should see a massive reduction for those on Windows 365 vs. a PC Windows load.

Finally, Windows 365 will work on anything with a browser that suggests a massive coming change in PC hardware, likely benefitting Qualcomm because their desktop solution optimizes connectivity and bandwidth, making it ideal for a cloud solution.

A Cloud-Based Windows Instance

Windows 365 is a Cloud-based Windows instance that you can sync with as needed with a desktop implementation or to work off-line or a fully streaming experience that will work on any platform with a browser. Partners at Microsoft Inspire this week pointed to this fix of one of the annoying problems they have with Apple Mac accounts because, according to them, Windows on the Mac is challenging to support. Windows 365 will make Windows on the Mac far more reliable, far easier to use, and a ton easier to support.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg and the beginning of what will likely be a massive change in desktop computing hardware. If you can run Windows reliably on a Smartphone, for instance, why wouldn’t you use the Smartphone (the lack of ports come to mind, but this move will force changes to Smartphone capabilities, and you should be able to run Windows 365 on a Smart TV that has a browser).

On paper, this looks like the best of both worlds solution we’ve always hoped for like the terminal someone else handles the annoying stuff, a band like PCs you have the freedom to do what you need to get the job done. It is going to be an interesting ride.

The post Windows 365: The Promise of a No-Hassle OS and the Cloud PC Revolution appeared first on eWEEK.

One was the perception of impropriety unacceptable in any government contract; additionally, the delays due to contract challenges have rendered the Jedi approach obsolete.

While it might have appeared that the conflict was between Amazon and Microsoft, there was no evidence of either company doing anything wrong. Still, it did showcase how image is essential in contracts like this and that Microsoft needed to deploy marketing resources if they wanted to keep the deal.

However, doing so, mainly if poorly done, could have created additional strategic problems for Microsoft, making the best path for all parties to re-bid the deal altogether.

Amazon’s Problem

Amazon had a problem with the last Administration, which had little to do with the company and more to do with Jeff Bezos, who was then CEO of Amazon, holding ownership of the Washington Post. The Washington Post was an outspoken critic of the last US administration, creating an impressive animosity between that Administration and Jeff Bezos personally.

This apparently led to attempts by the Administration to steer the deal away from Amazon. With Bezos stepping down from Amazon leadership and the recent change in the White House, this should have mitigated this exposure for a future attempt. Still, it creates a cautionary warning for anyone planning to sell to the government and comments at scale about that government’s performance.

The DOD’s Problem

This effort, which probably wasn’t successful, still created a cloud of perceived bias and the related email chains, which could be and likely was subpoenaed. But Amazon’s challenge to the deal would have created enough smoke for a judge to determine that undue influence was at least likely resulting in the re-bid anyway.

In addition, Jedi appeared to be poorly thought through. It relied on a single vendor reducing redundancy in what should have been a far more redundant, multi-vendor solution.

By not approaching this as a multi-vendor solution, the possible ideal mix of IBM providing both the blending of both Amazon and Microsoft into a fully redundant large scale solution, placing IBM’s security-focused cloud as a critical component, didn’t appear to be considered. On the face of the effort, that could have been a configuration that would seem to provide both the redundancy and security requirements more thoroughly than any one of the vendors can provide. While the IBM solution likely didn’t exist when Jedi was conceived,  it exists now and would seem to match better what the DOD wants than either Amazon or Microsoft alone could provide.

In addition, a multi-vendor solution is far more palatable because it both spreads the wealth and assures redundancy across cloud vendors should any one of the vendors fail due to physical or electronic threat likely with any Defense-focused offering.

Why Not Google?

In terms of capability, Google should match Amazon and Microsoft, but they were left off the list of acceptable vendors. This unacceptability is likely due to two reasons.

First, Google, unlike the others, sells information for a living, and while it’s highly doubtful they would sell DOD information given the dire consequences, the fact they do sell information makes them undesirable for anyone concerned about security. The other reason is that Google employees have been outspoken about not having Google support any military organization; Google has had employee breaches (and a data breech with Google+) in the past and that certainly didn’t help.

Wrapping Up: Large Cloud Bids

When you are approaching any cloud effort at this scale, the danger of any one cloud vendor having a catastrophic failure, particularly in a Defense Department-focused solution that will be targeted, is excessively great. While I believe a combination of IBM, Amazon, and Microsoft would best match the needs of the DOD and prevent future challenges to the effort, mainly because it isn’t uncommon to see this solution at this scale, it should have always been a multi-vendor solution that was specified.

The result is potentially more robust, more secure, and spreads the related revenue around so that no one area is uniquely benefited, providing better political top-cover than a single vendor solution. Jedi was problematic from the start; we’ll know shortly if the DOD has learned from their mistake and uses a more prudent approach or swaps one mistake for another. The group doing the bidding this time appears to be more capable. Let’s see if they actually are.

The post Why The Jedi Contract Failed – And How To Properly Conceive of a Massive Cloud Government Bid appeared first on eWEEK.

Initially, it came with things like a digital background utility that wasn’t bad for its time, but since its launch, Logitech decided, for some reason, not to adequately fund support. For those of us running AMD systems in particular, the experience got worse and worse, and any support for that digital background app just vanished after it started breaking for a lot of us.

So, I’ve been looking for an excellent alternative to the Brio for several years, and Dell recently sent me their latest Dell Ultrasharp 4K Webcam. It costs about the same, and the Brio comes with Dell’s support commitment which has proven stronger than Logitech’s.

Let’s talk about the Dell 4K Webcam this week.

The Importance of a Good Webcam

When we were going into the office in person, we spent a lot on clothing and appearance remotely; some still do, but those efforts are lost if you don’t have a good webcam. Once we are on a Zoom, WebEx or Microsoft Teams call, we are often put up inside to side videos, and you can see who has a good camera that can center and adjust for ambient light and who doesn’t.

Centering is critical because we seldom like to sit still, and automatic centering does showcase you better. You might question the need for 4K, but what 4K gives you is a lot more video real estate to play with, allowing the self-centered and zoom capabilities to work even if the camera isn’t mechanized. Mechanized cameras are expensive, generally costing more than $1K, resulting in a product that isn’t easy to transport.

So the most straightforward and most cost-effective approach to providing an excellent affordable webcam is to give it 4K support and then control the features in software rather than hardware, dramatically reducing the potential cost of the camera that is ensuring you look good online.

Speakers and Microphones

Many webcams, like the Poly Studio 15, come with speakers and microphones. Still, they add to the camera’s size, often redundant to what the user already has, and they make the device heavy and make it inappropriate for laptop use on the road. A separate microphone is generally preferred for sound quality, and most people already have speakers set up for gaming. On the road, laptops typically come with microphones and cameras. Due to the public areas these operate in; many prefer a headset so that everyone around them doesn’t hear both sides of their conversations.

Keeping these components separate can not only improve the quality of what you are doing but, in the case of the laptop, keep your carry weight and peripheral complexity manageable. In addition, a small, focused camera is easier to pick up and use to capture something around you.

Dell Ultrasharp Webcam

The Dell Ultrasharp Webcam comes with two base mounts, one for on top of your monitor or laptop and one for a small tripod if you want to move the camera someplace that is more convenient. It is a black tube that is simple and reasonably attractive, it has a magnetic lens cover which you can put behind the camera when not in use (I’m constantly losing lens covers), and it does do a decent job of automatically centering the video.

The camera uses a USB-C cable which should work fine with most current generation laptops and desktop computers. You can also use a USB-C smartphone charging cable if you don’t have a USB-C port on your PC or an adaption. I found the cable I’d been using for the Logitech Brio to work fine with my AMD-based desktop rig.

Because this camera has automatic centering, you don’t need to put it in the center of your monitor. If your monitor is mounted high, you can get a short camera stand and mount it under the monitor on that for a more direct shot. I found that mounting it on top of my monitor did make me more self-conscious about hair loss, so you may want to mess around with camera placement.

As an excellent, simple, affordable (around $200), the Dell Ultrasharp Webcam is a decent value and an excellent updated alternative to the Logitech Bio and more portable than the Poly Studio 15. It also supports Microsoft Hello for facial recognition. An increasing number of apps are starting to use this feature, suggesting this capability is becoming more and more critical overtime for those who like not having to type in a password or PIN.

Wrapping Up

Your Webcam is what presents you to the world and can impact how people see you.  Thus getting a good one is very important. While it is just a camera without a microphone or speakers, the Dell UltraSharp Webcam is a reasonably priced alternative to the Logitech Brio with better support. I’ve been using the camera for several weeks, and it has performed flawlessly over that time.

If you need a small camera, supports 4K video and has decent automatic centering and IR support, the Dell Ultrasharp Webcam is worth checking out.

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The industry’s dirty little secret that many users looking for power have gone to gaming desktop solutions over certified workstations solutions when they don’t need the certifications. It isn’t an alternative for everyone, certifications are essential, particularly for support, but Workstations don’t make good gaming machines.

If you want a system that will do both but with the emphasis on gaming, this might be a decent alternative to a dedicated workstation, though, be aware. At the same time, it costs nearly $1K less, there are some tradeoffs, and you can get the HP Zbook for less with a lower configuration.

Performance

Let’s start with this laptop’s performance. You may recall the Zbook scored a PCMark ten score of 4,565, a 3DMark score of 1,728, a Geekbench score of 5,556 single-core, and 19,776 multicores had a list price in the $2,600 range as configured.

The Asus ROG Strix, priced below $1.6K, is a powerhouse scoring a whopping 7,190 in PCMark, 10,217 on 3DMark, and Geekbanch has it at 5,476 Single-Core an impressive 38,646 on multicore. It sounds like a no-brainer, right? Save a grand and get a ton more performance, but the tradeoffs are significant.

On battery life, the Zbook will at least get you through the day and may get you through several, the ASUS around 6 hours, so you need to bring the charger. And that charger isn’t light; unlike the little light charger the Zbook uses, this charger alone weighs two thirds of what the Zbook weighs with its charger.

The laptop isn’t light either; together, it and its charger weigh over twice what the Zbook weighs, and you have to carry that charger if you want to use it for a full day. No high color-matched display for the Asus either, nor do you have the option of an outdoor viewable display but, given how heavy this thing is and that it’s overclocked (read: it’ll run hot), expect it to iron your lap, which isn’t a feature I’d want.

Ironically, it is more what you’d think a laptop workstation would be, oversized and heavy (it has a nice s300 nit 15.6” display).

One other tradeoff is that the Asus doesn’t have a camera so, if you want to do Zoom calls on it, you’ll need to buy a portable camera which will add to its already significant weight.

Unique Qualities

You can customize the case with colors, and it comes with two replaceable ROG plates in different colors that go under the keyboard. It is a lovely laptop, despite its size, and, like a lot of gaming notebooks, it has impressive lighting on the trim and keyboard.

Recall this is a notebook that is naturally overclocked and puts out an impressive amount of heat. To the point where my hand, on the mouse, next to the notebook, got uncomfortably hot. I’d say you wouldn’t want to play games on a plane with this thing, but unless you are in Business or First Class, a 15.6” notebook won’t work on a coach tray regardless.

Wrapping Up

Like it was with my earlier comparison of the HP Firefly and Dragon Fly notebooks, it seems unlikely the same class of buyers would consider this. Still, for those that want a gaming notebook that performs in line with gaming desktop computers, this could be the current best in the market.

Think of this as the difference between buying a high-performance car you can take clients out to lunch with and buying a race car you can drive to work. The Zbook is an actual notebook with decent carry weight, elegant but not overstated looks, and those software certifications that engineers often demand in their PCs. The Asus Rog Strix is a performance monster but gives up portability, those certifications, battery life, and nothing subtle or elegant about it; it is an in-your-face performance-focused offering.

It is also a showcase for AMD Advantage, which helps push these overclocked benchmarks to desktop ranges. As a flagship halo product for AMD and Asus, this is a stellar offing, but this is tightly focused on gamers and high-performance gamers at that, and for them, this is a godsend. But, if you want something more like today’s notebooks and don’t have a burning need for a ton more power, then one of the notebooks I mentioned last week would likely be a better choice.

For someone who wants the highest performing laptop at an affordable (for a high-grade gaming rig) price for the right person, this could be your ideal laptop.  But that gaming capability better is at the top of your requirements because the tradeoffs to get this massive performance jump are still significant when you put that performance in a laptop.

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So, given both are about the same cost, why would you get a Firefly over a Dragonfly or vice versa?  Since the industry does a pretty poor job helping buyers find the right product, let’s talk about why far more people want the Dragonfly Max than the Firefly with Dreamcolor, but why those who want the Firefly might not even bother looking anything else.

A Workstation vs. A PC

Workstations go to a dedicated and focused audience of animators, engineers, architects, and their related management. This focused audience is because workstations have to run specialized software and need to be certified to run that software. Unfortunately, this tie to the apps that run on them adds to the cost, lowers the overall volume, and leads to configurations that most users wouldn’t appreciate.

For instance, Firefly has a T500 NVIDIA GPU certified to work with most of the potential professional applications that would run on it. However, when building a game, developers don’t target GPUs of this class which means that for entertainment, this extra performance may not work as well with consumer apps like games.

Additionally, with this configuration, you are also paying extra for a Dreamcolor display, which promises incredible color accuracy. However, unless you are an artist building to a spec, this level of color accuracy isn’t as attractive as the 1,000 nit privacy screen Dragonfly Max had.

With the privacy screen, and HP has the best one in the market right now, you can prevent people sitting next to you on a plane from seeing your work, and, outside, the 1,000 nit screen on the Dragonfly Max is far easier to see.

This focused capability doesn’t mean the Firefly doesn’t outperform the Dragonfly; it does and by an impressive amount with off-the-shelf benchmarks. For instance, with PCMark 10, the Firefly got a score of 4,565, while the Dragonfly Max scored 3,901; on 3Dmark, the Firefly got 1,728, while the Dragonfly got 1,258.

Likewise, with Geekbench (64 bit), the Firefly got a score of 5,556 for single-core and 19,716 for multi-core, while the Dragonfly Max got a score of 4,522 for single-core and 16,063 for multi-core.

On top of the 1,000 nit HP Sureview display that makes for a better outdoor and more secure usage model, you also get a far better 5MP camera (over the Firefly’s 720p camera) and standard 5G WAN networking (you can also get 5G on the Firefly, but that’ll cost you a lot more).

While the Zbook Firefly does have a remote boost that can connect you to a complete remote workstation, the Dragonfly Max is context-aware and knows when it is in your lap, on a table, or in your bag and sets the power accordingly.

The Dragonfly Max is the most feature-rich notebook that HP builds, while the Z Series Dragonfly is the lightest workstation they make. It is like the difference between a car you want to show off and one that the military gives you to do your job. For those who need a workstation that is as portable as a light laptop, the Firefly is arguably their best choice, but the Dragonfly Max would be the product that comes closest to our ideal for the rest of us.

One of the differences, while the original Dragonfly had a unique and lovely blue/black color, is that the Dragonfly Max is black and less distinctive (and I’d argue less likely to be stolen as a result). The Zbook Firefly has a big Z on the cover that most won’t connect to HP and makes this laptop look unique.

Wrapping Up

Workstation buyers tend to follow the applications they use to the hardware product they buy and have unique requirements like the hyper-accurate color that this Zbook Firefly has in spades.

But most of the rest of us would prefer the outdoor viewable display, privacy, and better web camera that the Dragonfly Max has. I should note that for engineers who want the 1,000 Nit outdoor Sureview display, it is an option, and you may not need the exceptional color accuracy of the Dreamcolor display.

It is also interesting that both products are unique in their way, the Firefly is the lightest workstation I’ve ever tested, and the Dragonfly is the most feature-rich laptop I’ve ever tested.

Both products would likely make their target buyers very happy, and, for my use, I’d pick that impressive 1,000 nit display over the Dreamcolor display any day of the week.  But imagine how impressive a 1,000 nit Sureview Dreamcolor display might be?  Maybe next year….

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