Industry News

Mobile networks may not be getting upgraded as fast as some subscribers would like, but carrier spending on infrastructure is expected to rebound slightly this year after falling in 2009.

Revenue from sales of mobile radio and core network equipment fell 13 percent in the fourth quarter but will be roughly flat in 2010, a Dell'Oro Group analyst said Tuesday. On Monday, ABI Research estimated carriers will spend about 4 percent more this year on all network capital expenditures, after a 2.7 percent decline in 2009. Capital expenditures include components in addition to radio networks, such as backhaul connections to the wired Internet.

Mobile data usage continues to soar, and in some parts of the world, traffic jams on the way to the wireless Internet have focused new attention on the typically unglamorous networks behind sexy devices such as the iPhone. The proliferation of the popular Apple device has been blamed for dropped calls and poor data service on AT&T's network in San Francisco and New York City, which in turn has led to assurances by AT&T that it is building capacity as fast as it can.

ABI analyst Bhavya Khanna said mobile data usage more than doubled last year, but it was not matched by revenue growth because carriers continued offering unlimited data plans. The weak economy and a lack of available credit also caused some carriers to hold off on investments, Khanna said.

However, on a global basis, the picture is more complicated. What dragged down mobile equipment revenue in late 2009 was an ongoing drop in investment in 2G (second-generation) mobile networks, such as CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), Dell'Oro analyst Scott Siegler said. Carriers in India and China, especially, had made huge investments in those technologies before last year. Millions of first-time mobile users are now going onto those networks -- 12 million per month in India late last year -- but the carriers often can meet the growing demand with additional modules instead of entirely new base stations, he said.

Meanwhile, investment in 3G remains strong. Dell'Oro estimates it will grow 30 percent this year worldwide, driven both by huge new 3G buildouts in China and by network upgrades in more developed countries. For example, AT&T is upgrading its 3G network to HSPA 7.2, a form of High-Speed Packet Access technology with a theoretical top speed of 7.2M bps (bits per second). T-Mobile is working on HSPA+, with a top speed of 21M bps.

LTE (Long-Term Evolution), which is expected to be the most-used 4G technology in the coming years, will also help network investments and equipment revenue ease back this year, Siegler said. But the now-emerging standard won't be a very big piece of the pie for several years, he added. Dell'Oro believes LTE network equipment will be a $250 million market in 2010.

Even in 2014, as an estimated $5 billion technology, LTE will only make up about 10 percent of mobile network equipment revenue, compared with 75 percent for variants of 3G, he said. Compared with LTE, 3G is easier and less expensive for most carriers to deploy, because it can usually be used with the same radio spectrum and it taps into a well-developed stream of client devices, Siegler said.

Prices are falling, thanks in part to Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE, but that trend may slow if some vendors get squeezed out, Siegler said. Ericsson still led in revenue in the fourth quarter, followed by Nokia Siemens Networks, which nudged past Huawei. The Chinese company had been right behind Ericsson the previous quarter and is likely to make further gains with its LTE equipment, he said.

"Huawei sells equipment with comparable technology at half the price," Siegler said. "That's killing prices."

Don't expect Jonathan Schwartz to go quietly.

The former CEO of Sun Microsystems has taken to his personal blog, provocatively titled "What I couldn't say...," to dish some industry dirt and tell his side of the story about the demise of Sun. He has already hinted at plans to write a book, and a new post Tuesday suggests a tell-all tome could indeed be in the offing.

"I feel for Google -- Steve Jobs threatened to sue me, too," Schwartz writes, apparently referring to Apple's patent lawsuit against HTC, which makes Google's Nexus One smartphone.

Schwartz says he had just unveiled Sun's Linux desktop, Project Looking Glass, in 2003, when Jobs called him to assert that Sun's graphics were "stepping all over" Apple's intellectual property. If Sun tried to commercialize the technology, Schwartz says, Jobs told him, "I'll just sue you."

As Schwartz tells it, he responded by reminding Jobs about Sun's considerable arsenal of OS-related patents. "Steve was silent," Schwartz writes.

A later meeting with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer ended on a similar note, according to Schwartz. The Microsoft duo, then its CEO and president, had flown to Silicon Valley to meet with Sun's executive team.

"As we sat down in our Menlo Park conference room, Bill skipped the small talk and went straight to the point, 'Microsoft owns the office productivity market, and our patents read all over OpenOffice,'" Schwartz writes.

OpenOffice is the open-source productivity suite that Sun backed heavily as an alternative to Microsoft Office.

"Bill was delivering a slightly more sophisticated variant of the threat Steve had made, but he had a different solution in mind," Schwartz writes. Gates offered Sun a patent license. "That was code for 'We'll go away if you pay us a royalty for every download' -- the digital version of a protection racket."

Schwartz says he responded by asserting that Microsoft's .Net development platform was a rip-off of Java. "It was a short meeting," he says.

Microsoft declined to comment on the post and Apple didn't respond to an e-mail message.

The former Sun chief had been keeping a low profile since Oracle announced its plans to buy Sun almost a year ago. But he is apparently determined to tell his side of the story concerning Sun's demise, a collapse that some attributed to the waning Unix market and others blamed on decisions by Schwartz himself.

While Tuesday's post is more of an inside look at how corporations wield patents, it seems future posts will start to retell the story of Sun.

"I think I've said pretty much everything I could say as CEO of Sun Microsystems," Schwartz writes in the "about" section of his blog. "The more interesting stuff was what I couldn't say. And that's what this blog (and maybe a book) is going to be about."

"Make that 'definitely' a book," said 451 Group analyst China Martens.

FirstRain, a service that scrapes the web to deliver relevant research to investors, has brought in $7.3 million of an anticipated $8.8 million round of equity, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in San Mateo, Calif., the company has raised $20.9 million to date and is backed by Oak Investment Partners, DiamondHead Ventures and Ampersand Ventures.

Companies: Ampersand Ventures, Diamondhead Ventures, Firstrain, Oak INvestment Partners

Planning a dinner party? An important business meeting? A weekend camping trip with the guys? Half the battle is finding a date that works for everyone involved.

The aptly named WhichDateWorks.com is a free service that makes simple work of finding the best time for a scheduled event.

All you do is enter a name for the event, then the e-mail addresses of those involved (WDW can import names from Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and just about any other source). Next, work your way through the calendar, clicking specific dates that do or don't work for you.

After that, everyone on your invite list will get an e-mail containing a link to the event. Don't worry, it's totally harmless: There's no registration required, no signing in, and no software to install. Recipients merely navigate the same calendar and click the dates that do/don't work for them. (There's also a "maybe" option.)

Each time someone answers an invitation, you get an e-mail notification so you can revisit the calendar and review the results. When all is said and done, you can click Final Date to lock in the popular choice and notify all the participants.

WhichDateWorks works like a charm. It's free, easy, and an ideal way to get everyone on the same date page.

Some BlackBerry users are complaining of an inability to use data services for the second day in a row.

It appears that the issue could be related to two separate problems. While some users seemed to be back in business late Tuesday, others were still having problems.

Research In Motion does not appear to have commented on the problem and had not replied to a request for comment by the time this story posted.

Via Twitter, T-Mobile has acknowledged that there is an issue. "We are working with Research In Motion to resolve the outage as quickly as possible," it said in a recent Twitter message.

That was in response to Teresa Boardman, a BlackBerry user in St. Paul, Minnesota, who at about 3 p.m. Central Time said that it had been more than 24 hours since her BlackBerry data services had worked.

But earlier in the day, after asking subscribers for patience while the issue was being resolved, T-Mobile suggested that users restart their phones and thanked others for mentioning that their services were back up and running.

Martin Kastenbaum, a BlackBerry user in Houston, Texas, reported via Twitter that his data service was down for a few hours but earlier today was restored.

One of the problems seems to be affecting some users of BlackBerry phones that have Wi-Fi capability, although the problem does not affect those users when they are connected to Wi-Fi networks. Instead, those users have trouble using data services when they are on mobile networks. That's according to a user report on the Data Outages forum.

Some BlackBerry users on Verizon's network are also complaining on Twitter of a lack of e-mail service today. Neither T-Mobile nor Verizon immediately responded to requests for more information about the problems.

What can you do with 322 terabits per second? Cisco Systems says it's enough bandwidth to allow every person in China to make a video call--simultaneously. And if that's something you want to do, Cisco says it now has hardware capable of the task.

The company's newest large-scale core router, the CRS-3, is capable of handling such a speed, which Cisco said is 12-times as fast as its closest competitor and three times the speed of its predecessor. It has invested $1.6 billion in the product's design and engineering.

The CRS-3, announced today, is the product that Cisco last month said would "forever change the Internet and its impact on consumers, businesses and governments."

CRS stands for "Carrier Routing System," a reference to the device's use by large telecom providers.

Tbps stands for terabits-per-second and a terabit is a trillion bits. Compare that to the megabits-per-second that today's highest-speed business and consumer broadband connections are measured in.

Among other 322Tbps tasks: Transmitting every motion picture ever made (5 minutes), downloading the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress (1 second), or transmitting the entire DNA sequence of 56,000 people (also 1 second).

Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers announced the new router on a Monday conference call, during which he said the CRS-3 would be available before the end of this year. Field testing is underway and pricing for the new router is said to start at $90,000.

While 322Tbps sounds like--and is--incredible bandwidth, the CRS-3 is merely a response to the growth of video over the Internet.

"Video brings the Internet to life," said Chambers. "You are moving from a messaging platform to a video platform," Chambers said. He predicted the bandwidth required for Internet video would grow by 200-500 percent per year.

"The Internet will scale faster than any of us anticipate," Chambers said.

Aimed at Internet providers and telecom companies, the CRS-3 is a curiosity for most businesses, but one that demonstrates the demand for bandwidth shows no sign of slowing. Video will play an increasing role in filling the fiber optic pipelines of the future.

David Coursey has been writing about technology products and companies for more than 25 years. He tweets as @techinciter and may be contacted via his Web site.

At a splashy event in New York's Time Warner Center, Samsung dove headlong into the electronic book market with the Samsung eReader, a $299 device which allows you to take notes in the margins and share content with other Samsung eReaders.

The slide-open unit features a six-inch, 600-by-800-pixel, 8-gray-scale electronic ink display and uses a magnetic resonance stylus instead of a touch screen. Samsung announced a relationship with Barnes and Noble which allows the eReader to access B&N's arsenal of more than a million e-books and e-magazines as well as access to Google Books.

The unit can handle ePub, Adobe PDF, text, BMP, and JPG formats. In addition to 2GB of internal memory, enough for 1,500 books or 2,400 memos, it offers a microSD slot for additional storage capacity. The eReader offers Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity for wireless headsets and other wireless audio devices and a Wi-Fi adapter for Internet access.

One differentiator from the crowd of e-readers the Samsung model joins: With the eReader, you can write notes and annotations in the margins of an e-book just as you would in a physical book. Tim Baxter, president of the consumer electronics division at Samsung, also noted that the unit can share content wirelessly with other identical units. "Reading can be as personal or as social as you want it to be," he said.

Even though Barnes & Noble offers its own e-Reader, Nook, Barnes & Noble doesn't see a conflict, since the Samsung eReader would bring more users to the B&N e-book marketplace.

"We want to enable e-reading everywhere," said Kevin Frain, executive vice president of e-commerce operations at Barnes & Noble. He noted that the Samsung eReader would be completely compatible with the Barnes & Noble ebook marketplace, including the LendMe feature, which allows you to loan content to other eReader users for up to two weeks. The Samsung eReader will be sold at a number of retailers, but not Barnes & Noble, however.

In practice, when I tried the Samsung eReader's electronic resonance stylus, I found it allowed for accurate text highlighting. However, I experienced a delay between the time I raised the stylus from the screen and the time the highlighting appeared.

Sliding the slim unit open revealed a center rocking navigation control flanked by two control buttons as well as twin speakers, which can be used with content that supports text-to-speech technology. The device also has a headphone jack, and can play MP3 files. The right side of the unit has a convenient volume control rocker, while the bottom has a miniUSB port for connecting with a computer.

The unit can read PDF files, but it can't reflow PDF text. The eReader has a proprietary Outlook sync utility which allows you to import your calendar into the unit. The eReader can also wirelessly share content with other Samsung e-Readers either on a one-to-one basis or to a group of recipients.

Samsung says the eReader will be available soon at major retailers.

The Federal Government's Internet content filter scheme could put many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) up to $1 million out of pocket.

Three of Australia's biggest ISPs, two of which did not wish to comment on the record, have said independently that the filters could cost up to $1 million to implement.

Other ISPs said they had not priced the roll out, some citing a lack of information on the scheme.

Internode network engineer, Mark Newton, said a workable distributed content filtering system could cost $1 million.

"I'd have to build it again twice as big every 18 months, as traffic loads tend to take that long to double, leading to a five-year CAPEX cost somewhere in the vicinity of $7 million," Newton said.

"I think I could design and build a system that didn't work very well for sub-$100,000.

"All this is assuming that systems [exist that are] capable of operating without performance degradation on the 10Gb interfaces we use, which right now [means] placing significantly more faith in censorware snake-oil vendors than I'm willing to invest," he said.

Telstra had not responded to questions at the time of publication, however Newton said the cost of implementing the filters for a telco of Telstra's size would be "enormous... and order of magnitude larger than [$1 - $7 million]".

One c-level executive for a large ISP, who requested anonymity, said it would cost about $1 million based on current network configuration.

"If [we are] required to only filter international website addresses, then [the filter] can be deployed on the international links, otherwise if domestic URLs need filtering we will need multiple filters in every capital city," he said.

"The government [should] subsidise filters. It's an unnecessary expense that only the government thinks will... stop illegal content. Demanding that industry foot the bill for a technological solution that the experts have unanimously said won't work is a political sop, and [it] shouldn't be imposed on industry."

Another ISP chief engineer, who also did not wish to be named, said the ongoing operating cost of the content filters could quickly exceed the $1 million required to establish them.

Outspoken Exetel chief, John Linton, estimates the filter could cost an ISP of its size between $25,000 and $75,000. A trial of the filters conducted last year by the ISP found the technology to be less costly and more effective than many in the industry anticipated.

Linton said filtering would cost about "$25,000 for 50,000 users" -- about 50 cents a subscriber.

Each respondent agreed it was too early to determine a definitive cost until the Federal Government clarifies its plans.

A spokeswoman for communications minister, Stephen Conroy, said she understands the government is in consultation with industry to establish costing.

ISPs said questions remain on liability if content filters fail, whether bypass mechanisms can be installed to mitigate outages and if the government will subsidise a centralised filter server to remove the prohibitive costs for a group of smaller ISPs.

Newton said a voluntary content filter model, proposed by former communications minister, Helen Coonan, would the cheapest to engineer because it could be assumed that only small percentage would opt-in to the system.

A Ovum 2003 report on Internet content filtering, commissioned by Coonan's office, recommended the government subsidise the scheme and assist smaller ISPs with ongoing management. The Internet environment has changed dramatically, however, since the report was released, however, particularly in relation to the takeup of broadband services.

Newton said his sub-$100,000 filtering model would "use [Web Cache Communication Protocol] WCCP or DNS redirection on LNSs to divert blacklisted destination IPs to a farm of proxy caches with the blacklist loaded on them. I would have to be able to turn the whole thing off... if the caches were overloaded and impacted normal performance expectations, until the offending URLs were unblacklisted".

Defying expectations amid a global recession, the (ISC)2 2010 Career Impact Survey found that half of information security professionals surveyed in both Asia Pacific and worldwide received salary increases in 2009, while less than five percent of participants lost their jobs.

(ISC)2 ("ISC-squared"), the not-for-profit membership body of certified information security professionals worldwide recently announced the results of its second survey tracking the impact of the economic climate on salaries, hiring outlook, budgets, threats and more. Nearly 3,000 security professionals, about 320 residing Asia Pacific including Japan, participated, said the organization.

According to The (ISC)2, the survey was conducted from December 2009 to January 2010 with 2,980 respondents from 80 countries to gain insights into how the economic downturn affected the profession in 2009 and gauge the 2010 outlook.

More than half of the Asia Pacific professionals surveyed, 51.4 percent, and received pay increase in 2009, said (ISC)2, adding that 51.4 percent of participants from all around the globe reported the same.

In the region, 9.8 percent of respondents saw their salaries and/or benefits cut, while (3.5 percent were sacked by their employers, said the organization.

Firms are hiring security pros

Of the 800-plus respondents who identified themselves as having hiring responsibilities, more than half, 53.3 percent (68.4 percent in Asia Pacific) said they were looking to hire permanent and/or contract employees in 2010.

Of those hiring, 53.4 percent in Asia Pacific and 40 percent worldwide said they will be hiring three or more information security professionals this year, said (ISC)2.

"These results indicate that the Asia Pacific region has the most promising hiring outlook for 2010 compared to the Americas and EMEA regions," said W. Hord Tipton, CISSP-ISSEP, CAP, CISA, executive director for (ISC)2.

Over 85 percent of hiring managers both globally and in Asia Pacific said their biggest hiring challenges were finding candidates with the right skills and the right level of experience, the organization said.

The hiring managers surveyed in the region said that they were looking for candidates with specific skills in these top five categories: information risk management; security management practices; auditing; security architecture and models and telecommunications and network security, (ISC)2 noted.

Other findings from the survey include:

* About half of the respondents (51.1 percent globally; 51.6 percent in Asia Pacific) saw their information security budgets decrease somewhat or significantly in 2009; 36.9 percent globally (46.8 percent in Asia Pacific) expect no change in their budgets for 2010. This compares to over two-thirds (72 percent) of respondents who reported that their budgets were reduced in the 2009 survey.

* About 53.9 percent of Asia Pacific respondents expect no personnel reductions or layoffs in 2010; while 12.3 percent expect additional layoffs last year.

* In Asia Pacific, 28 percent of respondents believe the economic downturn is causing an increased security risk within their organization; 53.5 percent of whom identified employee misconduct as the most common security risk attributed to the economic downturn, compared to 37.7 percent globally. Outside attacks from hackers was identified as the second most common risk by 31.3 percent globally and 25.3 percent in Asia Pacific.

When you leave the house, do you grab your iPhone even before you search for your keys? Once you have an iPhone, it goes everywhere with you. The kind of case you choose for your iPhone says a lot about where you're going.

We've picked six types of on-the-go people and the iPhone cases that best fit them. Whether you're an outdoor enthusiast, traveling executive or soldier of fortune, there's an iPhone case that should be just the right fit.

[ Learn six hidden iPhone shortcuts, reports CIO.com. | Check out five great iPhone and Mac accessories. ]

Adventurer: Otterbox Defender

Hard-core adventure travelers never know where they're going to end up. Chances are it won't be at the Waldorf-Astoria. For these folks, only one iPhone case will do: the Otterbox Defender. It's been called the soldier's iPhone case and is arguable the toughest case on the market.

Your iPhone will be completely housed in three layers of protection (hard plastic base layer, soft silicon outer layer, plastic holster). Thin plastic covers the screen. Cloth protects the speakers.

Otterbox's Defender wards off damage from drops, scratches and dust. The rugged case clips into the plastic holster, which attaches vertically to the belt. All iPhone controls are accessible.

However, Otterbox is quick to point out that the case doesn't protect against water--public enemy number one for the iPhone. Fitting the case on the iPhone isn't easy, nor is the Otterbox Defender cheap: $50.

Golfer: Mophie Juice Pack Air

For most golfers, the game borders on obsession. They'll spend hundreds on equipment, lessons and green fees. Now the iPhone has become an indispensable tool out on the course--along with iPhone golf apps like Golfshot GPS, which triples as a rangefinder, scorecard and game analysis system.

Customer reviews of Golfshot, however, lament the app's drain on the much-maligned iPhone battery. Some app users complain that the iPhone battery dies on the back nine. Others, like myself, worry about the battery getting too low to the point that this becomes a disruptive part of their swing thought.

That's why iPhone-toting golfers often spend $80 for the Mophie Juice Pack Air, a relatively sleek protective case that doubles the iPhone's battery life. Getting through a round isn't a problem anymore. Mophie Juice Pack Air comes in an array of colors, including red for shooting under par.

Outdoorsman: Pelican i1015

If water gets into your iPhone, well, you can kiss it good bye. Water might even void the warranty. Yet many iPhone apps help outdoor enthusiasts. Divers write entries in the Dive Log app. Fisherman depend on FishHead. And kayakers check water flows with RiverGuide.

Keep evil water away from your iPhone with a Pelican i1015 hard case. Pelican, founded in 1974 by a sports diver, builds waterproof cases that are extremely durable and can even be dropped in water (although Pelican advises against it) due to an airtight rubber O-ring. The iPhone-styled case also boasts an external earphone connector.

On the downside, the Pelican i1015 isn't a typical iPhone case. Rather, it's mainly used for transport in watery conditions. You won't be able to call up apps while your iPhone is locked in the case, although taking the phone out of the case is easy-- just snap open the latch. The Pelican i1015 sells for around $25.

Traveler: Idox Traveler

Not every traveler shuns hotel rooms and coffee shops for the outdoors. The Idox Traveler case envelopes your iPhone in a sleek, hard shell. With a mere flip, the case opens up into a stand for your iPhone. Watch a movie while on the stationary bike at the hotel gym or on a long flight. Or put your iPhone on your bed stand in clock mode and set your alarm for that early morning meeting.

A Bluetooth keyboard would go well with this case. Unfortunately, the iPhone doesn't support one. The Idox Traveler case comes in black, platinum and pink. Price: $35.

Road Executive: Incase Leather Folio

Rugged iPhone cases tend to add a lot of bulk to a device that's supposed to be sleek and elegant. The original cool design and simple usability of the iPhone has made the iconic smartphone popular among executives. And nothing says "executive" like a black leather holster case like the Incase Leather Folio.

Made of leather and nylon, suede lining and contrast stitching, the Incase Leather Folio clips horizontally to the belt for a more comfortable fit than the vertically hanging holster. There's easy access to the earphone jack, and the iPhone can be easily drawn thanks to the "push holes" in the case.

Incase Leather Folio, which costs $40, comes in an array of colors. But the combination of a black case and black iPhone looks great. Of course, this begs the question: Does anyone buy a white iPhone?

Athlete: Marware Eco Runner

For runners, functionality trumps looks. Marware Eco Runner lets runners listen to music and access apps while jogging. The case straps onto the upper arm, like a sphygmomanometer for measuring blood pressure, and completely encapsulates the iPhone in neoprene-like, non-toxic material. Thin, clear vinyl covers the screen.

The Marware Eco Runner provides a comfortable way to carry your iPhone securely while sweating. The armband design keeps the iPhone and earphone wires mostly out of the way. Other cases that clip to belts aren't practical-- that is, no belts on most athletic wear. An iPhone in your pocket can also fall out during a run.

But Marware Eco Runner doesn't have a hard shell, so don't trip and fall on your iPhone. Cost: $35.

Tom Kaneshige is a senior writer for CIO.com in Silicon Valley. Send him an email at tkaneshige@cio.com. Or follow him on Twitter @kaneshige. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline.

Facebook users may no longer have to type out their whereabouts in status updates, as the site may soon let them tag their locations automatically.

Several anonymous sources told The New York Times that Facebook will unveil geolocation features at its yearly f8 developers conference in late April. Facebook spokeswoman Meridith Chin wouldn't confirm the rumor.

Details are scarce, but the Times says Facebook's geolocation features will have two components: One is offered directly to users for sharing locations with friends, and the other is an application programming interface for third-party developers to build location sharing into their Facebook apps.

My gut reaction is nervousness, given that Facebook doesn't have a spotless privacy track record. Most recently, the site changed its privacy settings to encourage more public activity that isn't limited to your friends list. One can imagine a similar fiasco where Facebook springs location sharing on its 400 million users without adequate explanation.

Fortunately, the Times reports that Facebook's location sharing will likely be opt-in, as indicated by recent changes to the site's privacy policy. Facebook staff reportedly know that location features could turn into a fiasco, so they've been proceeding with caution, working on the project for almost a year.

If handled properly, Facebook location sharing could be pretty cool. Imagine being able to connect with people around you in Farmville to create a sort of hyperlocal commune, or the ability to get pinged by iLike when lots of people are congregating at a nearby music venue. Location services are a tool that Facebook should have by now, but given the privacy concerns, it's understandable if the site needs time to get it right.

I'm a qualified accountant. I even sometimes read the Accountants Journal - there, I've said it!

As an accountant and a CIO I am intrigued by the debate within the IT community about how businesses should account for IT. Should it be a cost centre? A profit centre? Or a stand alone, semi-independent business unit? From what I can tell, the argument is that how an organisation chooses to do its accounting determines, or is an indicator of, how IT is seen strategically in the organisation. The logic seems to be that if you want to be an IT team that is strategic and adds value, then you need to be a profit centre as a minimum, or better yet a semi-autonomous business.

If you find yourself as a cost centre, watch out, because this means that you are seen as a non-value addition and simply a cost of doing business. It gets worse. As a cost centre the only questions that are asked of you is how can you reduce IT costs even lower than they are now. You are never asked about how IS can contribute to the strategic value of the organisation by driving revenue growth or helping to open up new markets.

The recommendation is that you get out of this cost mentality by becoming a profit centre or independent business unit. Charge the business for your services, create a profit, control your own balance sheet and then the business will begin to see you as adding value. As a result, the focus will shift from how can we drive down IT costs to how can we maximise the IT profit and strategic value?

My experience is that this whole debate is spurious. If I use The Warehouse as an example, it doesn't matter if you are a cost centre or a profit centre your costs are scrutinised mercilessly. How the accounting works does not shield the profit centres at all. I admit that The Warehouse is particularly skilled at cost management. However, every organisation I have worked for or worked in for any length of time is the same. Costs are scrutinised in detail. I hear some of you saying that this cost focus is counter productive, as a company cannot cost cut its way to greatness. This is true enough, however no organisation ever became great by being lazy about its cost control.

To me this whole cost centre/profit centre discussion is a waste of time. In the complex world that we live in value is primarily about perception, not accounting numbers. If you are seen as a non-value addition cost of doing business, your focus should be on understanding why that is and putting in place an action plan to correct it. Most likely the issue will be in one of three areas, or a mix of all three:

-- The services you are delivering are not meeting the service level expectations of your business. This can be both under delivery of service and over delivery of service which embeds higher costs.

-- You are seen as slow and bureaucratic in working with your colleagues to plan and deliver changes. That is, you are not agile enough.

-- And finally, when you do deliver, the projects are late, over budget, cause disruption on going live and do not deliver the planned benefits (or some combination of these).

Delivering solutions to these three issues is core to a CIO's job. If you have these issues, or are perceived to have these issues, it means you are perceived by your colleagues as not doing your job properly. Mucking around and arguing about how the accounting works is not going to solve this problem. The only resolution to these issues is solid, customer-focused delivery day after day.

Owen McCall is CIO of The Warehouse. Reach him at owen.mccall@thewarehouse.co.nz and through his blog http://viewfield1.blogspot.com

TellaPal, a new social network and recommendation engine in one, has raised $1.6 million of a targeted $5 million round of equity, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in San Francisco, the startup allows users to write recommendations for products or services, and then share their comments virally via instant message, e-mail, blogs and social networking sites (like Facebook, hi5, MaySpace) all at once. TellaPal allows users to include special offers with their recommendations, so their personal networks can benefit from the service. At the same time, recommenders can earn rewards for evangelizing for various products and services.

TellaPal previously raised $750 million in a seed round in April 2009. The company is backed by a handful of angel investors, including Joshua Stylman and Peter Hershberg, co-founders of social marketing agency Reprise Media.

Companies: TellaPal

People: Joshua Stylman, Peter Hershberg

Having trouble keeping track of who is suing whom among smartphone and mobile technology players over the past few months? Here's a quick rundown:Family of author Philip K. Dick vs. Google

Author Philip K. Dick's estate said in January it would sue Google for allegedly swiping the names "Android" and "Nexus One" from Dick's 1968 novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" -- which later morphed into the movie Blade Runner. "Google takes first and then deals with the fallout later," Dick's daughter Isa is quoted as saying in The Telegraph.

Google, which denies infringing on the Dick family's intellectual property introduced its Android-based Nexus One phone at CES in January.

Kodak vs. Apple and RIM

Kodak in January filed a lawsuit with the U.S. International Trade Commission against Apple and RIM for allegedly infringing on patents related to digital imaging technology.  Specifically, Kodak alleges that the Apple iPhone and certain BlackBerry smartphones are using a method for previewing camera phone images that has been patented by Kodak.

Motorola vs. Research in Motion

Patent litigation between Motorola and Research In Motion heated up in January, with Motorola filing a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission alleging that RIM engages in unfair trade practices by importing and selling products that infringe five Motorola patents. The patents cover technologies related to Wi-Fi access, application management, user interface and power management, Motorola said.

Motorola is asking the ITC to investigate RIM and bar the company from importing, marketing and selling products in the U.S. that use the technologies. The companies have been engaged in patent infringement suits dating back to early 2008. RIM declined to comment on Motorola's filing with the ITC.

Nokia vs. Apple/Apple vs. Nokia

Nokia filed suit against Apple in federal court in October  alleging that the iPhone infringes on 10 of Nokia's patents related to technologies such as GSM, UMTS and wireless LANs. 

Apple fired back in December, accusing Nokia of allegedly infringing on 13 of its patents and pointedly told Nokia that "other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours." Apple also accused Nokia of antitrust violations and deceptive practices in terms of revealing its intellectual property rights.  Apple is also seeking a ban on U.S. imports of Nokia gear.

Now the U.S. International Trade Commission is investigating each company's claims against the other. 

A U.S. judge has put the earlier suits on hold while the ITC does its work. 

Apple vs. HTC

Apple filed a patent infringement lawsuit at the start of March against HTC, claiming that the Taiwanese company is infringing 20 Apple patents are related to the iPhone user interface and the smartphone's underlying architecture and hardware. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Delaware and with the U.S. International Trade Commission.

The suit is seen by many as more a case of Apple vs. Google and even Microsoft than Apple vs. HTC.  HTC phones include those that use Google's Android mobile OS and Windows Mobile OS. HTC has defended itself, saying it uses its own technology, not Apple's. 

Network World sister organizations IDG News Service and PC World contributed to this article

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Sun's chief open source officer, Simon Phipps, has left the company following its acquisition by Oracle, the executive announced in his blog Tuesday.

"Today is my last day of employment at Sun (well, it became Oracle on March 1st in the UK but you know what I mean)," Phipps wrote. "I am a few months short of my 10th anniversary there (I joined at JavaOne in 2000) and my 5th anniversary as Chief Open Source Officer."

Sun CEO Schwartz tweets poetic lament on last day

With the acquisition of Sun, Oracle is poised to become what some analysts think is the industry's most powerful open source vendor. But it will chart a new path in open source without Phipps.

Phipps looks back fondly at successes at Sun, but admits some regrets for goals left unaccomplished. Phipps wrote that he and his colleagues "achieved some amazing things" such as changing Sun's attitude toward open source, kick-starting the "corporate blogging revolution" with Blogs.Sun.com, and releasing software such as Java under free licenses.

"I didn't do any of that alone, plenty of it wasn't my idea, and without the groundwork of others before me it would have been impossible," Phipps wrote.

Phipps also listed several disappointments, chiefly that "despite the success of the open source software businesses, it still wasn't enough to rescue Sun in the end."

More specifically, Phipps said he's "sad that Apache did not get the TCK license they requested." That was in reference to a long-running debate in which the Apache Software Foundation accused Sun of refusing to grant it an acceptable license for an open source Java SE implementation called Harmony.

Phipps did not detail his reasons for leaving Oracle/Sun or say whether he was forced out. Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz also left the company after the Oracle acquisition, announcing his resignation last month.

Phipps has not decided what to do next in his career, he wrote. Before joining Sun, Phipps was the manager of IBM's Java technology center.

Follow Jon Brodkin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jbrodkin

Read more about software in Network World's Software section.

Following a heavy patch month in February, Microsoft Tuesday announced a lighter load of security bulletins for its users, but security experts say the potential impact is considerable if vulnerabilities aren't addressed.

Microsoft patches Excel, XP, Vista, W7, Virtual PC; leaves others holes alone

"Even though it is a slower month, it is still important to remember that these bulletins should be researched because next time it could be highly publicized vulnerabilities with IE," says Jason Miller, data and security team leader at Shavlik Technologies in St. Paul, Minn.

Microsoft released two security bulletins to address eight vulnerabilities in Windows and Microsoft Office, one specifically that impacts Excel, which security experts say could affect many businesses considering how frequently the application is used. The bulletins will impact fewer machines, almost avoiding all servers unless SharePoint Server 2007 is installed, because they affect client Windows operating systems and Microsoft Office. Yet with Excel being commonplace in most companies, systems will need to be addressed.

"MS10-017 should be addressed first on your network," Miller says. "Microsoft Excel is big in business and most people are going to want to take a look at this. If you download this or get it through an e-mail, it could cause remote code execution, meaning an attacker would be able to take control of your system."

According to Paul Henry, security and forensic analyst for Lumension, MS10-017 resolves "seven privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Excel." Henry adds that an experienced hacker could gain the same rights as the local user, but "users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who are operating with administrative user rights."

The second bulletin, MS10-016, involves Microsoft Producer 2003, which is not as commonly used as Excel. The vulnerability could also enable remote code execution, but it should be noted, Miller says, that Microsoft is not providing a patch for this vulnerability and is instead recommending the component be uninstalled.

"Microsoft not providing patches for known software vulnerabilities has become more common over the patch 12 months. This is a great example of why administrators should take time each month and research the information associated with each bulletin. Simply blindly pushing out patches does not necessarily make your network secure," Miller says.

For instance, Microsoft also issued Security Advisory 981374, which affects Internet Explorer 6 and IE 7. Microsoft is continuing to investigate the "targeted attacks seeking to exploit this vulnerability," but the company did not issue a patch yet. Because IE 8 is not impacted, Microsoft recommends users upgrade to IE 8, even as the company begins to share details around IE 9.  

"We will continue to monitor the situation and take the appropriate action to protect our customers, which may include providing a solution through our monthly security update release process, or an out-of-band security update, depending on customer needs," according to Microsoft. "In the interim, it is recommended that customers using Internet Explorer 6 or 7, upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 immediately to benefit from the improved security features and defense in-depth protections"

Do you Tweet? Follow Denise Dubie on Twitter here. 

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Dell Inc. better take a look over its shoulder since rival Acer Inc. is coming up fast from behind and is on the verge of overtaking Dell as the number two PC maker in the world.

Acer enjoyed huge growth in 2009, showing a 21% increase in PC shipments. The Taiwanese computer maker went from 31.8 million unit shipments in 2008 to 38.5 million last year, according to research company iSuppli Corp.

While Acer showed the strongest growth among the world's five leading PC makers, Round Rock, Texas-based Dell did not have such a good year . Dell showed a 9.9% drop in shipments last year, with global PC shipments slipping from 43.3 million in 2008 to 38.96 million this past year, iSuppli said in a report released today.

With Acer growing and Dell struggling, Dell managed to hold on to the second-place spot in the PC market by a 0.2% margin over Acer. Dell held a firmer 3.8% point lead over Acer the year before.

"Acer's 2009 success was driven by the notebook PC market ," said Matthew Wilkins, a principal analyst for iSuppli, in a statement. "Notebooks accounted for nearly 80% of Acer's shipments in 2009. This allowed the company to capitalize on the fast-growing mobile-computing segment, while limiting its exposure to the moribund desktop segment."

Wilkins added that Acer grabbed a 28% worldwide increase in laptop shipments last year, compared to a 20% increase in shipments for the entire market.

"Acer owes its strong notebook success to the fact that it is covering the key bases well, with a strong portfolio encompassing both regular laptops and netbooks," Wilkins said.

iSuppli noted that Acer trumped Dell and move into the number two spot for the third and fourth quarters last year. With worldwide shipments of 11.9 million units and a market share of 13.4% for the fourth quarter, Acer overtook Dell for two quarters in a row.

For the entire year, though, Hewlett-Packard remained firmly seated in the PC market's top spot, according to iSuppli. HP had a 19.7% global market share in 2009, while Dell came in with 12.9% and Acer grabbed 12.7%. The top five were rounded out with Lenovo at 8.2% market share and Toshiba at 5.1%.

Dell was the only company in the top five to show a shipment decrease last year.

In what iSuppli called "a surprisingly strong result," the worldwide PC market last year managed to show a slight gain over 2008 despite economic turmoil and IT managers holding tightly to their dwindling budgets. PC shipments, according to the research company, hit 302.3 million units in 2009. That's a 1% gain from 299.2 million shipments in 2008.

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld . Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her e-mail address is sgaudin@computerworld.com .

Read more about laptops in Computerworld's Laptops Knowledge Center.

Apple is already reaping the benefits of its patent infringement lawsuit against HTC, according to one analyst.

Oppenheimer's Yair Reiner said in a note to his clients that Apple's lawsuit, combined with high-level discussions, have caused top-tier smartphone makers to send their device plans back to engineering, Fortune's Brainstorm Tech reports. They're scrambling for workarounds that won't incur Apple's wrath.

Handset makers are also having doubts about using Google's Android operating system as a cheap and easy way to compete with the iPhone, Reiner said.

This isn't an entirely new scenario. As Reiner points out, Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook sent a stern warning in January 2009 that "we will not stand for having our IP ripped off and we'll use whatever weapons we have at our disposal." His words were widely interpreted as pertaining to multi-touch, which is why you didn't see many phones supporting the technology last year save for the Palm Pre. But then came the Droid Eris and Google's Nexus One. Apple's threats were being ignored.

Hence the new discussions with phone makers and the lawsuit against HTC, which some pundits and analysts, including Reiner, believe is just a proxy war against Google and Android. It's a strong enough offensive to make Android suffer.

The irony is that while Apple may be winning against the rising star of smartphones, handset makers may instead seek shelter with Microsoft and Windows Phone 7 Series. Microsoft is using the opportunity to woo handset makers with "the strength of its own IP portfolio, as well as its willingness to join battle with customers that come under IP attack."

Still, it's too early to tell whether WinPho7 will be good enough for Microsoft to get is mobile groove back. Meanwhile, there are several ways the Apple vs. HTC lawsuit could pan out for Android-based phones, but Apple's reported scare tactics have at least scored the company a temporary victory against its biggest threat.

Imagine my horror the other day when I saw an otherwise sharp friend of mine shut down his laptop by holding down the power button until the system turned off. Why is that a really bad idea? I'll explain this week--and I'll also tell you about a Web service that could very well save your life.

How Not to Shut Down Your PC

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" I cried. "Why'd you do that?"

"What? I was just turning off my PC," he replied innocently.

Sometimes I forget that some of the stuff I take for granted isn't common knowledge. So in case you've been committing this same heinous shutdown crime, allow me to enlighten you.

That is not, repeat, not the proper way to shut down a PC. The proper way is to click Start, Shut down. (I know, it's ridiculous that after all these years Microsoft still forces you to use the Start button to end your computing session.) Alternately, you can press--and immediately release!--the power button, which will either shut down your PC or put it in sleep/hibernate mode, depending on how Windows is configured.

The only time you should press and hold the power button is if your computer is locked up and otherwise unresponsive. A five-second press will usually force a "hard" power-off, after which you should wait another five seconds before turning the machine back on. But if you do this all the time, Windows won't be able to perform its necessary shut-down housekeeping stuff, and ultimately you'll muck up the OS.

Learn Your Laptop's Power Settings

My aunt recently told me about a problem with her new laptop: Whenever she'd step away from it for more than a few minutes, she'd close the lid. Upon returning, she'd open the lid, only to be faced with a blank screen and no response from the mouse or keyboard.

Want to know why? The default lid-closing action for most laptops is to put the system in Sleep mode, and Windows is notoriously bad at waking up properly. That's why I advise most laptop users to use Hibernate mode instead, as it's much more reliable when it comes to waking up.

You see, Sleep (aka Standby) puts your system into a low-power, off-like state, allowing you to pick up where you left off after just a few seconds--in theory, anyway. A PC in Standby mode continues to consume battery power, so it's not uncommon to return to a "sleeping" PC to find that it's just plain dead.

Hibernate, however, saves your machine's current state to a temporary hard-drive file, then shuts down completely. When you start it up again, it loads that file and returns you to where you left off--no booting required.

Both ends of the Hibernate process take a little longer than sleep mode (usually 10-20 seconds, in my experience), but you avoid any of the issues that can arise when Windows suddenly loses power. And as noted, Sleep mode is notoriously flaky. If your system refuses to wake up properly, you'll end up losing whatever documents and/or Web pages you had open. Consequently, I recommend using hibernate most of the time.

Dial2Do: Hands-Free E-Mail, Texting, and More

It's a proven fact: Texting while driving is insanely dangerous. Same goes for reading e-mail, updating your Facebook or Twitter status, and so on. Do yourself--and your fellow drivers--a favor and keep both hands on the wheel and both eyes on the road.

Easier said than done, right? Actually, no: If you use Dial2Do, all the aforementioned activities are easily said and done. This amazing service lets you send text messages, listen to e-mail, add appointments to your calendar, and plenty more, all using just your voice.

Start by signing up for a free trial account. Add the special Dial2Do number to your speed dial, then call it when you want to do something. If that something is, say, send a text message to Bill, wait for the prompt and say, "Send a text message to Bill." Wait for the next prompt, then say what you want to say. When you're done, Dial2Do will transcribe your words into text and send them on their SMS way.

You can do likewise with e-mail, though in addition to composing messages, Dial2Do lets you listen to those you've received. It works with a variety of third-party services: You can dictate Facebook/Twitter updates, add appointments to your Google Calendar, send a note to Evernote, listen to local weather, and on and on. All this happens entirely hands-free. Besides safety, there's another perk: If your phone lacks a keyboard, you'll find that dictating text messages is a lot easier than pecking them out on a numeric keypad.

If you haven't tried Dial2Do, you're missing out. The aforementioned free account limits you to creating personal reminders (which are delivered to you via e-mail), but it comes with a 30-day trial for a Pro account. That's what you'll need for all the really cool stuff. Dial2Do Pro costs $4 per month or $40 if you prepay for a year. I typically prefer free stuff, but this is one service worth paying for.

Rick Broida writes the PCWorld Hassle-Free PC blog . Sign up to have Rick's newsletter e-mailed to you each week .

It will take more than an "innovative Web browser" to save Amazon's Kindle e-reader from the onslaught of competitors, including tablets from Apple, HP, and seemingly every company in China that owns a soldering iron.

We're talking about this today because of the appearance of a job posting on Amazon's Web site. It says Amazon's Lab126 is looking for help building an "innovative Web browser," widely presumed to be for its Kindle e-reader since the browser is described as "embedded."

Repeating: An innovative Web browser will not stop what is going to happen to Kindle. The device will not be able to compete with next-generation, color-screen tablets that feature e-reader functionality and do more.

Amazon has two choices in responding to the coming e-reader wave: It can either dump prices on the Kindle or develop a competitive tablet-computer-Kindle hybrid device of its own. It could, of course, also do both.

My bet: Two years from now, Kindles will cost between $100 and $200. Obviously, I am expecting Amazon to choose the first option and then exit the e-reader hardware market over some period of time. Or it might stay in the game by private labeling someone else's tablet device and brand it a Kindle.

That bet, however, disregards the job posting, which can be read to vaguely suggest that Amazon wants to go high-end with a device that includes the, ahem, innovative Web browser.

Of course, the world does not need a high-end Amazon tablet and neither does Amazon. The Kindle was created to kick-start an e-book industry that never seemed to quite get going on its own. In that regard, Amazon has succeeded marvelously.

In the future, Amazon can expect its customers' move to e-books to accelerate, but won't need its own branded e-reader to compete. Sure, Amazon's total share of the e-book hardware marketplace may decline, but it would still sell more e-books than it does today due to overall market growth.

Amazon can certainly hold on to some top-tier spot in dedicated e-readers, which is where the Kindle is positioned today. The self-destruction of the Barnes and Noble Nook has helped burnish Kindle's reputation as the device to own, but that comes with a horizon.

Once Apple starts shipping its iPad on April 3, it will become the new standard for comparison with e-readers. Yes, the iPad is expensive, but it also does a lot more that a mere e-reader and arrives with a ready market of well-heeled Apple partisans.

Ten years from now, we will fondly remember the Kindle as the device that helped take book publishing out of the forestry business and onto the small screen. It will have been a huge success in changing the world, but, alas, its days are presently numbered.

David Coursey has been writing about technology products and companies for more than 25 years. He tweets as @techinciter and may be contacted via his Web site.