Progress Software is launching its Progress Actional 7.1 SOA management platform Monday, featuring visibility across business processes and into related services and IT infrastructure.
Business processes and BPM systems are tied into the underlying service infrastructure, said Dan Foody, vice president of Actional products at Progress. With Version 7.1, dependencies are revealed between business processes, services, middleware, and databases. Actional can provide proactive management or insight into why a business process failed.
"Now, we can relate the steps in the business process all the way down to the databases at the very end of that chain," so if a database goes down, Actional users can know which steps in the business process might be affected, Foody said.
Also, if a service needs to be changed, or versioned, users can understand the impact of that service alteration. Impacts on applications such as an order entry processing system can be gauged.
Actional's accommodations for BPM are needed, said analyst Frank Kenney, research director at Gartner. "It's something I think is very necessary, and it marks a different movement in the traditional SOA governance technology [space]. It starts to incorporate the notion of integrating with BPM technologies," Kenney said.
Actional is providing visibility into the lifecycle of processes, but it will need to explain its system to customers and prospects, he said.
"The story is incredibly sophisticated, given that many people embarking on SOA governance are still getting their arms around what is a registry and what is a repository," Kenney said.
Progress with Actional 7.1 also has integration with the Lombardi Teamworks BPM system and plans to add integrations with BPM systems from companies such as Software AG and Fujitsu.
Support for Kerberos security also is highlighted. "It makes it easier to tie Windows environments very securely into Unix environments that may be running other security systems like SAML," Foody said.
Also, Actional 7.1 can inspect the payload of messages not based on XML, such as RMI- or Enterprise JavaBeans-based messages. "[This capability] allows you to gain deeper insight into the applications that haven't yet been converted to Web services or may never get converted to Web services," said Foody.
Actional 7.1 is available now with prices starting at US$20,000. Progress acquired Actional about two years ago.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Cisco's Nexus is big -- and a big deal
It's hard to overstate how important the Nexus data-center switching platform, set to be unveiled Monday, is to Cisco Systems: for the dominant networking vendor's enterprise business, it's the biggest thing since the Catalyst 6000, which made its debut in 1999, according to the two key executives on the project.
At a dinner with press last week, they compared it to the CRS-1 (Carrier Routing System), a huge switch for the core of carrier networks that Cisco rolled out in 2004. To bring that platform to life, the company developed a new version of its flagship IOS (Internetworking Operating System) software and engineered the hardware to scale up to 92T bps (bits per second) of throughput. The core of the Internet is Cisco's turf, and it wasn't willing to give any ground to upstarts.
The Nexus brings Cisco into not just a new territory for its business, but a new product category: a unified switch that spans storage and computing in data centers and has security built in. Given the stakes, superlatives are natural.
- A single Nexus chassis will be able to handle more than 15T bps of traffic ripping through a data center, up from just 2T bps for a current Catalyst 6500 switch.
- At that rate, the switch could run 5 million concurrent transcontinental conferencing sessions using Cisco's TelePresence Collaboration system. It could also copy the entire searchable Internet in 7.5 minutes.
- One interface module for the Nexus 7000 chassis will come with 32 10G bps ports, and the platform is designed to support future interfaces including 100G bps.
- The company spent about $250 million on research and development for the new platform, and at its peak, the Nexus R&D team numbered more than 500 engineers, according to Tom Edsall, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Cisco's Data Center Business Unit.
As with the Catalyst 6000 Series and the CRS-1, Cisco developed the Nexus with an eye to long-term needs. Where the CRS marked the debut of IOS XR, the first modular version of IOS, the Nexus will have Cisco's first OS that can be fully virtualized, called NX-OS. The Nexus will also break new ground with its lossless switching fabric, a departure from traditional Ethernet -- though backward compatible with it, Cisco said.
The system also represents a gamble on FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet), a still-emerging standard for sending traditional Fibre Channel storage network traffic over Ethernet. Though the new standard will probably succeed with the backing of Cisco and other big vendors, the installed base of Fibre Channel is huge, said Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala. There will be a proving period for Ethernet as a reliable, lossless data center transport, he said.
Cisco expects the uptake of the new platform to take time, just as it did with the CRS. The first Nexus product will go on sale in the second quarter of this year, and in the first year Cisco expects to see mostly trials of the new system, said Jayshree Ullal, senior vice president of Cisco's data center group. Deployments will probably start to pick up in the second, third and fourth years after the introduction, she said.
But just as the opportunity was huge for the CRS, as video and other traffic rose fast on carrier networks, the chance to capture next-generation data centers is likely to justify Cisco's efforts on the Nexus line. Web-based services and applications, as well as outsourced computing offerings from Amazon.com and other companies, are powering the growth of massive data centers. Microsoft's MSN division is a test customer of the Nexus, said Ullal. Asked whether the mighty Google would buy in as well, Ullal said, "I would hope so."
At a dinner with press last week, they compared it to the CRS-1 (Carrier Routing System), a huge switch for the core of carrier networks that Cisco rolled out in 2004. To bring that platform to life, the company developed a new version of its flagship IOS (Internetworking Operating System) software and engineered the hardware to scale up to 92T bps (bits per second) of throughput. The core of the Internet is Cisco's turf, and it wasn't willing to give any ground to upstarts.
The Nexus brings Cisco into not just a new territory for its business, but a new product category: a unified switch that spans storage and computing in data centers and has security built in. Given the stakes, superlatives are natural.
- A single Nexus chassis will be able to handle more than 15T bps of traffic ripping through a data center, up from just 2T bps for a current Catalyst 6500 switch.
- At that rate, the switch could run 5 million concurrent transcontinental conferencing sessions using Cisco's TelePresence Collaboration system. It could also copy the entire searchable Internet in 7.5 minutes.
- One interface module for the Nexus 7000 chassis will come with 32 10G bps ports, and the platform is designed to support future interfaces including 100G bps.
- The company spent about $250 million on research and development for the new platform, and at its peak, the Nexus R&D team numbered more than 500 engineers, according to Tom Edsall, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Cisco's Data Center Business Unit.
As with the Catalyst 6000 Series and the CRS-1, Cisco developed the Nexus with an eye to long-term needs. Where the CRS marked the debut of IOS XR, the first modular version of IOS, the Nexus will have Cisco's first OS that can be fully virtualized, called NX-OS. The Nexus will also break new ground with its lossless switching fabric, a departure from traditional Ethernet -- though backward compatible with it, Cisco said.
The system also represents a gamble on FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet), a still-emerging standard for sending traditional Fibre Channel storage network traffic over Ethernet. Though the new standard will probably succeed with the backing of Cisco and other big vendors, the installed base of Fibre Channel is huge, said Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala. There will be a proving period for Ethernet as a reliable, lossless data center transport, he said.
Cisco expects the uptake of the new platform to take time, just as it did with the CRS. The first Nexus product will go on sale in the second quarter of this year, and in the first year Cisco expects to see mostly trials of the new system, said Jayshree Ullal, senior vice president of Cisco's data center group. Deployments will probably start to pick up in the second, third and fourth years after the introduction, she said.
But just as the opportunity was huge for the CRS, as video and other traffic rose fast on carrier networks, the chance to capture next-generation data centers is likely to justify Cisco's efforts on the Nexus line. Web-based services and applications, as well as outsourced computing offerings from Amazon.com and other companies, are powering the growth of massive data centers. Microsoft's MSN division is a test customer of the Nexus, said Ullal. Asked whether the mighty Google would buy in as well, Ullal said, "I would hope so."
Swedish prosecutors close in on The Pirate Bay
Swedish prosecutors have until Thursday to file charges against The Pirate Bay, one of the most widely used search engines for locating music and movies on the Internet.
The deadline was set by a Swedish court last year after The Pirate Bay asked the authorities to return servers seized in a raid, said Peter Sunde, one of The Pirate Bay's operators, on Monday.
Prosecutors may charge up to five people associated with The Pirate Bay with aiding copyright infringement, Sunde said. However, Sunde maintains the Pirate Bay does not violate Swedish law.
"There's nothing that says what we are doing is illegal," Sunde said.
The Pirate Bay is a search engine for torrents, which are small information files that enable content to be downloaded via the BitTorrent protocol.
The content isn't hosted on The Pirate Bay's servers but instead on users' computers. The torrent, when dropped into a BitTorrent software program, will initiate the download of a file from other computers sharing it on the BitTorrent network.
Torrent search engines have come under legal fire before, and the Pirate Bay has since set up servers outside the country to avoid further trouble with Swedish authorities. Sunde said he has received 4,000 pages of material from the prosecutors documenting their investigation.
The Pirate Bay has been targeted by music and movie industry associations, which say it enables piracy of content under copyright and should be shut down.
BitTorrent itself is now a fledgling company that legally uses P-to-P (peer-to-peer) technology. In 2005, it reworked its search engine, removing links to torrents that pointed to copyright content.
The Pirate Bay generates money from advertising on the site, although Sunde said the revenue only covers hosting and hardware costs. The site recently announced it has reached 10 million users with about 1 million torrents.
It's not the only legal case involving The Pirate Bay. Last September, The Pirate Bay filed a criminal complaint against content companies that hired MediaDefender, a company that specializes in disrupting P-to-P networks in hopes of making file sharing too frustrating.
The Pirate Bay alleges that MediaDefender attacked its operations by distributing fake torrent files and other methods.
The deadline was set by a Swedish court last year after The Pirate Bay asked the authorities to return servers seized in a raid, said Peter Sunde, one of The Pirate Bay's operators, on Monday.
Prosecutors may charge up to five people associated with The Pirate Bay with aiding copyright infringement, Sunde said. However, Sunde maintains the Pirate Bay does not violate Swedish law.
"There's nothing that says what we are doing is illegal," Sunde said.
The Pirate Bay is a search engine for torrents, which are small information files that enable content to be downloaded via the BitTorrent protocol.
The content isn't hosted on The Pirate Bay's servers but instead on users' computers. The torrent, when dropped into a BitTorrent software program, will initiate the download of a file from other computers sharing it on the BitTorrent network.
Torrent search engines have come under legal fire before, and the Pirate Bay has since set up servers outside the country to avoid further trouble with Swedish authorities. Sunde said he has received 4,000 pages of material from the prosecutors documenting their investigation.
The Pirate Bay has been targeted by music and movie industry associations, which say it enables piracy of content under copyright and should be shut down.
BitTorrent itself is now a fledgling company that legally uses P-to-P (peer-to-peer) technology. In 2005, it reworked its search engine, removing links to torrents that pointed to copyright content.
The Pirate Bay generates money from advertising on the site, although Sunde said the revenue only covers hosting and hardware costs. The site recently announced it has reached 10 million users with about 1 million torrents.
It's not the only legal case involving The Pirate Bay. Last September, The Pirate Bay filed a criminal complaint against content companies that hired MediaDefender, a company that specializes in disrupting P-to-P networks in hopes of making file sharing too frustrating.
The Pirate Bay alleges that MediaDefender attacked its operations by distributing fake torrent files and other methods.
Cisco's Nexus forms core of data-center drive
As servers and storage start to merge into unified, virtualized systems, Cisco wants to do the same thing with the networks that connect them.
On Monday, the company is set to unveil a data-center networking platform that eventually could take the place of both the Ethernet switches that link servers as well as the Fibre Channel devices that form storage networks. The Nexus series is designed both to meet exploding demands for bandwidth and energy efficiency within data centers and to simplify the jobs of IT administrators. In the process, it could help give Cisco the central role it seeks in IT infrastructure.
Cisco is already a leading player in data-center networks with its Catalyst series Ethernet switches and its MDS storage network platform. Now it hopes to transcend those separate systems using a single, unified switching fabric and the emerging Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) standard. The platform it will use, called Nexus, will be a line of routing switches in chassis, rack-mounted and blade form. The first of these, the Nexus 7000 chassis, will be generally available in the second quarter. Prices will start at US$75,000, but a typical configuration will cost about $200,000, according to Jayshree Ullal, senior vice president of Cisco's Data Center, Switching and Security Technology Group.
Mark Drake is looking at the Nexus platform for future-proofing as his company, Health Management Associates, centralizes its data resources. The company runs about 60 hospitals, mostly in the Southeastern U.S. Health Management's current Catalyst switches are probably enough to handle connectivity needs in its data centers for the next two years, but it's hard to predict storage and processing requirements beyond that as he looks for the next generation, Drake said.
"I'm looking at a little over ten years' capacity," Drake said. The Nexus line is built to go far beyond the scale of the Catalysts, delivering more than 15T bits per second. "The capacity to grow is huge," he said.
Another benefit Drake sees in the Nexus, which he has been told about but hasn't tested, is ease of management. Health Management is already trying to reduce IT staff costs by consolidating data centers from each hospital to a two main locations. Because the new platform combines storage and data switching along with security in a single switch and management interface, it could further simplify running those data centers, he said.
Initially, Cisco sees the Nexus switches at the core of data centers that still use separate networks for processing and storage. But as FCoE emerges in storage systems, the Nexus could become the single connectivity platform, Ullal said. Its switching fabric is designed to be lossless, unlike a standard Ethernet system, which tolerates dropped packets, said Tom Edsall, senior vice president and CTO of the data center group. The platform also has built-in security features, including wire-speed encryption and authentication capability for each port.
At the heart of the platform is a new, virtualized operating system, NX OS. As with server virtualization, NX OS can turn a Nexus switch into multiple logical switches running totally different processes, Ullal said . For example, one logical switch could handle storage and be managed by storage specialists, while the other links servers and is run by a different staff. A third could be a test platform. All would use a single switching fabric and set of redundant power supplies, which provides benefits in performance, economies of scale and resiliency, she said. This virtualized architecture eventually will trickle down to other Cisco product lines, according to Ullal.
Cisco also has automated some aspects of management with the Nexus line, drawing on best practices it learned partly from its customers, Edsall said. The system is designed to monitor and heal itself in many cases.
The network's role in data centers is growing as computing and storage are combined and shared, according to industry analysts. It's now the "orchestrator" of the data center, Zeus Kerravala of Yankee Group said. Cisco is the only vendor with both the networking and the computing experience to fulfill that role, he believes. But though many managers of data centers want to see total virtualization of the data center, which could boost efficiency, they aren't yet ready for it.
"We're just entering the very early stages of the virtual data center," Kerravala said. "This is probably at least two years away."
Cisco is best positioned to build the core of data centers because the network touches everything in it, according to Ullal, Edsall, and other executives.
"For Cisco, it's very critical that this platform be a launching pad to go further up the IT stack," said IDC's Cindy Borovick. However, taking control of data centers won't be a walk in the park, she cautioned.
"Cisco's in a very strong position, but there are other very large suppliers that recognize how important the data center is and are willing to invest the R&D dollars," Borovick said, citing IBM and Sun Microsystems. To Cisco's peril, data center administrators are more than willing to buy the best of many vendors rather than standardize on one, because they control the "crown jewels" of the enterprise, she said.
On Monday, the company is set to unveil a data-center networking platform that eventually could take the place of both the Ethernet switches that link servers as well as the Fibre Channel devices that form storage networks. The Nexus series is designed both to meet exploding demands for bandwidth and energy efficiency within data centers and to simplify the jobs of IT administrators. In the process, it could help give Cisco the central role it seeks in IT infrastructure.
Cisco is already a leading player in data-center networks with its Catalyst series Ethernet switches and its MDS storage network platform. Now it hopes to transcend those separate systems using a single, unified switching fabric and the emerging Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) standard. The platform it will use, called Nexus, will be a line of routing switches in chassis, rack-mounted and blade form. The first of these, the Nexus 7000 chassis, will be generally available in the second quarter. Prices will start at US$75,000, but a typical configuration will cost about $200,000, according to Jayshree Ullal, senior vice president of Cisco's Data Center, Switching and Security Technology Group.
Mark Drake is looking at the Nexus platform for future-proofing as his company, Health Management Associates, centralizes its data resources. The company runs about 60 hospitals, mostly in the Southeastern U.S. Health Management's current Catalyst switches are probably enough to handle connectivity needs in its data centers for the next two years, but it's hard to predict storage and processing requirements beyond that as he looks for the next generation, Drake said.
"I'm looking at a little over ten years' capacity," Drake said. The Nexus line is built to go far beyond the scale of the Catalysts, delivering more than 15T bits per second. "The capacity to grow is huge," he said.
Another benefit Drake sees in the Nexus, which he has been told about but hasn't tested, is ease of management. Health Management is already trying to reduce IT staff costs by consolidating data centers from each hospital to a two main locations. Because the new platform combines storage and data switching along with security in a single switch and management interface, it could further simplify running those data centers, he said.
Initially, Cisco sees the Nexus switches at the core of data centers that still use separate networks for processing and storage. But as FCoE emerges in storage systems, the Nexus could become the single connectivity platform, Ullal said. Its switching fabric is designed to be lossless, unlike a standard Ethernet system, which tolerates dropped packets, said Tom Edsall, senior vice president and CTO of the data center group. The platform also has built-in security features, including wire-speed encryption and authentication capability for each port.
At the heart of the platform is a new, virtualized operating system, NX OS. As with server virtualization, NX OS can turn a Nexus switch into multiple logical switches running totally different processes, Ullal said . For example, one logical switch could handle storage and be managed by storage specialists, while the other links servers and is run by a different staff. A third could be a test platform. All would use a single switching fabric and set of redundant power supplies, which provides benefits in performance, economies of scale and resiliency, she said. This virtualized architecture eventually will trickle down to other Cisco product lines, according to Ullal.
Cisco also has automated some aspects of management with the Nexus line, drawing on best practices it learned partly from its customers, Edsall said. The system is designed to monitor and heal itself in many cases.
The network's role in data centers is growing as computing and storage are combined and shared, according to industry analysts. It's now the "orchestrator" of the data center, Zeus Kerravala of Yankee Group said. Cisco is the only vendor with both the networking and the computing experience to fulfill that role, he believes. But though many managers of data centers want to see total virtualization of the data center, which could boost efficiency, they aren't yet ready for it.
"We're just entering the very early stages of the virtual data center," Kerravala said. "This is probably at least two years away."
Cisco is best positioned to build the core of data centers because the network touches everything in it, according to Ullal, Edsall, and other executives.
"For Cisco, it's very critical that this platform be a launching pad to go further up the IT stack," said IDC's Cindy Borovick. However, taking control of data centers won't be a walk in the park, she cautioned.
"Cisco's in a very strong position, but there are other very large suppliers that recognize how important the data center is and are willing to invest the R&D dollars," Borovick said, citing IBM and Sun Microsystems. To Cisco's peril, data center administrators are more than willing to buy the best of many vendors rather than standardize on one, because they control the "crown jewels" of the enterprise, she said.
Nokia to buy software developer Trolltech for $153M
Nokia has offered to buy Trolltech, the Norwegian developer of a widely used application framework, for 844 million Norwegian kroner (US$153 million) in cash. Nokia hopes the Trolltech development team will give its own software efforts a boost.
Trolltech develops Qtopia, a framework used to build user interfaces for mobile and embedded devices, and Qt, a cross-platform application development framework.
Nokia hopes to use Trolltech's expertise to improve the interfaces on its S40 mobile phone and S60 smartphone platforms, but Trolltech targets many software platforms with its application frameworks.
In 2006, Samsung unveiled a reference design for a mobile phone running Qtopia Phone Edition on top of a Linux operating system. And the Trolltech team has been working since late 2006 on a version of Qt for Microsoft's Windows CE and Windows Mobile platforms.
Qt is also used in a variety of widely used desktop software, including Skype's Internet telephony application, the Google Earth satellite photo browser, and Adobe Photoshop Album, now part of the Photoshop Elements image editor, according to Trolltech.
The framework is available under commercial and open-source licenses: it is also used by the developers of KDE, a desktop environment for Linux operating systems. Trolltech recently updated the licensing conditions for Qt, making the code available under the GPLv3 license in addition to the GPLv2 license it already uses.
The Trolltech team will become part of Nokia's research and development group, where it plans to continue its work with the developers of KDE.
Despite the close relationship Nokia will now have with the developers of KDE, the company will continue to use a rival software platform in its Linux-based N800 and N810 mobile Internet devices.
"Our platform for Internet tablets will continue to be based on the Gnome environment," said Kai Öistämö, Nokia's executive vice president for devices.
However, Nokia will use Qt in its S40 and S60 platforms, Öistämö said. He would not say when phones containing the code will reach the market.
Nokia has pledged to continue offering commercial and open source licenses for Qt and other Trolltech products as it continues their future development.
The two companies expect to complete the acquisition in the second quarter. The deal requires the approval of holders of 90 percent of Trolltech's shares. Nokia already has support from the holders of 66 percent of the shares, it said.
Trolltech develops Qtopia, a framework used to build user interfaces for mobile and embedded devices, and Qt, a cross-platform application development framework.
Nokia hopes to use Trolltech's expertise to improve the interfaces on its S40 mobile phone and S60 smartphone platforms, but Trolltech targets many software platforms with its application frameworks.
In 2006, Samsung unveiled a reference design for a mobile phone running Qtopia Phone Edition on top of a Linux operating system. And the Trolltech team has been working since late 2006 on a version of Qt for Microsoft's Windows CE and Windows Mobile platforms.
Qt is also used in a variety of widely used desktop software, including Skype's Internet telephony application, the Google Earth satellite photo browser, and Adobe Photoshop Album, now part of the Photoshop Elements image editor, according to Trolltech.
The framework is available under commercial and open-source licenses: it is also used by the developers of KDE, a desktop environment for Linux operating systems. Trolltech recently updated the licensing conditions for Qt, making the code available under the GPLv3 license in addition to the GPLv2 license it already uses.
The Trolltech team will become part of Nokia's research and development group, where it plans to continue its work with the developers of KDE.
Despite the close relationship Nokia will now have with the developers of KDE, the company will continue to use a rival software platform in its Linux-based N800 and N810 mobile Internet devices.
"Our platform for Internet tablets will continue to be based on the Gnome environment," said Kai Öistämö, Nokia's executive vice president for devices.
However, Nokia will use Qt in its S40 and S60 platforms, Öistämö said. He would not say when phones containing the code will reach the market.
Nokia has pledged to continue offering commercial and open source licenses for Qt and other Trolltech products as it continues their future development.
The two companies expect to complete the acquisition in the second quarter. The deal requires the approval of holders of 90 percent of Trolltech's shares. Nokia already has support from the holders of 66 percent of the shares, it said.
Gartner: HD DVD price cuts only prolong agony
Price cuts by Toshiba on its HD DVD players in the U.S. earlier this month may prove to be "useless resistance" in the battle against the rival Blu-ray Disc optical disc format, according to Gartner.
The market research company expects Blu-ray Disc to win the battle against HD DVD (high definition digital video disc) in the consumer market by the end of 2008, becoming the next generation replacement for DVDs.
Toshiba's price cuts came after a major Hollywood studio, Warner Bros., announced it would shift from producing in both formats to just Blu-ray alone, expanding the disc format's advantage in the number of movies and other content. Five of the seven major Hollywood studios now back Blu-ray Disc exclusively, while the HD DVD camp has just two, Paramount and Universal.
"Gartner believes that Toshiba's price-cutting may prolong HD DVD's life a little, but the limited line-up of film titles will inflict fatal damage on the format. Gartner expects that, by the end of 2008, Blu-ray will be the winning format in the consumer market, and the war will be over, wrote analyst Hiroyuki Shimizu in Gartner's Semiconductor DQ Monday Report.
Toshiba announced price cuts on its HD DVD players in the U.S. Jan. 15, just weeks after losing Warner Bros. The company will cut the price of its HD-A3 player in half, to US$149.99 from $299.99, while its higher end models, the HD-A30 and HD-A35 are now listed for $199.99 and $299.99, respectively.
Toshiba pledged to keep up the fight against Blu-ray Disc during a press conference at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month, despite numerous media reports and analyst comments pronouncing Blu-ray Disc the winner of the format battle. The Japanese company still has some powerful allies in HD DVD, including Microsoft, which sells an add-on HD DVD player for the Xbox 360.
Should HD DVD lose the format war, Microsoft will have to start using Blu-ray Disc on the Xbox 360 in order to allow users to play high definition video games. It's not an outcome the U.S. company would likely want to see. Blu-ray Disc was developed by Sony and is an integral part of the PlayStation 3 game console, a rival to the Xbox 360.
The addition of the high definition drives to the two game consoles has given game makers a new way to add content to their digital games, because both formats have far more storage capacity than traditional DVDs.
At the Taipei Game Show 2008 on Friday, Sony showed off a display of games created using Blu-ray optical discs. Over 100 game titles have already been published in Blu-ray Disc, said Sakura Wang, a marketing manager at Sony Computer Entertainment in Taiwan.
An Xbox 360 booth at the game show displayed the HD DVD logo and showed movies and games for the format, but a Microsoft spokesman could not be reached for comment on the total number of games already published in the format.
The market research company expects Blu-ray Disc to win the battle against HD DVD (high definition digital video disc) in the consumer market by the end of 2008, becoming the next generation replacement for DVDs.
Toshiba's price cuts came after a major Hollywood studio, Warner Bros., announced it would shift from producing in both formats to just Blu-ray alone, expanding the disc format's advantage in the number of movies and other content. Five of the seven major Hollywood studios now back Blu-ray Disc exclusively, while the HD DVD camp has just two, Paramount and Universal.
"Gartner believes that Toshiba's price-cutting may prolong HD DVD's life a little, but the limited line-up of film titles will inflict fatal damage on the format. Gartner expects that, by the end of 2008, Blu-ray will be the winning format in the consumer market, and the war will be over, wrote analyst Hiroyuki Shimizu in Gartner's Semiconductor DQ Monday Report.
Toshiba announced price cuts on its HD DVD players in the U.S. Jan. 15, just weeks after losing Warner Bros. The company will cut the price of its HD-A3 player in half, to US$149.99 from $299.99, while its higher end models, the HD-A30 and HD-A35 are now listed for $199.99 and $299.99, respectively.
Toshiba pledged to keep up the fight against Blu-ray Disc during a press conference at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month, despite numerous media reports and analyst comments pronouncing Blu-ray Disc the winner of the format battle. The Japanese company still has some powerful allies in HD DVD, including Microsoft, which sells an add-on HD DVD player for the Xbox 360.
Should HD DVD lose the format war, Microsoft will have to start using Blu-ray Disc on the Xbox 360 in order to allow users to play high definition video games. It's not an outcome the U.S. company would likely want to see. Blu-ray Disc was developed by Sony and is an integral part of the PlayStation 3 game console, a rival to the Xbox 360.
The addition of the high definition drives to the two game consoles has given game makers a new way to add content to their digital games, because both formats have far more storage capacity than traditional DVDs.
At the Taipei Game Show 2008 on Friday, Sony showed off a display of games created using Blu-ray optical discs. Over 100 game titles have already been published in Blu-ray Disc, said Sakura Wang, a marketing manager at Sony Computer Entertainment in Taiwan.
An Xbox 360 booth at the game show displayed the HD DVD logo and showed movies and games for the format, but a Microsoft spokesman could not be reached for comment on the total number of games already published in the format.
PayPal buys Fraud Sciences for $169M
EBay's online payments division, PayPal, will pay $169 million for an Israeli security company specializing in detecting online fraud, the companies said Monday. The deal should close within 30 days.
Fraud Sciences, a private company, has developed technology designed to differentiate between real and fraudulent transactions. That technology will be folded into PayPal's antifraud systems, which will be "significantly" improved this year, eBay said.
Fraud Sciences' Chief Operating Officer, Yossi Barak, and founders Shvat Shaked and Saar Wilf will move to PayPal's technology and fraud management teams.
PayPal lets two users exchange money online via e-mail addresses. The ease at which people can transfer money has also made it one of the most highly targeted brands for phishing scams, where fraudulent Web sites mimicking real sites are set up in order to steal people's log-in details.
PayPal has taken other steps to shore up its defenses. Early last year, it began offering a keychain with a one-time numeric passcode that users enter in addition to their log-in and password. The passcode expires after 30-seconds, which greatly reduces a hacker's window of opportunity to get access to someone's account.
PayPal has also pushed for free e-mail providers to block e-mail sent without digital signatures. That would potentially mean fewer scam e-mails would land in people's inboxes, reducing the chance of fraud, although providers have yet to make a unified commitment.
Fraud Sciences, a private company, has developed technology designed to differentiate between real and fraudulent transactions. That technology will be folded into PayPal's antifraud systems, which will be "significantly" improved this year, eBay said.
Fraud Sciences' Chief Operating Officer, Yossi Barak, and founders Shvat Shaked and Saar Wilf will move to PayPal's technology and fraud management teams.
PayPal lets two users exchange money online via e-mail addresses. The ease at which people can transfer money has also made it one of the most highly targeted brands for phishing scams, where fraudulent Web sites mimicking real sites are set up in order to steal people's log-in details.
PayPal has taken other steps to shore up its defenses. Early last year, it began offering a keychain with a one-time numeric passcode that users enter in addition to their log-in and password. The passcode expires after 30-seconds, which greatly reduces a hacker's window of opportunity to get access to someone's account.
PayPal has also pushed for free e-mail providers to block e-mail sent without digital signatures. That would potentially mean fewer scam e-mails would land in people's inboxes, reducing the chance of fraud, although providers have yet to make a unified commitment.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Palm to close retail stores
Palm plans to close its retail stores in an effort to focus on fewer programs and better compete, the company said on Thursday.
All of Palm's eight branded retail stores, as well as its 26 stores within Airport Wireless shops, will close.
The move may stem from increased competition from Research In Motion's BlackBerry products. Prior to about a year ago, BlackBerry dominated the enterprise market and Palm was popular among prosumers, who typically buy devices in retail outlets, said Bill Hughes, an analyst at In-Stat. But since then, BlackBerry has grown more successful at selling its handhelds at retail, encroaching on Palm's traditional prosumer market, he said.
The stores didn't make much sense for Palm from the beginning, according to Hughes. "This doesn't really surprise me," he said. Usually, manufacturers open their own stores when their retail distribution strategy isn't working, he said. But Palm has reported a string of quarterly losses and may have decided to close the stores and boost its efforts to sell through other retail outlets as a way to cut costs.
Palm said the store closings come as the company continues to focus on core business initiatives, consolidating resources behind fewer programs. For a similar reason, it cancelled its controversial smartphone companion product, the Foleo, that was scheduled for release in the middle of 2007.
Palm has struggled over the past couple of years as the smartphone market grows increasingly crowded, and as it tries to phase out its PDA (personal digital assistant) business. The company is building a new Linux-based operating system that is scheduled to be released at the end of this year, with commercial products hitting the market shortly after. The software, which many thought would hit the market at the end of last year, will compete with Google's Android Linux-based smartphone operating system. Phones based on Android are expected to ship starting in the second half of this year.
All of Palm's eight branded retail stores, as well as its 26 stores within Airport Wireless shops, will close.
The move may stem from increased competition from Research In Motion's BlackBerry products. Prior to about a year ago, BlackBerry dominated the enterprise market and Palm was popular among prosumers, who typically buy devices in retail outlets, said Bill Hughes, an analyst at In-Stat. But since then, BlackBerry has grown more successful at selling its handhelds at retail, encroaching on Palm's traditional prosumer market, he said.
The stores didn't make much sense for Palm from the beginning, according to Hughes. "This doesn't really surprise me," he said. Usually, manufacturers open their own stores when their retail distribution strategy isn't working, he said. But Palm has reported a string of quarterly losses and may have decided to close the stores and boost its efforts to sell through other retail outlets as a way to cut costs.
Palm said the store closings come as the company continues to focus on core business initiatives, consolidating resources behind fewer programs. For a similar reason, it cancelled its controversial smartphone companion product, the Foleo, that was scheduled for release in the middle of 2007.
Palm has struggled over the past couple of years as the smartphone market grows increasingly crowded, and as it tries to phase out its PDA (personal digital assistant) business. The company is building a new Linux-based operating system that is scheduled to be released at the end of this year, with commercial products hitting the market shortly after. The software, which many thought would hit the market at the end of last year, will compete with Google's Android Linux-based smartphone operating system. Phones based on Android are expected to ship starting in the second half of this year.
Hackers hit Scientology with online attack
A group of hackers calling itself "Anonymous" has hit the Church of Scientology's Web site with an online attack.
The attack was launched Jan. 19 by Anonymous, which is seeking media attention to help "save people from Scientology by reversing the brainwashing," according to a Web page maintained by Anonymous.
Anonymous claims to have knocked the Church's Web site offline with a distributed denial-of-service attack, in which many computers bombard the victim's server with requests, overwhelming it with data in the hope of ultimately knocking the system offline. True to its name, Anonymous does not disclose the true identities of its members.
The attacks were spurred by the Church's efforts to remove video of movie star Tom Cruise professing his admiration for the religion, according to an Anonymous video manifesto posted to Youtube.
"For the good of your followers, for the good of mankind and for our own enjoyment, we shall proceed to expel you from the Internet and systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its present form," a creepy computerized voice states in the video. Anonymous followed up this dispatch with a second video blasting the media for failing to completely report the group's criticisms of the church. This video was taken down Friday by Youtube, citing a "terms of use violation."
Anonymous has managed to generate a measurable attack against the Scientology.org Web site. Over the past few days, the site was hit with several DDOS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks, which flooded it with as much as 220M bps of traffic, according to Jose Nazario, a senior security engineer with Arbor Networks, whose company compiles data on Internet attacks.
The Anonymous campaign shows some level of organization. "220M bps is probably about in the middle of attack sizes," Nazario said. "It's not just one or two guys hanging out in the university dorms doing this."
On average, the attacks lasted about 30 minutes and used up 168M bps of bandwidth. In the past year, Arbor has seen attacks on other sites hit 40G bps, or 200 times the strength of the Anonymous event.
Shortly after it was hit with the DDOS flood, the Scientology.org Web site was moved to a server hosted by Prolexic Technologies, according to data compiled by Netcraft, an Internet monitoring company. Prolexic specializes in protecting companies from DDOS attacks.
A Prolexic spokeswoman confirmed that the Church of Scientology is one of the company's clients, but declined to offer more details on the matter. The Church of Scientology did not answer questions relating to the online attacks, but in a statement it said that the controversy over the Tom Cruise video had driven traffic to its Web site.
The secretive Church of Scientology's practices, including its efforts to use copyright law to restrict the dissemination of information about the church, have engendered a lot of criticism within the Internet community. But one Web site set up to criticize Scientology -- called Operation Clambake -- called the DDOS attacks a bad idea. "Attacking Scientology like that will just make them play the religious persecution card," wrote Andreas Heldal-Lund, the Web site's owner. "They will use it to defend their own counter actions when they try to shatter criticism and crush critics without mercy."
If publicity was Anonymous' ultimate goal, the group has had some success. Late in the day Friday, seven of the top 10 stories on the Digg.com news-linking site related to Scientology or to Anonymous' communiques.
Although the group's Web page exhorts participants to "begin bumping Digg," Anonymous did not manipulate the news site's promotional algorithm system, which determines which stories get top billing, according to Digg CEO Jay Adelson.
"They must have done a very good job of bringing in a diverse set of interests," he said. "It just happened to hit a nerve that the Digg community was interested in."
It is unusual for Digg's front page to be so dominated by a single topic, but not unprecedented, Adelson said. Last year's shootings at Virginia Tech and the 2005 terrorist bombings in London achieved a comparable level of coverage. "In the history of Digg, there's no question that the topic of Scientology has been of great interest to the community," he said. "I can't explain why."
The attack was launched Jan. 19 by Anonymous, which is seeking media attention to help "save people from Scientology by reversing the brainwashing," according to a Web page maintained by Anonymous.
Anonymous claims to have knocked the Church's Web site offline with a distributed denial-of-service attack, in which many computers bombard the victim's server with requests, overwhelming it with data in the hope of ultimately knocking the system offline. True to its name, Anonymous does not disclose the true identities of its members.
The attacks were spurred by the Church's efforts to remove video of movie star Tom Cruise professing his admiration for the religion, according to an Anonymous video manifesto posted to Youtube.
"For the good of your followers, for the good of mankind and for our own enjoyment, we shall proceed to expel you from the Internet and systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its present form," a creepy computerized voice states in the video. Anonymous followed up this dispatch with a second video blasting the media for failing to completely report the group's criticisms of the church. This video was taken down Friday by Youtube, citing a "terms of use violation."
Anonymous has managed to generate a measurable attack against the Scientology.org Web site. Over the past few days, the site was hit with several DDOS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks, which flooded it with as much as 220M bps of traffic, according to Jose Nazario, a senior security engineer with Arbor Networks, whose company compiles data on Internet attacks.
The Anonymous campaign shows some level of organization. "220M bps is probably about in the middle of attack sizes," Nazario said. "It's not just one or two guys hanging out in the university dorms doing this."
On average, the attacks lasted about 30 minutes and used up 168M bps of bandwidth. In the past year, Arbor has seen attacks on other sites hit 40G bps, or 200 times the strength of the Anonymous event.
Shortly after it was hit with the DDOS flood, the Scientology.org Web site was moved to a server hosted by Prolexic Technologies, according to data compiled by Netcraft, an Internet monitoring company. Prolexic specializes in protecting companies from DDOS attacks.
A Prolexic spokeswoman confirmed that the Church of Scientology is one of the company's clients, but declined to offer more details on the matter. The Church of Scientology did not answer questions relating to the online attacks, but in a statement it said that the controversy over the Tom Cruise video had driven traffic to its Web site.
The secretive Church of Scientology's practices, including its efforts to use copyright law to restrict the dissemination of information about the church, have engendered a lot of criticism within the Internet community. But one Web site set up to criticize Scientology -- called Operation Clambake -- called the DDOS attacks a bad idea. "Attacking Scientology like that will just make them play the religious persecution card," wrote Andreas Heldal-Lund, the Web site's owner. "They will use it to defend their own counter actions when they try to shatter criticism and crush critics without mercy."
If publicity was Anonymous' ultimate goal, the group has had some success. Late in the day Friday, seven of the top 10 stories on the Digg.com news-linking site related to Scientology or to Anonymous' communiques.
Although the group's Web page exhorts participants to "begin bumping Digg," Anonymous did not manipulate the news site's promotional algorithm system, which determines which stories get top billing, according to Digg CEO Jay Adelson.
"They must have done a very good job of bringing in a diverse set of interests," he said. "It just happened to hit a nerve that the Digg community was interested in."
It is unusual for Digg's front page to be so dominated by a single topic, but not unprecedented, Adelson said. Last year's shootings at Virginia Tech and the 2005 terrorist bombings in London achieved a comparable level of coverage. "In the history of Digg, there's no question that the topic of Scientology has been of great interest to the community," he said. "I can't explain why."
Lenovo enters the server business
Lenovo announced its intent to jump into the server business by licensing x86 server technology from IBM, helping extend its product offerings to small and medium-sized businesses.
Under the agreement, Lenovo will manufacture one- and two-way x86 servers based on IBM's System x technology, which Lenovo will distribute under its own brand name.
The servers will add to Lenovo's corporate product lineup that includes ThinkPad laptops and Think workstations. The company also distributes IdeaPad notebooks for the consumer market.
This will be a new business for Lenovo, as the company does not sell servers outside China, said Ray Gorman, executive director of external communications at Lenovo. Lenovo will start distributing the servers worldwide within the next year.
IBM will continue to distribute System x servers under its own brand name, said Tim Breuer, an IBM spokesman. IBM is not worried about competition from Lenovo, Breuer said, adding that the deal would in fact boost IBM's licensing and financing business.
Lenovo also has an excellent reach to companies with less than 500 employees, so the deal will be a natural extension of IBM's server distribution channel, Breuer said. It will give IBM a better reach to SMB customers globally, Breuer said.
The companies have been partners since Lenovo bought IBM's PC business in 2004 for US$1.25 billion.
Lenovo will compete with HP and Dell in the global x86 server market, which grew at a clip of 9.5 percent in the third quarter of 2007, according to numbers from analyst firm Gartner. HP was the top vendor, with a 30 percent market share, followed by Dell and IBM.
Under the agreement, Lenovo will manufacture one- and two-way x86 servers based on IBM's System x technology, which Lenovo will distribute under its own brand name.
The servers will add to Lenovo's corporate product lineup that includes ThinkPad laptops and Think workstations. The company also distributes IdeaPad notebooks for the consumer market.
This will be a new business for Lenovo, as the company does not sell servers outside China, said Ray Gorman, executive director of external communications at Lenovo. Lenovo will start distributing the servers worldwide within the next year.
IBM will continue to distribute System x servers under its own brand name, said Tim Breuer, an IBM spokesman. IBM is not worried about competition from Lenovo, Breuer said, adding that the deal would in fact boost IBM's licensing and financing business.
Lenovo also has an excellent reach to companies with less than 500 employees, so the deal will be a natural extension of IBM's server distribution channel, Breuer said. It will give IBM a better reach to SMB customers globally, Breuer said.
The companies have been partners since Lenovo bought IBM's PC business in 2004 for US$1.25 billion.
Lenovo will compete with HP and Dell in the global x86 server market, which grew at a clip of 9.5 percent in the third quarter of 2007, according to numbers from analyst firm Gartner. HP was the top vendor, with a 30 percent market share, followed by Dell and IBM.
Friday, January 25, 2008
AMD's Fusion chip will be based on Phenom processor
Advanced Micro Devices gave further details of its upcoming Fusion processor, saying it will be based on the design of a microprocessor used in the desktops currently shipping to enthusiast PC users such as gamers.
The Fusion chip, which will combine a graphics processing unit and CPU on one chip, will be a redesign of the company's current Phenom processor, said Patrick Moorhead, vice president of advanced marketing at AMD, in an interview. However, the Fusion chip will witness significant design changes from the current iteration of Phenom, Moorhead said.
The Fusion chip, code-named Swift, will be shrunk from the Phenom core and be optimized for use in a notebook, Moorhead said. The optimization will focus on making the chip more power-efficient while increasing graphics capabilities, Moorhead said.
The graphics processing unit on the Fusion chip will include multiple "mini-cores" that breaks down code from a program, like 3-D games, to process data faster, said John Taylor, an AMD spokesman. Fusion's graphics processor will be based on a graphics card AMD plans to release in the near future, Taylor said, declining to give details.
The first Fusion chips will be released as dual-core CPUs for notebooks, followed by quad-core CPUs for notebooks, Moorhead said. The dual-core notebook processors will be available in the second half of 2009, said John Taylor, an AMD spokesman. The company didn't provide a timeline for the quad-core chips.
Fusion chips will also be released eventually for desktops, Taylor said, although he declined to comment on a release date.
Originally released as part of the "Spider" multimedia platform last year, the Phenom processor has an integrated memory controller, cache, and four cores on a single chip. Currently available in speeds up to 2.3GHz, AMD earlier this month delayed the shipment of the faster Phenom 9700 and 9900 quad-core processors to the second quarter. The company is due to ship a triple-core Phenom processor later this year.
The Fusion CPU is part of Project Shrike, the next-generation platform that will be an upgrade to the company's upcoming Puma platform. It includes the Turion Ultra processor, code-named Griffin. The Puma platform boosts a system's graphics performance by running both the integrated graphics processor and a graphics card attached to the motherboard together.
Like Puma, additional graphics cards can be attached to boost performance of systems based on Project Shrike, Taylor said.
Fusion chips will be made using AMD's 45-nanometer production technology, said Mario Rivas, executive vice president of the computing products group, during a meeting in December.
Fusion isn't being designed for ultramobile PCs, Moorhead said. "The jury is still out on whether the UMPC market has legs or not. But we'll see," Moorhead said.
Plans to launch the Fusion chip were announced when AMD bought ATI for US$5.4 billion in 2006. The acquisition of ATI was also viewed as a potent weapon in AMD's attempt to dent Intel's domination of the x86 processor market. However, AMD has struggled lately, announcing five straight quarterly losses, delaying processor shipments, and falling behind Intel in chip production.
Intel has already rolled out more than 30 Penryn-based chips based on the 45-nanometer process, with AMD still producing chips using the older 65-nm process.
Agam Shah is U.S. correspondent for the IDG News Service.
The Fusion chip, which will combine a graphics processing unit and CPU on one chip, will be a redesign of the company's current Phenom processor, said Patrick Moorhead, vice president of advanced marketing at AMD, in an interview. However, the Fusion chip will witness significant design changes from the current iteration of Phenom, Moorhead said.
The Fusion chip, code-named Swift, will be shrunk from the Phenom core and be optimized for use in a notebook, Moorhead said. The optimization will focus on making the chip more power-efficient while increasing graphics capabilities, Moorhead said.
The graphics processing unit on the Fusion chip will include multiple "mini-cores" that breaks down code from a program, like 3-D games, to process data faster, said John Taylor, an AMD spokesman. Fusion's graphics processor will be based on a graphics card AMD plans to release in the near future, Taylor said, declining to give details.
The first Fusion chips will be released as dual-core CPUs for notebooks, followed by quad-core CPUs for notebooks, Moorhead said. The dual-core notebook processors will be available in the second half of 2009, said John Taylor, an AMD spokesman. The company didn't provide a timeline for the quad-core chips.
Fusion chips will also be released eventually for desktops, Taylor said, although he declined to comment on a release date.
Originally released as part of the "Spider" multimedia platform last year, the Phenom processor has an integrated memory controller, cache, and four cores on a single chip. Currently available in speeds up to 2.3GHz, AMD earlier this month delayed the shipment of the faster Phenom 9700 and 9900 quad-core processors to the second quarter. The company is due to ship a triple-core Phenom processor later this year.
The Fusion CPU is part of Project Shrike, the next-generation platform that will be an upgrade to the company's upcoming Puma platform. It includes the Turion Ultra processor, code-named Griffin. The Puma platform boosts a system's graphics performance by running both the integrated graphics processor and a graphics card attached to the motherboard together.
Like Puma, additional graphics cards can be attached to boost performance of systems based on Project Shrike, Taylor said.
Fusion chips will be made using AMD's 45-nanometer production technology, said Mario Rivas, executive vice president of the computing products group, during a meeting in December.
Fusion isn't being designed for ultramobile PCs, Moorhead said. "The jury is still out on whether the UMPC market has legs or not. But we'll see," Moorhead said.
Plans to launch the Fusion chip were announced when AMD bought ATI for US$5.4 billion in 2006. The acquisition of ATI was also viewed as a potent weapon in AMD's attempt to dent Intel's domination of the x86 processor market. However, AMD has struggled lately, announcing five straight quarterly losses, delaying processor shipments, and falling behind Intel in chip production.
Intel has already rolled out more than 30 Penryn-based chips based on the 45-nanometer process, with AMD still producing chips using the older 65-nm process.
Agam Shah is U.S. correspondent for the IDG News Service.
Analysts cast doubt on Nokia's mobile growth prediction
Analysts at IDC predict annual growth in mobile phone sales will drop below 10 percent this year, casting doubt on Nokia's more upbeat outlook for 2008.
Nokia and the analysts both put the number of phones sold in 2007 at around 1.14 billion, or 12.4 percent more than were sold in 2006, according to IDC.
But it's unrealistic to expect that growth to continue, IDC analysts said in a report published Friday.
"We expect growth to be in the single digits throughout 2008, and most likely for years to follow," they wrote.
On Thursday, Nokia had issued a more upbeat prediction, of 10 percent growth in mobile phone shipments in 2008 -- and bullishly predicted that its share will increase beyond the 40 percent of the market it claimed for the fourth quarter.
That's one figure IDC agreed with, adding that Nokia shipped more units in the fourth quarter than the next three vendors
combined: Samsung captured 13.9 percent of the market for the quarter (up from 11 percent a year earlier), Motorola 12.2 percent (down from 22 percent) and Sony Ericsson had 9.2 percent.
Motorola's dramatic fall to third place during the year was caused by missed opportunities in China and the market for 3G (third generation) handsets; it is renewing its product range, but will take until 2009 to recover, said IDC.
For the full year, Nokia once again took top honors,
Nokia and the analysts both put the number of phones sold in 2007 at around 1.14 billion, or 12.4 percent more than were sold in 2006, according to IDC.
But it's unrealistic to expect that growth to continue, IDC analysts said in a report published Friday.
"We expect growth to be in the single digits throughout 2008, and most likely for years to follow," they wrote.
On Thursday, Nokia had issued a more upbeat prediction, of 10 percent growth in mobile phone shipments in 2008 -- and bullishly predicted that its share will increase beyond the 40 percent of the market it claimed for the fourth quarter.
That's one figure IDC agreed with, adding that Nokia shipped more units in the fourth quarter than the next three vendors
combined: Samsung captured 13.9 percent of the market for the quarter (up from 11 percent a year earlier), Motorola 12.2 percent (down from 22 percent) and Sony Ericsson had 9.2 percent.
Motorola's dramatic fall to third place during the year was caused by missed opportunities in China and the market for 3G (third generation) handsets; it is renewing its product range, but will take until 2009 to recover, said IDC.
For the full year, Nokia once again took top honors,
700MHz auction update: High bids total $3.2 billion
The high bids totalled US$3.2 billion in the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's auction of wireless spectrum licenses in the 700MHz band after three rounds and a day and a half of bidding.
That figure is far short of the $10 billion Congress and the FCC expect to raise in the auction, which opened Thursday, but bidding could continue for weeks. In most cases, the high bids don't yet meet the FCC's reserve price set for minimum winning bids.
A fourth round of bidding will happen Friday afternoon.
The 700MHz auctions represent the last large chunk of spectrum available for the FCC to auction in the foreseeable future. The spectrum, now used to carry over-the-air television signals, can be used to carry long-range wireless broadband traffic. Consumer groups have said the spectrum represents the "last, best hope" for a nationwide wireless broadband network that competes with cable and telecom broadband services.
For sale is 62MHz of spectrum in the 700MHz band. In late 2005, after a decade of debate, Congress passed a law requiring U.S. TV stations to move to all-digital broadcasts and abandon analog spectrum between channels 52 and 69. The deadline for TV stations to end broadcasts in the 700MHz band is February 2009.
After three rounds, 906 of the 1,099 available spectrum licenses had bids, with four more licenses receiving bids than at the end of round two late Thursday. High bids had totalled just under $2.8 billion after round 2, and just over $2.4 billion after round one Thursday morning.
The top bid after the third round was $1.49 billion for eight of 12 regional licenses in the C block, a 22MHz block of spectrum covering all 50 states. The bidding for those C block licenses was up from $1.24 billion at the end of the second round. The FCC's reserve price for the C block is $4.6 billion, and the winning bidders of C block spectrum must allow any legal devices to connect to their network, including mobile phones purchased from other carriers.
The second highest bid remained $472 million for the D block, a nationwide 10MHz chunk of spectrum to be paired with another 10MHz set aside for public safety agencies. The bidder of the D block would be required to build a national network to be jointly used by public safety agencies and commercial customers. The high bid for the D block has remained unchanged since round one.
Bidding in the auction is anonymous.
The A block, a 12MHz piece of spectrum covering parts of New York and the northeastern U.S., also generated interest. The high bid was $119.8 million after the third round, up from $100 million after the second round and $83.2 million after the first round. A similar chunk of spectrum in the E block, also covering the same area, has generated a high bid of $59.9 million after the third round.
The high bid for a 12MHz block called the B block, for a local New York City license, stood at $85.6 million after rounds two and three.
High bids for five blocks in the Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., areas were between $28 million and $55 million after round three.
That figure is far short of the $10 billion Congress and the FCC expect to raise in the auction, which opened Thursday, but bidding could continue for weeks. In most cases, the high bids don't yet meet the FCC's reserve price set for minimum winning bids.
A fourth round of bidding will happen Friday afternoon.
The 700MHz auctions represent the last large chunk of spectrum available for the FCC to auction in the foreseeable future. The spectrum, now used to carry over-the-air television signals, can be used to carry long-range wireless broadband traffic. Consumer groups have said the spectrum represents the "last, best hope" for a nationwide wireless broadband network that competes with cable and telecom broadband services.
For sale is 62MHz of spectrum in the 700MHz band. In late 2005, after a decade of debate, Congress passed a law requiring U.S. TV stations to move to all-digital broadcasts and abandon analog spectrum between channels 52 and 69. The deadline for TV stations to end broadcasts in the 700MHz band is February 2009.
After three rounds, 906 of the 1,099 available spectrum licenses had bids, with four more licenses receiving bids than at the end of round two late Thursday. High bids had totalled just under $2.8 billion after round 2, and just over $2.4 billion after round one Thursday morning.
The top bid after the third round was $1.49 billion for eight of 12 regional licenses in the C block, a 22MHz block of spectrum covering all 50 states. The bidding for those C block licenses was up from $1.24 billion at the end of the second round. The FCC's reserve price for the C block is $4.6 billion, and the winning bidders of C block spectrum must allow any legal devices to connect to their network, including mobile phones purchased from other carriers.
The second highest bid remained $472 million for the D block, a nationwide 10MHz chunk of spectrum to be paired with another 10MHz set aside for public safety agencies. The bidder of the D block would be required to build a national network to be jointly used by public safety agencies and commercial customers. The high bid for the D block has remained unchanged since round one.
Bidding in the auction is anonymous.
The A block, a 12MHz piece of spectrum covering parts of New York and the northeastern U.S., also generated interest. The high bid was $119.8 million after the third round, up from $100 million after the second round and $83.2 million after the first round. A similar chunk of spectrum in the E block, also covering the same area, has generated a high bid of $59.9 million after the third round.
The high bid for a 12MHz block called the B block, for a local New York City license, stood at $85.6 million after rounds two and three.
High bids for five blocks in the Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., areas were between $28 million and $55 million after round three.
Switzerland tells antipiracy group tactics violate law
Switzerland has warned a company that tracks file sharers for copyright violations that its tactics violate the country's telecommunication law.
Logistep, which supplies information on suspected file sharers to law firms around the world for use in copyright violation cases, has until Feb. 9 to respond to the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC), said Marc Schaefer, the agency's legal advisor.
Under Swiss law, the identity of a subscriber to an ISP (Internet service provider) can only be revealed during the course of a criminal case, not a civil one, Schaefer said. The IP (Internet Protocol) address of a computer controlled by the subscriber is considered "personal" information.
In order to try to claim damages from people suspected of trading songs or movies, Logistep has asked Swiss prosecutors to open criminal cases, Schaefer said. As the criminal cases progresses, Logistep receives information from prosecutors that identifies the file sharer.
Logistep then initiates a civil case against the file sharer while the criminal case is ongoing. Prosecutors usually drop the criminal case against the person, Schaefer said.
By starting a criminal case "to obtain the identity behind an IP address ... they just found a way to avoid the telecommunication law," Schaefer said. "Therefore, we told Logistep to stop their work until there is a legal basis which allows such an identification."
The FDPIC's recommended to Logistep to stop the practice, but is prepared to take the matter to court, Schaefer said. Logistep would be in the clear if they pursued a civil case after the criminal one is complete, he said.
Logistep has issued a statement contending an IP address is not personal information. Company officials could not be reached Friday.
An IP address can indicate the location of a computer but not necessarily who is using it. Several people could share the same computer, which would have one IP address. But ISPs, as well as wireless routers used in home, can also dynamically assign IP addresses, which adds further ambiguity regarding who is using the computer and who may be responsible for illegally activity conducted on the PC.
That means the person paying the bill for the Internet service may end up as the target of the civil proceeding rather than the offender, adding another worrying factor into the lawsuits, Schaefer said.
On its Web site, Logistep said it can compile a history of illegal files shared by someone, even if encryption or proxy servers are used to mask the sharing.
The row comes amid growing concerns over how personal data is collected and retained in Europe.
On Monday, a top European data protection official, Peter Schaar, said at a European Parliament hearing that an IP address should be considered personal information since it can be used to identify people.
Schaar is chairman of the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, which is looking at personal data and privacy issues, such as what kind of data search engines retain. A report is scheduled for release by April.
Also earlier this week, privacy activists claimed victory over music and content industry lobbyists concerning a report issued by the European Parliament's Committee on Culture and Education.
Struck out of the report was a suggestion that ISPs should monitor content and ban users for suspected copyright infringement, wrote Danny O'Brien, international outreach coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which lobbied against the suggestion as well as others.
The report, entitled Cultural Industries in Europe, will be used to make recommendations to European Union countries on intellectual property and other issues.
Logistep, which supplies information on suspected file sharers to law firms around the world for use in copyright violation cases, has until Feb. 9 to respond to the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC), said Marc Schaefer, the agency's legal advisor.
Under Swiss law, the identity of a subscriber to an ISP (Internet service provider) can only be revealed during the course of a criminal case, not a civil one, Schaefer said. The IP (Internet Protocol) address of a computer controlled by the subscriber is considered "personal" information.
In order to try to claim damages from people suspected of trading songs or movies, Logistep has asked Swiss prosecutors to open criminal cases, Schaefer said. As the criminal cases progresses, Logistep receives information from prosecutors that identifies the file sharer.
Logistep then initiates a civil case against the file sharer while the criminal case is ongoing. Prosecutors usually drop the criminal case against the person, Schaefer said.
By starting a criminal case "to obtain the identity behind an IP address ... they just found a way to avoid the telecommunication law," Schaefer said. "Therefore, we told Logistep to stop their work until there is a legal basis which allows such an identification."
The FDPIC's recommended to Logistep to stop the practice, but is prepared to take the matter to court, Schaefer said. Logistep would be in the clear if they pursued a civil case after the criminal one is complete, he said.
Logistep has issued a statement contending an IP address is not personal information. Company officials could not be reached Friday.
An IP address can indicate the location of a computer but not necessarily who is using it. Several people could share the same computer, which would have one IP address. But ISPs, as well as wireless routers used in home, can also dynamically assign IP addresses, which adds further ambiguity regarding who is using the computer and who may be responsible for illegally activity conducted on the PC.
That means the person paying the bill for the Internet service may end up as the target of the civil proceeding rather than the offender, adding another worrying factor into the lawsuits, Schaefer said.
On its Web site, Logistep said it can compile a history of illegal files shared by someone, even if encryption or proxy servers are used to mask the sharing.
The row comes amid growing concerns over how personal data is collected and retained in Europe.
On Monday, a top European data protection official, Peter Schaar, said at a European Parliament hearing that an IP address should be considered personal information since it can be used to identify people.
Schaar is chairman of the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, which is looking at personal data and privacy issues, such as what kind of data search engines retain. A report is scheduled for release by April.
Also earlier this week, privacy activists claimed victory over music and content industry lobbyists concerning a report issued by the European Parliament's Committee on Culture and Education.
Struck out of the report was a suggestion that ISPs should monitor content and ban users for suspected copyright infringement, wrote Danny O'Brien, international outreach coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which lobbied against the suggestion as well as others.
The report, entitled Cultural Industries in Europe, will be used to make recommendations to European Union countries on intellectual property and other issues.
IBM's Cognos acquisition gets EU approval
IBM's US$5 billion acquisition of business intelligence software vendor Cognos took a step forward on Thursday as European regulators gave their approval to the deal.
After examining the acquisition, the European Commission said in a statement that it "would not give rise to competition concerns, since the parties' combined market share would be moderate."
IBM announced its intention to buy Cognos, based in Ottawa, in November, saying it hoped to combine the Cognos software with IBM's back-end database products. They hope to close the deal by the end of March, but there are still a few regulatory requirements to be met, including the approval of Canada's minister of industry.
Business intelligence software is used to analyze data from different sources within a company and help management get a better picture of the business. Several business intelligence software vendors have been acquired recently, including Hyperion, purchased by Oracle, and Business Objects, purchased by SAP.
IBM to date has partnered with business intelligence software vendors, providing the back-end infrastructure components. But changing customer demands sparked its interest in Cognos, according to Ambuj Goyal, general manager of information management in IBM's software group and a key player in the Cognos deal.
"Now, more and more clients are saying, 'We are not an integration technology business, we are in a business-outcome business. You do the integration,'" he said in a recent interview. "More and more clients are not doing best-of-breed purchases."
(Chris Kanaracus in Boston contributed to this story.)
After examining the acquisition, the European Commission said in a statement that it "would not give rise to competition concerns, since the parties' combined market share would be moderate."
IBM announced its intention to buy Cognos, based in Ottawa, in November, saying it hoped to combine the Cognos software with IBM's back-end database products. They hope to close the deal by the end of March, but there are still a few regulatory requirements to be met, including the approval of Canada's minister of industry.
Business intelligence software is used to analyze data from different sources within a company and help management get a better picture of the business. Several business intelligence software vendors have been acquired recently, including Hyperion, purchased by Oracle, and Business Objects, purchased by SAP.
IBM to date has partnered with business intelligence software vendors, providing the back-end infrastructure components. But changing customer demands sparked its interest in Cognos, according to Ambuj Goyal, general manager of information management in IBM's software group and a key player in the Cognos deal.
"Now, more and more clients are saying, 'We are not an integration technology business, we are in a business-outcome business. You do the integration,'" he said in a recent interview. "More and more clients are not doing best-of-breed purchases."
(Chris Kanaracus in Boston contributed to this story.)
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