Daily Technology Sightings

Times Blasts Data Center Energy Waste; Industry Calls Story Unfair

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 14:02:00 +0000

Data centers can waste 90 percent or more of the electricity they pull off the grid, with idly running servers and backup generators the major contributors, according to a report published by The New York Times, which has garnered some backlash by industry commentators.

The article is the first in a series about how the cloud’s physical structures affect the environment, part of a yearlong investigation by The Times.

Data centers use about 30 GW worldwide, and those in the US account for one-quarter to one-third of that total, The Times reports. The report blames this waste on “comatose” or unneeded servers running idly, and backup generators running when they’re not actually being used.

Gartner: Cloud to grow 20% this year to $109B market

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 08:50:00 +0000

The cloud computing market will grow almost 20% this year to become a $109 billion industry, research firm Gartner predicts, with business process as a service (BPaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) dominating the market, but infrastructure as a service (IaaS) quickly gaining momentum.

In 2011, the market stood at $91.4 billion and the research firm expects it to grow to $206.6 billion by 2016. Cloud is still only a very small part of the overall IT spending market though. In July, Gartner predicted total IT spending would be $3.6 trillion in 2012.

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Tablets won’t be revolutionary until they’re $100 or less

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 12:50:00 +0000

This post was written by entrepreneur and academic Vivek Wadhwa.

The high definition screens, faster processors, and enhanced Wi-Fi capabilities of Amazon’s new Kindle Fire tablets are making big news. The price of these devices is getting even more attention: $199 for the 7-inch and $499 for the top-of-the-line 8.9 inch 4G LTE-enabled models. Amazon will undoubtedly sell millions of these.

But I’m not excited.

Here’s why: These tablets won’t catalyze the revolution that is waiting to happen. The magic will happen when the price-per-unit drops below $100 on its way towards $50. That’s when hundreds of millions—possibly billions—of units will be sold and impact people in all parts of the world.

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The Rise of the Internet of Things

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 13:55:00 +0000

The topic of of this post is once again about how something within the scope of communications technology will impact our lives. This is a big one, and it cuts across a number existing and emerging communications technologies.

It’s a concept known as the Internet of Things (IOT). The IOT represents a huge evolutionary step for the Internet and can, no, WILL, change our lives in science fiction-like ways. The IOT is about inanimate things talking to each other over the Internet and taking action without human intervention, a concept known as M2M (machine to machine) communications. It’s also about a melding of the physical world and the virtual world. And it’s already in its fledgling stages of existence.

The Internet has long been described as a network of networks. The IOT can be described as a network of networks and things. Of course we humans are intertwined with both. For years we’ve been hearing how many millions, and then billions of people around the world have Internet access, and more recently, broadband access. Did you know, though, that we have already passed the point in time where there are more devices connected to the Internet than there are people on the planet? How many devices will we see connected eventually? That remains to be seen, but upon accounting for all the personal electronic devices such PCs, laptops, smartphones, tablets, gaming systems, televisions, etc., then tallying the estimates for connected power outlets, appliances, vending machines, trash cans, vehicles, streets, traffic lights, and so on, the number climbs to the tens of trillions.

Continue HERE

3D printing, BYOD, private cloud now at peak of ‘Hype Cycle’

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 13:47:00 +0000

Every year, the analyst firm Gartner releases what it calls it’s “Hype Cycle,” a visual diagram that shows how deeply technology trends are being embraced.

Gartner says all new technologies follow a predictable path in terms of adoption, starting with their initial creation and adoption (”Technology Trigger”). Then, as the media, analysts, conference speakers, and executives get enamored with the new stuff, it rises in popularity up a steep “hype cycle” curve.

Once the new technology peaks in popularity, that’s when things start going downhill. People get tired of hearing about the endless promises, and implementations don’t deliver the promised ROI or cost savings. The technology thus enters the “Trough of Disillusionment.”

The story doesn’t end there. As the hype subsides, the technology is put to the test, and gradually put to work for organizations. This is the roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-it-done phase (”Plateau of Productivity”), when people across the organization make it all work.

Continue HERE

Dark side of the smartphone boom

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 14:41:00 +0000

The rapid growth in smartphone use has been both a blessing and a curse for mobile network operators. While on one hand it has driven uptake of data services and more expensive contracts, on the other it has affected the performance of operators’ networks – in some cases bringing them to their knees.

Continue Reading HERE

How Facebook Is Building Next-Gen, Hyper-Green Data Centers

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 14:46:00 +0000

“Feel the little vent on the side of your laptop. It’s warm, right?” Neil Sheehan, principal of Sheehan Partners, Ltd., is describing to me the particulars of a recently completed project--a Facebook data center in Prineville, Oregon. “Now, imagine stacking 42 of those that are far more powerful, one on top of the other; that would be a cabinet. 28 cabinets make up one row, with a total of 56 rows. Then double all that--because it’s just one side of the building. Now double that again because it goes lengthwise as well.”

Data centers are an architectural speciality, high-security hubs where incredible amounts of energy are constantly coming and going. “You’ve got to get lots and lots of power very reliably to all the equipment, then find a way to get rid of all that heat,” Sheehan explains.

Continue HERE

Smart Meters Are Key To A Smart Grid

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 14:15:00 +0000

A well-designed smart grid is critical to the clean energy revolution we need – enabling significantly greater use of clean, renewable, domestic energy resources and improved air quality to protect the health of millions of Americans now harmed by dangerous air pollution.

Smart meters are a key component of the smart grid. They unlock air quality, climate pollution and public health benefits by enabling two-way, real-time communication that gives households, small businesses, manufacturers and farmers (and the utilities that serve them) the information they need to cut energy use and electricity costs. These devices help ensure that every day energy users reap the many benefits of the smart grid.

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Microsoft and NYPD install big data crime-fighting system

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 18:01:00 +0000

Microsoft and the New York Police Department have teamed up to an information gathering system that is designed to identify and shut down criminal activity on the streets of the Big Apple.

Dubbed the Domain Awareness System (DAS), the sftware links up police databases, CCTV camera footage, reports from over 3,000 radiation sensors, license plate detectors and public data streams into a crime recognition engine that can be used to support officers on the street.

Continue Reading Here

Tesco launches UK's first virtual supermarket at Gatwick airport

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 15:29:00 +0000

The country's biggest supermarket chain wants to cash in on the rise of smartphone users and has set up 10 screens in the airport's departure lounge with images of its most popular products. Customers can then scan the items with their phone to create a virtual shopping list and order a delivery for shortly after they arrive back home following their break.

How Twitter Could Trigger a US Revolution

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 13:05:00 +0000

Both the left and the right are fueling a sense of outrage and the perception of an out-of-control government. Both sides appear to have consensus on the message that government isn't working, but each blames the other. In short, there is a growing number of increasingly heavily armed people becoming convinced that their government is catastrophically flawed, and that the system itself is the cause.

IPv6 Creates an Opportunity for Innovation

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 15:03:00 +0000

Due to the growing number of mobile devices that require connectivity and the global exhaustion of IPv4 addresses, enterprises are making the move to IPv6. As more enterprises develop BYOD strategies to support these devices, IT departments are taking responsibility for a variety of platforms, along with their addressing, management and security. This greatly increases address consumption within an enterprise, creating operational challenges.

Augmented Reality Is Finally Getting Real

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 12:53:00 +0000

In the summer of 2009, Yelp quietly added a feature to its iPhone app that blurred the line between the real and the virtual. If you held your handset up and looked at the world through its screen, you'd see little floating tags containing the names, user ratings, and other details of businesses around you.

The feature, called Monocle, was an experiment with augmented reality—one of many that appeared around this time, as companies tossed around various ways to mesh digital content with the real world, hoping to catch consumers' eyes (see "TR10: Augmented Reality" and "New Reality").

Big Data: Facebook's next big idea

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 17:20:00 +0000

The Facebook fallacy is that at its core the Social Network is really an advertising company.

If you look at their quarterly report, you see that about 82% of their revenue comes from advertising, so it backs up this assertion. The problem is that "Liking" something does not translate well to "Buying" something.
You may remember that GM recently pulled out as a Facebook advertiser because of this. On the other

hand, teaming searches with advertisements so that you can be targeted with advertisements for products you may be interested in buying is a proven approach, and is Google's strength.

How Technology Could Keep Politicians From Killing Us

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:03:00 +0000

Both the right and left are wrong. Taking away guns and turning us all into victims is no smarter than allowing a bunch of untrained folks to buy guns, because we are far more likely to be shot by the latter than an actual criminal. Same with privacy. Losing it is anti-American, but ignoring known threats until someone dies is just stupid. Technology currently exists that can be used to make us safer.

READ MORE at Technewsworld

IBM, Accenture Top Best Corporate Citizens in Government Contracting List

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 12:46:00 +0000

IBM landed the top spot on CR Magazine’s list of Best Corporate Citizens in Government Contracting 2012, followed by Accenture, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T and Dell.

Merck & Co., UPS, Lockheed Martin Corp., Verizon Communications and Boeing rounded out the top 10 in the list of 40 companies. Meanwhile, Huntington Ingalls Industries, L-3 Communications Holdings, Shaw Group, Booz Allen Hamilton and Oshkosh Corp. were at the bottom of the top 40.

Obama Administration Supports New Cybersecurity Bill

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 04:33:00 +0000

U.S. President Barack Obama's administration "strongly supports" a new cybersecurity bill scheduled to be debated on the Senate floor soon, even though some of its provisions are watered down from earlier legislation, the White House Office of Management and Budget said Thursday.

The revised Cybersecurity Act, introduced by five senators last Friday, mirrors many of the Obama administration's cybersecurity proposals, the OMB said in a press release. The Senate may begin debating the bill as early as Friday.

"While lacking some of the key provisions of earlier bills, the revised legislation will provide important tools to strengthen the nation's response to cybersecurity risks," the OMB said.

A World With More Phones Than People

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 03:25:00 +0000

A new report from the World Bank details the astounding growth of mobile since the year 2000. Then -- just 12 years ago -- there were less than a billion mobile subscriptions worldwide. Today, there are more than 6 billion and the count will "will soon exceed that of the human population," according to the Bank (it is common in many countries for one person to own multiple SIM cards). Three-quarters of the world population now has access to a mobile phone.

Read More at TheAtlantic

Critical Need for Improved Energy Grid Security

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 14:48:00 +0000

McAfee today announced a report detailing the thoughts of industry leaders on the state of energy security. The report, Getting Smarter About Smart Grid Cyberthreats, looks at how legacy smart grids are vulnerable to attack and how security needs to be built into these critical systems.

The electrical power grid is the backbone on which everything else depends on. A cybercriminal could debilitate a major city by a single targeted attack on the energy grid and compromise anything from the lights and appliances in homes, to heart monitors in hospitals, to air defence systems. The most prevalent cyberthreat reported by the global energy sector is extortion. Criminals gain access to a utility’s system, demonstrate that they are capable of doing damage, and demand a ransom. Additional threats include espionage and sabotage all with the goal of financial gain, data theft and shutting down facilities.

How did we wind up with a system of energy production and distribution so vulnerable to attack? The answer lies in well-intentioned efforts to modernise energy distribution and make it safer, cleaner, more efficient, less costly, and open to more alternative forms of production. What makes the smart grid vulnerable?

•Outdated systems - An estimated 70% of the existing energy grid is more than 30 years old. In the effort to update it and integrate it with more modern installations, connecting aging systems to the internet without the benefit of encryption, security has largely been an afterthought.

•Automation - Moving systems from a manual process to one that is internet connected gave energy grid operators real-time info and allowed administrators to telecommute and field workers to re-program systems from remote locations through their smartphones however this also opened all their systems to the outside world.

•Interconnection of embedded systems - The third and perhaps most alarming cause of vulnerability is the proliferation and increasing interconnection of embedded software and devices directing the flow of energy. While each of these built-in computers is typically single-function with a very specific task, more and more are being built with off-the-shelf rather than proprietary software, making them increasingly generic – and therefore vulnerable. As such, they are the prime targets of intruders seeking to gain control of or disrupt the delivery of energy.

“Security needs to be built into grid components at the planning and design phase,” said Tom Moore, vice president of Embedded Security at McAfee. “Because the grid relies heavily on embedded systems it makes them ripe targets for intruders thus it is imperative to integrate security solutions natively in these devices. McAfee is working with its partners in industry and government to make great strides on the technical front to mitigate the threats to these critical systems we all rely on.”

A wide range of technologies exists for achieving the goal of securing these embedded systems and the energy grid - from antivirus and anti-malware protection to firewalls, advanced encryption, and application blacklisting and whitelisting. Solutions such as McAfee Embedded Control prevent unauthorised changes to devices to make them resilient to malware infections and attacks. To mitigate vulnerabilities and prevent attacks, McAfee addresses endpoint, network, and data security within the grid as part of a cohesive security solution.

The report which features interviews from such firms as Atlantic Council, Invensys, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory can be downloaded at: http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/reports/rp-smarter-protection-smart-grid.pdf.

About McAfee McAfee, a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC), is the world's largest dedicated security technology company. McAfee delivers proactive and proven solutions and services that help secure systems, networks, and mobile devices around the world, allowing users to safely connect to the Internet, browse and shop the Web more securely. Backed by its unrivalled Global Threat Intelligence, McAfee creates innovative products that empower home users, businesses, the public sector and service providers by enabling them to prove compliance with regulations, protect data, prevent disruptions, identify vulnerabilities, and continuously monitor and improve their security. McAfee is relentlessly focused on constantly finding new ways to keep our customers safe. http://www.mcafee.com

[ Source : CSO ]

Your laptop is able to analyze Big Data

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 14:13:00 +0000

Computer scientists from Carnegie Mellon University have devised a framework for running large-scale computations for tasks such as social network or Web search analysis efficiently on a single personal computer.

The software could help developers working on many modern tasks: for example, designing a new recommendation engine using social network connections. In order to make effective recommendations—"your friends liked this movie, so here is another movie that you haven't seen yet, but you will probably like"—the software has to be able to analyze the connections between the members of a social network. This type of task is called graph computation, and it is increasingly common. But working with large-scale data sets (such as online social networks) usually requires the processing horsepower of many computers clustered together, such as those offered by Amazon's cloud-based EC2 service.

The new software, called GraphChi, exploits the capacious hard drives that are becoming ever more common in personal computers. A graph would normally be stored in temporary memory (RAM) for analysis. With GraphChi, the hard drive performs this task instead.

"PCs don't have enough RAM to hold an entire Web graph, but they do have hard drives, which can hold a lot of information," says Carlos Guestrin, codirector of Carnegie Mellon's Select Lab, where GraphChi was developed. But hard drives are slow compared to RAM for reading and writing data, which tends to slow down computation. So Guestrin's student Aapo Kyrola designed a faster, less random method of accessing the hard drive.

According to Guestrin, a Mac Mini running GraphChi can analyze Twitter's social graph from 2010—which contains 40 million users and 1.2 billion connections—in 59 minutes. "The previous published result on this problem took 400 minutes using a cluster of about 1,000 computers," Guestrin says.

As technology gets more networked, and data sets get larger, graph computation is becoming more and more relevant in many domains, says David A. Bader, a graph computation expert at Georgia Tech. "Trying to understand how the human brain works or trying to make sense of medical patient records involve graph computing," he says.

Graph analysis also drives the development of new web products, says Jeremy Kepner, a researcher at MIT. "Document search, ad placement, route planning, travel reservations, and cyber security all rely on graph analysis," he says. "Enabling web developers to construct these analyses on their desktop computers catalyzes these industries and accelerates product development."

Guestrin adds that GraphChi can handle "streaming graphs," which more accurately model large networks by showing how relationships change over time. Bader and others at Georgia Tech have created a graph computation framework, called Stinger, that's optimized for supercomputers working with massive streaming graphs.

"The scales of these problems will obviously keep growing," says Guestrin. But he says GraphChi is capable of effectively handling many large-scale graph-computing problems without resorting to cloud-based solutions or supercomputers.

"A researcher in computational biology could do large-scale computations on their PC; a developer working on a data-center algorithm can test it on their laptop before pushing it to the cloud," Guestrin says. "Big data is everywhere now, but some big data isn't as big as it once was, relatively speaking. Tools like GraphChi will let many companies and startups solve all their graph-computing needs on a single machine. It's cost effective, and it drives innovation, too."

[ Source : TechnologyReview ]

The cloud is putting a crimp in traditional software, hardware sales

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 14:18:00 +0000

Enterprise spending on cloud computing growing at a faster rate than overall IT spending will pose a challenge to legacy hardware and software vendors, Gartner cloud forecaster Ed Anderson says.

Cloud computing is expected to grow 19 percent in 2012, becoming a $109 billion industry compared to a $91 billion market last year. By 2016, it's expected to be a $207 billion industry, according to Anderson's latest findings. That compares to the 3 percent growth expected in the overall global IT market. While it's true that the $109 billion cloud market represents just a 3 percent chunk of the overall $3.6 trillion spent on IT globally, Anderson says it's still responsible, in part, for a slowdown in growth for traditional on-premise

Software delivery is shifting from a traditional license sale to install an application on-premise, to a per-user cloud-based SaaS (software-as-a-services) model. Meanwhile, hardware is shifting from on-premise capital expenditures to off-premise operational expenditures.

In the long term, Anderson says, the cloud model will create new IT spending opportunities. Integration, customization, hybrid cloud, and on-premise cloud installations will all grow in significance as cloud adoption continues. "There will be some short-term decline, but in the long term, it will level out," he says.

In Gartner's latest quarterly IT spending report, the research firm for the first time broke out cloud computing as a separate forecast category, providing an in-depth analysis of current and future cloud spending trends. The hottest growth in the cloud market in the coming year will be in infrastructure as a service, which is expected to grow by 41 percent. Management and security is the second-hottest cloud growth area, expected to rise 27.2 percent, with platform as a service (26.6 percent), SaaS (17.4 percent) and business process as a service (15 percent) rounding out the top five. "The cloud market is growing at a pretty rapid clip," Anderson says. "Cloud services within the broader IT spending market are still small, but the growth rate looks promising."

Meanwhile, computing hardware sales are expected to rise only 3.4 percent this year to $420 billion, which compares to 7.4 percent growth last year. Enterprise software, after increasing 9.8 percent last year, is expected to reach $281 billion this year, a 4.3 percent growth clip.

Examples of Anderson's predictions about cloud's promise can be seen across the market. Some startup e-commerce sites, like Coupa, don't own any infrastructure and have decided to run their entire company from the Amazon Web Services cloud. Other companies are taking a more measured approach to embracing the cloud.

GFI Software, which provides a range of IT service management software products, including infrastructure, security and email services, recently announced a plan to transition all of its software offerings to a cloud-based SaaS delivery model. "We have to do it, it's the wave of the future," says CEO Walter Scott. "Customers want simplicity, and the cloud is the simplest way to deliver a software service." The cloud offers faster deployment for consumers and easier management. In a cloud-based model, GFI will be able to automatically install security patches or other updates from a central point and have those distributed to all of the application's users.

MORE CLOUD TRANSITIONS: Higgs Boson researchers consider move to cloud computing

It's still a transition for the market though, Scott says, and not all customers are ready to fully embrace the cloud. Many European companies are adopting the technology at a slower pace than U.S. counterparts. GFI will continue to offer on-premise installations as well as cloud-based services as the company transitions its dozens of applications to a hosted model.

[ Source : InfoWorld ]

Out of 12 Major Economies, UK is 1st and US ranked 9th

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 13:57:00 +0000

The United Kingdom is first for energy efficiency – followed closely by Germany, Italy, Japan and France – in a ranking of the world’s major economies from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

The US, which is ranked ninth by the ACEEE out of the 12 economies, has made “limited or little progress toward greater efficiency at the national level,” according to the report, “The ACEEE 2012 International Energy Efficiency Scorecard.”

China ranked sixth, in a three-way tie with the EU and Australia.

For the analysis, ACEEE divided 27 policy and performance metrics across four groupings: those that track cross-cutting aspects of energy use at the national level, as well as the three sectors most responsible for energy consumption in an economically developed country – buildings, industry, and transportation.

Among the recommendations for the US to improve its energy efficiency is the establishment of a national energy savings target. ACEEE noted that most countries analyzed in the report have such targets. Such a policy would raise the bar for the US states without mandatory goals for utility energy savings and complement those states with policies in place.

As well, the report said that more US manufacturers should look to voluntary standards programs, such as the ISO 50001, to gauge and improve energy performance.

Other areas for improvement in the US include the implementation of output-based emissions standards, the retirement of inefficient power plants, increased R&D investment, investments into the electric grid infrastructure and improved financial incentives, such as tax credits, loans and loan-loss reserves, to spur private investment in energy efficiency.

The ACEEE global scorecard is the first to review global economies, but the scoring system applies the same approach ACEEE has used to review energy efficiency in US states. ACEEE looked at 12 of the world’s largest economies, which together represent over 78 percent of global gross domestic product, 63 percent of energy consumption and 62 percent of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions.

Rounding out the bottom of the rankings, below the US, were Brazil, Canada and Russia.

[ Source : environmentalleader ]

Microsoft Surface will be a rival for iPad in the enterprise

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 04:13:00 +0000

Microsoft's forthcoming Surface tablet is the iPad rival that businesses have been waiting for, according to CIOs around the world polled by ZDNet and TechRepublic.

The CIO Jury groups from Asia, Australia and the UK and US all voted 'yes' to the question: "Will Microsoft’s Surface tablet provide a real alternative to the iPad?"

The CIO Jury is ZDNet and TechRepublic's quick response panel of tech leaders around the globe. The first 12 CIOs from the pool to respond to a yes or no question become the 'jury' for that question.

All three groups voted yes, albeit by different margins, reflecting the Surface tablet could be a genuine challenger to the iPad, Apple's hugely successful tablet that has not faced much serious competition until now.

TechRepublic's CIO Jury (which covers the UK, Europe and the US) was the most bullish on the Surface, voting yes by a margin of 10 to two.

Tim Stiles, CIO at Bremerton Housing Authority, said Microsoft’s entry into the market represents "tremendous promise" for corporate IT. "The buzz, even among corporate iPad users, is very strong," he said. Meanwhile, Jeff Canon, CIO of Fire and Life Safety America, said he is getting as many requests for the Surface as he got for the iPad when it first came out.

ZDNet's Australian CIO Jury was also very positive about the enterprise prospects for the tablet, agreeing it would be a real alternative to the iPad by a margin of eight to four.

Andrew Paton, group manager of IT services at Rondo Building Services, agreed that features like the USB port are a must for Microsoft's tablet to come out on top, and that its integration with other Microsoft products might help the device win the day.

"Coming from a Microsoft-based environment, it will certainly have to be considered as a potential laptop replacement for the likes of sales representatives in the field," he said.

ZDNet's Asian CIOs also consider Surface to be a true competitor to Apple's current market leader, voting yes by a margin of seven to five.

Steve Lee, CIO and senior vice president of technology for Changi Airport Group, said: "Technically, from what I've read, it does plug a gap in the corporate space."

However, not all CIOs were convinced: Peter Smith, group manager of information systems at Quick Service Restaurant Holdings, part of the Australian jury, argued that Microsoft has missed the boat.

"I am not sure [Microsoft] can make up the lost ground to iOS or Android devices. It is not really apparent whether Microsoft is trying to position the product as a tablet or an ultra-light laptop. Reviews on the intuitiveness of the interface are not particularly positive, so it sounds like Microsoft still has some work to do," he said.

Similary Tom Galbraith, director of IT at the US District Court Southern District of Illinois, said unseating the iPad is a formidable challenge: "Even if there is a compelling differentiating factor that Surface offers, Apple's first-mover advantage and their position as the standard by which all others are measured certainly tilts the odds in Apple’s direction."

On ZDNet's Asian CIO Jury, Glen Francis, vice president and head of group IT at Global Logistic Properties, was also unimpressed, saying: "[Surface] lacks the oomph factor in design."

[ Source : Zdnet ]

The new face of business analytics

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:02:00 +0000

Donald Farmer, VP for Product Management at business intelligence (BI) technology provider QlikTech, spoke with MIS Asia recently about the new face of business analytics. Find below the expurgated transcript of the first part of our interview.

Talk about organisations in Singapore and Malaysia as markets for BI technologies.

One of the things that are obvious with Singapore as opposed to the rest of the Asia Pacific is the strong emphasis on analytics here and I think that comes from the fact that this is a centre for so many regional headquarters. There is an analytic culture here that comes from the US influence, frankly, that you have here.

If you go to other parts of Asia Pacific such as China, you will find that there is probably an emphasis more on dashboards and reporting at a fairly more basic level because they will only be starting on that journey.

I think the Singapore market is just generally-and I wouldn't say that in terms of business intelligence but in terms of the business culture-more mature, and that drives the change. So the patterns we see are really more a reflection of that than any technological difference.

The other thing that you do find in the Asia Pacific as opposed to the rest of the world is the importance of mobile devices, particularly smart phones here as interfaces to enterprise and information systems. Because one thing that is very distinctive is the role of mobile devices, which are the primary means of accessing information.

It will be very common here, for example, to find people with very sophisticated smart phones and great data plans, which is also very important for accessing data, but who do not have a PC at home. In contrast, what find in the US is typically people would have a PC at home but not have smart phones. That's changing now, but the US is way behind in the smart phone market compared to Asia.

Now that creates a very distinctive and cultural trend where mobile becomes very, very important. Even more important than it is in the US. And important for every business user, not just for executive business users.

So those kinds of trends are interesting and different.

What exactly is it that you think that you guys have that makes you different from your competitors and makes all your customers come to you?

That's a really interesting question and nobody has ever asked me that before. That's kind of unusual because that's one of the reasons I joined the company.

What convinced to move over from Microsoft was the way in which the QlikView product was developed.

It's very focused on the customer.

I used to say that your customer is just like the product. They're like the company. And I don't mean to focus on the customer in the sense that we just get simple feedback. With us, if a customer asks for something, they will get that feature.

The product was really developed in close collaboration with the customers.

We're based in Sweden. That's where we came from. That's where IKEA is from. In fact, in Sweden, it's everywhere. Now, why is IKEA everywhere and why is Scandinavian design so successful? Because IKEA does two things very well. It puts out products that are very functional; you buy a chair from IKEA, it's going to be a great chair, it's going to be comfortable. And it's also a beautiful object. That is very much part of the Scandinavian design tradition of creating functional objects that are also beautiful and attractive. So it is no accident that our design headquarters and our development headquarters are right in the heart of the region of Sweden and Denmark which is most famous for design. We're halfway between Copenhagen, which is often described as the design capital of the world, and the IKEA headquarters in Helsingborg. We're right there and the reason that's important, of course, is that the universities are very focused on design. Even the schools and all the technology are very design focused. So we have this very strong design culture and that's a part of the thing that I like and the philosophy that I have.

To give you an idea of the kind of people we have working on the QlikView product right now: we have a guy that used to be a furniture designer; we have a guy that used to work on developing games; we have people who developed user interfaces for televisions and video recorders; and, we have people who developed applications for smart phones. Note that none of these people comes from a BI applications background. Instead, they are all part of our design philosophy if you like.

We also have people who used to develop video games. We have a guy who developed an application which enables fathers who are travelling to read books with their children while they are on the road. If you're a businessman travelling around the world, you can still read a book with your kid collaboratively every day.

We recruit people from all those different backgrounds, put them together and then say to them, "How are you going to help business users to tell stories about their data to each other?" and now you get an experience that you never would have gotten if you had gone to a Microsoft or MicroStrategy or SAS. Because they would be all about: "What is the IT department going to say and how do I structure this with all the IT type of issues?"

We're taking a completely radical different approach.

[ Source : ComputerWorld ]

Government Slates Meetings on Mobile Privacy Standards

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Liew) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 13:24:00 +0000

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is set to host the first of several meetings seeking input for its effort to develop new codes of conduct for handling private consumer date on the Internet and mobile networks.

The meeting, scheduled for July 12 at the U.S. Department of Commerce building in Washington D.C., is open to all and will focus primarily on mobile application privacy.

NTIA expects that the initial meeting will attract industry stakeholders, rights groups and Internet marketers looking to offer views on privacy issues related to the use, consumption and sharing of consumer data stored on mobile devices and shared by mobile applications.

The sponsored meetings over the coming months are designed to let stakeholders jointly develop Internet privacy codes that are acceptable to most privacy and consumer groups, Internet companies and online marketing firms.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will be responsible for enforcing the codes of conduct that result from the multi-stakeholder effort.

The initiative stems from a 60-page Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights released by the Obama Administration in February.

The document spelled out proposals that would give consumers more control over how their personal data is collected, used, stored and shared by websites and online advertisers.

The White House created the document as part of an effort to require companies to limit their collection of personal data, to protect any sensitive data and to give consumers the right to access and to correct personal data collected by Internet companies.

The final document would provide consumers with clear and easily understandable information about their privacy practices. according to the White House plan.

Instead of calling for new privacy regulations, Obama's Bill of Rights proposed a multi-stakeholder process for developing broadly acceptable standards.

Reaction to the multi-stakeholder proposal has been mixed.

While privacy advocates and consumer rights groups have generally supported the effort, they have also expressed considerable skepticism over the process set out by the administration. Many say they fear that Internet companies will hijack the process and that the final document will provide few real privacy protections for consumers.

In comments submitted to the NTIA in recent weeks, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and numerous other consumer groups have questioned the effectiveness of the multi-stakeholder process and of self-regulatory approaches in general.

The groups continue to maintain that meaningful privacy protections can only result from strong legislation.

Meanwhile, industry groups like the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Direct Marketers Association (DMA) have expressed doubts about the process for different reasons.

These organizations claim that the multi-stakeholder process duplicates industry efforts at self-regulation that have gone on for several years.

The industry groups claim self-regulatory efforts yield effective codes of conduct and accountability and urge the NTIA to review these codes before trying to develop new ones.

[ Source : CIO ]