Category: News

Adobe has given up on software audits

Posted on August 12, 2016 by - News

Adobe Analysts working for Gartner have noticed that Adobe has abandoned its software audits.

Big G research director Stephen White blogged saying that the programmes were closed in the North America, Japan and Latin America markets since November 2015.

“Closure of the EMEA program (sic)  is currently underway; the company states it will maintain audit/compliance programming only in select markets throughout APAC,” he wrote.

Until recently, Adobe was also one of the top five most active auditing software publishers according to Gartner client surveys. However, the elimination of Adobe’s audit and licence compliance programme is not terribly surprising, considering the company’s aggressive conversion to SaaS subscriptions, and implementation of monitoring services including the Adobe Genuine Software Integrity Service.

White thinks this is a good thing, because it shows the company’s move to software-as-a-service has eased its piracy and counterfeiting problems to the extent that it doesn’t need to conduct audits any more.

With SaaS the outfit can see just what its customers are up to and fire off automated reminders of licensing obligations and take them to court if they ignore the request.

 

Ingram Micro launches Surface as a Service product

Posted on August 11, 2016 by - News, Products

surface-pro-2Ingram Micro has signed up for Microsoft’s Surface as a service programme and launching its own version.

Under the deal, the distributor will be able to offer resellers in the UK the chance to provide Surface and the Microsoft suite along with the chance to take advantage of leasing options that should make it an easier decision for users.

Brian Windsor, senior business manager for Microsoft at Ingram Micro, said that it would be able to lean on its knowledge of the vendor’s software and hardware products.

“This offering will permit our resellers to assist their customer’s transformation to digital with ease. What’s more, we have strived to build our leasing options with recurring business in mind in order to maintain longevity of customer investment for our resellers,” he said.

Microsoft launched the programme last month.  The big idea was to expand the number of partners that would be offering the same managed services approach. It is open to Cloud Solution Providers who are authorised Surface distributors and provides a managed service offering that can be taken out through resellers to users.

At the time Vole said that the Surface was having a real impact in the business market and Surface business has grown from generating $1bn in revenue in a year to $1bn in revenue per quarter.

“With our growing portfolio, we are creating not just great devices, but breakthrough categories that open up a world of new opportunities for partners to build capabilities in new areas, and to create solutions and services for customers. This year, we are investing in programs that increase partner revenue and profitability,” he added.

EMC warns that a further channel push could be a bad thing

Posted on August 10, 2016 by - News

emcEMC is warning investors that leaning on the channel once it is acquired by Dell could seriously damage its health or at least wealth.

EMC  does about 60 percent of its business through the channel, and is worried that an increased reliance on channel partners “may negatively impact” gross margins.  It told  the US Securities and Exchange Commission:

“As we focus on new market opportunities and additional customers through our various distribution channels, including small-to-medium sized businesses, we may be required to provide different levels of service and support than we typically have provided in the past. We may have difficulty managing directly or indirectly through our channels these different service and support requirements and may be required to incur substantial costs to provide such services, which may adversely affect our business, results of operations or financial condition.”

EMC has traditionally focused on high-end enterprise customers while Dell, its soon-to-be parent company, used its renowned supply chain to become a leader in the consumer, small business and mid-market arenas.

For EMC’s second quarter ended June 30, perhaps its last as a stand-alone, publicly traded company, EMC’s revenue was essentially flat year-over-year at $6.03 billion while its profit jumped more than 21 percent to $630 million or 29 centers per share.

The Dell-EMC merger, which will result in the creation of Dell Technologies, is expected to close before the end of October.

Oracle hacked by Russian mobsters

Posted on August 9, 2016 by - News

Oracle-Announces-X5Russian organised cybercrime has broken into Oracle’s point-of-sale credit card payment systems.

According to KrebsOnSecurity the attackers have compromised a customer support portal for companies using Oracle’s MICROS point-of-sale credit card payment systems.

Oracle acknowledged that it had “detected and addressed malicious code in certain legacy MICROS systems.” It also said that it is asking all MICROS customers to reset their passwords for the MICROS online support portal.

MICROS is among the top three point-of-sale vendors globally. Oracle’s MICROS division sells point-of-sale systems used at more than 330,000 cash registers worldwide. When Oracle bought MICROS in 2014, the company said MICROS’s systems were deployed at some 200,000+ food and beverage outlets, 100,000+ retail sites, and more than 30,000 hotels.

The size and scope of the break-in is still being investigated, and it remains unclear when the attackers first gained access to Oracle’s systems. Oracle first considered the breach to be limited to a small number of computers and servers at the company’s retail division. However it started to look a lot worse as the investigation developed.

KrebsOnSecurity said an Oracle MICROS customer reported hearing about a potentially large breach at Oracle’s retail division.

Oracle’s MICROS customer support portal apparently had a chat to a server used by the Carbanak Gang. Carbanak is part of a Russian cybercrime syndicate that is suspected of stealing more than $1 billion from banks, retailers and hospitality firms over the past several years.

Rackspace rumoured to be up for grabs

Posted on August 8, 2016 by - News

grandpa_simpson_yelling_at_cloudThe dark satanic rumour mill has manufactured a hell on earth yarn claiming that the cloudy hosting provider Rackspace is going to be acquired.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Thursday that a deal with a private equity firm was imminent. Friday, a Reuters story said Apollo Global Management was working on a deal with the San Antonio-based company that could be worth more than $3.5 billion.  Needless to say it has not happened yet.

The outfit has had a few problems expanding and had been looking to bring in private equity, regroup or restructure.  There have been rumours for ages that they were ripe for the picking with a telecom provider thinking of buying them at one point.

But it seems that the company, despite having good offerings, is having a job saying anything relevant .

In May 2014, Rackspace informed the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had hired Morgan Stanley to formally explore a merger or acquisition. That September, Bloomberg News reported CenturyLink was looking to buy the company.

Speculation about potential suitors fizzled after Rackspace removed itself from the market and was unhappy with the offers it had received.

Amazon and Microsoft are the cloud kings

Posted on August 5, 2016 by - News

PAY-Lion-King-cloud-MAINAmazon Web Services and Microsoft are the rulers of the public cloud, according to beancounters at Gartner.

The research firm’s “Magic Quadrant” annual report surveys the amount and type of cloud computing services offered for rent by big companies. However this year it appears to be a two horse race between Amazon and Vole. Amazon is coming first, probably because it was first out of the gate,  while Microsoft continues a strong push at second.

Google, IBM, VirtuStream (part of EMC), CenturyLink, Rackspace and VMware all have a horse running but are a long way down the field.

Amazon’s poured shedload of cash into its $10 billion a year business. AWS “has the largest share of compute capacity in use by paying customers — many times the aggregate size of all other providers in the market,” according Big G.

Last year, AWS ran more than 10 times the cloud compute capacity as the next 14 cloud players combined. Asked whether that means Amazon’s dominance has held steady, grown, or decreased year over year, Gartner IT managing vice president Rakesh Kumar said that the research firm does not have the exact comparable figure, but that it is “reasonable to assume” that AWS has maintained the same lead this year.

Last week, Gartner released another report showing Amazon dominating the cloud storage market as well.

Google has been trying hard to win market share from the other two powers and to prove that it is serious about the public cloud market. Google remains the third largest player by Gartner’s measures, but it has slipped a bit relative to the top.

Google’s strengths lie in its big data analytics and machine learning technologies that it has used internally and is now offering to the public at large. Even AWS supporters love to use Google BigQuery and Bigtable, to parse and explore big amounts of data, for example.

Google has also made some strides entrenching its view of container management, as embodied in Kubernetes, to outside players. Containers, are a modern way to combine all the services needed for a software application into a portable unit that can, in theory, run on a company’s internal servers, on Google, or some other public cloud.

 

Brexit causes UK services sector to fall

Posted on August 4, 2016 by - News

boris-parachuteThe UK services sector contracted for the first time in three and a half years thanks to Brexit.

The PMI (Purchasing Managers’ Index) survey data from IHS Markit and CIPS shows that the output and new business both declined and at the fastest rates since early 2009, with the Business Activity Index falling from 47.4 in July, compared with 52.3 in June.

It meant employment in the services sector stayed the same, marking the end of a 3.5-year period of uninterrupted job creation.

The volume of incoming new business dropped for the first time since the end of 2012. The report said that this was the fastest decline since early 2009 and again fuelled by uncertainty over the EU vote.

Chris Williams, chief economist at Markit, said: “It is too early to say if the surveys will remain in such weak territory in the coming months, leaving substantial uncertainty over the extent of any potential downturn. However, the unprecedented month-on-month drop in the all-sector index has undoubtedly increased the chances of the UK sliding into at least a mild recession.

“Service providers are certainly bracing themselves for worse to come with a record drop in business confidence about the year ahead, leaving optimism at its lowest ebb since February 2009.”

Still at least Brexit means we will no longer having foreigners telling us how to run things, even if they appear to have been doing it better than us.

Outsourcery was a tale told by an idiot

Posted on August 3, 2016 by - News

SormickA report into the crash of Cloud infrastructure and apps provider Outsourcery shows that the outfit died because it just ran out of cash.

The Statement of Affairs filed at Companies House said that sales were  below expectations, leading to funding shortfalls.  After its IPO it burnt through £17.7m of cash and £4m of secured debt from Vodafone.

In 2013, Outsourcery reported a net loss of £9.12 million. In 2014 its net losses were £7.6 million and in 2015 £6.22 million. So while it seemed to be getting better it was still losing money hand over fist.

Co-CEOs at Outsourcery, Piers Linney and Simon Newton, managed to attract interest from 12 bidders before it was sold to GCI Telecom for £4m.  This included £3.73 million for goodwill and nearly £270,000 for equipment. About 100 staff transferred to the new owners.

Outsourcery Plc, Outsourcery Group Ltd, Outsourcery Holding and Outsourcery Holdings were placed into administration. Outsourcery US and Outsourcery Mobile were not but these were largely dormant and the only assets were intra-company receivables.

Post sale, Vodafone was paid £1.8 million and then another £1.5 million toward its £5 million secured debt and £300,000 in accrued interest; Etive was owed £1 million plus £8,000 in interest.

Creditors’ claims are anticipated to be in the region of £1.9 million including £424,637 owed to Hewlett Packard International Bank, £165,244 to Fasthosts, £134,273 to Telecity and £112,937 to Bytes Software Services.

It was all a complete disaster and a cautionary tale for anyone who thinks that the word “cloud” is a license to print money.

SCS gets into Pyramid

Posted on August 2, 2016 by - News

camelSpecialist Computer Services (SCS) has written a cheque for Pyramid to maintain its iron grip of the HR and payroll market

SCS already provides HR, payroll and data scanning services to public and private sector customers across Europe and it hopes that the Pyramid acquisition will give it some skilled staff.

Until this point SCS had resold the NGA HR Unipay product but will now be providing its own offering to customers.

Sir Peter Rigby, chairman and chief executive of Rigby Group, which owns SCS said:

“We are very conscious of the loyalty and levels of service that SCS has enjoyed over some 40 years, so it is important we continue to invest in SCS to ensure its growth and success,” he added “Pyramid offers SCS an up-to-date, highly functional HR Payroll solution to market, develop & sell.”

Pyramid has been keeping razor blades sharp for 20 years and its system that SCS takes on covers all aspects of personnel management, including HR, payroll, employee self service, e-Recuritment as well as e-Payslips.

Tim Markham, managing director of SCS, said that the acquisition, for an undisclosed amount, had been made to ensure that it had a product that it could develop and take out to its customers for the long-term.

 

Cisco warns ransomware scams are targeting enterprises

Posted on August 1, 2016 by - News

Cisco Kid Cisco’s Midyear Cybersecurity Report (MCR) is warning that ransomware is a specific threat which is is becoming more widespread and potent.

The report said that the ransomware creators are focusing more than ever on generating revenue and are now targeting enterprise users in addition to individuals.

“These direct attacks are becoming increasingly efficient and lucrative, generating huge profits. Our security researchers calculate that ransomware nets our adversaries nearly $34 million annually,” the report said.

The report said that it is time to improve the odds at handling this type of attack.

At the moment asymmetric attacks are outpacing responses. Attackers’ innovative methods of exploit, persistency, shifting tactics, and ability to operate on a global level create an ominously complex and moving target

“Our research shows that adversaries are now exploiting vulnerabilities in encryption, authorization, and server-side systems, using ‘malvertising as a service’ to infect web users, well as tampering with secure connections like HTTPS. This final example alone has users thinking incorrectly that their connections are secure, leading to a false sense of security and making it increasingly difficult to determine if a connection has been compromised,” the report said.

Oracle swallows first cloud company – NetSuite

Posted on July 29, 2016 by - News

violet-beauregarde-willy-wonka-1971Oracle has written a cheque for the world’s first first cloud company – the transaction for NetsSuite is valued at $9.3 billion.

Oracle’s CEO, soft-porn star fan and expenses wizard  Mark Hurd said that Oracle and NetSuite cloud applications were complementary, and will “coexist in the marketplace forever.

“We intend to invest heavily in both products – engineering and distribution. We expect this acquisition to be immediately accretive to Oracle’s earnings on a non-GAAP basis in the first full fiscal year after closing.”

Oracle’s other CEO Safra “Kool4″ Catz said that NetSuite has been working for 18 years to develop a single system for running a business in the cloud.”

Evan Goldberg, Founder, Chief Technology Officer and Chairman, NetSuite, said:  “This combination is a winner for NetSuite’s customers, employees and partners. NetSuite will benefit from Oracle’s global scale and reach to accelerate the availability of our cloud solutions in more industries and more countries.”

The transaction is expected to close in 2016. The closing of the transaction is subject to receiving certain regulatory approvals and satisfying other closing conditions including NetSuite stockholders tendering a majority of NetSuite’s outstanding shares in the tender offer.

 

HPE wins illegal discounts case

Posted on July 28, 2016 by - News

spockICP has been told to pay up £1.95 million to HPE for  fraudulently claiming than £1.5m worth of discounts on its products.

Matthew Archer, ICP’s managing director, and the company itself were sued in a trial which took place in April. HPE claimed Archer and ICP were involved in fraud, conspiracy and inducement of breach of contract.

The case centred on an “abuse” of HPE’s partner programmes and discounts, with the defendants “fraudulently obtaining” over £1.5 million in discounts on HPE products, HPE successfully claimed.

Marc Waters, HPE’s interim managing director, said the firm is “satisfied” with the verdict.

“Grey marketing is a serious problem for the industry in terms of lost sales, margin erosion, poor customer experiences and reputational damage,” he said. “HPE has a well-established grey market avoidance programme and the outcome of this case clearly demonstrates that we will not hesitate to take court action to enforce our rights if required.

“We would also encourage anyone concerned about potential fraudulent activity to contact our brand protection team at and we will investigate as appropriate.”

Grey market activity is a long-standing issue in the channel and in recent months some vendors have stepped up their efforts to protect their brands. Headset vendor Plantronics settled a number of cases on the issue since the end of last year.

ICP said in a statement that it was disappointed and surprised by the outcome.

“We strongly deny any wrongdoing and must now consider all options available to us.”

Watchdog says Openreach must be legally seperate from BT

Posted on July 27, 2016 by - News

dog-on-bed-with-people-no-text-590x388UK telco watchdog Ofcom has growled that Openreach must become a “legally” separate company from BT and have its independent board as seperate drinks cabinet.

In February, Ofcom identified serious failings with BT’s ownership model of Openreach now it has outlined details of how an enhanced structural separation will work.

Ofcom said BT has an incentive to make these decisions in the interests of its own retail businesses, rather than BT’s competitors.

Ofcom iterated that Openreach should be a legally separate company within BT, saying all its directors would be required to make decisions in the interests of all Openreach’s customers. The new board should have a majority of non-executive directors, who should not be affiliated to BT Group in any way but would be both appointed and removed by BT in consultation with Ofcom.

Openreach’s chief exec should be appointed by the Openreach Board, with no direct lines of reporting from Openreach executives to BT Group.

Openreach will also be obliged to consult formally with customers such as Sky and TalkTalk on large-scale investments which is something that BT was not happy to do during its G.Fast roll-out plans.

Sharon White, Ofcom’s Chief Executive, said: “We’re pressing ahead with the biggest shake-up of telecoms in a decade, to make sure the market is delivering the best possible services for people and business across the UK.”

The moves are designed to ensure that Openreach acts more independently from BT Group, and takes decisions for the good of the wider telecoms industry and its customers. “If it cannot achieve this, Ofcom will reconsider whether BT and Openreach should be split into two entirely separate companies, under different ownership,” said the regulator.

Ofcom said BT has notified it of plans to deliver changes to Openreach’s governance, to make it more independent and accountable to its customers. “We welcome BT’s acknowledgement of the need to reform Openreach, and elements of BT’s proposal.

O2 customer data tips up on the dark web

Posted on July 26, 2016 by - News

giant-spider02O2 customer data is being flogged on the dark net, according to the very shocked BBC.

It is believed that the data became available when the  usernames and passwords were stolen from gaming website XSplit three years ago. When the login details matched, the hackers could access O2 customer data in a process known as “credential stuffing”.

It is highly likely that this technique will have been used to log onto other companies’ accounts including O2 partners.

The data for sale included users’ phone numbers, emails, passwords and dates of birth.

BBC reporters bought a small sample of customer details from the seller to investigate further and contacted O2. Together, the investigating teams believed it was the result of credential stuffing.

This is where a criminal uses a piece of software to repeatedly attempt to gain access to customers’ accounts by using the login details it has obtained from elsewhere – in this case, a November 2013 attack on gaming website XSplit. When successful, a customer’s details can be retrieved and sold.

O2 said in a statement: “We have not suffered a data breach. Credential stuffing is a challenge for businesses and can result in many company’s customer data being sold on the dark net.

“We have reported all the details passed to us about the seller to law enforcement and we continue to help with their investigations.”

Security reseller faces hacking charges

Posted on July 25, 2016 by - News

acb20792e8439a1d28a1f2cdbd7fdf1cFive employees from cybersecurity outfit Quadsys have admitted to hacking into a rival company’s servers.

The hack was apparently to nick customer data and pricing information and the top Quadsys managers have fessed up and pleaded guilty to hacking charges. Oxfordshire, UK-based Quadsys is a reseller of IT and cybersecurity products, hardware and services. The firm sells software from vendors including Websense, Checkpoint and F-Secure. Customers include Leeds United FC, South Tyne and Wear Primary Care Trust and Derry City Council.

The owner of Quadsys, Paul Streeter, managing director Paul Cox, director Alistair Barnard, account manager Steve Davies and security consultant Jon Townsend all appeared at Oxford Crown Court and admitted to “obtaining unauthorised access to computer materials to facilitate the commission of an offence”.

This could lead to up to 12 months testing the security bars of a prison.

In March 2015, the five men were arrested and then charged in August. The group were originally held on suspicion of conspiracy to commit computer misuse offences, unauthorised PC access and conspiracy to acquire and use criminal property — allegedly, the data belonging to customers of the rival company, as well as the firm’s pricing tiers.

However there are signs that they might not get the full weight of the law pressing upon them. The judge in charge of the case reduced the severity of the charges. All five pleaded not guilty to one count of “securing unauthorised access to computer material with intent,” which is against the UK Computer Misuse Act 1990.

After three plea and case hearings, an additional count of securing access to computer material without criminal intent was added to the list, of which Townsend pleaded guilty. Cox was also charged with blackmail, to which he pleaded not guilty.

They are due to be sentenced on 9 September. A second charge, obtaining unauthorised access to computer materials with intent to commit an offence, will also be heard.