http://goitec.com/connect.html ITEC Connect – your ongoing source for thought leadership and commentary from some of the leading analysts and columnists in technology – comes to you today with a fresh look. ITEC is all about educating you and the community, year round. 11/23/2009 1:09:35 AM Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:09:35 GMT All data center managers hear a lot of talk about uptime. But if you're going to address uptime, you have to talk about its less welcome relative: downtime. <span style="border-collapse: separate; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; font-family: 'times new roman'; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial,helvetica; font-size: 13px;">All data center managers hear a lot of talk about uptime. But if you're going to address uptime, you have to talk about its less welcome relative: downtime.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />Let's face it, virtually any data center downtime has some sort of financial cost to the enterprise, whether it's in actual revenue dollars lost, loss of productivity, or employee downtime. It's likely the financial cost comes from a combination of all three. And although it's easy enough to find general figures that are meant to give enterprises a ballpark figure for how much their downtime costs the enterprise, in reality those numbers can vary greatly depending on the type of enterprise. General numbers aren't good enough here.<br /><br /><span class="Apple-converted-space"></span><strong>The Calculation</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />Making a cost-of-downtime calculation specific to your own particular enterprise is beneficial for several reasons, says Richard Whitehead, director of solution marketing at software maker Novell (<a style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(19, 67, 123);" target="blank" href="http://www.novell.com/">www.novell.com</a>). By fixing downtime costs, IT managers can isolate problems within the data center that need improvement, determine the reason for the downtime, and fix the problems.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />Also, when companies know their cost of downtime, they can make good business decisions about the redundancy methods and levels they should have in place, says Dave Murray, CEO of Convergence Networks (<a style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(19, 67, 123);" target="blank" href="http://www.cnwi.net/">www.cnwi.net</a>), an IT consultancy.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />"Take, for example, a case where five minutes of downtime could cost a company $100,000 in revenues," Murray says. "That enterprise can easily justify and make a decision to have a high level of redundancy to eliminate downtime."<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />But getting to that quantifiable number-that five minutes equals $100,000-isn't always easy or even possible, says Jason Abate, CEO of Panopta (<a style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(19, 67, 123);" target="blank" href="http://www.panopta.com/">www.panopta.com</a>), which offers server monitoring and outage management.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />"If any of the services you're providing from your data center are critical to your business or your customer's business, [downtime] eats into the effectiveness of your business," he says.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />The business efficiency may take many not-easily-quantifiable forms, such as to increase the hassle and delay for users accessing your server. A slowdown in Web applications might also mean employees or customers can't get to the tools they need to get their jobs done, Abate adds. Employees without access to email, even momentarily, will lose an important communications medium.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-converted-space"></span><strong>Plugging In The Numbers</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />So how exactly does a data center or IT manager at a small to midsized enterprise go about calculating the costs of downtime for her particular enterprise?<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />The best method of calculating the cost of downtime is to compare a history of downtime for a particular period against loss in productivity or sales for that period, Murray says. But calculating loss in productivity and sales can be tricky, as so many variables-specific to each enterprise-go into the mix, he adds.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />So cost calculations depend on the enterprise, he adds. Some enterprises can be accurate in calculating the cost of downtime, because they know all the variables.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />Small enterprises without outside customers tapping into their servers may be in the best position here, Abate says. They're better able to make hard-and-fast determinations such as, if the server goes down, 20 employees will lose access to email and other Web applications. Knowing those employees' hourly wages will allow managers to come up with downtime costs per hour.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />Larger, more complex enterprises that do have outside customers relying on IT services the enterprise offers will have a more difficult time making this kind of calculation, Whitehead says. Who's to say how many customers might be lost when they're unable to complete an online sale?<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />"For some businesses downtime in the middle of the night is not a big deal and may not even be noticed," Whitehead says. "For a company-even a small company-that does online business or global business, the impact could be significant."<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />Enterprises need to consider the impact of productivity, revenue, labor, and, in some cases, opportunity when assessing downtime costs, Whitehead says. "For example, if you're running a promotion that happens at a specific time and your system is down or unable to accommodate all the users, you'll see a business impact," he says. Each cost to downtime will need to be considered, because no single factor gives you the total picture, he adds.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />Also hard to quantify are the cost of very short outages, as these costs might add up over time, Abate says. For instance, an important email may be delayed, resulting in a lost sale.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-converted-space"></span><strong>Decision-Making Aid</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />With the cost of downtime in hand (even if the cost estimate is a rough one), IT managers will have the necessary information to make certain decisions, Abate says.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />"Even if the numbers have some limitations, they can still help you decide what it is you want to do about the downtime," he says. "It may be you decide it's an acceptable cost, or you maybe decide to fix some things. The numbers sort of lay out what the impact of your downtime is and give you a way to consider your options as you decide what to address."<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />Knowing the cost of downtime can provide IT with a clear reason to upgrade a system, hire more people, or make changes in the process, Whitehead says.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />Keep in mind, he adds, that should you decide to address downtime issues by implementing new technology or by other means, you'll need to calculate your costs of downtime again. But hopefully this time, you'll be looking at how much money you've saved by decreasing downtime.<br /></span></span><p>By: <em><a href="http://processor.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/p3127/38p27/38p27/38p27.asp&amp;guid=A2EDDC4F27024C66B5C051D8B764FDF3" target="_blank">Jean Thilmany</a></em> for <a href="http://www.processor.com/"><img border="0" alt="Tech Watch" src="http://www.crosstechmedia.com/CTGImage/Library/Images/CrossTech%20Media/email%20images/Processor.gif" /></a>.</p> Jean Thilmany http://goitec.com/article.html?a=The-True-Cost-Of-Downtime- http://goitec.com/article.html?a=The-True-Cost-Of-Downtime-/1c2cfa52-42d3-4c0c-be28-721d8fd68cd2 Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT 11/17/2009 Bad news for newspaper and magazine publishers hoping to boost their flagging businesses by charging for content: Most consumers in the U.S. won't pay for it.<br /><br />That's the finding from a new study from Forrester Research, which polled around 4,700 U.S. consumers, 80% of whom indicated they're unwilling to pay for access to newspaper and magazine articles and other content. <p id="first_paragraph" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;">Bad news for newspaper and magazine publishers hoping to boost their flagging businesses by charging for content: Most consumers in the U.S. won't pay for it.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;">That's the finding from a new study from Forrester Research, which polled around 4,700 U.S. consumers, 80% of whom indicated they're unwilling to pay for access to newspaper and magazine articles and other content.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;">Since the once red-hot online advertising market has cooled off considerably in the past 12 months, publishers are seriously considering charging for content as another alternative. That, however, will be a tough sell.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;">And catering to the remaining 20% of respondents who are willing to pay for content won't be a slam dunk either. These group is splintered in its preferences for payment methods. Eight percent would like a subscription fee for accessing all online content; another 8% would like a subscription for access to content on the Web, in print and via mobile devices. The other 3% lean toward micropayments, shelling out dough for individual articles.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;">The findings indicate that publishers have to continue offering free content monetized through advertising, while also setting a price on premium content that consumers can pay for via a variety of methods, according to the study's lead author Sarah Rotman Epps.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;">"There's no one delivery platform, and no one pricing model, that will satisfy all consumers. Consumer willingness to pay is so modest -- and, in general, we find it tends to over-report in surveys -- that publishers need to be extremely flexible to accommodate the needs of these precious customers," she<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a target="new" href="http://blogs.forrester.com/consumer_product_strategy/2009/11/new-forrester-report-consumers-weigh-in-on-paying-for-content.html" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">wrote</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>in a blog posting.</p><p>By: <em><a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9140958/Study_Most_won_t_pay_for_newspaper_magazine_content_online">Juan Carlos Perez</a></em> for <a href="http://www.computerworld.com"><img border="0" src="http://www.computerworld.com/common/images/masthead/computerworld_page_logo.gif" alt="Tech Watch" /></a>.</p> Juan Carlos Perez http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Study:-Most-won't-pay-for-newspaper,-magazine-content-online http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Study:-Most-won't-pay-for-newspaper,-magazine-content-online/12e8280f-1449-49eb-9b45-2869adffe978 Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT 11/17/2009 It's no shocker that 2009 has been a tough year on IT leaders. They have been asked to do more with less as the economy has placed unprecedented constraints on budgets: Yankee Group's 2009 Transforming Infrastructure & Transforming Applications Survey of business and IT decision-makers shows that 62 percent of enterprise IT organizations have had moderate reductions in technology spending, and 21 percent have experienced severe pullbacks. More importantly, only 4 percent of firms say they have increased technology spending, meaning innovative initiatives have been placed on the backburner. Mobile and wireless projects have felt this impact: 59 percent of companies have experienced either moderate or severe reductions in mobile application investments. <p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">It's no shocker that 2009 has been a tough year on IT leaders. They have been asked to do more with less as the economy has placed unprecedented constraints on budgets: Yankee Group's 2009 Transforming Infrastructure &amp; Transforming Applications Survey of business and IT decision-makers shows that 62 percent of enterprise IT organizations have had moderate reductions in technology spending, and 21 percent have experienced severe pullbacks.&nbsp;More importantly, only 4 percent of firms say they have increased technology spending, meaning innovative initiatives have been placed on the backburner.&nbsp;Mobile and wireless projects have felt this impact: 59 percent of companies have experienced either moderate or severe reductions in mobile application investments.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">However, employees are also feeling the pressure amid layoffs and spending cuts, and are being asked to do more to drive their organizations forward.&nbsp;With the workforce becoming increasingly mobile (more than 40 percent of total enterprise employees and growing), this implies that workers require more sophisticated mobility tools to get the job done.&nbsp;And where IT lags, employees are moving forward with mobility on their own.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><strong>Employees taking mobility matters into their own hands</strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">While the use of mobile phones among mobile professionals is widespread, the use of smartphones for business purposes is still in its earliest stages.&nbsp;There are approximately 79 million mobile business users in the U.S. today--meaning people currently using a mobile device for business purposes. And although it might appear that every business person we encounter at an airport lounge, business conference or Starbucks is feverishly plugging away at a smartphone, the market remains lightly penetrated at only 20 percent of total mobile devices in the U.S. projected by the end of 2009.&nbsp;In most cases, smartphones are not being supplied by businesses directly to their employees.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">Although smartphone growth has shown remarkable resilience during the recession, this has largely been due to growth from the consumer market. The key for business leaders to understand is that many of these devices are being brought into the enterprise via the back-door. According to Yankee Group's 2009 Empowered Employee survey of mobile professionals, among employees who use a smartphone for business purposes, only 13 percent indicate that their device was supplied by their employer, while 16 percent report that they personally purchased their own device. Contrast this with "traditional" business productivity tools such as desktop and laptop computers that enterprises overwhelmingly supply directly to their employees.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">It's obvious that an increasingly mobile workforce will purchase mobile technologies such as smartphones and even netbooks where IT lags behind. If business decision makers do not actively adopt emerging mobile technologies and supply them directly to employees, they will consciously or inadvertently wind up with fleets of mobile devices that find their way into the enterprise via alternate channels.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><strong>A meeting of IT and employee minds</strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">The good news is that decision-makers appear to also see the value of smartphones: Almost 80 percent believe that smartphones have a high impact on their ability to increase business productivity. In fact, decision makers believe that smartphones can have a much greater impact on their business than other emerging IT initiatives such as cloud computing and SaaS.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">The message is clear: End-users and business leaders both agree that mobile technologies such as smartphones can enhance productivity.&nbsp;The challenge for IT leaders is to address the blended lifestyle and consumer technology requirements of mobility while also protecting the needs of the enterprise from a security and manageability standpoint.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><strong>Planning ahead for 2010 and beyond</strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">Although IT spending pressures have caused businesses to hold back on pushing forward large-scale mobility initiatives, enterprises can leverage the trend of corporate sponsored and personally acquired smartphone penetration to grow a powerful new computing platform for themselves and potentially defer costs. Amid current spending restrictions, allowing end-users who have bought their own smartphones to use them at work enables the employee base of users equipped with advanced devices to grow without enterprises directly paying for them. In fact, because many users are buying these devices with data plans for personal use, they are also very willing to use them to gain access to applications such as corporate e-mail. Mobility has the opportunity to grow and flourish within enterprises without heavy lifting by procurement or IT.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">Of course, this exposes organizations to a higher degree of management complexity and risk.&nbsp;By ceding control of purchase decisions to end-users, enterprise decision-makers are left with a heterogeneous environment of mobile devices that makes security, management and deployment of applications more complex. They also leave themselves open to potentially higher costs if strict policies around expensing mobile service aren't put in place or enforced rigorously. Ultimately, when corporate initiatives for mobile applications get the green light, the devices already being used by employees may not be the ones most appropriate for the enterprise's particular applications, or the most secure and manageable ones.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">While there's little doubt that 2009 was a difficult year for IT leaders, they can no longer ignore the need to take a strategic approach to mobility within their organizations.&nbsp;The current economic impact creates even more incentive for business and IT leaders to drive improvements in employee productivity.&nbsp;They must acknowledge the disconnect between leadership technology priorities and what end users are seeking. Wireless tools such as smartphones and consumer applications such as IM and social networking are the technologies that end-users are seeking out to enhance their productivity, while IT is seeking to reduce spending in these areas. As companies plan their IT budgets for 2010, it is imperative that they place a priority on wireless technology investments.&nbsp;Otherwise end-users will continue to take matters (in this case, smartphones) into their own hands, placing IT organizations further behind in the race to control and manage their mobility initiatives.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><em>Eugene Signorini is a vice president of Yankee Group's Anywhere Enterprise research group with an expertise in applications and mobile solutions.</em></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><strong>Related Articles:</strong><br /><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(42, 51, 132);" href="http://www.fiercemobileit.com/story/smartphone-prices-falling/2009-11-02">Smartphone prices falling</a><br /><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(42, 51, 132);" href="http://www.fiercemobileit.com/story/grc-moving-target-mobility-world/2009-08-18">GRC: A moving target in a mobile world</a><br /><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(42, 51, 132);" href="http://www.fiercemobileit.com/story/forrester-iphone-corporate-users-more-happy/2009-04-15">Forrester: iPhone corporate users happier</a></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(42, 51, 132);" href="http://www.fiercemobileit.com/story/forrester-iphone-corporate-users-more-happy/2009-04-15"><br /></a></p><p>By: <em><a href="http://www.fiercemobileit.com/story/while-it-waits-out-financial-storm-employees-push-mobility-forward/2009-11-11" target="_blank">Eugene Signorini</a></em> for <a href="http://www.fiercemobileit.com/"><img border="0" alt="Tech Watch" src="http://www.fiercemobileit.com/images/fiercemobileit.gif" /></a>.</p> Eugene Signorini http://goitec.com/article.html?a=While-IT-waits-out-the-financial-storm,-employees-push-mobility-forward http://goitec.com/article.html?a=While-IT-waits-out-the-financial-storm,-employees-push-mobility-forward/3d310bbf-e5e0-41b7-b19a-9e05f910eb53 Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT 11/17/2009 There's a federal law--the Rehabilitation Act--requiring that federal agencies' electronic and information technology be accessible to people with disabilities. It's a law that every agency must take seriously, but many are falling short of the requirements to make web access fully available for 54 million Americans with disabilities. <p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">There's a federal law--the Rehabilitation Act--requiring that federal agencies' electronic and information technology be accessible to people with disabilities. It's a law that every agency must take seriously, but many are falling short of&nbsp;the requirements to make web access fully available for 54 million Americans with disabilities.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">We report this week on the<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(42, 51, 132);" href="http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/its-challenge-make-gov-2-0-accessible-disabled/2009-11-15">continuing struggles of the government to comply with the law</a>. While most agencies are in general compliance, there are gaps with the rapid changes in technology and wider use of new online tools.&nbsp;</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">In the past year, there have been accessibility complaints from disability rights activists regarding Recovery.gov, WhiteHouse.gov, Data.gov, and MakingHomeAffordable.gov. There also have been alleged problems regarding the websites for the Social Security Administration, the Small Business Administration and the Education Department. Under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, accommodations must be made for people with sight, hearing, cognition, medical condition or mobility problems. That means, for example, that there must be a way for a blind person to understand what's on the web using Braille, and for a deaf person to have captions to read what is being broadcast.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">There's is a serious effort underway to make sure federal websites are in compliance.&nbsp;The IT Accessibility &amp; Workforce Division in the U.S. General Services Administration's Office has been charged with the task of educating federal employees and building the infrastructure necessary to support the mandate of the law.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">The GSA has many tools available for agencies, and is seeking to provide educational opportunities. On Nov. 17, GSA will host a conference showing products from Research In Motion, the creators of the BlackBerry. The company will demonstrate a number of accessibility solutions available for BlackBerry smartphones, including those for the blind, the visually impaired, the colorblind, the hard of hearing, the deaf, and those with cognitive and/or mobility impairments. GSA says this is "a must attend event for all who have BlackBerrys, want an accessible BlackBerry and support those that use BlackBerrys."</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">The task of making online services and information accessible to the disabled has increased with the wider use of websites and now with the Obama administration's extended use of the web to increase government transparency. As the government moves ahead at a rapid pace, it also has an obligation to make the requirements of the Rehabilitation Act and Section 508 a living, working option for the many people in and out of government with disabilities.</p><p>By: <em><a href="http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/are-government-websites-fully-accessible-disabled/2009-11-15" target="_blank">Judi Hasson</a></em> for <a href="http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/"><img border="0" alt="Tech Watch" src="http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/images/fiercegovernmentit245.gif" /></a>.</p> Judi Hasson http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Are-government-websites-fully-accessible-to-the-disabled http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Are-government-websites-fully-accessible-to-the-disabled/f1962b0a-3171-4a6d-a333-e7c587ab5889 Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT 11/17/2009 As the Department of Energy's Loan Guarantee program continues to inch along, more visibility is emerging on how much economic activity it will spur. A total of $15 billion worth of projects could be financed through the new FIPP structure, which stands for Financial Institution Partnership Program, and requires that renewable energy project developers arrange financing through private banks prior to applying for the loan guarantee. This allows the DOE to streamline and hasten the application process. However, only tried and true technologies need apply for the FIPP guarantees, as few banks would be willing to take a flier on emerging technologies that haven't been tested in the field for years or decades. Sam Jaffe http://idc-insights-community.com/posts/359b0037e3 http://idc-insights-community.com/posts/359b0037e3/10ec9dff-e5fb-4386-9d63-3a4c79e34060 Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT 11/17/2009 If you want to hack a corporation fast, Social Engineering (SE) techniques work every time and more often than not it works the first time. I'm talking about in your face, Mano-a-mano, live in the flesh social engineering techniques. Securing the information that is in the human mind is a monumental, colossal, epic, task compared with securing digital data! So it is no surprise that it is also the largest gap in a corporations IT security. <p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">If you want to hack a corporation fast, Social Engineering (SE) techniques work every time and more often than not it works the first time. I'm talking about in your face, Mano-a-mano, live in the flesh social engineering techniques. Securing the information that is in the human mind is a monumental, colossal, epic,<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><insert>task compared with securing digital data! So it is no surprise that it is also the largest gap in a corporations IT security.</insert></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The security industry is constantly trying to create techno widgets to help us with this human problem, but to date there are not bona fide solutions available. If you give someone access, no matter how many hoops you make him or her go through to get there, then they are a human risk and subject to social engineering attacks.</p><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I've collected a list of my top 5 social engineering techniques. These techniques come from a variety of sources. Some are from my experiences, some are from my customers, and some are from buddies that use social engineering attacks in their daily job as security consultants. Are you vulnerable to these techniques in your organization? Pick up the phone and try some of them (if you are authorized to of course). I bet you won't be surprised when they all work. ☺</p><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">1)Familiarity Exploit- This is one of the best and is a corner stone of social engineering. In a nutshell, you are trying to make it appear perfectly normal to everyone that you should be there. Making yourself familiar to those that you want to exploit helps to lower their guard. People react differently to people they know, have talked to or at least seen around a lot. People are way more comfortable responding and carrying out requests by familiar people than they are with complete strangers. A familiar person, in the eyes of your mark, is perfectly normal, doesn't set off alarm bells in the brain of "who is that and why are they here". Once you become familiar then you strike. Tailgating into a secure area behind someone who is familiar with you works often.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />2)Creating a hostile situation - People withdraw from those that appear to be mad, upset or angry at something or someone other than themselves. For example, if you are on the phone and fake having a heated conversation with someone people around you will absolutely notice you but they will go out of their way to avoid you as well. You can create a hostile situation in a ton of different ways; just don't create a hostile situation between you and your marks. This rarely works. Instead you want the hostile situation to be between yourself and your phone, your accomplice, or mumbling to yourself as if you just had a huge argument with someone.</p><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">If you find yourself in a situation where you need to go through areas with people that are otherwise likely to stop and question your presence this technique comes in handy. If you are angry, people are much, much less likely to stop and question you. In fact, people are much more likely to obey your wishes when you are angry as well. People just want to get rid of angry people, so it works well for asking people to open doors for you or give you information on the location of things, etc. A good real world example of this is my buddy wanted to sneak some alcohol into an amusement park. The park has a guard station to check the bags and a wand to detect metal. My buddy started up a heated fight with his wife before they walked up and the guards just waved them by the checkpoint without checking or wanding them!<br /><br />3)Gathering and Using Information - When it comes right down to it the key to being a successful social engineer is information gathering. The more information you have about your mark the more likely you are to get what you want from him or her, obviously. Good places to gather this info:<br />a.Parking lot - Cars that are unlocked (or are easily unlocked) might have security badges, uniforms, paperwork, intel, smart phones, wallets, all sorts of goodies you can use.<br />b.Online site like Linked In, Google, Facebook, MySpace, etc.<br />c.Things in their workspace area (posters, pictures, books, etc.)<br />d.Asking their friends and colleagues. Pretend to be a manager from another office or branch.<br />e.Tail them home or to their favorite watering hole. Try to figure out their patterns, interests, places they frequent. These are all good data points you can use to help make a personal connection to the mark.<br />f.Dumpster diving. Sure going through their trash is nasty but the gems that will be there are invaluable.<br /><br /><br />4)Get a Job There - If the reward is worth it just get a job at your target and grab all the information you can. Most small-medium size businesses do not perform even simple background checks on new hires. Most large companies will but they are typically not very extensive. HR and hiring managers are almost never trained on how to spot warning signs they might be hiring someone with malicious intent. Once you are on the inside you become way more trusted, even if you are a lowly clerk. Social engineering a co-worker is usually a piece of cake given the assumed trust you'll have as a fellow employee.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />5)Reading body language - An experienced SE will read and respond to their mark's body language. In the eyes of the master SE, Chris Nickerson, body language, used effectively, is one of the most powerful connections you can make to a person. Breathing when they breath, smile at the right times, recognize and adapt to their emotions, be friendly and polite but not to much so, if they appear nervous make them comfortable, if they are comfortable then exploit them, etc. etc.</p><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Reading body language, if done well, can be your ticket to the crown jewels in a corporation. It makes people WANT to help you and feel good about doing so, an act of kindness on their part. And not only will they want to help you but they won't go back later and analyze what they did "Hey now that I think about it, why did I let that guy into the datacenter today?" Instead they will dwell the on the help and goodwill they provided for you.</p><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">6)Ok I have to add a sixth one because it is so incredibly effective, probably more so than any of the previous techniques. Wait for it .....SEX! People flirting with those of the opposite sex is just part of being human. A guy trying to resist the manipulation of a great looking girl that is flirting, dressing sexy, acting promiscuous, &nbsp;and acting interested in you, blah, blah, blah is about as easy as trying to hold your breath for 10 minutes. ☺ My women friends tell me that a great looking guy has the same affect on them. Bottom line is if your mark is a man and the SE is a woman, (or vice versa) the SE's chances of success just shot up. Hey all's fair, why not use biology in your favor.</p><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">So the last part is how do you defend against social engineering attacks? The best defense you have against the human risk (to social engineering) is personnel training and awareness programs. &nbsp;Sure that sounds boring and you'd much rather buy a widget or two that you get to have in your security toolbelt, but no widget will be as effective.</p><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I'd like to hear your favorite social engineering techniques or any good stories of SE you'd care to share. Huge thanks goes out to the guys in 303 for contributing content, insights and filling my head with awe-inspiring social engineering war stories!</p><p>By: <em><a href="http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/47804?ts0hb&amp;story=pwned" target="_blank">Jamey Heary</a></em> for <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/"><img border="0" alt="Tech Watch" src="http://www.crosstechmedia.com/CTGImage/Library/Images/CrossTech%20Media/email%20images/NetworkWorld_Logo.gif" /></a>.</p> Jamey Heary http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Pwning-Humans-for-Fun-and-Profit http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Pwning-Humans-for-Fun-and-Profit/fd2f3a57-2204-4465-9794-515d5669b9f5 Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT 11/17/2009 <p>Unstructured data on underutilized storage devices create huge data center inefficiencies. Learn how to extend the capacity of your existing storage investment without buying new equipment. </p><p>This Hitachi Data Systems webinar will teach you five important concepts that will <strong>lower your storage costs by one-third or more. </strong>Learn about money-saving tactics like:</p><ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <li>NAS Head Consolidation </li> <li>File Tiering </li> <li>Capacity Efficiencies </li> <li>Archive Reduction </li> <li>Backup Efficiencies </li></ul><p><span style="font-size: 8.5pt;">You'll also learn where you can view a Video White Paper: <em><span>Storage Economics: "Four Principles for Reducing TCO"</span></em></span></p><a target="_blank" href="https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/527253729"><img alt="" src="http://goitec.com/Client/CTP/Files/ITEC09_Small_Reg-Button.gif" style="border-style: solid; border-width: 0px;" /></a> <p>Unstructured data on underutilized storage devices create huge data center inefficiencies. Learn how to extend the capacity of your existing storage investment without buying new equipment. </p><p>This Hitachi Data Systems webinar will teach you five important concepts that will <strong>lower your storage costs by one-third or more. </strong>Learn about money-saving tactics like:</p><ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <li>NAS Head Consolidation </li> <li>File Tiering </li> <li>Capacity Efficiencies </li> <li>Archive Reduction </li> <li>Backup Efficiencies </li></ul><p><span style="font-size: 8.5pt;">You'll also learn where you can view a Video White Paper: <em><span>Storage Economics: "Four Principles for Reducing TCO"</span></em></span></p><a target="_blank" href="https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/527253729"><img alt="" src="http://goitec.com/Client/CTP/Files/ITEC09_Small_Reg-Button.gif" style="border-style: solid; border-width: 0px;" /></a> Wednesday, November 4, 2009 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM ET http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Webinar:-How-to-Cut-Storage-Costs-by-OneThird http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Webinar:-How-to-Cut-Storage-Costs-by-OneThird/dbb1feb9-cff1-4263-bd62-840849f96e22 Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT 11/3/2009 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; font-family: arial,sans-serif; color: #000000;">Did you notice Google Apps has a new competitor? Didn't think so. You'd think IBM and Lotus could come up with 1) a better product to compete on Google's turf and 2) figure out a way to make a bigger splash. All we have here are lame offerings created by idiot vice presidents and marketed by other idiot vice presidents.</span> <p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Did you notice Google Apps has a new competitor? Didn't think so. You'd think IBM and Lotus could come up with 1) a better product to compete on Google's turf and 2) figure out a way to make a bigger splash. All we have here are lame offerings created by idiot vice presidents and marketed by other idiot vice presidents.</p><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Stupid Mistake #1: trying to compete on price with Google. You can get much of Google Apps for free, which leaves little room for another company to undercut them. What are they going to do, pay you to use their "free" product? So IBM pushed iNotes at $3 per person per month if you pay upfront ($36 per year) or $3.75 monthly ($45 per year). Prices for other features like conferencing and event management run up into the $39 and $79 per user per month range. Google Apps is $50 per user per year. Do you see a huge savings with Lotus iNotes? I don't. Change is painful but sometimes necessary. Change for $5 or $14 is stupid.</p><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Stupid Mistake #2: there's not many "apps" in the competition to Google Apps. For the $3 per month, you get e-mail, calender, contact list, and, let's see, ah, nothing. See the word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation apps? See the Web sites and shared wikis? My browser must be hiding those features on my system.</p><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Stupid Mistake #3: 1GB storage space. Yes, 1GB. Google Mail, the free version, gives me 7.383GBs of storage. The paid version of Google Apps gives users 25GBs of storage. I haven't been impressed by 1GB of anything for a decade.</p><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">The IBM / Lotus pitch is "business class service and support" for their e-mail. At $36 per year, that's a pretty good pitch compared to $10-$15 per month for various hosted Exchange e-mail services. It's not a great pitch against other e-mail providers offering services at $1 per user per month. If iNotes from IBM / Lotus is worth three times more than other well known e-mail services, they haven't proved it to me yet. Have they made you want to dump Google and go iNotes?</p><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">If you're really curious, check out Microsoft Live and their SkyDrive. Free. 25GBs of space. Free. I wonder if IBM / Lotus ever heard of Microsoft?</p><p>By: <em><a href="http://www.itworld.com/small-business/82173/google-apps-trump-ibm-lotus-inotes-lame-offering" target="_blank">James Gaskin</a></em> for <a href="http://www.itworld.com/"><img style="border-style: solid; border-width: 0px;" alt="Tech Watch" src="http://www.itworld.com/sites/itworld.com/themes/it_world/images/itworld_logo.gif" /></a>.</p> James Gaskin http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Google-Apps-Trump-IBM--Lotus-iNotes-Lame-Offering http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Google-Apps-Trump-IBM--Lotus-iNotes-Lame-Offering/a982f2db-82fc-42a6-8b68-03e8adb02eba Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT 11/3/2009 <p>I see this a lot - if you like this story, please share it with friends.&nbsp; You can email the link to your friends (with a neat customized message), or&nbsp; share the link on<a href="http://delicious.com/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: #2361a1; text-decoration: underline;">delicious</a>,<a href="www.facebook.com" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: #2361a1; text-decoration: underline;">facebook</a>, <a href="http://digg.com/register/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: #2361a1; text-decoration: underline;">digg</a> and other social networking sites.&nbsp; Yes, you can do this within the registration process, but, as event planners, wouldn't you rather already have the data than rely on your attendees "friends" to fill it out??</p> <span style="border-collapse: separate; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; font-family: georgia,'times new roman',times,serif; color: #111111;" class="Apple-style-span"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.571em; padding: 0px;"><span>I see this a lot - if you like this story, please share it with friends.&nbsp; You can email the link to your friends (with a neat customized message), or&nbsp; share the link on<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: #2361a1; text-decoration: underline;" href="http://delicious.com/">delicious</a>,<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: #2361a1; text-decoration: underline;" href="www.facebook.com">facebook</a>,<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: #2361a1; text-decoration: underline;" href="http://digg.com/register/">digg</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>and other social networking sites.&nbsp; Yes, you can do this within the registration process, but, as event planners, wouldn't you rather already have the data than rely on your attendees "friends" to fill it out??</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.571em; padding: 0px;"><span>Expand on this feature - integrating it within the registration process, rather than an afterthought.&nbsp; Ask the attendee to enter in their friends / colleagues information -&nbsp; name, company, job title, phone and email. &nbsp;&nbsp; Anything more than that may seem like too much work and act as a deterrent.&nbsp; Anything less and you may lose some critical information.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But, you would have the data.&nbsp; They can always update their information later - filling in everything else that is required in the registration process and entering in the individual demographics&nbsp; (company-level demographics can be already copied over) .&nbsp; Yes, you can make the argument that these people didn't register themselves for your event and therefor they shouldn't be counted.&nbsp; I am not saying that.&nbsp; Get them in the system, market to them, confirm them, badge them, whatever.&nbsp; Our sister company,<a style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: #2361a1; text-decoration: underline;" href="http://www.crosstechmedia.com/">CrossTech Media</a>, owners and producers of the<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: #2361a1; text-decoration: underline;" href="http://www.goitec.com/">Itec</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>events have implemented this with success this past fall.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.571em; padding: 0px;"><span>Remember, only a registered attendee can show up.</span></p></span> Rick Quinn http://goitec.com/article.html?a=How-to-improve-on-'refer-a-friend'-concept http://goitec.com/article.html?a=How-to-improve-on-'refer-a-friend'-concept/38c5ae1a-3b2c-4006-b1a3-3a460329c0ca Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT 11/3/2009 <span style="font-size: 10pt;">Virtualizationisn't just for big companies. Most, if not all, organizations will haveintroduced some measure of virtualization to their systems in the near future.As it's no longer a question of 'if,' but of 'when,' figure out the steps youshould take before <a href="http://mailer.idgconnect.com/t/2697600/271354313/24496120/0/?3e076d18=ZmVhdHVyZV9yZXNvdXJjZXNAb25saW5lLmlkZ2Nvbm5lY3QuY29t&amp;x=92913283" target="_blank">virtualizingyour data center</a>. The first step is to know the benefits of going virtual,which includes simplified management, cost and time savings and faster recoverytime from disaster. <br /><br />For a detailed overview of how to figure out the right time to virtualize, <a href="http://mailer.idgconnect.com/t/2697600/271354313/24496122/0/?3e076d18=ZmVhdHVyZV9yZXNvdXJjZXNAb25saW5lLmlkZ2Nvbm5lY3QuY29t&amp;x=035afba1" target="_blank">download</a>the complimentary whitepaper "<a href="http://mailer.idgconnect.com/t/2697600/271354313/24496120/0/?3e076d18=ZmVhdHVyZV9yZXNvdXJjZXNAb25saW5lLmlkZ2Nvbm5lY3QuY29t&amp;x=92913283" target="_blank">FiveSteps to Determine When to Virtualize Your Servers.</a>" It's availableright now courtesy of VMware via IDG Connect.<br /><br />We think you'll find it educational and rewarding.</span> IDG Connect http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/source/82/50637230/ http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/source/82/50637230//670fae92-14e8-45f1-985b-b261ab8cb419 Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT 11/3/2009 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #000000;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span>The Obama administration is working on a number of important information technology initiatives to improve government operations.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span>On one front, the administration is trying to bring transparency to the public by making more information about government policy and spending available online, and in an accessible way and usable formats.</span></p><a href="http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/can-government-harness-it/2009-11-01#ixzz0VkPQLZYD" style="text-decoration: none; color: #2a3384;"></a></span> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">The Obama administration is working on a number of important information technology initiatives to improve government operations.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">On one front, the administration is trying to bring transparency to the public by making more information about government policy and spending available online, and in an accessible way and usable formats.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">On a second&nbsp;front, it is seeking to tighten security and prevent the kind of IT breaches that have caused embarrassment, such as theft of sensitive data.&nbsp;On a third front, the White House wants to use technology to improve the way government does business and provide the public with better service.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">We report this week that Federal CIO Vivek Kundra is planning a cybersecurity dashboard, much like the&nbsp;IT dashboard&nbsp;that has been implemented, to scrutinize the progress, costs and problems of major IT projects. Kundra said the new dashboard will provide the government with "a real-time view of threats facing us and our vulnerabilities."&nbsp;It will document how long it is taking agencies to patch vulnerabilities, how much they are spending on cybersecurity and exactly for what purpose.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">There is much more that needs to be done in this arena, including the long-awaited appointment of a White House cybersecurity coordinator, but the dashboard sounds like a good idea and one that definitely needs to be tested out to see if it makes a difference.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">In another policy change, the Obama administration wants agencies to rethink the IT processes, make decisions on problems, and take initiatives to provide better customer service within a 90-day time frame. Re-thinking and speeding up the traditional processes used to solve problems must become a larger priority for the government, according to Aneesh Chopra, the federal chief technology officer.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">He argues that technology has often been viewed as a separate sector unrelated to the missions of agencies, and different functions of government have been placed in silos instead of integrated.&nbsp;He also says that new technologies must be brought into the mix and be integral to government operations.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">These ideas and initiatives are being driven by President Obama who clearly defined his administration as one that will use technology to make government work better, and one that will use the web to give the public the more information about what government is doing in real time.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">Hopefully, the federal agencies will take on the challenges and come up with innovative solutions in a timely way. And hopefully the White House soon will name a cybersecurity coordinator, and begin to establish some additional government-wide polices that will increase the capacity of the federal agencies to protect their IT systems from attacks.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">Real charge already has taken place in less than a year, but there is much to be done and a long way to go.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"></p><p>By: <em><a href="http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/can-government-harness-it/2009-11-01" target="_blank">Judi Hasson</a></em> for <a href="http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/"><img style="border-style: solid; border-width: 0px;" alt="Tech Watch" src="http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/images/fiercegovernmentit245.gif" /></a>.</p> Judi Hasson http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Can-government-harness-IT http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Can-government-harness-IT/0e589184-8e80-48f3-b35f-a41d4b5d5fef Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT 11/3/2009 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; line-height: 17px; text-align: left; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #000000;"><p id="first_paragraph" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span>Microsoft today said computers in countries with high rates of software piracy are more likely to be infected by malicious code because users are leery of applying security patches.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span>"There is a direct correlation between piracy and the malware infection rate," said Jeff Williams, the principal group program manager for the Microsoft Malware Protection Center. Williams was touting the newest edition of his company's<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9140209/Microsoft_Worms_are_most_prevalent_security_problem" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline; color: #000099;">biannual security intelligence report</a>.</span></p></span> <p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Microsoft today said computers in countries with high rates of software piracy are more likely to be infected by malicious code because users are leery of applying security patches.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">"There is a direct correlation between piracy and the malware infection rate," said Jeff Williams, the principal group program manager for the Microsoft Malware Protection Center. Williams was touting the newest edition of his company's<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9140209/Microsoft_Worms_are_most_prevalent_security_problem">biannual security intelligence report</a>.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">According to Williams, the link between PC infection rates -- the percentage of computers that have been cleaned by the updated monthly Malicious Software Removal Tool, or MSRT -- and piracy is due to the hesitancy of users in countries where counterfeit copies abound to use Windows Update, the service that pushes patches to PCs.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">China's piracy rate is more than four times that of the U.S., according to Microsoft's report, published today, but the use of Windows Update in China is significantly below that in the U.S.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Brazil and France also have a higher piracy rate, and lower Windows Update usage, than the U.S., Microsoft maintained.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">But the company's own data doesn't always support William's contention that piracy, and the hesitancy to use Windows Update, leads to more infected PCs. China, for example, boasted a malware infection rate -- as defined by the number of computers cleaned for each 1,000 executions of the MSRT -- of just 6.7, significantly lower than the global average of 8.7 or the U.S.'s rate of 8.2 per thousand.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">France's infection rate of 7.9 in the first half of 2009 was also under the worldwide average.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Of the three countries Microsoft called out as examples of nations whose users are reluctant to run Windows Update because of high piracy rates, only Brazil fit William's argument: Brazil's infection rate was 25.4, nearly three times the global average.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Other countries with higher-than-average infection rates, however, also have high piracy rates, according to data published last May by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), an industry-backed anti-piracy organization, and research firm IDC. Microsoft is a member of the BSA.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">By Microsoft's tally, Serbia and Montenegro had the highest infection rate in the world, with 97.2 PCs out of every 1,000, nearly 10%, plagued by malware. Turkey was No. 2, with 32.3, while Brazil, Spain and South Korea were third through fifth, with infection rates of 25.4, 21.6 and 21.3, respectively.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">The BSA put Serbia's piracy rate, the percentage of the in-use software that's not licensed, at 74% in 2008, while Turkey, Brazil, Spain and Korea had estimated piracy rates of 64%, 58%, 42% and 43%, respectively. By comparison, the U.S.'s piracy rate was pegged at 20%, and the worldwide average at 41%.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Although Microsoft wants users to patch vulnerabilities with Windows Update, people running counterfeit copies of Windows have traditionally been less-than-eager to apply fixes, believing that Windows Update will recognize their software as illegal and mark it as such with nagging on-screen messages.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Microsoft's anti-piracy efforts, particularly the technology it pushes to users that sniffs out unlicensed copies of Windows, have met with resistance. Last year, for example,<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9117904/Chinese_users_blast_Microsoft_over_new_black_screen_piracy_notice?">Chinese users raised a ruckus</a>when Microsoft updated its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) anticounterfeit validation and notification technology.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">American users have complained about the technology, too. In June 2006,<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://blogs.computerworld.com/node/3035">Microsoft infuriated users</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>by pushing a version of WGA to XP users via Windows Update, tagging it as a "high-priority" update that was automatically downloaded and installed to most machines. A year later, a<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&amp;articleId=9032798">day-long server outage</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>riled thousands of users who were mistakenly fingered for running counterfeit copies of Windows.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">The 2006 incident sparked a lawsuit that accused Microsoft of misleading customers when it used Windows Update to serve up WGA. Last month, Microsoft filed a motion opposing a move by the plaintiffs to turn the case into a<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9138825/Microsoft_battles_class_action_over_WGA_antipiracy_technology">class-action lawsuit</a>.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Microsoft's<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=037f3771-330e-4457-a52c-5b085dc0a4cd&amp;displaylang=en" target="new">security intelligence report</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>can be downloaded from its Web site in PDF or XPS document formats.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;"></p><p>By: <em><a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9140227/Microsoft_links_malware_rates_to_pirated_Windows" target="_blank">Gregg Keizer</a></em> for <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/"><img style="border-style: solid; border-width: 0px;" alt="Tech Watch" src="http://www.computerworld.com/common/images/masthead/computerworld_page_logo.gif" /></a>.</p> Gregg Keizer http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Microsoft-links-malware-rates-to-pirated-Windows http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Microsoft-links-malware-rates-to-pirated-Windows/1a03f268-1c42-479f-8699-aad22d59d555 Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT 11/3/2009 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #000000;">On the first read, it sounded like blade servers all over again. You see, Intel is working to introduce<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.fiercecio.com/techwatch/story/intel-introduce-new-microserver-standard/2009-10-30" style="text-decoration: none; color: #2a3384;">a new "microserver" standard</a><strong><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span></strong>to be offered at the Server System Infrastructure Forum "by the end of the year." Assuming the groups' board votes for&nbsp;its approval, group members will be able to use the designs on a royalty-free basis,<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10386452-264.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: #2a3384;">Jason Waxman</a>, general manager of Intel's high-density computing group, told<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><em>CNET News</em>.<br /><a href="http://www.fiercecio.com/techwatch/story/will-microservers-take/2009-10-30#ixzz0VkPxw4PV" style="text-decoration: none; color: #2a3384;"></a></span> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">On the first read, it sounded like blade servers all over again. You see, Intel is working to introduce<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a style="text-decoration: none; color: #2a3384;" href="http://www.fiercecio.com/techwatch/story/intel-introduce-new-microserver-standard/2009-10-30">a new "microserver" standard</a><strong><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span></strong>to be offered at the Server System Infrastructure Forum "by the end of the year." Assuming the groups' board votes for&nbsp;its approval, group members will be able to use the designs on a royalty-free basis,<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a style="text-decoration: none; color: #2a3384;" href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10386452-264.html">Jason Waxman</a>, general manager of Intel's high-density computing group, told<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><em>CNET News</em>.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">What exactly is a microserver?&nbsp;According to Intel, it is basically a small motherboard consisting of a single processor with four memory banks and housed in a chassis with lots of other such boards.&nbsp;Sounds like a blade server, doesn't it?&nbsp;However, Intel is adamant that there is a market niche for microservers, notwithstanding the fact that blade servers never really took off the way they were expected&nbsp;to.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">In the same<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><em>CNET News</em><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>article, Waxman draws attention to the needs of web hosting providers. According to him, microservers will address the requirements of these providers by providing "reasonably good performance" via a relatively simple platform that works in a "low enough power envelope."</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">Another&nbsp;thing that is brought up in the article&nbsp;is the idea that some customers will simply like the idea of having their own dedicated piece of hardware.&nbsp;I'm not sure if this is backed up by any form of market research, though I confess that this would appeal to me, from a purely geek point of view.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">Between the growing popularity of cloud computing and the entrenched adoption of virtualization, the market I see for microservers seems to be a very narrow niche indeed, even in the context of a web hosting provider.&nbsp;And why would non-web hosting providers even think about getting microservers?</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">Am I missing something here?&nbsp;I would love to hear your thoughts on this. </p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"></p><a style="text-decoration: none; color: #2a3384;" href="http://www.fiercecio.com/techwatch/story/will-microservers-take/2009-10-30#ixzz0VkQ25XPV"></a><p>By: <em><a href="http://www.fiercecio.com/techwatch/story/will-microservers-take/2009-10-30" target="_blank">Paul Mah</a></em> for <a href="http://www.fiercecio.com/techwatch"><img style="border-style: solid; border-width: 0px;" alt="Tech Watch" src="http://www.crosstechmedia.com/CTGImage/Library/Images/CrossTech%20Media/email%20images/techwatch.jpg" /></a>.</p> Paul Mah http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Will-microservers-take-off http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Will-microservers-take-off/f41453d1-e547-4f69-8474-c2b16575fa24 Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT 11/3/2009 Data growth is something we all must manage within our data centers. Recent data has pointed to unstructured file data and content depots growing faster than structured data base data. As with most areas of technology, spending must be held flat if not lowered. Join Hitachi Data Systems' Peter Sjoberg for a discussion on how HDS focuses on lowering the total cost of storage ownership, including in the fast-growing area of file and content data. The webinar will also focus on five key areas of potential savings and discuss how they can be applied to lower your TCO. This is a free webinar, part of the <a href="http://www.goNDC.com">Next Data Center</a> series. <br /><br /><strong><a href="https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/527253729">Register now</a> - Wednesday, November 4, 2009 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm EST</strong> Next Data Center http://gondc.com/webinars.html http://gondc.com/webinars.html/c94424d6-94ea-4300-9b12-d86bd0d06f7e Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT 10/20/2009 Windows 7 officially ships on Thursday, which means end users and administrators running Windows XP (and to a lesser extent, Windows Vista) have some interesting decisions to make.To help you make those tough choices, here are 10 things you need to know, based on our hands-on testing of Windows 7. <p class="first"><a href="http://www.networkworld.com/slideshows/2009/011509-win-love-hate.html">Windows 7</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>officially ships on Thursday, which means end users and administrators running Windows XP (and to a lesser extent, Windows Vista) have some interesting decisions to make.</p><p>To help you make those tough choices, here are<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.networkworld.com/slideshows/2009/060109-love-hate-win7-win2008.html">10 things you need to know</a>, based on our hands-on testing of Windows 7.</p><p><strong>1. Windows 7 is faster.</strong></p><p>Win 7 performance is better than Windows XP SP3 and Vista SP2, but only if you run 64-bit Win 7. One potential gotcha: Much of the performance gains are reliant on having up-to-date 64-bit hardware drivers and components. That may mean buying new hardware, as older hardware may not have the necessary components and updated drivers.</p><p><strong>2. Buy Microsoft's Desktop Option Pack.</strong></p><p>It's only $10 a seat, and well worth it. MDOP contains important components, such as Microsoft's Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DaRT), which helps users and support personnel deal with catastrophic machine failures. There's also Advanced Group Policy Management, which allows for active and "pushed" policies to users and groups. This feature can prevent damage from zero-day failures and fine-tunes policies for system admins. And there's Asset Inventory Service, which tallies software inventories for both compliance and provisioning purposes. Other MDOP components address application and desktop virtualization.</p><p><strong>3. Win 7 offers a clean start</strong></p><p>There's a school of thought that says, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." In other words, why not stick with good old XP? Our answer is that where Windows on the desktop is needed, Win 7 is the way to go. Win 7 has the inherent architectural changes that secured XP, but it also doesn't have the estimated 1,300 patches (including Microsoft Office patches) that XP SP3 has. The user interface has improved dramatically with Win 7, we found that it's Microsoft's best behaving operating system since Windows 2000, and migrating to a fresh environment rids machines of the clutter that has built up over the years.</p><p><strong>3. Upgrading from XP on the same hardware will be tricky</strong></p><p>If you're considering upgrading from XP to Win 7 on the same machine, Microsoft doesn't directly support this, and recommends that a fresh installation be made on new hardware. Any attempt to upgrade will move the directory structure known as Documents and Settings into the new, Unix-like 'user' directory structure, and registry settings for Win 7 will break many applications.</p><p>Many applications will need post-Win 7 upgrade adjustments, or even re-installation. Win 7 also needs at least 5GB of extra space to perform an in-place upgrade from XP temporarily.</p><p>Of course, it is possible to upgrade. We tried it and found that upgrading a single machine from XP could take up to two hours.</p><p><strong>5. Consider Windows Upgrade Advisor</strong></p><p>Microsoft is offering a beta free download of an upgrade tester called the Windows Upgrade Advisor. It's good but not infallible, we found, especially when upgrading from XP 64-bit editions. Because it's beta, some of its foibles may be fixed by the time it's offered as a production app.</p><p>It's installed, examines a machine, and annotates a list of what will and won't work in an upgrade from XP and Vista editions. (However, Microsoft makes clear on its Web site that Upgrade Advisor is recommended only for Vista users and that XP users should buy new hardware.)</p><p><strong>6. Another option: Third-party upgrade tools</strong></p><p>Third-party tools like Laplink Software's PC-Mover Windows 7 Upgrade Assistant allow you to upgrade from XP to Win 7 on the same hardware. But, of course, the Laplink software isn't free, so that's an additional expense and an additional complication that you would be adding to the equation.</p><p><strong>7. Check for hardware compatibility</strong></p><p>Fresh Win 7 installations on new hardware will likely be successful if the hardware has Vista support, as most Vista drivers can be used successfully in lieu of Win 7 drivers, and drivers are the biggest portion of compatibility -- unless running XP is desired.</p><p>Remember that a 64-bit installation is what we recommend, and the drivers need to be 64-bit to gain best performance.</p><p>A trip to a hardware vendor's Web site to explore it for specific machine drivers is worth the effort. Some vendors, such as HP, have Win 7-specific information on compatibility, while others have promised Win 7-specific drivers - especially for 64-bit kernel use.</p><p><strong>8. User Access Controls are much improved</strong></p><p>Underneath the surface of Win 7 is a reformed kernel that's similar to Vista's in construction. Userspace is now separate from kernel space in strong ways, a policy that shocked and rocked the world at the advent of Windows XP SP2, and was then manically manifested in Vista's User Access Controls (UAC).</p><p>The UAC was designed to isolate bad behavior from viruses/malware from the basic components of the system and apps running above userspace. This isolation alone stopped many forms of badware. This same protection can be found in Win 7, but it won't drive you as ballistic as the constant nervous messaging to the user found in Windows Vista. By comparison, it's calm and its UAC messaging can be largely disabled.</p><p><strong>9. Virtualization allows XP on Win 7</strong></p><p>If you buy Windows 7 64-bit Professional version and higher, then XP can be run on Win 7 in a virtual machine. That's if you have a V/VT-compatible CPU in your machine and you remember to add additional memory (a gigabyte will often do) for running an XP session. XP must still be secured separately in this configuration as though it were 'stand-alone'.</p><p><strong>10. Go for 64-bit</strong></p><p>We can find no reason to recommend running Win 7 on existing 32-bit hardware as the 32-bit version of Win 7 has little performance advantage over Vista or XP in our comparative tests. The 64-bit version, however, can be much faster.</p><p>By: <em><a target="_blank" href="http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/101909-windows7.html?ts0hb&amp;story=10things">Tom Henderson</a></em> for <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/"><img border="0" src="http://www.crosstechmedia.com/CTGImage/Library/Images/CrossTech%20Media/email%20images/NetworkWorld_Logo.gif" alt="Tech Watch" /></a>.</p> Tom Henderson http://goitec.com/article.html?a=10-things-you-need-to-know-about-Windows-7 http://goitec.com/article.html?a=10-things-you-need-to-know-about-Windows-7/c2edbe7b-d37e-466d-82af-fa8224d1e245 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT 10/20/2009 A survey sponsored by Dimension Data and performed by analyst firm IDC has found that the market for data loss prevention products will be growing, reports eWeek.com. The survey discovered that 57 percent of the 400 organizations polled intend to invest in data loss prevention software during the next year. <p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">A survey sponsored by Dimension Data and performed by analyst firm IDC has found that the market for data loss prevention products will be growing, reports<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><em>eWeek.com</em>. The survey discovered that 57 percent of the 400 organizations polled intend to invest in data loss prevention software during the next year.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">The survey said that the primary concern for businesses regarding data loss comes from insider threats. Forty-five percent of the respondents believed data leakage was more likely to occur due to employee error than external hackers with malicious intent (15 percent). In fact, 85 percent declared data loss via external hacking to be "very unlikely."</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">"The challenge when protecting an organization from internal data loss is that traditional defenses are designed to face outward, at the perimeter of a network, whereas the inside of the network remains relatively free of security controls," said Neil Campbell, global general manager of Security Solutions for Dimension Data, in a statement. "Compounding the problem, security awareness training initiatives for employees often go unfunded because organizations find it difficult to demonstrate a return on investment for such training."</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">Campbell&nbsp;told<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><em>eWeek.com</em><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>that&nbsp;companies must take a "holistic" approach to protecting their data, and create automated, technical barriers to both human error and malicious intent.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">The survey suggests that companies are headed in this direction, and shifting their investment away from point solutions to a broader outlook. The survey found 59 percent planned to invest in IT security audits and 52 percent in consulting services.&nbsp;"This indicates a growing realization that reacting to security incidents, and ad-hoc acquisition of point technologies without regard to how they dovetail with others, is more costly and less effective than planning an integrated strategy," according to Campbell.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">For more on the data loss prevention market:<br />- check out this<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><em>eWeek.com</em><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(42, 51, 132);" href="http://securitywatch.eweek.com/data_security/idc_data_loss_prevention_market_to_see_upswing.html">article</a></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><strong>Related Articles:<br /></strong><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(42, 51, 132);" href="http://www.fiercecio.com/story/where-jobs-are-try-information-security/2009-09-16">Where the jobs are: Try information security</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(42, 51, 132);" href="http://www.fiercecio.com/story/how-make-data-mapping-work/2009-08-16">How to make data mapping work</a><br /><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(42, 51, 132);" href="http://www.fiercecio.com/story/dont-let-your-data-be-orphaned/2009-06-20">Don't let your data be orphaned</a></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(42, 51, 132);" href="http://www.fiercecio.com/story/dont-let-your-data-be-orphaned/2009-06-20"><br /></a></p><span><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(42, 51, 132);" href="http://www.fiercecio.com/story/data-loss-prevention-market-upswing/2009-10-18#ixzz0URj1V4Ro"></a></span><p>By: <em><a href="http://www.fiercecio.com/story/data-loss-prevention-market-upswing/2009-10-18" target="_blank">Judi Hasson</a></em> for <a href="http://www.fiercecio.com/"><img border="0" alt="Tech Watch" src="http://www.fiercecio.com/images/fiercecio.gif" /></a>.</p> Judi Hasson http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Data-loss-prevention-market-on-upswing http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Data-loss-prevention-market-on-upswing/c0cb7234-4601-4f0f-aaa6-cd1d9bdbbb45 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT 10/20/2009 On November 4, 2009 IDC is hosting an invite-only executive conference for senior technology executives. The recession is driving more IT executives towards Cloud solutions, with 2 out of 3 companies now adopting Cloud strategies. According to IDC, spending on Cloud services will triple in the next three years to $42 billion. <p>On November 4, 2009 IDC is hosting an invite-only executive conference for senior technology executives. The recession is driving more IT executives towards Cloud solutions, with 2 out of 3 companies now adopting Cloud strategies. According to IDC, spending on Cloud services will triple in the next three years to $42 billion.</p><p> Groundbreaking research detailing which areas of Cloud computing are ready for prime time, which vendors are taking a leadership role, and how and when to take advantage of a Cloud infrastructure are all part of this exclusive summit.&nbsp; Speakers will include senior executives from Akamai, CSC, Forrester Construction, IDC, National Grid, Sun National Bank, TrueCredit.com, the United States Golf Association and more.</p><p> Don't miss this tremendous line-up, apply for credentials (end users and senior tech execs only) online at <a href="http://eventsatidc.com/cloud/?CloudITEC">http://eventsatidc.com/cloud/?CloudITEC</a>.</p> IDC http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Getting-Down-to-Business-with-the-Cloud- http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Getting-Down-to-Business-with-the-Cloud-/a6044bc0-2c0b-4092-928f-f6df9c5c9644 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT 10/20/2009 Fall means cooler weather, baseball playoffs, and the winding-down process for yet another year. But, autumn also means decision makers must begin thinking about their budgetary and strategic priorities for the coming year. This year has been quite a challenging year, so setting up priorities for 2010 and beyond will prove to be especially challenging. Fall means cooler weather, baseball playoffs, and the winding-down process for yet another year. But, autumn also means decision makers must begin thinking about their budgetary and strategic priorities for the coming year. This year has been quite a challenging year, so setting up priorities for 2010 and beyond will prove to be especially challenging.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />After all, with so much uncertainty surrounding the economy, there is little doubt that IT spending and budgets will at best be an uncertain proposition until the economic picture turns for the better. But even in the worst of times, enterprises must continue to operate, so IT and/or data center managers must continue to move their operations forward. Decision makers must implement careful strategies to ensure success during uncertain times.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-converted-space"></span><strong>Sure Strategies In Uncertain Times</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />The main challenge facing decision makers during uncertain economic times is the utter lack of clarity. On one side, budgets may be severely impacted when revenues and profits take a tumble; on the other hand, taking an overly cautious approach to strategic investments even as the economic climate improves can lead to missed opportunities.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />Decision makers within the IT world at least have one advantage: They are familiar with economic uncertainty. Mike Talon, an enterprise system engineer at Double-Take Software (<a href="http://www.doubletake.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(19, 67, 123);">www.doubletake.com</a>), suggests that for the IT professional, these times are only slightly more uncertain than in the past. According to Talon, IT has always had to deal with the fact that it's universally a cost center for the modern organization. Even though budgets will be leaner this year, says Talon, the overall strategy of doing more with less is still as valid as ever.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />Johanna Rothman, president of the Rothman Consulting Group (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.jrothman.com/" style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(19, 67, 123);">www.jrothman.com</a>) and author of "Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects," says decision makers must ensure they avoid committing to large expenditures until there is some "proof"-such as a prjototype-that a solution works. If spending money can't be avoided, Rothman recommends figuring out a way for the vendor to share some of the risk before substantial money and time are committed to a project.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-converted-space"></span><strong>Thinking Long-Term</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />Dealing with short- to medium-term priorities is no easy proposition when times are uncertain, and establishing long-term priorities in a treacherous economic climate is even more difficult to accomplish. But, enterprises have an obligation to look ahead and ensure future strategies work well with whatever business conditions lie ahead.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />Al Zoldos, vice president of sales for Staples Technology Solutions (<a href="http://www.staplestechnologysolutions.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(19, 67, 123);">www.staplestechnologysolutions.com</a>), says although it can be tempting to ax multiyear projects during uncertain economic times, it is important to consider the long-term health of the organization and to look at long- and short-term projects anew. Managers should discuss who will benefit from each project, what the benefits will be, and how those benefits affect the bottom line. Also, he warns, decision makers should review procurement decisions carefully to ensure no one is trading long-term risk for immediate, short-term savings via procurement decisions. A seemingly well-intentioned decision could mean trouble in the long run.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />Decision makers in IT also need to ensure that there is good communication with top management. Bob Venero, CEO of Future Tech Enterprise (<a href="http://www.ftei.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(19, 67, 123);">www.ftei.com</a>) says IT managers need to look at their five-year plan from a data center perspective and ask themselves if that plan is in harmony with the strategic goals of the organization. Open communication with senior management, says Venero, is more important today than ever.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />Cameron Chehreh, CTO and senior vice president of applications outsourcing and staffing solutions for OAO Technology Solutions (<a href="http://www.oaot.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(19, 67, 123);">www.oaot.com</a>), also recommends that IT decision makers ensure their strategies align with the overall business. In order to accomplish this, he adds, decision makers should implement a governance model that ensures everyone is on same page.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-converted-space"></span><strong>Strategies For Health, Government &amp; Education<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span></strong><br /><br />There is no doubt that data centers in enterprises operating within the health, government, and education sectors will require decision makers to implement unique strategies in the face of a changing landscape for these sectors of the economy. For example, the current push to reform health care may provide this particular economic sector with some unique opportunities in the years ahead. Government growth is all but certain in the current federal climate, and technology continues to present educators with both opportunities and challenges for improving education.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />Chehreh says the security and regulatory compliance requirements specific to the health, education, and government sectors provide a distinct difference for those markets. So, he adds, IT or data center managers in these sectors must not only keep systems compliant with current legislation, but also predict future legislative impacts and plan accordingly.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />Gary Weiner, a senior manager at outsourcing firm ACS (<a href="http://www.acs-inc.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(19, 67, 123);">www.acs-inc.com</a>) who is currently working as an interim CIO at a client hospital, says the federal stimulus will provide funding for physicians and hospitals to implement EMR (electronic medical records) for the sharing of data to enhance medical outcomes, reduce redundant testing, and expedite the sharing of results. Data center managers, adds Weiner, need to begin planning for highly redundant and highly available data centers in order to meet the 24/7/365 requirement to provide access to this information.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />Of course, the legislative winds can change with new electoral mandates. This reduced predictability-as compared to the commercial sector-due to pending legislation means sectors such as government and health care may be facing more turbulent times, says Kris Domich, national principal of data center solutions for Dimension Data (<a href="http://www.dimensiondata.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(19, 67, 123);">www.dimensiondata.com</a>). Depending on the outcome of the healthcare debate and other political issues, he adds, there could be explosive growth in the need to provide IT capacity for added levels of public services, with a potential user base in excess of 80 million to 100 million or more.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><br /><br />"Short-term IT plans," says Domich, "should continue to focus on optimization and increased efficiencies, but must also consider the possibility of acute medium-and long-term growth, so focusing on modular data center plans is critical." And, he adds, in some cases, meeting short-term explosive growth may not be doable organically, so decision makers should consider retail cloud services in order to meet large-scale growth in an acceptable time frame.<p><em><a target="_blank" href="http://www.processor.com/editorial/article.asp?Article=articles/p3125/30p25/30p25.asp&amp;GUID=3F6C34D812DD40EE822D54344DC1B412">Article</a> by Sixto Ortiz Jr. for</em>&nbsp;<a href="http://www.processor.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://www.crosstechmedia.com/CTGImage/Library/Images/CrossTech%20Media/email%20images/Processor.gif" alt="Processor.com" /></a>.</p> Sixto Ortiz Jr. http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Setting-IT-Priorities- http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Setting-IT-Priorities-/5fcfa31e-dab1-4af0-b6fc-75e045691ed5 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT 10/20/2009 Apple reported today that it sold more Macs and iPhones last quarter than in any other three-month period in the company's history, with executives using words like "phenomenal" to describe its performance. <p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Apple reported yesterday that it sold more Macs and iPhones last quarter than in any other three-month period in the company's history, with executives using words like "phenomenal" to describe its performance.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">"It was a spectacular quarter," said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research. "It's as if the recession never happened to Apple."</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">In the quarter that ended Sept. 30, Apple sold 3.05 million Macs worldwide, an increase of 442,000 over the next-best quarter, which was the same calendar quarter in 2008, said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's chief financial officer.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">"This was Apple's most profitable quarter ever, and Apple had more sales of Macs and iPhones than any quarter ever," Oppenheimer said during a conference call with Wall Street analysts.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Apple's sales have outpaced the industry average for 19 out of the last 20 quarters, Oppenheimer added. The one exception: This year's first quarter, when<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9131995/Apple_sells_fewer_Macs_but_boosts_revenues_with_iPhone_iPod_Touch">Apple failed for the first time</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>since 2003 to grow Mac sales year-over-year.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Oppenheimer also said that<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9137163/Apple">Apple</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>was "thrilled" to set an<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9108338/Continuing_coverage_Apple_s_iPhone">iPhone</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>sales record, moving nearly 7.4 million units of the smartphone in the last three months. Apple will also start selling the iPhone in China, the world's largest mobile phone market, later this month, said Oppenheimer.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Globally, Mac sales were up 17% compared with the same period a year ago. Although Apple didn't break out U.S. sales separately, numbers generated in the Americas and at retail -- most of its retail stores are in the U.S. -- totaled 1.92 million Macs, up 11.6% from the 1.72 million it sold in those same categories last year.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Last week, IDC and Gartner, the two research firms that estimate Apple's U.S. sales each quarter,<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139403/Mac_sales_defy_all_logic_says_analyst">pegged Apple's U.S. sales</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>for the third calendar quarter at 11.8% and 6.8%, respectively.</p><h3>Desktop demise</h3><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">"The last quarter was the quarter of the portable," said Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, the executive who ran the company for several months when CEO Steve Jobs was on medical leave. "Sales of Mac portables were up 35% year-over-year. This was a blow-up quarter."</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">There was considerable truth to Cook's characterization. In July, August and September, Apple sold 2.3 million Mac notebooks and only 787,000 desktops, posting a year-over-year gain in the former of 35% and a year-over-year decline of 16% in the latter.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">"Desktop sales have reached a point where they're never going to come back," opined Gottheil. "The turnover point has been reached, when whole new configurations are in the home, in dorm rooms. People may have a screen they use for other purposes, too, but people aren't having a box any longer."</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">The average sales price (ASP) of Apple's Mac laptop line was also up, noted one Wall Street analyst during the question-and-answer portion of the earnings call. "That was a result of a higher mix of MacBook Pros," explained Oppenheimer, repeating a refrain the company gave in July when it discussed Mac sales for the second quarter, particularly sales after the<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9134102/Apple_plans_to_ship_Snow_Leopard_in_Sept._for_29_execs_tout_new_laptops">early-June refresh</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>of the line.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">"[Portable sales] were a direct result of the line-up we announced in June," said Cook, noting that for a time, Apple had a backlog of orders for some MacBook Pro models.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">At the same time that Apple revamped the MacBook Pro line-up, it also<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9134222/Apple_s_laptop_price_cuts_a_concession_to_recession_say_analysts">cut prices</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>of many of the models. Apple, however, has contended that the price cuts have actually helped boost the ASP, as many users have simply "moved up" from the $999 entry-level MacBook to the $1,199 MacBook Pro.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Gottheil seconded that today. "The MacBook Pro is pulling people from the bottom of their line, people are saying 'for $200 more I can have a more substantial computer'," he said.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Overall, Apple's revenues jumped 25% for the quarter compared with the same period in 2008, based not only on better Mac sales, but soaring sales of the iPhone. Sales of the iPhone, for instance, were up 7% year-over-year for the quarter in units, but iPhone revenues leaped 185%.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Apple will finally enter China's potentially-lucrative mobile phone market at the end of next week, said Cook. "We're thrilled to be launching [the iPhone] there on Oct. 30 on China Unicom," said Cook, confirming<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9137218/China_Unicom_to_sell_iPhone_next_quarter">reports in August</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>that the country's second-largest carrier had reached a three-year deal to sell and support the iPhone.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Some analysts have predicted that China will<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9137230/China_will_account_for_15_20_of_all_iPhone_sales_in_2010_says_analyst?">account for between 15% and 20%</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>of Apple's worldwide iPhone sales next year.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">"None of us are competent enough to estimate China's part in iPhone sales," countered Gottheil. "It's clear that there a substantial number of people there who can afford a substantially more expensive phone, but the question is, how many of them already have it?"</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Apple has several times, including today, made that same point, noting that it suspects a significant number of iPhones have made their way into China, even without a sanctioned carrier to support them.</p><h3>'Upcoming new products'</h3><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">The most intriguing points raised during the call with analysts, however, were what Gottheil said were those that "planted hints about new products." When Cook and Oppenheimer answered questions about Apple's estimated gross margins for next quarter, they used the phrase "upcoming new products" as well as existing products to explain why margins would be lower.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Gottheil read between the lines, and said that it was clear Apple would introduce something new between now and the end of the year. "They'll have something new," he said, "because they're planning that gross margins will be down."</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">Although it's impossible to predict exactly<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><em>what</em><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>Apple will roll out this quarter -- perhaps refreshed iMacs, maybe a lower-priced entry-level MacBook -- when Apple talks about margins sliding, it almost always means that new products, which are built in smaller numbers and have major R&amp;D costs attributed to them, are not as profitable as longer-running models or lines.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">"One likely candidate for the lower margins would be lower prices," Gottheil speculated. "But it could also be an $800 tablet that has a lower margin, not because they won't sell many, but because that's what it costs them to build it."</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">This past quarter, however, was simply stunning, Gottheil concluded. "They've clearly gained share across the board," he said, pointing to impressive sales gains in Europe (up 25% in unit sales compared to the same period in 2008) and Asia.</p><p style="margin: 8px 0px; padding: 0px;">"This seemed like kind of a non-recession quarter for them," Gottheil continued. "Not as good as other non-recession quarters, but still very strong. I think it's because people are buying Apple's argument that they're providing ever-increasing value, not just with the hardware, but with the added services like support, and for the iPhone and iPod Touch, the App Store."</p><p>By: <em><a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139574/Apple_sets_sales_records_as_if_recession_never_happened_" target="_blank">Gregg Keizer</a></em> for <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/"><img border="0" alt="Tech Watch" src="http://www.computerworld.com/common/images/masthead/computerworld_page_logo.gif" /></a>.</p> Gregg Keizer http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Apple-sets-sales-records-'as-if-recession-never-happened' http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Apple-sets-sales-records-'as-if-recession-never-happened'/bc69d45b-f346-4772-a4fc-ff033b02b472 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT 10/20/2009 Remember the recent case of how a massive cloud failure reportedly wiped out all customer data on T-Mobile Sidekicks? Detractors of cloud computing are quick to jump at the opportunity to highlight this as a perfect example of how unwise it is to trust someone else to manage your data. <span style="border-collapse: separate; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; font-family: 'times new roman'; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="Apple-style-span"><span style="line-height: 16px; text-align: left; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" class="Apple-style-span"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span><span>Remember the recent case of how a<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(42, 51, 132);" href="http://www.fiercecio.com/techwatch/story/massive-cloud-failure-wipes-out-customer-data-t-mobile-sidekicks/2009-10-13">massive cloud failure reportedly wiped out all customer data</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>on T-Mobile Sidekicks?&nbsp;Detractors of cloud computing are quick to jump at the opportunity to highlight this as a perfect example of how unwise it is to trust someone else to manage your data.</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span><span>Well, fast forward a week, and Microsoft has&nbsp;announced&nbsp;that<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(42, 51, 132);" href="http://www.fiercecio.com/techwatch/story/t-mobile-sidekick-case-reappearing-data/2009-10-16">it has recovered most of the lost data</a>.&nbsp;As can be expected, the official statement is carefully scripted and polished to tell as little as possible while conveying the assurances that most data is in fact, not lost.</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span><span>PR backpedaling aside, a closer examination of how Microsoft phrased its statement yields more clues as to what happened.&nbsp;According to Microsoft, it re-built the thrashed system "component by component" in order to preserve and extricate the data. My guess is that the massive PR backlash prompted Microsoft to practically reconstruct the entire infrastructure, which says a lot by itself.</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span><span>You see, what strikes me here is the extraordinary cost such a move must entail.&nbsp;Remember, we are talking about a Telco-grade infrastructure serving all Sidekick users at T-Mobile here, and not just a dinky server room.&nbsp;Clearly, the infrastructure could range well into the hundreds or even thousands of servers--consider the associated cost in terms of engineering and IT expertise to put it together.</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span><span>What I felt is even more interesting though, is the fact that data is recoverable at all.&nbsp;Some sites suggested that the entire debacle could just be one huge misunderstanding; that those at T-Mobile might simply not be aware that there is a way to recover the lost data.&nbsp;However, if you are an administrator, you will know that data from practically any hard disk drive can be recovered--as long as you are willing to pay the exorbitant cost of data recovery, and can wait for it.</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span><span>Microsoft obviously has a vested interest to maintain its reputation, what with the imminent launch of its Windows Azure Cloud operating system, among other cloud-hosted applications.&nbsp;My take is that it decided to plunge in with the restoration work which T-Mobile might have balked at.</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span><span>Of course, all the above is merely hypothetical; the true sequence of events might never be known to the rest of us.&nbsp;Even after this incident, I don't think cloud computing is inherently faulty. There is a takeaway lesson here though, and perhaps we might want to more closely examine our contracts with cloud providers on just how hard they will try to recover our data in the event of a catastrophic failure.</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"></p><span><span><span><a style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(42, 51, 132);" href="http://www.fiercecio.com/techwatch/story/cloud-reliability-revisited/2009-10-16#ixzz0URlEn1So"></a></span></span></span></span></span><p>By: <em><a href="http://www.fiercecio.com/techwatch/story/cloud-reliability-revisited/2009-10-16" target="_blank">Paul Mah</a></em> for <a href="http://www.fiercecio.com/techwatch"><img border="0" alt="Tech Watch" src="http://www.crosstechmedia.com/CTGImage/Library/Images/CrossTech%20Media/email%20images/techwatch.jpg" /></a>.</p> Paul Mah http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Cloud-reliability,-revisited http://goitec.com/article.html?a=Cloud-reliability,-revisited/ece0274a-2679-4cb7-b072-718ea64d7674 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT 10/20/2009