Which storage architecture is appropriate for you depends heavily on your environment. What is more important to you: cost, complexity, flexibility, or raw throughput? Communicate your storage requirements to both NAS and SAN vendors and see what numbers they come up with for cost. If the cost and complexity of a SAN isn't completely out of the question, I'd recommend you benchmark both.
Make sure to solicit the help of each vendor during the benchmark. Proper configuration of each system is essential ot proper performance, and you probably will not get it right on the first try. Have the vendors install the rest NSA or SAN - even if you have to pay for it. It will be worth the money, especially if you've never confiured one before.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
Pros and Cons of SANs
Many people swear by SANs and would never consider using NAS; they are aware that SANs are expensive and represent cutting edge technology. They are willing to live with these downsides in order to experience the advantages they feel only SANs can offer. The following is a summary of these advantages:
SANs can serve raw devices
Neither NFS nor CIFS can serve raw devices via the network; they can only serve files. If your application requires access to a raw device, NAS is simply not an option.
SAN are more flexible
What some see as complexity, others see as flexibility. They like the features available with the filesystem or volume manager that they have purchased, and those features aren't available with NAS. While NFS and CIFS have been around for several years, the filesystem technology that the filer is using is often new, especially when compared to ufs, NTFS, or vxfs.
SANs can be faster
As discussed above, there are applications where SANs will be faster. If your application requires sustained throughput greater than what is available from the fastest filer, your only alternative si a SAN.
SAN are easier to backup
The throughput possible with a SAN makes large-scale backup and recovery much easier. In fact, large NAS environments take advantage of SAN technology in order to share a tape library and perform LAN-less backups.
SANs are also not without their foibles: The following list contains the difficulties many people have with SAN technology:
SANs are often more hype than reality
Perhaps is a few years, the vendors will have agreed upon an appropriate standard, and SAN management software will do everything it's supposed to do, with SAN equipment that's completely interoperable. I sure hope this happens
SANs are complex
The concepts of Fibre Channel, arbitrated loop, fabric login, and device virtualization aren't always esay to grasp. The concepts of NFS and CIFs seem much simpler in comparison.
SANs are expensive
Although they are getting less expensive every day, a Fibre Channel HBA still costs much more than a standard Ethernet NIC, It's simply a matter of economics of scale. More people need Ethernet than need Fibre Channel.
SANs can serve raw devices
Neither NFS nor CIFS can serve raw devices via the network; they can only serve files. If your application requires access to a raw device, NAS is simply not an option.
SAN are more flexible
What some see as complexity, others see as flexibility. They like the features available with the filesystem or volume manager that they have purchased, and those features aren't available with NAS. While NFS and CIFS have been around for several years, the filesystem technology that the filer is using is often new, especially when compared to ufs, NTFS, or vxfs.
SANs can be faster
As discussed above, there are applications where SANs will be faster. If your application requires sustained throughput greater than what is available from the fastest filer, your only alternative si a SAN.
SAN are easier to backup
The throughput possible with a SAN makes large-scale backup and recovery much easier. In fact, large NAS environments take advantage of SAN technology in order to share a tape library and perform LAN-less backups.
SANs are also not without their foibles: The following list contains the difficulties many people have with SAN technology:
SANs are often more hype than reality
Perhaps is a few years, the vendors will have agreed upon an appropriate standard, and SAN management software will do everything it's supposed to do, with SAN equipment that's completely interoperable. I sure hope this happens
SANs are complex
The concepts of Fibre Channel, arbitrated loop, fabric login, and device virtualization aren't always esay to grasp. The concepts of NFS and CIFs seem much simpler in comparison.
SANs are expensive
Although they are getting less expensive every day, a Fibre Channel HBA still costs much more than a standard Ethernet NIC, It's simply a matter of economics of scale. More people need Ethernet than need Fibre Channel.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
The Pros and Cons of NAS
NAS filers have become popular with many people for many reasons. The following is a summary of several:
Filers are fast enough for many applications
Many would argue that SANs are simply more powerful than NAS. Some would argue that NFS and CIFS running on top of TCP/IP creates more overhead on the client than SCSI-3 running on top of Fibre Channel. This would mean that a single host could sustain more throughput to a SAN-based disk than a NAS-based disk. While this may be true on very high-end servers, most real world applications require much less throughput than the maximum available throughput of a filer.
NAS offers multi host filesystem access
A downside of SANs is that, while they, do offer multihost access to devices, most applications want multihost access to files. If you want the systems connected to a SAN to read and write to the same file, you need a SAN or cluster based filesystem. Such filesystems are starting to become available, but they are usually expensive and are relatively new technologies. DIlers, on the other hand, offer multihost access to files using technology that has existed since 1984.
NAS is easier to understand
Some people are concerned that they don't understand Fibre Channel and certainly don't understand fabric-based SANs. To these people, SANs represent a significant learning curve, whereas NAS doesn't. With NAS, all that's needed ot implement a filer is to read the manual provided by the NSA vendor, which is usually rather brief; it doesn't need to belonger. With Fibre Channel, you first need to read about and understand it, and then read the HBA manual, the switch manual, and the manuals that come with any SAN management software
Filers are easier to maintain
No one who has managed both a SAN and NAS will argue with this statement. SANs are composed of pieces of hardware from many vendors, including the HBA, the HBA, the switch or hub, and the disk arrays. Each vendor is new to an environment that hasn't previously used a SAN. In comparison, filers allow the use of your existing network infrastructure. The only new vendor you need is the manufacturer of the filer itself. SANs have a larger number of components that can fail, fewer tools to troubleshoot these failures, and more possibilities of finger pointing, All in all, a NSA-based network is easier to maintain.
Filers are much cheaper
Since filers allow you to leverage your existing network ifrastructure, they are usually cheaper to implement than a SAN, A SAN requires the purchse of a Fibre Channel HBA to support each host that;s connected to the SAN, a port on a hub or switch to support each host, one or more disk arrays, and the appropriate cables to connect all this together. Even if you choose to install a separate LAN for your NAS traffic, the required components are still cheaper than their SAN counterparts.
Filers are easy to protect against failure
While not all NAS vendors offers this option, some filers can automatically replicate their filesystems to another filer at another location. This can be done using a very low bandwidth network connection. While this can be accomplished with a SAN by purchasing one of several third-party packages, the functionality os built right into some filers and is therefore less expensive and more reliable.
Filers are here and now
Many people have criticized SANs for being more hype than reality. Too many vendor's systems are incompatible, and too many software pieces are just now being released. Many vendors are still fighting over the Fibre Channel standard. While there are many successfully implemented SANs today, there are many that aren't successful. If you connect equipment from the wrong vendors, things just won't work. In comparison, filers are completely interoperable, and the standards upon which they are based have been around for years.
Fillers aren't without limitations. Here's a list of the limitations that exist as of this writing. Whether or not they still exist is left as an exercise for the readers
Fillers can be difficult to back up to tape
Although the snapshot and off-site replication software offered by some NAS vendors offers some wonderful recovery possibilities that are rather difficult to achieve with a SAN, filers must still be backed up to tape at some point, and backing up a filer to tape can be a challenge. One of the reasons is that performing a full backup to tape will typically task an I/O system much more than any other application This means that backing up a really large filer to tape will create quite a load on the system. Although many filers have significantly improved the backup and recovery speeds, SANs are still faster when it comes to raw throughput to tape.
Filers can't do image-level backup of NAS
To date, all backup and recovery options for fillers are file-based, which means the backup and recovery software is traversing the filesystem just as you do. There are a few applications that create millions of small files. Restoring millions of small files is perhaps the most difficult task a backup and recovery system will perform. More time is spent creating the inode than actually restoring the data, which is why most major backup/recovery software vendors have created software that can back up filesystems via the raw device - while maintaining file-level recoverability. Unfortunately, today's filers don't have a solution for this problem.
The upper limit is lower than a SAN
Although it's arguable that most applications will never task a filer beyond its ability to transfer data, it's important to mention that theoretically a SAN should be able to transfer more data than NAS. If your application requires incredible amounts, NAS offers a faster, cheaper alternative to SANs. However, for other environments, SANs may be the only option. Just make sure to test your system before buying it.
Filers are fast enough for many applications
Many would argue that SANs are simply more powerful than NAS. Some would argue that NFS and CIFS running on top of TCP/IP creates more overhead on the client than SCSI-3 running on top of Fibre Channel. This would mean that a single host could sustain more throughput to a SAN-based disk than a NAS-based disk. While this may be true on very high-end servers, most real world applications require much less throughput than the maximum available throughput of a filer.
NAS offers multi host filesystem access
A downside of SANs is that, while they, do offer multihost access to devices, most applications want multihost access to files. If you want the systems connected to a SAN to read and write to the same file, you need a SAN or cluster based filesystem. Such filesystems are starting to become available, but they are usually expensive and are relatively new technologies. DIlers, on the other hand, offer multihost access to files using technology that has existed since 1984.
NAS is easier to understand
Some people are concerned that they don't understand Fibre Channel and certainly don't understand fabric-based SANs. To these people, SANs represent a significant learning curve, whereas NAS doesn't. With NAS, all that's needed ot implement a filer is to read the manual provided by the NSA vendor, which is usually rather brief; it doesn't need to belonger. With Fibre Channel, you first need to read about and understand it, and then read the HBA manual, the switch manual, and the manuals that come with any SAN management software
Filers are easier to maintain
No one who has managed both a SAN and NAS will argue with this statement. SANs are composed of pieces of hardware from many vendors, including the HBA, the HBA, the switch or hub, and the disk arrays. Each vendor is new to an environment that hasn't previously used a SAN. In comparison, filers allow the use of your existing network infrastructure. The only new vendor you need is the manufacturer of the filer itself. SANs have a larger number of components that can fail, fewer tools to troubleshoot these failures, and more possibilities of finger pointing, All in all, a NSA-based network is easier to maintain.
Filers are much cheaper
Since filers allow you to leverage your existing network ifrastructure, they are usually cheaper to implement than a SAN, A SAN requires the purchse of a Fibre Channel HBA to support each host that;s connected to the SAN, a port on a hub or switch to support each host, one or more disk arrays, and the appropriate cables to connect all this together. Even if you choose to install a separate LAN for your NAS traffic, the required components are still cheaper than their SAN counterparts.
Filers are easy to protect against failure
While not all NAS vendors offers this option, some filers can automatically replicate their filesystems to another filer at another location. This can be done using a very low bandwidth network connection. While this can be accomplished with a SAN by purchasing one of several third-party packages, the functionality os built right into some filers and is therefore less expensive and more reliable.
Filers are here and now
Many people have criticized SANs for being more hype than reality. Too many vendor's systems are incompatible, and too many software pieces are just now being released. Many vendors are still fighting over the Fibre Channel standard. While there are many successfully implemented SANs today, there are many that aren't successful. If you connect equipment from the wrong vendors, things just won't work. In comparison, filers are completely interoperable, and the standards upon which they are based have been around for years.
Fillers aren't without limitations. Here's a list of the limitations that exist as of this writing. Whether or not they still exist is left as an exercise for the readers
Fillers can be difficult to back up to tape
Although the snapshot and off-site replication software offered by some NAS vendors offers some wonderful recovery possibilities that are rather difficult to achieve with a SAN, filers must still be backed up to tape at some point, and backing up a filer to tape can be a challenge. One of the reasons is that performing a full backup to tape will typically task an I/O system much more than any other application This means that backing up a really large filer to tape will create quite a load on the system. Although many filers have significantly improved the backup and recovery speeds, SANs are still faster when it comes to raw throughput to tape.
Filers can't do image-level backup of NAS
To date, all backup and recovery options for fillers are file-based, which means the backup and recovery software is traversing the filesystem just as you do. There are a few applications that create millions of small files. Restoring millions of small files is perhaps the most difficult task a backup and recovery system will perform. More time is spent creating the inode than actually restoring the data, which is why most major backup/recovery software vendors have created software that can back up filesystems via the raw device - while maintaining file-level recoverability. Unfortunately, today's filers don't have a solution for this problem.
The upper limit is lower than a SAN
Although it's arguable that most applications will never task a filer beyond its ability to transfer data, it's important to mention that theoretically a SAN should be able to transfer more data than NAS. If your application requires incredible amounts, NAS offers a faster, cheaper alternative to SANs. However, for other environments, SANs may be the only option. Just make sure to test your system before buying it.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Enter the SAN
Some backup software vendors attempted to solve the cost problem by allowing a single library to connect to multiple hosts. If you purchased a large library with multiple SCSI connections, you could connect each one to a different host. This allowed you to share the tape library but not the drives. While this ability helped reduce the cost by sharing the robotics, it didn't completely remove the inefficiencies discussed earlier.
What was really needed was a way to share the drives. And as long as the tape drives were shared, disk drives could be shared too. What if:
A large database server could back up to a locally attached tape drive, but that tape drive could also be seen and used by another large server when it needed to back up to a locally attached tape drive?
The large database server's disk could be seen by another server that backed up its disks without sending the data through the CPU of the server that's using the database?
The disks and tape drives were connected in such a way that allowed the data to be sent directly from disk to tape without going through any server's CPU?
Fibre Channel and SANs have made all of these "what ifs" possible, including many others. SANs are making backups more manageable than ever - regardless of the size of the servers being backed up, In many cases, SANs are making things possible that weren't conceivable with conventional parallel SCSI or LAN-based backups.
What was really needed was a way to share the drives. And as long as the tape drives were shared, disk drives could be shared too. What if:
A large database server could back up to a locally attached tape drive, but that tape drive could also be seen and used by another large server when it needed to back up to a locally attached tape drive?
The large database server's disk could be seen by another server that backed up its disks without sending the data through the CPU of the server that's using the database?
The disks and tape drives were connected in such a way that allowed the data to be sent directly from disk to tape without going through any server's CPU?
Fibre Channel and SANs have made all of these "what ifs" possible, including many others. SANs are making backups more manageable than ever - regardless of the size of the servers being backed up, In many cases, SANs are making things possible that weren't conceivable with conventional parallel SCSI or LAN-based backups.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
What are SANs and NAS?
Throughout the history of computing, people have wanted to share computing resources. The Burroughs Corporation had this in mind in 1961 when they developed multiprogramming and virtual memory. Shugart Associates felt that people would be interested in a way to easily use and share disk devices. That's why they defined the Shugart Associates System Interface (SASI) in 1979. This, of course, was the predecessor to SCSI - the Small Computer System Interface. In the early 1980s, a team of engineers at Sun Microsystems felt that people needed a better way to share files, so they developed NFS. Sun released it to the public in 1984, and it became the Unix community's prevalent method of sharing filesystems. Also in 1984, Sytec developed NetBIOS for IBM; NetBIOS would become the foundation for the SMB protocol that would ultimately become CIFS, the predominant method of sharing files in a Windows environment.
Neither storage area networks (SANs) nor network attached storage (NAS) are new concepts. SANs are simply the next evolution of SCSI, and NAS is the next evolution of NFS and CIFS.
History
As mentioned earlier, SCSI has its origins in SASI, defined by Shugart Associates in 1979. In 1981, Shugart and NCR joined forces to better document SASI and to add features from another interface developed by NCR. In 1982, the ANSI task group X3T9.3 drafted a formal proposal for the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI), which was to be based on SASI. After work by many companies and many people, SCSI became a formal ANSI standard in 1986. Shortly thereafter, work began on SCSI-2, which incorporated the Common Command Set into SCSI, as well as other enhancements. It was approved in July 1990. Although SCSI-2 became the de facto interface between storage devices and small to midrange computing devices, not everyone felt that traditional SCSI was a good idea. This was due to the physical and electrical characteristics of copper-based parallel SCSI cables. (SCSI systems based on such cables are now referred to as parallel SCSI, because the SCSI signals are carried across dozens of pairs of conductors in parallel.) Although SCSI has come a long way since 1990, the following limitations still apply to parallel SCSI:
Neither storage area networks (SANs) nor network attached storage (NAS) are new concepts. SANs are simply the next evolution of SCSI, and NAS is the next evolution of NFS and CIFS.
History
As mentioned earlier, SCSI has its origins in SASI, defined by Shugart Associates in 1979. In 1981, Shugart and NCR joined forces to better document SASI and to add features from another interface developed by NCR. In 1982, the ANSI task group X3T9.3 drafted a formal proposal for the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI), which was to be based on SASI. After work by many companies and many people, SCSI became a formal ANSI standard in 1986. Shortly thereafter, work began on SCSI-2, which incorporated the Common Command Set into SCSI, as well as other enhancements. It was approved in July 1990. Although SCSI-2 became the de facto interface between storage devices and small to midrange computing devices, not everyone felt that traditional SCSI was a good idea. This was due to the physical and electrical characteristics of copper-based parallel SCSI cables. (SCSI systems based on such cables are now referred to as parallel SCSI, because the SCSI signals are carried across dozens of pairs of conductors in parallel.) Although SCSI has come a long way since 1990, the following limitations still apply to parallel SCSI:
- Parallel SCSI is limited to 16 devices on a bus.
- It's possible, but not usually practical, to connect two computing devices to the same storage device with parallel SCSI.
- Due to cross talk between the individual conductors in a multiconductor parallel SCSI cable, as well as electrical interference from external sources, parallel SCSI has cable length limitations. Although this limitation has been somewhat overcome by SCSI-to-fiber-to-SCSI conversion boxes, these boxes aren't supported by many software and hardware vendors.
- It's also important to note that each device added to a SCSI chain shortens its total possible length.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Nothing but net(work): Why you need one
Wireless home networking isn't just about linking computers to the Internet. Although that task is important - nay, critical - in today's network-focused environment, it's not the whole enchilada. Of the many benefits of having wireless in the home, most have one thing in common: sharing. When you connect the computers in your home through a network, you can share files, printers, scanners and high-speed Internet connections between them. In addition, you can play multiuser games over your network, access public wireless networks while you're away from home, check wireless cameras, use Internet Voice over IP (VoIP) services, or even enjoy your MP3s from your home stereo system while you're at work - really!
Reading Wireless Home Networking For Dummies, 3rd Edition, helps you understand how to create a whole-home wireless network to reach the nooks and crannies of your home. The big initial reason that people have wanted to put wireless networks in their homes has been to 'unwire' their PCs, especially laptops, to enable more freedom of access in the home. But just about every major consumer goods manufacturer is hard at work wirelessly enabling its devices so that they too can talk to other devices in the home - you can find home theater receivers, music players, and even flat-panel TVs with wireless capabilities built right in.
People go with wireless networking for:
Reading Wireless Home Networking For Dummies, 3rd Edition, helps you understand how to create a whole-home wireless network to reach the nooks and crannies of your home. The big initial reason that people have wanted to put wireless networks in their homes has been to 'unwire' their PCs, especially laptops, to enable more freedom of access in the home. But just about every major consumer goods manufacturer is hard at work wirelessly enabling its devices so that they too can talk to other devices in the home - you can find home theater receivers, music players, and even flat-panel TVs with wireless capabilities built right in.
People go with wireless networking for:
- File sharing
- Internet connection sharing
- Printer and peripheral sharing
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Introduction to Wireless Networking
Over the past 5 years, the world has become increasingly mobile. As a result, traditional ways of networking the world have proven inadequate to meet the challenges posed by our new collective lifestyle. If users must be connected to a network by physical cables, their movement is dramatically reduced. Wireless connectivity, however, poses no such restriction and allows a great deal more free movement on the part of the network user. As a result, wireless technologies are encroaching on the traditional realm of 'fixed' or 'wired' networks. This change is obvious to anybody who drives on a regular basis. One of the 'life and death' challenges to those of us who drive on a regular basis is the daily gauntlet of erratically driven cars containing mobile phone users in the driver's seat.
Wireless connectivity for voice telephony has created a whole new industry. Adding mobile connectivity into the mix for telephony has had profound influences on the business of delivering voice calls because callers could be connected to people, not devices. We are on the cusp of an equally profound change in computer networking. Wireless telephony has been successful because it enables people to connect with each other regardless of location. New technologies targeted at computer networks promise to do the same for Internet connectivity. The most successful wireless data networking technology this far has been 802.11.
Wireless connectivity for voice telephony has created a whole new industry. Adding mobile connectivity into the mix for telephony has had profound influences on the business of delivering voice calls because callers could be connected to people, not devices. We are on the cusp of an equally profound change in computer networking. Wireless telephony has been successful because it enables people to connect with each other regardless of location. New technologies targeted at computer networks promise to do the same for Internet connectivity. The most successful wireless data networking technology this far has been 802.11.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Transforming materials
Many thousands of years ago, people began to find ways of changing the simple materials they found around them into more useful forms that could help them survive in a hostile world. Soft clay was available everywhere and easy to shape, but it was fragile. Transformed by fire, it became the hard, waterproof body of a cooking pot or storage jar. Even common sand can be transformed by heating it with other substances to make the smooth, transparent material called glass. Other rocks yield strong, tough metals when heated with the right materials. All of these processes require energy, often in the form of heat. And all of them are still in use today, although they now take place on a huge scale, using much more energy than in the past.
Grecian crafts
The bottom of this ancient Greek cup was decorated by scraping away a black coating to reveal the red clay underneath. Often leather was fashioned into sturdy sandals.
Grecian crafts
The bottom of this ancient Greek cup was decorated by scraping away a black coating to reveal the red clay underneath. Often leather was fashioned into sturdy sandals.
Friday, October 9, 2009
What is technology?
Technology is the science & art of making and using things. Human beings are uniquely able to turn the materials of the natural world into tools and machines that can help them live. Although other animals can make things and use tools - the otter uses rocks to break open shell - the way they do this hardly ever changes. Human technology is different: people are able to see new needs, find new ways of meeting them, and spot the value of accidental discoveries. The discovery of fire, for example, and its ability to transform clay into pottery or rocks into metals, made the modern world possible. Over the last few hundred years, scientists have found out why materials and machines behave the way we do. Using this knowledge, old materials have been improved, new materials invented, and science and mathematics brought to bear on products as different as swimwear and aircraft. Making things starts with design - working out what is needed and how to provide it. Designers now have a vast range of materials, methods, and components with which to realize their ideas, and today much of their work can be done by computers. But producing something that works well, costs little, and appeals to its users remains a truly human art.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Antitrust Inquiry for IBM
The Justice Department has started a preliminary investigation into whether I.B.M. has abused its monopoly position in the market for mainframe computers, which remain vital to many of the world’s largest businesses. This month, antitrust regulators at the Justice Department began seeking information about I.B.M.’s business practices from companies that compete with I.B.M. in the market for large computer hardware and software, people who had been contacted in the inquiry said.
The requests for information followed a complaint filed by the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a trade group with a history of involvement in antitrust disputes. The organization, which is backed by I.B.M. competitors like Microsoft and Oracle, contends that I.B.M. stymied competition in the mainframe market and blocked efforts by competitors and potential partners to license I.B.M.’s software.
The complaint follows similar legal action taken by T3 Technologies against I.B.M.
T3, a small company that resold mainframelike computers, filed an antitrust complaint against I.B.M. in January in Europe. T3 also filed a civil suit against I.B.M. in the United States. Last week a federal district judge in New York dismissed that case. T3 said it planned to appeal.
Steven Friedman, the president of T3, said he had received a formal request for information from the Justice Department about I.B.M.’s actions in the mainframe market. “They asked for a very broad set of documents and information,” he said.
Edward J. Black, the chief executive of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, confirmed that it had filed a complaint against I.B.M. with the Justice Department and that investigators had contacted some members.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.
The inquiry is the early stages and may not result in charges against I.B.M. The last time federal regulators pursued an antitrust suit against I.B.M. in the mainframe market, the result was a humbling setback for the department when the Reagan administration dropped the case in 1982, after 13 years.
In a statement on Wednesday, I.B.M. cited the judge’s ruling last week against T3 and said, “We continue to believe there is no merit to T3’s claims.”
“We understand the Department of Justice has asked T3 for documents from the litigation,” I.B.M. said. “I.B.M. intends to cooperate with any inquiries from the Department of Justice.”
While sometimes called the dinosaurs of computing, mainframes continue to play a vital role in business. The systems are estimated to handle 50 billion transactions a day in such areas as automated teller machines, health records and accounting.
Mainframes are also important to I.B.M. About 25 percent of its $104 billion in annual revenue comes from the sale of mainframes and associated products like storage systems, software and services, said A. M. Sacconaghi, a securities analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein.
Historically, I.B.M. has faced off against competitors in the mainframe market. Past rivals, including Amdahl, Hitachi and Fujitsu, built computers that could run I.B.M. software, which was a standard for mainframes.
Most rivals abandoned their mainframe systems when I.B.M. developed more advanced chips for its machines, in part because of the cost of moving to the new chips.
More recently, smaller companies and even individuals have worked to create software to mimic mainframe functions on lower-cost, mainstream computer servers.
One start-up called Platform Solutions had modest success with this approach earlier this decade and drew the interest of Hewlett-Packard, which held discussions about buying the company.
I.B.M., however, declined to license its mainframe software to Platform and sued the company. Last year, I.B.M. acquired Platform for $150 million and discontinued the company’s computer systems.
I.B.M.’s decision not to license its mainframe software has been at the heart of the antitrust complaints against it. In addition, competitors have argued that I.B.M. has stepped up aggressive tactics to block them from selling products that can lower the cost of mainframe technology.
But I.B.M.’s opposition to licensing its technology to outsiders is not enough to build a successful government antitrust case, said Andrew I. Gavil, a law professor at Howard University. More likely, Professor Gavil said, the Justice Department is investigating to see if I.B.M. is engaged in other tactics that might be anticompetitive.
In the ruling in the private case last week, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of Federal District Court in Manhattan found that I.B.M. had invested heavily in its modern mainframe technology and its decision not to license it “does not constitute anticompetitive conduct.”
The technology industry has undergone an accelerating wave of consolidation as companies like Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, EMC and Dell have made large acquisitions. The deals reflect a desire by large technology companies to offer a wider range of hardware, software and services so that customers see them as one-stop shops.
Analysts contend that I.B.M.’s dominance in the mainframe market gives it a major advantage because it deals with its customers’ most confidential information. They also say that I.B.M.’s practices have resulted in higher costs for customers.
By ASHLEE VANCE and STEVE LOHR
Source: New York Times
The requests for information followed a complaint filed by the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a trade group with a history of involvement in antitrust disputes. The organization, which is backed by I.B.M. competitors like Microsoft and Oracle, contends that I.B.M. stymied competition in the mainframe market and blocked efforts by competitors and potential partners to license I.B.M.’s software.
The complaint follows similar legal action taken by T3 Technologies against I.B.M.
T3, a small company that resold mainframelike computers, filed an antitrust complaint against I.B.M. in January in Europe. T3 also filed a civil suit against I.B.M. in the United States. Last week a federal district judge in New York dismissed that case. T3 said it planned to appeal.
Steven Friedman, the president of T3, said he had received a formal request for information from the Justice Department about I.B.M.’s actions in the mainframe market. “They asked for a very broad set of documents and information,” he said.
Edward J. Black, the chief executive of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, confirmed that it had filed a complaint against I.B.M. with the Justice Department and that investigators had contacted some members.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.
The inquiry is the early stages and may not result in charges against I.B.M. The last time federal regulators pursued an antitrust suit against I.B.M. in the mainframe market, the result was a humbling setback for the department when the Reagan administration dropped the case in 1982, after 13 years.
In a statement on Wednesday, I.B.M. cited the judge’s ruling last week against T3 and said, “We continue to believe there is no merit to T3’s claims.”
“We understand the Department of Justice has asked T3 for documents from the litigation,” I.B.M. said. “I.B.M. intends to cooperate with any inquiries from the Department of Justice.”
While sometimes called the dinosaurs of computing, mainframes continue to play a vital role in business. The systems are estimated to handle 50 billion transactions a day in such areas as automated teller machines, health records and accounting.
Mainframes are also important to I.B.M. About 25 percent of its $104 billion in annual revenue comes from the sale of mainframes and associated products like storage systems, software and services, said A. M. Sacconaghi, a securities analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein.
Historically, I.B.M. has faced off against competitors in the mainframe market. Past rivals, including Amdahl, Hitachi and Fujitsu, built computers that could run I.B.M. software, which was a standard for mainframes.
Most rivals abandoned their mainframe systems when I.B.M. developed more advanced chips for its machines, in part because of the cost of moving to the new chips.
More recently, smaller companies and even individuals have worked to create software to mimic mainframe functions on lower-cost, mainstream computer servers.
One start-up called Platform Solutions had modest success with this approach earlier this decade and drew the interest of Hewlett-Packard, which held discussions about buying the company.
I.B.M., however, declined to license its mainframe software to Platform and sued the company. Last year, I.B.M. acquired Platform for $150 million and discontinued the company’s computer systems.
I.B.M.’s decision not to license its mainframe software has been at the heart of the antitrust complaints against it. In addition, competitors have argued that I.B.M. has stepped up aggressive tactics to block them from selling products that can lower the cost of mainframe technology.
But I.B.M.’s opposition to licensing its technology to outsiders is not enough to build a successful government antitrust case, said Andrew I. Gavil, a law professor at Howard University. More likely, Professor Gavil said, the Justice Department is investigating to see if I.B.M. is engaged in other tactics that might be anticompetitive.
In the ruling in the private case last week, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of Federal District Court in Manhattan found that I.B.M. had invested heavily in its modern mainframe technology and its decision not to license it “does not constitute anticompetitive conduct.”
The technology industry has undergone an accelerating wave of consolidation as companies like Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, EMC and Dell have made large acquisitions. The deals reflect a desire by large technology companies to offer a wider range of hardware, software and services so that customers see them as one-stop shops.
Analysts contend that I.B.M.’s dominance in the mainframe market gives it a major advantage because it deals with its customers’ most confidential information. They also say that I.B.M.’s practices have resulted in higher costs for customers.
By ASHLEE VANCE and STEVE LOHR
Source: New York Times
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
In E-Books, It’s an Army vs. Google
SAN FRANCISCO — Whenever it can, Google likes to have programmers solve its problems. But now it faces a dispute that even its ranks of lawyers and lobbyists are finding hard to smooth over.
A broad array of authors, academics, librarians and public interest groups are fighting the company’s plan to create a huge digital library and bookstore. Their complaints reached the ears of regulators at the Justice Department, which last month helped derail the plan by asking a court to reject the class-action settlement that spawned it.
That request led to a last-minute decision by Google and its partners, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, to redraft the agreement. A federal court hearing in New York on Wednesday will shed light on their progress.
Some analysts say the broad-based opposition to Google’s lofty plans was unprecedented and a harbinger of the intense scrutiny the company’s ambitious agenda will face.
“This was the first issue through which Google’s power became clearly articulated to the public,” said Siva Vaidhyanathan, associate professor of media studies and law at the University of Virginia. “All sorts of people — writers, researchers, librarians, academics and readers — really feel they have a stake in the world of books.”
Google expressed confidence that a new agreement that could win court approval might be ready within weeks. “I don’t think we need a lot of time,” said David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer.
This is not the first time Google’s ambitions have collided with the Justice Department. Last year, after advertisers and competitors argued that a planned ad deal with Yahoo would harm competition, the department said it would try to block the partnership in court. Google chose to abandon the deal rather than fight.
This time, the department’s lawyers heard from Google rivals like Microsoft. But they also heard complaints from a much broader group, many of whom shared the same fear: that the deal would allow Google, the 800-pound gorilla of digital information, to bulk up even more and lock out competitors in the nascent digital book market.
In a recent order, the judge who will have to approve or reject the settlement remarked on the number and breadth of objections the court had received. “Clearly, fair concerns have been raised,” wrote Judge Denny Chin of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The Justice Department told the court that it hoped the parties would be able to modify the agreement to address antitrust, copyright and class-action problems, while preserving some of its benefits.
Some experts say that even if a modified deal is approved, the dispute portends the kind of suspicion that Google’s plans will likely face.
“Google will have continuous challenges to major initiatives around consumer choice, security and trust, privacy,” said David Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School. “This will never stop. It will be a question of how well Google builds coalitions and lays the groundwork before they establish a fait accompli in a particular area.”
Google’s plan emerged from a sweeping settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed by authors and publishers in 2005 over the company’s effort to digitize books from major libraries. Google and its allies hailed the agreement as a public good: millions of out-of-print books would become widely available, unlocking vast swaths of human knowledge, while giving authors new ways to earn money from digital copies of their works.
While Google’s corporate rivals fanned the flames of opposition, much of the resistance to the deal began in the confines of academia and spread gradually. In the end, more than 350 individuals, companies, nonprofit groups, academics, library associations, overseas publishers, states and even foreign governments lodged complaints in court against the agreement, in whole or in part. They outnumbered the filings in support of the deal by about 10 to 1.
Many scholars initially sided with Google in 2004 when its scanning project, originally designed to create a kind of universal card catalog, drew lawsuits from the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers. But the settlement transformed Google’s plan into something far more ambitious.
Online users of Google’s digital library and store would get free access to 20 percent of any book and be able to pay to read the rest. Every library in America would be able to offer free, full access to Google’s library at one terminal. And universities would be able to purchase access to the entire collection. Revenue would be split among Google, authors and publishers.
Even before the agreement was signed last October, however, opposition began to brew. Harvard University, which along with a few other libraries had been invited to participate in some of the negotiations, withdrew. A few months later, Robert Darnton, head of the university’s library system, wrote an impassioned attack on the deal in The New York Review of Books.
Around the same time, Pamela Samuelson, a respected Internet law and copyright expert at the University of California, Berkeley, convened a meeting of concerned scholars who began spreading the word at universities.
At a conference at Columbia Law School in March, the outlines of the opposition began to emerge. Critics said the deal would grant Google quasi-exclusive rights to commercialize millions of orphan works, books whose rights holders are unknown or cannot be found. That would make it hard to compete with, potentially leaving Google free to raise prices.
Others said the deal turned copyright law on its head by letting Google profit from millions of books unless authors objected. Librarians grew concerned that Google wouldn’t adequately protect their patrons’ privacy.
Gail Steinbeck, the daughter-in-law of John Steinbeck, received notice of the settlement shortly before a May deadline for authors to opt out. She thought most authors would not understand it.
“When I saw this come through, just a few weeks before the deadline, I flipped out,” said Ms. Steinbeck, who along with her husband has been involved in a legal fight over the rights to some of John Steinbeck’s works.
Ms. Steinbeck quickly sent a letter to several influential authors laying out her fears. “It would be a shame to have to go back to Congress and/or the courts in a few years to ask them to split up a monopoly, when we have the chance to stop it in its tracks right now,” she wrote.
As a result, a group of authors that included the musician Arlo Guthrie asked the court for a four-month extension, which was granted. The delay proved crucial, as it gave time for opponents to get organized, leading to a veritable deluge of last-minute filings.
Lawrence Lessig, an Internet scholar and professor at Harvard Law School, said Google’s belief that its actions and motives were misunderstood reminded him of a frustration that permeated Microsoft in the 1990s.
“I’ve seen these big powerful companies filled with people who drank the Kool-Aid,” said Professor Lessig, who initially supported Google’s scanning but later came to oppose the settlement. “I really get the sense in which these people feel they are doing good. But I am always surprised by their failure to recognize how they will be perceived outside.”
Mr. Drummond said Google anticipated that a deal so sweeping would generate criticism. He said support for it was far broader than the opposition, noting that the guild and the publishers association represented a large portion of the American book industry.
“The benefits far outweigh any of these criticisms that are being made, many of which are quite theoretical,” Mr. Drummond said. “We have a good process now for taking into account some of the objections.” He added: “The fact that there are some critics doesn’t mean you should be paralyzed and not do something that provides value.”
By MIGUEL HELFT
Source: NYT
A broad array of authors, academics, librarians and public interest groups are fighting the company’s plan to create a huge digital library and bookstore. Their complaints reached the ears of regulators at the Justice Department, which last month helped derail the plan by asking a court to reject the class-action settlement that spawned it.
That request led to a last-minute decision by Google and its partners, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, to redraft the agreement. A federal court hearing in New York on Wednesday will shed light on their progress.
Some analysts say the broad-based opposition to Google’s lofty plans was unprecedented and a harbinger of the intense scrutiny the company’s ambitious agenda will face.
“This was the first issue through which Google’s power became clearly articulated to the public,” said Siva Vaidhyanathan, associate professor of media studies and law at the University of Virginia. “All sorts of people — writers, researchers, librarians, academics and readers — really feel they have a stake in the world of books.”
Google expressed confidence that a new agreement that could win court approval might be ready within weeks. “I don’t think we need a lot of time,” said David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer.
This is not the first time Google’s ambitions have collided with the Justice Department. Last year, after advertisers and competitors argued that a planned ad deal with Yahoo would harm competition, the department said it would try to block the partnership in court. Google chose to abandon the deal rather than fight.
This time, the department’s lawyers heard from Google rivals like Microsoft. But they also heard complaints from a much broader group, many of whom shared the same fear: that the deal would allow Google, the 800-pound gorilla of digital information, to bulk up even more and lock out competitors in the nascent digital book market.
In a recent order, the judge who will have to approve or reject the settlement remarked on the number and breadth of objections the court had received. “Clearly, fair concerns have been raised,” wrote Judge Denny Chin of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The Justice Department told the court that it hoped the parties would be able to modify the agreement to address antitrust, copyright and class-action problems, while preserving some of its benefits.
Some experts say that even if a modified deal is approved, the dispute portends the kind of suspicion that Google’s plans will likely face.
“Google will have continuous challenges to major initiatives around consumer choice, security and trust, privacy,” said David Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School. “This will never stop. It will be a question of how well Google builds coalitions and lays the groundwork before they establish a fait accompli in a particular area.”
Google’s plan emerged from a sweeping settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed by authors and publishers in 2005 over the company’s effort to digitize books from major libraries. Google and its allies hailed the agreement as a public good: millions of out-of-print books would become widely available, unlocking vast swaths of human knowledge, while giving authors new ways to earn money from digital copies of their works.
While Google’s corporate rivals fanned the flames of opposition, much of the resistance to the deal began in the confines of academia and spread gradually. In the end, more than 350 individuals, companies, nonprofit groups, academics, library associations, overseas publishers, states and even foreign governments lodged complaints in court against the agreement, in whole or in part. They outnumbered the filings in support of the deal by about 10 to 1.
Many scholars initially sided with Google in 2004 when its scanning project, originally designed to create a kind of universal card catalog, drew lawsuits from the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers. But the settlement transformed Google’s plan into something far more ambitious.
Online users of Google’s digital library and store would get free access to 20 percent of any book and be able to pay to read the rest. Every library in America would be able to offer free, full access to Google’s library at one terminal. And universities would be able to purchase access to the entire collection. Revenue would be split among Google, authors and publishers.
Even before the agreement was signed last October, however, opposition began to brew. Harvard University, which along with a few other libraries had been invited to participate in some of the negotiations, withdrew. A few months later, Robert Darnton, head of the university’s library system, wrote an impassioned attack on the deal in The New York Review of Books.
Around the same time, Pamela Samuelson, a respected Internet law and copyright expert at the University of California, Berkeley, convened a meeting of concerned scholars who began spreading the word at universities.
At a conference at Columbia Law School in March, the outlines of the opposition began to emerge. Critics said the deal would grant Google quasi-exclusive rights to commercialize millions of orphan works, books whose rights holders are unknown or cannot be found. That would make it hard to compete with, potentially leaving Google free to raise prices.
Others said the deal turned copyright law on its head by letting Google profit from millions of books unless authors objected. Librarians grew concerned that Google wouldn’t adequately protect their patrons’ privacy.
Gail Steinbeck, the daughter-in-law of John Steinbeck, received notice of the settlement shortly before a May deadline for authors to opt out. She thought most authors would not understand it.
“When I saw this come through, just a few weeks before the deadline, I flipped out,” said Ms. Steinbeck, who along with her husband has been involved in a legal fight over the rights to some of John Steinbeck’s works.
Ms. Steinbeck quickly sent a letter to several influential authors laying out her fears. “It would be a shame to have to go back to Congress and/or the courts in a few years to ask them to split up a monopoly, when we have the chance to stop it in its tracks right now,” she wrote.
As a result, a group of authors that included the musician Arlo Guthrie asked the court for a four-month extension, which was granted. The delay proved crucial, as it gave time for opponents to get organized, leading to a veritable deluge of last-minute filings.
Lawrence Lessig, an Internet scholar and professor at Harvard Law School, said Google’s belief that its actions and motives were misunderstood reminded him of a frustration that permeated Microsoft in the 1990s.
“I’ve seen these big powerful companies filled with people who drank the Kool-Aid,” said Professor Lessig, who initially supported Google’s scanning but later came to oppose the settlement. “I really get the sense in which these people feel they are doing good. But I am always surprised by their failure to recognize how they will be perceived outside.”
Mr. Drummond said Google anticipated that a deal so sweeping would generate criticism. He said support for it was far broader than the opposition, noting that the guild and the publishers association represented a large portion of the American book industry.
“The benefits far outweigh any of these criticisms that are being made, many of which are quite theoretical,” Mr. Drummond said. “We have a good process now for taking into account some of the objections.” He added: “The fact that there are some critics doesn’t mean you should be paralyzed and not do something that provides value.”
By MIGUEL HELFT
Source: NYT
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Soon, Bloggers Must Give Full Disclosure
FOR nearly three decades, the Federal Trade Commission’s rules regarding the relationships between advertisers and product reviewers and endorsers were deemed adequate. Then came the age of blogging and social media.
On Monday, the F.T.C. said it would revise rules about endorsements and testimonials in advertising that had been in place since 1980. The new regulations are aimed at the rapidly shifting new-media world and how advertisers are using bloggers and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to pitch their wares.
The F.T.C. said that beginning on Dec. 1, bloggers who review products must disclose any connection with advertisers, including, in most cases, the receipt of free products and whether or not they were paid in any way by advertisers, as occurs frequently. The new rules also take aim at celebrities, who will now need to disclose any ties to companies, should they promote products on a talk show or on Twitter. A second major change, which was not aimed specifically at bloggers or social media, was to eliminate the ability of advertisers to gush about results that differ from what is typical — for instance, from a weight loss supplement.
For bloggers who review products, this means that the days of an unimpeded flow of giveaways may be over. More broadly, the move suggests that the government is intent on bringing to bear on the Internet the same sorts of regulations that have governed other forms of media, like television or print.
“It crushes the idea that the Internet is separate from the kinds of concerns that have been attached to previous media,” said Clay Shirky, a professor at New York University.
Richard Cleland, assistant director of the division of advertising practices at the F.T.C., said: “We were looking and seeing the significance of social media marketing in the 21st century and we thought it was time to explain the principles of transparency and truth in advertising and apply them to social media marketing. Which isn’t to say that we saw a huge problem out there that was imperative to address.”
Still, sites like Twitter and Facebook, as well as blogs, have offered companies new opportunities to pitch products with endorsements that carry a veneer of authenticity because they seem to be straight from the mouth — or keyboard — of an individual consumer. In some cases, companies have set up product review blogs that appear to be independent. One such case involved Urban Nutrition, a seller of supplements, that ran Web sites like WeKnowDiets.com and GoogleDiets.com. The National Advertising Review Council, which governs the industry’s self-regulatory programs, said the sites were “formatted as independent product-review blogs.”
Jonathan Zittrain, a professor at Harvard Law School and co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said, “the rules are looking ahead to a quite possible future when there is a market to buy ‘authentic’ public endorsements.”
Some marketing groups fought the changes. “If a product is provided to bloggers, the F.T.C. will consider that, in most cases, to be a material connection even if the advertiser has no control over the content of the blogs,” said Linda Goldstein, a partner at Manatt Phelps & Phillips, a law firm that represents three marketing groups, the Electronic Retailing Association, the Promotion Marketing Association and the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. “In terms of the real world blogging community, that’s a seismic shift.”
Ms. Goldstein added, “We would have preferred the F.T.C. to work closer with the industry to learn how viral marketing works.”
The new guidelines were not unexpected — the commission gave notice last November that it would take up the matter. They will affect scores of bloggers who began as hobbyists only to find that companies flocked to them in search of a new way to reach consumers.
About three-and-a-half years ago Christine Young, of Lincoln, Calif., began blogging about her adventures in home schooling. It led to her current blog, FromDatesToDiapers.com, about mothers and families. The free products soon started arriving, and now hardly a day goes by without a package from Federal Express or DHL arriving at her door, she said. Mostly they are children’s products, like Nintendo Wii games, but sometimes not. She said she recently received a free pair of women’s shoes from Timberland.
Ms. Young said she had always disclosed whether or not she received a free product when writing her reviews. But companies have nothing to lose when sending off goodies: if she doesn’t like a product, she simply won’t write about it.
“I think that bloggers definitely need to be held accountable,” said Ms. Young. “I think there is a certain level of trust that bloggers have with readers, and readers deserve to know the whole truth.”
Source: New York Times
On Monday, the F.T.C. said it would revise rules about endorsements and testimonials in advertising that had been in place since 1980. The new regulations are aimed at the rapidly shifting new-media world and how advertisers are using bloggers and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to pitch their wares.
The F.T.C. said that beginning on Dec. 1, bloggers who review products must disclose any connection with advertisers, including, in most cases, the receipt of free products and whether or not they were paid in any way by advertisers, as occurs frequently. The new rules also take aim at celebrities, who will now need to disclose any ties to companies, should they promote products on a talk show or on Twitter. A second major change, which was not aimed specifically at bloggers or social media, was to eliminate the ability of advertisers to gush about results that differ from what is typical — for instance, from a weight loss supplement.
For bloggers who review products, this means that the days of an unimpeded flow of giveaways may be over. More broadly, the move suggests that the government is intent on bringing to bear on the Internet the same sorts of regulations that have governed other forms of media, like television or print.
“It crushes the idea that the Internet is separate from the kinds of concerns that have been attached to previous media,” said Clay Shirky, a professor at New York University.
Richard Cleland, assistant director of the division of advertising practices at the F.T.C., said: “We were looking and seeing the significance of social media marketing in the 21st century and we thought it was time to explain the principles of transparency and truth in advertising and apply them to social media marketing. Which isn’t to say that we saw a huge problem out there that was imperative to address.”
Still, sites like Twitter and Facebook, as well as blogs, have offered companies new opportunities to pitch products with endorsements that carry a veneer of authenticity because they seem to be straight from the mouth — or keyboard — of an individual consumer. In some cases, companies have set up product review blogs that appear to be independent. One such case involved Urban Nutrition, a seller of supplements, that ran Web sites like WeKnowDiets.com and GoogleDiets.com. The National Advertising Review Council, which governs the industry’s self-regulatory programs, said the sites were “formatted as independent product-review blogs.”
Jonathan Zittrain, a professor at Harvard Law School and co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said, “the rules are looking ahead to a quite possible future when there is a market to buy ‘authentic’ public endorsements.”
Some marketing groups fought the changes. “If a product is provided to bloggers, the F.T.C. will consider that, in most cases, to be a material connection even if the advertiser has no control over the content of the blogs,” said Linda Goldstein, a partner at Manatt Phelps & Phillips, a law firm that represents three marketing groups, the Electronic Retailing Association, the Promotion Marketing Association and the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. “In terms of the real world blogging community, that’s a seismic shift.”
Ms. Goldstein added, “We would have preferred the F.T.C. to work closer with the industry to learn how viral marketing works.”
The new guidelines were not unexpected — the commission gave notice last November that it would take up the matter. They will affect scores of bloggers who began as hobbyists only to find that companies flocked to them in search of a new way to reach consumers.
About three-and-a-half years ago Christine Young, of Lincoln, Calif., began blogging about her adventures in home schooling. It led to her current blog, FromDatesToDiapers.com, about mothers and families. The free products soon started arriving, and now hardly a day goes by without a package from Federal Express or DHL arriving at her door, she said. Mostly they are children’s products, like Nintendo Wii games, but sometimes not. She said she recently received a free pair of women’s shoes from Timberland.
Ms. Young said she had always disclosed whether or not she received a free product when writing her reviews. But companies have nothing to lose when sending off goodies: if she doesn’t like a product, she simply won’t write about it.
“I think that bloggers definitely need to be held accountable,” said Ms. Young. “I think there is a certain level of trust that bloggers have with readers, and readers deserve to know the whole truth.”
Source: New York Times
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Technology cartoon
See another technology cartoon in which a person is hanging from a cliff and despite of saving him another person says, "Don't worry technology will save you". Funny....
Friday, October 2, 2009
M.I.T. Taking Student Blogs to Nth Degree
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Cristen Chinea, a senior at M.I.T., made a confession in her blog on the college Web site.
“There’ve been several times when I felt like I didn’t really fit in at M.I.T.,” she wrote. “I nearly fell asleep during a Star Wars marathon. It wasn’t a result of sleep deprivation. I was bored out of my mind.”
Still, in other ways, Ms. Chinea feels right at home at the institute — she loves the anime club, and that her hall has its own wiki Web site and an Internet Relay for real-time messaging. As she wrote on her blog, a hallmate once told her that “M.I.T. is the closest you can get to living in the Internet,” and Ms. Chinea reported, “IT IS SO TRUE. Love. It. So. Much.”
Dozens of colleges — including Amherst, Bates, Carleton, Colby, Vassar, Wellesley and Yale — are embracing student blogs on their Web sites, seeing them as a powerful marketing tool for high school students, who these days are less interested in official messages and statistics than in first-hand narratives and direct interaction with current students.
But so far, none of the blogs match the interactivity and creativity of those of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where they are posted prominently on the admissions homepage, along with hundreds of responses from prospective applicants — all unedited.
Not every admissions office has been so ready to welcome uncensored student writing.
“A lot of people in admissions have not been eager for bloggers, mostly based on fears that we can’t control what people are saying,” said Jess Lord, dean of admissions at Haverford College, which posted student bloggers’ accounts of their summer activities this year, and plans to add bloggers this spring to help admitted students hear about campus life. “We’re learning, slowly, that this is how the world works, especially for high school students.”
M.I.T.’s bloggers, who are paid $10 an hour for up to four hours a week, offer thoughts on anything that might interest a prospective student. Some offer advice on the application process and the institute’s intense workload; others write about quirkier topics, like warm apple pie topped with bacon and hot caramel sauce, falling down the stairs or trying to set a world record in the game of Mattress Dominos.
Posting untouched student writing — and comments reacting to that writing — does carry some risks. Boring, sloppily written posts do nothing to burnish an institutional image, college admissions officials say, and there is always the possibility of an inflammatory or wildly negative posting.
Pomona has considered having student bloggers, but so far has felt that the risks outweigh the benefits, said Art Rodriguez, senior associate dean of admissions.
“Blogs can certainly help humanize the process,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “The flip side is that a few anxious high school students may think and worry too much about what someone wrote on their blog, and present themselves in a slightly different way than who they really are. And there’s always the concern about the political ramifications, that bloggers may open up an issue or topic that starts something negative.”
But Mr. Lord of Haverford said prospective students’ interest in the summer bloggers calmed his worries.
“High school students read the blogs, and they come in and say ‘I can’t believe Haverford students get to do such interesting things with their summers,’ ” he said. “There’s no better way for students to learn about a college than from other students.”
Many high school seniors avidly follow student blogs at the colleges they are interested in, and post comments. Luka, one of dozens responding to Ms. Chinea, for example, wrote: “I didn’t know about the anime club. I would have never guessed that people at M.I.T. are interested in anime. Oh well ... +1 on my ‘Why should I go to M.I.T.’ list.”
M.I.T.’s student bloggers said they had read the blogs when they were applying, posted comments and connected with other applicants.
“I was blogging myself, almost every day, when I was in high school, and I read the M.I.T. blogs all the time,” said Jess Kim, a senior blogger. “For me they painted a picture of what life would be like here, and that was part of why I wanted to come.”
Ben Jones, the former director of communications at M.I.T.’s admissions office, began with a single blog by a student five years ago, at the dawn of the Facebook era, and noticed high school students responding right away. “We saw very quickly that prospective students were engaging with each other and building their own community,” said Mr. Jones, who now works at Oberlin College, where he has added blogs to the Web site.
The M.I.T. student bloggers have different majors, ethnicities, residence halls and, particularly, writing styles. Some post weekly or more; others disappear for months. The bloggers are sought out as celebrities during the annual “Meet the Bloggers” session at Campus Preview Weekend.
M.I.T. chooses its bloggers through a contest, in which applicants submit samples of their writing. “The annual blogger selection is like the admissions office’s own running of the bulls,” said Dave McOwen, Mr. Jones’s successor in the admissions office, in his message inviting applications.
This year, 25 freshmen applied for four new spots, and, Mr. McOwen said, it was hard to choose.
“You want people who can communicate and who are going to be involved in different parts of campus life,” he said. “You want them to be positive, but it’s not mandatory.”
And not all posts are positive. Ms. Kim once wrote about how the resident advising system was making it impossible for her to move out of her housing — expressing enough irritation that the housing office requested that the admissions office take her post down. Officials refused, instead having the housing office post a rebuttal of her accusations; eventually, the system was changed.
But most of the blogs are exuberant, lyrical expressions of the joys of M.I.T. life, like last month’s post on returning as a sophomore:
“Something’s changed,” wrote Chris Mills. “Now you know what you’re in for, you know the sleepless nights and frustrations are never far away, but this knowledge can’t seem to remove the exhilarating smile on your face. And it’s in that masochistic moment that you realize who you are. That this is what you’re made for.”
“There’ve been several times when I felt like I didn’t really fit in at M.I.T.,” she wrote. “I nearly fell asleep during a Star Wars marathon. It wasn’t a result of sleep deprivation. I was bored out of my mind.”
Still, in other ways, Ms. Chinea feels right at home at the institute — she loves the anime club, and that her hall has its own wiki Web site and an Internet Relay for real-time messaging. As she wrote on her blog, a hallmate once told her that “M.I.T. is the closest you can get to living in the Internet,” and Ms. Chinea reported, “IT IS SO TRUE. Love. It. So. Much.”
Dozens of colleges — including Amherst, Bates, Carleton, Colby, Vassar, Wellesley and Yale — are embracing student blogs on their Web sites, seeing them as a powerful marketing tool for high school students, who these days are less interested in official messages and statistics than in first-hand narratives and direct interaction with current students.
But so far, none of the blogs match the interactivity and creativity of those of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where they are posted prominently on the admissions homepage, along with hundreds of responses from prospective applicants — all unedited.
Not every admissions office has been so ready to welcome uncensored student writing.
“A lot of people in admissions have not been eager for bloggers, mostly based on fears that we can’t control what people are saying,” said Jess Lord, dean of admissions at Haverford College, which posted student bloggers’ accounts of their summer activities this year, and plans to add bloggers this spring to help admitted students hear about campus life. “We’re learning, slowly, that this is how the world works, especially for high school students.”
M.I.T.’s bloggers, who are paid $10 an hour for up to four hours a week, offer thoughts on anything that might interest a prospective student. Some offer advice on the application process and the institute’s intense workload; others write about quirkier topics, like warm apple pie topped with bacon and hot caramel sauce, falling down the stairs or trying to set a world record in the game of Mattress Dominos.
Posting untouched student writing — and comments reacting to that writing — does carry some risks. Boring, sloppily written posts do nothing to burnish an institutional image, college admissions officials say, and there is always the possibility of an inflammatory or wildly negative posting.
Pomona has considered having student bloggers, but so far has felt that the risks outweigh the benefits, said Art Rodriguez, senior associate dean of admissions.
“Blogs can certainly help humanize the process,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “The flip side is that a few anxious high school students may think and worry too much about what someone wrote on their blog, and present themselves in a slightly different way than who they really are. And there’s always the concern about the political ramifications, that bloggers may open up an issue or topic that starts something negative.”
But Mr. Lord of Haverford said prospective students’ interest in the summer bloggers calmed his worries.
“High school students read the blogs, and they come in and say ‘I can’t believe Haverford students get to do such interesting things with their summers,’ ” he said. “There’s no better way for students to learn about a college than from other students.”
Many high school seniors avidly follow student blogs at the colleges they are interested in, and post comments. Luka, one of dozens responding to Ms. Chinea, for example, wrote: “I didn’t know about the anime club. I would have never guessed that people at M.I.T. are interested in anime. Oh well ... +1 on my ‘Why should I go to M.I.T.’ list.”
M.I.T.’s student bloggers said they had read the blogs when they were applying, posted comments and connected with other applicants.
“I was blogging myself, almost every day, when I was in high school, and I read the M.I.T. blogs all the time,” said Jess Kim, a senior blogger. “For me they painted a picture of what life would be like here, and that was part of why I wanted to come.”
Ben Jones, the former director of communications at M.I.T.’s admissions office, began with a single blog by a student five years ago, at the dawn of the Facebook era, and noticed high school students responding right away. “We saw very quickly that prospective students were engaging with each other and building their own community,” said Mr. Jones, who now works at Oberlin College, where he has added blogs to the Web site.
The M.I.T. student bloggers have different majors, ethnicities, residence halls and, particularly, writing styles. Some post weekly or more; others disappear for months. The bloggers are sought out as celebrities during the annual “Meet the Bloggers” session at Campus Preview Weekend.
M.I.T. chooses its bloggers through a contest, in which applicants submit samples of their writing. “The annual blogger selection is like the admissions office’s own running of the bulls,” said Dave McOwen, Mr. Jones’s successor in the admissions office, in his message inviting applications.
This year, 25 freshmen applied for four new spots, and, Mr. McOwen said, it was hard to choose.
“You want people who can communicate and who are going to be involved in different parts of campus life,” he said. “You want them to be positive, but it’s not mandatory.”
And not all posts are positive. Ms. Kim once wrote about how the resident advising system was making it impossible for her to move out of her housing — expressing enough irritation that the housing office requested that the admissions office take her post down. Officials refused, instead having the housing office post a rebuttal of her accusations; eventually, the system was changed.
But most of the blogs are exuberant, lyrical expressions of the joys of M.I.T. life, like last month’s post on returning as a sophomore:
“Something’s changed,” wrote Chris Mills. “Now you know what you’re in for, you know the sleepless nights and frustrations are never far away, but this knowledge can’t seem to remove the exhilarating smile on your face. And it’s in that masochistic moment that you realize who you are. That this is what you’re made for.”
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Cisco Buys Norwegian Firm for $3 Billion
SAN FRANCISCO — Cisco Systems continued to show just how serious it is about video conferencing, announcing late Wednesday night the $3 billion acquisition of Tandberg, a Norwegian video communications company.
Cisco has sold expensive, room-sized video conferencing systems to companies that it calls TelePresence systems. Tandberg has similar technology but also sells smaller-sized, cheaper conferencing units. In addition, Tandberg has specialized software for managing video conferencing systems and for creating connections between conferencing systems that rely on different underlying technology.
“It really enables us to build out our portfolio,” said Ned Hooper, a senior vice president at Cisco.
Cisco’s corporate video conferencing products require the company to outfit a customer’s conference room with multiple, large displays, networking equipment and even special tables, chairs and wall paint. By contrast, Tandberg has a range of gear, including high-definition video systems that can sit on desks or be used with personal computers.
The all-cash deal has been recommended to Tandberg’s shareholders by that company’s directors and stands as an 11 percent premium over Tandberg’s closing price on Wednesday. Tandberg reported $809 million in revenue last year, and has close to $200 million in cash.
In recent years, Cisco, based in San Jose, Calif., has been one of the technology industry’s most aggressive companies when it comes to acquisitions. It has bought close to 40 companies over the past five years, including the $6.9 billion purchase of the set-top-box maker Scientific-Atlanta and the $2.9 billion purchase of the Web meeting software maker WebEx. Cisco also bought Pure Digital, which made the popular Flip video recorders for consumers , earlier this year for $590 million.
The acquisitions have fueled Cisco’s mission of backing products that generate more Internet traffic that in turns drives demand for the networking hardware that has long been the core of its business.
The deals have also thrust Cisco into new markets like consumer electronics, business collaboration software and computer servers where the company now finds itself in direct competition with its traditional business partners like Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and I.B.M.
During an interview last week, Cisco’s chief executive John T. Chambers boasted that the company has managed to move into a grand total of 30 new markets through acquisitions and its own internal product development.
“We are involved in things that may shock you,” Mr. Chambers said, referring to s like smart grid technology for cities’ power systems and the construction of entertainment and networking systems for sports stadiums.
With $35 billion in cash - the highest total in the technology industry - Cisco appears set to continue with this expansion.
“You will see us move with a lot of acquisitions over the next year,” Mr. Chambers said.
Still, companies like Cisco, Dell and EMC must find ways to match the heft of H.P. and I.B.M., which have massive technology services businesses to complement their hardware and software pursuits.
Rather than acquiring a large services company, Cisco will continue to partner with independent players like Accenture and Wipro, Mr.
Chambers said.
“I think that is a more scalable, faster speed and less confrontational model,” he said.
As Cisco moves into new areas, it faces the difficult task of trying to find businesses with profits that can match those gained from its networking hardware. Cisco’s routers and switches produce 65 percent gross profit margins.
Mr. Hooper stressed that Tandberg has gross margins of 66 percent. “It fits squarely into our operating model,” he said.
Tandberg has had the most success selling video conferencing systems to large companies in North America and Europe. Cisco plans to use Tandberg’s technology to help it go after smaller companies and eventually to target consumers, Mr. Hooper said.
by ASHLEE VANCE
Source: New York Times
Cisco has sold expensive, room-sized video conferencing systems to companies that it calls TelePresence systems. Tandberg has similar technology but also sells smaller-sized, cheaper conferencing units. In addition, Tandberg has specialized software for managing video conferencing systems and for creating connections between conferencing systems that rely on different underlying technology.
“It really enables us to build out our portfolio,” said Ned Hooper, a senior vice president at Cisco.
Cisco’s corporate video conferencing products require the company to outfit a customer’s conference room with multiple, large displays, networking equipment and even special tables, chairs and wall paint. By contrast, Tandberg has a range of gear, including high-definition video systems that can sit on desks or be used with personal computers.
The all-cash deal has been recommended to Tandberg’s shareholders by that company’s directors and stands as an 11 percent premium over Tandberg’s closing price on Wednesday. Tandberg reported $809 million in revenue last year, and has close to $200 million in cash.
In recent years, Cisco, based in San Jose, Calif., has been one of the technology industry’s most aggressive companies when it comes to acquisitions. It has bought close to 40 companies over the past five years, including the $6.9 billion purchase of the set-top-box maker Scientific-Atlanta and the $2.9 billion purchase of the Web meeting software maker WebEx. Cisco also bought Pure Digital, which made the popular Flip video recorders for consumers , earlier this year for $590 million.
The acquisitions have fueled Cisco’s mission of backing products that generate more Internet traffic that in turns drives demand for the networking hardware that has long been the core of its business.
The deals have also thrust Cisco into new markets like consumer electronics, business collaboration software and computer servers where the company now finds itself in direct competition with its traditional business partners like Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and I.B.M.
During an interview last week, Cisco’s chief executive John T. Chambers boasted that the company has managed to move into a grand total of 30 new markets through acquisitions and its own internal product development.
“We are involved in things that may shock you,” Mr. Chambers said, referring to s like smart grid technology for cities’ power systems and the construction of entertainment and networking systems for sports stadiums.
With $35 billion in cash - the highest total in the technology industry - Cisco appears set to continue with this expansion.
“You will see us move with a lot of acquisitions over the next year,” Mr. Chambers said.
Still, companies like Cisco, Dell and EMC must find ways to match the heft of H.P. and I.B.M., which have massive technology services businesses to complement their hardware and software pursuits.
Rather than acquiring a large services company, Cisco will continue to partner with independent players like Accenture and Wipro, Mr.
Chambers said.
“I think that is a more scalable, faster speed and less confrontational model,” he said.
As Cisco moves into new areas, it faces the difficult task of trying to find businesses with profits that can match those gained from its networking hardware. Cisco’s routers and switches produce 65 percent gross profit margins.
Mr. Hooper stressed that Tandberg has gross margins of 66 percent. “It fits squarely into our operating model,” he said.
Tandberg has had the most success selling video conferencing systems to large companies in North America and Europe. Cisco plans to use Tandberg’s technology to help it go after smaller companies and eventually to target consumers, Mr. Hooper said.
by ASHLEE VANCE
Source: New York Times
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Two-Thirds of Americans Object to Online Tracking
ABOUT two-thirds of Americans object to online tracking by advertisers — and that number rises once they learn the different ways marketers are following their online movements, according to a new survey from professors at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley.
The professors say they believe the study, scheduled for release on Wednesday, is the first independent, nationally representative telephone survey on behavioral advertising.
The topic may be technical, but it has become a hot political issue. Privacy advocates are telling Congress and the Federal Trade Commission that tracking of online activities by Web sites and advertisers has gone too far, and the lawmakers seem to be listening. Representative Rick Boucher, Democrat of Virginia, wrote in an article for The Hill last week that he planned to introduce privacy legislation. And David Vladeck, head of consumer protection for the F.T.C., has signaled that he will examine data privacy issues closely.
Marketers are arguing that advertising supports free online content. Major advertising trade groups proposed in Julysome measures that they hoped would fend off regulation, like a clear notice to consumers when they were being tracked.
The data in this area, however, has been largely limited to company-financed research or Internet-based research, which survey experts say they believe is not representative of all Americans. So the study — among the first independent surveys to examine this issue — has attracted widespread interest.
“This research is going to ignite an intense debate on both sides of the Atlantic on what the appropriate policy should be,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the privacy group Center for Digital Democracy, which did not work on the study.
The study’s authors hired a survey company to conduct interviews with 1,000 adult Internet users. The interview, which lasted about 20 minutes, included questions like “Please tell me whether or not you want the Web sites you visit to give you discounts that are tailored to your interests.” The results were later adjusted to reflect Census Bureau patterns in categories like sex, age, population density and telephone usage.
Tailored ads in general did not appeal to 66 percent of respondents. Then the respondents were told about different ways companies tailor ads: by following what someone does on the company’s site, on other sites and in offline places like stores.
The respondents’ aversion to tailored ads increased once they learned about targeting methods. In addition to the original 66 percent that said tailored ads were “not O.K.,” an additional 7 percent said such ads were not O.K. when they were tracked on the site. An additional 18 percent said it was not O.K. when they were tracked via other Web sites, and an additional 20 percent said it was not O.K. when they were tracked offline.
The survey company also asked about customized discounts and customized news. Fifty-one percent of respondents said that tailored discounts were O.K., and 58 percent said that customized news was fine.
On the advertising question, there was not a big difference between age groups. Marketers often use teenagers’ behavior on Facebook as anecdotal evidence that they do not mind handing over information. But 55 percent of respondents from 18 to 24 objected to tailored advertising.
“We sometimes think that the younger adults in the United States don’t care about this stuff, and I would suggest that’s an exaggeration,” said Joseph Turow, lead author of the study and a professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. His co-authors are professors at Berkeley’s law school and at the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
The survey also asked nine true-or-false questions about privacy laws to see how knowledgeable Americans were about protection, including “If a Web site has a privacy policy, it means that the site cannot share information about you with other companies, unless you give the Web site your permission.” (The correct answer is “false.”) On only one question, regarding sweepstakes, was answered correctly by more than half of respondents.
Finally, the survey sought opinions on laws regarding tracking, asking if there should be a law that gave people the right to know everything a Web site knew about them. Sixty-nine percent of respondents said yes. Respondents also overwhelmingly supported a hypothetical law that required Web sites and advertising companies to delete all information about an individual upon request; 92 percent endorsed it.
“I don’t think that behavioral targeting is something that we should eliminate, but I do think that we’re at a cusp of a new era, and the kinds of information that companies share and have today is nothing like we’ll see 10 years from now,” Professor Turow said. He said he would like “a regime in which people feel they have control over the data that marketers collect about them. The most important thing is to bring the public into the picture, which is not going on right now.”
Stuart P. Ingis, a partner at the law firm Venable who represents the industry trade groups’ self-regulation coalition, said that the industry was taking steps to explain to consumers how behavioral targeting worked.
“The more people understand the practices and how the data is actually being used, that’s when the concerns disappear,” he said. Just because many Americans are not in favor of something does not mean it should be banned, he said, citing negative feelings about taxes.
But Mr. Chester, whose group is part of a privacy coalition calling for Congressional action, said the survey would be helpful. “This research gives the F.T.C. and Congress a political green light to go ahead and enact effective, but reasonable, rules and policies,” he said.
Source: New York Times
by STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
The professors say they believe the study, scheduled for release on Wednesday, is the first independent, nationally representative telephone survey on behavioral advertising.
The topic may be technical, but it has become a hot political issue. Privacy advocates are telling Congress and the Federal Trade Commission that tracking of online activities by Web sites and advertisers has gone too far, and the lawmakers seem to be listening. Representative Rick Boucher, Democrat of Virginia, wrote in an article for The Hill last week that he planned to introduce privacy legislation. And David Vladeck, head of consumer protection for the F.T.C., has signaled that he will examine data privacy issues closely.
Marketers are arguing that advertising supports free online content. Major advertising trade groups proposed in Julysome measures that they hoped would fend off regulation, like a clear notice to consumers when they were being tracked.
The data in this area, however, has been largely limited to company-financed research or Internet-based research, which survey experts say they believe is not representative of all Americans. So the study — among the first independent surveys to examine this issue — has attracted widespread interest.
“This research is going to ignite an intense debate on both sides of the Atlantic on what the appropriate policy should be,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the privacy group Center for Digital Democracy, which did not work on the study.
The study’s authors hired a survey company to conduct interviews with 1,000 adult Internet users. The interview, which lasted about 20 minutes, included questions like “Please tell me whether or not you want the Web sites you visit to give you discounts that are tailored to your interests.” The results were later adjusted to reflect Census Bureau patterns in categories like sex, age, population density and telephone usage.
Tailored ads in general did not appeal to 66 percent of respondents. Then the respondents were told about different ways companies tailor ads: by following what someone does on the company’s site, on other sites and in offline places like stores.
The respondents’ aversion to tailored ads increased once they learned about targeting methods. In addition to the original 66 percent that said tailored ads were “not O.K.,” an additional 7 percent said such ads were not O.K. when they were tracked on the site. An additional 18 percent said it was not O.K. when they were tracked via other Web sites, and an additional 20 percent said it was not O.K. when they were tracked offline.
The survey company also asked about customized discounts and customized news. Fifty-one percent of respondents said that tailored discounts were O.K., and 58 percent said that customized news was fine.
On the advertising question, there was not a big difference between age groups. Marketers often use teenagers’ behavior on Facebook as anecdotal evidence that they do not mind handing over information. But 55 percent of respondents from 18 to 24 objected to tailored advertising.
“We sometimes think that the younger adults in the United States don’t care about this stuff, and I would suggest that’s an exaggeration,” said Joseph Turow, lead author of the study and a professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. His co-authors are professors at Berkeley’s law school and at the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
The survey also asked nine true-or-false questions about privacy laws to see how knowledgeable Americans were about protection, including “If a Web site has a privacy policy, it means that the site cannot share information about you with other companies, unless you give the Web site your permission.” (The correct answer is “false.”) On only one question, regarding sweepstakes, was answered correctly by more than half of respondents.
Finally, the survey sought opinions on laws regarding tracking, asking if there should be a law that gave people the right to know everything a Web site knew about them. Sixty-nine percent of respondents said yes. Respondents also overwhelmingly supported a hypothetical law that required Web sites and advertising companies to delete all information about an individual upon request; 92 percent endorsed it.
“I don’t think that behavioral targeting is something that we should eliminate, but I do think that we’re at a cusp of a new era, and the kinds of information that companies share and have today is nothing like we’ll see 10 years from now,” Professor Turow said. He said he would like “a regime in which people feel they have control over the data that marketers collect about them. The most important thing is to bring the public into the picture, which is not going on right now.”
Stuart P. Ingis, a partner at the law firm Venable who represents the industry trade groups’ self-regulation coalition, said that the industry was taking steps to explain to consumers how behavioral targeting worked.
“The more people understand the practices and how the data is actually being used, that’s when the concerns disappear,” he said. Just because many Americans are not in favor of something does not mean it should be banned, he said, citing negative feelings about taxes.
But Mr. Chester, whose group is part of a privacy coalition calling for Congressional action, said the survey would be helpful. “This research gives the F.T.C. and Congress a political green light to go ahead and enact effective, but reasonable, rules and policies,” he said.
Source: New York Times
by STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
2 Billion iPhone Apps Downloaded, Apple Says
If there was any doubt that Apple’s Apps Store was a monster hit, today’s news should put that to rest. A mere four months after the company announced that a billion apps had been downloaded in the store, Apple today said that the number of downloads had crossed the two billion mark.
Apple said there are more than 85,000 apps available to the more than 50 million iPhone and iPod touch owners worldwide and over 125,000 developers in Apple’s iPhone Developer Program. As for downloads, it took nine months for Apple to hit the first billion. On April 24, 2009, there were 35,000 applications in the iTunes app store, showing that despite new competition from folks like Google’s Android, the company is not losing traction with developers.
As the Apple App Store grows bigger and bigger, the company faces newer challenges, especially those of discoverability. This is a recurring problem faced by app developers who are trying to build a business. (Related research from GigaOM Pro, sub required: Is Marketing Key to Mobile App Success? and Surveying the Mobile App Store Landscape.)
While many of the apps on the Apple platform are gimmicky and don’t retain much traction, a growing number of games and news applications are fast becoming constant features in the lives of iPhone/iPod touch owners.
by Om Malik of GigaOm blog
Apple said there are more than 85,000 apps available to the more than 50 million iPhone and iPod touch owners worldwide and over 125,000 developers in Apple’s iPhone Developer Program. As for downloads, it took nine months for Apple to hit the first billion. On April 24, 2009, there were 35,000 applications in the iTunes app store, showing that despite new competition from folks like Google’s Android, the company is not losing traction with developers.
As the Apple App Store grows bigger and bigger, the company faces newer challenges, especially those of discoverability. This is a recurring problem faced by app developers who are trying to build a business. (Related research from GigaOM Pro, sub required: Is Marketing Key to Mobile App Success? and Surveying the Mobile App Store Landscape.)
While many of the apps on the Apple platform are gimmicky and don’t retain much traction, a growing number of games and news applications are fast becoming constant features in the lives of iPhone/iPod touch owners.
by Om Malik of GigaOm blog
Friday, September 25, 2009
Twitter Appears Set to Raise $100 Million, Valuing It at $1 Billion
SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter has trained people to compress their thoughts into 140 characters and given a public stage to both dissidents in Iran and voluble stars like Shaquille O’Neal.
Now the start-up appears to have chalked up another achievement. Twitter, which has no discernible revenue, is set to raise about $100 million of new funding that would value the company at around $1 billion, a person briefed on the company’s plans said Thursday.
For context, that is almost double the market capitalization of Domino’s Pizza, which has 10,500 employees and had $1.4 billion in sales last year. Twitter has some 60 employees, and although it is experimenting with running advertisements on its Web site, Biz Stone, a Twitter founder, said this week at an industry conference that the company had no plans to begin widely running ads until 2010.
But Twitter’s cash infusion and exospheric valuation are not easily reduced to the level of the blind bets of past dot-com bubbles. In its three and a half years, Twitter has become a magnet for media attention, and its Web site now attracts 54 million visitors a month, according to comScore, the tracking firm. Along with Facebook, it is helping to remake the Web as a forum for the perpetual sharing of even the most trivial bits of information about people’s lives.
“There have probably been less than five examples of companies that have grown like Twitter has,” said John Borthwick, the chief executive of Betaworks, which created the link-shortening service Bit.ly. (Betaworks also invested in Summize, a Twitter search engine that Twitter acquired last year, and it now owns a small stake in the company.)
Mr. Borthwick lists Google and Facebook as other examples. Twitter “represents a next layer of innovation on the Internet,” he said. “This investment is happening because it represents a shift.”
The new investors include Insight Venture Partners, a venture capital firm based in New York; T. Rowe Price, the mutual fund company, which is not normally known for placing such bets; and the current Twitter backers Spark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners.
The investment is likely to kick off more discussion about the heady valuations investors are assigning to some Internet start-ups, even as the United States economy struggles to emerge from a deep recession and the window for initial public offerings remains weak.
Twitter is what insiders charitably describe as pre-revenue, and the service has become known for going down periodically, although its reliability record has been improving lately.
To some, Twitter’s new valuation makes sense. Facebook, Google and Microsoft have all reportedly made entreaties to acquire the company, and its desirability to the Internet giants elevates its value.
Then there is the nonstop media attention, with everyone from Oprah Winfrey to local radio stations increasingly using the service to communicate with fans. “There is so much media hype around them, it was probably easy to go to mainstream investors and find someone who would be interested,” said Jeremiah Owyang, a social media analyst at the Altimeter Group.
Twitter has not yet commented on the investment, so it is not clear how it will use the new cash. The company does not appear to need the capital. It previously raised $55 million and has said it still has $25 million of that in the bank. But it is known to have wide aspirations to ultimately reach one billion users and become “the pulse of the planet,” according to internal documents that were illicitly obtained by a hacker and published on the blog TechCrunch earlier this year.
Twitter could use the investment to build the technology infrastructure required to grow to that scale. It also might use the cash to acquire one or more of the companies that are writing Twitter programs for mobile phones and computer desktops.
Twitter could even find a business model for itself if it were to buy one of the several start-ups devoted to helping companies manage their Twitter presence and monitor how their brands are being discussed.
But close followers of Twitter do not sense that the company is in any great rush to prove itself as a profitable venture.
“It would be trivially easy for them to turn on a revenue source today,” said Steve Broback, founder of the Parnassus Group, which runs conferences on Twitter and other business topics. “I don’t see that they are in a big hurry to start generating revenues, mostly because they want to minimize any sort of negative effect on their community.”
Twitter’s newly lined pockets may have the biggest impact on its chief rival, Facebook. Executives from the two companies often claim that their services do not quite overlap and can peacefully coexist. But both firms are essentially on the same mission: to allow people to share with friends and fans what they are doing now, in real life and on the Web.
Despite their protestations, the companies appear, especially recently, to be taking swipes at each other. Last week, when Facebook announced that it had signed up its 300 millionth member and that its finances were strengthening, executives used the occasion to play down any threat posed by Twitter. Chamath Palihapitiya, a Facebook vice president, told the technology blog VentureBeat that Twitter was now in “the rearview mirror.”
Even more pointedly, earlier this year Facebook redesigned the stream of updates from friends that each user sees to be more of a constant flow of information, similar to Twitter. And earlier this month, Facebook began allowing users to “tag” messages about particular friends with the @ symbol, a familiar convention on Twitter.
For its part, Twitter has previewed a new way to allow people to see when other Twitter users have “retweeted” or relayed their messages. The feature looks eerily similar to the display of friends who have commented on, or indicated that they liked, an update on Facebook.
Twitter’s ascension has clearly clouded Facebook’s aspirations to dominate the market for sharing over the Web, said Keith Rabois, an Internet entrepreneur and vice president of strategy at Slide, a Web social entertainment firm.
“Twitter is so likely to be successful at this point, it is almost impossible to envision a way in which Facebook can truly monopolize online content-sharing,” he said.
Now the start-up appears to have chalked up another achievement. Twitter, which has no discernible revenue, is set to raise about $100 million of new funding that would value the company at around $1 billion, a person briefed on the company’s plans said Thursday.
For context, that is almost double the market capitalization of Domino’s Pizza, which has 10,500 employees and had $1.4 billion in sales last year. Twitter has some 60 employees, and although it is experimenting with running advertisements on its Web site, Biz Stone, a Twitter founder, said this week at an industry conference that the company had no plans to begin widely running ads until 2010.
But Twitter’s cash infusion and exospheric valuation are not easily reduced to the level of the blind bets of past dot-com bubbles. In its three and a half years, Twitter has become a magnet for media attention, and its Web site now attracts 54 million visitors a month, according to comScore, the tracking firm. Along with Facebook, it is helping to remake the Web as a forum for the perpetual sharing of even the most trivial bits of information about people’s lives.
“There have probably been less than five examples of companies that have grown like Twitter has,” said John Borthwick, the chief executive of Betaworks, which created the link-shortening service Bit.ly. (Betaworks also invested in Summize, a Twitter search engine that Twitter acquired last year, and it now owns a small stake in the company.)
Mr. Borthwick lists Google and Facebook as other examples. Twitter “represents a next layer of innovation on the Internet,” he said. “This investment is happening because it represents a shift.”
The new investors include Insight Venture Partners, a venture capital firm based in New York; T. Rowe Price, the mutual fund company, which is not normally known for placing such bets; and the current Twitter backers Spark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners.
The investment is likely to kick off more discussion about the heady valuations investors are assigning to some Internet start-ups, even as the United States economy struggles to emerge from a deep recession and the window for initial public offerings remains weak.
Twitter is what insiders charitably describe as pre-revenue, and the service has become known for going down periodically, although its reliability record has been improving lately.
To some, Twitter’s new valuation makes sense. Facebook, Google and Microsoft have all reportedly made entreaties to acquire the company, and its desirability to the Internet giants elevates its value.
Then there is the nonstop media attention, with everyone from Oprah Winfrey to local radio stations increasingly using the service to communicate with fans. “There is so much media hype around them, it was probably easy to go to mainstream investors and find someone who would be interested,” said Jeremiah Owyang, a social media analyst at the Altimeter Group.
Twitter has not yet commented on the investment, so it is not clear how it will use the new cash. The company does not appear to need the capital. It previously raised $55 million and has said it still has $25 million of that in the bank. But it is known to have wide aspirations to ultimately reach one billion users and become “the pulse of the planet,” according to internal documents that were illicitly obtained by a hacker and published on the blog TechCrunch earlier this year.
Twitter could use the investment to build the technology infrastructure required to grow to that scale. It also might use the cash to acquire one or more of the companies that are writing Twitter programs for mobile phones and computer desktops.
Twitter could even find a business model for itself if it were to buy one of the several start-ups devoted to helping companies manage their Twitter presence and monitor how their brands are being discussed.
But close followers of Twitter do not sense that the company is in any great rush to prove itself as a profitable venture.
“It would be trivially easy for them to turn on a revenue source today,” said Steve Broback, founder of the Parnassus Group, which runs conferences on Twitter and other business topics. “I don’t see that they are in a big hurry to start generating revenues, mostly because they want to minimize any sort of negative effect on their community.”
Twitter’s newly lined pockets may have the biggest impact on its chief rival, Facebook. Executives from the two companies often claim that their services do not quite overlap and can peacefully coexist. But both firms are essentially on the same mission: to allow people to share with friends and fans what they are doing now, in real life and on the Web.
Despite their protestations, the companies appear, especially recently, to be taking swipes at each other. Last week, when Facebook announced that it had signed up its 300 millionth member and that its finances were strengthening, executives used the occasion to play down any threat posed by Twitter. Chamath Palihapitiya, a Facebook vice president, told the technology blog VentureBeat that Twitter was now in “the rearview mirror.”
Even more pointedly, earlier this year Facebook redesigned the stream of updates from friends that each user sees to be more of a constant flow of information, similar to Twitter. And earlier this month, Facebook began allowing users to “tag” messages about particular friends with the @ symbol, a familiar convention on Twitter.
For its part, Twitter has previewed a new way to allow people to see when other Twitter users have “retweeted” or relayed their messages. The feature looks eerily similar to the display of friends who have commented on, or indicated that they liked, an update on Facebook.
Twitter’s ascension has clearly clouded Facebook’s aspirations to dominate the market for sharing over the Web, said Keith Rabois, an Internet entrepreneur and vice president of strategy at Slide, a Web social entertainment firm.
“Twitter is so likely to be successful at this point, it is almost impossible to envision a way in which Facebook can truly monopolize online content-sharing,” he said.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Starbucks Turns an iPhone Screen into a Gift Card
Starbucks is introducing two new applications for the iPhone that will make it easier for java junkies to get their fix—and make it possible to pay right from the phone, which has broad implications for mobile commerce.
The myStarbucks application has a slew of features that make it easier to remember your friend’s favorite drinks and to locate nearby Starbucks stores. More interesting is a test of a Starbucks card, which will allow people in select West Coast stores to pay for coffee using a bar code on a phone’s screen.
The myStarbucks app, which is usable anywhere, lets you store the recipe for your favorite coffee concoction and to share it with other people. You can send your request for a Grande Skinny Caramel Macchiato with two sugars to the office coffee slave and be assured that they get it right.
Don’t know what you want to drink? A flavor selector helps you choose a coffee based on flavors like earthy, balanced or nutty. You can also look up the nutritional information, like the calorie count of your drink (you’ll soon be switching to skim).
The myStarbucks application has a slew of features that make it easier to remember your friend’s favorite drinks and to locate nearby Starbucks stores. More interesting is a test of a Starbucks card, which will allow people in select West Coast stores to pay for coffee using a bar code on a phone’s screen.
The myStarbucks app, which is usable anywhere, lets you store the recipe for your favorite coffee concoction and to share it with other people. You can send your request for a Grande Skinny Caramel Macchiato with two sugars to the office coffee slave and be assured that they get it right.
Don’t know what you want to drink? A flavor selector helps you choose a coffee based on flavors like earthy, balanced or nutty. You can also look up the nutritional information, like the calorie count of your drink (you’ll soon be switching to skim).
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Intel Shows Off Future Technology
At the Intel Developer Forum, CEO Paul Otellini demonstrates 32-nm Sandy Bridge microarchitecture running Microsoft Windows 7.
Demonstrating that it remains on schedule for developing smaller and faster chips, Intel (NSDQ: INTC) on Tuesday showed off technology not due until 2011 and demonstrated a desktop chip due in about a year, that will run Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s Windows 7 operating system.
During his opening keynote at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Paul Otellini, president and chief executive of Intel, held up a silicon wafer of SRAM chips, a type of semiconductor memory, built with Intel's not-yet available 22-nanometer technology.
With 2.9 billion transistors, the chips contain the "smallest SRAM cell ever invented," Otellini told attendees. Intel isn't scheduled to begin production of the 22-nm processors until the second half of 2011.
Closer to production, but still a year away, is Intel's 32-nm Sandy Bridge microarchitecture. In showing that Intel remains ahead of the curve, Otellini demonstrated a desktop running Windows 7 on a Sandy Bridge chip.
Along with Sandy Bridge, Otellini also showed off notebooks running Westmere, a 32-nm processor based on Intel's current Nehalem microarchitecture. The company plans to begin revenue production of Westmere in the fourth quarter.
While PC products continue to drive most of Intel's revenue, the company is clearly focused on moving beyond its traditional market to consumer electronics and handheld devices, such as smartphones. In those markets, Intel is focusing on its Atom processor, which currently dominates the netbook market, inexpensive mini-laptops that are the fastest growing segment of the PC market.
In discussing Atom, Otellini touched on upcoming technology codenamed Moorestown and Medfield. Moorestown, scheduled to ship in 2010, is a platform that consists of a system on a chip, code-named Lincroft, which integrates a 45-nm Atom processor, graphics, memory controller and video encode/decode onto a single chip.
The Medfield SoC, scheduled for release in 2011, will mark Atom's move to 32 nanometers and will be the first time the technology is ready for smartphones and other small handhelds. Moorestown and Medfield will each provide improvements in power consumption that is multiple times better than previous-generation technologies, according to Otellini.
To jump start development on Atom-based technology, Intel on Tuesday launched a developer program that offers a framework for creating and selling software for Atom-powered netbooks today and handeld devices and smartphones in the future.
Otellini announced that computer makers Asus, Acer, and Dell have joined Intel in the developer program, which will include software development kits for building applications on Atom. In addition, Intel is promoting Moblin, an Intel-developed Linux-based operating system for handheld devices.
Otellini also announced that car makers BMW and Daimler, which makes Mercedes-Benz, plan to offer in-vehicle entertainment systems based on Atom. By 2012, BMW is expected to have the systems available across its product line, while Daimler plans to introduce the systems in its C- and S-class series.
InformationWeek has published an in-depth report on application development. Download the report here (registration required).
By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek
Demonstrating that it remains on schedule for developing smaller and faster chips, Intel (NSDQ: INTC) on Tuesday showed off technology not due until 2011 and demonstrated a desktop chip due in about a year, that will run Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s Windows 7 operating system.
During his opening keynote at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Paul Otellini, president and chief executive of Intel, held up a silicon wafer of SRAM chips, a type of semiconductor memory, built with Intel's not-yet available 22-nanometer technology.
With 2.9 billion transistors, the chips contain the "smallest SRAM cell ever invented," Otellini told attendees. Intel isn't scheduled to begin production of the 22-nm processors until the second half of 2011.
Closer to production, but still a year away, is Intel's 32-nm Sandy Bridge microarchitecture. In showing that Intel remains ahead of the curve, Otellini demonstrated a desktop running Windows 7 on a Sandy Bridge chip.
Along with Sandy Bridge, Otellini also showed off notebooks running Westmere, a 32-nm processor based on Intel's current Nehalem microarchitecture. The company plans to begin revenue production of Westmere in the fourth quarter.
While PC products continue to drive most of Intel's revenue, the company is clearly focused on moving beyond its traditional market to consumer electronics and handheld devices, such as smartphones. In those markets, Intel is focusing on its Atom processor, which currently dominates the netbook market, inexpensive mini-laptops that are the fastest growing segment of the PC market.
In discussing Atom, Otellini touched on upcoming technology codenamed Moorestown and Medfield. Moorestown, scheduled to ship in 2010, is a platform that consists of a system on a chip, code-named Lincroft, which integrates a 45-nm Atom processor, graphics, memory controller and video encode/decode onto a single chip.
The Medfield SoC, scheduled for release in 2011, will mark Atom's move to 32 nanometers and will be the first time the technology is ready for smartphones and other small handhelds. Moorestown and Medfield will each provide improvements in power consumption that is multiple times better than previous-generation technologies, according to Otellini.
To jump start development on Atom-based technology, Intel on Tuesday launched a developer program that offers a framework for creating and selling software for Atom-powered netbooks today and handeld devices and smartphones in the future.
Otellini announced that computer makers Asus, Acer, and Dell have joined Intel in the developer program, which will include software development kits for building applications on Atom. In addition, Intel is promoting Moblin, an Intel-developed Linux-based operating system for handheld devices.
Otellini also announced that car makers BMW and Daimler, which makes Mercedes-Benz, plan to offer in-vehicle entertainment systems based on Atom. By 2012, BMW is expected to have the systems available across its product line, while Daimler plans to introduce the systems in its C- and S-class series.
InformationWeek has published an in-depth report on application development. Download the report here (registration required).
By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek
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