Dell cleaning up in India

Posted on December 22, 2014 by - News

Dell logoTin box shifter, Michael Dell is doing rather well in the growing Indian server market according to beancounters at IDC.

The analyst firm claims that Dell India has become the largest server player in the India market, doubling its shipments in the third quarter and commanding 38 percent market share in terms of revenue.

While the other players saw a decline in server shipments in the third quarter, Dell shipments more than doubled largely due to investments by the Retail industry.

HP, market leader in terms of overall shipments, saw a decline of 12 percent, while IBM’s market share dropped by about five percent. Dell grew by 17 percent in terms of overall shipment units, coming close second to HP, with about 29 percent market share.

“The non x86 server market saw a decline of 58 percent in terms of revenue in Q3 2014 as compared to Q3 2013 due to large refreshes in verticals like Banking and telecom being on hold due to various factors,” IDC said.

Dell India has been growing in the server as well as PC market as it completely revamped its go-to-market strategy in India after its privatisation.

It is now trying to offer integrated systems to enterprises as it attempts to fill in a void created by IBM’s exit from commoditised x86 server business, which is not only helping it expand its  market but also get higher value deals.

Google sues Mississippi Attorney General

Posted on December 22, 2014 by - News

516EDMTJSNLGoogle has sued the attorney general of Mississippi accusing him of conspiring with the movie industry.

The search engine claims that Jim Hood had been improperly influenced by major Hollywood studios that are trying to crack down on the distribution of pirated movies on the Internet.

The lawsuit also questioned the authority of state law enforcement officials to regulate Internet service providers.

Hood and Google have been at war for a while now. Hood issued a 79-page subpoena in October, asking that the company turn over information about its search engine and sales of illegal drugs, pornography and other materials. He suggested that the company was knowingly profiting from such sales and demanded a response from Google by early January.

However during the Sony hack Emails and other records showed how the movie industry, through a nonprofit group it funded, had hired the former attorney general from Mississippi, whom Hood used to work for, to put pressure on Hood to attack Google.

The Sony emails also showed how the major movie studios, working through the Motion Picture Association of America, had created what they called Project Goliath, to press state attorneys general to question, subpoena and sue the company.

All this is a bit tricky for Hood to squeeze out of – although he did have a go. Hood said Google was using its deep pockets in an attempt to “stop the State of Mississippi for daring to ask some questions.” Nevertheless, he said he would call the company and try to work out a deal.

It also accused Hood of essentially acting as a pawn for the MPAA., arguing that. Hood “took these actions following a sustained lobbying effort from the Motion Picture Association of America.”

The MPPA, which was clearly caught out, went onto the attack with its usual bile about how Freedom of Speech is being used as a shield for unlawful activities and “the Internet is not a license to steal.”

However if the case gets to court, it could be a mess for the studios. You can hardly play the victim when you are buying politicians to bully those who disagree with your business model.

HP’s Autonomy shareholder peace pact shelved

Posted on December 22, 2014 by - News

munich-agreemnetIt looks like shareholders are not allowed to collude with HP board members to blame its god-awful Autonomy buy on the British company after all.

Shareholders and HP agreed to bury the hatchet so that they could sue the former owners of Autonomy. US district judge has said that such a deal was wrong because it absolves HP completely from any blame.

Judge Charles Breyer concluded in a San Francisco court filing that the shareholders appear to be relinquishing a whole universe of potential claims regarding HP governance and practices with no factual predicates that overlap the Autonomy acquisition – the subject of this litigation.

He rejected the motion for preliminary approval of the second amended settlement. Judge Breyer added that HP had abdicated its duty to ensure that shareholders’ rights were being protected.

HP bought UK data search and analysis firm Autonomy for $10 billion, but a year later it claimed it found “serious accounting improprieties” and had to write off $8.8bn from the transaction.

Autonomy has denied any wrongdoing and argued that it played by the rules and HP knew about its accounting practices prior to the buyout.

HP said it was disappointed the court did not approve the settlement as submitted, the court recognised that a settlement releasing the HP directors and officers from Autonomy-related claims ‘represents a fair and reasonable resolution of the litigation’ HP remains committed to holding the architects of the Autonomy fraud accountable.

 

Calxeda tech gets second life

Posted on December 22, 2014 by - News

calxeda_energy_core_handTechnology from Calxeda, which shut down last year, is being  repackaged and built by Silver Lining Systems.

Last year founder Barry Evans shuttered Calxeda which pioneered low-power ARM-based chips for use in servers for scale-out data centre environments. At the time, the industry was not interested. In December 2013, Calxeda ran out of money when financing fell through.

A year later Calxeda’s technology is re-emerging with a company called Silver Lining Systems (SLS), which is developing compute and storage servers that will use the IP Calxeda developed. It will introduce those systems early next year.

Evans told EWeek that it was exciting to see the technology he helped create, which many in the industry thought was gone, re-enter the highly competitive market. He is working with Silver Lining as adviser.

SLS is the cloud subsidiary of AtGames Cloud Holdings, a 13-year-old cloud gaming vendor that last year was developing systems based on Calxeda technology. When the company shut down, AtGames wanted to continue to develop its systems, so it bought Calxeda’s assets and found a home for them in Silver Lining, which was created by AtGames as part of a larger R&D effort to build scale-out cloud compute capabilities.

Silver Lining is working with ARM and Foxconn it has run successful proof-of-concept projects, and the systems will be introduced in early 2015, according to an email sent to media outlets.

Anonymous prepares to launch banned Sony movie

Posted on December 22, 2014 by - News

o-ANONYMOUS-facebookAfter Sony refused to release “The Interview” because of pressure from a hacker group, it seems Anonymous is furious.

The hacker group has decided that since Sony is bowing to the will of hackers to pull the film, it will release it, itself.

Of course Sony is not happy about this, which Anonymous will be pleased about, but the question is why would one hacker collective rain on another’s parade.

Part of this appears to be because Anonymous does not think that “Guardians of Peace” who managed the Sony raid are true hackers.  They believe that the hacker group is a tool of the North Korean government.

Hackivism is one thing, but when you are hacking on behalf of a government you have broken the rules.  But according to the tweets, Anonymous is cross that Sony caved in so easily to the GoP demands and banned the film.

“Okay, for real though. @SonyPictures is a little bitch for giving in so easily. Then again, what do you expect from Sony other than that?”

“You’re gonna let Kim Junk Uno and his minions boss you, a multimillion dollar corporation responsible for billions of dollars in revenue?”

Anonymous claims that it infiltrated Sony’s systems long before North Korea and it was going to release the film “as a Christmas present.”

“We’re not with either side, we just want to watch the movie too…and soon you too will be joining us,” the group tweeted.

 

Scientists promise instant on computers

Posted on December 19, 2014 by - News

framedwindowsHave time to make breakfast while you’ve switched your PC on and while you’re waiting for Windows to boot?  You may not have that luxury for that much longer.

Scientists at Cornell University think that they’ve invented a way of switching on devices without using electric currents.

The scientists have invented a room temperature magnetoelectric memory device.  Equivalent to one computer bit, it promises next generation nonvolatile memory in two steps using nothing but an electric field.

John Heron, working with physics and chemistry professors at Cornell, said: “The advantage here is low energy consumption. It requires a low voltage, without current, to switch it. Devices that use currents consume more energy and dissipate a significant amount of that energy in the form of heat.”

The device is made out of a compound called bismuth ferrite which is both magnetic and ferroelectric, called a muliferroic material.  It can be used to make non volatile memory devices with simple geometries and at room temperature. It also needs much less energy using a phenomenon called spin transfer torque and uses different physics for magnetic switching.

But it could be quite some time before you have to give up your breakfast because Windows starts immediately.  They’ll need more than just one single device for it to be viable commercially.

Chips with built in security go postal

Posted on December 19, 2014 by - News

smartphones-genericABI Research believes that by the end of this year processors including embedded security technology will reach the billion mark.

Vendors are building in the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) will reach 366 million as part of that figure.

The shipments are driven by governments, financial service companies and other enterprises largely to ensure secure ID and payments.

The market for TEE devices is still in its early stages, said ABI.  But shipments are bound to increase for them and for Host Card Emulation (HCE).

ARM is integrating TruZeone architecture into every Cortex-A family processor it licenses to vendors.

Unlike TEE devices, HCE depends on the cloud and lets banks introduce mobile NFC products without relying on smartphone SIMs.  ABI said that HCE support in smartphones is growing exponentially, and will account for shipments of 252 million by the end of the year.

Players in the game include ARM, Nok Nok Labs, NXP Semi, Infineon, Trustonic and Obertur Technologies.

MEMS market galvanised by the internet of things

Posted on December 19, 2014 by - News

Internet of ThingsGrowth in the internet of things (IoT) means demand for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) has risen steeply this year.

The MEMS category of semiconductors includes accelerometers, pressure sensors, timing components and microphones.

MEMS are used in areas like asset tracking, smart grids, building and other sectors.  Market research company IHS said that revenues last year were $16 million but will be worth $120 million yearly by 2019.

But MEMS will also be widely used in datacentres and this means that this sector of the market will be worth $214 million in 2018.

By 2025, shipments of MEMS for industrial IoT equipment will amount to 7.3 billion units. Last year 1.8 billion units shipped.

Datacentres will want optical MEMS, used for wavelength selective switches and optical cross connects.

Europe shows rise in high speed broadband

Posted on December 19, 2014 by - News

euroflagzA report commissioned by the European Commission has found that the number of European households able to access at least 30Mbps download speeds is 62 percent.

The survey covered 2013 and showed that 4G LTE support increased by 32 percent during the year.

Coverage growth was influenced by deployments of Very High Speed DSL (VDSL) – it was the fastest growing fixed broadband tech for the second year in  a row.

But the position is still bad for people living in the country.  Rural households showed 89.8 percent coverage, compared to 97.2 percent for urban households.

UK got the thumbs up in the survey. The vast majority of people in the UK have 100 percent coverage, the EC said.

LTE takeup was patchy. Sweden had the highest penetration, while three countries – Bulgaria, Cyprus and Malta – had no coverage whatsoever at the end of 2013.

Integrated systems market spurts ahead

Posted on December 19, 2014 by - News

HP-MicroServerCompared with the rest of the IT market, the worldwide integrated infrastructure market grew by a healthy 28.1 percent during the third quarter of this year.

That’s according to IDC, which said reveues increased to $2.3 billion, generating over 898 petabytes of storage capacity shipments, up by 46.6 percent compared to Q3 2013.

IDC research director Jed Scaramella said that over the past year IT vendors invested heavily in product portfolio and that’s resulted in more adopting in customers’ IT.

IDC defines integrated platforms as those sold with pre-integrated packaged software and customised system engineering for software development, databases, testing and integration tools.  Integrated infrastructure are for general purpose workloads.

In the first category, Oracle was the leader in the pack, followed by IBM, and HP.  Oracle showed revenue growth of 7.1 percent, IBM’s revenue growth fell by 18 percent, while HP showed a massive revenue growth of 285 percent.

In the second category, VCE saw a 45.7 percent growth in the quarter, Cico/Netapp showed a 32.2 percent growth while HP surprised with a 273.3 percent revenue growth in the third quarter of 2014.

How Snowden put the brakes on Amazon’s cloud

Posted on December 19, 2014 by - News

snowdenWhile the industry is telling the world+dog know that 2015 was the year of the cloud, one has to wonder what it would have been like if Edward Snowden had not revealed high level snooping of off-site data centres.

This year Taser discovered first hand some of the problems. It won a high-profile contract to supply body cameras to the London police. But the deal nearly collapsed because video footage on Amazon’s cloud.

The deal survived only after Taser dropped Amazon.com because it did not have a data centre in Britain.  The UK coppers did not want their data going overseas where it could be snooped upon by the US.

Larger companies are getting worried about relying too heavily on Amazon’s public cloud servers, preferring to store data on their own premises or work with cloud providers that can offer them the option of dedicated servers.

It has opened the door for Microsoft which has flogged the private cloud over the public and offered companies more direct oversight of their data in the cloud.

Steve Herrod, the former chief technology officer of VMware now a venture capitalist at General Catalyst Partners said Edward Snowden did more to create a future with many clouds in many locations than any tech company has managed.

A web of new laws restricting how data can move across national borders creates another hurdle for Amazon and led for calls for it to build more localised clouds.

SAP has ruled out working with Amazon on many upcoming projects due partly to data-location issues.

Amazon insists that demand for AWS, including in Europe and Asia, has never been stronger, and that any contracts lost to rivals are the extreme exception. It said that it will build data centres in every large country over time, but that will cost a bomb.

However it is having to face that fact that the model it pioneered in 2006 is slowing down because it is UScentric – at least for now.

AWS is five times the computing capacity of its next 14 rivals, including Microsoft, Google and IBM, according to Gartner and analysts are predicting that AWS revenue will more than double from 2014 levels to $10.5 billion in 2017, faster than the market overall.

But Synergy Research Group said that it could have been a lot different. At the moment  AWS holds a 27 percent market share in the third quarter of 2014, compared to 10 percent for Microsoft’s Azure cloud business. Azure, however, grew 136 percent on a rolling annualized basis in the quarter, while AWS grew 56 percent.

Part of the reason that Azure did so well is because that Microsoft is willing to work with third-party data centre managers, such as Fujitsu, when clients are required to keep data within a country’s borders.

 

Vole is helping companies add cloud capabilities to their existing data centres and create a “hybrid” model that Amazon has only just started to offer.

Aix months ago, Barclays chose  Azure over AWS to power some development and testing work because of its private-cloud option, along with Barclays’ existing familiarity with Microsoft’s data-centre software.

Vole has the advantage that it knows a few people in corporate and government and is using them to  peddle Azure. AWS has only just started to build such ties.

It would have been different if it had not been for Snowden making those corporates and governments very nervous about allowing their data out of their sight.

 

Ebay boss will get $23 million golden handshake

Posted on December 19, 2014 by - News

Scrooge-Porpoise EBay Chief Executive John Donahoe will get an exit package worth an estimated $23 million after the company splits from payments unit PayPal next year.

Chief Financial Officer Bob Swan will get an exit package worth about $12 million. The figures could change depending on the performance of eBay’s share price.

That is good money considering that they do not really have to do much work to collect the cash other than just leave. After eBay announced its planned split with Paypal both of them said that they would be clearing out their offices.

To be fair, involvement with a much smaller company would be beneath them and EBay and Paypal would need CEO’s and accountants who were a little lower down the IT Industry food chain.

eBay spokeswoman Amanda Miller said in a statement that Donahoe’s transition package is closely tied to the performance of the company during the separation period and the company’s stock price at the time of separation

The terms were approved by eBay’s board on December 15. Other executives may also step down after the company splits its marketplace division from PayPal. Those other executives who leave will get benefits including a cash payment equivalent to 1.5 times their annual base salary, the filing said.

FBI investigates Gamergate

Posted on December 19, 2014 by - News

untouchablesThe FBI has confirmed that it has opened an investigation related to the #Gamergate campaign, which had rapidly turned from a debate about “journalistic ethics in the gaming software world” to a hate campaign against women.

The bureau stated that, while they have documents related to the loose coalition of Gamergate those files are part of an ongoing investigation, and release “would interfere with law enforcement proceedings.” Who or what is being investigated remains is unknown.

A number of individuals, including Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu, have reported death threats after being targeted by Gamergate.

This will be bad news for the hackers and script kiddies who thought that they would be allowed to cyber stalk women and threaten to kill them without any reaction from the police. It is also a bit embarrassing for those who thought that #Gamergate was not illegal and the negative response was just the ranting of a few women who were trying to stop them playing games and go outside.

Although how it could justify DDOSing a disabled charity  is anyone’s guess.

 

Apple breaks promises on Chinese suppliers

Posted on December 19, 2014 by - News

appleApple products continue to be made by workers in shocking conditions, despite promises from Jobs’ Mob to the contrary, according to an undercover BBC Panorama investigation.

Panorama found standards on workers’ hours, ID cards, dormitories, work meetings and juvenile workers were being breached at the Pegatron factories.

Workers were filmed falling asleep on their 12-hour shifts at the Pegatron factories on the outskirts of Shanghai.

One undercover reporter, working in a factory making parts for Apple computers, had to work 18 days in a row despite repeated requests for a day off.

Another reporter, whose longest shift was 16 hours, said: “Every time I got back to the dormitories, I wouldn’t want to move.

“Even if I was hungry I wouldn’t want to get up to eat. I just wanted to lie down and rest. I was unable to sleep at night because of the stress.”

Rather than fessing up, Apple said it strongly disagreed with the programme’s conclusions, although it declined to be interviewed for the programme.

It insisted that no other company wsa doing as much as Apple to ensure fair and safe working conditions.

Apple said it was a very common practice for workers to nap during breaks, but it would investigate any evidence they were falling asleep while working. We guess it will want to make sure that someone comes along to wake them up.

It said it monitored the working hours of more than a million workers and that staff at Pegatron were averaging 55 hours a week.

Apple published a set of standards spelling out how factory workers should be treated. It also moved some of its production work to Pegatron’s factories on the outskirts of Shanghai.

However, Panorama found these standards were routinely breached on the factory floor. Voluntary overtime was not what it said it was and one reporter had to attend unpaid meetings before and after work. Another reporter was housed in a dormitory where 12 workers shared a cramped room.

Apple insists that the dormitory overcrowding has now been resolved and that it requires suppliers to retroactively pay workers if it finds they have not been paid for work meetings.

Google creates nightmare for business sites

Posted on December 19, 2014 by - News

 nightmareThe search engine Google is about to name and shame any site which does not use the HTTPS security protocol.

For years, it has been enough for site users to build their websites using HTTP with only those who run financial transactions needing the more secure protocol.

Now Google is proposing to warn people their data is at risk every time they visit websites that do not use the “HTTPS” system.

If implemented, the developers wrote, the change would mean that a warning would pop-up when people visited a site that used only HTTP to notify them that such a connection “provides no data security.”

The team said it was odd that browsers currently did nothing to warn people when their data was unprotected.

“The only situation in which web browsers are guaranteed not to warn users is precisely when there is no chance of security,” they wrote.

HTTPS uses well-established cryptographic systems to scramble data as it travels from a user’s computer to a website.

However, website operators might have a few problems when it comes to adopting the HTTPS system, but could see traffic plummet if they do not.

Currently only about 33 per cent of websites use HTTPS, according to statistics gathered by the Trustworthy Internet Movement which monitors the way sites use more secure browsing technologies.

Many large websites and services, including Twitter, Yahoo, Facebook and GMail, already use HTTPS by default. In addition, since September Google has prioritised HTTPS sites in its search rankings.