HCL Infosystems bags Rs 2200 cr UID contract

After a delay of over 12 months, the Unique ID Authority on Friday finally awarded the managed service provider contract to Noida-based IT hardware and system integration firm HCL Infosystems. 

The IT firm will manage the IT infrastructure which will contain data records of 1.2 billion Indian residents, and issue UID numbers. It will be the largest project of its kind in the world. 

The letter of intent was awarded by UIDAI earlier this year, but it finally signed the contract with HCL Info on August 7, after negotiations. 

According to sources, HCL Infosystems had bid about Rs 2200 crore for the MSP contract, beating TCS, Accenture, Tech Mahindra, Wipro and others who were in the race since beginning.IBM and HP had backed out of the race. 

BB Nanawati, DDG (technology), UIDAI said, "With the award of the MSP contract to HCL Infosystems Limited, UIDAI looks forward to maximise efficiency and to bring to fruition the goal of providing a unique identification number to every Indian." 

As per the contract HCL Infosystems has been awarded the Managed Service Provider (MSP) to implement and manage the Central ID Repository (CIDR) for UIDAI. The contract is for a period of seven years. 

The entire end-to-end technology infrastructure of the UIDAI will be managed by HCL Infosystems. 

As the MSP, HCL Infosystems will be responsible for procurement and installation of the IT infrastructure, implementation of information security management systems and operations support and maintenance. The scope of work also includes technical helpdesk, support services and database administration. 

APS Bedi, EVP, HCL Infosystems said, "As the MSP for the project we are committed to meand deliver our defined scope of work which broadly covers the implementation and the management of the Central ID Repository for UIDAI. We would like to thank UIDAI for giving us this opportunity to be part of this huge nation building project."

Amazon Cloud Player Adds Sonos Capability

Amazon said Thursday that the company's Amazon Cloud Player is now available on the Sonos Wireless Hi-Fi System for streaming songs stored in the cloud  to Sonos receivers placed throughout the home.

"Our goal is to enable customers to enjoy all their music, wherever they are, and on any device," said Amazon Vice President Steve Boom. "Launching on Sonos today is an important part of that strategy."

The combination of technologies gives users the ability to search, browse and play all of their favorite music tracks, albums and playlists by using their mobile  devices as the remote  control. The enabling Sonos app is compatible with smartphones, tablets and music players running Google's Android  or Apple's iOS mobile platforms -- including the Kindle Fire and the iPod Touch.

For Amazon, the new Sonos capability is the latest step in the company's campaign for grabbing a chunk of the mobile music business  popularized by Apple's iTunes Store. To make this possible, the online retail giant signed Amazon Cloud Player licensing agreements last month with Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and 150+ independent distributors, aggregators and music publishers.

The online retail giant plans to add a Roku streaming player capability to its Amazon Cloud Player platform in the near future.

"We will continue to add support for more devices and platforms later this year," Boom said.

Music Track Scan and Match

Amazon's scan and match technology gives Amazon Cloud Player users the ability to store all of their music in the cloud instead of on their own personal computing devices. The aim is to give Cloud Player customers access to their entire music libraries on all their devices -- from the Kindle Fire, iPhone, and iPod Touch, to Android smartphones and tablets as well as any other gadgets equipped with a Web browser.

All Amazon MP3 purchases are automatically saved to the customer 's Amazon Cloud Player free of charge. What's more, the technology can scan the customer's iTunes and Windows  Media Player libraries, match the tracks on the user's PC  to Amazon's 20 million song catalog, upgrade the tracks to higher-quality 256 kbps files and make them available in Cloud Player.

"We are offering our customers a significant set of new features, including scan and match technology and audio-quality upgrade," Boom said.

Amazon's customers can import up to 250 music tracks to the Amazon Cloud Player for free. Cloud Premium customers who pay an annual fee of $24.99 have the ability to import and store up to 250,000 music tracks in the cloud.

Stealing Market Share

Though Apple has dominated the online music business for years and has a huge presence in the mobile space through its highly successful iPhone and iPad  franchises, Amazon's ability to become a major competitor in the mobile music space should not be underestimated.

"Amazon is affecting everyone's business [and] when disruptive forces arise, they dominate for years," said Forrester  Research Vice President Sucharita Mulpuru. "An Amazon that keeps stealing market share  from everyone else is here to stay."

Amazon's tentacles extend far into digital  and physical goods, Mulpuru observed.

"It is vertically integrated but also a distributor, it is unafraid to spend money to gain market share and it can successfully compete on price with retailers far bigger than itself," Mulpuru said.

Avaya's Aura Conferencing Gets a Mobility and Collaboration Boost

The new version of Avaya's conferencing solution  is now available. Aura Conferencing 7.0 provides session-based, unified  voice  and Web collaboration  for Macs, PCs, tablets and smartphones. Version 7.0 features added flexibility for mobile  devices and conference calls of all sizes -- making it well-suited for sales presentations and sales meetings, as well as customer  service training, partner meetings, and other business  collaborations.

The company also unveiled a new version of its Aura unified communications platform for the Avaya Communication Server 1000, and its Flare Experience for Apple iPad tablets and Windows  PCs.

Few to a Few Thousand

Aura Conferencing 7.0 is supported by the open , standards-based SIP architecture featured in Avaya 6.2. The company said the new version provides the flexibility companies need in the era of mobile collaboration and bring-your-own-device, offering the ability to video and voice conference between a few co-workers for an impromptu meeting, or a few thousand for a companywide occasion.

Version 7.0's enhancements include one-stop access to Aura conferencing from the Flare Experience, a Collaboration Agent client for access via any Web browser or from Apple's iPhone, and visual and contextual controls for improving the operation of conference sessions. The controls include streamlined ways of announcing or identifying attendees, dealing with background noise, and speaker identification.

Aura allows a conference organizer to scroll through contacts and, via a green dot, see who is participating. Additional participants can be added to the conference by drag-and-dropping their contact info into the conference spotlight. Web-based sharing of content  can be enabled for any participant, or via a whiteboard feature.

Flare provides access to companywide communications and collaboration tools, offering a single interface  and directory for a variety of communication  tools. The tools include conferencing, Web collaboration, directories, contextual history, social media, presence and instant messaging.

On an Avaya Desktop Video Device, which is a multi-touch piece of equipment combining a desk phone, speakerphone, and video endpoint, Flare also offers access to video conferencing.

Bandwidth Management

The new Aura Conferencing also can scale to handle up to 7,500 active conferencing sessions, which can be located almost anywhere. This is accomplished via a distributed open architecture and onboard intelligence to reduce and manage bandwidth usage and consolidate media streams, all of which Avaya said lowers costs.

We asked Jorge Blanco, Avaya vice president for Marketing of Contact Center Solutions, what the company sees as the key enhancements for 7.0.

From the IT  department's perspective, he cited the cascading architecture, which creates "a very low impact" on the wide area network . Blanco pointed out that the previous version of Aura "still depended on a hardware -based, multipoint architecture," which relied very heavily on the network.

By contrast, he said, 7.0 leverages the cascading technique to move the "hard work," such as transcoding, "as close to the end user as possible."

From the end user's perspective, Blanco pointed to the integration  of collaboration and communication needs "all into one environment," as opposed to, say, the collaboration-only environment of a WebEx.

Google changes its search formula to address piracy

Hoping to mollify its entertainment industry critics,Google Inc.is tweaking its search engine to penalize websites suspected of hosting pirated music, videos, games and other copyrighted content.

The change was viewed as a concession to movie studios, music labels and television companies that have tried to lobby, cajole and, in some cases, sue Google into helping them shut down online piracy.

In most of these cases, Google has argued that its role is to help consumers find information they need on the Web, not to police Internet piracy.

"Google wants to do something to show Hollywood that it's not a big giant pirate monster," said Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of SearchEngineLand.com. "Much of that perception of Google is not deserved. On the other hand, it's embarrassingly easy for people to use Google to find pirated content online."

In a blog post on the company's website, Google explained the changes it plans to make to its search algorithm, which determines what results it provides to people using its popular search engine.

"Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site," wrote Amit Singhal, Google's senior vice president of engineering.

"Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results. This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily — whether it's a song previewed on NPR's music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed from Spotify," he wrote.

Singhal said that Google is deluged with notices from copyright holders such as music labels and movie studios alerting it to sites they believe contain pirated content. In the last 30 days, it processed requests to flag 4.3 million links to such websites, he said, more than the company received in all of 2009.

Groups representing the movie and music companies were quick to laud Google. Said the Recording Industry Assn. of America: "This change is an important step in the right direction — a step we've been urging Google to take for a long time — and we commend the company for its action."

The Motion Picture Assn. of America, which had been sharply at odds with Google over its efforts to block controversial anti-piracy legislation, was also complimentary, though far more guarded.

"We are optimistic that Google's actions will help steer consumers to the myriad legitimate ways for them to access movies and TV shows online, and away from the rogue cyberlockers, peer-to-peer sites and other outlaw enterprises," said Michael O'Leary, MPAA's senior executive vice president for global policy.

"We will be watching this development closely — the devil is always in the details — and look forward to Google taking further steps to ensure that its services favor legitimate businesses and creators, not thieves."

Google over the years has struggled to balance what it regards as a need for an open and unrestricted Internet with pressure from content holders to censure sites that promote piracy. Friday's move, though welcomed by movie studios and music labels, displeased advocates who favor fewer restrictions.

"What's troubling about this is the process is completely opaque," said Julie Samuels, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "We don't know how Google is doing this, which makes it very difficult to monitor."

John Bergmeyer, an attorney for Public Knowledge, expressed concern that Google's changes could unintentionally penalize sites that are innocent of copyright violations. Such sites could include services that let users upload and share content, such as Google's own YouTube or Yahoo's Flickr. Though users may violate copyrights by uploading, say, a Lady Gaga album, the sites themselves may be perfectly within the law if they have certain measures in place to flag and remove the album.

"If Google's new policy helps users find legitimate sources of content, protects the valid interests of copyright holders and doesn't penalize lawful sites, then it's a win all around," he said. "But any new system such as this has potential dangers and unintended consequences, and can be abused."

Los Angeles Times

Yahoo reviewing strategy, including use of cash from Alibaba deal

Yahoo's new CEO Marissa Mayer is reviewing the company's business strategy, which could lead it to change its plans to return to shareholders after tax cash proceeds from a deal with Alibaba Group, the company said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.

The move suggests that Mayer may be considering other uses for the cash to revive ailing Yahoo, including through acquisitions and investment in new products.

Yahoo said in May it agreed to sell off about half of its stake in Alibaba Group back to the Chinese e-commerce giant as part of a US$7.1 billion deal. Alibaba will buy back about 20 percent of its own stake from Yahoo for at least US$6.3 billion in cash proceeds and up to $800 million in newly-issued Alibaba preferred stock, according to the agreement. The deal is expected to be concluded later this year, Yahoo said.

Mayer intends to review with the board of directors, among other things, the company's growth and acquisition strategy, a restructuring plan it began implementing in the second quarter, and the company's cash position and planned capital allocation strategy, the company said.

Besides addressing the earlier plan to return substantially all of the after tax cash proceeds from the Alibaba deal, the review process may also lead to a re-evaluation or changes to Yahoo's other current plans, including the restructuring plan, and a share repurchase program, Yahoo said.

Yahoo appointed Mayer, a former high-profile Google executive, as CEO last month, leading to speculation that Mayer, who was in charge of Google's Local, Maps and Location products, would boost product development at Yahoo. The company reported revenue and profit in the second quarter that was slightly lower than in the same quarter a year earlier.

If BlackBerry 10 Fails, Samsung Could Buy RIM: Jefferies

Research In Motion is counting on its delayed BlackBerry 10 platform to reinvigorate its brand, increase smartphone sales and, in short, save the once-industry-leading company. Analysts with investment firm Jefferies, however, are now saying they don't expect BlackBerry 10 will live up to RIM's expectations.

After trying out RIM's Dev Alpha—a mock smartphone RIM provided to developers so that they can try out the in-progress new platform—they believe the OS is unlikely to make a dent in Apple's iOS standings, especially as the company prepares the new iOS 6.

“We see significant potential for [BlackBerry 10], and it certainly is a vast improvement over BB7,” the analysts wrote in an Aug. 7 report. “However, we believe it is highly unlikely that it will be an improvement over iOS 6 and about equal to Android 4.1. Therefore, we see little chance RIM can take share away from Apple with BB10.”

RIM's period of “strategic reviews” is likely coming to an end soon, and the company is expected to offer an update during its Sept. 27 earnings call. The answer to a number of questions, says the report, is likely to be: Samsung.

The analysts—equity analyst Peter Misek is the lead author of the report—believe Samsung walked away from earlier talks with RIM but is still considering a BlackBerry 10 licensing deal.

The Android-supporting device maker is on top of the world these days; it has surpassed long-time leader Nokia to become the world's top-shipping phone maker, outsold Apple in the smartphone market and established itself as Apple's main rival in the tablet space. However, market watchers are well aware that all good things come to an end.

“RIM, Nokia and Motorola provide stern warnings that any high-flying mobile phone company can crash in a two-year period,” wrote the analysts, reiterating that that they see no near-term issues with Samsung but that its “2.5-year outlook is concerning.”

Misek and colleagues explain:

Samsung has leveraged its scale, its vertical hardware integration and Google's Android OS to attain its current position, but the company recognizes the increasing importance of software and the danger in not owning their software.

In his inaugural speech last week, Samsung CEO Kwon Oh-Hyun said, 'A particular focus must be given to serving new customer experience and value by strengthening soft capabilities in software, user experience, design and solutions.'”

RIM, meanwhile, has seen its market share plummet. According to Aug. 5 data from Canaccord Genuity, Apple sold 26 million phones during the second quarter, for a market share of 16.1 percent, down from its 2011 market share of 18.8 percent. The dip was attributed to not disinterest but strong anticipation of its next iPhone model. Samsung, meanwhile, shipped 50.5 million phones, bringing its market share up to 31.1 percent during the quarter, compared with its 2011 total of 19.3 percent and 2010 total of 8.3 percent. RIM shipped 7.8 million phones during the quarter, more than halving its market share to 4.8 percent during the quarter, compared with 10.7 percent for the whole of 2011.

The Jefferies analysts believe Samsung has six options for addressing its operating system concerns: It can do nothing and continue to rely on Android; develop its own version of Android; develop a very differentiated (if even possible) version of Android; develop its own OS in-house; license BlackBerry 10; or it can buy RIM.

The last of these, say the analysts, is “the best of a lackluster list of option,” as it would offer Samsung insurance should Microsoft and/or Google vertically integrate. Further, the BlackBerry 10 user interface has been well-received, and the platform would offer bandwidth consumption and security benefits over Android and Windows Phone.

Possible downsides, they add, are that Samsung doesn't do much acquiring and bungled its last effort, the browsing experience on the Playbook 2.0 is "subpar," and RIM hasn't had much a software culture.

Whatever happens, they add, it won't occur until after BlackBerry 10's launch in early 2013. RIM CEO Thorsten Heins, during an interview from the London Olympics, promised new smartphones in January.

RIM, wrote the Jefferies analysts, will want to see how its new platform is received before it places a value on the company.

Businesses at Risk When Moving Sensitive Data to Cloud Storage

More than eight in 10 businesses have moved or plan to move sensitive or confidential data to a cloud-based platform, according to a global survey of 4,000 business and IT managers conducted by security research organization Ponemon Institute and commissioned by information systems and communications security specialist Thales.

However, businesses have a ways to go when it comes to understanding how to protect that critical data and whose responsibility it is, the study, entitled "Encryption in the Cloud," found.

About half the respondents said their organizations currently transfer sensitive or confidential data to the cloud. Of those, 64 percent believe the cloud provider has primary responsibility for protecting that data, but nearly two-thirds of respondents say they do not know what cloud providers are actually doing to protect the sensitive or confidential data entrusted to them.

Thirty-six percent of respondents say their organization has primary responsibility for managing the keys, while 22 percent said the cloud provider has primary responsibility for encryption key management. The study showed that even in cases where encryption is performed inside the enterprise, more than half of the respondents hand over control of the keys to the cloud provider.

“It’s a rather sobering thought that nearly half of respondents say that their organization already transfers sensitive or confidential data to the cloud even though 39 percent admit that their security posture has been reduced as a result, Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute, said in a press statement. "This clearly demonstrates that for many organizations the economic benefits of using the cloud outweigh the security concerns.

“However, it is particularly interesting to note that it is those organizations that have a strong overall security posture that appear to be more likely to transfer this class of information to the cloud environment—possibly because they most understand how and where to use tools such as encryption to protect their data and retain control,” Ponemon said.

The study showed an almost even split between respondents who say their organization applies persistent encryption to data before it is transferred to the cloud provider and those who say they rely on encryption that is applied within the cloud environment. Another one-third of respondents said their organizations are very likely to transfer sensitive or confidential data to the cloud within the next two years, suggesting the risks of a breach will increase as more companies jump on the cloud storage bandwagon.

“Staying in control of sensitive or confidential data is paramount for most companies today. For any organization that is still weighing the advantages of using cloud computing with the potential security risks of doing so, it is important to know that encryption is one of the most valuable tools for protecting data,” Richard Moulds, vice president of strategy at Thales e-Security, said in prepared remarks. “However, just as with any type of encryption, it only delivers meaningful value if deployed correctly and with encryption keys that are managed appropriately.

"Effective key management is emblematic of control and the need for centralized and automated key management integrated with existing IT business processes is a necessity. Even if you allow your data to be encrypted in the cloud, it’s important to know you can still keep control of your keys. If you control the keys, you control the data,” Moulds said.

IT Outsourcing Services Spending to Top $250 Billion in 2012: Gartner

Driven by spending on cloud computing services, the worldwide market for IT outsourcing is expected to reach $251.7 billion in 2012, a 2.1 percent increase from 2011 spending of $246.6 billion, according to a report from IT research firm Gartner.

Cloud computing is on pace to grow 48.7 percent in 2012 to $5 billion, up from $3.4 billion in 2011. The application outsourcing segment is expected to reach $40.7 billion, up 2 percent from 2011 spending of $39.9 billion.

"Change is afoot in the AO [application outsourcing] market. The burdens of managing the legacy portfolio, along with the limitations of IT budgets, have shifted the enterprise buyers to be cautious and favor a more evolutionary approach to other application services, such as software as a service (SaaS)," Gartner research director Bryan Britz said in a statement. "New applications will largely be packaged and/or SaaS-deployed in order to extend and modernize the portfolio in an incremental manner. While custom applications will remain 'core' for many organizations, the trend in the next few years to SaaS enablement in the cloud will reflect in the growth of the AO outlook."

Gartner also projected growth in the data center outsourcing segment would decline 1 percent in 2012. Data center outsourcing represented 34.5 percent of the market in 2011.

"The data center outsourcing market is at a major tipping point, where various data center processing systems will gradually be replaced by new delivery models through 2016,” Britz said. “These new services enable providers to address new categories of clients, extending data center outsourcing from traditional large organizations into small or midsize businesses.”

Worldwide, Gartner predicted the emerging Asia-Pacific IT outsourcing market would lead all other areas in growth, nudging up 1 percent in U.S. dollars in 2012 and exceeding 2.5 percent growth in 2013. The need among global and regional businesses to scale up their operations was the main indicator of growth in the market; however, the report noted there would be some impact from the ongoing business slowdown due to sovereign-debt issues in Europe and slowing exports in China.

IT outsourcing growth in North America will be driven by enterprises' reluctance to hire or make large capital purchases, as well as their pursuit of asset-light IT strategies as buyers seek to transition more IT work to annuity-managed service relationships for cost take-out and IT costs. Continued economic difficulties in Western Europe mean the IT outsourcing market will decline 1.9 percent in U.S. dollars this year, the report said, with European companies focusing more on cost reduction rather than enhancing competitiveness.

"Today, cloud compute services primarily provide automation of basic functions. As next-generation business applications come to market and existing applications are migrated to use automated operations and monitoring, increased value in terms of service consistency, agility and personnel reduction will be delivered", Gregor Petri, research director at Gartner, said in a prepared statement. "Continued privacy and compliance concerns may, however, negatively impact growth in some regions, especially if providers are slow in bringing localized solutions to market."

Small-Business Optimism Declines, Spending on Smartphones Rises

Small-business owners concerned about their future financial position caused the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small-Business Index to decline six points to positive 17 in a survey conducted in July, erasing gains made earlier this year. However, business-owner optimism has improved “significantly” from a low point in the third quarter of 2010, the report noted.

Future capital spending was driven by investment in equipment and machinery (64 percent) as well as technology, such as computers (61 percent), new software or Websites (56 percent) and mobile devices (52 percent). Investment in smartphones stood at 38 percent in the second quarter of this year, up 11 points from the same quarter last yer; purchase rates for cell phones that are not smartphones, fell 4 percent in this interval. Investment in tablets like Apple’s iPad rose 12 points to 23 percent, while spending on desktops declined 3 percentage points to 29 percent.

“Business owners have a lot of unknowns in front of them today,” Doug Case, Wells Fargo small-business segment manager, said in a press statement. “This is the first drop in the index this year, and it seems to correlate to the lower percentage of business owners planning to invest in their companies in the year ahead. In the survey, businesses said they’ll be more likely to invest in their businesses when they see improvements in their operating environment, and better sales and revenue.”

When asked about their overall financial situation, 59 percent of respondents said they expect their company’s financial situation to be very or somewhat good over the next 12 months, down from 66 percent in the second quarter of 2012, while 20 percent expect their company’s financial situation to be somewhat or very poor over the next 12 months, up from 15 percent in second quarter of 2012. Access to credit was also perceived to be more difficult, with 37 percent expecting credit to be very or somewhat difficult to obtain, up from 32 percent in the second quarter of 2012.

Access to credit, cash-flow expectations and revenue projections all experienced declines. “Lower expectations for increased revenues in the next 12 months may be problematic for small-business owners who plan to fund capital expenditures primarily with business revenue and profits rather than relying on credit or savings,” the report noted.

Results are based on telephone interviews with 600 small-business owners across the United States, and focus on current and future perceptions of their business financial situation. The overall index can range from -400 (the most negative score possible) to +400 (the most positive score possible), although the company notes most results fall within a narrower range. An index score of zero indicates that small-business owners, as a group, are neither optimistic nor pessimistic about their companies’ situations.

California, New York Lead in Tech Hiring, but Competitors Emerge

With more than 650,000 tech professionals in computer systems design and related services, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, California, Virginia, Texas, New York and Florida are the nation’s leading players when it comes to IT employment, adding 15,000 positions this year alone. However, a slew of up-and-coming states, such as Massachusetts, Oregon, Maryland, Utah and Minnesota, are among online IT recruitment sites on career Website Dice’s list of players to watch.

With 6 percent growth in the number of jobs created this year in computer systems design and related services, Maryland tops the list of up-and-comers as local hospitals, biotechnology and health care services companies boost demand for qualified tech professionals, offsetting concerns at defense firms about the looming “fiscal cliff” and its impact on future employment. Massachusetts followed with 5.5 percent growth, and recruitment activity remains strong. Tech professionals will find more than 3,500 Massachusetts-based job postings on any given day, up 12 percent year-over-year, according to the Dice report.

Minnesota, which placed fifth on the list, with 4.2 percent growth, has given the state’s technology association the goal to make it one of the country's top-five technology states by 2020, although it faces heavy competition from Oregon, which placed sixth overall and boasts an average tech salary of greater than $80,000, which is even higher in software and chip development. Although Utah’s tech workforce isn’t as large as it is in some other states, it is home to a number of tech startups, and the state over-indexes in software at close to 1.5 times the national rate, according to the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development.

The overall unemployment rate for IT professionals stood at 3.1 percent in July, unchanged from June and down from 3.5 percent in May, far below the national unemployment rate and currently at its lowest point so far this year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. As of Aug. 1, the number of available tech jobs in the United States stood at 84,450 positions, with 52,119 full-time positions, 35,954 contract positions, 1,737 part-time positions and 621 telecommuting positions.

The New York metro area continued to lead as the top tech metro location, with 8,951 available positions, down 5 percent from the same period last year, while the Washington D.C./Baltimore metro area saw a 7 percent uptick in positions and is fast closing in on New York with 8,537 listings. Available jobs in Silicon Valley also jumped 7 percent to reach just under 5,500 positions. Chicago and Los Angeles posted the best growth in the top five metro areas, each rising 9 percent for a total of 3,883 positions and 3,460 positions, respectively.

Blizzard Entertainment warns of password breach

Blizzard Entertainment, maker of popular multiplayer online games such as World of Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft, warned on Thursday that its internal network was breached, revealing scrambled passwords and email addresses.

Law enforcement has been contacted and an investigation is under way, wrote Mike Morhaime, Blizzard's co-founder and president.

Hackers obtained email addresses for users located outside of China for Battle.net, Blizzard's portal for its online games, and the answers to those users' personal security questions. Affected regions include North America, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia.

Some information relating to mobile and dial-in authenticators was compromised as well as cryptographically scrambled versions of the passwords belonging to players in North America, Morhaime wrote. The information is not enough to access Battle.net accounts.

"At this time, we've found no evidence that financial information such as credit cards, billing addresses, or real names were compromised," Morhaime wrote. "Our investigation is ongoing, but so far nothing suggests that these pieces of information have been accessed."

Blizzard uses a "secure remote password" (SRP) protocol to protect passwords. Morhaime wrote it would be difficult to decipher actual passwords, but the company is advising its North American customers to change their passwords nonetheless.

In the expectation that some users may receive phishing emails, Blizzard reminded users that it would never ask for their passwords.

A common security measure is to store cryptographic representations of passwords called hashes rather than the actual plain-text passwords. The longer and more complicated the password, the more difficult it is to decode using password-cracking programs. Simpler passwords may be decoded with enough time and computing power, however.

North American players will also be advised through an automated system to change their security question, Morhaime wrote. Players who use mobile authentication will also be prompted to upgrade their software.

"We take the security of your personal information very seriously, and we are truly sorry that this has happened," Morhaime wrote.

Fewer outsourcing contracts going around, says research firm

The number of new IT and business process outsourcing contracts worldwide dropped by 20 percent to 411 in the second quarter from 516 in the same quarter a year ago, with average contract values also sliding, a research firm said.

"The market is growing, but the pace of growth is slowing down," said Salil Dani, practice director for global sourcing at Everest Group, on Friday.

The reduction in number of outsourcing contracts can be partly put down to the debt crisis in Europe and other economic factors. The discretionary spending on IT in Europe is largely on hold, Dani said.

But buyers in the U.S. particularly from the public sector are also shying away from outsourcing because of the anti-offshoring debate in the run up to the U.S. presidential elections, according to Dani.

Although some customers in the U.S. have started outsourcing to smaller cities within the country, these contracts are few in number because they cannot get the cost advantage and the large number of staff that locations like India or the Philippines can offer, he said.

Everest said its estimate of outsourcing contracts is based on publicly disclosed data, and included entirely new transactions as well as some renewals of earlier deals.

The annualized value of the new reported contracts in the second quarter was US$2.3 billion in contrast to $2.6 billion in the same period last year, according to research released by Everest. Annualized value is the value of a contract divided by its duration. The number of contracts have been sliding for some quarters now, Dani said.

Information Services Group reported in July that the total value of commercial outsourcing contracts (TCV) was up 7 percent in the second quarter from the same quarter a year ago. Its TPI Index, which covers outsourcing contracts worth $25 million or more, measured total contract value of $21.4 billion in the quarter.

The 173 contracts awarded during the second quarter however still represented a drop of 22 percent year-over-year, according to TPI. The market however saw some large deals, it added.

A lot of the business particularly in Asia and Latin America, and to an extent in North America and Europe consists of smaller contracts with value of less than $25 million, Dani said.

There were however 54 major deals with total contract value exceeding $50 million reported in the second quarter, compared to 61 in the first quarter, including two "mega deals" with total contract value exceeding $1 billion, according to Everest.

Microsoft Outlook.com doesn't play well with Android mobile

One of the hot new features of Microsoft’s upgraded and renamed email service Outlook.com -- that devices without Office loaded onto them can open Office attachments in the cloud via a browser – won’t work with Android mobile devices.

Clicking on the attachments is supposed to enable viewing and editing them from a Microsoft cloud-based SkyDrive account, but that doesn’t happen.

Instead the device downloads the document and attempts to open it with an Office reader.

That’s the experience from the Outlook.com mobile Web site. Clicking on the PC site option brings up a new page that has an option button for editing the document in the browser, and choosing it does bring up the document in read-only mode. There’s no way to activate the touchscreen keyboard to edit.

This was all done on a Verizon Samsung Android Charge phone using the standard software load and connecting to Outlook.com Preview.

Microsoft engineers checked out this issue and a spokesperson came back with this response: “The issues you are running into are limitations that are specific to the Android mobile browsing experience and the Office Web Applications. Microsoft is aware of them and the team continues to use this feedback to improve the Outlook.com Preview on all modern devices.”

The online editing of Office documents via browser is a handy feature for those who might access Outlook.com via devices that don’t have Office loaded on them. And it worked well on devices running Windows 8, Windows 7 and iOS that were tested.

One tip: In Windows 8 the tile for Office attachments has a narrow band across the bottom to click or tap in order to edit the document in the browser. Touching any other part of the tile downloads the document, which triggers alerts if the device has no Office on it.

For example, after tapping the tile on a Windows 8 tablet, it downloaded an Excel document. Since them machine had no Office on it, a window popped up saying, “Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010. Enter Your Product Key.”

Tapping the ribbon across the bottom of the tile, however, brought up the spreadsheet in the browser where it could be edited. Outlook.com Preview is the public trial of the email platform that will eventually replace Hotmail and customers can sign up for it now.

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Cisco readying a new Nexus switch

Cisco has another Nexus Ethernet data center switch in the works, this one with ultra-low latency and a more formidable rival to Infiniband.

Details on the Nexus 3500 are unavailable. Cisco wouldn't discuss it when asked about anonline ad seeking a software engineer for it.

"This is to be announced later," a Cisco spokesperson e-mailed. "No details to share yet."

Sources, however, say the Nexus 3500 will feature 250 nanosecond port-to-port latency and integrated network address translation. They say it will give Infiniband a run for the money, especially when combined with a new NIC from Cisco called usNIC.

"If this product does come out with latency as stated, it will dominate the silicon industry slamming down on Broadcom and more importantly Fulcrum," the source says. "But also compete with Mellanox and close the gap with Infiniband. Cisco will be untouchable in ultra low latency switching."

RedHat has apparently run tests of usNIC with its MRG-M high performance computing software. Slides 16-18 of this presentation appear to show performance improvements of MRG-M when running usNIC vs. Infiniband.

Red Hat was not immediately available for comment. But our source said it, along with the Nexus 3500, could be a viable alternative to Infiniband.

"That, combined with this new Nexus 3500 having 250ns latency would be a compelling solution against Infiniband," the source said. "If Cisco launches Nexus 3500 in the next few months and combines usNIC in the launch it will finally be the first Ethernet solution that can compete against (Infiniband)...(and) shows Cisco intent to kill Infiniband with Ethernet."

Mellanox is a leading Infiniband networking vendor. Requests to the company for comment were not answered by posting time.

Cisco currently offers the Nexus 3000 line for low-latency, top-of-rack switching targeted at high-frequency financial trading, as well as the Nexus 7000, 5000 and 2000 lines for data center fabric switching.

Bing Fund unveils first two startups enrolled in incubator

Less than a month after unveiling the Bing Fund, Microsoft's startup/accelerator incubation effort announced today the enrollment of its first two startups.

App development services provider Buddy and online games advertising service Pinion will get access to the software giant's technology assets and expertise, as well as its funding, the Bing Fund said today.

Buddy was founded by former Microsoft employees Dave McLauchlan and Jeff MacDuff. The Kirkland, Wash.-based company aims to reduce the amount of time mobile and Web app developers spend writing, testing, and managing server-side code. Bellevue, Wash.-based Pinion helps gaming communities generate revenue with targeted interactive advertising.

The fund, announced in July, is seeking startups focused on mobile and the Web that have "inspirational vision and the ability to execute." Since its announcement, the fund has "been hearing from people all over, both inside and outside of Microsoft, who are really excited about what we're doing," Rahul Sood, the fund's general manager, said in a blog post. "We've also heard from a large number of startups."

"Sorting through the list has been pretty tough, because there are so many talented entrepreneurs out there with great ideas," he said.

Sood didn't reveal how much funding the companies are receiving but did say "we're working hard to find the next one...and have identified some great companies in San Francisco and Boulder. "

HP loses ground in Europe -- Acer, Asus, Apple gain

Hewlett-Packard lost ground to Acer, Asus, Apple, and others in key markets in Europe, according to market researcher Gartner.

The Western Europe PC market recorded weak overall PC shipments across all countries, according to Meike Escherich, principal analyst at Gartner.

But some are doing better than others. Acer is gaining on HP in Europe and increased its market share by 2.7 percentage points. Asus was the top performer among the top five vendors and moved up to the No. 3 slot, according to Gartner.

HP lost more than two percentage points of market share in Europe. Asus and Acer saw solid gains. (Credit: Gartner)

Despite the U.K. market's doldrums, Apple grew its market share from 6.2 percent to 7.4 percent. Toshiba saw the highest growth in the U.K., but that sharp increase was because of "a very weak second quarter of 2011," Atwal said.In the U.K., which is one of the worst markets, "the real worry...is whether it will ever return to solid growth," said Ranjit Atwal, an analyst at Gartner. "Windows 8 and Ultrabooks now look even more important."

HP saw almost 12 percent negative growth in the U.K., while Apple saw 10 percent growth. (Credit: Gartner)

In Germany, HP got pummeled by Acer, with the former's share dropping from 16.2 percent to 13 percent. Acer's share rose to 14.5 percent from 10.7 percent.

Social still can't beat search in online shopping

Social media's traffic contribution to online shopping sites increased 77 percent in one year, but few users actually buy anything, according to a new report published today by marketing firm Monetate.

The firm's study shows that search engine and e-mail referrals are more than holding their own against social media sites when it comes to generating sales in the second quarter of 2012.

Social media sites only contributed to 2.85 percent of online shopping traffic in the second quarter, but the figure did grow a substantial 77 percent from the beginning of 2011 to the beginning of 2012.

Facebook, which generates the most traffic referrals among social networks, had no trouble getting customers to view products on other sites, but nearly half of those visitors would leave the site without visiting another page. The percent of customers who did buy something when they stayed? Less than half a percent.

By contrast, Google had a conversion rate (the measurement of actual sales from traffic) of 2.44 percent, and e-mail has a rate of 4.25 percent.

Monetate CMO Kurt Heinemann said that social media has less value overall and that companies should recognize this. Shoppers still prefer to turn to search when they want to buy something.

That doesn't mean that companies shouldn't be on social media, he said, particularly because it may cost the company nothing to create its social media presence.

"It just means we should be very careful of the hype," Heinemann said. "You want to factor in that it doesn't convert as high as a typical source."

The report also offered numbers on the conversion rates for different devices, operating systems and browsers.

Some tidbits from the report:

• The use of mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, to browse online shopping has increased from to 5.89 percent to 11.6 percent -- a trend that will continue, Heinemann said.

• Smartphones are more often used for browsing and looking at single items, but not for purchasing. Tablets and desktops had higher conversion rates. Heinemann said this is because smartphones don't have the real estate to provide all the information necessary to make shoppers comfortable with a purchase.

• Apple's iPad has a higher percentage of Web site visits, but the conversion rates are about the same as Kindle Fire and Android tablets.

• Despite growth in iPhone market share, shoppers on Android smartphones continue to have a higher conversion rate than iPhone users.

• Internet Explorer's hold on the browser market continues to drop -- from 49.37 percent to 37.5 percent over the course of a year. In contrast, Chrome's market share grew from 10.89 percent to 17.15 percent.

Apple's U.S. iPad sales equivalent to 1 in 9 of population

Just how much does Apple dominate competitors in the U.S. tablet market? The question has always been one left to estimates by analysts, but documents recently filed as part of the court battle between the company and Samsung provide actual sales numbers for the two companies, and offer a startling look at how strong Apple's sales are in its home market versus the South Korean competitor.

Since launch, the iPad has sold 34 million units in the U.S. -- that's roughly one for every nine people in the country -- and brought in US$19 billion in revenue for Apple. The Galaxy Tab has managed sales of 1.4 million units, worth $644 million.

The data was submitted to the court in San Jose where both companies are battling over patents.

It covers quarterly U.S. market sales for all models of the iPad combined and Galaxy Tab sales broken down between the three models: the Tab, Tab 10.1 and Tab 10.1 LTE. The Apple data begins with the second calendar quarter of 2010 while the Samsung data begins in the fourth quarter of the same year. Both data sets run until the second quarter of this year, which ended in June.

Looking at the sales data, the Galaxy Tab enjoyed its best U.S. sales in the last three months of 2011 when Samsung sold 347,000 units of the three models of the device, comprised of 102,000 Tab, 213,000 Tab 10.1, and 32,000 Tab 10.1 LTE.

Sales were worst in the most recently ended quarter, at just 37,000 units although it's unclear if the second quarter sales data is for the complete three-month period.

In contrast, Apple sold more iPads in any single three-month period than the Galaxy Tab sold over its lifetime.

The weakest quarter for the iPad was the first quarter of last year when sales hit 1.9 million units. Strongest sales came in the last three months of last year, right before the end-of-year sales period and after Apple launched new models of the iPad. Sales during the period were just under 6 million units.

The case, 11-01846 Apple vs Samsung in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is currently in the jury trial stage. It continues Friday and is expected to last through August.

FTC gives final approval to Facebook privacy settlement

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has approved a settlement with Facebook related to charges that the social networking leader deceived consumers regarding the privacy of their data.

The settlement stipulates that Facebook must obtain users' consent before sharing their information "beyond established privacy settings."

However, the settlement also states that Facebook denies the FTC's allegations and makes no admission of guilt.

The settlement was proposed in November of last year, and went through a public comment period.

The FTC alleged that Facebook told its users that they could keep their information on the site private, but then "repeatedly" allowed it to be shared and made public.

"The settlement requires Facebook to take several steps to make sure it lives up to its promises in the future, including by giving consumers clear and prominent notice and obtaining their express consent before sharing their information beyond their privacy settings, by maintaining a comprehensive privacy program to protect consumers' information, and by obtaining biennial privacy audits from an independent third party," the FTC said in a statement on Friday.

Three of the commissioners voted to approve the settlement, while Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch dissented. Commissioner Maureen K. Ohlhausen didn't participate in the vote.

Rosch said in a separate statement that he voted against approval because he objects to allowing Facebook to deny guilt, and because he's not sure that the agreement covers deceptive practices both by Facebook and by third-party applications on its platform.

The FTC said that there is "a strong reason to believe" that the settlement serves the public interest because it makes Facebook liable to civil lawsuits "for a broad range of deceptive conduct."

Marc Rotenberg, president of the nonprofit privacy advocate Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), said the organization supports the final settlement but with some reservations.

"The FTC could have done more to protect Facebook users. Most significantly, Facebook should have been required to restore the original privacy settings of users" that it changed in 2009, he said via email.

Asked for comment, a Facebook spokesman said via email that the company is "pleased" that the settlement has received final approval.