Daily Video: Amazon’s New WorkMail Target Business Users

On Jan. 28, Amazon announced its latest business product, a cloud-based email and calendaring service called WorkMail, which one analyst said could be the first of many follow-on application offerings.

While WorkMail won’t compete directly with dominant Web products like Gmail and Yahoo email because it’s strictly focused on workplace email, there are still plenty of entrenched competitors, including Microsoft’s Office 365 and Google Apps for Work.

Amazon will charge a monthly subscription fee of $4 per inbox, similar to what Microsoft and Google charge.

Intel officials announced on Jan. 29 that the giant chip maker has made a strong step in the direction of completely wire-free computing with the launch of its 5th Generation Core vPro processors.

These CPUs include several wireless technologies to let notebooks readily connect to displays and peripherals without wires.

The chips, aimed at business systems, also include integrated security, improved performance, longer battery life, easier manageability and better graphics, according to Intel.

Samsung posted its fourth quarter earnings for 2014 which totaled $48 billion, an increase of 11 percent from Q3. That revenue however, was down 12 percent from the $54 billion the company posted in the same quarter one year ago.

Full year 2014 revenue was also down, to $188 billion, a 10.6 percent drop from the $208 billion posted one year ago.

Samsung has been hard hit the last several quarters by lower sales of its mobile phones, due to strong sales of cheaper units from Chinese handset makers and stronger competition from Apple.

Cisco Systems is expanding the capabilities of Meraki’s cloud-based WiFi management technology it acquired when it bought Meraki for $1.2 billion in 2012.

The goal is for the technology to cover a broad range of on-premises IT infrastructure, including networking gear, security hardware and mobile devices.

Cisco also announced a new licensing strategy for its Cisco ONE software. Both efforts are part of a larger push by Cisco to adapt to a data center environment that is quickly shifting from hardware-based solutions to software and the cloud.