IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (InfoWorld) 19/02/2009

Cloud security fears are overblown, some say

It may sound like heresy to say it, but it's possible to worry a little too much about security in cloud computing environments, speakers at IDC's Cloud Computing Forum said on Wednesday.

Security is the number-one concern cited by IT managers when they think about cloud deployments, followed by performance, availability, and the ability to integrate cloud services with in-house IT, according to IDC's research.

[ Learn how to secure your systems with Roger Grimes' Security Adviser blog and newsletter, both from InfoWorld. ]

Keeping data secure is critical, of course, but companies need to be realistic about the level of security they achieve inside their own business, and how that might compare to a cloud provider such as Amazon Web Services or Salesforce.com, speakers here said.

"I think a lot of security objections to the cloud are emotional in nature, it's reflexive," said Joseph Tobolski, director for cloud computing at Accenture. "Some people create a list of requirements for security in the cloud that they don't even have for their own data center."

That was the experience of Doug Menefee, CIO at Schumacher Group, which provides emergency room management services to hospitals. The company is in the midst of a project to migrate most of its applications to hosted, cloud-based services.

"My IT department came to me with a list of 100 security requirements and I thought, Wait a minute, we don't even have most of that in our own data center," he said in an interview here.

Schumacher Group takes security seriously, Menefee said, but as a mid-sized company with only three IT staff working full time on security, he trusts large cloud providers to do it better. "We get the same level of security with Salesforce.com as any large company using that service," he said. "I'm using the economies of scale."

Schumacher Group stores sensitive data only with providers that comply with the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), Menefee said. He recently started a project to deploy Google's online productivity tools, but Google is not HIPPA-certified, "so no patient data gets stored there," he said.

Schumacher Group is not a publicly traded company, he noted, and its legal requirements for security are less complex than for public entities. Some large enterprises, especially in areas like finance, will have greater concerns about security, noted Jean Bozman, an IDC research vice president.

Still, one audience member here, admitting that the idea was "counterintuititive," said security concerns may actually drive companies into the cloud.

"It is becoming almost impossible today to secure the enterprise, the cost and complexity are moving so fast," he said. "If you go to the RSA [security] conference, the major vendors will tell you every year that their next release will solve all these security problems that you have today. But they never do."

Frank Gens, IDC's chief analyst, offered a Twitter-sized definition of cloud computing: "Shared services, under virtual management, accessible over the Internet by people and other services via Internet standards." Some, but not all, are offered on a self-service basis, he said.

IDC revisited its growth projections for all areas of IT after the recession set in, and cloud computing was almost the only one for which its projection increased, Gens said. It expects spending on cloud services to almost triple by 2012, to reach $42 billion, or 9 percent of IT revenue.

The benefits of cloud computing cited most often here were the speed and lower cost of deploying new applications; the ability to pay only for capacity used; the ability to scale services up and down quickly; the need for less in-house IT staff; and access to the latest technologies.

Cloud computing has moved past early adopters and is entering the "early majority" stage, Gens said. It is still an emerging area, however, and customers have several areas of concern, he said.

Besides those listed above, panelists here said interoperability is a worry, in particular the inability to move application instances easily between different cloud providers. Another concern is choosing a provider that goes out of business by the end of the year, given the recession.

"We've taken an aggressive approach to monitoring our providers and vendors because everybody is at risk right now," Schumacher's Menefee said. "With smaller vendors who we work with, we're putting code in escrow accounts, and at a minimum copying all our data to on-premise. It may not be functional inside an application, but at least we have access to that data if we need it."

"The number one concern I'll have in 2009," he said, "is whether the software-as-a-service and cloud companies are going to make such drastic cuts in their research and development that their technology will stagnate -- that I'll be left with the same platform in 2010 as I had in 2009."

(IDC is a part of International Data Group, the parent company of IDG News Service.)

Microsoft wins motion, loses one in Vista Capable case

Microsoft won a motion to end the class-action status of the Windows Vista Capable lawsuit on Wednesday, but lost a motion that could have ended the suit without a trial.

The motion to end the class-action status of the lawsuit means the plaintiffs will have to sue Microsoft individually, instead of as a group that could have drawn in potentially thousands of other consumers who felt wronged by the issue.

[ See InfoWorld's Special Report: Early looks at Windows 7. ]

"We're pleased that the court granted our motion to decertify the class, leaving only the claims of six individuals," said David Bowermaster, a Microsoft spokesperson, in an e-mail. "We look forward to presenting our case to the jury, should the plaintiffs elect to pursue their individual claims."

The case centers on claims that Microsoft misled computer buyers with the Vista Capable advertising campaign nearly a year prior to the release of the operating system. Plaintiffs argue they overpaid for computers due to the Vista Capable campaign and that the PCs they bought could only run the lowest-priced version of Vista, Home Basic, which they say is not a true Vista OS because it lacks key features of the other Vista versions.

Microsoft lost a request for a summary judgement, a ruling based on facts presented ahead of the trial. The company has argued that the plaintiffs have not demonstrated that Vista Home Basic was not the 'real Vista' nor that consumers overpaid for PCs because of the Vista Capable ad campaign.

The downside for Microsoft is that the case will now go to trial should the plaintiffs opt to continue. The company has already seen a stream of embarrassing e-mails made public through the lawsuit.

In the ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman said that while class action status is no longer appropriate for the case, it makes "no comment" on the claims people paid higher prices for PCs as a result of the Vista Capable Campaign.

"Defendant is mistaken to equate Plaintiffs' failure to provide class-wide proof of causation with a failure to present an issue for trial," she wrote in a 17-page ruling.

Elizabeth Montalbano in New York contributed to this report.

Clearwire readying game plan as LTE gains steam

When Verizon Wireless announced this week that it would roll out LTE (Long-Term Evolution) mobile broadband in two cities by year's end, rival Clearwire responded, as usual, by saying it has a better network with WiMax today than Verizon will have with LTE next year.

In terms of what average consumers can actually buy, that may be true: Though networks will be in place in two cities this year, Verizon's LTE won't launch commercially until 2010, according to Verizon Executive Vice President and CEO Dick Lynch. But for Clearwire and partner Sprint Nextel, which began with a head start against LTE measured in years, the clock is ticking. Once projected to reach 100 million subscribers by the end of 2008, the new Clearwire joint venture is commercially available in just two metropolitan areas. The company wouldn't say anything else about its rollout plans on Wednesday.

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

But the WiMax trailblazer is gearing up to give more details about its strategy on March 5, when it announces its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2008. Those details may include dates for commercial availability of the high-speed mobile data service in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boston and Dallas-Fort Worth, possibly very soon. Sprint Nextel's WiMax division was already building networks in those cities before the joint venture with the original Clearwire was completed in December. Clearwire is also working on converting its more than 40 pre-WiMax networks to true WiMax over time.

Clearwire may want to hurry with its deployment because Verizon is moving aggressively to roll out LTE. Most observers don't expect widespread LTE availability until 2011, but Verizon said Wednesday it plans to have networks in 25 to 30 markets in 2010. LTE isn't expected from the other major U.S. carrier, AT&T, until 2010 or later.

WiMax and LTE use similar technology and are designed to deliver multiple megabits per second, on average, to each subscriber. Clearwire has said its service provides between 2 and 4Mbps to subscribers on its existing network in Baltimore. Verizon said Wednesday its LTE tests show speeds as high as 80Mbps, but it wasn't ready to discuss the average speed, and the 80Mbps might be divided among multiple subscribers in an area.

LTE's biggest advantage is its backing by the Third-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the force behind 3G technology among GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) service providers. GSM is the dominant cellular system in the world, and even Verizon, which currently uses CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access) instead, is turning to LTE.

But Clearwire claimed some momentum for WiMax, too. Its statement on Wednesday pointed out that the WiMax Forum industry group says WiMax service providers around the world reach 430 million people today. By the end of next year, the group expects 800 million people to be in range of a WiMax service. WiMax is based on IEEE 802.16, a family of open standards.

The Clearwire joint venture came to life last November when the combination of Sprint Nextel and the national pre-WiMax service provider Clearwire was finally completed. The company, which eventually will sell service on both Sprint-built and Clearwire-built networks under the Clear brand, is also backed by partners including Intel, Google and some of the largest U.S. cable operators. Together, those companies injected $3.2 billion into the venture.

But amid Sprint's business woes, the declining economy and tight credit markets, Clearwire is in a tough environment for building out a national network with a new technology. Intel and other major partners recently took charges against their financial results for a decline in the value of their Clearwire investments. Clearwire said Wednesday it has enough capital to cover its rollout well into the future.

Intel goes to court in licensing spat with Nvidia

Intel went to court on Tuesday to resolve a licensing dispute with Nvidia over the latter's plan to build chipsets compatible with Intel's latest Nehalem processors.

In a filing in the State of Chancery Court in Delaware, the chip giant asks the judge to rule that Nvidia is not licensed to produce chipsets that are compatible with any Intel processors with integrated memory-controller functionality, such as Intel's Nehalem microprocessors.

[ Keep up on the latest tech news headlines at InfoWorld News, or subscribe to the Today's Headlines newsletter. ]

Intel launched its first Nehalem chips in November, when it introduced the Core i7 chips. The new chips integrate memory controllers inside the chip, which helps the CPU communicate with the memory faster. Future Intel laptop and desktop processors are also expected to include integrated memory controllers.

Intel had discussions with Nvidia for more than a year attempting to resolve the matter, but the talks were unsuccessful, said Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy. Intel had to go to court to resolve this dispute, Mulloy said.

In response to the court filing, Nvidia on Wednesday said that a four-year-old bus license with Intel allowed it to build chipsets based on Intel CPUs with integrated memory controllers.

"We are confident that our license, as negotiated, applies," said Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia president and CEO, in a statement.

The license revolves around usage of a bus, or point-to-point interconnect, that helps the CPU communicate with components in a PC. Nvidia is "aggressively developing" new products for Intel's current interconnect and Intel's future DMI (direct media interface) bus.

Nvidia makes chipsets -- a set of integrated circuits -- for Intel and AMD CPUs to help processors communicate with components like network and storage controllers.

As CPUs integrate more capabilities like graphics, Intel may be trying to gain more control over its future chip technology, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight64. Intel plans to integrate graphics in a two-chip package it plans to start shipping later this year.

"Intel [could] be saying 'We gave you some technology to go into old processors ... now we're not going to let you do that anymore,'" he said.

But Nvidia CEO Huang said Intel's CPU business is decaying, and the court filing is an attempt to save it.

"At the heart of this issue is that the CPU has run its course and the soul of the PC is shifting quickly to the GPU. This is clearly an attempt to stifle innovation to protect a decaying CPU business," Huang said.

Nvidia is trying to push GPUs as an alternative to CPUs, because GPUs execute advanced tasks like video encoding and decoding much quicker. It is also pushing the CUDA parallel programming architecture, a software toolkit that allows programmers to take advantage of the processing speeds of GPUs.

Both CPUs and graphics processing units are important and neither is going away soon, Brookwood said. However, CPUs are gaining more importance with GPUs taking on the role of a subordinate on laptops and desktops.

"Nvidia basically for the last year has been arguing that all the hard work is in the GPU and nobody's going to care about the CPU. Intel's been going in the opposite direction," Brookwood said.

As better graphics capabilities are integrated into CPUs, a lesser number of buyers will pay extra cash for a separate graphics card. That strikes at the heart of Nvidia, which is known for its graphics cards. The general computing trend is not on Nvidia's side, which is already facing a problem on how to grow its discrete graphics business during the recession, Brookwood said.

Soasta cloud platform tests Web apps globally

Soasta is offering developers a cloud service for testing Web applications under simulated conditions, with hits coming from globally distributed locations.

Available on Wednesday, the company's CloudTest Global Platform simulates Web traffic and conditions by leveraging cloud platforms, such as Amazon EC2, Rackspace, 3Tera AppLogic, and Enormally. Real-world Web conditions are simulated from different geographies and time zones at different levels of scale, Soasta said.

[ Cloud computing is shaping up to be a big trend for 2009. ]

Load generation is produced from virtually thousands of servers from more than 15 locations worldwide, according to Soasta. This provides the most accurate representation of real-world Web traffic and usage, the company said.

Developers can simulate customers coming from places like London, Los Angeles, or Hong Kong, said Soasta CEO Tom Lounibos. "It gives them a more real-world feel to how traffic is coming in," he said.

With the growing importance of Web sites, performance has become more critical, he stressed. "Web performance is kind of the new version of customer service," Lounibos said.

Using CloudTest Global Platform, online music company Qtrax recently completed a test simulating more than 500,000 concurrent users from around the world hitting its Web site, Soasta said.

Through Web application testing, developers can find errors at certain stress levels and make adjustments to code, firewalls, or load balancers, Lounibos said.

Previously, Soasta CloudTest was limited to generating traffic from a single location. "Now, what's happening is the ability to generate it from multiple, physical locations around the world," said Lounibos.

Soasta Global CloudTest Platform is available as an on-demand service starting at $1,000 per test hour.

Google seeks apps demo videos

Google is asking developers to send videos of applications based on the company's technologies, which could be featured on the code.google.com site or Google developer blogs.

The company, said Christine Tsai, product marketing manager for Google Developer Programs, has been posting videos of developers sharing how they built such applications as mobile systems for the Android platform or AJAX front ends with Google Web Toolkit or how they scaled Web applications using the Google App Engine cloud platform.

[ Newsfeature: Developers give Google mixed reviews. ]

"We really enjoyed working with these developers to produce these videos. However, we thought it would be great to allow any developer to create their own video talking about their application and help them share their video with other developers on code.google.com," Tsai said in a blog post on Wednesday morning.

Google will consider videos sent via a video submission page. Videos, which can be no longer than five minutes, must adhere to YouTube terms of service. The company is encouraging use of visuals and screen recordings so developers can see an application in action.

Google is showing sample videos, including the Mibbit Web chat application built with JavaScript and Google APIs, and Giftag, an online "wish list" application developed on Google App Engine.

Microsoft kills Equipt subscription offering

After offering it only since July, Microsoft is discontinuing its Equipt package of software and services.

The move follows the company's decision to also kill off OneCare, the security software that was included in the Equipt package, but it may also be related to Circuit City's demise. The retailer, currently in liquidation, was the only outlet to sell the Equipt package in the U.S.

[ Keep up with app dev issues and trends with InfoWorld's Fatal Exception and Strategic Developer blogs. ]

Equipt is a package that includes Office Home and Student 2007, OneCare, Office Live Workspaces, Windows Live Mail, Live Messenger and Live Photo. Users paid $70 a year for it.

Microsoft began selling Equipt in Circuit City stores on July 15. Late last year, Equipt went on sale in the U.K. also.

Microsoft decided to discontinue Equipt after it announced in November that it is developing a no-cost anti-malware product, Morro, to replace OneCare. "As a result of this new offering and the discontinuation of OneCare, Microsoft Equipt, which includes a subscription to OneCare, will be discontinued after April 30, 2009," the Equipt Web site says.

Equipt users are eligible for a prorated refund for unused months of their subscription and a free copy of Office Home and Student 2007. Users can fill out a form on the Equipt site to receive those benefits.

Microsoft-Red Hat deal shows need for virtualization support

A virtualization deal struck Monday between Microsoft and Red Hat shows the growing need for vendors to ensure customers can get cross-platform support for applications running in virtualized environments.

Under the terms of the deal, outlined in blog posts by Microsoft Senior Open Source Community Manager Peter Galli and Microsoft Virtualization General Manager Mike Neil, both companies will validate and offer customer support for each other's OSes on their virtualization technologies.

[ Keep up with all the latest in virtualization news with David Marshall's Virtualization Report blog. ]

Specifically, Microsoft will offer customer support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 and 5.3 guests on all editions of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008. For its part, Red Hat will support customers running Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows 2000 Server SP4 and Windows Server 2008 guests on Red Hat Enterprise virtualization technologies.

The companies also will offer cooperative technical support for customers running Windows Server on Red Hat Enterprise virtualization and Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. Future versions of these products also will be validated under the company's agreement.

Stephen O'Grady, an analyst with open source research firm RedMonk, said the deal underscores how even competitors have to cross party lines to support virtualization, which is becoming an integral part of data centers that, more often than not, include both Windows- and Linux-based servers.

Virtualization allows companies to cut costs in their IT environments by allowing more than one OS on a physical server by running software in virtualized containers. The technology allows a customer to run applications on both Linux and Windows on one piece of hardware.

O'Grady noted that support for enterprise applications still hinges on what OS an application is running on. "If you talk to application vendors, their support depends on an application platform," he said. "They'll support the app on Windows, on RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux), but that's as far as that goes."

Because software can be running on one virtualized OS -- RHEL, for instance -- that runs physically on a server running another OS, such as Windows, it's important for customers to know that both Red Hat and Microsoft will support them in such a scenario, O'Grady said.

"If I'm running RHEL virtualized on top of Windows, I need to make sure I'm supported commercially on every step of the way," he said. "Virtualization pushes the boundaries of support and requires that vendors work well and effectively together."

There is no love lost between Microsoft and Red Hat, which have traded barbs for years as fierce competitors with fundamentally different views of how software should be developed and distributed. This may explain why the companies chose to unveil the pact -- their most significant and public partnership to date -- on Monday, a public holiday in the U.S. when many people had the day off from work. Companies typically will release news they hope will be overlooked by major news outlets on public holidays.

"I found the timing a little odd," O'Grady agreed. However, Microsoft spokesman Patrick O'Rourke in an e-mail said there was nothing odd about it. Since the deal was aimed at a worldwide audience, the timing "worked well for most other countries" outside the U.S. A Red Hat spokeswoman did not reply immediately to request for comment on the deal's timing.

Also curious about the deal is what it does not include: The exchange of intellectual property or "financial clauses" between the companies, except for "industry-standard certification/validation testing fees," according to Red Hat's press release.

No doubt Red Hat wanted to be sure to clarify that its deal with Microsoft is not the same as the one Microsoft struck with Linux distributor Novell two years ago, which did include exchange of IP and cash. At the time Red Hat executives said they were not interested in striking such a deal. In addition to ensuring interoperability between Novell SUSE Linux and Windows, the Novell deal also indemnified users of Novell's Linux against any claims of patent infringement for any Microsoft patents SUSE Linux might include.

IP is a particularly thorny issue between Microsoft and Red Hat, exacerbated not only by the Novell deal but also by claims made by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in May 2007 that Linux violates more than 235 patents Microsoft holds.

In response, Red Hat said its customers are protected by any patent claims by its Open Source Assurance Program, and many Linux proponents called Microsoft's claims an attempt to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt among customers who purchase open-source software in order to promote its own proprietary software.

O'Grady suggested it was probably Red Hat that lobbied hard against including IP-sharing in the deal to maintain its stance against the Novell deal and Microsoft's patent-infringement claims.

"This is a different deal than Novell signed," he said. "It's far less controversial."

Computer thefts prompt Los Alamos security review

The Los Alamos National Laboratories has launched a month-long project aimed at ensuring that offsite computer systems fully comply the institution's information security policies. Los Alamos officials are also conducting a full review of its policies and its procedures governing the use of official computers at home by employees of the laboratory.

The moves come after last month's theft of three computers from the Santa Fe home of an employee and the subsequent disclosure several dozen more systems are currently listed as missing from the top U.S. nuclear weapons laboratory.

[ Learn how to secure your systems with Roger Grimes' Security Adviser blog and newsletter, both from InfoWorld. ]

Jeffrey Berger, director of the communications at the Los Alamos, N.M. facility, office at the laboratory said that lab officials are taking the issue of the missing computers "very seriously." He noted that only one of the computers that was stolen from the employee's home was authorized for home use.

Berger did say that none of the missing systems held classified data. "It is true that [the Los Alamos lab], like any large organization that uses computers, has had computers go missing or get stolen," Berger said in an e-mail. But he insisted that despite apparent thefts, the lab has "consistently earned some of the highest ratings for property accountability" within the U.S. Department of Energy 's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) .

The latest apparent security breach at the Los Alamos lab follows a DOE move in July 2007 to fine the lab for an October 2006 breach that exposed classified data. In that case, a contract worker illegally downloaded and removed hundreds of pages of classified data from the lab via USB thumb drives.

Barely a month earlier, lawmakers slammed the Los Alamos lab after it was discovered that several Los Alamos officials had used unprotected e-mail networks to share highly classified information. And in June 2000, several computer disks containing classified information on how to disarm Russian and American nuclear devices were found to be missing from a secure storage area.

News of the missing computers was disclosed earlier this month by the Project on Government Oversight, or POGO. The watchdog group posted a memo on its site from the NNSA expressing concern over the theft of the three computers from the home of a Los Alamos National Security LLC (LANS) employee in January. LANS runs the facility for the U.S.

In addition to the missing computers, POGO also disclosed , that a LANL employee had lost a lab-owned BlackBerry in a "sensitive" but undisclosed foreign nation.

The NNSA letter, dated Feb. 3, criticized the lab's response to the missing systems, and the apparent lack of controls aimed at preventing such incidents. The letter noted that follow-up inquiries about the January incident revealed that as many as 67 Los Alamos lab computers were currently listed as "missing" from the lab, including 13 that were known to be lost or stolen.

The memo chastised lab officials for treating the lost computers as purely a property management issue, and not informing the DOE immediately after the problem was discovered. The memo said that the DOE concluded that there are significant security weaknesses, as well as configuration management and accountability issues the lab. It also cited uncertainty about the "magnitude of exposure and risk" resulting from such losses.

Berger, however, contended that POGO and some news reports on the missing computers have "distorted the situation." He noted that Los Alamos employees and on-site subcontractors use about 40,000 computers and related equipment, including desktops, laptops, servers, printers, PDAs and other handheld devices.

Under NNSA requirements, The Los Alamos lab must account "for at least 98.7 percent" of its bar-coded property, including computer equipment, Berger said. "Over the past several years [Los Alamos] has consistently exceeded that requirement, accounting for 99.5 percent or more of its bar-coded property. The results of these annual inventories are independently validated by the NNSA's Service Center in Albuquerque as part of its annual assessment of LANL's property management system."

Berger said that during 2008, the lab deactivated 80 bar-coded pieces of computer equipment that were reported missing or stolen from the lab, Berger said. He said that 67 of the items were reported missing and 13 as stolen, he said. Eleven missing items, and one stolen piece of equipment have been recovered, Berger added.

Dangerous mobile phone viruses surge

Viruses and spam attacks targeting mobile phone users are on the increase, says McAfee.

According to the security firm's annual mobile phone report, over half of all handset manufacturers have reported instances of malware and spam attacks on mobile phones. In 2008, 17 percent of the world's handset manufacturers reported a total of over one million attacks.

[ Users are finding that an early version of Mozilla's mobile browser has a 'showtopper' flaw. Also, see the InfoWorld Test Center's review: BlackBerry Curve 8900 hits the hotspot with VoIP, and learn more about turning smartphones into desktops on the go. ]

"Overall, there has been a dramatic upswing in the number of incidents across all the major threat categories - including exploits that affected manufacturers' device functionality, users' privacy and even network or service capacity - in many cases by more than double over the last year," said McAfee.

McAfee also revealed there been an increase in third party applications and content which is being prematurely released and causing network capacity issues or even crashing and locking devices.

As a result, the report claimed 70 percent of handset manufacturers feel addressing mobile security is a top priority.

"Attempts to make the mobile ecosystem more open have shown early signs of success yet attacks on mobile networks and devices continue to grow in both complexity and sophistication," said Victor Kouznetsov, senior vice president of McAfee Mobile Security.

"It is encouraging to see that mobile manufacturers are looking to regain control of providing security functionality to safeguard their users."

Oracle goes up-market with new on-demand CRM apps

Oracle on Wednesday announced a number of new on-demand CRM (customer relationship management) modules, adding capabilities clearly aimed at large enterprises.

The applications include self-service e-billing, deal management, enterprise disaster recovery, an integration with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and a product called Sales Library, which collects a company's sales-related material and allows representatives to quickly pull together presentations.

[ Keep up on the latest tech news headlines at InfoWorld News, or subscribe to the Today's Headlines newsletter. ]

Oracle had said the new products were in the pipeline when it initially announced CRM On Demand Release 16 on Jan. 27, but did not name a release date. Other elements of Release 16 include unlimited custom objects and broader language support.

Oracle's strategy as it battles rivals like Salesforce.com is clear and deliberate, according to one industry observer.

"They're definitely trying to use these features to create some separation between themselves and everyone else in the enterprise space," said Denis Pombriant, managing principal of Beagle Research in Stoughton, Massachusetts.

Oracle's CRM portfolio has also become far-reaching, moving from core sales force automation to add-on applications like Sales Library.

"That's always been an Oracle trait," Pombriant said. "When you get to be a company has big as Oracle with as big a footprint in the marketplace it's really hard to grow by organic growth. You need to leave no stone unturned and capture every bit of revenue."

10 must-have apps for your BlackBerry

Not long ago, the words "BlackBerry" and "software" didn't belong in the same sentence. Sure, your BlackBerry smartphone was capable of running software; it even came with a few applications installed. But if you were looking for a wide selection of third-party productivity apps, you were out of luck.

Fortunately, things have changed. Today, people want more out of their smartphones, and phone manufacturers -- and third-party software developers -- are meeting those needs. Most new BlackBerry phones include more software than past versions have -- you'll even find the Documents to Go office suite installed on most new models. And thousands of applications are available for download and purchase. BlackBerry maker Research in Motion is finally getting in on the act, too, as the company prepares to launch the BlackBerry Application Storefront, its answer to the iPhone's App Store, next month.

[ Read the InfoWorld Test Center's review: "BlackBerry Curve 8900 hits the hotspot with VoIP." And learn about turning smartphones into desktops on the go. ]

But you don't have to wait for the Storefront if you're looking for BlackBerry software. Plenty of great apps are around now -- you just have to know where to find them. We've rounded up 10 tools that can make your BlackBerry even better. This list is by no means comprehensive; the hardest part was whittling it down to only ten titles. So if your favorite BlackBerry app isn't on here, let us know in the comments section below.

Documents to Go, Premium Edition
DataViz
$70; BlackBerry OS 4.5 or higher
I know, I just said that most new BlackBerry phones come with a version of Documents to Go already installed. And they do -- but it's the Standard Edition. That app will let you view and edit existing Microsoft Office files, but it won't let you create new ones; for those capabilities, you need the Premium Edition. Both versions let you open existing Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents and Adobe PDF files natively, so you don't need to convert them to view them properly. They even let you view tracked changes and allow you to insert comments in spreadsheets.

PeeKaWho
SmrtGuard
$10; BlackBerry OS 4.1.0 or higher
It may not sound like a terrible hassle to open your BlackBerry's e-mail client every time you get a message. But why not make things easy on yourself? PeeKaWho pops up an alert when you have an incoming e-mail message, showing you who sent it, the subject, and a snippet of the text. That way you'll know whether the message is important enough to read right away, or whether it can wait until you've finished your current task. The alerts are especially handy if you're composing another e-mail -- they allow you to see new messages without losing the one you're working on. You can also create blacklists or whitelists to control how many pop-ups you get.

Maximizer CRM 10.5 Freedom for BlackBerry
Maximizer Software
$229 (single user); BlackBerry OS 4.6 or higher
Leave your laptop at home -- or, at least, that's what this CRM application promises to help you do. Maximizer CRM for the BlackBerry offers many of the features of the company's popular desktop CRM app in a version that takes advantage of your smartphone's features; for example, you can initiate a call or begin drafting an e-mail to one of your contacts from within the Freedom app. New in this version is support for the recently released Bold and Storm smartphones, as well as wireless deployment capabilities that will make life easier for your IT folks. It can work as a stand-alone CRM program, or in tandem with the company's desktop- and browser-based products.

PocketMac for BlackBerry
PocketMac
Free; Mac OS 10.4/10.5 and any BlackBerry phone
Some people may think that Macs and BlackBerrys don't mix, but that's not the case. PocketMac is a free utility that will let you sync your BlackBerry phone with your Mac computer, just as RIM's BlackBerry Desktop app does for PCs. Once your phone is connected to your Mac via a USB cable, PocketMac will sync your information, including calendars, contacts, tasks, e-mail, and notes, from a variety of applications such as iCal, Entourage, Mail.app, and Daylite. You can even sync music from iTunes.

TwitterBerry
Orangatame Software
Free; BlackBerry OS 4.1.0 or higher
Twitter, the social networking service that allows you to post brief updates on your daily activities and peruse the same kind of info from your friends, is wildly popular. Many people can't stand to be without Twitter when they're away from their PCs. Enter TwitterBerry: This free application lets you post your own tweets, or view other people's, using your BlackBerry. The interface is, well, basic, but it gets the job done. If you're having Twitter withdrawals, TwitterBerry could provide the fix you need.

Opera Mini
Opera Software
Free; BlackBerry OS 4.0.0 or higher
If you want to start a debate among BlackBerry users, just ask them which mobile browser they prefer. Some folks are thrilled with the latest BlackBerry Browser, while others call it rubbish and insist on a third-party alternative. Me? I'm somewhere in the middle. The new BlackBerry Browser, which you'll find on phones like the Bold, the Storm, and the new Curve 8900, is light years ahead of past versions, but I still find that it occasionally chokes on a page or doesn't display a site as it should. That's why I like to have another option, such as Opera Mini; it's designed to run quickly and help you browse Web sites as they're meant to be seen. And, hey, you can't beat the price.

YouMail
YouMail
Free; dependent on carrier, works with most AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon Wireless phones
Anyone who has used an iPhone knows that its visual voicemail is one of its best -- if often overlooked -- features. But other companies, like YouMail, are taking note, launching similar services for other smartphones. YouMail visual voicemail displays a list of your incoming messages, so you can see who they're from and when they arrived before listening to them. It also can transcribe the voice messages into text so that you can read them in places where you can't make calls, and it lets you create various outgoing messages for different callers.

Viigo
Viigo
Free; BlackBerry OS 4.1 or higher, BlackBerry hardware series 7100 or higher
Viigo started out as an RSS reader -- and it was an excellent one, allowing you to add newsfeeds easily and browse the results. Nowadays this free application remains an outstanding RSS reader, but it also does much more, tracking weather, flight status, sports scores, stock quotes, and even restaurant reviews.

iSkoot for Skype
iSkoot
Free; BlackBerry hardware series 7100 or higher
You don't have to leave your Skype account behind when you're away from your PC. iSkoot lets you access many of Skype's features right from your smart phone. You can chat with other Skype users, and you can save your monthly allotment of voice minutes by using Skype for voice calls. Make and receive calls to and from other Skype users, or use SkypeOut to call regular phone numbers.

Google Mobile Updater for BlackBerry
Google
Free; works with all BlackBerry phones
Google offers a great collection of mobile applications, including Google Maps, Gmail, Docs, and Sync. Deciding which one to include here was a tough call -- until I realized just how useful Google Mobile Updater can be. This tool allows you to install a variety of Google apps -- including all the ones I just mentioned -- to your phone, and notifies you when new products or updates to your existing apps are available.

PC World is an InfoWorld affiliate.

Windows 7: Enterprise features explained

The lion's share of attention about the Windows 7 beta has been on consumer features. The new taskbar with its jumplists, mouse-hover features, easy navigation and the more controllable user account control are the immediate attention-grabbers. But the under-the-hood, less "sexy" enterprise features of Windows 7 are not as well known.

Recently, Microsoft has taken some criticism for neglecting enterprise needs with Windows 7.

[ 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. ]

Popular blogger and editor of Supersite for Windows Paul Thurrott recently said in an interview with CIO.com sister site Network World that Microsoft is treating enterprises as an afterthought and "arbitrarily locking Windows enterprise features to Windows Server 2008 R2 and asking corporations to spend a significant sum of money."

To that, Gavriella Schuster, Microsoft's senior director of Windows product management, admits that Windows 7 features that need Windows Server 2008 R2 are not going to be deployed overnight. "Some of these features are part of a longer-term strategy," Schuster says.

Nevertheless, Microsoft continues to spread the word about how Windows 7 can help enterprises. In a recent interview, Schuster drilled down into what Microsoft believes are the key features.

DirectAccess
The DirectAccess feature, which requires both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, lets mobile workers connect to corporate networks without the use of a VPN, giving business users more flexibility and easing the burden on IT.

Schuster says that with DirectAccess, users only need an Internet connection to have access to everything on the corporate network; they will never have to stop what they're doing and log on to a VPN. This will reduce the use of corporate bandwidth as remote users will mostly be using their own local broadband, she says.

The benefit of DirectAccess runs deeper for IT managers, she says. "For IT, the biggest challenge is managing remote laptops, knowing how long they've been off network, when they came back on and when they got patched. With DirectAccess, as long as a machine is on and connected to the Internet, it can be managed."

As for security concerns over there being no official VPN, Schuster says that DirectAccess is used with Windows Server 2008 R2 in the background, which will use the most secure protocol, IPv6, to encrypt data transmitted across the Internet. "It's not as if you don't have a VPN or firewall; we've just integrated that into DirectAccess," she says. "There is no longer a separate step to get to that secured tunnel."

BranchCache
BranchCache, which also requires the use of both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, is a feature designed to speed up networks in remote offices that are away from corporate headquarters. Basically, BranchCache will speed the accessing of large remote files stored on the corporate network, says Schuster.

For example, a copy of a file server is downloaded from the corporate network and cached locally on Windows Server 2008 R2 at the branch office. When another user at the branch office requests the file, it is downloaded immediately from the local cache rather than over a limited bandwidth connection back to headquarters.

Users don't have to go back to the corporate network and use up bandwidth to download it again, Schuster says.

"And what IT can do with BranchCache is set the amount of partition on desktops in branch offices that can be used for caching, set how current documents need to be before forcing users to go back to the corporate network to get them again, and check what level of permissions users need to have," she says.

Desktop Search
Windows 7 has bolstered enterprise search functionality from the desktop.

Although Windows Vista enhanced desktop search, and Microsoft has invested in SharePoint portal search and Internet search, the problem, according to Schuster, is that those are three different searches and you need to go to three different places.

"With Windows 7 we have federated that search," Schuster says. "So right from your desktop you can expand search from the desktop to SharePoint sites to the Internet and then go find a document wherever it may be: on your computer, on your network or on the Internet."

With the "federated" search in Windows 7, users can select which intranet and SharePoint sites are available for searching or IT can pre-populate a user's start menu with links to specific Windows portal sites. Search results are presented in Windows Explorer the same way that users of Windows XP and Vista are used to.

BitLocker to Go
The BitLocker hard-drive encryption feature was introduced in Windows Vista to protect data on lost or stolen laptops. In Windows 7, the feature has been extended to protect storage devices such as external hard drives and USB sticks.

Called "BitLocker to Go" in Windows 7, the feature allows external storage devices to be restricted with a passphrase set by IT before users have permission to copy data to them.

This will give enterprises the same confidence in USB external drives that they have in multi-volume drive encryption, says Schuster, adding that this has become a necessity with the growing amount of USB devices.

"It's so easy to lose external devices without even noticing, so BitLocker to Go gives businesses extra confidence that no one can get that data."

AppLocker
Like BitLocker, AppLocker is in the security and control camp of Windows 7, and aims to protect users from running unauthorized software that could lead to malware infections.

For safety, Microsoft recommends that enterprises run in standard user, meaning there are no administrative rights to users at all. But if IT does give administrative rights to users, AppLocker can safeguard against running suspicious types of software. It allows IT to specify which applications can run on employees' desktops, blocking potentially harmful software and allowing the applications and programs that users need.

"AppLocker allows IT to say, 'users can only install these types of applications,'" Schuster says. "And they can specify by software publisher or by version. For instance, users can only install Adobe Acrobat 8.1 or later."

CIO.com is an InfoWorld affiliate.

Mellanox woos datacenters with 40Gbps InfiniBand

InfiniBand stalwart Mellanox wants datacenters to adopt 40Gbps InfiniBand as their primary high-speed converged network fabric. To help them it has introduced a family of devices capable of bridging it to both 10Gbps Ethernet and 8Gbps Fibre Channel.

Mellanox said that the devices, called BridgeX, support Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and Fibre Channel over InfiniBand, so they can provide servers with SAN and NAS connectivity via either a 10Gbps Ethernet or 40Gbps InfiniBand switch.

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The idea is that you keep your legacy storage and your Ethernet and Fibre Channel switches, but use InfiniBand switches for your low-latency server interconnect and your converged I/O fabric, said Gilad Shainer, Mellanox's technical marketing director.

"We believe InfiniBand offers more performance and lower latency, but we want the user to be able to choose which transport to use," he said.

"40Gbits/s is available now, running up to 7m over passive copper cables, 12m over active copper, and up to 300m over fibre."

Shainer claimed that where a server hosting VMware might currently require multiple Gigabit Ethernet cards plus a Fibre Channel adaptor, all those could be replaced by a single InfiniBand adaptor.

He added that BridgeX can be used with Mellanox's ConnectX server NICs. These combine 40Gbps Infiniband and 10Gbps Ethernet in a single chip, and support virtualised I/O for VMware and the like.

InfiniBand bridges are already available from QLogic and Voltaire, but Shainer pointed out that they offer bridges to Ethernet or Fibre Channel, whereas BridgeX can converge all three.

He claimed that BridgeX also offers lower latency as it uses protocol encapsulation, whereas the others use protocol termination.

An early user of the device in the United States said it was providing I/O consolidation for NFS storage delivered to a high-performance compute cluster.

"Integrating a BridgeX-based solution in our cluster provides seamless access to our existing LAN and SAN infrastructure that operates at line rates," said Mark Seager, an assistant department head at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

BridgeX gateways are available now, Mellanox said. List pricing starts at $9,995 (around £7,000) for a device with two 40Gbps InfiniBand uplinks and six to eight downlink ports, which can be configured as either 10Gbps Ethernet or 8Gbps Fibre Channel, using SFP+ modules.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

IT News HeadLines (InfoWorld) 19/02/2009

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