Huawei denies having secrets

Posted on July 6, 2015 by - News

GodSilenceHuawei’s UK and Ireland chief security officer told its UK and Ireland partner summit that it had no secrets from anyone.

David Francis admitted some partners’ customers might not be sure about the red flag outside Huawei’s headquarters but they should have confidence in the security of Huawei product and services.

Huawei gave up on the US market after it and fellow Chinese vendor ZTE were banned from bidding for US government contracts due to concerns over espionage. Some UK government departments were told to stop using Huawei’s videoconferencing systems in internal meetings.

Francis said that Huawei was committed to openness and collaboration and when it spoke about security, it need to differentiate between real security, which is based on facts, evidence and analysis, and the illusion of security, which is whatever you fancy talking about in the pub.

Francis claimed Huawei was the first company to publicly publish how it addresses cybersecurity.

He said that the company was committed to working collaboratively with the industry and sharing information with no secrets.

HP should buy EMC

Posted on July 3, 2015 by - News

INDUSTRY HP 1Analyst Raymond James has created a flap over his idea that now is the perfect time for HP to buy EMC.

James believes an acquisition deal between HP and EMC is a “distinct possibility” as HP inches closer to its company split date in November. The two companies agreed, at least once before, and had more than a year’s worth of merger talks before giving up, mostly on the matter of price.

Channel partners of both companies said the deal makes sense and would be beneficial to them and it is looking like other analysts agree.

Such a deal would improve HP’s cloud portfolio with VMware and Virtustream services, while EMC and Pivotal would boost the converged infrastructure and analytics side of the portfolio. HP provide some good mobile tech.

HP is splitting the enterprise divisions from the PC and print side of the business, and is certain to have that done by Christmas. HP CEO Meg Whitman has indicated further acquisitions and so it is possible that EMC is on the table.

HP Enterprise of the new HP – will be a lot more aligned with the current EMC and VMW businesses in terms of end-market focus.

A united company is worth $2 billion more. HP would kill off its 3Par storage over time, and EMC would shelve its Content Management in favour of HP’s Autonomy.

 

 

 

NHS IT projects are turning into turkeys

Posted on July 2, 2015 by - News

turkeyIt is starting to look like a whole clutch of NHS IT projects are about to turn into embarrassing turkeys and gobble their way to the Treasury to look for more cash or be carved up before Christmas.

The increasingly expensive GP Extraction Service IT system has been deemed “not fit for purpose” by the government’s spending watchdog. For those who came in late, the GPES IT system was supposed to extract data from all GP practices in England.

All a great idea but costs have gone from £14 million to £40 million. More than £5.5 million of that has been wasted on write-offs and delay costs.

The ever grumpy National Audit Office (NAO) noted that the GPES has so far managed to provide data for just one customer, NHS England, and even that was four years later than originally planned.

However the NAO said the need for the service remains and further public expenditure is required to improve or replace it.

The NAO said additional costs have been incurred through a settlement with one of the main suppliers, Atos.

According to the Major Projects Authority, NHS IT remains in a poor state, with the Department of Health having the highest number of IT projects rated as “unachievable”.

On the list set for more woe is the Care.data programme, the NHS Choices website, and the department’s new network project.

The new e-Referrals system was also pulled offline recently meaning that hospitals and GPs across England had to resort to fax machines in order to refer patients.

 

Cisco buys OpenDNS

Posted on July 1, 2015 by - News

Merge-AheadUS spies’ favourite  target Cisco wants to buy the cloud security company OpenDNS for $635 million.

Cisco was one of the outfit’s investors in a $35 million round in May, 2014.

The $635 million will be paid in cash and assumed equity awards, plus retention based incentives for OpenDNS, according to information supplied by Cisco.

OpenDNS gives Cisco, a network vendor that offers more traditional network edge protection.

The purchase builds on Cisco’s strategy to add a cloud security layer, according to a blog post by Hilton Romanski, who leads business development at Cisco.

Romanski wrote in in his bog: “The acquisition will extend our ability to provide customers enhanced visibility and threat protection for unmonitored and potentially unsecure entry points into the network, and to quickly and efficiently deploy and integrate these capabilities as part of their defense architecture.”

The OpenDNS team will join the Cisco Security Business Group. The deal is expected to be finalized during the first quarter of fiscal 2016.

OpenDNS has over 10,000 paying customers, over 50 million users (through its free service). It runs 24 data centers, and claims more than 2 percent of the world’s DNS traffic with an astonishing 100 percent uptime, according to information supplied by the company last year.
Cisco has indicated it will continue to offer the free version of OpenDNS.

“The OpenDNS free DNS services will not be affected. Cisco is committed to OpenDNS’ consumer and enterprise DNS services. The OpenDNS products will transition into Cisco upon close of the acquisition.”

 

Orange disconnects with its Israeli mobile phone

Posted on June 30, 2015 by - News

 

OrangeA huge falling out between Orange and the Israeli mobile phone operator Partner Communications has resulted in the French telco withdrawing its licensing from the outfit.

Israel protested to France after Orange’s Chief Executive, Stephane Richard, said earlier this month he would terminate the licensing arrangement with Partner “tomorrow morning” if the contracts allowed.

The source of the spat was the economic activities in Israeli settlements of the occupied Palestinian territories which France and the European Union consider illegal.

Richard later apologised to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said his comments, made during a visit to Egypt, had been misinterpreted to suggest that he supported an outright boycott of Israel for political reasons.

Orange said the comments as reflecting a broader desire and strategy of not licensing its brand where it was not directly in control of the business.

Partner pays a fee to use Orange’s brand in Israel.

Under the new deal, if Partner does not exercise its right to terminate their brand agreement within 12 months, either Partner or Orange could terminate it during the following 12 months, Orange said in a statement.

If it all goes south then Orange will set itself up in Israel. Orange deputy CEO, Pierre Louette, said in the statement that Israel was a strategically important country and the company had a long-term commitment to it.

It had paid Partner $44.7 million to go away and it is estimated that an additional $50 million could be paid out should the agreement be terminated within 24 months.

Amazon gives loans to small sellers

Posted on June 29, 2015 by - News

amazonAmazon.com is extending its business loan program for small sellers later this year in eight more countries including China.

Until now, the e-retailer has offered the service only in the United States and Japan.

Now, according to the head of Amazon Marketplace, Peter Faricy, Amazon Lending, founded in 2012, now plans to offer short-term working capital loans in other countries where it operates a third-party, seller-run marketplace business,.

The scheme is being rolled out in Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom as an “invite-only” .

Amazon offers three- to six-month loans of $1,000 to $600,000 to help merchants buy inventory. It makes money on interest and takes a cut of all sales on its marketplace, which now account for about 40 percent of total Amazon site sales.

Amazon said it has offered hundreds of millions of dollars in loans since 2012, with more than half of its sellers opting for a repeat loan.

Faricy said the company has become better at understanding the inflection points in a small or medium business where capital can make a difference.

“We know a lot about our sellers’ business and invite only those who we think are in the best position to take capital and grow,” he said.

Amazon uses internal algorithms to choose sellers based on the frequency with which they run out of stock, the popularity of their products and their inventory cycles.

Carrier Wi-Fi on the Increase

Posted on June 26, 2015 by - News

wirelessmastThe Divination Department at Juniper Research has been chewing its laurel leaves and breathing in the vapours to give an oracle that predicts carriers will put more than four times the mobile data traffic onto Wi-Fi networks by 2019.

Mobile carriers will offload nearly 60 percent of mobile data traffic to Wi-Fi networks over the next four years.

Carriers in North America and Western Europe will be responsible for over 75 percent of the global mobile data being offloaded a spokes Juniper said.

The amount of smartphone and tablet data traffic on WiFi networks will increase to more than 115,000 petabytes by 2019, compared to under 30,000 petabytes this year, representing almost a four-fold increase.

Carrier Wi-Fi us has been increasing as many big mobile carriers and ISPs have deployed large numbers of Wi-Fi hotspots in cities using the existing infrastructure of their customers’ homes and businesses. This enables carriers to offload the saturated bandwidth on 3G and LTE networks.

Figures for 2013 put the total number of Wi-Fi hotspots owned by mobile operators worldwide at 6.5 million. That number is forecast to grow 62 percent by 2018 to 10.5 million.

The Juniper report thinks that small cells — femtocells, or low-power cellular base stations typically designed for use in a home or small business — will account for an increasing share of the data offloaded.

Juniper Research Chief augur Nitin Bhas said that with WiFi-integrated small cells, seamless data services can be extended to non-cellular devices as well, such as cameras and WiFi-only tablets, offering operators the opportunity to develop new revenue streams.

WiFi offloading currently offers a good solution to cellular data bottlenecks, but operators cannot rely solely on residential customers to carry the bulk of the data.

“Operators need to deploy [their] own WiFi zones in problematic areas or partner with WiFi hotspot operators and aggregators such as iPass and Boingo,” Bhas added.

 

Box opens a deal with Big Blue

Posted on June 25, 2015 by - News

blue boxBox seems to be signing deals like crazy – first with Redmond and now with Big Blue.

The pair have a cunning plan to cross IBM content management, Watson analytics and IBM Verse and Connections social collaboration tools. Box has a deal with Microsoft over Office 365 for the desktop, Office on iOS and Outlook.

The UK government recently approved the use of Box across Whitehall for all non-sensitive information marked as “official”.

What this means is that Box can cut costs which is important as SaaS players are losing cash.

It is also a sign that IBM is getting more proactive in the deal making arena to enhance its cloud capabilities.

In a statement, IBM senior vice president Bob Picciano said that the integration of IBM and Box technologies, combined with IBM’d global cloud capabilities and the “ability to enrich content with analytics, will help unlock actionable insights for use across the enterprise. So if you want your actionable insights unlocked a Blue Box might be the way forward.

The companies plan to integrate their existing products and services and develop new,” products targeted across industries and professions ranging from medical teams working on complex cases to individuals negotiating consumer loans by mobile phone to engineers and researchers identifying patterns in patents, reports and academic journals.”

We hope that they will work on shortening their sentences in press releases because this one was longer that something issued by Judge Jefferies.

 

AMD ignites fury at hardware sites

Posted on June 24, 2015 by - News

AMD, SunnyvaleAdvanced Micro Devices (AMD) appears to have found itself in the middle of a blazing row after being accused by several hardware review sites of being biased against the press. That is, the press it doesn’t like too much.

AMD introduced its Fury product last week to a blaze of publicity but it wasn’t long before different hardware sites said no samples were to be had for love or, even, apparently money.

The crux of the matter comes down to benchmarks – some sites have said that AMD’s Fury simply doesn’t cut the ice when compared to product from arch rival Nvidia.

The situation has become so tense that one wag has used footage from the Third Reich film Downfall to portray Adolf Hitler as a frustrated AMD fanboy.

Some sites have said that the situation looks pretty much like AMD has done its traditional thing of shooting itself in both feet at the same time.

AMD is keeping mum about the matter – apparently there has been a shortage of samples while the company cranks up either its takeover by a third party or a cyanide pill at the end of the day.

AMD’s Sunnyvale site (pictured) does have bad Feng Shui. It is on the wrong side of a freeway along with ill-fated Yahoo. S3 was there at one time too.

No AMD spinners could be contacted at press time.

Orange has a bright future in the telecoms industry

Posted on June 24, 2015 by - News

OrangeFrance’s largest telecoms outfit,  Orange will continue to play a leading role in creating pan-European networks through acquisitions.

Chief executive Stephane Richard told the Financial Times that a number of smaller former state monopoly “incumbents” — including KPN , Telecom Italia and Belgacom were vulnerable if Europe were able to create a single digital market.

“I don’t know when or what, but I am in favour of an ambitious Orange in Europe,” he told the newspaper. “We are looking, we are paying attention to everything going on.”

Richard said that the French government should rein in its involvement in consolidation of the industry as decisions over mergers and acquisitions would be “essentially a topic for the French antitrust authority”.

“The government has really no tools in its hands to prevent this,” he said.

President Francois Hollande’s Socialist government has expressed concern over the prospect of Bouygues Telecom being taken over by Altice, the majority-owner of France’s second-biggest telecoms group Numericable-SFR saying it could be bad for jobs, consumers and investment.

Oracle expands cloud offerings

Posted on June 23, 2015 by - News

Tcloudhe troubled Oracle outfit has just told its channel partners that it is extending its cloud offerings in a bid to improve its bottom line and see off competition from Amazon.

Executive Chairman Larry Ellison said in a webcast that he wanted to compete with Amazon.com on price.

This was after announcing that Oracle would offer online storage and capability for customers to run their applications entirely in Oracle’s cloud.

This is all pretty new for Oracle, which is shifting its traditional database and customer relationship management businesses to the cloud.

The only problem is that Amazon Web Services is the market leader, followed by Microsoft’s Azure service and Biggish Blue. Oracle is very late to the party which has gone on without it and reached the stage where people are either too drunk to speak or have coupled off.

Oracle has imaginatively dubbed its cloud platform Oracle Cloud Platform, will provide a cost-effective alternative to Amazon, said Ellison.

“Our new archive storage service goes head-to-head with Amazon Glacier and it’s one-tenth their price,” said Ellison.

Oracle’s cloud business is growing quickly, running at a rate of about $2.3 billion a year in revenue, based on last quarter’s figures. However the rest of the company is not doing so well and reported a surprise fall in profits.

Resellers can make a bomb from connected cars

Posted on June 22, 2015 by - News

Vintage & Classic Car Salvage Yards and Wrecks (11)Connected cars are a key area for resellers as drivers are demanding that their cars have internet functions.

Cognizant Global Head of Innovation, Manufacturing & Logistics Satyavolu Prasad told the Dutch magazine Channel Web that linking technology vehicles, through ‘smart’ devices and the changing lifestyle of consumers has changed the driving experience.

“The car is becoming an extension of the consumer, because drivers expect the same experience on the move, and online connection they have a fixed location, “ Prasad said.

Resellers can find a lot of information in the field of connected cars which can help automakers in the shift to the digital world and connected cars.

The digital consumer experience, after all, is in the heart of the connected car and connected cars offer many opportunities for businesses, including resellers to generate new revenue.

These range from help apps on smartphones, to systems integration by using social, mobile, analytics and cloud (SMAC) technologies.

Back-office integration and analysis services provide opportunities for resellers and finally convergence solutions in all sectors, Prasad said. He said that manufacturers will have to apply new technologies to jump in on connected cars.

Manufacturers are investing billions of dollars in telematics and similar technologies and they must be sure that they are aligned with supply chain and implementation processes.

The system is increasingly dependent on electronic ecosystem of manufacturers. Therefore resellers advise customers to enter into partnerships so that different customer profiles and segments can be mapped. They also recommend creating technology infrastructure to develop robust industrial capabilities and customer-focused apps that support the connected car, Prasad said.

Ex-Googler wants to disable ad-blocking software

Posted on June 19, 2015 by - News

brick-wallA technology war is brewing between those who want to block internet advertising and those who want to stop their software working.

CEO and co-founder is Ben Barokas has founded a company called Sourcepoint which launched yesterday with $10 million in Series A investment funding.

Barokas wants to help publishers by providing them with technology to punch through “all the ad blockers”.

He said that it was important that publishers have a more open dialogue with readers about the transaction that takes place when they consume content. He said that publishers serve ads in exchange for content being presented for free. And that a transaction needs to take place in the first place because content requires investment.

Google did not prioritise ad blocking in its roadmap, and Google CEO Larry Page downplayed the threat of ad blocking. He said that it was instead up to the industry to make better ads that people wouldn’t want to block.

However Barokas thinks Sourcepoint’s technologists have the expertise force users to look at as many adverts that publishers through at them. There are many other “ad blocker blocker” systems but they provide “unsophisticated solutions” that just replace a publisher’s intended ad with a lower quality alternative.

Sourcepoint lets a publisher decide how to present a message to a web visitor that has an ad blocker installed.

The publisher could choose to circumvent the ad blocker and serve the ad, or it could say to the visitor “our ads pay for your content, how about you choose to allow them,” or it could allow the user to choose their advertising experience (three ads for three stories, for example,) or the publisher could ask them to pay to subscribe.

Sourcepoint is working on a number of “sophisticated” subscription options that are designed to take away the friction that usually comes with subscribing to a website’s paywall.

However it still has the problem that advertising departments insist on making adverts so irritating that people want them switched off so they can actually read the content.

For now, Sourcepoint is offering its services to “two dozen top 100 comScore publishers” for free. That not only includes the ad blocker circumvention software, but also analytics tools for publishers to establish their ad blocking audiences.

Barokas is lloking at different business models including a software as a service-type licensing option, an advertising recovery service which would take a cut of ad revenue returned to the publisher, taking a percentage from new subscriptions the publishers sign up, or a mixture of the three.

Of course the ad-blocks will come up with ad-block, blocker blocking software and soon everything will be unblocked again.

 

 

 

BSG rocks Gibraltar

Posted on June 18, 2015 by - News

Santa Barbara beach and Rock of Gibraltar La Linea Cadiz Andalusia SpainConsumer transaction technologies outfit NCR and its channel partner BSG has been chosen by Gibraltar International Bank to install intelligent ATMs and NCR software.

NCR got the deal after convincing GIB that it could increase transactions through the more convenient ATMs, available 24/7 in a range of locations in Gibraltar.

GIB is using NCR SelfServ 34 ATMs using NCR Solidcore Suite for APTRA security software and “the latest” Windows 7 ATM operating system.

NCR APTRA software on the SelfServ 34 also enables a wide range of transactions, such as mixed cash and cheque deposits.

GIB CEO Lawrence Podesta said that the launch of Gibraltar International Bank earlier this year provided an opportunity for customers in Gibraltar to benefit from new and improved banking services.

NCR and BSG allowed the bank to disrupt existing banking models in Gibraltar by transitioning routine banking transactions from tellers to self-service ATMs.
This means that our bank staff will be more available to interact face-to-face with customers on high value banking services, such as mortgages.”

NCR SelfServ ATMs with Solidcore Suite for APTRA are designed to defend against known and unknown malware and fraud attacks on the ATM.

They use a multi-layered approach to ATM security which protects against the execution of unauthorized code on ATM networks. NCR Skimming Protection Solution (SPS) also protects cardholder data from card skimming attacks by detecting and jamming the signal of fraudulent skimming devices, as well as notifying the bank in real-time. This increases the likelihood of prosecuting fraudsters.

BSG Computer Systems, NCR’s Interact channel partner for the region, was responsible for the deployment at Gibraltar International Bank. BSG offers the entire NCR financial services portfolio, as well as providing services for all NCR solutions they deploy.

Mike Edinburgh, managing director at BSG said that by moving  basic transactions that customers would historically queue for at the teller to self-service ATMs the bank will improve the customer experience and loyalty.

“Our long-standing relationship with NCR and its innovative, proven solutions enabled this. BSG has also benefited from even greater engagement and training as we recently joined the NCR Interact channel partner programme,” he said.

Salesforce strengthens hold on wearables

Posted on June 17, 2015 by - News

Salesforce logoAccounting software outfit Salesforce has made another move into wearable computers by giving cash to APX Labs.

APX makes software for wearables used at work and Salesforce has made investment through its venture capital arm, SalesForce Ventures.

According to a Washington Business Journal report, “APX Labs has raised another $10 million in venture capital, a round that includes new investors SalesForce Ventures and SineWave Ventures”. However, it is still not clear how much each company has invested.

APX Labs’ wearable tech software is mostly used in heavy industries like energy, telecommunications, automotive and aerospace. The app is believed to improve the entire workflow of the companies with its various features like, contract approval and sending email with just a tap.

Salesforce has always encouraged wearable devices. So by investing in APX Labs, the company is trying to strengthen its position in the wearable tech software space.

Over the past few years, Salesforce made several investments in startup businesses either through acquisitions or partnership arrangements. The most recent one was the buyout of smart calendar app, Tempo, from Tempo AI.

Salesforce will use Tempo’s technology or its engineering talent to develop new products or improvise on the existing ones.