Microsoft pushes Office for iPad

Posted on November 6, 2014 by - News, Products

ipad3In either a sign of desperation or a sign of largesse, Microsoft said today it will let people using the Apple Pad make and edit documents for free instead of paying through the nose.

Microsoft wants its software to be pervasive across every gadget and gizmo as the world has opened up to applications that don’t need an expensive PC or a pricey Windows operating system to work.

Microsoft already started to offer Office for the iPad and is understood to have attracted some 10s of millions to the proposition.

And in a further move it wants Apple users on its side, it said it will release Powerpoint, Excel and Word apps not only for the iPhone but for the Android operating system later this year too.

Apps for mobile devices cost only pounds rather than hundreds of pounds but it’s not entirely clear what CEO Satya Nadella’s motives are in spreading the Word around.

German publisher realises Google calls the shots

Posted on November 6, 2014 by - News

history-of-print-16th-century-printing-companyGerman publisher Axel Springer has just worked out what the rest of the world already knew – Google controls the press.

Springer has scrapped a move to block Google from running snippets of articles from its newspapers, saying that the experiment had caused traffic to its sites to plunge.

Traffic flowing from clicks on Google search results fell by 40 percent and traffic delivered via Google News had plummeted by 80 percent in the past two weeks.  This mimicked what happened when Google changed its algorithm and destroyed many tech news sites overnight.

A two-week-old experiment to restrict access by Google to some of its publications had caused web traffic to plunge for these sites.

He discovered, somewhat belatedly that publishers no longer decide who sees their content, it is more or less decided when Google decides who will appear in its search items.

Chief Executive Mathias Doepfner said his company would have “shot ourselves out of the market” if it had continued with its demands for the US firm to pay licensing fees. Springer had sought to restrict Google’s use of news from four of its top-selling brands: welt.de, computerbild.de, sportbild.de and autobild.de, the company said.

Springer, which publishes Europe’s top-selling daily newspaper Bild, said Google’s grip over online audiences was too great to resist, a double-edged compliment meant to ram home the publisher’s criticism of what it calls Google’s monopoly powers.

Publishers in countries from Germany and France to Spain have pushed to pass new national copyright laws that force Google and other web aggregators to pay licensing fees – dubbed the Google Tax – when they publish snippets of their news articles.

Under German legislation that came into effect last year, publishers can prohibit search engines and similar services from using their news articles beyond headlines. Last week, Spain’s upper house passed a similar law giving publishers an “inalienable” right to levy such licensing fees on Google.

The only problem is that if they do that, they end up cutting their own throats.

 

 

Lenovo sees a 19 per cent jump in profit

Posted on November 6, 2014 by - News

lenovo2Lenovo reported a 19 percent jump in profit in the second quarter, but revenue fell short of what the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street expected.

Quarterly revenue rose seven percent to $10.5 billion, but sales from its mobile device division fell six percent to $1.4 billion.

The ThinkPad maker tightened its hold over global PC sales even as the broader market shrunk. Sales of both laptops rose 0.9 percent and desktops sales increased by 6.4 percent.

Net profit was $262 million, exceeding the $260 million expected by analysts.

The company additionally named Jerry Yang, the Yahoo co-founder, to its board of directors. Yang, who is also an Alibaba Group Holding Ltd director, formerly served as a Lenovo board observer.

On October 1, Lenovo bought  IBM’s low-end server business. Of the transactions, Lenovo said that the acquisition will make Lenovo the third largest player in the global and the number one player in the China x86 server market.

“This has enabled Lenovo to capture the significant growth opportunities in the enterprise hardware systems space,” a spokesLenovo said.

 

Infosys to hire “stupid” Americans

Posted on November 6, 2014 by - News

jeff-daniels-says-dumb-and-dumber-sequel-still-on-aiming-for-summer-2013-startIndian outsourcer Infosys plans to hire over 2,100 Americans as part of its programme to scale up its global presence and boost key work areas like client relationship management and consulting.

The only problem is that it has been accused of thinking that Americans are stupid and selecting Indian employees over Americans in the past.

Like most rivals, India’s second biggest IT services provider gets the major chunk of its business from clients in the United States, but relies on its Indian to provide the staff.

Infosys said the hiring will include up to 300 management and technology graduates who will work across multiple technology domains including digital, big data, analytics and cloud.

Up to 180 graduates will be recruited into the Infosys consulting practice in the United States, the company said.

Chief Executive Vishal Sikka, who is based in the United States, has said he wants to revive growth through automation and artificial intelligence as clients modernise their technologies.

Last year Infosys was accused of discrimination against “stupid Americans” and is currently facing a class action lawsuit.  The lawsuit was filed by VMware specialist Brenda Koehler in the U.S. District Court in Eastern Wisconsin who claimed that Infosys has been abusing the visa system and actively discriminates against hiring American workers for staff positions.

Her complaint followed another by Jay Palmer, a former staff of Infosys who failed in his legal action against the firm.  He claimed he was called a “stupid American” repeatedly. During a board meeting, he saw other staff wrote “No Americans/Christians.”

Qualcomm has China crisis

Posted on November 6, 2014 by - News

china-syndrome-one-sheet1Qualcomm is facing a little trouble in Big China as it is starting to look like its antitrust investigation is going pear shaped. Meanwhile problems collecting royalties could harm its business in China next year.

To make matters worse it is facing similar investigations in the United States and Europe.

Qualcomm should be making a large profit in China. The country is expanding high-speed 4G network is driving demand for smartphones with leading-edge technology.

But it looks like Qualcomm could face a fine of more than $1 billion in China as a result of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) investigation, and the company could be forced to make concessions that would hurt its highly profitable business of charging royalties on phones that use its patents.

Qualcomm admitted that it faces a new probe by the European Commission about rebates and other financial incentives in the sale of its chips. Another preliminary investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission concerns a potential breach of licensing terms.

Qualcomm President Derek Aberle said that his company was co-operating with the Chinese to come up with potential ways to resolve the problem.

Qualcomm has also been struggling to collect licensing revenue from some device makers in China, including local manufacturers the US chipmaker has done little or no business with in the past.

But the fear is that concessions on royalties that Qualcomm is forced to make in China could spread to manufacturers in other countries.

Qualcomm said it was difficult to predict the outcome of the U.S. and European investigations.

The European probe is separate from a four-year-old complaint to the European Commission from a subsidiary of Nvidia over alleged patent-related incentives and exclusionary pricing by Qualcomm.

Qualcomm forecast revenue for fiscal 2015 of between $26.8 billion and $28.8 billion. Analysts on average expected $28.91 billion.

The chipmaker reported revenue of $6.69 billion for its fiscal fourth quarter, ended Sept. 28, up 3 percent from the year-ago period. Analysts on average had expected $7.016 billion.

Qualcomm posted fourth-quarter net income of $1.89 billion, up 26 percent from a year ago.

Apple gear plagued with malware

Posted on November 6, 2014 by - News

giant bugPalo Alto Networks has discovered a new family of malware that can infect Apple desktop and mobile operating systems.

For a while now, Jobs’ Mob has made much of the fact it is “super secure” even while its gear is turned over in seconds at hacker conferences.  But now the hardware is becoming more popular it is clear that hackers are starting to write code that can disable anything that Apple comes up with.

The “WireLurker” malware can install third-party applications on regular, non-jailbroken iOS devices and hop from infected Macs onto iPhones through USB connector-cables.

Ryan Olson, intelligence director for the company’s Unit 42 division said that had seen indications that the attackers were Chinese. The malware originated from a Chinese third-party apps store and appeared to have mostly affected users within the country.

The malware spread through infected apps uploaded to the apps store that were in turn downloaded onto Mac computers. This is bad news for Apple which always claims that its store is closely vetted in comparison to the Google operation.

According to the company, more than 400 such infected apps had been downloaded over 350,000 times so far.

So far, there is no evidence that the attackers had made off with anything more sensitive than messaging IDs and contacts from users’ address books. But then again what sort of information would an Apple user have?  There cannot be many Chinese spooks who want a Coldplay or U2 collection. As far as companies are concerned,

Apple was told about the bug two weeks ago and has not done anything.  Once WireLurker gets on an iPhone, it can go on to infect existing apps on the device, somewhat akin to how a traditional virus infects computer software programs. Olson said it was the first time he had seen it in action. “It’s the first time we’ve seen anyone doing it in the wild,” he added.

Workstation market continues to grow

Posted on November 6, 2014 by - News

hpworkstationDesktop PCs and notebooks might not be the flavour of the decade but the need for powerful workstations continues to grow.

IDC released figures showing that worldwide shipments of certified workstations rose in the third quarter by 7.6 percent, compared to the same quarter in 2013.

A total of 930,894 units shipped and IDC said that this is the sixth consecutive quarter of positive growth in what remains a competitive market.

Worldwide, the Middle East and Africa grew by 39.3 percent year on year, Latin America grew by 31.6 percent, and the US and Western Europe, with market shares of 39.2 percent and 25.1 percent grew by 6.7 percent and 2.1 percent respectively.

There aren’t that many vendors selling desktop workstations but HP continues to be the top dog with a 45.8 percent market share.

Dell grew by two percent year on year and has a 36.6 percent market share, while Lenovo has a year on year growth of 24.8  percent, growing its share 2.3 points and with an 11.7 percent slice of the market worldwide.

Fujitsu and NEC came in at fourth and fifth, showing only single digit market shares.

Microsoft, Dropbox team up

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEODropbox and Microsoft have signed a deal to integrate their services including Microsoft Office on phones, on tablets and on the internet.

Dropbox currently hosts over 35 billion Office files and 1.2 billion people use Office.

The deal means that you will be able to access Dropbox from Office applications, edit Office files directly from Dropbox and synchronise them across different kinds of devices.  You will also be able to share new or edited files from Office apps using the Dropbox sharing features.

Microsoft said it will include the features in its next updates to Apple iOS and Google Android operating systems.  These are due in a couple of weeks.

Web integration won’t be available until the first half of next year and Dropbox will make its applications available for Windows Phone and Windows tablet devices.

Dropbox for Business customers need an Office 365 subscription to use the features.

Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, said both companies will provide their shared customers with tools to create, share and collaborate across most nearly all devices.

IBM claims first for intelligent cloud security

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

clouds3Big Blue claimed it is the first company to build an intelligent security profile that protects data, applications and people in the cloud.

The offerings it announced use what IBM described as advanced analytics to react to threats across enterprise, public, private and mobile clouds  – so called hybrid clouds.

IBM said that while the cloud is being rapidly adopted worldwide, attackers are more sophisticated and more able to hide their activities.  Indeed, IBM claims that three quarters of security breaches take days, weeks or months to be discovered.

Its managed security services platform is intended to protect IBM customers as well as customers of firms like Amazon Web Services and Salesforce.

It said that its intelligent threat protection monitors the cloud environment, analysing billions of security events and including correlation and external data feeds.

IBM estimates that nearly half of large enterprises will use hybrid clouds by the end of 2017 and claims that it is the largest hybrid cloud vendor.

Governments want more from Facebook

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

Facebook's Mark ZuckerbergSocial networking company Facebook said in a statement that requests by different governments round the world sharply rose during the first half of this year.

Governments requested 34,946 requests while Facebook said limits on some content to comply with local legislation increased by 19 percent during the same period.

Facebook said in a statement that it looks at every government request it gets and it “pushes back hard” if it finds deficiencies in the requests or if the requests are too broad.

It said that over the last year it has challenged bulk search warrants in New York that demanded it hand over data from the accounts of close to 400 people.

“We’ve argued that these overly broad warrants violate the privacy rights of the people on Facebook and ignore constituional safeguards against unreasonable searches and seizures,” the satement continued.

It is appealing these warrants.

Facebook also said it works with the IT industry and partners to “push governments for additional transparency and to reform surveillance practices necessary to rebuild people’s trust in the internet.”

All government data requests should be narrowly tailored, proportionate, and subject to judicial oversight.

HTC shows signs of recovery

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

Nexus 9Cooperation between mobile firm HTC and Google is giving the Taiwanese firm a boost.

According to the Taipei Times, orders for the Nexus 9 tablet have exceeded expectations and that means HTC has ramped up its production facilities.

HTC mobile phones are considered to be some of the most stylish smartphones on the market, but a lack of marketing budget has seen the firm struggling to compete with the majors in the market.

HTC doesn’t really play in the tablet market on its own and the report suggests it is taking a cautious view on revenues in the sector  before it launches products it no doubt has, waiting on the sidelines.

Earlier this week HTC released figures for October 2014 showing unaudited revenues of NT$15.8 billion.  Companies listed on the Taiwanese bourse report monthly rather than quarterly figures.

Tablet demand slows to standstill

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

Raphael painting: Moses receiving the tablets, Wikimedia CommonsA report said that during the third quarter of 2014, shipments of tablets worldwide amounted to 63.4 million unit only one percent up from the same quarter last year.

And the impetus for Apple iPads flatlined during the third quarter, largely affected by delays in shipments, according to Digitimes Research.

White box tablets only amounted to 26.2 million during the third quarter and that’s even after Intel subsidies in an attempt to boost market share.

Samsung is the second biggest supplier but the research suggests it will take a cautious approach to shipments during 2015.

The other biggest vendors for tablets are Asustek, Lenovo, Acer, Amazon and Dell.

Most analysts say that the tablet market is close to saturation in Western Europe and in North America – and there are few compelling reasons for people to upgrade from their existing models.

Apple security adopts hauhau method

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

i_257It seems that the Apple Cargo cult is taking the same approach to security that the Maori Hauhau did during the New Zealand wars.

Like Apple, the Hauhau was a strange cult built by a bullied people but under a charismatic leader. The Hauhau also believed, despite evidence, that they could bounce bullets off their chests.

Apple has the same view about security. Apple’s security technologies for Mac OS X cannot for the life of itself see the iWorm, a piece of malware discovered in late September that infected thousands of computers.

Apple released an update for its XProtect antivirus engine to detect iWorm, but the update only detects when iWorm’s installer is launched.

Patrick Wardle, director of research with Synack, a computer security company based in Redwood City, California said that computers already infected with iWorm before the update would still be compromised.

Wardle said unless the user has another antivirus product installed that has a correct signature, those infections aren’t going to go away.

Wardle said Apple is likely aware of the Gatekeeper’s weaknesses, as it appears the way it works was a conscious design decision.

In other words, you cannot rely on Apple to secure your machine, probably because the belief that Apple’s do not get viruses is hardwired into the reality distortion field. Still you get what you pay for.

 

Dell counter attacks against rivals

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

Conan 1While Michael Dell was fighting to take his tin box outfit private, his rivals used the uncertainty to steal his customers – now he is counter-attacking.  

Dell opened the Dell World conference and wasted no time denouncing the “turmoil” his rivals in the industry are going through.

“They’re splitting away businesses, spinning off pieces of their businesses, and one has to ask the question: who is this for? Does this actually help the customers? Does it help them create the next great innovative products?”

It is deeply ironic for Dell. At the time HP Meg Whitman was calling Hewlett-Packard a “paragon of stability” compared to his company and IBM smugly told his customers that he was doomed.

Now Dell can point out that Whitman is breaking the the company in two. And IBM is selling its x86 server business to Lenovo and fighting to keep its profits above water.

Because the company is private, Dell does not have to worry about those quarterly targets and can plan.  He even had a dig at Carl Icahn who made him pay millions more to take his company private.

“Dell can focus on a future that’s “beyond the next quarter, the next year or the next shareholder activist,” he said.

Dell’s PC shipments grew almost 20 percent in the U.S. last quarter, Michael Dell said, faster than those of HP and Apple.

Today Dell is expected to announce a new “converged infrastructure” system called the PowerEdge FX, he said, which combines servers, network and storage in a new design that offers “the most density in the world.”

Intel’s Skylake is an escargot

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

Cooked_snailsWord on the street is that Skylake processors may be delayed.

Intel has been promising that Skylight will be in developers paws early 2015 ahead of shipping “by the second half of the year.”

Digitime’s Joanne Chen claims that Skylake will be held back so as not to dent sales of Broadwell-based notebooks.

The report claims that Intel has set the RTM schedule for the Skylake to the 37-47th weeks of 2015 which is the end of August to the end of October.

The later schedule, Chen claims, would damage the release of Windows 10 notebook sales, because Skylake-based models will not be able to reach retail until late September.

“Windows 10-based notebooks are already facing many negative factors that could impact their shipments in 2015: most enterprises are expected to finish their PC replacement by the end of 2014 after Microsoft terminated support for Windows XP; Microsoft will offer free upgrade to Windows 10 for existing Windows 8/8.1 notebooks; and Windows 10 lacks attractive features,” Chen wrote.

While it is possible that Intel has allowed itself room in September for a later ship date without exposing itself to accusations of breaking its promises, the matter of Windows10 is important. The Skylake delay is expected to worsen Windows 10-based notebooks prospects, and may in turn weaken the notebook market’s performance in the second half of 2015.