Rob Enderle

Microsoft Fleshes out Windows on ARM: The iPad Is Obsolete?

webadmin@itbusinessedge.com — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:12:04 GMT

Windows 8 Features Businesses Will Love

Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky announced Windows on ARM (WOA) in a blog today and the word “disruptive” is hardly adequate. Other than the fact that Microsoft needs some serious work on naming, isn’t "WOA" what you say when you want to stop a horse? Of course, in a commercial this could be “Windows on ARM, WOA, this could be really cool!” I guess it is a matter of perception, but actually this is kind of cool because it looks to me like it is actually doing what few vendors in Microsoft’s position do. It is bringing its “A” game to this market and bundling key Office components with this platform in order to make it compelling.

I’ve been using Android products for sometime now and while the OS has gotten increasingly better, the issue is that while they are fine for entertainment, their productivity options suck. My common complaint is they truly need something like Office and Google’s alternative, in comparison, sucks. Given that the Metro interface, which first came out on the Windows Phone, hasn’t been that popular, leading with productivity, which remains a Microsoft strength, should provide a far more compelling solution.

Let’s explore Microsoft’s ARM play today.

Tablets Today

There are three tablets that have actually done well in the market so far. They are the market-leading iPad, the Kindle Fire (basically a more focused entertainment device) and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which is basically a better-looking iPad knock-off. The Kindle really has no productivity capability yet (other than as a reader). The iPad is being used in both business and government but it is light on productivity capability; you can pick and choose apps like Pages, a nice $10 word processor for the iPad, but if you are a heavy Office user you’d likely be better off with Quickoffice Pro HD for $20, which has better office compatibility, but is neither as elegant as Pages nor is it really a replacement for Microsoft Office.

Quickoffice Pro also has an Android version, but general reviews haven’t been that glowing and finding a productivity package for this platform has proven far more difficult. In short, while both the Apple and Google offerings do an increasingly better job with entertainment and are getting powerful custom apps, for general productivity they kind of suck.

Security is another area where these platforms have lagged. Apple’s primary security methods are a well-curated app store and security by obscurity — it really doesn’t talk about its security issues. This seems to work OK for consumers, but could be problematic in the face of a successful breach that grows more likely the bigger target Apple’s platforms become. Google seems to be where Microsoft was in the 1990s with security and it appears to think it is someone else’s problem. Its approach to Android has been more of a cost center, which it is given Google’s advertising-based funding model; this has a rather impressive number of companies blocking Android at the moment as a security risk even though these same firms are accepting iPads and iPhones.

Microsoft’s WOA Strategy

The strategy that has emerged today appears to be to hit the existing tablet market where it is weakest on productivity and security. Windows has already made the adjustment to a more secure platform and currently enjoys security features from free antivirus, to file encryption (bit locker) and better password protection than the other platforms. In its professional form it also supports TPMs (Trusted Platform Modules) and often ships with fingerprint readers (thought to be far more secure than passwords). In short, the ARM version has a better security foundation, thanks to decades of being at a higher risk than competitors.

But Microsoft has led by a significant margin in productivity since the early 90s and apparently it will be bundling in key Office applications modified for Metro with the product. So, and this historically has been an Apple advantage, the Microsoft ARM tablets will be more useful out of the box (potentially) than either Android or Apple.

x86 Risks

This will also arguably make the ARM products a better value than their x86 counterparts where Office will not be bundled and will come with a high premium. To prevent this, I expect Microsoft will specify ARM hardware can’t approach x86 specifications in size or configuration. However, the other vendors won’t be under these restrictions and the counterpunch from Apple or Google could be to move their platforms up market. Apple has been hinting that it plans to move iOS into the Mac space with its own ARM architecture and Google has been cutting deals with Intel, which could be used to move its platforms up as well on either ARM or x86.

As Microsoft moves down market, its competitors could move up market to counter with more cost-effective alternatives. While that will put pressure on Microsoft’s margins and likely keep Intel up at night due to the ARM-competitive threats on its home turf, it should also result in lower prices, which are certainly a benefit to buyers.

Wrapping Up

WOA is slated to release at the same time that Windows 8 for x86 releases and it will provide some interesting choices. I still think the most interesting configuration for this product will be the hybrid configuration where a tablet and a keyboard are wedded as components that can be separated effectively, giving you touch and the ability to use a single product as both laptop and tablet. I’ve been using the NVIDIA Tegra 3-based Asus Transformer Prime for a few weeks now and, with the right productivity suite, this could become my perfect mobile product.

With WOA, Microsoft promises to give me that productivity suite, built in, and that could make me a believer. A lot can happen between now and the 4th quarter when WOA will ship, but as a start, this will force the other players to rethink their plays.

EMC's Thunder and Lightning Obsolesces Oracle

webadmin@itbusinessedge.com — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:02:46 GMT

The interesting thing about EMC's new flash storage technologies named "Lightning" and "Thunder" is that they likely make all large-scale databases obsolete from a performance perspective. That was the big thought I walked away with this week when I got the briefing on these advanced PCIe-based flash technologies.

Let’s talk about the end of an era where large databases, and undoubtedly a lot of storage-intensive applications, will be made obsolete largely because magnetic media is being moved increasingly to more of a long-term storage role and, due to its historic performance limitations, away from real-time access.

Databases and Data-Intensive Applications

At one time magnetic media was thought to be incredibly fast, particularly when compared to magnetic tape, which replaced paper tape and punch cards. However, like all-things magnetic, media is being first enhanced and then replaced by flash for improved real-time performance and it will have a non-trivial impact on existing data-intensive applications, particularly databases.

You see, and I hadn’t thought about this myself, but data-intensive applications have been optimized against the limitations of magnetic storage with advancements in indexing, caching and predictive fetching that are designed to get around the physical limitations of a magnetic arm that has to physically sweep a storage media to find a bit of data. Databases in particular compete against each other for speed of access and they largely get that speed by finding creative ways to overcome the limitations of magnetic media.

What if you remove those limitations? This would be like a race that focused much of its efforts on building cars that handled high-speed corners as being changes to a track that had none. Every car would need to be redesigned against a new performance template and conditions. The cars that won in corners would likely be non-competitive on the new track (compare to a dragster to an F1 car, for instance). The elimination of magnetic media as a problem in much the same way should eventually make virtually all data-intensive applications obsolete, particularly databases.

However, initially, once again using that F1 car example, it will make them all faster, but as the vendors learn the new performance limitations, competition will force them to rebuild and this should provide a huge opportunity for smaller firms, which don’t have to rewrite legacy code, to advance on the bigger entrenched players.

Thunder and Lightning

These are EMC project names and Project Lightning is now known as VFCache, which is a card-based solution that goes into servers to increase I/O performance massively. Project Thunder is a high-speed flash appliance that goes into server farms as a massive high-speed cache. Both use SLC NAND flash, which has lower capacity than the more popular MLC flash, but it is far faster and has better endurance. The flash comes from Micron, a well-regarded supplier of flash technology.

Like all technologies in the enterprise class, expect testing to take much of this year and the first large-scale deployments, if the technology passes testing (which appears likely), to occur in 2013.

Impact

Impact on the market will depend on how aggressive the software suppliers are, but it seems unlikely that major providers will move to the potential of these offerings for several years. However, a challenging vendor or new entrant could be more aggressive and target early adopters, likely in partnership with EMC (because it would enhance the value of its new flash offerings), earlier. This could provide a unique opportunity for a company that wants to move against a major vendor like Oracle to create a competitive migration opportunity that might have not existed otherwise.

In addition, it is likely that EMC’s competitors will see these products as a threat and move against them with their own similar or alternative offerings. This could further validate and accelerate this move to provide technology like this for the market and likely will accelerate the rate of change making 2015’s storage environment vastly different than it otherwise would have been.

Wrapping Up: Storage Change Is in the Wind

Storage is an area that doesn’t change often, but when it does it has a broad impact on the entire technology ecosystem. Aggressively applying an accelerating technology to this ecosystem will likely be seen, in hindsight, as one of the bigger changes this industry has had to adapt to because there was so much optimization around magnetic media, which now may be obsolete.

This will provide opportunities for new entries and risks for existing companies that can’t or won’t move quickly enough. In the end, and likely over the next five years, Project Lightning and Thunder will likely become one of the most disruptive catalysts of this decade.

Oracle vs. HP: Oracle’s Fraud Gambit Implodes

webadmin@itbusinessedge.com — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:49:55 GMT

Customers Weigh In on Oracle Itanium Controversy

It's pretty clear that many IT organizations are dubious of Oracle's motives.

The litigation between HP and Oracle took another turn this week when the Superior Court ruled against Oracle on its claim that the contract between it and HP was void due to alleged fraud by HP. This fraud was the alleged cover up of the killing of Itanium. This position was a surprise to both Intel and HP, which had been presenting an extended Itanium roadmap to analysts at the time the fraud was allegedly taking place.

It is interesting to note that Oracle’s attack likely put pressure on both Intel and HP to do exactly what they were alleged to have already done due to the loss of Itanium sales and revenue generated by Oracle’s claim. In short, both firms were likely damaged significantly, which should make future judgments related to these findings particularly expensive.

Let’s revisit the drama surrounding this HP/Oracle battle and revisit Oracle/SAP and Oracle/Google for a moment.

Court Drama = Oracle Distraction

First, the activities between Oracle and HP and Oracle and SAP showcase the huge expense and distraction that can result when the court is used to settle differences. You can have a situation where neither side believe they were adequately served and hearings go on well beyond the lives of those who brought or initially defended against an action. Even in winning, the cost in time and effort can defocus a company and make it less successful in its chosen market. Recall that Netscape went after Microsoft hard eventually using the DOJ, but when Microsoft finally settled, Netscape was long gone.

With the SAP trial, the litigation resulted from an attempt by SAP to capture disgruntled PeopleSoft customers when Oracle did a hostile takeover of that company and effectively shut it down. It pointed to the extreme cost of a hostile takeover in a software unit, but it also pointed out that there are rules and SAP broke them. Oracle initially won a judgment of a whopping $1.3 billion, but that was quickly overturned by the court and replaced by a far more reasonable $272 million figure. Oracle rejected that and the two parties are expected to roll the dice again for another amount with no certainty that Oracle will even get the $272 million figure. Currently, both firms appear off their game. And now SAP is apparently taking aim at Oracle.

Of course, Oracle is also suing Google for patent infringement with Java. Oracle thinks it has been damaged to the tune of $2.6 billion and Google has offered up $100 million, which seems like a lot given Java is basically free. On the other hand, Oracle does clearly have a case and you could also argue that Google’s lack of belief in software patents is making them pigheaded in what could be a very expensive wake-up call if this goes against them. It is certainly now possible that in both of these cases, once the dust settles, Oracle’s judgments may not even cover its massive legal fees. It does look like Oracle may be trying to get Google to pay for its acquisition of Sun, which Google should have likely contested. In effect, had Google bought Sun, it would be in far better shape with its patent portfolio overall and not be facing Oracle in this action. Hopefully, it won’t miss the next opportunity.

HP vs. Oracle: Like an Ugly Divorce

This brings us to HP vs. Oracle and the allegation of fraud. Oracle maintained that it was tricked into settling with HP on the Mark Hurd hiring because HP didn’t disclose it was hiring long-time Oracle hater Leo Apotheker. Though, for the life of me, I never really understood Oracle’s argument because there was no contract or deal on record requiring HP to disclose who they chose to run the company anymore than there is a requirement that Oracle either notify or ask HP permission with regard to its own staffing changes. Anyone coming in, whether they liked Oracle or not, would have had to adhere to the agreement and it was Oracle that created the initial tension by buying Sun and then escalated it by hiring HP’s fired CEO Mark Hurd. You could argue at the very least that Apotheker, who didn’t work out, was a defensive move against Oracle and if there were a breach, it was Oracle that initially breached by moving against HP’s interests first.

Apparently, the court agreed and Oracle’s fraud charge was tossed. Oracle could appeal this ruling, but a successful appeal is unlikely. So, over the three high-profile lawsuits, Oracle’s mammoth award was tossed on the SAP one. It isn't even close to a settlement on the Google action, and it is losing the HP suite and likely will eventually owe damages to HP for the breach. I expect SAP will eventually have to pay around $300 million, Google around $200 million, and it will owe HP damages in excess of both settlements due to the damage to one of HP’s most profitable lines. In fact, were I arguing for HP, I’d argue its actions made Itanium non-viable and I would go after the company for the lost development cost and lost sales pushing the damages into the $20 billion range, but HP likely won’t be that aggressive for one reason: Apparently Itanium products are kicking SPARC butt.

Wrapping Up: Litigation Is a Bitch

Every time I see this level of litigation by a company with an aging CEO, I wonder if the cause isn’t age-related. As we age, we fight to hold on to our lost youth and this is showcased, particularly in men, by fast cars, young women and an increased need to showcase aggressive behavior. It rarely ends well and Oracle would likely be better off if it pushed much of this into arbitration now and just moved to the end game.

So my advice to Ellison is this: SAP is already weakened and the unsubstantiated multi-billion-dollar judgment is still born, so close this out and move on. Steve Jobs has passed, so the need to kill Google likely passed with him (it is believed that Ellison began this action as a favor to his friend Steve Jobs), and it isn’t going that well anyway, so move to the end game or double down as this is just becoming a distraction. HP has moved from partner to competitor, so rather than spend anymore time trying to kill Itanium, put your effort into either saving or killing SPARC, which is even more outdated, in my opinion.

In the end, all this litigation, and it is a bit unprecedented, puts a cloud over Oracle’s leadership and makes you wonder how long before it’ll return to a focus on customers and closing business. The world is changing and given the rate of change, a timely distraction like this litigation, could force the firm to miss a step — just look at Sun to see how that is likely to turn out. It would be an embarrassing state of affairs if Google eventually bought Oracle for its intellectual property, but that is the path Oracle may be on.

Security Report: Cyber Arms Race Real, Governments Unable to Respond Adequately

webadmin@itbusinessedge.com — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:34:52 GMT

Five Security Predictions for 2012

McAfee just released its global cybersecurity report, which was done by SDA (Security and Defense Agenda), an independent security think tank and the results are chilling. The majority of experts believe we are in a cyber arms race, over a third believe (given the threat) that cybersecurity is more important than missile defense, nearly half think cyber attacks will have wide economic impact (up 8 percent from last year), and nearly half also believe that cybersecurity is as important as border security.

While it points to a global need to address this growing global problem and consensus to that need, the underlying politics of blame and control all but assure a global solution is beyond anyone’s grasp. At the core of the problem is the typical bureaucratic issue that no one wants to accept the blame or the responsibilities necessary to mitigate the problem. This typically changes after there is a major breach that compromises high-placed politicians and with the increasing attacks both by governments against other governments and by Anonymous, who has been doing a nice job of showcasing just how unsecure everyone is.

This creates an untenable situation where the only time there will be an adequate response to a major cyber threat globally is after a global event and likely after many of the folks currently in office are removed or motivated to change their positions.

Let’s highlight the problems, summarize McAfee’s recommendations and suggest some others.

The Problem

Cyber threats have become global with attackers operating across borders but where enforcement can’t cross those borders to address the threat quickly enough to eliminate it. Typically, treaties exist between states that border each other to prevent the escape of criminals into those countries, but extradition can prove difficult even then, which focuses enforcement on catching them before they could leave. In a cyber landscape, the criminal never needs to enter the country where the crime is committed.

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Android vs. Windows: The Race for the Desktop

webadmin@itbusinessedge.com — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:52:42 GMT

Top 20 Android Apps in the U.S.

The top Android apps ranked by usage.

While Google’s Chrome OS effort is all but stillborn and gaining little traction, Android is powerful where Microsoft is not and it is even giving Apple a run for the money (though clearly not doing much damage to them) with Android. This product may represent a bigger threat to Microsoft’s desktop dominance than anything that company has ever faced and this is largely because it is cycling nearly three times the speed that Windows is. This means that while it starts far behind, it is advancing at three times the rate and at the current closing rate it will likely catch up and pass Windows in the second half of the decade.

There are several things standing in the way of this success, from Microsoft Office 2012 and Windows Metro, and from Google, its poor security, poor (though strengthening) intellectual property litigation defense and inability to focus. In short, while I think it could actually beat Microsoft, my expectation is the company will become its own biggest impediment.

Let’s explore that this week.

Windows vs. Android

Android is moving up from cell phones and into tablets. With the release of products like the Lenovo IdeaTab S2 and Asus Transformer Prime, it is moving into the notebook space. Windows 8 comes down the other way, starting from its PC base and drifting into products like the Samsung Tablet, which was showcased at MIX (Microsoft’s developer conference), and the Lenovo Yoga, which flips the keyboard under the ultra-thin display. What is interesting is that of these products, it is the Lenovo Yoga that appeared to sweep the CES awards and it is a Windows 8 showcase.

The one crippling disadvantage that Windows has always enjoyed is the pain involved in moving to new hardware with a new operating system and the next migration — with many people coming from a product, Windows XP, which is now three generations back — is going to be particularly painful. If a buyer is going to experience a painful migration anyway they are more likely to make a switch and try something new, a behavior that has been helping Apple a great deal of late.

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Why RIM's New CEO Is Unlikely to Succeed

webadmin@itbusinessedge.com — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:14:22 GMT

Seven Major CEO Concerns CIOs Should Address

Understand the concerns of CEOs and the implications they may have on IT.

RIM just made an executive change at the top and the market doesn’t appear to be very happy with the decision. Given how upset the market was with the existing leadership, this points the way toward the core of the company's problem.

What is fascinating about engineering companies is that they almost always apply the same solution to a variety of problems. That same solution goes back to the core skill set of engineering. Whether it is Google figuring the reason so many things are failing is it doesn't have enough engineers, or RIM putting an engineer in charge, there is a certain flawed consistency to their approach.

But at the core of RIM’s problem is that it lost the ability to build good products. The BlackBerry remains one of the most reliable and solidly built products in the market, but the market that created it is a fraction of the size it once was and RIM hasn’t been able to evolve out of it successfully yet. This is actually more of a marketing than an engineering problem, suggesting RIM needs someone a bit closer to Louis Gerstner who understood this kind of a problem.

This doesn’t mean RIM will fail, but this latest executive change won't help matters. Let me explain.

The Problem with RIM

RIM was created to go after a very specific opportunity, which was the need for professionals to stay connected and it created the first truly popular two-way pager. This device was incredibly useful and I was an early fan. Over time it gained PDA-like features and then recognizing potential early on — as Apple did with the iPod’s evolution into the iPhone — RIM successfully evolved with the BlackBerry phone.

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EBay vs. Amazon: An Interesting Lesson in Customer Care

webadmin@itbusinessedge.com — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:10:05 GMT

Getting Your Customer Service Agents Through High-Volume Times

These last several weeks I’ve been shopping for parts for my XK8 project car on both Amazon and eBay. Since I write on customer care and Internet best practices, I wanted to do a comparison between my eBay and Amazon customer experiences because I thought the differences between the two services, both very successful, to also be very interesting.

What initially prompted this idea was a meeting I’d had with eBay’s CEO a few weeks ago and a question I’d raised on whether eBay would consider a dedicated buying device, which is what Amazon has in the Kindle Fire. His response got me wondering if eBay even thinks of Amazon as a tier-one competitor and this seemed to be something that might be interesting to explore.

Well, interest went out the window Sunday night when I got banned from eBay. Had someone told me this would happen, I would have assumed they were joking — banning a power buyer just doesn't make sense. I’ve since been restored thanks to a lot of hard work by some great folks, but I doubt this outcome would have been the same for anyone else. I’ll cover what makes the two services different first and then cover the lesson learned.

EBay vs. Amazon

What is interesting about the two services is that, at the core, Amazon is a store while eBay is still Internet classified ads. This means that Amazon curates most of its content, which is new, and eBay manages mostly third-party buyers selling used products. However, both increasingly have third-party retailers selling new products in their services and Amazon increasingly has used options, suggesting that they are both increasingly competing for the same buy.

Amazon has recently moved to put apps on phones, PCs and iPads to buy books and manage music and I can imagine them eventually moving to some kind of more comprehensive purchasing app. The Kindle Fire is basically a packaged Amazon store, focused on media consumption, but containing a store front. It is on an Apple-like path of controlling the user experience to a high degree and, if it is successful, it will effectively be putting a super mall in every pocket that is tied only to Amazon and its affiliates.

EBay isn’t controlling the user experience as closely and its interface appears older and far more painful as a result. For instance, with Amazon, you have “one click” buying where, with one click, you can buy most anything. EBay requires you first pick a PayPal payment method, then either re-enter your credit card information or log into PayPal. If you take the PayPal login route, it will default to taking money out of your bank account. If you want to use a credit card, you have to change it, and on the way to changing the buying method it will toss up an offer to get a PayPal credit card, which you have to accept or decline before moving on. It does this every time. If you are buying a lot of things at once, this gets pretty annoying pretty fast. In the end, you feel what appears to be a conflict between PayPal’s goals of maximizing revenue and eBay’s goals of providing a good experience and PayPal unfortunately wins.

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CES Technology That Could Bleed into Business

webadmin@itbusinessedge.com — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:38:51 GMT

Five Innovations That Will Change Our Lives Within Five Years

I’m looking back at the week at CES and there are a number of technologies that could bleed over into business. This shouldn’t be a surprise because we are in the midst of something called the "consumerization of IT" after all. Let’s go over some of the more interesting technologies.

HzO WaterBlock and Liquipel

Both of these products could make electronic equipment survive in the field better. Basically, they are water repellents for hardware. HzO WaterBlock is applied during manufacturing to waterproof a device at the component level and Liquipel is a coating that can be applied to the exterior of the device to both protect it from scratches and make it water-resistant. Particularly useful in areas where there is high humidity or where an employee might get caught out in the rain, these two technologies could prevent thousands of dollars of equipment damage that occurs today in the field.

spnKiX — Motorized Shoes

You may think this is a stretch but at $650, spnKiX are a fraction of the cost of a Segway, which is a common fixture for security on many plant sites. While they would need to be hardened for business use much like the Segway was for those who have to hike all over the campus, these would be far cheaper than the $10,000+ Segway and they pretty much leave your hands free. I could see them used by runners in warehouses on top of the obvious security patrol as a faster and less tiring way to get around large sites.

Ultrabooks

The Dell XPS 13, which was launched at the show, has a TPM, imaging services and asset tagging options on top of signature features like a lighted keyboard, high-nit screen and graphite base that should make it popular with users. This showcases that vendors are increasingly targeting business with this new class of notebook and given how employees have been demanding Apple products of late, these may become a better (in terms of IT support) alternative.

Larger In-Vehicle Displays

NVIDIA was showcasing the 17-inch in-vehicle display from the Tesla S, but now think of a display like this in a delivery or service truck that could run apps, some of them business apps. Rather than having to take the now-common path of attaching a laptop or tablet inside the vehicle, it may, eventually, be possible to just install the relevant business applications in the vehicle to provide the technology that way. Think of route maps and scheduling, police information or simply better traffic routing coupled with Google Street view to more quickly find locations. This stuff could prove rather handy cutting down time now lost on the road.

Virtualized Windows

OnLive showcased that its cloud-based gaming technology could be used to provide a full cloud-based high-performance Windows experience on anything that can run an OnLive client. That includes iOS and Android devices as well as potentially some of these new large vehicle displays. Think of the benefits of full Windows on an iPad or providing the corporate Windows load from the cloud on an employee’s BYOB hardware. Granted this will likely eventually require that OnLive partner with someone like an IBM or Dell to roll the service out, but it provides a faster path to the cloud future that many of us think we are focused on and it is far cheaper, in theory, than Citrix.

Windows 8: Kinect, Gaze

CES was kind of a premature coming-out party for Windows 8, but it pointed the way to a future where tablets and notebooks would not only run the same OS and apps, but they might be able to morph between forms much like the Asus Transformer Prime does today. But the interesting thing about the Windows 8 announcement was Kinect for Windows, which will be shipping next month. This could be very interesting as it might make a fascinating tool for presentations and retrofit touch onto an existing piece of hardware. One other interesting Windows 8 technology was Gaze or the ability to use your eyes as pointing devices.

I think we are just scratching the surface of exploring new ways of interacting with technology with Siri from Apple showcasing one change, and Kinect and Gaze another.

Wrapping Up: IBM Automation

Originally, it was business technology like PCs making it into consumer markets and now we are clearly on the reverse path. I’m likely just touching the surface of the things that could make our business lives far different.

One of the areas where the technology is going both ways is smarter buildings. IBM was showcasing its smarter home initiative, which dovetails with its smarter city work and suggests a future where everything talks to everything else in order to minimize energy waste and maximize utility. This was probably the showcase that was closest to a future balance between home and business technology where you’ll be unable to tell where one leaves off and the other begins. It's all part of a brave new world I guess. It looks like tech will increasingly be a good career choice.

Did Nokia and Microsoft Build a Better iPhone for Business?

webadmin@itbusinessedge.com — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:20:44 GMT

Top Five Smartphone Security Tips

Five smartphone security tips that most people routinely overlook.

A few months ago, I was at an EMC Customer Council and I attended the mobile panel. What was interesting was that all of those in the panel had approved Apple phones, but a large number were blocking Android devices because they weren’t secure enough. What they had also approved was the new Windows Phone platform, and they clearly wanted to give employees a choice, but the employees didn’t want the product. This seemed kind of sad given it is my view that Microsoft has focused excessively on the enterprise over the last decade. I doubt there is anything more ironic than focusing on a segment so hard that you effectively lose it.

Well, this may have just changed because the hottest phone at CES may be the Nokia Lumia 900, which my old friend Dan Lyons thinks “leapfrogs” past the Apple design. This is good because Microsoft’s market share has dropped from 13 percent to 2 percent since 2007 and it is just short of dropping into the “other” category for the numbers houses.

Beating Apple

The traditional problem with Microsoft competing with Apple was that the package wasn’t competitive and it tends to massively underfund marketing. In fact, if it wasn’t for the carrier’s heavy promotion of Android, I doubt that platform would be doing as well given that Google doesn't like to spend ad dollars, either.

A good example of the package problem for Google is the Motorola Droid RAZR. It is by any measure a better piece of hardware than the iPhone — sleeker, faster and sexier, but the user experience isn’t in the same ballpark — but massive marketing by Verizon helped make it a hit.

Microsoft’s phones actually used to have good hardware, but the user experience sucked. Then, it fixed the user experience and the hardware just wasn’t competitive and throughout Microsoft underfunded demand generation.

It remains interesting that neither Google (some irony here given that Google makes its money from ad dollars) nor Microsoft comes close to marketing at Apple’s level and what marketing money there is becomes so diluted that no one gets excited about any one device.

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Windows 8 and Laptop Choices You Never Knew You Wanted

webadmin@itbusinessedge.com — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:38:51 GMT

Windows 8 Features Businesses Will Love

This week is the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and products started launching last week to get ahead of the rush. Both Lenovo and Dell are positioning some of the products at business buyers and they are attractive. This was also the coming-out party for Windows 8, which will showcase even more changes later in the year.

Let’s take a little look at what is coming out of CES this week so far.

Lenovo X1 Hybrid

Lenovo actually launched two hybrids at the show and both are interesting. The ThinkPad X1 Hybrid (the notebook with two brains) is the more traditional product in terms of form factor, but it sports both an ARM and an Intel processor. The X1 laptop is the product I carried for much of last year and it was state of the art in terms of matching business features with one of the thinnest and lightest products in the market. Even so, it lacked battery life — coming in at 4 hours with a standard battery and 6 with the extended battery.

To extend the battery life for simple functions like browsing the Web and enjoying media, it updated the product with an ARM processor and loaded a custom version of Linux for ARM operation. The end result is a laptop that basically has an embedded tablet-like capability and while in tablet mode, it doubles the battery life to 8 to 12 hours. As you would expect in a ThinkPad, the product is fully business-compliant and runs Windows 7.

The Ideatab S2 hybrid is a cross between a netbook and a tablet. It is initially Android-based and not suitable for the business market. This second form factor will eventually be the form that will showcase Windows 8 and will be far more interesting running Windows 8. While this product isn’t yet ready for business, the concept promises to truly blur the lines between a tablet and notebook.

Currently, there are two kinds of hybrids in the market and it is kind of amazing that Lenovo announced both types. However, I’m expecting a convergence and that, eventually, one type with both concepts will emerge. Basically, I’m talking about a tablet/notebook with both ARM and x86 processors.

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The Cisco Security Report Mistake: You Can’t Trust Your Employees

webadmin@itbusinessedge.com — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:03:58 GMT

Five Warning Signs Your Security Policy Is Lacking

Warning signs of a weak security policy from SunGuard Availability Services.

At least that appears to be the major focus of a recent security report from Cisco. I think it makes a mistake, however, by focusing on technology to address what is largely identified as a behavioral problem. I was a security auditor for a number of years and head of a security research division, and have owned security several times during my career. I learned that a vastly more successful, and much more cost-effective approach, is to address the behavior directly. However, that choice is not one a CIO can make and it, like other decisions that affect the entire enterprise, must come from the top.

In the end, I agree with Cisco that the problem exists. Where I disagree is both in who should address it and how it should be addressed.

Defining the Problem

The report starts out by accurately describing the status quo, which is a general business world where initially employee security training consists of being told not to lose laptops or share passwords. It doesn’t point out that this has been degraded a great deal from earlier times and from more secure companies like Apple where employees are a much more critical part of the security solution.

It then looks ahead at the trend to bring consumer products into businesses, which don’t even have basic security, and an increased tendency, particularly by younger employees, to want to share what they are doing and seeing on social media. Added to this is the trend of increasingly allowing employees to work on anything, anyplace and you have a recipe for disaster.

The report does point out that part of this disaster recipe is the tendency for new employees to think security is someone else’s problem. And there, I think, lies the mistake.

Apple Example

When Steve Jobs took over Apple, it actually had an ongoing and uncontrolled practice of leaking confidential information. The company was heavily targeted by news organizations wanting the latest scoop and, as a result, when new products where launched, they had already been widely discussed and often dismissed as inadequate. That was a big part of why the company was failing; it had lost control of the images that surrounded its products and while competitors rarely took advantage of this information, they easily could have. A company that has since been defined by its ability to control its image and that of its products was, back then, unable to keep the necessary secrets.

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Lessons from the Mark Hurd 'Burning Eyeballs' Letter

webadmin@itbusinessedge.com — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:25:32 GMT

The letter from Gloria Allred on Mark Hurd’s alleged inappropriate relationship and firing of Jodie Fisher has now become public. At reading, the interpretations of the letter written by Gloria Allred and the responses from Oracle's and Hurd’s attorneys provide insight into how cases are presented, but really little insight into the core problem. Was Fisher hired to be Hurd’s lover or was Fisher using sexual harassment laws to blackmail Hurd? Hurd lost his job and Fisher did receive a settlement, but then Hurd got about $40M in severance and a high-paying job at Oracle, suggesting that only the HP stockholders were really hurt by all of this. Though, I expect Hurd’s relationship with his wife is more interesting now.

In the end, there were four key mistakes made: in Fisher’s hiring, in Hurd’s dealings with Fisher, in the handling of the event by Hurd and his attorneys, and by the HP board.

Since some of these apply broadly, let’s take each in turn.

Separation of Duties

Separation of duties is one of the fundamental rules that must be enforced to protect a company’s assets. It basically states that the person creating an expense isn’t the same person who authorizes it. That makes it far more difficult for an individual to use company funds for personal expenses. Part of this rule, if properly implemented, also suggests that the person authorizing the expense be a peer or a superior to the person incurring it. This is to prevent a boss from ordering a subordinate to approve an illicit expense.

With CEOs, this rule is very difficult to enforce and typically the CFO approves the CEO’s expenses as agent for the board, but given the CFO also reports to the CEO, this can result in problems. Oracle, for instance, has had trouble retaining CFOs and the level of executive perks could suggest problems, particularly if Oracle’s revenue is improperly reported or falls dramatically, resulting in stockholder actions. Given Oracle is where Hurd ended up, the combination could eventually prove toxic.

In the case of Fisher, it appears that Hurd handpicked her and that she wasn’t really qualified for the job. This looks like self-dealing and a violation of separation of duties. And Fisher could have as easily been Hurd’s wife, child or sibling — all of which would have likely been just as problematic from a governance and appropriate expense standpoint. What should have happened is Hurd should have defined the requisition, HR should have reviewed and enhanced this requisition for accuracy, both internal and external candidates should have been reviewed by Hurd, HR, and whoever was in charge of the executive events and the most capable candidate selected.

Regardless of any intent, an approach where Hurd, or any manager, handpicks and approves an external hire does not adequately protect company assets, and it opens the manager to likely successful claims of self-dealing as Allred showcased.

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Windows 8: Advantages over a Windows 7 Deployment

webadmin@itbusinessedge.com — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:12:37 GMT

Windows 8 Features Businesses Will Love

In a few days, Microsoft will be presenting Windows 8 to an eager audience at CES followed by a February beta (suggesting product availability is in the late September to late November timeframe). Most companies, according to Gartner, are currently planning to pass on this OS given they either have just finished, have finished planning, or are in the process of a Windows 7 rollout. However, there are some interesting things about Windows 8 to consider that may make it more sensible to wait and use this OS than move ahead with Windows 7. We’ll explore that and also highlight the problem Microsoft will have positioning this product properly.

Windows 8 over Windows 7

There are a lot of changes in Windows 8. The biggest change in Windows 8 isn’t the user interface, which is a blend of the one used in Windows 7 and Metro, the interface first seen in the Windows Phone 7 offering. It is the fact that it will run on ARM processors. ARM PCs won’t run legacy code and they will only get the Metro interface. From your perspective, this means they won’t run any virus currently in the wild and, given their initial low volume, will likely fall well behind even Apple as likely targets.

Part of the goal of a security plan is to institute a process that makes you the least vulnerable of peer companies in order to push criminals away from you and to those other firms. It sounds a bit Darwinian, but this survival-of-the-fittest strategy often goes to the core of why some firms remain untouched and other firms get hit.

By deploying Windows 8 on ARM, a firm could effectively take its desktops off the target lists for up to several years while the market catches up and the trade-off is the elimination of all legacy desktop code. But given much of that code may be a decade or more older, that it largely lacks even the ability to be updated, it may be about time to force a newer version or for the manager who owns it to finally put this aging code out of its misery and bring the entire desktop into the 21st century.

The end result of this deployment is a desktop environment that is largely immune to viruses, protected by built-in antivirus products (expected to ship with Windows 8) and lacking in all of that old unsupportable code that folks have put off putting a stake in.

Tablets

As we have seen, iPads are swarming all though shops this year but they lack centralized control, they often can’t be remotely wiped when lost and security on them is defined by one word and that is "bad." Largely, this is because this security is password-based and we know that password-based security is inherently flawed. Windows 8 provides an opportunity to not only have a common platform across all products, but also to select products that are designed for the enterprise and have a higher security profile with hardware that supports biometrics as a stronger barrier to access. The combination of a common platform and a more consistent security solution should prove compelling in environments likely to be targeted from disgruntled employees, terrorists and foreign governments — that pretty much includes everyone.

App Store

Finally, a number of IT shops have expressed an interest in living under Apple’s App store and a fear of Android’s largely because of the number of malware apps that have appeared in that ecosystem. Microsoft’s Windows 8 app store is a blend of the best practices of both, providing the willingness of the Android products for application breadth and the curation of the Apple store assuring a malware-free environment. This best-of-both-worlds approach may make it easier for line managers to use this store to QC their code and for IT to get out of the middle of the process much like many do with the Apple App Store. In addition, the process the app goes through during approval is reported back and anomalies can be more quickly addressed as a result, assuring a more timely release of the related code.

In short, this might be a way for IT to pass responsibility over to Microsoft while still maintaining a high quality level on the custom applications. Better and cheaper are seldom seen together and should be well received.

Wrapping Up: Windows 8

The big problem with Windows 8 will be the number of choices. Historically, you got the professional version on one of two configurations: desktop or laptop. Now you’ll get an additional hardware form factor and an additional choice, processor type, and it isn’t trivial. This explodes the number of choices three times to 6 (ARM or x86 on tablets, laptops and desktops). The more choices the longer it takes to make them, but you may find one of these choices comes closer to your needs than the limited set you now have and you may want to consider the advantages of these extra choices before choosing between these OSes.

Remembering Vendors Who Are Naughty or Nice

webadmin@itbusinessedge.com — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:00:18 GMT

This is a slow week for any of us working, and yes I’m right there with you. I use this time to prep for next year. One of the projects you may find useful during this time is to go back over the vendor logs to determine which vendors and vendors’ reps have had your back during the last year. We often lose track of folks who have saved our butts over the past year and during these hard times they are more likely to lose their jobs as a result. What I’m suggesting is to take part of this week and determine the vendor relationships that we want to preserve and the ones that need to be fixed.

Write Commendation Letters

Commendation letters this time of year can cause a company to rethink a post-New Year’s layoff, and many companies hold off on downsizing until the New Year to not spoil the holidays for their folks. A letter right now that speaks to how much the person you depend on is important to you could imply that your account would be at risk should they be replaced and both help assure their job and provide them with the feedback that going that extra mile was worth it. More importantly, doing stuff like this tends to get around and others are likely to take better care of you if they know you’ll take better care of them.

Don’t just think about vendors though. Include the support people in your own company that don’t report to you. And if you are lucky enough to still have an aide or a secretary, it isn’t a bad time to write a nice note to them either. For most of us, that job went away a long time ago.

Plan to Replace the Bad Ones

Come up with an action plan to replace the people or vendors who have been a problem during the last year. Get on their manager’s calendar, put together your documented evidence, and/or prepare a bid for their replacement. Often we get too busy to take care of problem vendors or employees that don’t report to us and while I don’t suggest executing the fix over the holidays, because these folks might take it very personally, now is a good time to put together a well-thought-through plan to take corrective action after the holidays are over.

Wrapping Up: Make Sure You Are on the Right List

Now, just as you are reading this, so is someone that you or your department serves. Think about that relationship and ask yourself which steps they are likely to take with regard to you. If it is the latter, consider being proactive and addressing the problem directly with an action plan to make them satisfied again before they go to your management or put out a bid to replace you. They may not write a commendation letter, but you sure as heck don’t want them doing the other thing.

So, to make sure your New Year isn’t spoiled, take some time to make sure you take care of the folks who took care of you, have a plan to get rid of the problems, and assure you have more people who place you and your group in the former category and fix those that put you in the latter category.

One more thing: Sometimes there are customers who are more trouble than they are worth. You may want to think about firing them as well.

Have a wonderful week and here is hoping you get one of those commendation letters!

Suggestions on What to Do Between Christmas and New Year's

webadmin@itbusinessedge.com — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:20:18 GMT

Gadgets to Make You More Productive

Must-have peripherals that Paul Mah considers to be excellent tools for helping you work more comfortably and efficiently.

Congratulations to those of you who are off, but this is for the poor saps who have to come into a near-empty office and hold down the fort while everyone is out.

I had an uncle who, during this time, would take customer calls and forward the calls to empty desks where he would pick up the phone and pretend, with the same voice, that he was someone else only to apologize, suggest they talk to someone else and do it again until they figured out the joke. Let’s just say this turned out not to be the best career move and Goodyear, the company where he worked, assisted him out of the company.

Of course, I remember one year at IBM when I was working on a report deadline 12 hours a day and 6 days a week during the holidays only to get a note from the CEO accusing us of taking advantage of him by not being on vacation because, since the plant was closed, we were clearly screwing off. I kid you not — someone actually rigged his plane to catch fire and while the person was never caught I often wonder if he, or she, had received that memo. So on the list of things not to do would be both playing jokes on customers and sending nasty memos to employees. Here are some thoughts about what you could do.

Clean House

This seems obvious, but what I like to do is to pretend I’m moving and box everything up. That gives me a chance to see again what I have and get rid of all the junk that has accumulated. I can then clean places that haven’t seen the light of day for months and then put back the stuff I took out with the result being that I can then find much of it more quickly. Part of this process is to catch up on labeling files and recycling or shredding the stuff I no longer have.

Analyze Your Last Review

We often work so hard that we never stop to think about what our boss is telling us in our review, particularly if we didn’t get the score or the raise we had expected. Take this time to sit back and ponder what was said to you. For me, one year I realized that I worked for a complete a-hole and decided to transfer out of the department, but you may find that your boss is trying to get you to grow into responsibilities you haven’t yet accepted. You wouldn’t be alone — look at Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer. He has yet to fully step into the responsibilities of his job and still, for the most part, appears to be doing the job he did while Bill Gates was there.

This is common — we don’t like change, and we’ll likely avoid hearing the need to make it, particularly if we are under a lot of pressure. Take this time to consider what is and what isn’t working and what you need to change to both be happier and more successful. You might want to spend some time just jotting down what you enjoy and what you really hate about your job and what needs to be done to enhance the former and eliminate the latter.

Think About Retirement

So many folks look ahead to retirement but don’t actually plan for it. They are often left retired but wishing they were still back at work. That’s why you see ex-admirals as greeters at Walmart. With planning, you can be financially and mentally set for your retirement and you can better understand if you ever really want to retire.

There are a lot of jobs that pretty much let you work until you are no longer able and, for a lot of us, as strange as that sounds, that is actually the happier path. A week or a month off sounds like a lot of fun, but after a while you may find that time drags on and all you do is find out you never really liked your spouse that much in the first place. You have some quiet time, so spend it thinking about what you would like to do after work and begin the process of planning for it. I think of Steve Jobs, who should have retired for his own good at least 5 years before he died and might have lived had he focused more on getting better. There is a good lesson there, so don’t wait too long to learn it.

Wrapping Up: Share Thanks

I’m reminded of Carly Fiorina at HP who never learned to take care of the folks who took care of her. This is also the time to think about the folks who helped you get where you are, from co-workers to relatives to teachers. It is a great time to remember to thank them, particularly those you still work with, because that reminds you how important they are and how lucky you are to have them.

And with this final thought I’d like to thank the IT Business Edge editing staff. I couldn’t do this without you folks and I hope you are having a wonderful week off!