Study: Federal government can save billions in IT spending
The U.S. government could save billions of dollars by moving to more open source software, cloud computing, and virtualization, a recent study suggests.
Over three years, the potential savings would be $3.7 billion for using open source software; $13.3 billion for using virtualization technologies; and $6.6 billion from cloud computing or software-as-a-service, the study said. It was published by MeriTalk, an online community about IT and public policy; Red Hat, an open source software vendor; and DLT Solutions, a value-added reseller of Red Hat and other IT products.
[ Related: Cloud computing shapes up as a big trend for 2009 | Keep up with virtualization news with David Marshall's Virtualization report | Rodrigues and Urlacher cover the open source beat. ]
"After years of boosted funding, federal IT managers are facing a new challenge -- the budget crunch," the study says. "With a grave economic outlook and a new administration in office, federal agencies will be forced to do more with less."
Looking at 30 federal agencies, the study assumes every agency is starting from scratch with new technology. So instead of buying new software, agencies could save a collective $3.7 billion using open source instead of proprietary software. Agencies could save $13.3 billion using virtualization technologies instead of buying new servers, and they could save $6.6 billion by using cloud computing instead of buying software and hardware.
The numbers are based on federal agency budgets, using assumptions from other studies about federal computing resources.
"Looking at the programs in the 30 agencies' IT infrastructure budgets, it was not possible to determine if the programs were already using the technologies," a MeriTalk spokeswoman said. "As such, we had to assume that agencies are starting from scratch. The report highlights the potential savings opportunity for each technology, with the idea that using virtualization, for example, enables agencies to reallocate that funding for higher-priority projects."
The study seems to make some large assumptions about how much money federal agencies can save, said Susie Adams, CTO of Microsoft Federal. The study "really tries to simplify a very complex problem," she said.
Microsoft agrees that agencies can save money using cloud computing and virtualization, but open-source software is "just another business model," Adams said. Agencies should explore the entire cost before making a decision about open-source software, she added.
"In today's world, especially in the government, we're really looking at a mixed-source environment," Adams said. "We believe that what we should be doing is creating software that's more interoperable with this mixed environment. We're committed to that."
Critics of the report may be able to quibble with the numbers, but the big message is that federal agencies should be looking at new ways to save money with IT investments, said Peter Tseronis, deputy associate chief information officer for the U.S. Department of Energy. The study, plus ongoing conversations about federal IT spending at MeriTalk.com, highlight the need for federal agencies to look at new ways of doing business and to think strategically about long-term IT investments, he said.
"The infrastructure itself needs to be sound -- it needs to be stable," Tseronis said. "If you don't have a solid base, it's not going to matter what's on your desktop."
Cloud computing, for example, could represent a paradigm shift in the way federal agencies pay for IT infrastructure, he said. But Tseronis said he hopes agencies will work together on projects, not set up their own little cloud "enclaves." Sharing of services should be a major goal, he said.
"We're spending a lot of money, and that's no news to anybody," he said. "How are we going to say in four, five ... years from now, 'Wow, look at how our budget went down?'"
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Emulex combines FCoE, iSCSI, IP networking into one chip
Emulex is developing a new converged network adapter that is optimized for virtualized infrastructures and maximizes blade consolidation while supporting several IP and storage networking protocols all within a single chip.
Emulex's OneConnect, announced Thursday and due for release the second half of 2009, will provide connectivity for TCP/IP, iSCSI, network-attached storage, Fibre Channel over Ethernet, and "all leading server architectures," Emulex says.
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Moving to converged network architectures is a big shift for Emulex, says vice president of corporate marketing Shaun Walsh. Competing against QLogic and Brocade in the emerging market for CNAs, Emulex is moving in this direction because of changing server architectures, the growing prominence of converged network standards, and to gain new market share opportunities.
"Emulex has been predominantly a Fibre Channel-only company up to this point," Walsh says. "This is the first of the converged network products that will truly be able to go mainstream."
Emulex's first generation CNA, announced last April, used three chips instead of one and only worked with a limited number of servers. OneConnect will be able to run in any standard server or blade, Walsh says. Additionally, a smaller form factor will enable savings on switches, adapters, rack space, cabling, and power and cooling, Emulex says.
Walsh says the converged network adapter will help IT pros maximize use of blade servers, which have a limited number of ports on the back end. Virtualization-friendly features in the CNA will help increase the number of virtual machines that can fit into a physical server.
Emulex Thursday also announced OneCommand, an automated management platform for OneConnect. The software is designed to simplify I/O management, provide services to individual virtual machines, secure data and networks, and dynamically provision I/O services to fit the needs of specific applications, servers and virtual machines.
Separately, Emulex announced a new host-based encryption product, dubbed the Secure HBA, which encrypts data in transit and at rest, and supplies access controls, management processes and reporting tools which are useful for auditing.
The announcements were made in conjunction with Emulex's 30th anniversary. All products mentioned will be available the second half of 2009.
Network World is an InfoWorld affiliate
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Near-final Vista SP2 reaches testers, set for mid-May debut
Microsoft has wrapped up work on a release candidate for Windows Vista Service Pack 2, according to reports on the Web, corroborating a schedule disclosed last month that slated final delivery of SP2 by mid-May.
The company would only confirm that it recently notified some testers of a new build, but declined to say whether that was a release candidate, dubbed "RC" in software development parlance.
[ Get the analysis and insights that only Randall C. Kennedy can provide on PC tech in InfoWorld's Enterprise Desktop blog. And download our free Windows performance-monitoring tool. ]
Vista SP2 RC's release was first reported Thursday by Ars Technica, which claimed that a group of invitation-only testers had been told of its availability via Windows Update, Microsoft's update service.
Late last month, the Malaysian Web site TechARP.com said that Vista SP2, the next major update to the problem-plagued operating system, was ready as a release candidate "escrow" build, and would make it to RC no later than Friday .
The final version of Vista SP2, said TechARP, will be an RTM (release-to-manufacturing) build that should be ready sometime in the first half of the second calendar quarter -- in other words, before mid-May.
Microsoft, meanwhile, stuck to a broader second-quarter target for Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2. "Microsoft distributed notification of an update to Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 SP2 testers in an effort to gain additional feedback," a spokeswoman said in response to questions. "We will have more to share on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 SP2 soon."
The one public version of Vista SP2 issued so far was the beta posted in early December 2008 .
Elsewhere, TechARP also recently reported that Microsoft has told its hardware partners that it will not provide them with an OPK (OEM Preinstallation Kit) containing Vista and Windows Server 2008 SP2 until 60 days after the general availability of Windows 7, Vista's successor. Previously, TechARP had said that computer makers would not be required to use Vista SP2 on new hardware, as is usually the case when the Microsoft finishes an update of that size.
"Don't expect to see any products with Windows Vista SP2 or Windows Server 2008 SP2 until at least two-to-three months have passed after Windows 7 is launched," the site said earlier this month. "End-users, though, can receive Service Pack 2 via Windows Update."
Microsoft released a public beta of Windows 7 on Jan. 10, but as of yet, it has not set a timetable for the new operating system's release.
Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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iWay Software enters EIM fray
Building on its ETL and integration history, iWay Software brought forth this week a new enterprise information management suite and two add-on products that expand the EIM capabilities.
The company designed the EIM suite itself to serve as the platform on top of which products, beginning with the new DQC (Data Quality Center) and MDC (Master Data Center), will function.
"This is part of our overall lifecycle of information management strategy not just in specialized scenarios but for any type of interaction," said Dave Watson, iWay COO. "We built the capabilities for MDM and data quality into an ESB."
Thus, iWay says, the suite will be capable of integrating a variety of content, including federated data, information residing in a data warehouse, e-mail, documents, and information within applications, such as CRM and ERP.
The DQC product can be used to evaluate, monitor, and manage data quality to ultimately clean the data downstream before it enters the system. And MDC can help customers consolidate records as well as unify and validate master data, the company said.
Embedding such capabilities into its ESB marks "a turn-around from traditional approaches," Philip Howard, research director of data management at Bloor Research wrote in an analysis of iWay's EIM. "Other vendors in this space primarily started as batch vendors and now offer real-time or near-real-time extensions but they are still basically batch products."
As iWay's Watson explained, for the past 10 years the company has focused primarily on supplying adaptors and middleware for integration purposes, but for the last two years has been working to create business offerings that build on that integration expertise. And the EIM suite marks the beginning of a strategy that the company intends to broaden in time. "We're looking at building a data governance offering next," Watson adds.
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Microsoft Visual Studio to boost SharePoint
Developers building solutions based on Microsoft's SharePoint collaboration and business process platform will gain expanded support in the planned Visual Studio 2010 development environment, which will feature templates and an extensibility API, a Microsoft official said in a blog on Thursday.
Currently, developers can use Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 to develop for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, said S. "Soma" Somaseger, senior vice president of the Microsoft developer division, in his blog. Developers also can use Visual Studio for Windows SharePoint Services or third-party tools, he said.
[ In November, Microsoft detailed plans to enhance Visual Studio. ]
"In Visual Studio 2010, we?re going to expand SharePoint support in two key areas. First, Visual Studio 2010 will deliver a broad set of project templates, designers, and deployment infrastructure that will make any .Net developer instantly more productive on the SharePoint platform," Somasegar said. "Second, we are exposing an extensibility API that will continue to foster the ecosystem of third-party developers who create development tools and technologies."
Visual Studio 2010, Somasegar said, will boost developers via project and items templates. "You?ll be able to use these to quickly create or update SharePoint elements, such as list definitions, list instances, site definitions, workflows, event receivers, Business Data Catalog models, and content types," he said.
A Visual Studio extensibility API will let developers build SharePoint project items, automate and extend existing SharePoint project items, enhance deployment and retraction functionality, and extend the display and actions of SharePoint nodes in Server Explorer, Somasegar said.
While Visual Studio 2008 is limited to development of supported workflow projects only for lists and document libraries, Visual Studio 2010 will enable development of list and site level workflows along with aspx association and initiation forms.
"And, as you would expect, the new Visual Studio 2010 designers can be used to create Web Parts, application pages, and user controls for a SharePoint site," Somasegar said. Developers also will be able to navigate and browse a SharePoint site directly in Visual Studio, Somasegar said.
Visual Studio 2010 could arrive late this year, based on two-year release cycles for Visual Studio.
Office SharePoint Server features capabilities for collaboration, portals, enterprise search, content management, business process and forms, and business intelligence. Windows SharePoint Services enables collaboration and development of Web-based business applications.
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Microsoft Research social app marries Web, desktop
A new proof-of-concept application from Microsoft's research arm integrates elements from the Windows OS and its Windows Azure cloud infrastructure to let users share files from their desktops with Web users via social networking.
The Social Desktop application marries a Web-oriented sharing model with the desktop and lets users share local files such as photos or videos as easily as they share Web links, according to the Microsoft Research Web site for the prototype.
[ Check out the Test Center preview of Windows Azure. ]
According to information on the site, Social Network allows users to preview desktop-stored files and add social context to them -- such as comments, related items and tags. The preview itself is a Web page with a unique URL, and users can store that on the Web by using Windows Azure, Microsoft's cloud-computing infrastructure that is currently in beta.
These files also can be accessed remotely using Social Network, and the application lets users search for other people's files as well, according to the site.
From the description on the site, it seems similar to how the Facebook social-networking site allows users to post links, videos and photos on their Facebook pages and add comments and other context to those links.
In addition to leveraging Windows and Windows Azure, the Social Desktop also uses Silverlight, Microsoft's cross-browser runtime and player for sharing multimedia files. Users must be running Silverlight in a browser to view the items that people using Social Desktop choose to share.
A spokesman from Microsoft's public relations firm stressed that Social Desktop is just a research prototype and will not be a feature in Windows 7, nor will it be available for public use.
"The group is just trying to get a research prototype working internally right now," he said. "The Web site is just intended to paint the type of scenario they’re looking at."
However, the site describes the application as leveraging "new search features built into Windows 7," so it's possible Microsoft may release it to Windows 7 users at some point.
Microsoft is expected to release Windows 7 either by the end of the year or early next year.
Microsoft has been looking for ways to bring the same experience users have on the Web to the desktop by integrating Web-based applications more and more into Windows. In Windows 7, for example, the company is leaving out the desktop versions of some applications -- such as e-mail, photo-sharing and movie-making programs -- in favor of their Web-based equivalents.
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New SSL Web site hack revealed
A researcher has found a convincing way to hack the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol used to secure log-ins to a range of Web sites, including e-commerce and banking sites.
Using a specially created app, SSLstrip, a researcher calling himself Moxie Marlinspike demonstrated to Black Hat Arlington, Va attendees, how vulnerable many SSL connections were to an involved but clever man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack where a hacker could proxy traffic from users accessing genuine, secure https:// Web site log-ins.
[ Learn how to secure your systems with Roger Grimes' Security Adviser blog and newsletter, both from InfoWorld. ]
To prove the usefulness of the attack to a hypothetical criminal, he claimed the hack had given him access to 117 e-mail accounts, 16 credit card numbers, 7 PayPal log-ins, and over 300 other "miscellaneous secure log-ins" in a 24-hour period. Sites involved included Ticketmaster, Paypal, LinkedIn, Hotmail, and Gmail.
The clever bit is that the attack didn't need to touch the encrypted SSL traffic at all, simply exploit the fact that users almost never call HTTPS directly, instead accessing that by calling a conventional HTTP Web page first. That fact makes it possible to monitor and map the traffic between the browser and Web site before the SSL is set up securely, putting itself between the two so that neither site is aware that anything is amiss.
According to Marlinspike, the hack is also able to overcome the possibility that the browser will generate invalid certificate warnings from the fake proxy site, even passing back convincing if bogus favicons such as the traditional HTTPS padlock. The only signal that something is wrong would be the lack of the https:// address in the toolbar, something few users would likely notice, he said.
"Lots of times the security of HTTPS comes down to the security of HTTP, and HTTP is not secure," says Marlinspike in his presentation summary . "If we want to avoid the dialogs of death, start with HTTP not HTTPS."
Importantly, the visual indicators that help ordinary users detect such attacks should once again be emphasized, overturning some years in which developers, including browser developers, had downplayed such reinforcement.
"Once we've got control of that, we can do all kinds of stuff to re-introduce the positive indicators people might miss," he says.
An indirect hack on the secure Web infrastructure was reported some weeks ago, whereby a flaw in the MD5 encryption algorithm was used to fool certificate authorities into accepting a bogus certificate as the real thing.
Techworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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Microsoft slates mock Windows 7 updates
Microsoft will test Windows 7 beta's update mechanism next week by feeding users as many as five fake updates, the company said late Thursday.
People running the public beta of Windows 7 will be offered the mock updates beginning on Tuesday, Feb. 24, said Brandon LeBlanc , a Microsoft spokesman. Microsoft wants to test the Windows Update service's ability to offer, download and install updates to the new operating system.
[ Check out Windows 7's enterprise features | See InfoWorld's Special Report: Early looks at Windows 7 | Then get the analysis and insights that only Randall C. Kennedy can provide on PC tech in InfoWorld's Enterprise Desktop blog, and download our free Windows performance-monitoring tool. ]
"These updates do not deliver new features or bug fixes," LeBlanc said in an entry to the company's official Windows 7 blog . "The test updates simply replace system files with the same version of the file currently on the system."
Up to five different test updates will be offered, he added, but unlike real updates, they will not be automatically downloaded and installed, even if the user has turned on Windows 7's Automatic Updates feature. "Users will need to manually install the test updates through Windows Update," LeBlanc said.
The Microsoft team responsible for Windows Update explained in more detail what users will see when the test kicks off next week. "Users will be notified of available updates, but they won't install automatically," the group said on its own blog. "Users will need to go to the Windows Update control panel and manually start installation. If you don't want to install the updates then you can right click on each update and select 'Hide update' to prevent it from being shown."
Microsoft launched the public beta of Windows 7 on Jan. 10, a day later than scheduled because it had problems handling the crush of users rushing to get the preview, which the company planned to limit to the first 2.5 million testers. Later, however, Microsoft backtracked from that idea, and in fact extended the download deadline to Feb. 12.
The next Windows 7 preview for public consumption will be a "release candidate," which Microsoft has talked up but not yet slated for delivery.
Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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Update: Skype's immunity to phone tapping threatened
Suspicious phone conversations on Skype could be targeted for tapping as part of a pan-European crackdown on what law authorities believe is a massive technical loophole in current wiretapping laws, allowing criminals to communicate without fear of being overheard by the police.
The European investigation could also help U.S. law enforcement authorities gain access to Internet calls. The National Security Agency (NSA) is understood to believe that suspected terrorists use Skype to circumvent detection.
[ Read what InfoWorld's Ephraim Schwartz has to say on the subject of wiretaps in "Is surveillance software part of a greater conspiracy?" | Keep up on the latest tech news headlines at InfoWorld News , or subscribe to the Today's Headlines newsletter . ]
While the police can get a court order to tap a suspect's land line and mobile phone, it is currently impossible to get a similar order for Internet calls on both sides of the Atlantic.
Skype insisted that it does cooperate with law enforcement authorities, "where legally and technically possible," the company said in a statement.
"Skype has extensively debriefed Eurojust on our law enforcement program and capabilities," Skype said.
Eurojust, a European Union agency responsible for coordinating judicial investigations across different jurisdictions announced Friday the opening of an investigation involving all 27 countries of the European Union.
"We will bring investigators from all 27 member states together to find a common approach to this problem," said Joannes Thuy, a spokesman for Eurojust based in The Hague in the Netherlands.
The purpose of Eurojust's coordination role is to overcome "the technical and judicial obstacles to the interception of Internet telephony systems", Eurojust said.
The main judicial obstacles are the differing approaches to data protection in the various E.U. member states, Thuy said.
The investigation is being headed by Eurojust's Italian representative, Carmen Manfredda.
Criminals in Italy are increasingly making phone calls over the Internet in order to avoid getting caught through mobile phone intercepts, according to Direzione Nazionale Antimafia, the anti-Mafia office in Rome.
Police officers in Milan say organized crime, arms and drugs traffickers, and prostitution rings are turning to Skype and other systems of VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) telephony in order to frustrate investigators.
While telecommunications companies are obliged to comply with court orders to monitor calls on land lines and mobile phones, "Skype' refuses to cooperate with the authorities," Eurojust said.
In addition to the issue of cooperation, there are technical obstacles to tapping Skype calls. The way calls are set up and carried between computers is proprietary, and the encryption system used is strong. It could be possible to monitor the call on the originating or receiving computer using a specially written program, or perhaps to divert the traffic through a proxy server, but these are all far more difficult than tapping a normal phone. Calls between a PC and a regular telephone via the SkypeIn or SkypeOut service, however, could fall under existing wiretapping regulations and capabilities at the point where they meet the public telephone network.
The pan-European response to the problem may open the door for the U.S. to take similar action, Thuy said.
"We have very good cooperation with the U.S.," he said, pointing out that a U.S. prosecutor, Marylee Warren, is based in The Hague in order to liaise between U.S. and European judicial authorities.
The NSA (National Security Agency) is so concerned by Skype that it is offering hackers large sums of money to break its encryption, according to unsourced reports in the U.S.
Italian investigators have become increasingly reliant on wiretaps, Eurojust said, giving a recent example of customs and tax police in Milan, who overheard a suspected cocaine trafficker telling an accomplice to switch to Skype in order to get details of a 2kg drug consignment.
"Investigators are convinced that the interception of telephone calls have become an essential tool of the police, who spend millions of euros each year tracking down crime through wiretaps of land lines and mobile phones," Eurojust said.
The first meeting of Eurojust's 27 national representatives is planned in the coming weeks but precise details of its timing and the location of the meeting remain secret, Thuy said.
"They will exchange information and then we will give advice on how to proceed," he said. Bringing Internet telephony into line with calls on land lines and mobile phones "could be the price we have to pay for our security," he said.
HSPA+ could be the winner in the LTE vs. WiMax contest
Equipment vendors are trying to convince mobile operators to spend money upgrading their networks to deliver faster Internet access, with two technologies battling for the bucks: LTE (Long Term Evolution) and WiMax. However in the short term the winner could be an intermediate technology, HSPA+, as operators look for ways to wring more out of their existing networks with less capital outlay than LTE requires.
U.S. operator Verizon Wireless made headlines at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week with its announcement that it will build an LTE (Long Term Evolution) network this year , offering commercial service next year.
[ Read how WiMax and LTE supporters are preparing for battle | Get the latest on mobile developments with InfoWorld's Mobile Report newsletter. ]
Other operators are proving slow to adopt LTE -- but vendors of the rival WiMax technology will have a hard time taking advantage of this reluctance because of the economic situation.
Verizon Wireless' announcement gave LTE a boost: a more palpable deadline means standards and equipment will have to be finalized, said Mark Newman, chief research officer at market research company Informa Telecoms and Media.
"It gives confidence to other operators looking at LTE. Because of the financial markets operators are averse to risk. Being a pioneer is quite risky, but Verizon Wireless going early helps to reduce that risk a little for other operators," said Newman.
Verizon Wireless will buy its LTE radio base stations from Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson.
Some other operators that will be ready to roll out LTE networks in a similar timeframe, according to Mike Iandolo, president of the Wireless Networks Product division at Alcatel-Lucent.
Rolling out LTE service, though, involves building a whole new network of base stations, while other, cheaper, ways exist to improve the performance of many existing cellular networks, such as upgrading an existing HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) network to HSPA+.
HSPA, already deployed by some operators, can deliver data at up to 14Mbps. And this year, a few operators will start offering HSPA+ services that offer up to 21Mbps, with 42Mbps on the way.
During its LTE trials Verizon Wireless saw peak speeds of 80Mbps.
"There weren't a lot of big LTE announcements at the show, other than Verizon Wireless. The emphasis seems to be much more on extending HSPA, and it seemed like there was a push back on LTE," said Richard Webb, directing analyst at market research company Infonetics. He doesn't see operators installing LTE in any significant volumes until 2011.
Because of the economy many operators will first adopt HSPA+, rather than going straight from standard HSPA to LTE. "With the economic climate it makes sense to continue to sweat your assets," said Newman.
It's probably going to be five years before we see LTE as having a major impact in the market place in terms of services and handsets being offered to consumers, according to Newman.
The switch to LTE is currently being driven by operators, such as Verizon Wireless, which are moving to the technology from CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access). Their current high-speed option, EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized), has been stretched to its limit, and these operators don't have the HSPA+ option, according to Webb. Those companies could well be two years ahead of HSPA operators in their plans to roll out LTE, Newman said.
With Sprint-Clearwire's rollout of WiMax , Verizon Wireless had to respond, and going with LTE makes sense for them, he said.
Although Sprint-Clearwire announced its mobile WiMax service last year, it has done little to sway other operators.
"The growing realization during the show was that it's going to be extremely difficult for mobile WiMax to emerge as a competitor to HSPA or LTE, because there simply isn't the volume to drive innovation and creativity in handsets," said Newman.
In the mobile services market, "Everyone is eventually going to go to LTE. The only questions are when and by what path," said Alcatel-Lucent's Iandolo.
Alcatel-Lucent decided to withdraw from the mobile WiMax market last year, instead pushing WiMax as replacement for fixed-line broadband access, or as a data technology for nomadic workers: those who need Internet access while sitting down or parked, but not always in the same place. Typical examples include travelling sales staff, or repair workers accessing schematics.
Another role for WiMax is to provide basic broadband connectivity in emerging markets, according to Newman. WiMax is moving away from being a mobile-centric technology: The slowness of mobile devices to emerge points to that, he said.
When painting a picture of how big WiMax will be in the future, Webb compares LTE and WiMax to current fixed broadband networks. WiMax will be cable to LTE's DSL (Digital Subscriber Line). "WiMax is going be far smaller, but it doesn't have to be a huge market," he said.
Although Alcatel has reduced its commitment to WiMax, Intel isn't wavering in its support for the technology.
"The key thing to take away from the show is that commercial products are here. It's not a trial, it's real and it works," said Sriram Viswanathan, managing director of Intel Capital and general manager of the WiMax program office.
He also thinks it is going to be very difficult for operators to put up money for a huge infrastructure development or technology development that has a pay-out three or four years ahead, because of the economic turmoil.
"We see the predominant way that laptops and netbooks and MIDs (Mobile Internet Device) will be connected to a network is WiMax, at least over the next three or four years, because there is nothing else to connect to," he said.
WiMax has more headroom to increase the bandwidth than HSPA, according to Viswanathan. In Japan UQ Communications can get up to 40Mbps out of its current network, he said.
Viswanathan agrees that it is in emerging markets where WiMax will have the biggest impact. "Russia is already deploying it. You're going to see it in India, Brazil and many of the South East Asian countries," said Viswanathan.
The U.S is still a very big goal for Intel's WiMax team, Western Europe less so, according to Viswanathan.
Western European operators went on a 3G spending binge, and have to figure out how to dig themselves out of the hole they are in, he said. Until that happens, it will be difficult for any technology to take off.
(With additional reporting by Peter Sayer in Barcelona.)
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Recession dampening datacenter trials
The ailing economy is leading some enterprises to put off transforming their datacenter networks with emerging technologies such as FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet), Brocade Communications' CTO said Thursday.
IT managers are delaying transitions to converged networks that use a single protocol across both the storage and server areas of a datacenter, CTO Dave Stevens said in an interview after the company announced a steep increase in revenue for its first fiscal quarter, which ended Jan. 24.
[ Related: "Fans and skeptics argue on Fibre Channel over Ethernet" | Get the latest on storage developments with InfoWorld's Storage Adviser blog and Storage Report newsletter. ]
It was the first quarter since Fibre Channel storage network pioneer Brocade acquired Foundry Networks , an Ethernet LAN vendor. FCoE and Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) are two emerging standards designed to combine the strengths of Fibre Channel and Ethernet.
"People are pushing back on trialing converged infrastructure right now," Stevens said. That reflects a greater selectiveness in pursuing IT projects as enterprises move into a mode of buying just what they need, he said.
However, growing network traffic and collections of data, along with requirements to keep data for longer periods, are forcing enterprises to upgrade their networks, he said. In doing so, they are saving money by consolidating ports in fewer platforms, such as large Ethernet switches that can accommodate as many connections as 10 smaller boxes, Stevens said.
"The FCoE stuff and the CEE stuff seem to be pushing out a little bit, and there seems to be more emphasis on the Ethernet side and the Fibre Channel side to implement high-density switching systems in both of those environments," he said.
Brocade reported revenue of $431.6 million for the quarter, up 8 percent from the previous quarter and 24 percent from a year earlier. That figure included about one month of revenue from Foundry, which was folded into the company in late December. It fell short of the consensus forecast of analysts by Thomson Reuters, which was $441.7 million.
The company posted a loss of $26 million, or $0.07 per share, because of one-time items that mostly were associated with the Foundry deal, according to Stevens. Not including those items, Brocade earned $63.6 million or $0.15 per share, exceeding the consensus forecast of analysts by Thomson Reuters, which was $0.13 per share.
Brocade reported the integration of Foundry is ahead of schedule and that "the vast majority" of Foundry employees have remained on board. Brocade has been reorganized to focus on three market segments: Data center infrastructure, campus networks, and service-provider infrastructure, Stevens said. Engineers from both companies are working together on the next generation of technology, such as FCoE gear, but the traditional Fibre Channel and Ethernet product lines will remain and be updated for the foreseeable future, he said.
The biggest challenge in integrating the businesses has been allocating engineers and funding among the Ethernet, Fibre Channel and converged-infrastructure categories, Stevens said.
For fiscal 2009, Brocade predicted IT spending would continue to be held down by economic conditions but start to pick up in the fiscal fourth quarter and the next fiscal year. It forecast annual revenue of $1.9 billion to $2 billion, up from about $1.5 billion in fiscal 2008. But the company sees revenue rising only slightly in the following fiscal year, giving a revenue range for planning purposes of $2.1 billion to $2.2 billion for fiscal 2010.
In after-hours trading late Thursday, Brocade's shares on the Nasdaq (BRCD) were down $0.10 at $3.28.
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