Mobile Music Revenue To Hit $5.5 Billion In 2013

iPod silohuette Revenue from streamed music and full-track downloads on mobile phones will grow from $2.5 billion to $5.5 billion worldwide in the next five years as increased applications, all-you-can-eat data plans and more user-friendly services combine to drive up sales, according to a new forecast by Juniper Research.

Windsor Holden, an analyst at the U.K.-based mobile research firm, points to a widening array of mobile music initiatives from music streaming service Pandora, with 2 million mobile users, to T-Mobile's Mobile Jukebox to Samsung's Beat DJ, as evidence of increased consumer uptake.

"These are just snippets, but they are not isolated cases," he wrote in a blog post. Holden went on to argue that wireless operators are increasingly convinced that not only are customers willing to use their mobile phones for accessing music, but that a significant proportion view music as a key component of their mobile service.

While traditional mobile music services such as ringtones and realtones are in decline, the report notes that more sophisticated music offerings are taking their place. "Recent positive developments, such as Apple announcing that iPhone customers can use the 3G network to download full-tracks, will offer a further stimulus to growth," according to Holden.

Juniper wasn't as optimistic about ad-supported music services as a result of the global economic downturn. Because of ad budget cutbacks, it warned that ad spend could amount to only half of pre-downturn estimates under the worst case scenario.


Geographically, the report predicts that the Far East region and China will account for the largest share of mobile music revenue through 2013, followed by Western Europe. A separate new report from Forrester Research found that while only 6% of online European consumers streamed or downloaded music on mobile phones, that figure jumped to 18% among smartphone owners, and 32% among smartphone owners with unlimited mobile Web access.

Companies can end up spending more on SaaS than they would for an in-house application

Want to save money using SaaS? Be wary of contract terms

Vendors may pitch software as a service (SaaS) to help companies avoid high up-front costs of deploying IT systems, but these applications can end up being more expensive than in-house software programs, warned a speaker at Springboard Research's SaaS Asia Conference 2009 in Singapore.

IT managers considering SaaS offerings have to consider the total costs that will be incurred over the life of the application, said Paul Sharp, vice president of information technology and supply chain at AdvalTech Omni, a maker of precision tooling and molds.

Done right, SaaS offerings -- sometimes called cloud computing applications -- can eliminate capital expenditure costs required to roll out new systems and reduce service and maintenance costs. But a badly negotiated contract can end up being an expensive burden that can last for many years, long after arguments that these contracts save capital expenditure costs have been forgotten, Sharp said.

"If you go into this blindly, you'll end up paying a lot more than doing it in-house," he said.


Many Asian companies are considering SaaS applications as a way to cut their IT costs, particularly capital expenditures, said Michael Barnes, vice president of software and Asia-Pacific research, at Springboard Research.

"There's an absolute focus on cost savings. Everyone is talking about capex and being able to cut down that up-front expenditure," he said.

After 12 percent growth during 2008, IT spending in Asia-Pacific, excluding Japan, is expected to grow by 7 percent in 2009, driven by demand from India and China, as well as government stimulus programs, Barnes said.

Technologies that are getting the most attention from Asian companies right now are virtualization, collaboration tools and cloud computing, Barnes said, noting that e-mail, customer relationship management and security are among the most popular SaaS applications in the market.

Barnes advised conference attendees to resist the urge to cut spending on IT, saying investments in SaaS and other technologies can make them more competitive -- a factor that is more critical now that key economies are mired in recession.

"In a growth market, even turkeys can fly," Barnes said. "To avoid being left behind, to position yourself to succeed, you absolutely need to be investing now."

Twitter's Evan Williams and Biz Stone Open Conference

Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher interview Biz Stone and Evan Williams of Twitter onstage at the D7: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif.

Klick on the following link to watch the interview: http://online.wsj.com/video/d7-twitter-evan-williams-and-biz-stone-open-conference/EA5360FF-C638-44E4-BBDA-832F311139A0.html

A SMB Owners Intro To Search Engine Marketing

Small Business Advice

You’ve heard it a million times: The Web has leveled the playing field for small businesses. Great. But what does that mean. The Web is intimidating. How does someone take advantage of that new playing field? Where do you start and how do you get the most bang for your buck?

Got a pen?
Start with a solid home base

When potential customers land on your Web site, it takes less than a few seconds for them to decide if you’re credible enough to do business with. And that decision often isn’t based on your reputation, your integrity or your product. It’s based on how professional your Web site looks. This is where a lot of small businesses fail, simply because they don’t understand establishing credibility on the Web.

Your first step is to get the best domain name you can afford. You want to make sure it’s short, easy to spell AND remember, and that you’re sticking with a .com domain, rather than a .net or .org. If you opt for a domain name that ends with something that is NOT .com, you immediately lose out on valuable type-in traffic, as people will just assume you use a the standard .com top level domain. We recommended registering the domain from registrars like GoDaddy or Network Solutions for the longest time increment possible, both because you’ll lose your whole site should you forget to renew it and because there’s some theory that the search engines “trust” sites more with longer registrations.

Get Found in Search Engines Naturally

Start with good copy writing, content that is geared toward humans instead of the search engines. You don’t want to invest in pages that are so stuffed with keywords that a human brain won’t be able to parse the information. Think of how a customer might search. What terms would they use? Try to come up with complete phrases instead of single words. How would someone look for what you offer?

Bolt a blog on your site. Blogs are great because they’re keyword-rich and a constant source of content. Anita suggested starting off with a free blog hosted on a site like Blogger, Wordpress or Typepad because of how simple they are to set up. If you’re going to invest time in blogging, I think it’s worth “bolting” your blog onto your domain as early as possible so that you control it. Otherwise, you’re going to have to worry about migrating the content over at a later date and that can be a headache. And by “can be” I mean “it is”.

You also want to look at on page factors like your navigation. Would a user have difficulty finding the different parts of your site? Look at your URLs, are they user friendly? You should also make sure you have a reliable host so your Web site doesn’t go down and that your code is as clean as possible. If you know some HTML, pay close attention to your Title tags, Descriptions and Image ALT tags. We recommended getting a site audit by a professional SEO and I’d strongly agree with that. We do them for clients all the time and it’s a great way to pick out what parts of your site could be most easily tweaked for the biggest rewards.

Increase Findability Offline

If you want your site to rank, it is crucial that you’re able to develop links. This takes a mix of creativity and hard work and is a constant battle for most sites on the Web. Some ways you’ll be able to drive links to your Web site are to write content that will be useful to sites in your community, through social media, to make your site a resourceful or to experiment with thing like images or online video.

Another way to get backlinks is to list your site in the local search directories. These directories are important because not only do they count as trusted links to your site, but they ensure that your site is correctly listed in their index, which will in turn help you to rank.

Amplify your online presence with social media

Social media is a great way for small businesses to enhance their online presence. To get started, Anita recommended experimenting with sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and all the others that you constantly see other small businesses using. However, quickly focus your efforts to avoid spreading yourself too thin. When you’re out there in social media, share your information, but also listen. You can’t just walk into a room shouting, “Buy My Stuff!”. You need to meet people, talk to them and interact with them. Engaging in social media will also help you in the Google/Social Media index where Google will index some of your social mentions.

Know when to bring in a professional

At some point, you may decide it’s necessary to bring in a professional to help you market your Web site. At that point, it becomes learning how to identify the deceptive SEO companies from the trustworthy ones. You always want to run, don’t walk, from guaranteed results. Do background checks. Ask other small business owners for referrals. Ask for samples of their work

Also, don’t be afraid to hire based on expertise. Some firms are better apt to deal with Web design projects, while some will focus in social media. There are many different flavors of SEO companies – PPC managers, link builders, social media consultants, bloggers, email marketers, etc. Hire for your need.

Entrepreneurs blazing trail with medicinal marijuana

With the recession grinding on, just about everybody is ready for the sweet smell of success to fill the air.

In the infant business of medical marijuana, the sweet smell is spreading.

Success, however, remains elusive.

More than a dozen states have approved the use of pot with a prescription, and similar legislation is under review by the Illinois General Assembly, where the state Senate voted Wednesday to approve a measure. Although the federal government outlaws the cultivation, possession and sale of the drug, it has indicated that state rules will prevail.


Related story: Medical marijuana pilot gets OK from state Senate

But the details remain hazy, the legal landscape a daze and the big business interests that might be expected to pay attention seem to keep forgetting about it.

That drowsiness and confusion in the marketplace hasn't deterred the intrepid entrepreneur. In California, dispensaries are popping up on city streets, giving new meaning to the phrase "retail joint."

Now along comes the publicly traded Medical Marijuana Inc., with a chief executive who is euphoric about the prospects for a business that isn't entirely legal -- yet.

"I think we're the next Microsoft," said Bruce Perlowin, CEO of the new company, which trades for less than $1 on the off-exchange pink sheets. "I think we'll be the fastest-growing billion-dollar company in history. It's a huge industry."

Perlowin knows a lot about the marijuana business, having served 9 years in federal custody for his role in a smuggling ring during the 1970s and early 1980s. He also knows a lot about marketing, he said, after building several companies that attracted all sorts of attention.

His spirited promotion of an "Energy Wellness" machine, for instance, attracted federal prosecutors, who charged him with selling an unapproved medical device. Perlowin pleaded guilty last year, but didn't receive any additional prison time.

A public company with a criminal in the executive suite is nothing new -- Martha Stewart springs to mind -- and Perlowin believes his background gives him status among operators of dispensaries. "I am the legend," he said. "It helps to sell our stock."

Perlowin is not alone in his belief about a bright future for medical marijuana. Terry Patton, a veteran of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, is laying the groundwork for a related venture. And lots of small-time entrepreneurs have organized co-ops, cafes and storefront outlets with an eye toward a bigger opportunity ahead. With state and local budgets running huge deficits, the key will be figuring out how to harness a business awash in under-the-table cash so the tax man can get his cut.

Perlowin's company is pushing a debit card that would automatically segregate tax revenues. "You make more money by paying your taxes and doing it legitimately," Perlowin said. He also wants to introduce potency ratings, seminars for doctors and merchants, turnkey software systems and, yes, a clothing line.

So far, he has little competition. Walgreens, CVS and other major retailers routinely handle prescription narcotics recognized by the Food and Drug Administration, but not pot. "At this point, it's not an issue for us," said Walgreens spokesman Robert Elfinger.

As Perlowin sees it, that leaves an open field for his 2-month-old company: "It's like the wild, wild West."

HP IS talking with China's three mobile carriers...

Hewlett-Packard Co., the world's largest personal-computer maker by sales, said it is talking with China's three mobile carriers about offering small, portable computers along with their services.

Demand in China, the world's second-largest PC market by shipments, appears to be coming back. Shoppers bought HP laptops at a Beijing mall in January.

The possible collaborations with China Mobile Ltd., China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd., and China Telecom Corp. to offer mobile broadband-enabled mini-notebooks, called netbooks, would help expand HP's sales channels in China, said an HP spokeswoman.

HP, Dell Inc. and other PC makers have similar arrangements with wireless carriers in Europe and other regions.










An HP Mini 110 computer. HP executives introduced several new products in Beijing on Wednesday, including a notebook computer, the HP Mini 110 series, which weighs 2.5 pounds and will cost $299.

"We are living in a challenging economic time," said See Chin Teik, senior vice president of the personal systems group of HP's Asia-Pacific operations.

In China, the world's second-largest PC market by shipments, demand appears to be coming back, with HP notebooks enjoying the highest growth category of its China PC sales, but HP executives remained cautious on their outlook.

Mr. See said HP's sales grew faster in China in its second fiscal quarter ended April 30, than the local PC market as a whole. HP's gains in China translated to an increase in market share to 13.7% in the first calendar quarter from 10.9% in the previous quarter, according to market researcher IDC.

HP has made significant progress over the past two years, surpassing Chinese PC makers like Founder Electronics Co. to become the second-largest vendor in the country after Lenovo Group Ltd.

Isaiah Cheung, vice president of the personal-systems group for the company's China and Hong Kong operations, said sales growth in China will shift toward lower-tier cities, and sales in rural China will grow over the next three years

HP currently has service centers in 425 Chinese cities, up from 325 at the end of last year, he said.

The company highlighted four new products on Wednesday. In addition to the HP Mini 110, HP launched an all-in-one desktop computer, the HP Pavilion MS200, which will start at $599.

The lineup further emphasizes low prices as commercial and consumer PC demand has slowed world-wide because of the weakened economy.

The company posted a 17% drop in profit in its second quarter on revenue of $27.4 billion and saw a 19% drop in revenue from its PC division.

Chief Executive Mark Hurd said earlier this month that he isn't seeing any improvement in the current quarter, and the company expects revenue to decline 4% to 5% for the fiscal year.

HP is still looking for more signs of stability in IT spending.

Hewlett-Packard Co. Chief Executive Mark Hurd said Thursday the technology giant is still looking for more signs of stability in IT spending.

Mr. Hurd, speaking at an investor conference in New York, sounded just as conservative about any potential turnaround as he did on May 19, when HP reported a 17% drop in second fiscal second-quarter net earnings. At the time, Mr. Hurd provided an equally bearish take on IT spending, a sentiment that ran counter to most of HP's competition.
Digits

On Thursday, Mr. Hurd told the Bernstein & Co. Strategic Decisions Conference in New York that while there have been some positive signs in some markets, IT spending in Europe continues to be weak and may be getting weaker.

"I think we saw a more stable market," Mr. Hurd said. "But people are still trying to squeeze their budgets. I would like to see signs across more markets."

He reiterated that HP is seeing signs of improvement in the U.S. and China.

HP did receive positive news Thursday when market tracker IDC said the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company gained share in the first calendar quarter in the market for giant computers known as servers, which is a key product line for HP. But Mr. Hurd said this could be taken as a sign IT spending is still floundering.

"We haven't been pricing to gain share," he said, "so the good news is we're gaining share, but the bad news is we're gaining share, which tells me the market is not as strong as we predicted in some of our markets."

Five reasons to purchase new hardware during a recession

When business is bad or the economy takes a dive, new hardware purchases are often delayed indefinitely. While this is prudent, even essential, for companies struggling to survive, suspending hardware investments can sometimes prove shortsighted and can actually cost you more in the long run. This episodes of Sanity Savers for IT executives explains why there are times when new hardware purchases shouldn’t be delayed - even during a recession.

Boots No7 Protect & Perfect Intense Beauty Serum

Anti-ageing cosmetic reduced wrinkles in clinical trial (men and women aged 45 to 80 years)

28 Apr 2009

Broadcast-quality footage of Professor Griffiths discussing the findings can be watched HERE

Scientists testing a cosmetic anti-aging product sold on the high street have shown it can clinically reduce wrinkles and improve the appearance of skin damaged by everyday exposure to sunlight.

Dermatologists at The University of Manchester carried out a clinical trial on 60 volunteers with typical signs of sun-damaged skin and found that the cosmetic, No7 Protect & Perfect Intense Beauty Serum, could improve some of these clinical features.

The study, published on line in the British Journal of Dermatology today (Tuesday, April 28), showed that 70% of individuals using the beauty product had significantly fewer wrinkles after 12 months of daily use compared to volunteers using a placebo.

The research team, headed by Professor of Dermatology Chris Griffiths, reported last year that the original No7 Protect & Perfect Beauty Serum stimulated the production of fibrillin-1, a protein that promotes elasticity in the skin.

For this latest, year-long study, the researchers first wanted to discover whether the new No7 Protect & Perfect Intense Beauty Serum also promoted fibrillin-1 production but also wished to test whether this would result in a reduction in wrinkles, as has been demonstrated with prescription retinoids.

“Very few over-the-counter cosmetic ‘anti-aging’ products have been subjected to a rigorous, scientific trial to prove their effectiveness,” said Professor Griffiths, who is based in the University’s School of Translational Medicine at Salford Royal Foundation Hospital.

“Although prescription retinoids can have a reparative effect on photo-aged skin, there is scant evidence that any of the plethora of cosmetic ‘anti-aging’ products can produce similar effects.”

The clinical trial – funded by Boots, the makers of the No7 product range – was carried out using standard scientific protocols. Having established that the No7 Protect & Perfect Intense Beauty Serum did increase fibrillin-1 production, 60 volunteers – 11 men and 49 women aged 45 to 80 years – were recruited to test its efficacy.

The No7 Protect & Perfect Intense Beauty Serum and a control formulation containing no anti-aging ingredients were supplied in identical, coded packages, so neither investigators nor volunteers were aware as to the treatment of each individual. Thirty volunteers were assigned the No7 Protect & Perfect Intense Beauty Serum and 30 used the placebo formulation.

“Our findings demonstrate that a commercially-available cosmetic can produce significant improvement in the appearance of facial wrinkles following long-term use,” said Professor Griffiths.

“It is rare for such benefits to be reported for an over-the-counter anti-aging product and this study paves the way for larger studies with more statistical power.”

Notes for editors

A copy of the British Journal of Dermatology paper will be freely available from Tuesday afternoon at: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119881892/issue

For an advanced copy of the paper, please contact The University of Manchester press office.

Broadcast-quality footage of Professor Griffiths discussing the findings can be downloaded from: http://manchesteruniversityskincareresearch.co.uk/profcg

If you have problems downloading the footage or would like an edited version please contact The University of Manchester press office.

The Science Media Centre hosted a briefing for national media at its offices in London on Tuesday morning, where Professor Griffiths and Boots Skincare Scientific Adviser Stewart Long reported the findings.

Professor Chris Griffiths is a world-renowned dermatologist and is Associate Dean for Research for The University of Manchester’s Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences. His main research foci are on skin ageing and its treatment, the immunological mechanisms of the distressing skin condition psoriasis and the interactions between the brain and the skin. More details about Professor Griffiths can be found at: http://www.medicine.manchester.ac.uk/staff/ChrisGriffiths

The results of the Boots-funded study would have been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal regardless of outcome. Journalists wishing to speak to Professor Griffiths should contact The University of Manchester press office in the first instance.

For further information contact:

Aeron Haworth

Media Officer

Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences

The University of Manchester

Tel: 0161 275 8383

Mob: 07717 881 563

Email: aeron.haworth@manchester.ac.uk

Five signs to look for when identifying future leaders

To ensure that your IT organization remains vital, you need to identify individuals who show leadership potential and help them step into that role when they’re ready. But what do future leaders look like?

Five prerequisites for successful IT projects

According to some estimates, 68 percent of IT projects fail. That’s a sobering statistic, but there are ways to stack the deck in favor of IT project success. This episode of Sanity Savers shares five strategies to help you overcome some of the common problems that plague many IT projects.

Protect company assets during employee departures

Employment transition is an often overlooked danger to company security. Whether it’s massive layoffs or routine separations, IT should have standard security policies in place that detail the steps to take when an employee leaves the company. In this IT Dojo video, I’ll go over four critical areas of employment transition security, including:

* User accounts
* Documentation
* Inventory
* Personal electronics

How CIOs Should Spend Their Day

Overview: With the exception of possibly the CEO, the CIO's business calendar is the most difficult to manage. The key? CIOs should balance time management in ways that do not deprive any key constituents of essential time. Each stakeholder group is equally important, and a disproportionate allocation of the CIO's focus and attention will be detrimental to the enterprise and to the CIO's success. Forrester's 30-30-30-10 model forces disciplined balance across constituents, which are classified into four groups: above, across, below, and yourself. This time model will keep IT front-of-mind in the business and allow CIOs to do what they do best: proving and delivering IT value to the enterprise.

Project Management: 8 Steps to On-Time, On-Budget Delivery

By implementing the following eight project management best practices, organizations can dramatically improve their project success rates.

Businesses of all sizes embark on thousands of projects for new products and services every year. Unfortunately, most projects are doomed to fail outright, or at launch, because the original success criteria were not met. Some project failures lead to delays in product launches, such as the Airbus A380; others, like Boston's Big Dig, incur huge cost overruns. These examples, as well as the results from survey after survey, show that American businesses have not been able to figure out how to consistently get products and services delivered on time, on budget and with the highest quality.

Why is that?

Businesses invest a great deal each year in people, consultants, processes and technology to improve project success rates, but to no avail. Don't get me wrong, there are individual examples of excellence, and success rates have improved over the years, but there has not been the kind of dramatic increase that one would expect given the size of the investments businesses have made.

The bottom line is, businesses can talk a good game, but the majority are not ready or willing to make the "true" investments needed to achieve meaningful change—the type of change that will deliver on time, on budget, and with high quality near 100 percent of the time. There are eight steps that, if followed as a single unit and truly embraced by the entire organization, provide the roadmap to project management perfection.

1. Definition
It is critical to start with a solid foundation. The foundation must be built at the organizational level and not with individuals. It is imperative that, from the CEO down, there is understanding and buy-in when it comes to defining or redefining the following items:

* Roles and Responsibilities: This can be painstaking, but the effort will pay off when it's time to execute. The exercise may outline the need to develop new organizational structures to better support efficiency and communication within the delivery teams.


* Standards: The creation of a project management methodology will allow for consistency in delivery and terminology. An added benefit can be bringing new employees on board who rapidly move up the learning curve and thereby provide immediate value.


* Policies: Having a set standard and a consistent methodology provides the platform to document and enforce policies. It's difficult to document when things are moving quickly and always changing, but taking the time to do so will provide benefits such as improved control measures. Performing audits allows you to proactively identify risks and gives you the ability to mitigate them before they turn into a true problem.

2. Evaluation
It's important to know where and when to make investments to achieve the goals of the business. Unfortunately, there are always more ideas than there are resources to execute them. Therefore, organizations need to formalize a process for evaluating which new projects should be approved. The process must define the decision-making criteria that will be used during the evaluation, and also take into consideration the firm's capacity and capabilities to successfully deliver the projects.

3. Resources
Without people—or more importantly, the right people—the ability to succeed as a business is near impossible. Your resources were hired for specific reasons, such as unique skill sets or deep industry experience. Creating an environment for success is crucial to your business and to their careers. Taking the time to match the staffing needs for a new project with the skills you already have is critical.

4. Goals and Objectives
It happens way too often that team members don't understand why they are doing what they are doing. They don't know how important their project or task is to the success of the business. It is critical that goals are clearly defined for every project, from corporate initiatives down to one-off departmental projects. It is also important that they all tie together. Even the smallest project should support corporate goals in some way.

5. Control
One of the true single points of failure to the success of any project is the lack of control, specifically around scope and budget. Most people realize that for every action there is a reaction, but for some reason that logic goes out the window when it comes to a project. How many times have you heard, "My request is easy" or "This is just a small change." Project stakeholders say these things without realizing the impact of their "small change" on the project plan or budget. In order to succeed, project stakeholders must understand that a change to the scope, timeline or budget for a project will produce a failed project if those variables aren't subsequently adjusted to accommodate the change. As well, project managers need to define a strong change control process that is embraced from the highest levels down. This is not easy, but if accomplished, it will allow you to deliver your product and services on time and on budget.

6. Monitor
"Joe, how's the project coming along? Well Frank, let me check the Magic Eight Ball." I say that in jest, but it's true that many businesses do not formally and concisely track the status of projects. It is critical that you and your team fully know and document a project's progress, stakeholders' commitments, results achieved, and the leading indicators of success as well as potential failure. The knowledge from the information gathered from your monitoring will determine the decisions that are made; the course of corrections that may be needed; and the comfort that your projects are being tracked. There needs to be transparency into and accountability to the plan, goals, budget and scope in order to achieve confidence that the information is accurate and actionable.

7. Measure
Goals have been set, plans have been created, and commitments have been made. After all that work, it would be a shame to not know if project objectives were quantifiably met. Being able to define, capture and track the metrics surrounding each project and the entire portfolio of projects is a must have for any executive and management team. There are many methodologies, such as Six Sigma, that place a great deal of importance in the ability to capture and quantify success or failure. There is a lot of power in black and white data. You set the bar and there is only one answer—yes or no—at the end when asked if it was a success. The data and the history that is captured will pay benefits when making initial decisions during the evaluation step. You can baseline the proposed project against those in the past and determine what changes may be needed in order to give a new proposal the best chance to succeed and not repeat past problems. You can only learn from your past if the past has been documented for reference.

8. Improve
Even in the most successful projects there is always something that could have been done better. Being able to capture those lessons will enable an organization improve its project delivery capability and deliver more complex and challenging projects in less time, for less cost. I highlight the following three areas for improvement:

* Invest in people: Improve the skill sets of your people with training and by giving them challenging project assignments.


* Continual improvement: Formalize a process to capture the lessons learned for each project. That process should also outline how recommendations for change are prioritized, approved and implemented. As with other items, measure the progress of each step and each approved recommendation to determine if its goals were met.


* Project technology: Be on the lookout for how technology can help increase the efficiency and quality of your project delivery.

These eight steps, if individually implemented, can improve your ability to get your products and services to market on time and on budget. But if you implement these eight steps collectively as a single unit, your business will gain a greater competitive edge, increase quality, enhance its agility, and most importantly, improve client satisfaction. Your clients will sing your praises if they are able to get their products and services delivered when promised and on budget. So don't wait! Take action now and implement your eight step program today.

HP's servers and storage hit a wall in Q2

Global economy, legal entanglements to blame

By Timothy Prickett Morgan

Hewlett-Packard reported its second quarter financial results for fiscal 2009 ended in April. Like other IT players, HP's server and storage sales were slammed by the economic downturn and intense price competition that is the result of the poor economy.

The company's Enterprise Storage and Server group, which is trying to poach EMC executive David Donatelli to take over as its general manager, posted $3.46bn in sales in the second fiscal quarter, down 27.7 per cent from the same period a year ago.

The drop in sales and the cut-throat competition in the server and storage racket has eaten mightily into profits. Earnings from operations for the ESS group fell 61.8 per cent to $250m. IBM's Systems and Technology Group, which sells storage and servers as well as OEM chips and other tech, reported an 80.7 per cent drop in pre-tax income in its first quarter ended in March to a mere $28m - and that is with mainframes and big Unix boxes helping out on the profit side.

HP does not report pre-tax income for its various groups, but if you allocate the overhead of HQ, amortization, restructuring, and other costs above and beyond operations costs proportionately to revenue, then the ESS operating income would be hit with around $177m in additional costs, yielding around $133m in pre-tax earnings.

For all we know, ESS took a much larger hit than this, but the point is that big servers are not shoring up profits at either company when volume server sales are collapsing.

Drilling down into revenues within the ESS group, the Industry Standard Server division, which makes ProLiant and BladeSystem x64-based servers and which is the volume engine of the HP server operation, saw sales plummet by 29.5 per cent to $1.99bn in the quarter. The company's Business Critical Systems division, which peddles Itanium-based Integrity and NonStop servers, with a smattering of HP 9000 and AlphaServer gear, had a 29 per cent revenue decline in the quarter, to $650m. The Integrity line declined only 18 per cent, however.

This was comparatively good compared to the sales of ProLiant rack and tower servers. HP said that blade sales also held up relatively well, only dropping 12 per cent in fiscal Q2. (HP sells Itanium and x64 blades, and that number cuts across both the ISS and BCS divisions.)







Cathie Lesjak, HP's chief financial officer, also said that margins in the server business were pressured by lower volumes and tough market conditions, and then added in the effect of some litigation relating to RISC servers.

Specifically, Lesjak said that HP's operating profits in the ESS group were impacted by litigation charges relating to an intellectual property lawsuit between the company and Cornell University. On March 30, HP filed an appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals to try to get a decision in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District in Syracuse (New York) reversed. It ruled that HP's PA-8000 series of processors had infringed on patents relating to parallel processing which are controlled by the university.

If you don't remember the case in question, it is because Cornell filed its patent infringement lawsuit against HP at the end of 2001, concerning a patent that expired in February 2006.

A jury in a Syracuse court, presided over by Judge Randall Rader, found that HP had infringed on Cornell's patents, and the judge calculated and awarded $184m in damages in May 2008. But in March this year, Rader said he had calculated the damages incorrectly and reduced the award to $53m. Cornell is now appealing that ruling.

HP said on April 10 that it is appealing the original decision and would book a charge against Q2 earnings to cover its legal costs and reserves in the event it loses the case. That was roughly 2 cents per share, and if you work the maths out backwards, that is a $47.9m additional reserve. Half of that amount hit ESS operating profits, according to HP.

On the storage front, HP said that its StorageWorks division posted a 22 per cent drop in the quarter, to $829m, with midrange EVA disk array sales falling 21 per cent. Lesjak blamed the decline in storage on "unfavorable currency exchange rates" and "market conditions."

HP's Software group, which is closely aligned to its systems business, posted a revenue decline of 15.3 per cent in Q2, to $880m. But earnings from operations rocketed up 51 per cent to $157m, a relative bright spot on the systems side at HP.

The company's Financial Services group, which is seeing a spike in activity as companies lease equipment instead of spending their own cash to upgrade IT gear, nonetheless had a 6.4 per cent revenue decline to $641m. Operating profits for Financial Services held up pretty well, through, only dropping 2.1 per cent to $46m. Lesjak said that the decline in revenues at Financial Services was mainly due to currency effects.

Mark Hurd, speaking on a conference call with Wall Street analysts after the market closed and after HP announced it would be cutting another 2 per cent of its workforce, said HP was staying focused on gaining market share. "We like our chances - when the rebound does occur - to be a major participant in the market when that occurs because of what we're doing right now," Hurd said. "And I say again that the winners, when the rebound occurs, are determined in the downturn."

That said, the ESS business is under pressure, perhaps as much pressure as was brought to bear when HP acquired Compaq right smack dab in the middle of the dot com bust and a number of server product transitions at both companies.

"We have customers that tell me, we're just delaying as long as we can until we have to buy," explained Hurd. "And we've got a pretty good model that looks at what those time frames are that people can put things off to." And rather than expecting some sort of upswing in enterprise spending that will magically appear before the end of the year, Hurd explained that he was more interested in what the discussions for IT budgets for the 2010 calendar year would look like as HP's customers start their planning cycles for next year around August and September.

"I think CIOs have been given marching orders that say 'take that infrastructure and keep that infrastructure running. If you have to replace things to keep things running, replace it. But for new projects, be very particular about new projects you start. And if you can avoid starting that project, avoid starting it.'" ®

Moving Data around the Clouds

A startup hopes to make it easier to hop between cloud-computing services.

Credit: Technology Review

In recent years, companies led by Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have helped usher in the era of cloud computing, in which businesses and individuals lease access to computing on demand, paying only for as much processing power as they need. And as often happens when a new industry emerges, there's been a flurry of startup activity in the cloud-computing industry over the past year or so.

One startup, called Cloudkick, hopes to provide a simpler way to manage data stored across several different cloud-computing services. Cloudkick provides a unified, Web-based interface for monitoring data regardless of the cloud provider hosting it.

Another feature launched recently by Cloudkick, called Cloudshift, lets customers transfer data between different cloud-computing providers with just a few clicks. It makes it possible to shift an application from Amazon's servers to those of competitors, such as Rackspace, with surprising ease. This means that businesses using Cloudkick can avoid being locked into one provider--a feature that could help save money if a different provider suddenly offers a cheaper service.

"A lot of companies are afraid to move into the cloud because they don't want one company to have all their data," says Dan Di Spaltro, cofounder of the startup. These companies worry that it will take significant time and resources to move data between providers because, as yet, there is no cloud-computing standard. Moving from one provider to another requires technical tricks, including converting data between file types used by different providers. "We tackle that interoperability problem," says Di Spaltro.

Cloudkick presented its product last month at the Under the Radar conference in Mountain View, CA, where it won a best-in-show award and best in category, by audience vote. The startup, founded by the venture firm Y Combinator, came out of stealth mode in March, has 1,600 customers, and manages about 12,500 servers. The company's management service and its new migration service--currently only available to a small number of customers--are both free, although it intends to launch payment plans in the future.

After signing in to the Cloudkick website, a user can add different cloud-computing accounts by entering the necessary log-in information. A dashboard then shows each of these services and the status of the servers being used. A person can set up e-mail alerts to warn if traffic dips below a certain level or if it spikes, for example. The company also provides graphs to visualize the average load on a machine--an indicator of the overall health of the system.

Moving data from one vendor to another is as simple as dragging and dropping an on-screen icon. But behind the scenes, there's much more going on. When data is stored on Amazon's servers using its Simple Storage Service (S3), for instance, it is saved in a proprietary format that keeps it from simply being moved to another service. To solve this problem, Cloudkick has written software that automatically unbundles the data from the S3 file system. This involves removing a layer of encryption that surrounds the data, explains Alex Polvi, cofounder of Cloudkick. The data can then be uploaded to another provider--the whole process takes about five minutes. "It's like ripping a CD," says Polvi.

Cloudkick Feature Overview from cloudkick on Vimeo.

Cloudkick isn't the only company offering novel ways to manage cloud-computing services. Companies including CloudStatus and RightScale also provide a way to monitor cloud servers via the Web. Cloudkick's advantage, according to Polvi, is that it keeps things as simple as possible and now gives users the ability to switch servers so easily.

Di Spaltro adds that eventually Cloudkick would like to let customers transfer between cloud providers based on preset pricing options, or based on the geographic location in which the heaviest load occurs. For instance, if one provider offers a deal below a certain price, Cloudkick could automatically transfer data over to that service. Or if a customer's servers experience a heavy load in one part of the world during a certain time of day, he or she could automatically transfer the load to servers in that location at that time, reducing lag and improving performance.

"The value proposition to moving workloads around is great," says Frank Gillett, an analyst at Forrester Research. He says that the portability Cloudkick offers will appeal especially to startups, "who are shopping around for the lowest price or want to move quickly."

However, Gillett adds that there's still a lot of uncertainty about cloud computing and the types of services that will be the most useful. "The concepts are getting ahead of the market need," he says. "It's cool to see these startups springing up as experiments, but let's remember: we're at the very beginning."

DesignForIT Managed Services/Examples from Desktop Publishing

Here are some examples from our Destop Publishing activities;

Zuora is the fastest-growing on-demand subscription billing and payment service.

Zuora is the leader in subscription billing and recurring payments. Their Z-Billing 2.0 and Z-Payments products make it fast and easy to launch new products, scale operations, and automate recurring billing and subscription payments in one solution.

Zuora Under the Radar Cloud 2009

View more presentations from UTR.

Company Description: Zuora’s subscription management platform lets customers focus on creating, managing, and growing their core business, not on their infrastructure. Zuora was founded by SaaS industry veterans Tien Tzuo, former Chief Strategy Officer from salesforce.com, and K.V. Rao, an early employee of WebEx, where he forged key alliances and signed on Fortune 50 companies.


About Tien: Tien Tzuo joined Zuora after nine years at salesforce.com where he built the original billing system while holding various executive roles. He oversaw the vision, direction and design of the first 17 releases of salesforce.com’s award winning product line. In 2004, Tien was named CMO of the Year Finalist by the CMO Council and BusinessWeek Magazine. Tien is widely recognized as a thought leader in the software-as-a-service industry. Prior to salesforce.com, Tien was at CrossWorlds Software, where he launched CrossWorlds’ Telecommunications business unit focused on integration with billing systems, and at Oracle Corporation where he managed several Telecommunications accounts.

Unmasking Social-Network Users

Researchers find a way to identify individuals in supposedly anonymous social-network data.

Credit: Technology Review

One way for social networks to make money is by sharing information about users with advertisers and others who are interested in understanding consumer behavior and exploiting online trends.

Social networks typically promise to remove "personally identifying information" before sharing this data, to protect users' privacy. But researchers from the University of Texas at Austin have found that, combined with readily available data from other online sources, this anonymized data can still reveal sensitive information about users.

In tests involving the photo-sharing site Flickr and the microblogging service Twitter, the Texas researchers were able to identify a third of the users with accounts on both sites simply by searching for recognizable patterns in anonymized network data. Both Twitter and Flickr display user information publicly, so the researchers anonymized much of the data in order to test their algorithms.

The researchers wanted to see if they could extract sensitive information about individuals using just the connections between users, even if almost all of the names, addresses, and other forms of personally identifying information had been removed. They found that they could, provided they could compare these patterns with those from another social-network graph where some user information was accessible.

Data from social networks--particularly the pattern of friendship between users--can be valuable to advertisers, says Vitaly Shmatikov, a professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, who was involved in the research. Most social networks plan to make money by sharing this information, while advertisers hope to employ it to, for example, find a particularly influential user and target her with advertising to reach her network of friends. But Shmatikov says that this information also makes networks vulnerable. "When you release this data, you have to preserve the structure of the social network," he says. "If you don't, then probably it's useless for the purpose for which you are releasing it."

The researchers say that it is fairly easy to find nonanonymous social-network data: the connections between friends in many networks, such as Twitter, are made public by default. Meanwhile, efforts to create a universal "social graph," such as with OpenSocial, provide even more resources. The researchers' algorithms worked with only a 12 percent error rate even when the patterns of social connections were significantly different: only 14 percent of users' relationships overlapped from Twitter to Flickr. The results are described in a paper to be presented later this month at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy.

"The structure of the network around you is so rich, and there are so many different possibilities, that even though you have millions of people participating in the network, we all end up with different networks around us," says Shmatikov. "Once you deal with sufficiently sophisticated human behavior, whether you're talking about purchases people make or movies they view or--in this case--friends they make and how they behave socially, people tend to be fairly unique. Every person does a few quirky, individual things which end up being strongly identifying."

To give the algorithm a starting point, the researchers also need to identify a few users from an anonymous social-network graph. But they say that this is easy to do on many social networks. A portion of users of Facebook, for example, choose to make their profiles public, and an attacker could use this as the starting point. In their experiments, the researchers found that they needed to identify as few as 30 individuals in order to be able to run their algorithms on networks of 100,000 users or more.

The researchers add that the algorithm uses the smallest amount of information feasible and that, in practice, a determined snoop would be able to find much more. "This attack would have been much, much stronger if we'd actually used information that is typically left after [names and addresses] have been removed," says Shmatikov. "So we're really showing how the bare minimum is enough."

"It's important research," says Alessandro Acquisti, an associate professor of information technology and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University and an expert on privacy online. The research highlights how data that might not seem important can actually provide an attacker with the means to uncover truly sensitive information, Acquisti says. For example, the algorithm could theoretically employ the names of a user's favorite bands and concert-going friends to decode sensitive details such as sexual orientation from supposedly anonymized data. Acquisti believes that the result paints a bleak picture for the future of online privacy. "There is no such thing as complete anonymity," he says. "It's impossible."

Shmatikov does think that there is no technical solution to the problem. He suggests that privacy laws and corporate practices may need to be changed to recognize that there's no way to anonymize social-network data. Users should also be able to decide whether to allow their data to be shared in the first place, Shmatikov says.

Tesla surpasses 1,000 reservations for Model S

Low total cost of ownership drives interest in Tesla’s sedan and sports car



SAN CARLOS, Calif. – (BUSINESS WIRE) — Tesla Motors surpassed 1,000 reservations for the Model S, an all-electric family sedan that carries up to seven people and travels up to 300 miles per charge.



Tesla launched the car March 26, and reservations immediately began streaming in online and at showrooms in California. The anticipated base price of the Model S is $49,900 after a federal tax credit. The $5,000 reservation fee is refundable.



But sticker price is only one part of a car’s total cost of ownership. If you account for the much lower cost of electricity vs. gasoline at a likely future cost of more than $5 per gallon, the Model S is equivalent to a gasoline car with a sticker price of about $30,000, such as a Ford Taurus, Honda Accord or even a Toyota Avalon or BMW 3-Series. Those savings are realized immediately if you lease a Model S, so there is no need wait years to earn back the price difference.



“The Model S is a better value than much cheaper conventional cars,” said Tesla CEO, Chairman and Product Architect Elon Musk. “Despite the enormous environmental benefits, lower total cost of ownership will soon become the primary motivation for consumers to evolve from gas guzzlers to EVs.”



Performance with a Clean Conscience

Tesla is the only production automaker selling highway-capable EVs in North America or Europe. With 0-60 mph in 3.9 seconds, the Roadster outperforms almost all sports cars in its class, yet is more than twice as energy efficient as a Toyota Prius and delivers 244 miles per charge – the only car that offers performance with a clean conscience.



Tesla has delivered more than 400 Roadsters to customers so far. The base price of the Roadster is $101,500 after a $7,500 federal tax credit.



The Roadster has a far lower cost of ownership than comparably priced sports cars -- even after factoring in a battery pack replacement. The lower cost of electricity vs. gasoline, the relative lack of maintenance on an EV, and state and federal tax incentives may result in lifetime savings of at least $26,000 compared with a similarly priced gasoline sports car. The Roadster also liberates owners from detours to the gas station and inconvenient trips to the mechanic for routine oil changes, exhaust system repairs and other internal combustion engine maintenance.

“Some Roadster customers are sports car enthusiasts. Some are environmentalists. Some care about energy security. All are discriminating and value conscious consumers,” Musk said. “Now we’re seeing the same attributes in customers who opt for the Model S. People who drive Teslas refuse to compromise on value, performance or efficiency.”

About Tesla Motors

San Carlos, California-based Tesla Motors designs and manufactures electric vehicles with exceptional design, performance and efficiency, while conforming to all North American and European safety, environmental and durability standards. The Roadster, which has a 0-to-60 mph acceleration of 3.9 seconds, is the only highway-capable production EV for sale in North America and Europe. Tesla expects to begin producing the Model S sedan in late 2011.

CONTACT:

Rachel Konrad
Tesla Motors, Inc.
+1 (650) 701-2664
rachel@teslamotors.com

The five biggest changes out of Sun/Oracle

Written by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols Cyber Cynic...

I'd thought about Oracle buying Sun. But, then I thought, "Larry Ellison isn't that dumb." Well, I was wrong. Ellison is that dumb. Oracle is buying Sun in what may be the most moronic technology acquisition of the 21st century.

I've looked at the Oracle/Sun deal. I've read Ellison's explanation as to why the buyout makes sense. I don't see it. I don't see any upside to this deal. And, on top of that, Oracle, which spent $7.4 billion for Sun, vastly overpaid for the company. This deal will make money for Sun's executives and stockholders, but it will prove to be a disaster for Sun's users, developers, and employees.

You see, I know Sun's technologies well and I just don't see a win here. IBM and Sun made sense. Despite their cultural differences, I could see Sun's software prospering with IBM. But Sun and Oracle? I only see most of Sun's technologies' dying with Oracle in charge.

Specifically, here's how I see it playing out.

1) MySQL is dead. Long live MySQL. Oracle doesn't have much to say about MySQL. Why should they? They're going to quietly kill the open-source DBMS as fast as possible.

Unfortunately for Oracle, it's too late. MySQL, under Sun's mismanagement, had already forked. MySQL founder, Michael 'Monty' Widenius left Sun and started his own community branch of MySQL, MariaDB. His purpose? "To provide a community developed, stable, and always Free branch of MySQL that is, on the user level, compatible with the main version."

That's one of the things that Ellison, and Microsoft for that matter, don't get. You can't kill open-source projects. Companies come and go, but popular open-source programs like MySQL just keep rolling on.

2) Solaris/OpenSolaris. Oracle is making sounds like it wants to do something with Solaris. Just don't ask me what. Solaris has been declining for years. Oracle uses Linux internally, and it even has its own rip-off of RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux), Oracle Unbreakable Linux.

Ellison can talk all he wants about Sun's Solaris operating system being "by far the best Unix technology," but so what? Unix is dying. Linux has been eating away at the Unix market for more than a decade. Ellison's support of Unix makes a good sound-bite, but as a business move it makes no sense. I predict death by neglect for Solaris.

3) Java. Java has value, but Sun's done a poor job over the years of turning that value into money. Oracle, which uses Java in many of its applications, can certainly put Java to good work in supporting its own products. My question is, "What is Oracle going to do with the Java Community and vice-versa?"

I know some things will happen. NetBeans, for example, is history. Oracle is a big-time Eclipse supporter. As for the rest? I honestly don't know what Oracle will do with the JCP (Java Community Process). If they're smart, they'll get everyone together as soon as possible to spell out their future plans for Java. If Oracle doesn't, they'll have Java developers running, not walking, away from the Sun/Oracle Java as fast as they can.

4) SPARC. Oracle can talk all it wants about taking a step back to the past where companies sell hardware and software bundles, but I don't see it. Fujitsu will continue to make SPARC boxes for that dwindling market, and I expect to see Sun's x86-server based business getting either spun out as an independent company or sold to Dell or HP. I just can't see Oracle in the hardware business.

5) Sun's other open-source programs. I have a bad, bad feeling that Oracle is going to let popular and powerful open-source projects like OpenOffice and VirtualBox wither on the vine. Oracle is willing to spend money on open-source projects that it uses. For example, Oracle is a top contributor to Linux. But, I don't see these, or Sun's other open-source projects, contributing to Oracle's bottom-line, so I don't see them getting much support.

Over the years, Sun has contributed, albeit reluctantly at times, many great advances in operating systems and open-source software. With this acquisition, those days are done. Good-bye Sun, it was nice to have known you.

Two time world magic champion Shawn Farquhar shows you his slight of hand.