Microsoft open-sources Entity Framework

Microsoft on Thursday released code for its Entity Framework database mapping tool via open source in an effort to increase transparency.

The move is being handled by Microsoft Open Technologies, a company subsidiary launched in April to advance Microsoft's open source and related efforts. Entity Framework is used for .Net application development, providing an object-relational mapping framework to work with relational data as domain-specific objects, eliminating the need for most data access "plumbing" code, according to Microsoft.

Source code is being released under an Apache 2.0 license, with the code repository now hosted on Microsoft's CodePlex site for open source software. "This will enable everyone in the community to be able to engage and provide feedback on code check-ins, bug fixes, new feature development, and build and test the product on a daily basis using the most up-to-date version of the source code and tests," said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president in the Microsoft server and tools business, in a blog post. "Community contributions will also be welcomed so you can help shape and build Entity Framework into an even better product."

Microsoft will continue to ship official builds of Entity Framework as a supported product in both stand-alone form and as part of the Visual Studio IDE. New features will be released as well. An upcoming Entity Framework 5 release will add such capabilities as spatial data types and improved performance.

"Our goal with today's announcement is to increase the development feedback loop even more, allowing us to deliver an even better product," Guthrie said. The open-sourcing of Entity Framework follows up similar efforts for Microsoft technologies, including ASP.Net MVC and ASP.Net Web API.

Also on Thursday, Microsoft Open Technologies is launching an MSOpen Tech CodePlex landing page, intended to boost different Microsoft-driven open source projects. Microsoft Open Technologies also is launching MS Open Tech Hub, an engineering program for MS Open Technologies engineers, who can collaborate on open source projects.

Oracle Updates Identity Management Capabilities

Oracle (NSDQ:ORCL) has added a new password security feature to its identity management component of Oracle Fusion middleware. As the centerpiece of version 11g Release 2, "Oracle Privileged Account Manager" provides simplified password management specifically for shared passwords, as is the case for many admin accounts in data centers. Given that some enterprise data centers can have literally hundreds of shared accounts, the net objective of this rollout is to further comply with regulatory requirements, secure critical applications and sensitive data, and lower operational costs.

"Most companies have group accounts and databases with DBA accounts, and a number of other highly privileged accounts that are not directly associated with specific individuals," said Amit Jasuja, vice president of development for Oracle’s Identity Management and Security Products. "These accounts could be within HR, finance, administration, etc. but the common denominator is elevated access and passwords that are typically known by four or five, possibly even 10 people. This can make it nearly impossible for the auditors to be able to know who did what. So this product provides a solution to that problem."

The feature is based on automated password management capabilities that not only help to secure against unauthorized access, but also identifies authorized users accessing the data and records the actions of those individuals.

"Basically, all the passwords to the shared accounts are stored in a vault," explained Jasuja. So, in effect, nobody really knows the actual password. When someone needs to access the information, they go through a self-service interface where they request access. When access is granted, they can check out the password, which is then changed after the user logs out or after access expires. Based on the password that is used and the time the data was accessed, the system can identify the user."

On the mobility side of the equation, Oracle has also added a component that basically extends your web single sign-on to mobile platforms, using the REST lightweight protocol. The Redwood Shores, Calif.-based company is also delivering software development kits that will help customers to capture information about the device or collect other data that can be sent to the server to assist the administrator in setting up security policies. Single sign-on capabilities are also being extended to support multiple mobile apps, in the event the customers have more than one mobile application that needs to be accessed.

"This essentially means that you login once and all the apps involved pick up the same security credential," said Jasuja. "If the individual is using a device that the system is seeing for the first time or from an unfamiliar area, you can issue a separate challenge to further authenticate."

Jasuja added that channel partners can leverage this technology to create self-service interfaces for data access, and embed extensive customization that will not have to be repeated for each upgrade or security patch.

"This has been a long time in the making," said Steve Giovannetti, CTO at Hub City Media, an Edison, N.J.-based channel partner. "This moves identity management from administrative focus to more of a user focus, because the interface takes people from an IT-centric model to a more intuitive model that is more user-friendly."

Google Reports 21 Percent Increase in Revenue

Over the past few months, Google made some pretty big and bold moves, such as acquiring mobile giant Motorola, and revealing the much acclaimed Google Nexus 7 Android tablet. These moves, according to Reuters, caused investors to question if Google is heading down the slippery slope of hardware manufacture which has traditionally been known to yield low margins. It doesn't help that the hardware space is dominated by a few companies such as Apple and Samsung - to name two of the biggest players.

Despite these concerns, as well as the overall weak global economy, most investors must be relieved to hear about Google's 21 percent increase in revenue, generated by their core Internet business this quarter. The better-than-expected results also means that Google can afford to not elaborate on its hardware expansion plan. Instead investors were showed numbers that contributed to its revenue increase -- a 42 percent increase in clicks on Google's search ads.

Google's stock climbed to $611 in extended trade, from a close of $593.06 on the Nasdaq. Google's headcount swelled to 54,604 employees at the end of the second quarter due to the Motorola acquisition, which added roughly 20,000 workers to the Internet company's payroll. Google said its mobile advertising efforts continued to make progress, with more than 1 million advertisers for its AdMob product.

The cost per click for Google's online search ads continued to decline in the second quarter, falling 16 percent year-on-year. But some analysts highlighted a quarter-on-quarter 1 percent gain in second quarter CPCs. "(Cost per click) was down more than I expected, but this could be a trough, since we did see a sequential uptick," said Needham & Co analyst Kerry Rice. "We may have hit the bottom here." Google posted overall revenue of $12.2 billion for the quarter and net income of $2.79 billion, or $8.42 per share, on a consolidated basis.

Source: Reuters

SanDisk releases new USB flash drives and microSDHC card

SanDisk has jumped onto the USB 3.0 bandwagon with its new range of USB drives. The incorporation of the relatively new USB 3.0 specification means that the flash drives are able to transfer files at up to 190MB/s, which is roughly ten times faster than USB 2.0 drives.

SanDisk A/NZ country manager, George Saad, said the new line of flash drives will appeal to consumers that want fast transfer speeds, high storage capacity or a “stylish fashion statement".

“We have pioneered the USB drive and we now offers one of the broadest lineups in the industry, with a wide range of form factors and reliability that consumers can count on to store their important files,” Saad said.

The SanDisk Extreme USB flash drive will be available in 16GB to 64GB capacities from $35 to $100, while the Cruzer Glide USB flash drive will be sold in 4GB to 128GB capacities from $6.75 to $119.50.

The stainless-steel encased Cruzer Facet USB flash drive will be made available in 4GB to 32GB capacities from $6.75 to $30.50, while the thin Cruzer Pop will be marketed in 4GB to 32GB capacities from $6.50 to $29.50.

SanDisk’s highest-capacity USB flash drive, the Cruzer Glide, will max out at 128GB of storage. In the mobile device space, SanDisk has released the Extreme Pro microSDHC UHS-I card.

The card is aimed at smartphone and tablet users with microSDHC-slotted devices who want to increase the storage capacity of their device.

SanDisk says that the microSDHC UHS-I card is capable of 95MB/sec read and up to 90MB/sec write speeds, which it has dubbed the “world’s fastest memory card for smartphones and tablets.”

According to the vendor, the new line-up of USB flash drives and microSDHC UHS-I card will be available in the third quarter of this year.

Microsoft sizes up its cloud

Microsoft says its Azure cloud has more than 4 trillion objects stored in it, a fourfold increase from a year ago.

Its Azure cloud averages 270,000 requests per second, while peaking at 880,000 requests per second during some months. The requests per second have increased almost threefold in the past year, a Microsoft official wrote in a blog post.

As a comparison, Amazon Web Services said earlier this year that just its Simple Storage Service (S3) holds 905 billion objects, and was growing at a rate of 1 billion objects per day, while handling an average of 650,000 requests per second.

It's slightly difficult to compare the size of each company's clouds apples to apples though. AWS's S3 offering is just one of the storage options the company provides to users, with others including its Elastic Block Storage (EBS) and its database services, such as DynamoDB, the company's fully managed NoSQL database.

Microsoft, meanwhile, says its 4 trillion objects account for each unique user piece of content, not replicated copies. The objects include disks, drives, tables, queues and "blobs," or Microsoft lingo for a collection of files connected to a single user account. A single blob can be made up to hundreds of blocks, each of with can be up to 200GB in size, while each user account can have up to 100TB of blobs. Microsoft says these blobs are used to store large amounts of unstructured data, such as videos and images that are served to Web browsers, storing files for distributed access or disaster recovery. In June Microsoft dropped the cost of access the Azure storage tiers by tenfold.

The disks and drives, meanwhile, are part of the company's new infrastructure-as-a-service(IaaS) offering, which it rolled out this spring. Azure has mostly been a platform-as-a-service(PaaS) offering as a service for developers to create custom applications that are built and stored in the cloud. By rolling out virtual compute instances in the form of both Windows andLinux operating systems, Azure jumped into the IaaS market where it will compete with AWS's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) offering. Shortly after Microsoft's IaaS announcement, Google added Google Compute Engine, an IaaS offering to complement its PaaS offering, named Google AppEngine.

Facebook tests Pinterest-like design for news-feed app stories

Facebook is testing a new layout for Open Graph app stories in the news feed that looks very, very familiar. In fact, some would say it directly rips off the quickly growing Pinterest, which, by the way, also sports the new look since the social network offers its own Timeline integration.

The new design gives app stories more space on your news feed, and further emphasizes commenting and Liking, as well as custom interaction. For example, if your Facebook friend or someone you subscribe to on Facebook uses an app to favorite more than just one item, the new design lets you comment on, and Like, each of them, not just the whole Facebook story.

Inside Facebook, which first spotted the feature, notes developers can also leverage app-specific actions in the news feed. When you hover over a photo, you can comment on the item, or perform an in-app action without leaving Facebook (if the app has custom action links). For example, if you click on a Foodspotting story, you can also "Want a dish" directly from your news feed, in addition to commenting on and Liking it. Clicking on a photo takes you to the third-party app page or Web site.

As with any new feature, Facebook is making this one available only to select users. It's still being tested. For now, the new look is being used only for apps that are heavily photo-based, and again it's just a test. That being said, the tweak may never end up being rolled out to the whole social network.

Still, the advantages are clear. Users benefit with a more visual news feed that's even more interactive. Developers benefit from the additional options, promotion, and traffic.

I've contacted Facebook about this change and will update this post if I hear back.

 Emil Protalinski, cnet.com

Amazon aims new rentable servers at app developers

In an effort to attract app developers to its cloud storage, Amazon has introduced SSD-backed rentable servers through Amazon Web Services.

Launched Wednesday, the High I/O Quadruple Extra Large EC2 (Elastic Cloud Compute) includes 2TB of local SSD-backed storage running on eight virtual cores, 60.5GB of RAM, and 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity. The new rentable EC2 instances will be an "exceptionally good" host for NoSQL databases such as Cassandra and MongoDB, Amazon Web services said in a blog post.

"Modern web and mobile applications are often highly I/O dependent," Jeff Barr, a senior Amazon Web Services evangelist, wrote in a blog post. "They need to store and retrieve lots of data in order to deliver a rich, personalized experience, and they need to do it as fast as possible in order to respond to clicks and gestures in real time."

Using PV virtualization, AWS said customers could expect 120,000 random read input/output operations per second (IOPS) and between 10,000 and 85,000 write IOPS. Using VM and Windows AMIs, customers can expect 90,000 random read IOPS and 9,000 to 75,000 random write IOPS.

The new rentable databases aim to lure more app developers to the cloud, Werner Vogels, the company's chief technology officer, wrote in a blog post today.

"It is my expectation that with the increase of data-centric applications, we will see more and more I/O hungry systems being built that require this type of rock-solid High Performance I/O," Vogels said.

The service is currently available only in North Virginia and Ireland, and can be launched for $3.10 and $3.41, respectively. Of course, once launched, usage fees apply.

Google snatches up Sparrow team to work on Gmail

Google has acquired e-mail software startup Sparrow in a move that brings its team to work on Google's Gmail product.

Sparrow's chief executive Dom Leca announced the news on the company's site andTwitter account this morning, as well as in an e-mail to existing Sparrow users.

Leca says that the company will continue to make Sparrow available, and keep it up and running with support, however the two versions of the product will not gain any new features.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Citing sources, The Verge suggests the deal came in at "under" $25 million.

Sparrow came onto the scene last February for Apple's Mac OS, and arrived on iOS a month later. The software worked with POP and IMAP accounts, including Google's Gmail. The software was noteworthy for how it displayed messages, with the capability to go from a Twitter-like single pane viewer all the way to a three-column view akin to Microsoft's Outlook.

Leca's full message to users below:

We're excited to announce that Sparrow has been acquired by Google!

We care a lot about how people communicate, and we did our best to provide you with the most intuitive and pleasurable mailing experience.

Now we're joining the Gmail team to accomplish a bigger vision -- one that we think we can better achieve with Google.

We'd like to extend a special thanks to all of our users who have supported us, advised us, given us priceless feedback and allowed us to build a better mail application. While we'll be working on new things at Google, we will continue to make Sparrow available and provide support for our users.

We had an amazing ride and can't thank you enough.

Full speed ahead!

Dom Leca

CEO

Sparrow

We also want to thank our advisors and investors -- Loren Brichter, Dave Morin, John Maeda, Xavier Niel, Jérémie Berrebi -- as well as our friends and family: Simon Istolainen, Jérémie Kanza, Sacha Cayre, Cedric Gepner, Laurent Merlinot, Didier Kuhn, Christophe Baillon, Laurent Cerveau, Christophe Giaume, Sebastien Maury, Manuel Colom, Bertrand Guiheneuf and all of you who have helped us along the way.

This is Google's latest Gmail-related acquisition. The company acquired e-mail security and spam filtering startup Postini in mid-2007, as well as reMail for its e-mail search technology in early 2010.

AMD has scary things to say about the PC market

Advanced Micro Devices, the world's second largest PC processor supplier, had some sobering things to say about the PC market when the company reported earnings Thursday.

"For the first time since 2001, client PC shipments have declined sequentially for three consecutive quarters-and have been below historical averages for the last seven quarters," AMD CEO Rory Read said during the chip supplier's second quarter earnings conference call.

"We also believe the PC industry may be resetting to a new [lower] baseline," he said.

Revenue declined 10 percent to $1.41 billion for the the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company.

AMD, which is particularly sensitive to consumer PC demand, also said sales will be down 1 percent, plus or minus 3 percent, in the third quarter from the second.

That's a steep drop from historical trends. AMD's sales have grown on average 14 percent from the second quarter to the third over the past 10 years, according to Mike Burton, an analyst at Northland Capital Markets, whose comments were cited in a Bloomberg report.

While Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, wasn't as negative as AMD, CEO Paul Otellini said earlier this week that it was only expecting full-year revenue growth in the 3 percent to 5 percent range versus previous expectations of "high single digits."

This may be the first signs of the "Post-PC era," said a Piper Jaffray analyst. "Consumers are prioritizing smartphones and tablets at the expense of PCs," wrote Gus Richard in a research note.

And market researcher Gartner said last week that "consumers are less interested in spending on PCs" and more interested in purchasing "the latest smartphones and media tablets."

Microsoft backtracks on Macs and Office 365

Saying that a spokeswoman "misunderstood" questions from Computerworld, Microsoft today backtracked and confirmed that Mac owners who subscribe to the upcoming Office 365 Home Premium will be able to acquire Office for Mac 2011 as part of their subscription plan.

Previously, the company had said that Mac owners would have to purchase Office for Mac 2011 separately -- at list prices starting at $120 -- but could link a copy of the suite to their Office 365 subscription plan for some basic file sharing functionality.

Computerworld had posed two scenarios to Microsoft: One in which users would be able to download Office for Mac 2011 free of charge as part of their Office 365 plan, the second where users had to buy the Mac suite separately.

Microsoft picked the second.

Today the company tried to clarify how things will work.

"The final version of Office 365 Home Premium, when available, will include Office for Mac as an option of the 5 devices," Microsoft said in a statement. "Macs could be all five of the devices if the subscriber chooses, and at no additional cost."

Earlier this week, Microsoft introduced previews of Office 365, including an edition named Home Premium aimed at consumers. Office 365 Home Premium will primarily target Windows users who want Office 2013. Customers who subscribe to Office 365 will be able to install and run Office 2013 on up to five devices, which Microsoft defined as PCs -- desktops and laptops -- and tablets running Windows 7 or Windows 8.

Windows 8 will ship Oct. 26.

With the addition of Office for Mac to the mix, consumers with a heterogeneous household -- a few Macs, a few PCs, but no more than five -- all can run Office for one monthly or annual payment.

According to fact sheets published by Microsoft, the business-oriented Office 365 plans will also include access to Office for Mac as part of the five-per-user device/copy limit.

Office for Mac 2011 will receive an update at the launch of the new Windows edition, Office 2013, that allows it to be counted toward the five-install limit. Microsoft has not set the on-sale date for Office 365 Home Premium, or any of the other subscription plans, but speculation seems to be collecting around late January or early February of next year.

However, Office for Mac 2011 and Office 2013 will not be equivalent in features or even applications. The latter consists of not only Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word -- the four apps in the highest-priced Office for Mac -- but also Access, OneNote and Publisher.

Because Microsoft has not disclosed the subscription price for Office 365 Home Premium, it's impossible to tell whether the inclusion of Office for Mac is a good deal for Mac owners.

Microsoft now prices a perpetual license three-pack of Office for Mac Home & Student 2011 (which lacks Outlook) at $150 list, which can be installed on up to three Macs. Office for Mac Home & Business 2011 costs $280 for a two-license edition.

Retail prices are lower: Amazon.com, for example, sells the three-license version of Office for Mac Home & Student 2011 for $99.46 and the two-pack of Office for Mac Home & Business 2011 for $212.24.

Microsoft declined to say how it will price the traditional single- or multi-license versions of Office for Mac when it offers the OS X suite as an Office 365 choice. If prices remain the same and Office 365 costs more than a few dollars a month, it may be cheaper to keep buying the Mac suite as a boxed copy or download, not as part of a subscription.

Windows 7 and Windows 8 Release Preview users can now try the Customer Preview of Office 365 Home Premium, and other plans targeting businesses, by beginning at a Microsoft portal. Mac users cannot participate.

Windows revenue falls 13%, share of sales drops to 23%

Weak sales of Windows last quarter dropped the operating system division to its second-lowest share of Microsoft's total revenue since the third quarter of 2009, the period just before the launch of Windows 7.

One analyst saw that as a good thing.

"Over the last 10 years, they have weaned themselves off the operating system and [become] a very different kind of company," said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. "Microsoft is a commercial software company, not an OS company. And I see that as a positive."

The Windows and Windows Live group posted sales of $4.1 billion during the three months ending June 30, a drop of 12.5% from the same period the year before.

Revenue was reduced by the $540 million that Microsoft deferred to cover the upgrade deal it kicked off last month that offers buyers of new Windows 7 PCs a $14.99 upgrade to Windows 8.

Even minus that deduction, the Windows division would still have posted a downturn compared to the second quarter of 2011. In that case, the revenue decline would have been a much smaller 1.2%.

As it has for several quarters, Microsoft blamed poor PC sales for the weak Windows numbers.

The company estimated that global PC sales were flat for the quarter, with business system sales up 1% but sales to consumers down 2%. Those numbers were in sync with estimates by research firms IDC and Gartner, which said earlier this month that global sales were down 0.1%, in part because consumers have diverted spending to tablets and smartphones, particularly Apple's iPad and handsets powered by Google's Android.

Peter Klein, Microsoft CFO, argued that Windows 8 would eventually give the Windows division a boost, but said not to expect great things next quarter unless PC sales suddenly shoot up.

"Excluding the impact of the deferrals associated with the Windows Upgrade Offer and pre-sales [of Windows to OEMs], we expect Windows revenue to slightly trail the PC market for the quarter," said Klein during the company's earnings call with Wall Street analysts Thursday.

Windows sales continue to fall as a percentage of Microsoft revenue. (Data: Microsoft.)

The portion of the firm's total revenue of $18.1 billion generated by Windows was just 23%, the lowest figure since the fourth quarter of 2011, when the division accounted for 22.7% of all sales. The smallest percentage of revenue booked by Windows in the last four years was 20.3% in the third quarter of 2009, the three-month stretch that preceded the launch of the popular Windows 7.

A year ago, Windows accounted for 27.3% of all Microsoft revenue.

The third quarter's numbers for Windows will be even bleaker because of additional revenue deferments that Microsoft will take related to the Windows Upgrade Offer.

"In the first quarter [of our fiscal year] we expect to defer $1 billion to $1.2 billion related to the Windows Upgrade Offer and presales of Windows 8 to OEMs prior to general availability," said Klein yesterday.

Microsoft will account for that deferred revenue and the $540 million for last quarter, during the first quarter of 2013.

The upgrade program, which Microsoft announced June 1, lets buyers of new PCs powered by Windows 7 to purchase an upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $14.99 when the new operating system goes on sale Oct. 26. The deal covers PCs bought between June 2, 2012 and Jan. 31, 2013. Customers must download and pay for the upgrade by the end of February 2013.

The other money-making divisions of Microsoft -- Business, which handles the Office suite, and Server and Tools -- both beat Windows in sales last quarter. The Business group generated $6.3 billion while Server and Tools did $5.1 billion.

The Business division accounted for 34.8% of all revenue; Server and Tools produced 28.2%.

Moorhead pointed out while Windows isn't the revenue driver it once was, that puts Microsoft in a better spot than many think.

"We have all this industry talk about Windows 8.... Windows 8 is important, but this is a world with essentially free operating systems in tablets and phones. Over the next two years, tablets will encroach on the notebook space, so [the decline in importance of Windows] has put Microsoft in a much better position over the last five years or so."

Moorhead's scenario allows Microsoft's prime engine, Office, to become even more important, and profitable. "Office will be everywhere, on the iPad, cloud-based, on phones," he said, noting that as Windows' position relative to revenue continues to shrink -- "I see that percentage coming down even more dramatically," he added -- Microsoft won't hesitate to put Office on devices powered by rivals' operating systems.

Sophos Updates Partner Program; Integrating Astaro, Revamping Certs

Sophos has rolled out a new partner program that updates various components in keeping with market evolution, while at the same time integrating several key aspects from the channel program of Astaro, which was acquired by Sophos on July 6 of last year.

"Under our previous program, partners could not necessarily purchase the products from the other side of the house, whether that be Sophos or Astaro," explained Emmanuelle Skala, vice president, global channel and sales operations. "We looked at the two programs and found the best practices in each, and built an expanded and integrated program that accommodated the best parts of both."

The new program is currently split into two tracks. The reseller track is geared towards partners whose primary business model is to recommend technologies and handle licensing. The second track is geared towards solution providers with a stronger emphasis on value added solutions, services and extensive implementations. "One size does not fit all," explained Skala. "So, each side of our program has different requirements and benefits that allows us to meet the needs of that particular type of partner."

Additional tracks representing new channel business models will also be forthcoming, according to Sophos.

The new program also features a revamped certification program segmented among sales personnel, sales engineers and a new, high-end architect level.

"The sales and engineering certifications are 100 percent online, and our new portal can track your progress," said Skala. "The sales content is about the messaging, how to handle objections etc. The engineering track is based on an entire virtual environment where engineers can log in and essentially do touch-and-feel implementation and installation of our technologies without ever having to leave their desk. The architect is classroom-based and is really geared towards those people who are doing advanced level implementation, support and services. All of the content has been revamped on each of these and it covers our entire product line."

As with any new program, there are always challenges; however, one Sophos partner feels confident that proper training will aid in the transition, and that the program will ultimately add to his company’s sales repertoire.

"New channel programs can be challenging, but in many cases the challenge is a positive one," said Sam Heard, president of Data Integrity Services, a Lakeland, Florida-based Sophos partner. "We will be training for additional capabilities, which will give us a new arrow in our quiver and help us to broaden our skill sets. Once our guys get certified, we can better upsell into an expanded product line."

In addition to supporting certifications and other metrics that need to be tracked, a new partner portal supports deal registration, quotes, product ordering and more. Sophos' Skala added that partners from both sides of the aisle will see components of their legacy program embedded into the new one.

"The certifications have more of an Astaro flair, but the margins and incentives are based on Sophos," she said. "For instance, Astaro did not have deal registration, but deal registration is now part of the combined program. We also are keeping MDF and spiffs from the Sophos side. But, the certification program, on the other hand, basically comes from Astaro."

"A lot of the input came from the partners themselves," summarized Skala. "We were very interested in what they liked about the program, and what they didn't like about the program. And, they were very vocal about their preferences. We spent a lot of time making sure that we did not ostracize any of our constituents."

crn.com

HP Pledges 99.95 Percent Uptime To Lure Cloud Customers

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) is gearing up to launch the first two offerings in its Cloud Services portfolio, and the company is dangling an aggressive service-level agreement to attract customers.

HP's Cloud Object Storage and Cloud Content Delivery Networkservices, currently in public beta, will be generally available Aug. 1, said Gavin Pratt, senior product manager on HP's Cloud Services team, in a Wednesday blog post.

Cloud Object Storage handles archiving and backup, storage of large data sets, and the serving of static content for Web apps. Cloud CDN, powered by Akamai, uses cached and distributed servers to improve performance of Cloud Object Storage.

Cloud Object Storage was one of the two services HP unveiled last September when it debuted its Cloud Services portfolio. The other, HP Cloud Compute, lets customers purchase compute instances on a pay-as-you-go basis, and it is still in public beta.

HP continuously monitors its cloud services for downtime, and if it does not meet its SLA terms for Cloud Object Storage or Cloud CDN, HP will offer a service credit to customers, according to Pratt.

"If for some reason you don’t receive 100 percent availability, let us know how you were affected, and we will credit your bill for the affected service up to 30 percent depending upon the degree of unavailability," Pratt said in the blog post.

The 30 percent credit kicks in for customers who experience less than 99 percent of downtime, according to HP's terms. The credit drops to 20 percent for uptime of between 99 and 99.5 percent, 10 percent for uptime between 99.5 and 99.9 percent and 5 percent for uptime between 99.95 and 99.99 percent.

HP is offering a 50 percent discount on Cloud Object Storage, Cloud CDN and Cloud Object Storage bandwidth until Aug. 1. HP will continue offering a 50 percent price cut on Cloud Compute during its beta period.

HP is also offering a free trial of its Cloud Services portfolio, which includes up to 1,000 unit-hours/month of on-demand compute, or up to 300+ GB/month of storage capacity, or up to 250 GB/month of CDN bandwidth. Customers can also use any combination of these services for free for up to $20 in service charges.

crn.com

Grum botnet takedown puts spam on the run

One down, two more to go? On Wednesday a Russian Internet service provider took down the last master server that controlled compromised computers as part of the Grum botnet, the world's third-largest spam network responsible for more than 17 percent of unsolicited email.

If the botnet stays down, only two more spam networks need to be shuttered to make permanent a significant drop in unsolicited email, said Atif Mushtaq, senior staff scientist at security firm FireEye. If security researchers and Internet service providers can shut down the top two botnets, Lethic and Cutwail, spammers may never recover, he said.

"When it comes to spam botnets, this strategy is truly working," Mushtaq said. "If you take the worldwide spam level and you compare it to the level in 2008 before the McColo takedown, it is a fraction of its previous level."

The Grum takedown came thanks to details of the botnet published by FireEye earlier in July and a flaw in the botnet's architecture that made its operation contingent on three servers -- two in Panama and a third in Russia. One server had already been taken down or otherwise shut down by its operators. But as of earlier this week, the Internet service providers in Panama and Russia remained uncooperative, according to FireEye. Compared to cooperative Dutch network providers, who had taken out a good part of the botnet by shuttering two secondary servers, the contrast was stark.FireEye and other groups raced to apply pressure to take down the remaining master servers, before the spammers could modify their infrastructure and save their botnet.

Good news came on Tuesday, when pressure from the Internet community led the Panamanian provider to disconnect the master server in that country. Because each server managed its own segment of the botnet, closure of the master server resulted in a large segment of the botnet losing its marching orders.

However, the bot herders moved quickly and began pointing secondary control servers to six new master command-and-control systems in the Ukraine.

"At one point, I was thinking that all we needed was to take down one Russian server, but right in front of my eyes, the bot herders started pointing their botnet to new destinations," Mushtaq lamented in a blog post on Wednesday. "The bot herders replaced the two Dutch servers with six new servers located in Ukraine. Ukraine has been a safe haven for bot herders in the past and shutting down any servers there has never been easy."

FireEye contacted other researchers in Europe on Tuesday and shared its evidence on the Grum botnet's new home. Mushtaq and other security professional were not hopeful, but overnight the contacts managed to find the right people and all six Ukrainian servers went down. Following that, the upstream provider of the company providing Internet access to the Russian command-and-control server (CnCs) disconnected the route to that IP address as well.

As a result of the operation, spam has gone from a deluge to a trickle. Grum used to send spam from some 120,000 IP addresses every day, but that has dropped to almost 20,000, according to Spamhaus data cited by FireEye.

Will other companies target the remaining two botnets? They should, Mustaq said.

"There are no longer any safe havens," Mustaq said in his post. "Most of the spam botnets that used to keep their CnCs in the USA and Europe have moved to countries like Panama, Russia, and Ukraine thinking that no one can touch them in these comfort zones. We have proven them wrong this time. Keep on dreaming of a junk-free inbox."

infoworld.com

Skobbler to offer free OpenStreetMap API access

Skobbler, a mapping startup based in Germany and Romania, recently announced that it had rolled out a new web-based map based on the crowd-sourced OpenStreetMap project, featuring HTML5 positioning and other new features.

However, the bigger news might be that the company is also planning to offer free tileserver access, meaning that web services can integrate Skobbler's map into other applications and sites. Given the fact that market leader Google Maps has failed to retain customers like Foursquare in the face of API pricing issues, the announcement could provide additional temptation for companies to move to OSM.

Co-founder and CTO Philipp Kandal says that access should be available in September.

"We strongly believe that OpenStreetMap will be the map in the future, like Wikipedia has replaced Encyclopedia Britannica. ... Even Google will struggle heavily to keep up investments [in mapping] because there's just much more open-source people editing the maps than Google can ever hire," he says.

OpenStreetMap, Kandal says, is the only project of its kind that can go head-to-head with corporate maps. Additionally, license costs made OpenStreetMap attractive to the team. The crowdsourced mapping engine allows Skobbler to compete aggressively on price with other map services, he says, while simultaneously providing rich hyper-local data.

EXPERIENCE

Kandal and co-founder Marcus Thielking are both veterans of the digital mapping industry, and the genesis of much of Skobbler's work took place when they were both employed by Navigon - a European GPS maker that was acquired in 2011 by Garmin.

The two founded Skobbler in late 2008, initially using older maps for navigation.

"Essentially, we turned into an app company in 2009, when we launched Skobbler navigation, which was still based on NAVTEQ maps," says Thielking. "We switched to OpenStreetMap pretty early on, in March 2010."

The two say that the company's GeOS platform, currently in private beta and scheduled for general release in early 2013, is the next step in Skobbler's plans to create a new kind of digital map - and the next phase of its budding competition with Google Maps.

"In a nutshell, people who tend to flock to Google Maps because of a lack of feasible alternatives ... these guys should give this a shot," Thielking says.

Qualcomm sees smartphones pushing demand toward end of year

Qualcomm has lowered its forecast of global cellular device shipments for 2012 due to a gloomy economic outlook, though it expects device sales to surge in the fourth quarter because of upcoming products, a likely reference to Apple's iPhone and Microsoft's Windows 8 tablets.

The mobile chip company reported results for its fiscal third quarter on Wednesday, posting revenue and profit up significantly from a year earlier but down from the previous quarter. Revenue hit US$4.63 billion, up 28 percent year over year and down 6 percent sequentially, while earnings per share were $0.69, up 13 percent from a year earlier and down 46 percent from the previous quarter.

Citing more cautious forecasts by economists, Qualcomm said it was lowering its forecast for global shipments of 3G and 4G devices in the current calendar year to between 875 million and 935 million. But that outcome would still represent an increase of 14 percent from 2011, assuming the results come in at the midpoint of the forecast, the company said.

Qualcomm is also pushing back its expectations for 3G/4G device sales to the last quarter of the year. Shipments will rise with new products being launched for the end-of-year holiday season, the company said, presumably a reference to the iPhone and Windows 8 devices. Qualcomm supplies a dual-mode GSM/CDMA cellular modem chip for the current iPhone and is expected to provide parts for the upcoming iPhone 5. The company also expects to supply components for Windows 8 devices. Both are expected in the latter part of the year.

"We're looking forward to an exciting portfolio of device launches for the holiday season and are anticipating a strong December quarter on the semiconductor front and believe we are well-positioned for the opportunities ahead," said Steve Mollenkopf, president and chief operating officer, on a conference call to discuss the financial results.

Despite the lower forecast of unit sales for the year, Qualcomm expects the average selling price of 3G/4G devices to rise from 2011. For the year 2012, it expects an average selling price between $216 and $222, an increase of $7 from the prior year if measured from the midpoint of the forecast, Qualcomm said. It cited higher average selling prices in multiple regions.

Microsoft's 'Napa' toolset readied for Office apps

Microsoft this week began offering its "Napa" toolset, geared toward building applications for Microsoft's Cloud App Model for Office and SharePoint.

Napa is a free, browser-based application for SharePoint available in a preview form. "Napa provides a lightweight, browser-based companion to the Visual Studio rich client and is a great way to get started with Office and SharePoint development without having to install anything onto your machine," said Microsoft Corporate Vice President S. Somasegar, in blog post.

Cloud App Model is Microsoft's mechanism for developing applications that combine Web technologies and cloud services within Office and SharePoint, said Microsoft's Jason Zander, corporate vice president for the Visual Studio team, also in a blog post. Napa is being unveiled in the wake of a public preview of Office and SharePoint 2013 this week. The upcoming Office platform focuses on cloud, touch, and social capabilities.

"As we set out to create developer tools for the new Cloud App Model, we took a fresh look at the overall solution we wanted to give to our customers," Zander said. "We wanted to provide a lightweight, in-browser experience, so that you could quickly build your SharePoint or Office Web app in the same browser where they would run. Therefore, we created a first-class development environment called Napa as an online companion to Visual Studio."

In parallel with Napa, developers also can use extensibility models for Office and SharePoint, such as Visual Basic for Applications and Visual Studio Tools for Office. To access Napa, developers must sign up for the Office 365 Developer Preview.

ShoreTel Further Penetrates UC Market with Latest Open Standards Updates

As technology advances and continues to penetrate our professional lives, the demand for scalable and efficient communication platforms is at an all time high. The unified communications industry in general is vital in providing businesses small and large with the right tools to ensure they are on the cutting edge of the market.

Take ShoreTel (News  - Alert) for example, a well-known provider of premise and cloud-based business phone system and unified communication platforms that serves the larger side of the SMB market. In addition, M5, ShoreTel's Cloud Division, delivers businesses of all sizes proven and secure hosted VoIP, hosted UC and hosted contact center services.

Earlier this week, ShoreTel announced the expansion of its latest open standards updates for a number of the company’s UC offerings to provide a richer unified collaboration experience. The company’s latest software release, ShoreTel 13 is now available worldwide and builds on the enhanced capabilities of ShoreTel’s video communications, SIP and instant messaging, and overall usability features for increased employee productivity.  Kevin Gavin (News - Alert), CMO of ShoreTel sat down with TMCnet in San Jose, Calif. this week to discuss the software update and what it means for the industry as a whole.

ShoreTel Communicator, a call manager application within ShoreTel 13, allows users to participate in room-based video conferences using industry standard H.264 AVC technology. According to Gavin, this enhanced video support enables users to communicate from their desktop or laptop, whether in the office or working remote. ShoreTel's support for open standards includes an array of open interfaces that allow seamless integration of third-party information and applications from leading communication and video collaboration solution providers.

ShoreTel 13 also introduces instant message capability for ShoreTel Communicator with Personal Access, giving every ShoreTel user access to IM at no additional cost for users. Gavin noted that instant messaging was at one time an advanced capability that could be added to ShoreTel UC offerings; however, with an obvious demand for presence applications in the industry, ShoreTel recognized the need to make the feature a basic capability in its product set to enhance customer communications.

ShoreTel 13 also offers extended enterprise contact center agent capabilities based on services enabled from SIP trunking service providers. With the company’s SIP service enterprises can leverage standards-based IM servers, such as ShoreTel XMPP IM server, or protect existing investments in already-installed technologies, such as Microsoft (News  - Alert) SIP-based Lync, for ShoreTel Communicator, according to the company.

The company has also made enhancements in terms of its product usability as ShoreTel strives to take a user centric approach with the way it builds and delivers its products. Gavin explained the company’s methodology as bringing companies together with its solutions regardless of their employee’s locations. He added that ShoreTel is deeply rooted in having a strong finger on the pulse of the market and that pulse is directly related to the company’s customers, or as Gavin calls them, raving fans.

Gavin added that ShoreTel’s Mobility division is focused on providing its customers with a healthy personal and professional balance with its productivity empowering tools.

tmcnet.com