Google improves 'Apps', offers organizations clear path off Exchange, Notes, etc. to GMail
Although the company doesn't like to position itself as competition to the likes of Microsoft, the announcements made by Google today -- particularly the one about a way for organizations to siphon the e-mail out of any IMAP-compatible server (including Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes) into GMail -- clearly reach into the lion's den in Redmond.
To get a run-down of today's announcements, I recorded a podcast interview with Google director of product management Matthew Glotzbach. To hear the interview, you can press the play button above. Or you can also download it to your desktop and play it at your convenience. The interview is a part of my IT Matters series of podcasts. To find out more about subscribing to these other podcasts in a way that they automatically show up on your PC, MP3 player, or both, check out my how to.
If you could point at a single on-premises solution that has many corporations and other organizations tied to other Microsoft technologies, that solution could very well be Exchange Server (mostly used for e-mail and group calendaring). Without an Exchange server, the need for a bunch of other Microsoft technologies from Windows Server to Active Directory to Outlook and even Windows on the desktop (I know many an Entourage user who isn't happy with their so-called Mac compatibility with Exchange) is easily questioned.
However, moving off of Exchange Server to a substitute is no easy task. The first question is what substitute and why? There are substitutes like Lotus Notes and, more recently, Scalix's on-premises solution that promise to offer improved scalability, better total cost of ownership, or both (claims that some question). But overall, to the extent that one on-premises solution is being swapped out for another, they may not be the game changers to organizations that they promise to be. For organizations that are really ready to re-think their approach to those on-premises solutions, Google today announced a migration tool that in one fell swoop (at least after all the accounts are properly mapped), uses the IMAP protocol to suck all the e-mail out of an IMAP compatible server like Microsoft's Exchange or Lotus Notes and deposit it into an organization's instance of Google Apps.
For organizations, Google Apps is a hosted, branded service consisting of several applications and services that for each subscribing organization, run in a private partitioned context behind what can best be described as a virtual private firewall (where your intranet is essentially hosted and outsider inaccessibility to it is secured by the hoster's firewall). What are the benefits of turning off an on-premises server in favor of a hosted service? Well, keeping those e-mail systems running and performing well are no longer your headache. They're someone else's (in this case, Google's). No more upgrading complicated server software either. As Google adds new features to its services, its customers basically inherit those features without having to do much. Particularly the customers that use the Web-based interfaces (as opposed to local clients like Thunderbird or Outlook).
What are the downsides? Some companies haven't developed a comfort level with keeping their sensitive data -- particularly their e-mail -- anywhere but behind their own corporate firewalls. Additionally, in the case of this announcement, GMail is unlike most other e-mail solutions in that it doesn't use folders as a means of organizing e-mails. Instead, it uses a tagging system that's very much like foldering, but that could take some getting used to. In fact, when migrating accounts from an IMAP-based server to GMail, e-mail that's stored in some folder ends up getting tagged with that folder's name instead. One benefit to this way of organizing emails is that they can be tagged with multiple tags (sort of like being able to store one e-mail in multiple folders). Another problem with GMail is that as e-mail clients go, it can't go into an offline mode. But now that Google has introduced Google Gears (a technology that makes it possible for Web-based applications to work even when the Web is inaccessible), it will only be a matter of time before this problem goes away.
The bottom line on the migration tool announcement is that this is not to be underestimated as a move to win businesses over to the hosted e-mail model and the purveyors (Microsoft and IBM) of the two leading on-premises solutions (Exchange and Notes) are the ones in Google's crosshairs.
In addition to the migration tool announcement, Google also announced some other improvements to its portfolio of apps. One of them is that GTalk now supports multi-person chat. However, the functionality is not yet baked into the downloadable GTalk client. Instead, the capability is only available with the browser-based GTalk widget which, according to Glotzbach is based on Adobe's Flash technology. I gave the new widget a glancing try today and it seemed to work pretty well.
Another welcome addition is what can best be described as the beginning stages of a directory service for users of Google Apps. For example, today, if you want to share a document with someone else in your Google Apps domain, you have to address them with their entire e-mail address even though their domain may be the same as yours. Now, so long as the people you want to collaborate with are in the organization's shared address book, they are addressable by their alias instead of their entire e-mail address.
There were a few other features that Glotzbach taked about. Be sure to check out the podcast to get the complete rundown.
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This Samsung phone is the one most people should buy in 2024 (and it's not a flagship)
ZDNET's key takeaways
- Samsung's Galaxy A35 5G is a well-rounded smartphone for $400.
- You'll love the two-day battery life, amazing screen quality, and four years of software updates.
- The biggest issue? Performance, which tends to vary from day-to-day and can lead to overheating.
I'm actually surprised how much I enjoy using the Samsung Galaxy A35 5G. The latest mid-range phone in Samsung's lineup isn't necessarily anything special -- it looks like any other Galaxy phone from recent years, and there aren't any flashy features. Still, the mission of mid-range phones is not to make waves; it's to provide a balance between performance, quality, and price. This phone does that well.
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Some would argue that this isn't the best $400 phone on the market, but it's certainly one of them, and the screen is one of the reasons why. The Galaxy A35 5G includes one of Samsung's signature Super AMOLED displays, measuring 6.6 inches diagonally. The display has a Full HD+ resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate so everything feels smooth, and 1,000 nits of brightness that makes it easy to see in direct sunlight. Plus, it's protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+, which is a nice perk.
ZDNET RECOMMENDS
Samsung Galaxy A35 5G
The Galaxy A35 5G is a solid mid-range smartphone that balances features with affordability.
One of the best perks of the Galaxy A35 is the battery. Clocking in at 5,000mAh, this thing can easily last two days on a full charge. During my testing, I only plugged in the phone three times, and that was with moderate use. Unfortunately, there are no wireless charging capabilities, and the charging speed is capped at 25W, so it might take some time to get to 100%. Still, it's always nice having multi-day battery life on any smartphone, let alone one that costs $400.
Also: The $400 OnePlus 12R may be the best-value Android phone this year
Another thing I wasn't expecting to say after spending some time with the A35: the cameras aren't that bad. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that at least two of them are good, which is almost impossible to say for most sub-$500 Android phones.
The main 50MP camera is perfectly capable of taking some nice pictures. Colors aren't overdone as much as they are on older Samsung phones, while contrast and exposure remain generally on point. You can tell that the A35 is okay with maintaining shadows, for better or for worse, while photo quality generally takes a dip when the lights get low; it's not terrible by any means, but extra grain and noise are hard to avoid unless there's a ton of external or natural light in the frame.
I'll also give some credit to the 13MP selfie camera, which is perfectly suited for selfies for Snapchat or your Instagram Stories. The other cameras on the back of the device, however, are disappointing. The 8MP may be ultra-wide thanks to its 123-degree field of view, but it's grainy and low-quality in almost every lighting condition. Meanwhile, the 5MP macro camera is washed out, and it is impossible to capture anything usable, unless you're in broad daylight.
Also: Forget the Pixel 8a: Nothing's $399 Android phone may be your best budget option
You can't buy the Galaxy A35 5G expecting Spielberg-quality videos, but at least you have the option to shoot in 4K, albeit at 30 frames per second. In addition, I really like Samsung's camera app, which is well-optimized and easy to navigate.
Some other notable features include the fast and reliable in-display fingerprint scanner, the IP67 certification for water and dust resistance, the Gorilla Glass Victus+ on the back, and the microSD card slot so you can expand your storage whenever you want.
The A35 stumbles, however, in its performance. The phone isn't particularly slow, but it's not always fast, either. It's equipped with an Exynos 1380 octa-core processor that's fast enough for everyday use, but during my testing, the phone would sometimes slow down so much that it would take a number of seconds to open an app or jump into multitasking.
It would also sometimes get inexplicably hot during regular use. For example, in one instance, I was just scrolling through an article with Spotify playing in the background, and the A35 became hot enough that I had to put it down.
Also: I upgrade my iPhone every year, but the iPhone 16 worries me. Here's why
This is a known issue with Samsung's Exynos chips, which have historically fallen behind Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors in performance and efficiency. Luckily, you can rig the A35 with 6GB, 8GB, or 12GB of RAM, so you won't run out of memory during usage -- just don't push the phone too hard.
ZDNET's buying advice
It's hard to find a mid-range device that balances the smartphone experience well, but the Samsung Galaxy A35 5G does a pretty good job. While performance and camera quality fall behind in some areas, the rest of the phone is really good (especially that gorgeous screen) for the price.
Of course, if you're going to buy this phone, you're probably also looking at phones like the Pixel 8a or the excellent OnePlus 12R, which hover around the same price. The screen quality on either definitely isn't as nice as the A35, and you also won't get a two-day battery life. The cameras are comparable (besides the Pixel 7A, which knocks the socks off the A35 and the 12R). All in all, I think the A35 is a good pickup. It's not perfect, but if you can live with its quirks, I think you'll dig it.
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Schools will remove app from students' Chromebooks and iPads following security breach
A device management app will be removed from Chromebooks and iPads used in Singapore schools after 13,000 students had their data remotely wiped by a cyberattacker.
The breach was part of a cybersecurity incident that impacted global customers of device management vendor Mobile Guardian, which platform is used to limit access to screen time or restricted apps and websites.
Singapore's Ministry of Education (MOE) said it was informed on Sunday night that some students were unable to access data and apps stored on their personal learning devices. These included Apple iPad tablets and Chromebooks.
Also: 9 top mobile security threats and how you can avoid them
Mobile Guardian then was alerted and, following its investigations, uncovered a breach involving unauthorized access to its platform. The incident affected its clientele worldwide including users in Singapore, MOE said in a statement Monday.
The ministry added that preliminary checks revealed 13,000 students from 26 secondary schools had their devices remotely wiped by the perpetrator, but there was no indication the students' files had been illegally accessed.
As a "precautionary measure," MOE said the Mobile Guardian app will be pulled from all iPads and Chromebooks. "Efforts are underway to safely restore these devices to normal usage," the ministry said, adding that it also was considering "other mitigating measures" to regulate device usage during this period.
The latest incident follows a recent one last month, during which students in several schools experienced issues connecting to the internet or received error messages. This July incident was due to a human error in configuration by Mobile Guardian, according to MOE.
Also: Who needs ransomware when a faulty software update can shut down critical infrastructure?
However, the education ministry in April said it was informed of a breach involving unauthorized access to Mobile Guardian's management portal. The portal was used for administrative purposes, such as providing technical support and account licensing, and had access to various user information, such as school name, time zone, and whether the user was a parent or school staff.
Names and email addresses of parents and academic staff from five primary and 122 secondary schools were compromised in the security breach, MOE said at the time. It added that a police report was lodged and that Mobile Guardian had implemented additional security measures, such as implementing a lockdown of all its administrative accounts.
In its reply later in May to parliamentary questions on the security breach, MOE said the Mobile Guardian management portal did not have the ability to change configuration on the students' devices or connect the ministry's or other government IT systems.
Also: Singapore's guidelines to bolster mobile app security are optional - for now
Mobile Guardian's device management platform is used by more than 2,500 schools in 50 countries, MOE said, adding that the vendor held an ISO27001 certification, which is an international standard for information security management systems.
Mobile Guardian in 2020 won MOE's tender as the appointed vendor of mobile device management services for ChromeOS and iOS devices used in Singapore schools.