IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (InfoWorld) 08/01/2009

Verizon to include Microsoft Live Search on phones

Microsoft has struck a five-year deal to pre-install its Live Search as the default search engine on Verizon mobile phones.

Users will be able to download a Live Search software package to their mobile phones will allow them to check traffic and movie times as well as shop online, Microsoft said Wednesday.

[ Get the latest on mobile developments with InfoWorld's Mobile Report newsletter. ]

The news is one of the announcements Microsoft is making at the Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas, where CEO Steve Ballmer is scheduled to keynote later today.

Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, said striking partnership deals like the one with Verizon to distribute its Live services will be key for Microsoft in its fight with Google. "For Live Search in particular, it's an important way to get these services out to more people," he said.

Microsoft has been fighting an uphill battle against Google's search-engine and online advertising dominance, despite significant investment in Live Search and other Web-based applications and services branded under the Windows Live moniker

Live Search may soon have a new name, perhaps even before it gets to Verizon's phones. Microsoft is widely rumored to be renaming its search engine Kumo, but the company has not confirmed that.

Other news Ballmer is expected to unveil in his keynote later is the first beta of Windows 7, the next version of Microsoft's client OS.

IBM gives Lotus Notes for Mac a makeover

IBM has introduced at Macworld Expo Lotus Notes 8.5, now featuring integration with social calendaring Web sites. The company also released a beta version of Lotus Symphony, a free productivity software suite that includes document, presentation, and spreadsheet capabilities.

Lotus Notes 8.5 is the most recent release of IBM's collaborative software for enterprise. The new release features a more user-friendly look and feel that arranges collaboration tools in fewer clicks--links to team rooms, instant messaging, To Do lists, calendars, and other content are all provided.

[ See what other IT developments occurred at the 2009 Macworld Expo. ]

Notes 8.5 also employs integration with Google, Yahoo, and many other "public Internet calendars," according to IBM, enabling Notes users to share content with non-Notes users.

And the updated iNotes 8.5 lets anyone with a Notes license access Notes using a Safari Web browser, with integration for features like the ability to map street addresses in e-mail notes.

Lotus Symphony is IBM's long-running integrated software application, now available on the Mac for the first time. The 1.2 Mac beta is available for free download from IBM's Web site.

Lotus Notes 8.5 features an updated interface.Symphony combines a word processor with spreadsheet and presentation software; it supports OpenDocument Format (ODF) and can export files in PDF format as well. The software is based on OpenOffice.org, but uses IBM Lotus technology as well. The software was released in May 2008 for the Windows platform.

System requirements for the Lotus Symphony beta call for an Intel-based Mac running OS X 10.5 or later, 540MB free hard drive space, and 512MB RAM.

First Look: Apple's Numbers ’09

In August 2007, Apple's iWork productivity suite gained a new stablemate--Numbers, a new take on the traditional spreadsheet application. In our review of Numbers '08, we found it to be easy to use with an elegant interface, but suffering from some limited graphing options, slow speed with large spreadsheets, and lack of AppleScript support.

Tuesday's release of iWork '09 jumps Numbers' version number up to 2.0, and brings a slew of new features to Apple's alternative to Microsoft Excel. The first thing you'll notice when launching Numbers '09 is that the template chooser is now displayed against a pitch black background, instead of the prior version's neutral gray.

[For InfoWorld's ongoing show coverage, see our Special Report: Macworld Expo 2009.]

Once your eyes adjust to this bold change, you'll find that there are 12 new templates to pick from, including nine in a brand-new Personal Finance category. These new templates cover everything from budgeting to net worth to tracking your weight loss.

Also new in the theme chooser is a simple theme preview function--as you mouse over each image in the theme chooser, you'll see samples of the theme's spreadsheet and chart layout.

The new template chooser

One of the features that I found difficult to use in Numbers '08 was the formula creation tool. When you inserted a formula using the tool, it would be inserted with word placeholders, as in =DATE(year, month, day). You would then have to erase the word placeholders before entering a value (cell pointer or fixed value).

The new formula entry displayIn the new version of Numbers, the variables in the formula appear in colored circles, as seen in the image at right. To replace a variable with a value or cell reference, click once on the variable to make it active, then either type a value or click in a cell on the table to insert a cell reference. This makes formula entry much simpler--which is a good thing, as Numbers now has over 250 functions to choose from.

There's also a very convenient Formula List button on the toolbar that will display every function on your tables. For each function, you can see its location, results, and formula. You can even search this list, and do find-and-replace operations on the formulas.

Charting, one of the areas called out in our initial review, is greatly improved in Numbers 2.0. There's a new mixed chart format that allows you to overlay one data set on another in the same graph (i.e. a line graph on a bar chart), as well as a two-axis chart for graphing data with differing units and/or scales on one graph. You could, for instance, plot both rainfall amounts and wind speed over time on one graph, with differing axes for each data set.

Scientists and financial types will welcome the ability to add trend lines (using one of six different fitting equations) and error bars (positive, negative, or both, using four pre-defined types or your own custom settings) to their graphs--this was a key shortcoming of charts in the 1.0 version of Numbers.

iWork '09 speaks binary, if you wishWhile Numbers still doesn't support pivot tables, a common method of working with tabular data available in most every other mainstream spreadsheet application, Numbers '09 adds a feature Apple calls Table Categories. Table Categories provide much of the power of pivot tables, while bypassing most of the complexity of setting up pivot tables. You can create categories and sub-categories for your columnar data (group by state, then by product type), and easily reorder the tables (group by product type first, then state) with a couple of mouse clicks.

Another welcome change in Numbers '09 is the ability to link live Numbers' charts in Pages and Keynote documents--a linked chart can be updated with a simple button click (though the process is manual, not automatic). Unfortunately, you can't embed raw tabular data, just charts. Finally, AppleScript support has been added, so you can now do things like (for example) take the selection from a Numbers table and turn it into a Keynote bullet slide, all via AppleScript.

Beyond these major changes, there are other subtle improvements in Numbers. There are two interesting new number formats for worskheet cells: Duration for time-spanning values, and Numeral System, which lets you switch from the usual decimal (base 10) to any other, such as binary (base 2) or octal (base 8). Cells can now also have custom display formats, in addition to the formats provided by Numbers. You can also create a password for a spreadsheet that users will be required to enter before opening the sheet, and there are more sheet features, such as freezing rows and columns, and filling up and left in addition to down and right.

Finally, like the rest of the iWork suite, Numbers '09 includes integration with the beta of Apple's iWork.com web-based application--but we'll have more to say on that in a future article. Numbers '09 offers a number of useful new features, and addresses some area of concern we had in our initial review.

Stay tuned for additional first looks at the rest of iWork '09, as well as a full review of the Numbers to see how well the new version actually works.

SAP wants Oracle to reveal software, support profit margins

SAP wants Oracle to reveal profit-margin information for JD Edwards and PeopleSoft software and support, according to a joint discovery statement filed this week in connection with Oracle's lawsuit against SAP.

In quarterly earnings reports, software vendors regularly trumpet statistics such as growth in earnings per share or the increase in revenue for general software categories, such as databases. But it is far from typical for companies to detail their profit margins for specific software product lines.

[As the legal wranglings stand now, there's no clear sign of a settlement in the Oracle-SAP suit. ]

If such information were in the public domain, it could put Oracle at a disadvantage in negotiating with customers and provide "useful ammo" for its competitors, particularly Salesforce.com, said 451 Group analyst China Martens.

Oracle sued SAP in March 2007 for copyright infringement and other alleged violations, charging that workers at SAP's now-shuttered subsidiary TomorrowNow, a provider of third-party support for Oracle's PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, and Siebel applications, had illegally downloaded material from Oracle's support systems and used them to court Oracle customers.

Meanwhile, SAP has said that TomorrowNow staff members were authorized to download materials from Oracle's site on behalf of TomorrowNow customers, but acknowledged that some "inappropriate downloads" had occurred. However, SAP has also said that Oracle's software remained in TomorrowNow's systems and has strongly rejected Oracle's claims of a broader pattern of wrongdoing.

Oracle has said its damages could top $1 billion, but has not yet provided a specific figure.

SAP, meanwhile, states in the discovery document filed Monday that the information is "relevant to the calculation of Oracle's alleged damages."

"Under the Copyright Act, actual damages represent the injury to the market value of the copyrighted work at the time of infringement. In appropriate circumstances, this amount may be computed by determining the profits that would have accrued to plaintiff but for the infringement," it adds.

However, during discovery Oracle "has taken the position that it is unable to determine its profit margins on the two product lines that are at the center of this case," the filing adds. Oracle has refused to provide financial information to allow SAP to determine or make a "reasonable estimate of" its profits on the product lines, according to the filing. So, SAP wants the court to order Oracle to provide the "financial data necessary to attempt to determine Oracle's actual profit margins for the PeopleSoft and JDE products and support services."

SAP's motion comes some weeks before a settlement conference scheduled for Feb. 23. A judge has ordered both parties to turn in proposals for settlement that include specific dollar figures prior to the conference.

Oracle spokeswoman Deborah Hellinger declined comment on Wednesday.

"This filing speaks for itself and this is a normal part of the discovery process," SAP spokesman Andy Kendzie said of the company's request for the profit margin information.

SAP is not interested in dragging out the suit, he added. "We have always said that we would like this case to be resolved."

Borland CEO leaves, joins VMware

Borland Software's CEO has resigned, taking a position at EMC's VMware subsidiary. Tod Nielsen, who had served as Borland CEO since November 2005, has become the chief operating officer of VMware, a newly created position, VMware said Tuesday.

Borland, meanwhile, is undergoing a significant reorganization.? It will reduce its workforce by about 15 percent, or 130 employees, most of whom will be dismissed by April, the application life cycle management tools company said in a statement. The company also announced its Section 16 officer Peter Morowski, senior vice president of research and development, will leave the company.

Borland will consolidate its remaining staff under Rich Novak, senior vice president of worldwide field operations, the company said. A new structure under sales and marketing creates an enterprise solutions team focused on selling new Borland Management Solutions and providing for a global inside sales team, Borland said.

Erik Prusch, who had served as Borland CFO, has been appointed Borland's acting president and CEO. ?Over the past two years, I?ve seen Borland make enormous strides both in terms of operational improvements and delivering on its Open ALM vision," Prusch said in a statement released by the company. "We have the products, talent, and financial footing to withstand near-term economic uncertainties and continue the strategy we?ve outlined to investors.?

The company expects to report total revenue in the range of $38.5 million to $40 million for the fourth quarter of 2008. Borland anticipates it will continue to keep costs under control, but it also expects to take a goodwill impairment charge for the fourth quarter.

At VMware, Nielsen will provide a focus on business, marketing and operations so CEO Paul Maritz can devote more time to product strategy and development, VMware said. ?In this newly created role, Tod brings unique skills and capabilities that will help us improve our operational focus and enhance our execution across all areas of the business," Maritz said in a statement.

How to benchmark datacenter energy costs

In the spring of 2007, UPS's Ben Swanson and Joe Parrino attended a conference on the growing problem of datacenter power consumption. One suggested remedy was to benchmark and analyze the power flowing through the datacenter. So after the conference, Swanson, the facilities department manager, and Parrino, a datacenter facilities manager, profiled their two main datacenters to learn what they could do to increase their energy efficiency and, ultimately, save money. More on CIO.com Five Ways to Find Data Center Energy Savings Good Incentives Boost Data-Center Energy Efficiency Signposts on the Road to Data Center Energy Savings

They found one crucial area to improve: their 65 computer-room air handlers. Parrino and his team found that some of their power distribution units had perforated tops. "We were losing all sorts of air through the tops of the cabinets," he says, which meant that some of the cool air circulated by the air handlers was being wasted by cooling the PDUs. They restricted the air flow through the cabinets, tested to make sure they wouldn't overheat, then turned 24 air handlers off.

[ Keep up on green IT trends with InfoWorld's Sustainable IT blog and Green Tech newsletter. ]

The move has saved UPS 1.6 million kilowatt-hours and about $124,160 per year. And that's not all -- they also benchmarked their mechanical cooling system and were able to reduce its energy use, saving an additional $100,000 annually. The mechanical plant of these UPS datacenters consumes about half what a typical datacenter mechanical plant consumes, according to their benchmarking study, Parrino says.

Despite the potential for savings, however, most IT departments have not rushed to benchmark datacenter energy efficiency, primarily because there's no incentive to measure it, says Forrester analyst Doug Washburn. He notes that only 11 percent of IT organizations are responsible for paying their energy-related operating costs (the power bill typically goes to the facilities group). But that's changing: More CIOs are being asked to reduce energy consumption, Washburn has found, and, as a result, new metrics -- though they come with caveats -- appear to help pinpoint which areas of your datacenter can be optimized.

Two ways to benchmark
One such method of measuring energy efficiency, developed recently by the Uptime Institute, a datacenter research organization, is Corporate Average Datacenter Efficiency (CADE). This calculation multiplies the efficiency of one's technology by the efficiency of the physical facility. Uptime calculates IT efficiency by multiplying a datacenter's IT asset utilization rate by the energy efficiency of the servers. It determines the facility efficiency by calculating the amount of space used and multiplying that by the energy efficiency of the building. The higher the CADE number, the more efficient your datacenter. This method tends to be best-suited for larger businesses since those usually have the automated monitoring tools to measure server utilization, according to Uptime Institute's Executive Director Kenneth Brill.

Another method-Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE)-was developed by The Green Grid, a group of technology companies collaborating to improve energy efficiency in datacenters.

The PUE is calculated by dividing the total utility load (the power coming into your facility) by the total IT equipment load (the power consumed by switches, routers, servers and related gear). In this instance, the lower the PUE, the better.

Forrester's Washburn warns that while these methods can be effective, the measurements required to calculate the benchmarks can be challenging to obtain. "Because most organizations do not pay for their energy-related IT expenditures, many are not measuring energy consumption-especially on a granular level-which is required to actually calculate your datacenter energy efficiency metrics," he says.

Your ROI may vary
Although the emergence of industry-accepted benchmarks means you can be more certain you're measuring the right things, Washburn also notes it's usually larger businesses that benefit from benchmarking. The bigger the datacenter, the more energy it consumes and the more likely it will be that you'll have an incentive to reduce consumption. "For smaller businesses, the financial impact may not be as significant, and you can direct your time elsewhere."

What's more, there isn't enough publicly available data yet for companies to benchmark against each other, so it's hard to know how efficient you can really get. If you try to compare your energy consumption with another company, peers in your industry might be a good start, says Washburn. But a more relevant comparison would be an organization with a similar-sized datacenter and similar server, storage, and network needs.

Christian Belady, principle power and cooling architect for Microsoft Global Foundation Services and Microsoft's representative to The Green Grid, agrees that there are limits to these metrics, specifically for smaller businesses. But he thinks even small organizations can still benefit by benchmarking on a smaller scale. Belady says that once CIOs decide to benchmark their energy usage, they should consider benchmarks such as The Green Grid's PUE or any other metrics that may make sense for driving the right behavior for their business. "The industry is moving so fast that you can't wait for everyone to have the perfect definition of these metrics," he says.

One key to UPS's benchmarking success, Parrino and Swanson believe, is the support and trust from their CIO, David Barnes, to make these decisions. "You need to constantly strive to challenge yourself and be constructively dissatisfied with your own operation," Swanson says.

Whether these metrics come from vendors or industry organizations, Washburn believes that they're a good starting point for benchmarking. "At the end of the day, in most cases you'll be able to use the metrics regardless of which method you chose."

CIO.com is an InfoWorld affiliate.

REAL Server 2009 due in February

REAL Software, creator of the REALbasic cross-platform software development environment, announced Tuesday at Macworld Expo that REAL Server 2009 will ship in February. REAL Server is a cross-platform, multi-user database server.

Boasting new features and increased performance and scalability, REAL Server 2009 includes a completely re-engineered event-based asynchronous architecture, Multi Version Concurrency Control to eliminate transaction locking, support for external plugins, one-click recovery, server-side cursors, and client messaging. Preliminary testing showed that REAL Server 2009 can handle more than 10,000 concurrent connections, the developer sid.

[ For ongoing show coverage see InfoWorld's special report: Macworld Expo 2009. ]

REAL Server costs $500. Five-server packs are available for $2,000 and 10-server packs are available for $3,000. An unlimited deployment license is available for $9,000 per year. The REAL Server Developer Edition is free of charge and enables developers to create an application based on REAL Server without paying any fees until they are ready to deploy their application.

Macworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.

Is iWork '09 an Office competitor?

I work across platforms, but I've never bothered with productivity software beyond Microsoft Office. It always seems like it does a good enough job, plus everyone else uses it, facilitating easy file sharing. Although I'm embarrassed having typed that out; can't I pick productivity software that I actually... like?

At the Macworld Expo, Apple released its latest productivity suite, iWork '09. A few of its new features have grabbed my interest. I'm still skeptical, but I'm going to try out this Mac-only software over the next week or two to see if it can actually replace my Office use.

[Microsoft Office faces competition from OpenOffice where it matters most: pricing. And for ongoing show coverage, see our Special Report: Macworld Expo 2009.]

One potential drawback is that it's Mac-only. So I'll be relying on its compatibility with Office files; the word processor, spreadsheet program, and presentation software can save in Microsoft's ubiquitous formats. However, I was warned that some of Apple's features wouldn't carry over in Redmond's formats. That caveat aside, a few of the new features look good.

Pages seems like a streamlined word processor, including a simplified view to block out all distractions from other applications. Its template features look designed for Mac fans--in a good way--so I'll dabble with some of the letterheads, newsletters, and other styles.

Numbers may have finally matured into a competent spreadsheet application in this release. Some simple, quick re-sorting options look good. Plus new chart tools and formulas could provide enough power to many Excel users. Still, Numbers seems like the weakest direct Microsoft matchup, but maybe it has enough abilities for casual use.

Keynote mostly seems to add new animation features and themes, but its previous editions already created simple, attractive presentations. I'm most interested in the iPhone and iPod touch remote application that can control your deck. It previews the next slide, shows notes for your talking points, and otherwise helps your performance.

iWork.com simply shares files and allows annotations through a web browser. (I mistakenly thought it looked like a Google Docs competitor, but it's a not an editing tool.) It's free for now, in its beta period, although Apple says it'll charge for the service at some point in the future. I doubt I'd pay for it, but I'll take a closer look in its current state.

I'll be dabbling with these tools, anecdotally seeing how they hold up against the Office behemoth. And I'm feeling inspired to check out Open Office and any other alternatives to see if they can substitute in small office environments. I'll let you know what I find.

Recession be damned! IT security spending up for some

The economy may be in tatters, along with legions of IT security budgets. But a new report from Forrester Research suggests security spending is actually on the rise in some enterprises.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based research firm interviewed nearly 1,000 firms for its State Of Enterprise IT Security: 2008-2009 report and found, among other things, that the security portion of IT budgets is expected to rise 12.6 percent in 2009, up from 7.2 percent in 2007 and 11.7 percent in 2008.

[What else are CIO's concentrating on? InfoWorld names the Five top spending priorities for tight times. For ongoing coverage, see our Special Report: IT and the financial crisis.]

"Even during challenging economic conditions, IT security remains an integral part of business operations as firms look to maintain their current environment as well as plans for the implementation of new initiatives," wrote Forrester analyst Jonathan Penn, the report's chief author. In a follow-up interview, he told CSOonline that companies still aren't looking at security as a business enabler. But they now understand that it's at least better to take steps to prevent attacks than to do nothing.

"Security is getting a bigger slice of the IT pie, with the focus less on reactive vulnerability defenses and more on looking at what's necessary to protect the business," Penn said. "More often than not, the focus is on protecting the data itself."

Spending not up for all CSOonline conducted its own poll on the subject and found, not surprisingly, security professionals who see a different picture in their own environments.

A security officer who manages IT security operations for a county government on the east coast said he has faced tough budget choices.

"As with all other state/local governments, we are directly impacted by the housing decline, unemployment and a decrease in state funding," said the security officer, who asked to remain anonymous because he isn't authorized to speak to the press. "Because of this, revenue decreases for next fiscal year (beginning in July) are estimated at between 10-25 percent."

His choice was either to cut staff from an already lean team or decrease operating expenses. He decided to reduce existing spending, largely on the technology front.

Zach Lanier, senior network security analyst at Harvard Business School, said overall, security spending at his organization will be down, mainly because it has completed initiatives that started and closed in 2008. Costs for those projects in 2009 will be mostly operational expenditures, he said.

"We're not immune to the economy's poor performance. While Harvard Business School has traditionally been a big spender, the current conditions have caused us to think twice just in case," he added. "I would be inclined to add that it's also caused my organization to think twice about different ways of tackling problems."

For example, he said, the organization has turned to "high-performance" commercial products to get it to that "85 percent" and filled in the rest with free and open source tools. "Also," he said, "we've stepped back a bit and looked at processes and procedures and how those can be improved rather than just throwing money at a vendor."

Security not linked to economy Others confirm their organizations' plans reflect Forrester's findings. In these cases, security is an ongoing necessity unaffected by economic peaks and valleys.

"In the government, pressures caused by data losses has prompted more spending," said a UK-based IT security specialist who requested anonymity because he isn't authorized to speak to the press.

According to the Forrester report, firms are devoting 11.7 percent of their company's IT operating budget to IT security in 2008 compared with 7.2 percent in 2007, and they plan to continue nudging up IT security budgets in 2009 to 12.6 percent of the IT operating budget. Allocation of budget for new security initiatives mirrors this trend, going from 17.7 percent in 2008 to 18.5 percent in 2009, Penn said.

"There has been a clear and significant shift from what was the widely recognized state of security just a few years Ago," the report notes. "Protecting the organization's information assets is the top issue facing security programs: data security (90 percent) is most often cited as an important or very important issue for IT security organizations, followed by application security (86 percent), and business continuity/disaster recovery (84 percent)."

Meanwhile, the report said, areas like threat management (81 percent) and regulatory compliance (80 percent) are cited less frequently. Data security also tops the list of business objectives for security, with 89 percent citing protection of corporate data and 87 percent citing protection of personal data as important or very important business objectives.

When security budgets aren't measured In some cases, it's hard to figure out how far up or down spending is because the company in question doesn't have a specific line item for security.

"Most companies I have worked with don't even measure any type of security budget," said Nalneesh Gaur, chief information security architect and principal at Diamond Management & Technology Consultants Inc. in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. "As a consultant, I get involved with companies where something bad has happened like getting hacked. With getting hacked as the driver, I often see a surge in priority for security where the company will spend a lot of money."

The trick is if they can sustain the program after the first year, he said.

Gartner: Economy means CIO introspection in 2009

Technology advisory firm Gartner has come out with four strategic themes for CIOs to help them excel and deliver better personal and team outcomes beyond their core IT agenda.

"The unfolding economic crisis of late 2008 has created a more challenging situation than many businesses and most CIOs have ever experienced," said Mark Raskino, vice president and fellow at Gartner. "They face a daunting and uncertain year ahead. Many CIOs have already been instructed to operate with lower budgets and many more expect such instructions. Chief executives need to cut short-term costs very quickly to cope with volatile market sentiment in many industries and countries, but without damaging recovery growth prospects."

[ InfoWorld queried CIOs and analysts to roll together the five top spending priorities for tight times. For ongoing coverage, see our Special Report: IT and the financial crisis. ]

According to Gartner, this year, most CEOs and businesses will put themselves on a survival path while they reinvest for strategic recovery in 2010 and beyond. "In time of a recession, organisations have more time for introspection that identifies what the deep needs are and also creates demand on what IT can do," said John Mahoney, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "It brings the opportunity for businesses to exploit the technology they currently have to create something new."

Here are Gartner's 10 CIO resolutions for 2009:

Theme 1: Reinforce enduring strengths and assets
1. Start building an alumni network: To maintain legacy skills and complex experienced pools of labour, Gartner recommends CIOs establish alumni networks. This could include a semi-official company IT alumni association with its own Web page, use of Web social networking tools and re-establishing bounty schemes, where staff are paid for recruits they bring in.

2. Stop being the exception that enforces the rules: In tense times, leading by example matters more than usual -- from body language to dress code, and from vocabulary to attention span. CIOs should design and adopt two or three key behaviours to match the required direction they want their reports to follow such as turning away their option to upgrade to the glitziest new smartphone. Such signals will cause people to comment and think about their own values and behaviours.

3. Start scouting for key talent: As large numbers of laid-off people flood the market, some salary-level attrition is inevitable and even good people could find themselves without a position for months. "This will create something of a buyers market for some high-calibre IT talent in 2009. However, company recruitment lockdowns will stop CIOs taking advantage if they don't take specific actions," said Raskino. They should use personal networking paths to find out where talent pools are strong. Rather than shutting the door to staffing agencies and head-hunters, CIOs should insist on interacting only with a senior partner to obtain just a few real talent resumes. They should identify the attributes of their absolute ideal candidates for the few, most important mid to senior IT positions to open and fulfil during 2009 and discuss directly with the CFO and chief human resources manager the possibility of holding just a few senior job slots open in return for a higher reduction target elsewhere.

Theme 2: Prepare for the next change, sooner than you think
4. Start preparing for the unexpected: "It may seem like a paradox but it is possible to prepare better for the unexpected," said Mr Mahoney. "It's important to challenge and develop the thinking styles and frame of reference of your leadership team as well as yourself. We advise CIOs to find people to join the discussion who don't fit the existing mould and perhaps even deliberately choose people who will irritate the majority."

5. Start using social systems yourself, visibly: Gartner said that CIOs need to start visibly using social networks themselves to kick-start their participation from other staff -- lurking in quiet observation is not enough. Gartner advised CIOs to also encourage the leadership team into using social media more openly to communicate internally and externally to rebuild brand confidence, energise the company culture, develop ideas and refine solutions.

6. Start taking cloud seriously: Cloud computing is a major new stage in the evolution of commercial IT that CIOs must take seriously but at this stage is confusing. In 10 years, much of IT will be served this way, so CIOs need to start leading their organisations safely in this inevitable direction, or risk being sidelined by its progress. They should first set aside a reading day in 2009 to immerse themselves in the issues, terms and sub-trends, then personally subscribe to and test a variety of cloud applications.

"Add a small experimental cloud-based application development project in 2009 if you have not already done so," said Raskino. "Mark those parts of your portfolio that are already helping to explore cloud -- perhaps software-as-a-service business applications, Web-based office applications, or Web-delivered laptop backup. Sit in on project post-implementation review sessions to learn."

Theme 3: Survive in 2009 without collateral damage
7. Stop ignoring people and opting for soft targets: CIOs will be under pressure to be seen taking swift action. There will be temptation to cut quickly in areas where staff is working on longer-term goals that suddenly seem of lower relevance. However, CIOs should not lay off the people they will need long-term and who will be hard to replace just because their work is not an immediate deliverable (e.g. enterprise architects, emerging technologies staff). Instead, they should require their temporary tactical redeployment and displaced market-standard heads elsewhere. Similarly, they shouldn't cut projects in areas which are in the hype cycle "trough of disillusionment" just because they are unfashionable. CIOs should defend them if they will still yield significant value in a year or two.

"Keeping up appearances" with the senior management team could reduce CIOs' visibility to their own staff, precisely when they most need to see them and understand what is happening. Gartner advised CIOs to double the number of in-person staff group meetings in their 2009 calendars.

8. Start offering your vendors a free lunch: CIOs will require vendors to deliver flexibility and cost savings and will need to reset the style of the relationship. At the same time, suppliers will be keen on staying in close touch, working hard to attract CIOs off-site for face time, so CIOs must resolve to politely decline vendor courtesy trips in 2009. Both sides must give ground and CIOs must signal a reset to a new style of interchange. They should identify the senior management leader in each of their key vendors, probably not the day-to-day account managers, and invite them to lunch or dinner at a chain-restaurant venue that sets a starkly thrifty tone to discuss the value driven cost optimisation that both are required to deliver in 2009.

9. Stop fearing the future; start driving it: Internally, CIOs should also reflect conspicuous frugality but not be defined by it. They should resolve to occasionally and visibly splash out a little -- where it really matters to staff morale, such as training courses or software development tools. Work on real money saving like flying economy instead of business class -- but avoid empty-gesture cost cutting such as taking cookies off the plate at management meetings.

Theme 4 and Resolution #10: Newer technologies to get experience of in 2009:
With so much work to do, Gartner reminded CIOs that they need to protect the time to stay in touch and get hands-on with some key technologies in 2009:

-- e-book readers
-- Google Chrome
-- Building mini cloud applications
-- YouTube as a default search engine for a day
-- HD teleconferencing

To conclude, Raskino said: "It seems inevitable tough times will hit most sectors at some point in 2009, so CIOs shouldn't wait for instructions to act. There's plenty they can do to protect assets and thrive on the change opportunities -- but they must start planning their way out right now."

Weak demand causes Intel to cut Q4 forecast

Intel expects fourth-quarter revenue for fiscal 2008 to fall 23 percent compared to a year prior due to weaker demand for computer processors, the company said Wednesday.

The chipmaker expects fourth-quarter revenue of $8.2 billion, down 20 percent compared to the previous quarter. Intel revised its fourth-quarter expectations ahead of its scheduled earnings announcement on Jan. 15.

[ Learn more about how the financial crisis is affecting IT and the high-tech industry, plus what IT can do to help, in InfoWorld's special report. | Stay ahead of advances in hardware technology with InfoWorld's Ahead of the Curve blog and newsletter. ]

Intel's grim news comes as technology companies are feeling the full brunt of the global economic crisis, as demand for software and hardware slows.

Intel also said it will take a much higher loss on other equity investments than it expected. The company will note a non-cash charge in the fourth quarter of $950 million related to its investment in Clearwire, which has a WiMax mobile broadband network.

Intel was one of five companies that invested $3.2 billion last year in Clearwire, along with Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks.

Clearwire's stock hit a peak of more than $17 per share in February 2008, but has steadily fallen. It traded Wednesday around $5.09 a share.

Overall, Intel expects to lose between $1.1 billion and $1.2 billion on equity investments rather than the $50 million it previously expected to lose.

Intel said it expects to have spent about $2.6 billion on research and development rather than $2.8 billion. Restructuring and asset impairment charges will be around $250 million, the same as the company's previous guidance.

Companies are overstating green claims, consumers say

Sixty-five percent of consumers think some companies overstate their green credentials to sell more products, according to research presented by industry organization Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) at the International Consumer Electronics Show on Tuesday.

Almost 40 percent are also confused by green claims made by consumer electronics companies, according to Steve Koenig, director of analysis at CEA.

[ Keep up on green IT trends with InfoWorld's Sustainable IT blog and Green Tech newsletter. ]

"So, in addition to confusion we have a lot of skepticism, in fact a healthy dose of it," he said.

Most consumers want to know the specific attributes that make a product green. "They want to know what it is in the box or in the product that's going to make it green," Koenig said.

Companies shouldn’t be allowed to get away with just saying that they are green, but instead explain what that actually means, he said.

The top three attributes consumers associate with green products is that they are recyclable, energy efficient and made with recycled materials.

There are also rewards to be had for companies who can explain how and why their products are green. "Interestingly enough, green features are trumping brand," Koenig said.

That means a brand that consumers are unfamiliar with, but has good green credentials, could beat out a well-known company that consumers know aren't as environmentally friendly.

Forty-five percent of women and 34 percent of men say that a company’s reputation and philosophy regarding the environment impacts their decision to try its products for the first time, and a similar percentage of consumers say the same regarding their willingness to continue using a company’s products, according to the CEA.

Other attributes -- such as price, features and warranty -- are still significantly more important than environmentally friendly attributes.

Also, a little more than half of consumers surveyed are willing to pay a premium for green products, just like they are willing to pay more for hybrid vehicles and organic produce, according to Koenig.

Twenty-two percent are willing to pay up to 15 percent more for an environmentally friendly product.

"The take-away here is that green is increasingly important to consumers and they're willing to pay for it," Koenig said.

Asus unveils netbook with touchscreen that swivels

Asustek Computer on Tuesday unveiled its latest Eee PC netbook, with an 8.9-inch touchscreen that swivels and can even fold down to convert the device into a tablet PC.

The new touchscreen Eee PC, the T91, is similar to a netbook Giga-byte Technology launched earlier this year, the M912, which also boasts an 8.9-inch touchscreen that swivels.

[ Read InfoWorld's "Notes from the netbook revolution" to learn how this new class of less expensive machines can serve as excellent desktop, laptop, or even BlackBerry replacements. ]

The two devices run Microsoft's Windows XP OS, and they have Intel Atom microprocessors inside, as well as the same-size swivel touchscreens.

The M912 differs slightly in using a more powerful 1.6GHz Intel Atom microprocessor, while the Eee PC T91 carries a 1.33GHz Atom that has slightly better power savings and includes support for a few technologies such as Intel Virtualization.

In the T91, Asus goes a step further on the software side to make touch navigation a little easier.

The company developed its own touch mode software at research and development centers in Taiwan and China, said Jonney Shih, chairman of Asustek, at a news conference in Las Vegas ahead of the International Consumer Electronics Show, which opens Thursday.

The T91 also comes with a TV tuner so people can watch their favorite shows on the road, and GPS technology to transform the netbook into a navigation device.

Shih said the Eee PC T91 will be on the market within the next three to six months. Pricing information was not immediately available.

Netbooks are miniaturized notebooks about two-thirds the size of a normal laptop that have become popular for mobile computing and Internet use. The devices are designed with less powerful chips and other components, so they're more battery efficient, cost less, and usually weigh just a few kilograms.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

IT News HeadLines (InfoWorld) 08/01/2009

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