Archive for January 30, 2023

Aptum Earns Microsoft Azure Expert Managed Service Provider Recognition

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 30, 2023 by itnerd

Aptum, a hybrid multi-cloud managed service provider (MSP), today announced it has been recognized by Microsoft as an Azure Expert MSP. This designation identifies Aptum as a qualified global partner to deliver Azure solutions to customers.

Aptum is among a group of MSPs globally to earn this certification, having completed an extensive auditing process by an independent third party. The certification process consisted of a rigorous audit of 66 controls in areas such as:

  • Business Health and Managed Service Focus
  • Microsoft Services
  • Assessment and Design
  • Build and Migration
  • Cloud Operations and Service Management 
  • Security and Governance
  • Cloud SLAs, Customer Satisfaction, and Cost Optimization
  • Continual Improvement and Process Optimization

Aptum also provided multiple customer references for projects successfully delivered over the last 12 months. 

As an Azure Expert MSP, Aptum is strongly equipped to help organizations meet their evolving technology needs and achieve their business objectives. The company recently earned other Microsoft partner designations, highlighting its commitment to training and accreditation, as well as its expertise. 

  • The Microsoft Solutions Partner for Data & AI (Azure) designation demonstrates Aptum’s ability to assist customers with the management of their data across multiple systems to build analytics and AI solutions
  • The Microsoft Solutions Partner for Digital & App Innovation (Azure) certification establishes Aptum’s capability to help customers build, run, and manage applications across multiple clouds, on premises, and at the edge, with frameworks and tools customers choose
  • As a Microsoft Solutions Partner for Infrastructure (Azure), Aptum is identified as a partner that can help customers accelerate migration of key infrastructure workloads to Microsoft Azure.

Developers Are Fleeing Twitter For Mastodon

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 30, 2023 by itnerd

There’s been a fair amount of news about the fact that users are fleeing Twitter for Mastodon. But what’s now starting come to light is the fact that developers are doing the same thing. They’re being driven by the ban of third party clients on the platform, and as a result are looking for a new place to call home:

When Twitter quietly updated its developer policies to ban third-party clients from its platform, it abruptly closed an important chapter of Twitter’s history. Unlike most of its counterparts, which tightly control what developers are able to access, Twitter has a long history with independent app makers.

Now, the developers of some Twitter clients are turning their attention to another upstart platform: Mastodon. This week, Tapbots, the studio behind Tweebot, released Ivory, a Mastodon client based on its longtime Twitter app. Matteo Villa, the developer behind Twitter app Fenix, is testing a Mastodon client of his own called Wooly. Junyu Kuang, the indie developer behind Twitter client Spring is working on a Mastodon app called Mona. Shihab Mehboob, developer of Twitter app Aviary, is close to launching a Mastodon client called Mammoth.

The one-time Twitter developers join a growing group of independent app makers who have embraced Mastodon, the open-source social network that’s seen explosive growth since Elon Musk took over Twitter. The decentralized service now has more than 1.5 million users across nearly 10,000 servers. That, coupled with Mastodon’s open-source, “API-first” approach, has attracted dozens of developers eager to put their own spin on the service.

I question the number of users on Mastodon that is quoted in the article because an account on Mastodon which tracks the number of users on the platform says this:

But besides that, developers moving to Mastodon will help to grow the platform as it not only gives users more choice in terms of the Mastodon client that they use, but drives innovation of the platform. Those will help to make Mastodon a much better option than Twitter for those who want to be on some form of social media as there’s no innovation going on at Twitter at the moment. And you can only use their client or their web page to see Tweets. And to be frank, Twitter’s native client sucks and third party clients were always a much better option to access Twitter.

Bottom line: You can add this to the list of reasons why Twitter is a train wreck next to a dumpster fire.