Canada seeks access to detained Iranian-Canadian blogger

Canada has not been granted consular access to detained prominent Iranian-Canadian blogger Hossein Derakhshan in Iran, a foreign affairs spokesman said in Ottawa.

"Consular officials have been in contact with Iranian authorities, including by diplomatic note, to obtain confirmation of Mr. Derakhshan's arrest and to seek consular access," Canadian foreign ministry spokesman Rodney Moore told AFP.

"To date, we have not received a response from the Government of Iran."

"Consular officials will continue to press Iranian authorities for access to Mr. Derakhshan, consistent with the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations," he added.

The Iranian judiciary confirmed earlier Tuesday that Derakhshan, whose highly political "hoder.com" blog has not been updated since October 30, is under arrest over remarks he allegedly made about key figures of the Shiite faith.

Derakhshan's "case is under preliminary investigation and he is in custody," Iran's ILNA news agency quoted judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi as saying. Jamshidi did not say when and where Derakhshan was detained.

Some reports outside Iran said he was arrested on November 1 shortly after arriving in Tehran on a private visit. Moore said Canada learned of his reported arrest in mid-November.

A conservative Iranian website said in November that Derakhshan had been arrested on suspicion of spying for Israel.

Dubbed the "father" of Iranian blogging, Derakhshan, 34, sparked a blogging revolution in the Islamic republic by posting precise instructions in 2001 on how to set up Persian-language blogs, which have burgeoned to around 70,000 in recent years.

Derakhshan visited Iranian arch-foe Israel using his Canadian passport in 2006 and chronicled his experience on his Persian and English blogs, saying he sought to show Israelis and Iranians a different image of each country.

In the past, Derakhshan was strongly critical of Iran's conservatives but he expressed support in 2008 for hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his defiant stance against the West.

He has also criticized the positions of Israel and the United States on Iran's controversial nuclear program, and has criticized Iranian reformists and human rights activists.

Android runs (on) free(runner) - Open OS on open hardware

Google's mobile phone platform, Android, has been ported to the OpenMoko's open-sourced hardware platform, though it's not quite the perfect combination as yet.

The OpenMoko Neo is an open source handset - the hardware design is freely available for implementation, or modification, by anyone conforming to the open source licence. It comes with a Linux-based OS and interface, but porting Android was an obvious, and welcome, development.

According to the screen-shots at iMAndroid the OS and user interface are both running on the Freerunner, licensing restrictions prevent the open-source handset from implementing 3G technologies, or even EDGE, so it would probably be best to use wi-fi when running the network-intensive applications bundled with Android.

The Freerunner has been available for a while, and it would be surprising to see OpenMoko selling a version with Android pre-installed given their devotion to customer choice - the whole point is that customers can install an OS of their choice, in the same way that when I buy a PC I can install an OS of my choice: Microsoft bundling not withstanding. Android is simply another choice, and possibly quite a good one.

We now have more platforms for mobile phones than we do for desktop computers, and that's not counting all the proprietary options, some consolidation is no doubt coming, so it makes sense for OpenMoko to demonstrate its hardware can support a range of options.

India Postpones Auction of 3G Spectrum

India has postponed to Jan. 30, 2009, the auction of 3G spectrum to give potential bidders more time to study bid documents and rules for the auction, a government agency said Tuesday.

Potential bidders requested an extension from the originally scheduled date of Jan. 16, according to India's Ministry of Communications. The final date for applications to bid in the auction also has been extended to Jan. 15 from the earlier Jan. 5, it said.

An auction of spectrum for broadband wireless is scheduled to be held two days after the close of the 3G spectrum auction. The auction for 3G spectrum is likely to be hotly contested by both Indian and foreign companies.

India's mobile market is booming, adding over 10 million new users a month, even as the global economic downturn affects demand in the country for other products and services, including PCs.

"The mobile phone is now seen as a necessity," said Kapil Dev Singh, country manager at research firm IDC India.

Winning a 3G license will also enable bidders to get 2G spectrum to offer services, the government has indicated. While 3G is not expected to be a revenue spinner immediately, the market for 2G services has already been opened by existing players, analysts said.

Google Suggests Gmail Users Dump IE

Google Inc. is pushing users of its Gmail e-mail service to dump Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer for its own Chrome browser or Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox.

When users of IE6 reach Gmail.com, a "Get faster Gmail" message appears in the Web-based service's menu bar. The message, in turn, links to a page on Google's Web site that touts Chrome and Firefox 3 as being "twice as fast" at running Gmail.

 

Google currently lists IE7, Firefox 2.0 and later releases, Chrome and Safari as the only supported browsers for Gmail . Others, including Opera and older editions of IE, Firefox and Safari, can be used to access the e-mail service but aren't able to handle some of its features.

Corporate Safe Specialists Announces Kiosk Self-Service Software Upgrades

Corporate Safe Specialists (CSS) announces a significant upgrade to the MenuSOS software module for its Kiosk safe. The CSS Kiosk software platform has been upgraded to include .net framework 3.05, Windows Presentation and Communications Foundations (WPF and WCF) and SQL Express.

 

CSS Kiosk solutions are designed to help small and medium-sized businesses quickly implement self-service systems with a lower initial investment. MenuSOS is offered as an enhancement to the CSS Kiosk platform, which is the only kiosk system to accept credit/debit cards AND cash, validate and count currency, and store it directly to a business-rated safe. Notes are deposited directly into a business-rated safe and CSS Kiosk security can be made ready for armored car pick-up.

 

 

 

 

MenuSOS offers rapid self-configuration through a scripted, user-friendly ocess hat non-technical users can complete within a few hours. Restaurant and retail stablishments would then have a working kiosk platform that would provide benefits to both the business owner and customers.

For customers, they will now have the ability to order and pay for products and services through a touch-screen interface. The design objective for the user interface was a superior customer experience that shed associations with order entry via personal computer.

Business owners are able to service a greater number of customers without hiring additional staff. The MenuSOS will also enable small business owners to offer their customers the self-service options that have become increasingly popular at larger competitors. The MenuSOS module can also be used as a digital chalkboard to communicate daily specials and other information to customers.

CSS sells a variety of innovative security products including patented, smart-safe technologies that control access to safes remotely, and customer-facing solutions, such as kiosks, that manage transactions and handle cash payment directly from the customer. If you are seeking an entry-level kiosk solution to your business needs that you can implement quickly, confidently and cost-effectively, MenuSOS is designed for you!

About CSS: CSS is an industry leader providing innovative security solutions to retail and restaurant industries globally. CSS safes, smart safes and kiosks feature electronic or biometric locks and can be configured to provide closed-loop cash management processes to minimize risk of armed robbery, burglary and theft. Visit http://www.corporatesafe.com or call 800-342-3033 x300 to discuss your business needs.

SOURCE Corporate Safe Specialists

Telecom Marketing and Sales Veteran Robert King is Named Executive Director, Business Development at Tollgrade

Tollgrade Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: TLGD) announced that telecom marketing and sales veteran Robert King has joined the company as Executive Director, Business Development. King joins Tollgrade from Sunrise Telecom where he was most recently President and General Manager of Sunrise's Broadband Products Group. Rob King brings to Tollgrade more than 23 years of experience in the telecom test and measurement market.

Most recently, Rob King spent the past decade at Sunrise Telecom where he successfully led the company's selling efforts in North America followed by his role in general management of its Broadband Products Group since 2006. In his most recent role, King is responsible for leading Sunrise's engineering and marketing efforts to bring new test and measurement products and services to the marketplace, including its next generation triple and quad-play solutions. Prior to Sunrise, King was a Regional Sales Manager for Ameritec Corporation where he was the top sales producer for nine consecutive years.

 

"We're pleased that Rob King is now a part of Tollgrade's strategic business development efforts where he will work closely with our sales and marketing teams on customer acquisition and retention as well as our partnership programs," said Joseph Ferrara, Tollgrade's President and CEO. "Rob is well known among key customers throughout the industry and we look forward to benefitting from his customer focus and technical expertise," added Ferrara.

About Tollgrade

Tollgrade Communications, Inc. is a leading provider of service assurance products and services for centralized test systems around the world. Tollgrade designs, engineers, markets and supports centralized test systems, test access and status monitoring products, and next generation network assurance technologies. Tollgrade's customers range from the top telecom and cable providers, to numerous independent telecom, cable and broadband providers around the world. Tollgrade's network testing, measurement and monitoring solutions support the infrastructure of cable and telecom companies offering current and emerging triple play services, as well as for power distribution companies. For more information, visit Tollgrade's web site at www.tollgrade.com

SOURCE Tollgrade Communications, Inc.

Industry Veteran Dennis Huff Joins INFINITE as VP Sales

INFINITE Software Corporation (Pink Sheets: IFSC), a global IT integrator and software provider, announced today that Dennis Huff has accepted the position as Vice President of Sales for North America of INFINITE Technology Group, a subsidiary of INFINITE Software Corporation.

"As we round out our senior management team here in North America, adding talent like Dennis makes perfect sense," said Bruce Acacio, CEO of Infinite. Dennis Huff is a former Vice President of Agilysys, a national reseller of HP server equipment. He has a background building and managing a national sales force.

 

INFINITE Technology group is the HP Business Partner unit of INFINITE Software. This unit has significant growth plans in 2009 and is executing joint plans with HP.

About INFINITE Software Corporation

INFINITE Software is a global provider of software and services for the legacy extension and financial services markets. The company is headquartered in Orange County, CA and operates globally from offices in Asia, North America, South America and Europe. The Company's products are marketed under the brand names INFINITE and LPS. INFINITE Software enjoys over 100,000 installations in 56 countries.

Safe Harbor Statement

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This release includes forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the safe harbor from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified by phrases such as California Software or its management "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "foresees," "forecasts," "estimates" or other words or phrases of similar import. Similarly, statements in this release that describe the Company's business strategy, outlook, objectives, plans, intentions or goals also are forward-looking statements. All such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements.

For additional information, see www.infinitesoftware.com

SOURCE INFINITE Software Corporation

Online Backup Service IDrive Introduces Time-Line Restore, Sort of an Online 'Time Machine' for the Windows Platform

IDrive, a leading online backup service provider, today announced that IDrive online backup (http://www.idrive.com) has introduced a new functionality called 'Time-Line Restore' that lets users restore all the selected data from a point in time.

While IDrive always had the versioning capability where an individual file can be restored from any one of the 30 available versions, having a capability to restore a set of files/folders from a particular point in time provides an added advantage. This lets users restore related data from a point in time.

"This is similar to the 'Time Machine' or the 'Snap Shots' concept applied to the Windows platform. Often users have related data whose status changes as a unit based on time and there is a need to be able to restore data as a unit with a time reference," said Raghu Kulkarni, President and CEO of Pro Softnet Corp.

 

IDrive continues to update its offering with functional and performance improvements. Based on internal tests and some professional reviews conducted recently, IDrive outperforms the competition by a significant factor in both backups and restores. Performance is a key factor, especially for online backup where large amounts of data have to be pushed through a thin internet pipe available at the user end.

The advantages of the IDrive online backup service are now being recognized by major online and traditional media publications. In a recent review of online backup services by PC Pro, IDrive was also mentioned as the best performing online backup among competitors that included EMC's online backup service.

IDrive also offers a Mac version, both in Basic and Pro form (for consumers and businesses) and has been one of the few options available on the Mac platform (http://www.idrive.com/idrive-for-mac.htm).

About IDrive:

IDrive (http://www.idrive.com), a service of Pro Softnet Corp., is one of the leading services in the field of online backup for consumers and small businesses and is possibly the world's most popular online backup service (courtesy: Alexa). PC World recently named it as one of the Best 101 Freebee products for 2008. The technology behind IDrive has received many accolades, among which is the "Best of the Bunch" rating by PC World, the PC Magazine Editor's Choice pick and the PC Pro award winner.

SOURCE Pro Softnet Corporation

Intel releases quad-core notebook processor

- The problem with computer chips? You can't run just one, these days. Seems like everything's got multiple chips or dual cores—it's enough to make your head spin. The current king of the heap for the Mac is, naturally, the Mac Pro, boasting your choice of one or two quad-core Intel Xeon chips.

And, as legally obligated by that Moore fellow, processor companies continue to release new chips like clockwork (Get it? Because processors have clock spe—oh, never mind). Intel's newest line, quietly unveiled this week, features five new mobile processors, including one quad-core model. In fact, PC maker Acer has already gone ahead and released their first notebook with the new Intel Core 2 Quad Q9000, running at 2.0GHz (pictured). With an 18.4-inch screen, the $1,799 Acer Aspire 8930G-7665—and won't that be on the tip of the tongue of every kid this year—is classed as a gaming rig and desktop replacement.

Among the other chips in Intel's new mobile line are the 2.93GHz T9800, the 2.66GHz P9600 Core 2 Duo, the 2.66GHz T9550, and the 2.53GHz P8700. The chips range in price from $241 to $530.

Intel is, of course, Apple's exclusive chip supplier, so there's a pretty good chance that some of these powerhouses will make it into Apple's portable line before too long. With its four cores, it seems likely that the Q9000 would be destined for the 17-inch MacBook Pro, but the other chips of the line could be candidates for the rest of the MacBook series as 2009 rolls around. 

Gawker Media sells Consumerist blog (CNET)

- Gawker Media announced Tuesday that it has sold its Consumerist blog to Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports.

The blog, which is often an outlet for consumer complaints, will become a new division within the publisher. The current editorial staff is expected to remain, and there are no plans to change coverage, according to a report in The New York Times.

"We don't want to acquire the Consumerist and then squelch it in some way," Kevin McKean, vice president and editorial director of Consumers Union, told the newspaper.

Terms of the deal, which is expected to close Thursday, were not revealed.

Nick Denton, founder and president of Gawker Media, put the blog up for sale in November, on the same day he made public his decision to shut down Valleywag, the blog network's Silicon Valley gossip title. He also announced Tuesday his plans to sell the gossip site Defamer.

Denton, who also sold off three of its smallest blogs in April, said the softening online advertising market led to the decision to sell the blogs. On the same day he announced his intentions to sell the Consumerist blog, Denton published a detailed missive about his dire predictions for the online ad market.

"I think people have generally been too optimistic" about online ads, Denton told the Times on Tuesday.

Denton's handling of Gawker has been frugal, continually consolidating resources toward the blogs that were pulling in traffic and ad dollars. Early in October, Denton orchestrated a personnel shuffling that saw 14 percent of the company's editorial staff laid off but new hires made at some of the most successful titles like gadget blog Gizmodo and feminist chronicle Jezebel.

JumpStart Invests in Wireless Environment, LLC

 JumpStart Inc., the Northeast Ohio venture development organization that accelerates the growth of innovative early-stage businesses and ideas, recently announced an investment commitment of $400,000 in Wireless Environment, LLC, an Elyria, OH company developing and patenting technologies for use in a wide range of lighting products that use light emitting diodes (LEDs).

LEDs are more environmentally friendly than incandescent, fluorescent and halogen technologies, and offer longer lifetimes while using less power. As progress continues to be made on the LED technology itself, Wireless Environment is looking to bring added value to the end user by developing and patenting technologies that manage the usage of LEDs. Working with both wired (on-grid) and battery powered (off-grid) applications, the company is building their intellectual property around alternative power sources, which can be relied on in power outages, and wireless user controls for a wide range of operations, including dimming, on/off timing, and motion sensing. Wireless Environment has already filed two patents, with plans to file an additional 10 to 15 over the next two years.

JumpStart Entrepreneur-in-Residence Jerry Frantz, who will be working with the company, is excited about their growth potential. "LEDs are rapidly emerging as the lighting technology of the future and Wireless is developing power and control features that bring added value to the consumer," Frantz said. "Wireless is anticipating LED market trends and developing lighting products with built-in intelligence that will significantly improve ease of use, reliability and energy efficiency."

 

The company, led by David Levine, president, and Michael Recker, chief echnology officer, is currently marketing and selling its two initial products: a battery-powered motion sensing LED spot light and an LED stair light that emits a faint light that brightens with motion.

"Our initial products have proven that great consumer demand exists for battery powered LED fixtures," Levine said. "This investment, along with JumpStart assistance, will help us develop technologies and products that will save energy and add convenience to an even broader range of consumer and commercial LED applications. We are committed to pursuing a high-growth plan that will improve the energy efficiency of lighting and transform Wireless Environment into a significant Northeast Ohio company."

 

In addition to the JumpStart investment, which will be used to further develop patents and prototypes, Wireless Environment has also received a grant from the Innovation Fund of the Lorain County Community College Foundation and a product development loan from Cuyahoga County.

This is JumpStart's 46th investment in its 35th company. Other business and consumer products and services companies in JumpStart's portfolio include DIY Real Estate Solutions, Embrace Pet Insurance, HF Food Technologies, STACK Media and VeriShot.

About Wireless Environment, LLC

Wireless Environment, LLC (www.mrbeams.com) designs light-emitting diode (LED) lighting products that improve the convenience and energy efficiency of current lighting solutions. Using existing light sockets or using batteries for power, Wireless Environment has created proprietary products that provide light and also increase control and safety features. These products use LEDs as their light source and have integrated electronics that give users control over features such as brightness and timing. Wireless Environment's socket-powered lighting products provide such features as battery back-up and programmability, while increasing energy efficiency by more than 90 percent. Wireless Environment's Mr. Beams(TM) line of portable lights allows homeowners to install bright light anywhere in minutes. The Mr. Beams product line is currently sold through catalogs and internet retailers.

About JumpStart Inc.

JumpStart (www.jumpstartinc.org) accelerates the growth of innovative early-stage businesses and ideas into venture-ready companies by delivering vital, focused resources to entrepreneurs and the community of Northeast Ohio. JumpStart identifies and invests in early-stage companies that have strong potential in the marketplace, solid prospects for high growth, and are likely to qualify for later-stage funding. Beyond investing, the JumpStart team provides a continuum of business development services to its client companies to help ensure their success.

SOURCE JumpStart Inc.

Web 2.0 Browser-Based Software Automates Invoice Authorizations

Aestiva announced a new software product - Aestiva Invoice Approval for creating, approving, and managing invoice payment requests. The 100% browser-based software product includes security, notification, SOX compliance, management, and reporting features so companies and A/P departments can manage their invoice payment approval processes.

Aestiva Invoice Approval provides transaction-archiving and audit-trails. Companies can track invoices against GL codes, projects, and budgets to ensure compliance with funding sources and regulatory guidelines, and can additionally research disputed items.

The product includes built-in dynamic and customizable reporting.

Aestiva Invoice Approval is installed on standard servers and users can access the application via an Intranet or the Internet from any browser (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Opera, and others) run on an end-user computer operating system (Windows, Apple Mac OS, Linux).

Netbooks and Cloud Computing on the Rise

Global notebook PC shipments exceeded those of desktops on a quarterly basis for the first time ever in the third quarter, marking a watershed event in the history of the industry, according to iSuppli Corp.

Notebook PC shipments rose almost 40 percent in the third quarter of 2008 compared to the same period of 2007 to reach 38.6 million units. Conversely, desktop PC shipments declined by 1.3 percent for the same period to 38.5 million units.

"Momentum has been building in the notebook market for some time, so it's not a complete surprise that shipments have surpassed those of desktops," said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for compute platforms at iSuppli. "However, this marks a major event in the PC market because it marks the start of the age of the notebook. The notebook PC is no longer a tool only for the business market, or a computer for the well-off consumer; it's now a computer for everyman."

A quarter to remember
The notebook's ascension to PC supremacy came during a strong quarter for the overall market. "While the third quarter will be remembered as the time when the scale of the global economic/credit crunch truly became apparent, the PC market managed to deliver strong unit shipment growth during the period," Wilkins noted.

Worldwide PC unit shipments rose 15.4 percent on the third quarter of 2007, with 79 million units shipped. Overall third-quarter PC shipments exceeded iSuppli's prior expectations of 12 percent year-over-year growth for the third quarter.

Business as usual at the top
There were no changes to the Top-5 PC OEM listings and rankings for the third quarter of 2008, according to iSuppli.

Hewlett-Packard retained its No.-1 ranking position in the third quarter of 2008, with shipments of 14.9 million units, and a market share of 18.8 percent. Fellow U.S. PC maker Dell maintained its second-place ranking with shipments of slightly less than 11 million units, giving the company a market share of 13.9 percent. No. 3 was Acer, with a market share of 12.2 percent resulting from shipments of 9.7 million during the quarter. Rounding out the Top-5 PC OEM rankings were Lenovo and Toshiba, ranked fourth and fifth, with market shares of 7.5 and 4.6 percent, respectively.

Acer goes into overdrive
"Acer shipped almost 3 million more notebooks in the third quarter than it did in the preceding quarter, with the majority of those 3 million being the company's netbook products," Wilkins said. "Clearly, the company's netbook strategy is paying dividends, with Acer now trailing Dell by less than 2 percentage points of market share for all PCs."

Solid PC performance
iSuppli was encouraged by overall third-quarter PC shipments, which exceeded our prior expectations of 12 percent year-over-year growth for the third quarter. Desktop PC shipment levels declined by 1.3 percent compared to the same period in 2007, while notebook shipments were up almost 40 percent. Looking outside of the Top-5 OEMs, Apple lost almost half a point of market share on a sequential basis at 3.2 percent, placing it seventh overall in total PC shipments. ASUSTeK reported a great performance with its notebook shipments, surpassing Lenovo to become the fifth-largest notebook PC OEM while retaining its position overall as the sixth-ranked PC OEM in terms of total PC shipments.

From this information an article in gizmag has predicted that the notebook, now indicated as the primary computing device, will hold the baton for a few years before its constituent sub-set of netbooks dominates the market. According to gizmag, 10 million netbooks sold in 2008, more than doubling last year's sales which accounted for 500,000.

Cloud Computing & Telephony: Twilio Shows EC2 and S3 in Action

A Twilio application is simply a phone-activated web application. When the application's phone is called, Twilio answers and activates the application. The application then returns an XML document containing TwiML (Twilio Markup) commands. Jeff showed up how Twilio's 5 commands (<Play>, <Gather>, <Record>, <Say>, and <Dial>) can be combined to create applications in minutes.Here's what they do:

<Play> is used to play an audio file for the caller. Twilio will transcode the file in real-time, turning high-quality audio into the required 8 bit 11 kHz format.

<Gather> accepts one or more digits from the caller's keypad and passes them to a specified URL using POST or GET.

<Record> captures the caller's voice and returns a URL which points to the recorded audio. Recording can be terminated using a specificed keypad key or after a specified quiet period.

<Say> invokes a text to speech engine with male and female voices in 4 languages.

<Dial> is used to connect the caller to another phone number.

Pricing is friendly for developers! Developer accounts are free and include 1000 minutes of calls. Full accounts cost $5 per phone number (local or toll free), then 3 (local) or 5 (toll free) cents per minute for incoming calls and 3 cents per minute for outgoing calls.

Jeff showed us an application that he'd built the day before. The application allows the caller to request the status of EC2, S3, or SQS. The application then parse's the AWS status dashboard's HTML and echoes the status of the requested service. You can read all about the application or you can try it out by calling 206-866-5918.

You can get started here (you'll need to ask for an invite code there first). Also a link to a Slideshare presentation with even more info about Twilio. The presentation includes some really interesting information about how they use EC2, S3, and SQS to build Twilio, and how they build and customize their EC2 instances.

'09 IT predictions -- the economy dominates

Well, we blew it a year ago on the prediction that last month's US presidential election would lead to historic turnout -- it didn't quite hit that mark -- and unprecedented problems with e-voting systems. The problems, it turns out, were for the most part precedented. On the positive side, we nailed the result, forecasting the election of Barack Obama. Not inclined to rest on that laurel (and a few others we also accurately foretold), we've set forth again to find out what industry analysts are forecasting for 2009, and we've talked to sources as well as to our geekiest friends and colleagues to come up with our own set of predictions for 2009.

Absent from this year's list of 10 prognostications is an entry about Microsoft finally buying at least the ad-search business of Yahoo, if not the whole company. We left that one off the list for next year because we still expect it could happen in 2008. With that in mind and in no particular order:

The economy will limp along

OK, no surprise that the economy is going to dominate the news for at least most of 2009, if not the whole year. There's something to this comment from Gordon Brooks: "I'm convinced nobody has any idea" how long the downturn will last, says the president and CEO of Symphony Services, a product engineering services firm steeped in the outsourcing market. He's been talking to bankers, listening to economists and digesting all he can stomach as he navigates his company through the recession. But we'll edge out on the limb and predict that we'll see signs of improvement by midyear, and go with Brooks' assessment that while the whole of 2009 will be rugged, by year's end an upswing will be under way.

That said, along the way we'll find "a purging of our inefficiencies and of things that had gotten out of whack," as Brooks expects. That can only mean more layoffs, and while IT departments overall are more likely to stumble through the recession in reasonable shape, we expect that some market segments, notably hardware and consumer electronics, are going to be hosed for much of the year. We'll leave particular percentage predictions for growth rates, or the lack therefore, to the analysts such as Fitch, which is forecasting no growth to a 3 percent drop in worldwide PC units as companies hold off on upgrading.

But there's good news

Economic downturns tend to drive innovation and also spur rollouts of new technologies and products to lure users to spend money. This has been particularly true over the years in the DRAM (dynamic RAM) market, where companies are focused on trying to get DDR3 out as quickly as they can. They have to get motherboard, chipset and microprocessor companies on board to support new memory chips, so that's what is slowing them down. But we see DDR3 becoming the new mainstream DRAM chip in 2009.

 

And more good news

Netbooks have generated a lot of buzz (and no little bit of hype) of late as more of the small, low-cost, lightweight, energy-efficient laptops hit the market. That will continue apace, but we also expect that the average price of US$400-$500 will drop to the $200-$300 range. Part of the price plunge will owe to volume production because the price of parts will drop as more netbooks are made.

Long live the iPhone

We're in accord with market researcher IDC that "it will be a grim year for mobile gadgets -- as volume growth flattens in mobile phones, as netbook PCs expand the market but threaten notebook pricing and margins, and as consolidation looms in personal navigation devices." However, we think that the iPhone is going to play a major role -- perhaps single-handedly -- in keeping the smartphone market afloat, even if it's going to need to be thrown a life preserver along the way. (That's meant metaphorically and not as a prediction that smartphone makers will be next in line for government bailouts.)

Oh, and we also think that IDC's prediction that portable media player shipments will show a first-time drop is spot-on, given market saturation and that there are only so many ways to improve on the players that will induce people to buy new ones.

See ya!

Sun Microsystems will find a new CEO to replace Jonathan Schwartz. We're torn between the view that he'll be ousted and the view that he'll decide it's just time to go, but either way we don't believe he'll be Sun's CEO at the end of 2009, if he even makes it past the first quarter or so. And Sun will cease to exist in its current incarnation, perhaps being part of a blockbuster acquisition, perhaps going private.

Time Warner unloads

Time Warner will manage to unload America Online, either by spinning it off as a separate company, selling it, or using it as the basis of a joint venture formed with another company.

Windows 7 will be released

Microsoft hasn't announced a launch date for Windows 7, and while earlier indications were that it would be out in early 2010, company executives have recently hinted that it could be out around the end of 2009. With continued sluggish adoption of Vista -- not to mention ongoing inroads by Linux, notably in the low-priced PC market -- and a warm reception to a beta demonstration of Windows 7 at its Professional Developers Conference in October, we think the hints will become reality and Microsoft will release the OS late in 2009. We'll also be so bold as to predict it will be a vast improvement over Vista. Well, OK, maybe that's not so bold because, you know, how could it be worse, right? But even so, the Microsoft portion of our crystal ball is telling us that Windows 7 will be well-received and help Microsoft regain some of the OS edge it lost in 2008. (But Linux is still going to nip at Microsoft's heels.)

 

Cloudy days

Well, last year we wanted to resist an entry on virtualization; this year it's cloud computing we'd like to deny, the two being kin and all. We agree with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison that the jargon is "complete gibberish" and the definitions encompass that which already exists and doesn't actually need a label. But we digress -- the point is that companies will keep moving toward software-as-a-service and cloud storage models as they aim to cut costs. SaaS and cloud-based vendors will haul in new customers and post profits. Meanwhile, "private clouds" will loom on the IT horizon as companies less comfortable with letting someone else manage their data and provide related services will set up clouds behind their corporate firewalls. Some of the more headline-grabbing merger and acquisition news of 2009 will occur with vendors focused on the cloud and with SaaS providers. Google and Amazon.com will continue to be particularly aggressive and will target smaller players in acquisition deals.

Always a step ahead

Cybercriminals will find ever more malicious ways to vex us in 2009, what with the success of infecting PDF (Portable Document Format) and Flash files with malware. Ever-more-sophisticated Trojans will emerge in 2009 to swipe data and wreak havoc. Along those lines, sometime during the year, a major online retailer will be nailed with a serious security breach that exposes credit-card numbers and personal data of thousands of customers because some people just never learn from the past.

Security vendor Finjan predicts that the number of people participating in cybercrime will continue to rise -- no surprise there -- but in a more alarming twist says the increase will occur "with an increasing number of unemployed IT professionals joining in." To that end, more news headlines involving networks being held hostage by disgruntled former employees are in the offing.

About President Obama

Assorted industry groups have inundated President-elect Obama with lists of what they think he should aim to accomplish as far as technology issues go, and even though the man surely has plenty on his plate to deal with, we're going to buck the notion that not much will be accomplished regarding technology or cybersecurity and the like as 2009 unfolds. We predict that a more technologically savvy president will push such issues more to the forefront than they have been. He'll trust in the first-ever US CTO to run with the ball and get some real work done. Along those lines, a top priority will be shoring up US federal cybersecurity defenses, and real, serious improvements will happen within the first six months of the year.

He'll appoint a new US Federal Communications Commission chairman who will shepherd through net neutrality rules to keep broadband providers from blocking or restricting customer access to Internet content. Wider broadband access and adoption will actually happen rather than being talked about all the time as some grand dream, with an administration in place that "gets" the pivotal role of the Internet and actually uses technology. (But we haven't the foggiest idea what he and his family will name the puppy his daughters have been promised.)

Sun executive reveals more open-source plans for JavaFX

A Sun Microsystems executive has provided a glimpse into the company's future plans for open sourcing JavaFX, its recently released technology for building RIAs (rich Internet applications) for the desktop, mobile devices and other platforms.

Sun's corporate image is grounded in its embrace of open-source software and some components of JavaFX, including the JavaFX compiler and elements of graphic libraries, are now available under the GPLv2 open-source license, according to the official JavaFX FAQ.

But other key components are still proprietary. Sun is now working to change this, according to a recent blog post by Jeet Kaul, vice president of the Client Software Group.

"There are some dependencies on licensed code that cannot be open sourced. We are working towards decoupling the dependencies so that the non-proprietary portions can be open sourced," Kaul wrote. "We will put the core runtime out in the open over time."

Kaul did not spell out the nature of the dependencies. A spokesman for Sun did not immediately respond to a request for more information Tuesday.

Sun will also publish specifications for new file formats associated with JavaFX, "shortly," Kaul said.

Kaul's blog post came in response to those questions and others posted by Java developer Osvaldo Pinali Doederlein.

The Sun executive also provided an updated road map for JavaFX, writing that the mobile platform -- now in beta -- will be released "by March" and a visual designer tool will be available in the middle of next year.

While JavaFX will compete with a range of other RIA toolsets, such as Adobe's AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) and Microsoft's Silverlight, Sun is banking that Java's pervasive market penetration will give it an edge.

Satyam demands apology from World Bank

Indian outsourcer Satyam Computer Services has demanded an apology from the World Bank for statements made after it barred Satyam from the bank's direct contracts for a period of eight years.

Describing statements by World Bank representatives to the media as inappropriate, Satyam demanded on Thursday that the bank withdraw the statements, issue an apology for the harm done to the company due to the bank's actions, and provide Satyam with a full explanation of the circumstances related to the statements.

"Satyam was declared ineligible for contracts for providing improper benefits to Bank staff and for failing to maintain documentation to support fees charged for its subcontractors," the World Bank said in a statement on Tuesday.

The statement from Satyam on Thursday does not question the company being barred from contracts, or ask for the revocation of the bar, but instead objects to statements made by bank representatives. It does not also address the charges under which the World Bank said it was making Satyam ineligible for future contracts.

A spokeswoman for Satyam declined to discuss the matter further.

Satyam usually does not comment publicly on matters involving customer relationships, the company said. However, the inaccuracy and inappropriateness of the World Bank's public statements regarding Satyam has forced it to issue a brief statement in order to set the record straight, it added.

The company, which is India's fourth largest outsourcer, has already come under criticism from investors and analysts, for its moves on Tuesday last week to diversify into the construction business. It rolled back the decision less than a day later after investors knocked down the price of the company's shares by about 55 percent in trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Satyam's share price was also down on Wednesday on Indian stock markets by about 15 percent after the World Bank statement.

While the World Bank's decision is a blow to Satyam it will not affect the credibility of other Indian outsourcers, as each outsourcing company is evaluated on its own merits, said an outsourcing analyst who requested anonymity.

Microsoft kicks fake security software off 400,000 PCs

In the second month of a campaign against fake security software, Microsoft has booted the rogue application "Antivirus 2009" from almost 400,000 PCs, the company recently claimed.

December's version of the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT), a free utility that Microsoft pushes to Windows users as part of Patch Tuesday, targeted one of the most popular phony security app, Antivirus 2009. According to Microsoft, the MSRT erased the fake from over 394,000 PCs in the first nine days after it released this month's edition on Dec. 9.

Last month, Microsoft trumpeted a similar cleaning operation against another family of bogus security software that it said had purged nearly a million machines of programs such as those called "Advanced Antivirus," "Ultimate Antivirus 2008" and "XPert Antivirus."

December's campaign targeted a different family -- dubbed "W32/FakeXPA" by Microsoft -- that includes fake security software going by names such as "Antivirus XP," "AntivirusXP 2008" and "Antivirus 2009."

Windows users increasingly have been plagued with worthless security software as criminals bundle the moneymakers with other malware or seed significant users with waves of spam touting the programs. According to one researcher, cybercrooks can pull in as much as $5 million a year by installing the rogue programs on PCs, then dunning users with infection claims and constant pop-ups until the victims pay $40 or $50 to purchase the useless applications.

Microsoft also aimed the December version of MSRT at an affiliated piece of malware, called "W32/Yektel," that works alongside W32FakeXPA and is often bundled with the phony security software.

Classified by Microsoft as a Trojan horse, Yektel takes advantage of users' worries about browser security by inserting false warnings into Internet Explorer. Those warnings, explained Microsoft researcher Hamish O'Dea in a post to the company's malware protection center blog two weeks ago, appear at random and mimic IE's own legitimate drop-down alerts.

Newer variations of the Yektel Trojan go a step further, and insert phony warnings into Google search results, said O'Dea. Whenever these even-sneakier versions detect IE rendering a URL that includes "google," it inserts a fake message that reads "Google has detected unregistered Antivirus 2009 copy on your computer. Google recommends you activate Antivirus 2009 to protect your PC from malicious intrusions from the Internet."

The links from Yektel's IE and Google warnings, of course, take users to a Web site where users are urged to pay $50 to register Antivirus 2009.

Windows users can download the MSRT manually from Microsoft's Web site or via the Windows Update service.

Acer on Monday launched a powerful quad-core laptop at a price that may appeal to buyers on a budget.

Amazon.com had its best holiday sales season ever, providing a scarce optimistic report as online sales from November and December were tallied. U.S. online sales over the holiday period showed "relative strength" but were still down and online shopping in the U.K. was markedly off compared to a year ago, according to final reports of the season.

Amazon's sales peaked on Dec. 15, when online shoppers worldwide bought 72.9 items per second, amounting to more than 6.3 million items that day, the company said, although it did not report a dollar total for how much it sold. Wal-Mart and Apple also reportedly had strong online sales.

Overall, though, U.S. e-commerce sales between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24 were down 2.3 percent compared to 2007, according to SpendingPulse, an information service of MasterCard Advisors. SpendingPulse called online sales "an area of relative strength" amid overall holiday retail sales that rank among the worst in recent memory. Even so, this is the first time that online sales have dipped compared to the previous year.

Electronics and appliance sales were down 26 percent overall compared to a year ago, SpendingPulse found. Only luxury items had a worse showing, dropping more than 34 percent, according to SpendingPulse figures for both online spending and brick-and-mortar shopping. Retail sales fell 5.5 percent in November and 8 percent from Dec. 1 to 24, SpendingPulse found.

Poor weather across a lot of the U.S. -- including in a number of major cities -- in the last two weeks of the holiday shopping stretch helped boost online sales because shoppers decided to stay indoors, retail analysts said. Mostly, though, consumers chose to spend a lot less money -- online spending during the winter storms did not make up for lackluster overall sales that were already lower than a year ago because of the faltering economy.

In the U.K., where severe weather was not a factor, 28 million online shoppers said they spent £9.4 billion (US$13.7 billion) online during the holiday season, 20 percent below what the Interactive Media in Retail Group forecast in November, the online payments system, Moneybookers, said Monday.

After the IMRG forecast was released last month, online shoppers scaled back "their festive spend as rising household costs and fears about the economy set in," Moneybookers co-CEO Nikolai Riesenkampff said in a statement. Even so, online sales helped boost sagging retail sales and showed retailers the importance of an online presence, Moneybookers said.

Acer launches laptop with Intel's quad-core chip

Acer on Monday launched a powerful quad-core laptop at a price that may appeal to buyers on a budget.

The company's Aspire 8930G-7665 laptop is designed as a gaming laptop or desktop replacement. The laptop is powered by Intel's Core 2 Quad mobile processor with four cores that runs at up to 2.53GHz and includes 12MB of cache, according to Acer.

With a starting price of US$1,799, Acer's laptop could be a bargain compared to expensive quad-core laptops from the world's top PC vendors. Hewlett-Packard and Dell both offer quad-core laptops as either gaming laptops or mobile workstations with prices starting at over $2,000. Acer is the world's third-largest PC vendor behind HP and Dell, according to analyst firm IDC.

The laptop includes an 18.4-inch screen that can display high-definition images and video. It also includes 4GB of RAM, Nvidia's GeForce 9700M GT graphics card with 512MB of video memory, a 500GB hard drive, a Blu-ray Disc drive and Wi-Fi wireless networking. It comes preloaded with the 64-bit version of Windows Vista Premium OS.

The laptop is now available in the U.S. through retailers, the company said. Acer could not be immediately reached for comment on worldwide availability.

Microsoft specs out 'Pay-as-you-go' PC scheme

Microsoft last week applied for a patent that spells out a "pay-as-you-go" concept where users would be charged for both the software they run and the computing horsepower they use.

According to the patent application filed last week with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the "Metered Pay-As-You-Go Computing Experience" scheme would meter software use and access to specific computer hardware. Fees would be charged against a pre-paid or billed account.

"The current business model for computer hardware and software relies on a user purchasing a computer with hardware and software that is suited to the most demanding applications that the user expects to encounter," said Microsoft in the application. "Therefore, a user may buy a multi-core processor with a significant amount of memory and advanced video support for gaming applications that are only used on the weekend, while the user's day-in, day-out activities may involve little more than word processing or web-browsing."

Microsoft's plan would instead monitor the machine to track things such as disk storage space, processor cores and memory used, then bill the user for what was consumed during a set period.

"A different business model may allow a more granular approach to hardware and software sales," Microsoft argued. "A computer may have individually metered hardware and software components that a user can select and activate based on current need. When the need is browsing, a low level of performance may be used and when network-based interactive gaming is the need of the moment, the highest available performance may be made available to the user."

Fees would be lower for low-performance chores, such as writing e-mail or surfing the Internet, and higher for high-performance tasks.

For consumers, Microsoft said, the advantage of such a model would be a lower price at the outset for a powerful PC. Computer makers would gain the ability to standardize on higher-end systems, it added. But the company admitted that the overall cost to the user might be higher. "Although the cost of ownership over the life of the computer may be higher than that of a one-time purchase, the payments can be deferred and the user can extend the useful life of the computer beyond that of the one-time purchase machine," Microsoft contended.

Key to the concept is something Microsoft called a "security module," embedded either in the hardware or provided as software, that would meter the computer's usage. "To make this model successful, a mechanism must be in place that supports a highly secure method of adjusting performance coupled with a secure, auditable measurement and payment scheme to allow a variety of pre-paid and post-paid mechanisms for capturing and settling highly granular, infinitely adjustable, performance variations," said the patent application.

The security module would also lock the PC to a specific supplier, perhaps an Internet service provider (ISP), much as a subsidized cell phone is locked to a specific mobile carrier for the life of a contract. "The metering agents and ... the security module allow an underwriter in the supply chain to confidently supply a computer at little or no upfront cost to a user or business, aware that their investment is protected and that the scalable performance capabilities generate revenue commensurate with actual performance level settings and usage," said Microsoft.

Pricing could be on an hourly rate, perhaps with different "bundles" priced according to the software offered and the hardware necessary to run that software. An "Office" bundle, for example, might include word processing and spreadsheet software that could access two of three processor cores and a medium level of graphics performance for, say, $1 an hour.

A "Gaming" bundle, meanwhile, would make available all the PC's processor cores and 3D graphics support for $1.25 an hour.

"Both users and suppliers benefit from this new business model," Microsoft argued. "The user is able to migrate the performance level of the computer as needs change over time, while the supplier can develop a revenue stream business that may actually have higher value than the one-time purchase model currently practiced."

VAI Joins IBM Software to Deliver Cloud Services

VAI (Vormittag Associates, Inc.), an IBM Premier Business partner, has announced that it has joined the IBM Software as a Service (SaaS) Specialty program to deliver cloud services to its clients. VAI's S2K Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software Suite, leveraging IBM's Power Systems, WebSphere, WebSphere Portal and DB2 database software, will now be available using the SaaS delivery model to provide the power and unsurpassed value that the distribution, manufacturing, retail and service industries need to address key business issues and deliver bottom-line results.

IBM offers hardware, software and infrastructure technologies to help its Business Partners deliver secure and scalable cloud services. Regardless of the state of adoption, IBM can help its partner's design, build, deliver and market SaaS solutions to help clients transform their businesses.

"SaaS is one of the fastest growing segments of the IT industry because it provides companies of all sizes with access to innovative solutions delivered remotely via a subscription model," said Dave Mitchell, director of strategy, IBM Developer Relations. "VAI's commitment to SaaS can provide its customers with a powerful way to reduce implementation costs while rapidly deploying business applications."

"We are pleased that IBM has accepted VAI into its SaaS Specialty," said Kevin Beasley, CIO of VAI. "Membership in the program allots us a number of sales and marketing resources that extend our value proposition and expand our markets by delivering additional delivery methods to suit a larger range of customers."

MS (finally) confirms unpatched SQL Server flaw

Microsoft came clean and admitted its SQL Server database software is vulnerable to code injection attacks. It's not a new flaw but the same bug in the database software that emerged around the time of Microsoft's monthly Patch Tuesday update earlier this month.

In an advisory, Redmond's security gnomes confirmed that code has been produced that exploits a security bug affecting Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and Windows Internal Database, in certain configurations.

On the plus side, Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 4, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3, and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 are immune from the flaw. Third party apps that make use of the vulnerable code also appear to be in the clear.

The software giant stated that although exploit code exists it hasn't received any reports of attacks. Its advisory contains suggested workarounds.

Microsoft fails to mention this but Secunia reports that the flaw is the same bug discovered by SEC Consulting, which published an advisory on the security bug on 4 December. SEC Consulting only did this after months of dialogue with Microsoft.

A separate zero-day vulnerability became the subject of an out-of-sequence patch. That flaw is being hit far harder than the SQL server bug, which arguably presents a lower general risk for internet hygiene. Microsoft said it's investigating the SQL Server flaw, which past form would suggest is a candidate for a patch in either January or February as part of Microsoft's regular Patch Tuesday update cycle.

Security flaws in SQL Server are of interest well outside the data centre.

Hackers often use vulnerabilities in database software to plant malicious script that hijack internet sessions to serve up exploit code from systems under their control. The tactic forms the basis of drive-by download attacks, a class of assault that's become a preferred distribution route for Trojan code over recent years.

Sun boosts OpenSolaris on Atom

Intel has announced that the OpenSolaris variant of Unix is now better supported on its Atom processors.

The Atom support is being positioned to bring the joys of x64 computing to netbooks and other low-power computing devices, and it offers some of the best performance/watt in processing these days.

Sun Microsystems, which largely steers the OpenSolaris effort and will use the distro as the basis of the next generation of Solaris, wants to be among the greenest of IT vendors. It also wants to find a new niche for Solaris, as Linux has done superbly on netbooks this year.

So, Atom support is important for Sun, even if it doesn't mean as much to Intel, which has done quite nicely for itself being a Linux zealot and helping its x64 partners sell against RISC/Unix iron.

Writing in his blog, David Stewart, who manages the OpenSolaris team within Intel's software and solutions group, which is predominantly involved in tuning Solaris for Xeon-class server processors, said that two important Atom features have been put back into OpenSolaris, which allows for drivers and other software to optimized to run on Atom. These features? Performance counters and support for the MOVEB instruction.

While these features seem pretty small on the face of it, the fact that Sun and Intel are working to get OpenSolaris working well on Atom chips means that Sun (or indeed, some other platform maker) has a better chance of creating Solaris-based embedded and consumer devices.

While Linux (of one sort or another) is the default platform for a lot of such devices these days, Solaris is well regarded, rock solid, and has the virtue of being a single distro (so long as you ignore some of the minor ones that have cropped up, such as MilaX, BeleniX, NexentaCP, and SchilliX).

OpenSolaris does boot on Atom-based systems, but sometimes requires some tweaks to the Grub loader to make it happen because it is checking for features that are not necessary to run in 64-bit mode on Atom that are on other x64 chips. If you are really bored, you can read about the bug and the workaround here. There are also issues with integrated network interfaces, too, which you can see here.

These kinds of issues are what made Linux support an issue on Mini-ITX machines that became all the rage a few years back and that, in part, has resulted in Intel delivering the Atom processors that the company hopes will displace x86 and x64 processors made by VIA Technologies and popularized in the Mini-ITX, Nano, and Pico platforms.

These VIA boards are getting smaller and more powerful, and they embody some pretty clever engineering, too. I have personally built and put into production Mini-ITX servers using laptop disk drives because of their low power consumption. But Windows works out of the box - believe it or not, even Enterprise Server 2003 and Small Business Server R2, which I have in production now on a bunch of machines.

While Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server has worked fine on these machines, the embedded BIOS-style RAID disk controllers don't work, which is a problem.

Small footprint, small start

In short, Sun has to do a lot more than get two key features on Atom chips working with OpenSolaris to be a viable alternative to Windows or Linux on any Atom-based platform. Getting the operating system to load is not as useful as having all of the features of myriad boards and systems fully supported in the operating system.

And, if Windows and Linux do a better job at this, they win and Solaris - open or otherwise - will lose. There are a lot of embedded systems and non-standard ATX and Micro-ATX motherboards out there using other processors aside from the standard desktop and server chips from Intel and AMD.

OpenSolaris support has to be broad as well as deep to compete, and with Sun not sure how to make money in its core markets, the company doesn't appear to have the dough to invest to make this happen.

And even if it did, it is not clear where the money is to be made in such devices. How much money has Sun made because Java is in cellphones and on hundreds of billions of desktops? See what I mean?

All that said, every new thing that the OpenSolaris community can make run the operating system run on is a good thing for the Solaris ecosystem. This is how Linux got to where it is today. One platform at a time.

Google Hands Out Phones, Not Cash, as Holiday Bonus

While Internet search giant Google handed out cash to employees last year, the company is scaling back and giving its workers a different kind of gift this holiday season.

Google is giving its employees a taste of its own Kool-Aid by passing out Android-based mobile phones to at least 85 percent of employees, a person described as "familiar with the matter" told Bloomberg News.

"The current economic crisis requires us to be more conservative about how we spend our money," Google said in an internal memo that was posted on technology industry blog Valleywag.com.

Because the phone will not work in more than one dozen countries, including Turkey, Kenya, Brazil, Russia and India, Google is instead giving $400 to employees in those countries, which is the cash value of the phone.

Cash-Strapped or Celebration of Android?

Gone are the days of huge cash bonuses and all-expenses-paid holiday weekend trips to the Caribbean.

Instead, companies are finding ways to cut costs, making drastic changes including cutting thousands of jobs, cutting back on plans to expand, and spinning off other businesses in order to turn around a profit for shareholders -- and in an effort to stay afloat.

Adobe Systems, Viacom, AT&T and Circuit City are just some of the companies that have cut between 600 and 5,000 employees in recent weeks.

Google, while successful, has also felt the pinch of the economic downturn and has also had to scale back. Last month, the company quietly cut a reported 3,000 contract positions.

So Google's explanation behind its move should not be shocking to employees.

"Some of you will of course be wondering why we decided to change from a cash bonus to the Dream phone," Google states in the posted memo. "Here are the reasons: First, we've never developed anything like the Android software before and this represented a unique opportunity to celebrate that achievement."

"Googlers globally have been asking for the Dream phone, and we're looking forward to seeing all the different things that you do with them," the company said. "This is a chance for us to once again dogfood a product and make it even better! We felt that giving the Dream phone would be a great holiday present -- something we could all celebrate."

Bloggers React

Bloggers are fired up about Google employees who are not gracious about receiving the mobile phone as a bonus.

Bloggers say Google employees should be happy that they are receiving a bonus in such hard economic times and should be thankful that they are not being sent home for the holidays with a pink slip, as many in the technology industry have in recent months.

NPR launches features to build custom podcasts

Still can't decide among the hundreds of podcasts that National Public Radio makes available over the Internet?

Now you can create your own.

A new feature NPR launched this month lets listeners create custom podcasts blending individual audio reports on any topic or keyword.

Rather than have NPR editors, say, choose five or six stories for its movies podcast, you can create your own for just Christmas movies. Simply type in the topics or keywords into the appropriate boxes at http://npr.org/podcast, and the site generates a link that you can plug into Apple Inc.'s iTunes or other podcast-supporting software.

The custom podcast can be hit or miss, though.

An attempt to create one on the hit TV show "Gossip Girl" returned several off-topic audio reports, including one on landscaper Christy Webber.

5,000-10,000 new Twitter accounts a day: study

Micro-blogging service Twitter is gaining 5,000 to 10,000 new accounts a day and most of its users have joined this year, according to a study released on Tuesday.

Internet marketing company HubSpot, in a "State of the Twittersphere" report, said 70 percent of the estimated four to five million people using Twitter have signed up in 2008 and 20 percent have joined in the last 60 days.

It said the average user has been on the real-time short-messaging service for about 275 days.

"A year ago Twitter was a relatively small community of techies and Web 2.0 geeks, now it is going mainstream," the report said.

"Twitter is not only being talked about and used by a lot more people, but more and more marketing industry events and conferences are using Twitter as a standard means of communication," it said.

HubSpot said 35 percent of Twitter users have 10 or fewer "followers" -- people who subscribe to receive their 140-characters-or-less messages -- while nine percent of Twitter users follow no one at all.

The average number of followers for a Twitter user is 70, it said, and the average person follows 69 people.

The report said Twitter traffic was the highest on Wednesdays and Thursdays and dropped off by about 30 percent over the weekend.

Launched in August 2006, Twitter has been embraced by a number of celebrity users including Barack Obama, who racked up more than 150,000 followers during the US presidential campaign, and four-time NBA champion Shaquille O'Neal of the Phoenix Suns.

Twitter users have also made news recently by providing lightning fast on-the-scene updates from events such as the Mumbai terrorist attacks.

Microsoft Warns of SQL Attack

Just days after patching a critical flaw in its Internet Explorer browser, Microsoft is now warning users of a serious bug in its SQL Server database software.

Microsoft issued a security advisory late Monday, saying that the bug could be exploited to run unauthorized software on systems running versions of Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005.

Attack code that exploits the bug has been published, but Microsoft said that it has not yet seen this code used in online attacks. Database servers could be attacked using this flaw if the criminals somehow found a way to log onto the system, and Web applications that suffered from relatively common SQL injection bugs could be used as stepping stones to attack the back-end database, Microsoft said.

Desktop users running the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine or SQL Server 2005 Express could be at risk in some circumstances, Microsoft said.

The bug lies in a stored procedure called "sp_replwritetovarbin," which is used by Microsoft's software when it replicates database transactions. It was publicly disclosed on December 9 by SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab, which said it had notified Microsoft of the issue in April.

"Systems with Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 4, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3, and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 are not affected by this issue," Microsoft said in its advisory.

This is the third serious bug in Microsoft's software to be disclosed in the past month, but it is unlikely to be used in widespread attacks, according to Marc Maiffret, director of professional services, with The DigiTrust Group, a security consulting firm. "It is rather low risk given other vulnerabilities that exist," he said via instant message. "There are a lot of better ways to currently compromise windows systems."

After seeing the Internet Explorer flaw used in a growing number of online attacks, Microsoft rushed out an emergency patch for the issue last Wednesday. The company says it has also seen "limited and targeted attacks" exploiting a serious bug in the WordPad Text Converter for Word 97 files. As with the SQL bug, this WordPad converter vulnerability has not been patched, but is a prime candidate to be fixed in Microsoft's upcoming January 13 security updates.

China's Sina Buys Ad Business for $1 Billion in Stock

The company that runs one of China's most popular Internet portals, Sina, on Monday agreed to buy a nationwide digital advertising network including LCD displays, poster frames and in-store sign boards from Focus Media in a deal worth over US$1 billion.

The deal enables Sina to offer customers more ways to advertise than online alone.

"We believe that this business combination will significantly extend our media reach and influence, reinforcing our position as a partner of choice in new-media advertising in China," Sina said in a statement.

The deal leaves Focus Media with its is Internet advertising, movie theater advertising and certain traditional billboards.

Sina agreed to pay 47 million newly issued shares of its common stock to Focus Media in the deal. The shares would have had a value of US$1.37 billion as of the end of trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange last Friday, or US$1.14 billion on Monday. Sina's stock fell over 17 percent on Monday, to US$24.25 per share.

The transaction has already been approved by the boards of directors of both companies and shareholders will not vote on the deal. There are, however, some regulatory approvals needed to close the deal, which Sina expects to be completed in the first half of 2009

Novell Cancels BrainShare

Novell has pulled the plug on BrainShare – for 20 years its trademark user conference – which was scheduled for March in Salt Lake City.

Novell chief marketing officer John Dragoon says on the company's web site that people wouldn't commit to coming because of cost restraints.

He intends to substitute "online classes, virtual conferences and local tours."

Cisco - the networking giant has plan for the New Year, revs up competition with blade plans

Next year will see Cisco deliver a "Big Bang" in switching, blade servers for the data center, high-definition TelePresence conferencing for the home, and a security plan for virtualized and cloud computing environments.

Cisco's switching upgrade will emerge in January and encompass more than just the Catalyst 6500, as initially expected. The emphasis on Big Bang, the code name for the switching upgrade, will be green and apply to Cisco's entire switching portfolio, says Marie Hattar, vice president of network systems and security solutions at Cisco.

"It's an evolutionary capability. It's not a new platform," Hattar said at Cisco's CScape analyst conference recently. "It's really more tied to green capabilities, and how the network really enables those types of capabilities."

Hattar would not divulge any further details on Big Bang, other than to say it will emerge in late January.

Hattar was also tight-lipped on Cisco's intentions in the blade server market. Cisco is reportedly developing a blade server offering, expected in 2009, that will ostensibly compete with IBM, HP and Dell systems deployed for years within data centers.

IBM and HP have been longtime partners of Cisco's, but observers believe those relationships will be strained if Cisco offers its own blade server system.

Analysts say Cisco's data center ambitions will accelerate in 2009 and underscore the company's intentions to become more of an overall IT vendor.

Google Friend Connect & Twitter

Can't get enough of Twitter? The micro-blogging site will now be integrated with Google Friend Connect.

"This means that when you join a friend connected site, you can choose to use your Twitter profile, discover people you follow on Twitter who are also members of the site, and quickly tweet that you have found a cool Web site," Mussie Shore, a Google product manager, wrote in a Monday blog post.

To tweet about a site you've joined, click the "invite" link the members gadget and then the Twitter icon the share tab. Your next Tweet will then show up as a link to the site you found.

Friend Connect lets webmasters add Google social features like chat to their Web sites with just a few clicks. It was announced in May and officially went live earlier this month. Facebook and MySpace have similar offerings, dubbed Facebook Connect and MySpaceID.

When MySpaceID first launched in May, one of its first partners was Twitter.

Cash Registers in the Cloud

 

According to the rules of the New Austerity, companies get points these days just for raising financing. And like double coupons, they get double points for persuading chic hard-nosed investors to part with their money.

Aria Systems just came home with the chicest VC there is – Venrock, the Rockefeller concern that pretty much invented venture capital and funded Intel, Apple and the Google-acquired DoubleClick when they were start-ups.

In the name-dropping contest, the biggest name that Aria rival Zuora can drop is Salesforce.com founder and ex-Oracle lieutenant Marc Benioff, who was in short pants when Venrock started writing checks.

Benioff anted up some seed capital for Zuora.

What Aria and Zuora do is on-demand billing.

Aria also does customer lifecycle management and it just got a $10 million B round from Venrock.

It says it valuation this time through was double its A round last year.

It initial investors included Hummer Winblad and Dave Labuda, the Half Moon Bay restaurateur who used to be Oracle's CFO then went and started Portal Software and sold it to Oracle for $220 million two years ago. Founded in the days when the Internet was new, Portal focused on billing when nobody knew how to do it on the web.

Anyway, Aria wanted the Venrock money to accelerate the development of its A+ Billing Platform, an enterprise-class billing platform offered as a flexible Software-as-a Service (SaaS).

Aria, which says it was almost profitable before its first round, has managed over a million accounts (figure going on two billion transactions) over the past five years.

It converts complex legacy billing systems to subscription management for large enterprises while overseeing subscriptions and reporting for smaller companies. Aria does a lot of the fulfillment for its accounts.

CEO Ed Sullivan says the company takes a holistic approach to managing subscription-based billing – recognizing that the customer experience begins before and continues after payment collection and really embraces the whole lifecycle of a customer's experience with a company.

For instance, Aria defines billing as customer acquisition, service acquisition, usage tracking, invoicing (calculation, presentment, collection, remittance and reconciliation), customer management and reporting.

In September, it announced a record third quarter that saw sales bookings double sequentially and quadruple from the first quarter. It claims an "enormous uptick" since September.

http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/node/773476

The Key to Cloud Computing: Componentization

Simon Wardley's Blog

If you think that "cloud" is simply about more efficient and lower cost provision of IT then prepare yourself for a rude awakening. The computing stack, from the applications we write, to the platforms we build upon, to the operating systems we use are now moving from a product to a service based economy. The shift towards services will also lead to standardisation of lower orders of the computing stack to internet provided components. A consequence of this will be an acceleration in the speed at which new IT systems can be built and modified. The world of IT and business on the web is about to get a whole lot faster.

The importance of "cloud" computing to business is far beyond simple cost savings, allocation of resources, capex to opex conversion and economies of scale. These are the obvious reasons for considering the cloud and they are little more than a follow my leader game caused by the commoditisation of IT. As more competitors adopt the cloud it will create cost competitive pressures for others to follow. Consumers of IT will need simply to adapt to this change in order to retain their relative competitive positions (this is known as the red queen effect).

It's a very old merry-go-round caused by the usual transition of the once novel and new field of IT infrastucture to more of a commodity. It will have all the trappings of past transitions from the cries of users for second sourcing options, the battles over standards and portability, the usual formation of exchanges, brokerages, marketplaces and the confusion created by vendors as they attempt to prevent their industry being commoditised.

However buried in all this is one truly interesting aspect known as componentisation. From the work of Herbert Simon's and his theory of hierarchy, we know that the speed of evolution of any system is directly related to the organisation of its subsystems. Take a moment to consider how fast it is to build an application today using a database and a development platform and then compare this to how slow it would be to build the same application if you had to first start designing the cpu, I/O and memory.

Componentisation can make an incredible difference and the more organised the subsystems are, the faster it is to build new and adapt old systems.

The computing stack, from the applications we write, to the platforms we build upon, to the operating systems we use are now moving from a product to a service based economy. This change can be clearly seen from a quick scan of what is hot today. Software as a Service, Web Services, Mashing up Data Services, Hardware as a Service, Service oriented architecture ... it's all the same thing.

The shift towards services will also lead to standardisation of lower orders of the computing stack to internet provided components. A consequence of this will be an acceleration in the speed at which new IT systems can be built and modified. The world of IT and business on the web is about to get a whole lot faster.

It should be remembered that the battle for survival of any company revolves around the non-trivial task of balancing the needs of adaptation (changes to the market, the red queen effect) and innovation (creative destruction). However, it is these two effects of adaptation (through maintaining cost competitiveness and matching increased competitor agility to adapt to changes) and innovation (an ability to bring new ideas to market more quickly) which will force any business to choose cloud.

You don't have a choice, you never did. The cat is well and truly out of the bag and the old way is in decline. If you think that "cloud" is simply about more efficient and lower cost provision of IT then prepare yourself for a rude awakening.

You might think that cloud computing won't effect you, but it will if you use any form of IT infrastructure. Unfortunately, at different layers of the computing stack, various companies are preparing a gilded cage for you to walk into.

You should already be thinking about the cloud and your first words to any vendor should be:-

• "Show me the alternative providers running a similar service not owned by you and how easy is it to switch between your service, their service and one I want to run myself?"
  
• "Am I dependent upon any particularly vendor with these services?"

SaaS and CRM: 30 Percent Penetration by 2012

Recent research from Gartner analyst Michael Maoz predicts that by the year 2012, 30 percent of investments in CRM will be via software-as-a-service (SaaS). In fact, based on his research, Maoz believes that not only will 30 percent of companies turn to SaaS within the next three years, but startup enterprise-software vendors are finding it difficult to secure funding unless they have a delivery model that is based on cloud computing or SaaS.

"Cloud computing overall -- it continues to gather speed," he says. To illustrate, Maoz talks about a recent trip to Israel to visit with several of the nation's software startups. "Out of five [companies], not one was on-premises software -- not one," he says. "Every one was cloud computing, or software-as-a-service. When I spoke with them, the answer was, 'We cannot conceive a venture capital company giving money to someone who doesn't deliver their software in the cloud.' That's pretty shocking."

Gartner research indicates that the increased deployment of SaaS initiatives might have underwhelming implications for consulting and professional services. Maoz explains that many companies view software-as-a-service applications as plug-and-play. The implementations lack process involvement and merely connect applications in the cloud, rather than looking at the bigger picture of business process management. "CRM is not just the technology," Maoz expels. "It's more an issue of 'How do I interact with my customer?' Using some of these SaaS applications without changing the business process could be just enabling [organizations] to do bad things even worse." In other words, without a bottom-up approach, deploying new applications in the cloud is automating a tired or flawed process. "Using software-as-a-service is not going to help CRM," Maoz states. "We shouldn't be enamored by cloud computing instead of in lieu of process improvement."

Unison Challenges Microsoft, IBM, Google with Free Unified Communications

Unison Technologies delivers a free, ad-supported unified communications software suite for SMBs that includes e-mail, instant messaging, contacts, calendars and VOIP for messaging and collaboration. Unison hopes to pry some seats from Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino and Google shops during the lagging economy. SMBs install the platform on-premises and Unison promises it won't snoop on users through its ads.

Unison Technologies has taken the gutsy step of offering its UC software suite free for small and midsize businesses.

Startup Unison hopes to make money by serving business-to-business ads on its unified communications platform.

Unison aims to win over customers tired of paying thousands of dollars per year for the classic Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes, or increasingly popular SAAS (software as a service) suites such as Google Apps, Unison CMO Rurik Bradbury told eWEEK Dec. 12. Unison's suite tucks e-mail, contacts, calendar instant messaging and VOIP into a single server and client.

The Linux-based Unison Server powers all text and voice communications. Unison Desktop is a Windows or Linux-based desktop client that lets employees use e-mail, IM, voice mail and telephony from one application.

Unison claims this single-server approach is key to reducing costs because companies doesn't have to purchase and maintain an e-mail server like Exchange or Lotus Domino, a groupware server, a directory server or instant messaging system and a separate PBX system.

"It's really a vision to get unified communications right for SMBs from the beginning because everything so far has been very expensive and difficult to implement," Bradbury said, acknowledging that some small companies don't even have IT shops to install major Microsoft or IBM platforms. "Unison Server takes a half hour to deploy and Unison Desktop is simple to use."

Yet unlike DimDim and so many of the current UCC startups gaining traction in the market by offering their applications on a SAAS (software as a service) model, Unison's software is installed on-premises. Unison plans to offer a SAAS version through partners in 2009.

From a publicity standpoint, this client software approach Microsoft popularized is taking a bath of negative criticism, creating a challenge for Unison to overcome. One way to compete against larger vendors is by offering free software, but that won't pay the bills.

So, how will Unison make money? It will serve ads across its UCC deployments, Bradbury said. Ads delivered on Unison today are from Canonical, the steward for the Ubuntu operating system, and Intermedia, a hosted business applications provider that specializes in Exchange.

The ads appear in the Unison Desktop client server and in the Unison Server control panel. Because Unison plans to eventually deploy an ad server to facilitate pay-per-click ad sales, the temptation is to compare Unison's UC service to those of Google and other vendors, which collect users' personal information to better assign ads for the Web services they deliver.

Yet remember that Unison is sold on-premises and Bradbury promised that Unison won't collect users' information and will not use the Google AdSense program. Ads will be targeted based on information about the company.

Moreover, users don't have to see ads, provided they are willing to subscribe to the Google-popularized price model of $50 per user, per year for the standard version of its UC platform, which has been available since August.