enterprise

Your mobile device could soon go the route of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

AT&T today unveiled AT&T Toggle, a service that allows you to create two separate and distinct identities on your smartphone or tablet. The first would be a personal account where you can freely browse the Internet, text your friends, and watch videos. A second, more secure identity would house your business apps and documents and can be managed by your company's IT department.

AT&T is using an app called Divide, which was created by start-up Enterproid.

The service will help aid the trend of individuals bringing their own devices to use at work, which kicked off with the iPhone a few years back and has spread to other smartphones and tablets. The announcement comes ahead of the CTIA Enterprise & Applications conference, which kicks off tomorrow in San Diego.

"When it comes to connected devices, one size doesn't fit all," said Chris Hill, vice president of advanced mobility services in AT&T's business services group. "People want to use their own smartphones and tablets for work, but that practice can create major headaches for businesses' IT departments."

Individuals like it because they're no longer constrained to the few options that companies give them on smartphones. Companies like it because they no longer have to bear the financial burden of outfitting their employees with mobile devices.

AT&T is hoping Toggle will provide a boost to this trend. The service will be available by the end of the year to phones running on Android 2.2, also known as Froyo, or higher. AT&T said it plans to expand the accessibility to other mobile operating systems next year. In addition, the service can work on phones running on any carrier.

AT&T plans to charge businesses a license fee of $5 per device each month on top of any other service fees. Once the company buys the license, it can assign it to an employee, who will be able to download the Toggle app from Android Marketplace or AT&T's application store.

Companies using the service will be able to allow certain employees the ability to access corporate data depending on their responsibilities. They will also be able to add, update, or delete business applications on their employees' personal devices, and remotely wipe corporate information on the device if it is lost or stolen. … Read more

EnterpriseDB, a provider of enterprise-class products and services based on PostgreSQL, today announced Postgres Plus Cloud Server, which the company has billed as "a full-featured, Oracle-compatible, enterprise-class PostgreSQL database-as-a-service for public and private clouds with support for Amazon EC2, Eucalyptus, Rackspace, and GoGrid."

We've seen other database-as-a-service offerings come on the scene from the likes of Salesforce.com's Database.com, Amazon RDS, as well as from startup Xeround. But they're not based on PostgreSQL, which has had years of hardening and development by a committed community. The other databases are not "Oracle compatible," … Read more

As Hewlett-Packard retreats from the tablet market, Lenovo continues its assault. The first ThinkPad Tablets are now available for purchase, the company said today.

The 10.1-inch ThinkPad may have a better shot at success than HP's now-defunct webOS-based TouchPad. It is built around Android, the most popular alternative to Apple's iOS, and is aimed at business, not the dicey consumer tablet market.

Part and parcel of Lenovo's appeal to business is the pen-based handwriting recognition technology to "digitally write, draw, and create content," according to Lenovo.

In the productivity department, typically a tablet weak … Read more

Both Apple and Android have been capturing more mobile customers in the enterprise arena, but Apple's iOS has been the dominant force thanks to growing demand for the iPad, according to mobile-software provider Good Technology.

Released yesterday, Good's latest quarterly data report (PDF) found that more smartphones and tablets in general have been flooding the workplace. But Apple's iOS has led the way, grabbing 80 percent of all device activations in the enterprise seen by Good during the second quarter. That marks an increase from just less than 70 percent in the first quarter.

The iPad itself (… Read more

Mozilla today did its best impression of a mea culpa in response to the corporate backlash following recent comments that the company doesn't care about its enterprise customers.

In a blog post today, Mozilla tried to justify its recent fast-paced upgrade cycle by saying that such updates help secure users and provide a richer Web experience. The company once again explained that its focus has been on the individual user but admitted that Firefox has carved out a niche in the corporate world.

Mozilla also acknowledged the challenge for corporate IT, which has to test and certify their Web … Read more

Enterprise deployments have never been a key market for Firefox, Mozilla's director of the browser, Asa Dotzler, has said.

Dotzler's comments were made yesterday, in response to criticism from IT managers who said the newly accelerated Firefox release schedule was causing problems for businesses trying to keep up with the rapid pace of the browser's development. Firefox 5 launched on Wednesday, just three months after the release of Firefox 4.

"We get about 2 million Firefox downloads per day from regular user types," Dotzler wrote, describing enterprise downloads as "really just a drop in … Read more

Panasonic is creating a 10-inch Android tablet under the Toughbook brand, due out in the fourth quarter of 2011. Panasonic's aim is to create a tablet for commercial and government use that is both secure and durable. Pricing has yet to be announced.

The exact specs detailed in Panasonic's press release are a little hazy, but we know the screen will be a 10.1-inch XGA multitouch panel and that GPS will come standard. An embedded 3G/4G modem is optional. Hopefully Panasonic will take a cue from Toshiba and offer a swappable battery, as well.

The niche … Read more

Dell beat expectations on its earnings per share for its fiscal first quarter 2012 earnings, but its revenues did not.

Dell today reported revenue of $15 billion for the most recent quarter, up 1 percent from a year ago, but below the average of $15.4 billion Wall Street was looking for. Its earnings per share of 49 cents just beat the 48 cents that was anticipated. It's also a 188 percent increase over the 17 cents per share reported a year ago.

Dell's consumer PC business had a rough quarter. Revenue for the unit that makes laptops, … Read more

The idea that a BlackBerry is for work and an iPhone or Android-based device is for play is an idea that Research In Motion wants to take on.

The company today announced a new technology called BlackBerry Balance that it says allows users to engage in both personal and work-related activities without compromising the safety of corporate information. For example, IT managers could create policies that will disable the ability for work information to be copied to e-mail accounts or Twitter, as well as lock down corporate data or files, so they cannot be used on personal applications. When an … Read more