Blair Hanley FrankU.S. Correspondent, IDG News Service
Blair Hanley Frank is primarily focused on the public cloud, productivity and operating systems businesses for the IDG News Service, and is based in San Francisco.
Google launches official Gmail Add-on program
Google is making it possible for developers to bring their services into Gmail using new integrations called Add-ons.
Google goes after Slack with Hangouts overhaul
Google’s Hangouts work chat and videoconferencing service is undergoing some major changes to better serve businesses. The company announced Thursday that it’s going after the work group chat market as well as the group videoconferencing market even harder than before by splitting Hangouts’s functions in two.
Google's Jamboard will cost $5,000 and ship to the US in May
Google is getting ready to put its smart whiteboard on sale. The company announced Thursday that the Jamboard, its big touchscreen that’s designed to serve as a digital collaboration space for business users, will be available in May.
Google Drive will let users stream files from the cloud
Google Drive users will be able to see all the files they have stored in the company’s cloud service on their desktop without downloading them, thanks to a new feature the company announced Thursday.
Google's new cloud service eases data preparation for machine learning
Google launched a bundle of big data features on Thursday, including one that's supposed to ease the preparation of data for machine learning applications.
Google announces three new cloud regions, contract discounts
Google announced Thursday that it’s launching three new data centers in California, Canada, and the Netherlands, in addition to a suite of pricing changes.
Astro is an AI-powered email client with big dreams
This startup wants to help people get a hold of their workplace communications with the power of AI.
Google touts its enterprise chops in cloud keynote
Enterprises: Google wants you. That’s the message coming out of the first keynote address at the company’s Google Cloud Next conference in San Francisco on Wednesday. The tech titan’s Cloud team really wants enterprises to know that it’s serious about serving their needs.
How Microsoft rethought its approach to email
The tech titan has made a concerted move to change its position in the email market over the past few years, driven by the overall move to mobile. Here's how it happened.
Microsoft's Visual Studio 2017 hits general availability
Microsoft’s tools for developers hit another milestone Tuesday, when the company made Visual Studio 2017 generally available. As the name implies, this is the next major release of Microsoft’s integrated development environment.
Microsoft's Slack competitor is coming March 14
Microsoft’s entry into the modern workplace chat app market will be generally available in a week. The company announced Tuesday that it will be marking the occasion with a webcast to discuss what’s new since the service was announced last year.
Salesforce launches custom image recognition as Einstein goes GA
Salesforce is getting into the computer vision business with a new tool that lets users easily train a custom machine learning based image recognition system.
IBM-Salesforce deal will bring Watson data into applications
Watson and Einstein are teaming up, and IBM and Salesforce hope the pairing proves as smart as it sounds. The two companies are working together to bring information from IBM systems into Salesforce’s products through a series of integrations announced Monday.
Okta acquires Stormpath to boost its identity services for developers
Okta has acquired Stormpath, a company that provides authentication services for developers. The deal should help the identity provider improve its developer-facing capabilities.
AWS says a typo caused the massive S3 failure this week
Everyone makes mistakes. But working at Amazon Web Services means an incorrectly entered input can lead to a massive outage that cripples popular websites and services.