Six Easy Pieces: How to Do Cost of Ownership Analysis Better

If cost of ownership analysis is a painful exercise for IT organizations, why has almost every company done it (and continued to do it) multiple times? In this article, we will identify six key elements to effective cost of ownership analysis, which you can use these to improve the accuracy and eliminate the frustration associated with this necessary step in your IT evolution. 1) Analyze Platforms, Not Servers First evaluate the current "platforms" within your environment, including all servers of all types in order to simplify the process. Simply because management requires an accurate understanding of current IT costs and strengths so they can better assess new ideas and technologies.

One of the most difficult things to "get right" in an analysis of this type is an exact match between a given technology and the associated costs. Limiting the scope makes cost of acquisition simple to determine but it makes every other cost almost impossible to quantify without controversy. The easiest way to do this is not to limit the technology scope to a few machines or a single new application but to expand it to match all the technology in the IT budget. A platform approach will result in development of a new "view" of the IT budget that is platform based. This gives the study team tremendous leverage if discussions should wander to "I think this amount is too high for platform A." So if the amount is reduced for platform A, it must be raised for platform B. What does B think of that?

The advantage to this approach is that the total in this view should match the total in the budget. This places the entire cost discussion on solid footing - the IT budget - and allows the process to be managed dispassionately, a key to later acceptance of the results. 2) Focus on a Representative Application and Include All the Pieces Next, let's consider a new business critical application or workload that requires platform selection. By definition, a critical application will require careful design, careful sizing, careful maintenance, operation, support, and disaster recoverability. Once again, the key to success is to not limit the view to a subset of components. It may also require a new or dedicated infrastructure, but at a minimum, it will tax existing infrastructure. The "view" developed in the previous step should facilitate this type of analysis.

Each of these components and their associated costs, should be included in any cost of ownership comparison. Over the past ten years, our group within IBM Lab Services has been doing IT Systems and Storage Optimization ("Scorpion") Studies that focus on this type of view and component based analysis. This means that any analysis that omits those other components for support, maintenance, and disaster recovery, etc. may miss half of the real costs. Our findings show that a typical ratio of production Web, application, and database servers to "everything else" is about one to one. This discrepancy grows for very large critical applications and is largely why our industry hasn't done so well sizing many new enterprise application suites. Vendors feed this controversy to gain competitive advantage.

We've all heard the stories. 3) Consider Practical Capacity, Not Vendor Ratings System capacity and performance can quickly become a very tedious and esoteric discussion, and in many cost of ownership efforts, it does. This can be avoided. Often, distributed server utilizations are very low and there is a good reason for it. Our experience is that the most important aspect of performance analysis within cost of ownership is not which vendor claim or benchmark is used as a base, but rather (a) what system utilizations are "normal" in your current environment?; and (b) what is a reasonable expectation for the future? An underutilized server requires no capacity planning. If average server utilizations in your environment are low, model a future state of 2 or 3 times the current for each component in the possible solution.

Most cost analyses are considered part of a technology acquisition process so higher future state utilizations are assumed. No higher. This is particularly true with the rise of virtualization, which is almost always assumed in cost of ownership comparisons. Use any reasonable performance metric - expected utilizations are far more important. Transitioning from a non-virtualized to virtualized server environment has some significant advantages including higher potential utilization.

Don't assume world class utilization numbers unless you know what kind of effort it will take to attain them. It has a cost, however, capacity must be managed. IBM's System z mainframe environments typically demonstrate this fact quite well. They can do this because the level of internal standardization and automation is much higher than other platforms. Mainframes usually run at very high utilizations around the clock. Other platforms will eventually attain these levels, but that is still years of vendor development away. 4) Don't Ignore Labor Costs to Protect the Innocent The most difficult topic within cost of ownership is undoubtedly the cost of labor.

High Full Time Equivalent (FTE) ratios have been an industry target for years and most IT professionals can quote the current best practice and describe how they are exceeding it. In a down economic cycle, most staff see nothing positive in quantifying the cost of labor for "their" platform. Therein lies a problem. The extent to which strategy (b) is used differs by platform for a variety of reasons, but the result is the same. IT infrastructure support organizations have been managing to these ratios for years using two basic strategies: (a) improve efficiency; or (b) push work onto other parts of the IT organization. Any cost of ownership analysis that limits labor calculations to IT infrastructure support headcount will likely miss major portions of the real support costs and skew the results.

Consider the entire IT organization and apportion every group that is not truly platform neutral (and even individuals within an otherwise neutral group, like network support) to the appropriate platform labor category. A good solution to this problem is an approach similar to item one. The same kind of "view" is now developed for assignment of labor with the underlying organization chart as the foundation. They will be higher - up to 2 times or more on x86 platforms - and will reflect true insight to cost. The results will look quite different from industry published norms. Because the resulting labor cost numbers cross organizational lines, no one group will feel responsible for them, or for lowering them.

A side benefit to the process stems from the two strategies often used to manage FTE ratios - productivity improvement and narrowing of responsibility. Resistance to the process will be lessened and again, buy-in should be improved. If the FTE ratios are changed significantly by the new "view" of the organization, the need for productivity tools will be evident. This is in stark contrast to the mainframe where software costs tend to be high while systems are maintained at strict currency levels, with the result that staffing has been flat or dropping for years with steadily improving Quality of Service (QoS). 5) Quantify QoS in a Way that Makes Sense QoS is an elusive topic since it has so many aspects that differ in importance between companies, but some general trends can give guidance. In the years that we have been working with customers doing these studies, we've seen an alarming trend toward high complexity within distributed systems - old hardware, old software, multiple releases of everything to be maintained - and a lack of investment in systems management software.

In this age of real-time systems, disaster recovery has become a universal need. The majority of customers we've worked with have done the former and not the latter because of the cost. Two key metrics in disaster recovery are Recovery Time Objective (RTO - the time to bring alternative systems online for use) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO - the age of the data on those recovered systems). If we consider the dominant RTO and RPO for a given platform, we gain insight into both cost and QoS. Though any system can be made disaster recoverable, there is a huge cost differential between making a single mainframe recoverable and making 1,000 distributed systems recoverable. This can be quantified very easily with a call to a recovery services provider and should be included in the platform cost comparison. As IT will have to compete with public clouds the above cost analysis can be used to set internal cost guidelines for a corporate cloud infrastructure very early in the cloud development process. Cloud computing and other metered services will certainly offer a recoverable option and here lies an opportunity.

Or it can be used to steer workload onto the platform that is already recoverable, thus eliminating some of the need to develop a recovery capability where it currently does not exist. 6) Look at Costs Incrementally - Plot Your Own Course The last topic to consider is primarily financial. Just as the first chip to roll off a fabrication line is worth billions and the second worth pennies, the first workload for a platform is far more expensive to provision than subsequent ones. There is a "sunk cost" and an "incremental cost" associated with IT infrastructure that must be considered. This is especially true for the mainframe since the technology may be physically refreshed, but financially the transaction is handled as an upgrade. IBM has taken this concept a step further with the arrival of mainframe "specialty" engines that have much lower price points and drastically reduced impact on software costs. This is unlike the distributed world where technology and book value are tied together.

However, they cannot run alone, they must be added to an existing system. These kinds of dramatic differences must be considered in cost of ownership and are often large enough to justify a change in course for IT. Exploiting these areas of low incremental cost to support growth can significantly improve the overall cost of IT. Virtualization is expected to have a significant effect on other platforms, so the need is universal and growing. It is not unusual for mainframe systems in production to cost $4,000/MIP while specialty engine upgrades may run only $200/MIP. The incremental costs on the mainframe in this case are 1/20th of current cost. With 33 years at IBM, John Schlosser is currently a Senior Managing Consultant for the Scorpion practice within IBM Systems and Technology Group - Lab Services & Training. He is a founding member of the group which was started in 1999. He has developed and modified many of the methodologies the team uses for IT infrastructure cost analysis.

PayChoice offers more details about data breach

PayChoice, which this week confirmed that its online payroll systems operations were breached on Sept. 23, is now beginning to offer details on what it thinks may have happened. PayChoice today tells Network World "the company was preparing a timely public statement before the Washington Post report." "We are concerned that PayChoice has joined a growing list of other well-known firms that have been victimized by cyber criminals," says PayChoice CEO Robert Digby in a statement. The company did not publicly inform the media until earlier this week when Washington Post columnist Brian Krebs revealed some information known about the intrusion. That ever-growing list, of course, could include Heartland Payment Systems, which disclosed a data breach earlier this year that has had enormous impact on banking and card processing as it became known that cybercriminals had a chance to dip into information about 100 million payment cards.

The same could be said about Hannaford Brothers, the Portland, Maine-based supermarket chain, whose CEO Ronald Hodge stepped forward last year to disclose a breach there of customer payment information. But that incident came to light because CEO Robert Carr coordinated an outreach to proactively inform the public, through the media, about its data breach and has not shied from taking tough questions. Morristown, N.J.-based PayChoice provides payroll processing services and also licenses its payroll-management product to 240 payroll-processing firms serving 125,000 organizations. But the firm adds "clients should notify employees to carefully review their bank, credit card and other statements and to notify law enforcement officials immediately if they discover suspicious activity." The firm says it has also engaged forensics experts to investigate further and according to Digby's statement, "we will be reviewing all aspects of our security protocol to add any additional necessary protective measures." The company says it became aware of the attack "when it saw what appeared to be phishing e-mails telling clients they should download a browser plug-in to continue using their online accounts," PayChoice says in its statement. "The e-mails included client user names and partial passwords, which indicated a breach of PayChoice's Online Employer website." PayChoice says "within hours of the attack, the company notified its clients, shut down the site, and deployed further security measures to protect client information before restoring access to the system." PayChoice has also notified authorities and federal law enforcement. "Only customers using Online Employer were affected," PayChoice said in its statement. "The majority of PayChoice's clients, those using telephone, fax or other non-Web-based input methods, were not impacted." PayChoice contends there's no evidence of unauthorized access to sensitive employee information.

DHS to get big boost in cybersecurity spending in 2010

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will likely have a substantially bigger cybersecurity budget for fiscal 2010 compared to this year. The amount is $84 million, or about 27%, higher than the $313 million that was allocated for information security spending in 2009. In approving the amount, the Senate said the increase was aimed at expediting efforts to combat cyberthreats using such measures as reducing the points of Internet access across the department and increasing security training and management capabilities. The U.S. Senate yesterday passed legislation approving nearly $43 billion for the DHS for fiscal 2010. Of this, about $397 million is meant for addressing cybersecurity issues within the agency. The Senate measure reconciles different appropriation bills that were passed by the Senate and House appropriation committees.

The increase approved for DHS cybersecurity is "pretty hefty," said John Pescatore an analyst with Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn. "The real key thing is where does the money go?" he said. "How much of it will fund the same old stuff and how much of it will be on R&D?" The amount set aside for DHS cybersecurity spending next year looks "about right" said Karen Evans, former de factor federal CIO under the Bush administration. The bill is headed to President Obama for his signature. The amount is meant for DHS internal operations only and is consistent with increases provided to other departments and agencies, she said. The $43 billion appropriations bill included similar increases in other technology areas. Cybersecurity spending across the government for 2010 is projected at about $7.5 billion, or about 10% of the total IT budget of $75 billion, she added. A budget of about $1 billion, or about $75 million more than 2009, was approved for the DHS's department of science and technology, which conducts research on such areas as cybersecurity and air cargo security.

Obama's economic stimulus package, which passed earlier this year, provided another $248 million for planning, design, IT infrastructure, fixtures and other costs related to the consolidation. The bill also provides an additional $91 million on top of a previously approved $60 million for a massive data center migration and consolidation effort underway at the DHS. The consolidation is part of a move by the DHS to build a new 4.5 million-square-foot facility in the Washington area. The Senate bill also extended the DHS' online employment eligibility verification program, called E-Verify, by three years and allocated $137 million for operating the system and for improving its reliability and accuracy . Opponents of E-Verify had claimed the system was too buggy and error-prone to be used as the federal government's primary tool for employment verification. It also require linking to driver's license databases around the country. Meanwhile, in what appears to be a reaction to the growing opposition to the program , funding for the controversial Real ID initiative was cut back 40% from $100 million to $60 million in 2010. Real ID, launched during the Bush administratiion, requires states to meet new federal standards for issuing driver's licenses.

Chip maker TSMC buys stake in solar cell maker Motech

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) bought a 20 percent stake of solar cell maker Motech Industries for NT$6.2 billion (US$193 million), the companies said in a joint statement on Wednesday. The two companies will work together on new business ventures, and TSMC will work with Motech to launch new products faster and evaluate other opportunities in the solar business, the companies said. Motech, Taiwan's largest maker of solar cells, the key component of solar panels and solar modules, will become a key part of TSMC's move into green industries through the investment.

TSMC is the world's largest contract chip maker. TSMC revealed a plan earlier this year to open a new business related to energy conservation, including the solar and LED industries. The company as well as other chip makers work with the same polysilicon material used for solar cells and believe they have an edge in the industry due to materials research as well as expertise in manufacturing and management. The company invested US$46 million earlier this year to open a LED (light-emitting diode) production line in central Taiwan, a move investment bank Credit Suisse called a first step into the LED lighting business. The solar and other energy alternative industries are also being nurtured by governments such as the U.S. with stimulus money meant to battle the global recession. At TSMC's second-quarter earnings conference, Chairman and CEO Morris Chang said the solar and LED will likely generate revenue as high as US$10 billion to $15 billion for TSMC by 2018. Governments worldwide, including Germany and the U.S. state of California, have offered incentives for people to use solar panels due to rising oil prices.

Apple's iPad marketing sparks complaint to FTC

Apple's iPad, announced Wednesday, has already led to one complaint to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in which a consumer charged Apple with false advertising by showing Adobe Flash working on the device. At its launch event in San Francisco, Apple showed a video of people using the device, and a series of images of the iPad dominates the company's home page. Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad to a waiting world this week after months of speculation and rumors about the slim tablet computer, and Apple's marketing machine has continued to roll since then.

But those promotions are misleading, according to Paul Threatt, a Web and graphic designer who lives near Atlanta. In fact, Adobe says more than 70 percent of all games and 75 percent of all video on the Web uses Flash. Both show the iPad displaying elements of the online New York Times that cannot be viewed without Flash, even though the device apparently doesn't support that software. "I don't hold anything against them for not supporting Flash," Threatt said. "It'd be great if they did, but what I don't want them to do is misrepresent the device's capabilities." Flash is used to deliver multimedia, games and other content on many Websites. But it appears that the iPad, like the iPhone and iPod Touch, doesn't support that format. Adobe was not approached by Apple before the product was announced, Adobe spokesman Stefan Offermann said, indicating Flash is probably not in the works for the shipping version of the iPad, due to hit stores in about 60 days. In a live demonstration at Wednesday's launch event, icons that show a missing plug-in popped up on the iPad's screen when Jobs was showing off the Web front page of the New York Times.

However, some of the same New York Times content that wouldn't display during the live demonstration shows up just fine in a promotional video and one of the pictures on Apple's home page, Threatt pointed out. Likewise, a slideshow of images accompanying the article "The 31 Places to Go in 2010" require Flash, yet one of those pictures shows up in the promotional video and an image of the iPad on Apple's page. (In another twist, in the video, the slideshow begins at what appears to be the 14th image, even though on the Web it starts with the first picture.) Threatt said he was clued into the discrepancies by a Friday post at the AppleInsider blog. A collection of still images halfway down the Times front page, which represent segments on the site's video section, need Flash to appear but are visible as a user looks over the front page in the Apple clip. He was aware of the FTC's online Complaint Assistant, because he had used it before. "Whenever the urge strikes me and I feel like someone is being deliberately misleading, I go to that site," Threatt said. "I never know if I'm screaming into the void or not, but it makes me feel better." In his complaint, Threatt briefly explained the technologies to the FTC, and then summed up the problem. "In several advertisements and images representing the Apple products in question, Apple has purposefully elected to show these devices correctly displaying content that necessitates the Adobe Flash plug-in. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. This is not possible on the actual devices, and Apple is very aware of that fact. ... This constitutes willful false advertising and Apple's advertising practices for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and the new iPad should be forcibly changed," Threatt wrote, in part.

The FTC was not able to give details about the complaint or how it would respond. He described himself as a longtime Apple fan who used to work weekends at the Apple Store in Tyson's Corner, Virginia. "I'm big into Apple, and I always liked helping people learn Apple stuff," Threatt said, adding that it pains him to turn against the company. Threatt wasn't an obvious candidate to lodge the complaint. As for the iPad, Threatt said he would love it as a step up from his iPod Touch - if only it had a video camera.

Lotus user wary of social networking tool rollout

As IBM moves to upgrade its cache of social networking tools, some users are taking a cautious approach to the technology while figuring out where it will apply and how to measure its effectiveness. The new 2.5 version software includes micro-blogging, file sharing and new mobile capabilities. Where IT pros do their social networking IBM Tuesday unveiled Lotus Connections 2.5, its upgraded lineup of social networking tools that are a major expansion to the company's suite of collaboration software. But some of the features are expanding faster than users' plans to utilize the software.

The company's manager of messaging and collaboration asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. One Connections 2.5 beta tester, a global consumer product corporation, is taking a deliberately slow approach to rolling out the social collaboration tools. The company started slow with a few hundred users who were only allowed to communicate with each other. At that point, the manager says, the number of users exploded by 650% to a few thousand. The group's size was eventually doubled and then the tools were opened up companywide. Despite the growth, the company is still "seeding the environment," said the manager, but a broader rollout is planned.

We will likely "wind up doing it anecdotally," said the manager. "The things we're struggling with there is that this doesn't match the ROI [metrics that executives] are used to looking at. The harder part to plan is the expected results because the company has yet to figure out how to measure its return on investment. How do you measure, 'we recruited this person because of the [collaboration tool]?'" While results are hard to gauge, the broader, anticipated benefits are being defined in the context of capturing and recording corporate knowledge. The worker could develop a how-to guide for use by others, he said. For example, a certain administrative assistant may routinely be tasked with booking a certain type of event, said the manager.

The manager said it is a good time to ramp up internal communities and knowledge-sharing because as the economy and job markets rebound, workers who may have suffered pay or benefit cuts amid the recession will be looking to move on. "Now is the time to get people to put information in, so you're not losing it on the back of a Post-it note." Follow John on Twitter. -Kanaracus is with the IDG News Service Follow Chris on Twitter.

Snow Leopard bug deletes all user data

Snow Leopard users have reported that they've lost all their personal data when they've logged into a "Guest" account after upgrading from Leopard, according to messages on Apple's support forum. The MacFixIt site first reported the problem more than a month ago. The bug, users said in a well-read thread on Apple's support forum, resets all settings on the Mac, resets all applications' settings and erases the contents of critical folders containing documents, photos and music.

Users claimed that they lost data when they'd logged into their Macs using a "Guest" account, either purposefully or by accident. Specifically, Snow Leopard's home directory - the one sporting the name of the Mac's primary user - is replaced with a new, empty copy after users log-in to a Guest account, log out, then log-in to their standard account. Reports of the bug go back to Sept. 3, just six days after Apple launched Snow Leopard , or Mac OS X 10.6. Users who said they'd encountered the bug said that they had upgraded their systems from Mac OS X 10.5, known as Leopard. All the standard folders - Documents, Downloads, Music, Picture and others - are empty, while the Desktop and Dock have reverted to an "out-of-box" condition. "I had the Guest account enabled on my MacBook Pro," said a user identified as "tcnsdca" in a message posted Sept. 3. "I accidentally clicked on that when I went to log in. All of doc, music, etc. gone." "Add my parents to the list of people waxed by this bug," added "Ratty Mouse" today on the same thread. "Brand new iMac, less than one month old, EVERYTHING lost. It took a few minutes to log in, then after I had logged out of that account and back into mine, my [entire] home directory had been wiped.

Just as I convinced them to go Mac after years of trying." On the thread, several users urged others to disable any Guest accounts to prevent any accidental data loss. This morning I had access to Guest Account and than all my data were lost!!!" bemoaned someone tagged as "carlodituri" last Saturday. "I had 250GB of data without backup and I lost everything: years and years of documents, pictures, video, music!!! Some people were able to restore their Macs using recent Time Machine backups, but others admitted that they had not backed up their machines for weeks or months. "Just my luck I hadn't made a backup since 11th August," acknowledged "rogerss" on a different support forum thread. "So annoyed now, in the process of restoring from Time Machine, but have lost loads of my work due to this fault." Others users, however, had neglected to back up their Macs. "Nooooo!!! Is it possible to recover something? Some, for instance, wondered if the data loss would be triggered on Macs upgraded to Snow Leopard when the Guest account was simply set to "Sharing only," which is the default. Please help me!!!!" Not surprisingly, users unaffected by the bug were reluctant to attempt to reproduce the problem.

Apple did not respond today to questions about the bug.

Heartland CEO: Credit card encryption needed

Credit card transactions in the U.S. are often not encrypted, and credit card vendors, payment processors and retailers need to embrace an encryption standard to protect credit card numbers, the CEO of a breached payment processor said Monday. Heartland in January announced the discovery of a data breach that left tens of millions of credit card numbers exposed to a gang of hackers. "I now know that this industry needs to, and can, do more to better protect it against the ever-more-sophisticated methods used by these cybercriminals," Carr told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "I believe it is critical to implement new technology, not just at Heartland, but industrywide." The purpose of the committee hearing was, in part, to determine whether new legislation is needed to fight cybercrime. Credit card numbers are not now required in payment card industry guidelines to be encrypted in transit between retailers, payment processors and card issuers, Robert Carr, chairman and CEO of Heartland Payment Systems, told a U.S. Senate committee. Heartland is pushing for the credit card industry to adopt an end-to-end encryption standard, he said, and the company is deploying tamper-resistant point-of-sale terminals at its member retailers. "Our goal is to completely remove payment account numbers of credit and debit cards and magnetic-stripe data so they are never accessible in a useable format in the merchant or processor systems," Carr said.

The company has also helped to form an information-sharing council for payment processors, where the companies can share information about threats, vulnerabilities and best practices, he said. "We are working on these solutions, both technological and cooperative, because I don't want anyone else in our industry, or our customers, or their customers ... to fall victim to these cybercriminals," he said. Heartland has asked credit card companies to accept encrypted transactions and the company has engaged standards bodies and encryption vendors, Carr said. Carr didn't give details about the Heartland breach, in which the company was compromised for about a year-and-a-half. However, Heartland paid about US$32 million in the first half of 2009 for forensic investigations, legal work and other charges related to the breach, he said. The company remains involved in investigations and lawsuits involving the breach, he said.

Senators asked Carr some pointed questions about the breach. Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, asked Carr about the extent of the breach. Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, wanted to know how the company could be compromised from October 2006 to May 2008 without discovering the breach. "I was astounded at what a long period elapsed where these hackers were able to steal these credit card numbers," she said. "Explain to me how a breach of that magnitude could go undetected for so long." Card holders were not reporting major breaches, Carr answered. "The way breaches are normally detected is that fraudulent uses of cards are determined," he said. "There was no hint of fraudulent use of cards that came to our attention until toward the end of 2008." Collins pressed him further. "But are there no computer programs that one can use to check to see if an intrusion has occurred?" she asked. "There are, and the cybercriminals are very good at masking themselves," Carr said. In August, Albert Gonzalez of Miami was indicted in New Jersey for the theft of more than 130 million credit and debit cards, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Gonzalez pleaded guilty last week to separate charges in Massachusetts and New York.

He was charged, along with two unnamed co-conspirators, with using SQL injection attacks to steal credit and debit card information from Heartland, 7-Eleven and Hannaford Brothers, a Maine-based supermarket chain. It's too soon to tell how many credit card numbers processed by Heartland were compromised, Carr said. "We don't know the extent of the fraud at this point," he said. "It's a significant compromise."

The six greatest threats to US cybersecurity

It's not a very good day when a security report concludes: Disruptive cyber activities expected to become the norm in future political and military conflicts. From the GAO: "The growing connectivity between information systems, the Internet, and other infrastructures creates opportunities for attackers to disrupt telecommunications, electrical power, and other critical services. But such was the case today as the Government Accountability Office today took yet another critical look at the US federal security systems and found most of them lacking.

As government, private sector, and personal activities continue to move to networked operations, as digital systems add ever more capabilities, as wireless systems become more ubiquitous, and as the design, manufacture, and service of information technology have moved overseas, the threat will continue to grow. " Within today's report, the GAO broadly outline the groups and types of individuals considered to be what it called key sources of cyber threats to our nation's information systems and cyber infrastructures. According to the Director of National Intelligence, a growing array of state and nonstate adversaries are increasingly targeting—for exploitation and potential disruption or destruction—information infrastructure, including the Internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, and embedded processors and controllers in critical industries. From the GAO: Foreign nations: Foreign intelligence services use cyber tools as part of their information gathering and espionage activities. Criminal groups: There is an increased use of cyber intrusions by criminal groups that attack systems for monetary gain. While remote cracking once required a fair amount of skill or computer knowledge, hackers can now download attack scripts and protocols from the Internet and launch them against victim sites.

Hackers: Hackers sometimes crack into networks for the thrill of the challenge or for bragging rights in the hacker community. Thus, attack tools have become more sophisticated and easier to use. These groups and individuals overload e-mail servers and hack into Web sites to send a political message. Hacktivists: Hacktivism refers to politically motivated attacks on publicly accessible Web pages or e-mail servers. Disgruntled insiders:The disgruntled insider, working from within an organization, is a principal source of computer crimes.

The insider threat also includes contractor personnel. Insiders may not need a great deal of knowledge about computer intrusions because their knowledge of a victim system often allows them to gain unrestricted access to cause damage to the system or to steal system data. Terrorists: Terrorists seek to destroy, incapacitate, or exploit critical infrastructures to threaten national security, cause mass casualties, weaken the U.S. economy, and damage public morale and confidence. The Central Intelligence Agency believes terrorists will stay focused on traditional attack methods, but it anticipates growing cyber threats as a more technically competent generation enters the ranks. However, traditional terrorist adversaries of the United States have been less developed in their computer network capabilities than other adversaries. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security today, FBI Deputy Assistant Director, Cyber Division said that while the FBI has not yet seen a high level of end-to-end cyber sophistication within terrorist organizations, it is aware of and investigating individuals who are affiliated with or sympathetic to al Qaeda who have recognized and discussed the vulnerabilities of the U.S. infrastructure to cyber attack; who have demonstrated an interest in elevating their computer hacking skills; and who are seeking more sophisticated capabilities from outside of their close-knit circles. "In addition, it is always worth remaining mindful that terrorists do not require long term, persistent network access to accomplish some or all of their goals.

The likelihood that such an opportunity will present itself to terrorists is increased by the fact that we, as a nation, continue to deploy new technologies without having in place sufficient hardware or software assurance schemes, or sufficient security processes that extend through the entire lifecycle of our networks," Chabinsky said. Rather, a compelling act of terror in cyberspace could take advantage of a limited window of opportunity to access and then destroy portions of our networked infrastructure.

Mac News Briefs: PDFpen has new OCR engine

SmileOnMyMac Software has updated PDFpen, incorporating Nuance Communications' OmniPage OCR engine into the PDF editing program. SmileOnMyMac lauded the OmniPage OCR engine for its accuracy. PDFpen 4.5 uses version 15.5 of the OmniPage OCR, replacing the Tesseract open-source OCR engine in PDFpen on Intel-based Macs. Beside the new OCR engine, PDFpen 4.5 lets Snow Leopard users scan directly into the application from Image Capture or TWAIN scanners.

The 4.5 update is free for registered users of PDFpen 4.x. The PDF editing application costs $50, with a Pro version available for $100. Both PDFpen and PDFpenPro run on Mac OS X 10.4 and later.-Philip Michaels Typinator features DropBox syncing Ergonis Software released a new version of Typinator, its text-replacement utility. There's also a new text highlighting tool that selects and highlights text in a single action. Typinator 3.6 features automatic syncing with DropBox, a tool for syncing files across multiple machines (and online). Taking advantage of the new capability is as simple as modifying Typinator's preferences to store its settings folder within the DropBox folder. Typinator 3.6 is available now from the company's web site, for €19.95 per single-computer license, or €34.99 for a two-machine license. The updated Typinator also allows abbreviations that begin with a space, features a simplified registration interface, and offers numerous speed and memory usage improvements. The update is free to anyone who bought the application in the last two years.-Rob Griffiths Real Software updates development applications RealBasic and Real Studio 2009, Release 4 shipped Tuesday, adding 97 enhancements and 39 new features to the cross-platform software development tools, according to developer Real Software.

The report editor lets developers visually create a layout for printing by dragging and dropping labels, fields, images, and more. Leading the changes to this latest version of RealBasic is a new report editor, which Real Software says will be included in all RealBasic versions. The editor creates both single- and multi-page reports. The feature lets developers automate the most common functions of building applications without having to write IDE scripts. Real Studio also gets a new build animation feature for its Project Editor.

A complete list of what's new in Release 4 is available on Real Software's downloads page. It supports many formats including AVI, WMV, MOV, MPG, ASF, and DivX. The application automatically provides ideal default settings and offers the flexibility to crop video, set duration, adjust quality, and control many other audio and video preferences. The software maker also provides a video highlighting new features in RealBasic and Real Studio.-PM Macvide announces VideoFlash Converter 2.9 Macvide has announced VideoFlash Converter 2.9, an update of its video-to-Flash conversion utility for Mac OS X. VideoFlash Converter allows conversion of QuickTime-compatible video files to Adobe Flash. Version 2.9 also includes a new Web update and other fixes. VideoFlash Converter gives you the option of creating an HTML file along with the video and lets you customize how viewers see it. You can use the program to have Flash videos play directly in a Web page, not in a new window or separate page.

You can designate that the video start automatically and continuously play when viewers access the page, for example. The software works with OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or 10.5 (Leopard) and is a Universal app. The app also integrates with iWeb. VideoFlash Converter is available for $40 per single license, and can be downloaded from the Macvide Web site.-Jackie Dove Algoriddim releases Djay3 Algoriddim has released Djay 3, a revamped version of its music software application for Mac and iTunes. The program's interface has also been redesigned. It offers a host of new features, including automatic tempo and beat detection, auto-cut scratching, and MIDI support.

With the new version, users can match the playback speed of two songs for a perfect transition. The changes are aimed at making the program easy enough for novices while letting professional DJs do more with their mixes. In addition, the Auto-Cut feature allows users to scratch music in sync with a song's beat and rhythm. Djay 3 costs $50. A free 15-day trial is available from Algoriddim. The software runs on Mac OS X 10.4 or later.-JD

Intel, Numonyx create breakthrough in phase-change memory

Intel Corp. and Numonyx B.V. announced a breakthrough in the development of phase-change memory today that has the potential to allow developers to stack multiple layers of chips atop each other, thereby greatly increasing the density of the nonvolatile memory medium. Greg Atwood, a senior technology fellow at Numonyx, said the breakthrough in stackable PCM, which is being called PCM-stackable (PCMS), has the potential to create products that can replace DRAM, NOR and NAND flash memory because it will have better bandwidth, greater density and a cost per gigabyte of capacity comparable with today's solid state disk (SSD) drive products. "We believe it enables the possibility of combining the functionality and performance of phase-change memory with more NAND-like cost structure," Atwood said. "And, it's of particular interest given the challenges the existing non-volatile memory technologies are facing over the next decade as well as the continued expansion of [PCM] usage." The two companies have been working on development of PCM products since 2000, and a stackable PCM product since 2002. Al Fazio, an Intel fellow and director of memory technology development, said it's not unusual for a new memory type to take as many as 10 years to develop. Calling the discovery a "milestone" in phase-change memory (PCM) development, the researchers said they have so far only been able to build a single-layer, 64Mbit chip with the potential to be stacked with other 64Mbit chips. Atwood said that because the stacking breakthrough builds on top of PCM, a technology already in production, "it's a leading candidate amongst the various stackable memory concepts, most of which have no basis in a proven technology." Other non-volatile memories in development include graphite memory , and race track memory . Atwood added that Intel and Numonyx have no current time line for bringing PCMS products to market.

Current NAND flash memory lithography technology resides at the 32-nanometer level. Phase-change memory is made up of a glass-like material called chalcogenide that can be can be switched between a crystalline and random state using very low-voltage electricity. Future roadmaps scale NAND flash to 20 nanometers, but physical limitations present a barrier to creating anything more dense than that. The structure of a typical non-volatile memory cell includes a storage element combined with a selector element. PCM, however, currently has the ability to scale to 5 nanometers in size, and the potential of even greater densities, Fazio said.

The function of the storage element is nonvolatile storage of data and the purpose of the selector element is to connect storage elements into a cross-point array of cells. Unlike NAND flash memory, which requires a entire block of memory cells to be rewritten each time new data is stored on a device like a SSD drive, PCM allows for single bits to be changed, greatly increasing the efficiency and performance of a device. "It has features of a low-latency memory and high bandwidth so we can combine many of the good attributes ... of NAND flash, DRAM and NOR flash," Fazio said. The connection allows for the selection of a single storage element inside of a large array of cells - a billion or more. The breakthrough in stacking PCMS came with the use of a thin film selector substance that is in the same class of materials as chalcogenide and is built above the silicon substrate. It has a low current in the off state and a high current in the on state," Atwood said. "Combining the OTS with the thin film storage material, a similar material used in phase-change memories today, enables a cell that can be stacked multiple layers high." Additionally, since the silicon substrate that isn't being used as a selector, as it is in today's PCM product, can now be used for building the support circuitry used that's required to decode, read and write to the cells. "So the combination of these two advantages results in a much smaller die size that's a lower potential cost structure for the memory," Atwood said. The companies are calling the thin film selector an Ovonic Threshold Switch (OTS), which acts like a resister between the stacked layers of PCM chips. "This switch demonstrates a diode-like behavior.

On Dec. 9, the two companies plan to present a paper on their discovery at the 2009 International Electron Devices Meeting, titled "A Stackable Cross Point Phase Change Memory."

Study: MySQL use to drop under Oracle ownership

Usage of the open-source MySQL database is set to decline if Oracle succeeds in buying the software's owner, Sun Microsystems, according to new data released by analyst firm The 451 Group on Friday. While 82.1 percent of respondents use MySQL today, that figure will drop to 72.3 percent by 2014, the study found. The firm polled 347 open-source software users. Fifteen percent said that if Oracle buys Sun, they would be less inclined to use MySQL. Only 6.3 percent indicated they would be more likely to use the database under Oracle's stewardship.

Officials there have expressed particular concern over the fate of MySQL under Oracle's ownership. Oracle announced plans to buy Sun in April, but the deal has been held up while European authorities conduct an antitrust review. But some observers have argued that MySQL and Oracle's own database aren't direct competitors, meaning Oracle would have little reason to stifle it. PostgreSQL usage will get a bump as well, growing from 27.1 percent of all users to 30.5 percent by 2014. As for MySQL, some respondents want it to be maintained outside of Oracle. 32.6 percent called for it to be given to an independent organization that would further its development. In addition, MySQL's code base would live on through offshoot projects like MariaDB. According to the 451 Group study, MariaDB usage is expected to rise from zero today to 3.7 percent of all users by 2014, according to the study. Still, only 4.3 percent said Oracle should be made to sell the database off to another software company. "We do not believe that Oracle would see any of the alternatives to divesting MySQL as any less of a last resort and we do not expect Oracle to offer any concessions," 451 Group analyst Matthew Aslett said in a statement. "However, we believe that Oracle might be more inclined to open up the development of the MySQL database under its own terms in order to encourage more widespread adoption." Meanwhile, Oracle's bid to buy Sun recently received a potential boost from prominent open-source legal expert Eben Moglen, founder and executive director of the Software Freedom Law Center.

Moglen issued the opinion after a request from Oracle's legal team, according to a statement. Moglen sent a letter to the European Union on Nov. 19, telling regulators the open-source license used by MySQL, General Public License Version 2, provides adequate protection for parties outside Oracle to develop and redistribute MySQL. "Without expressing any opinion on any other aspect of the Commission's ongoing merger investigation, I believe that the issues raised concerning the GPLv2 status of the MySQL codebase do not warrant a conclusion that this transaction threatens significant anti-competitive consequences," he wrote in part.

Bookmarks for iPhone

Question: When are 2.6 million bookmarked Web sites not enough? It's a great big Web out there-worldwide, they say. Answer: When you can't find the site you're looking for, of course.

When everybody has a niche interest, why, even a collective brain sometimes falls just short of omniscient. The Open Directory Project, if you are unfamiliar, claims the title of the largest, most comprehensive, human-edited directory of the World Wide Web. And so, odds are, the 2.6 million Web sites listed by the Open Directory Project won't be enough for everyone. It's Wiki-like, curated by a globe-spanning community of volunteers. Lukas Renggli'sBookmarks for the iPhone and iPod touch aims to put the Open Directory Project in the palm of your hand. And it's mighty big, with close to 3 million sites catalogued under 410,000 categories, give or take.

The app is more flawed than the Open Directory Project itself. You can browse thousands upon thousands of categories at your leisure or use the app's integrated search engine to look for specific pages or topics. Bookmarks features a spare and unlovely but perfectly straightforward user interface. You can view any site through the app's internal browser, or launch the page in Safari where you can, of course, save the page to your own list of bookmarks. And the app lets you separate your favorites-or, rather, your favorites among that narrow and limited group of 2.6 million sites.

You can also e-mail any URL or copy the address to your device's clipboard. Naturally, the app requires a Wi-Fi, 3G, or EDGE connection to function. I was surprised to discover in the virtual infinity of the Open Directory Project, the Infinite stopped at the letter H. Turns out, the limits of the Infinite appears to constrain only the Bookmarks application. An app such as Bookmarks is not so much a Web browsing utility, as it is a dare to those of us whose favorite pastimes include finding omissions and poking holes. A search at www.dmoz.org returned 305 sites beginning with the word "Infinite," compared with just 50 in a search through the app.

Bookmarks suffers from a dearth of options-and not just the number of sites that a search returns. If it looks like a bug and acts like a bug, it's usually a bug. The watchword for anyone developing an iPhone application such as this one should be "customizable." That isn't the prettiest word in the English language, but as a technical matter, users should be free to add and subtract content as they see fit. But why make that kind of commitment? Sure, you could join the cadre of Open Directory Project editors and fill in the holes you discover. The Bookmarks app could simply include a feature that lets you add your own bookmarks to your own list of favorites.

Feel free to e-mail him.] Honestly, how difficult would that be? [Ben Boychuk is a columnist and freelance writer in Rialto, Calif.

FCC chairman calls for formal net neutrality rules

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will move to create formal net neutrality rules prohibiting Internet providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web content and applications, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Monday. It is vital that we safeguard the free and open Internet." The notice of proposed rulemaking will look not only into net neutrality rules on traditional wired broadband networks, but also explore whether to impose new rules on broadband networks offered by mobile phone carriers, the FCC said. Genachowski announced a notice of proposed rulemaking, a process to formalize a set of broadband policy principles that the FCC has embraced since August 2005. In addition to the four policy principles, Genachowski called for two additional principles to be included in a formal set of net neutrality rules. "The Internet is an extraordinary platform for innovation, job creation, investment, and opportunity," Genachowski said in a speech before the Brookings Institution. "It has unleashed the potential of entrepreneurs and enabled the launch and growth of small businesses across America. Genachowski said he wants all six principles to apply to all platforms that access the Internet.

The FCC has enforced the existing broadband policy principles on a case-by-case basis, but it has never made formal net neutrality rules. Mobile broadband services offered by carriers such as Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile have not been subject to the FCC's net neutrality principles. Broadband provider Comcast filed a lawsuit challenging the FCC's authority to enforce the principles after the agency ruled last August that Comcast had to stop slowing peer-to-peer traffic in the name of network management. Comcast argued that the FCC needs to create a rule or get authority from the U.S. Congress to enforce net neutrality. The Comcast lawsuit was filed late last year, and a ruling is pending. In addition to Genachowski's new rulemaking, a bill pending in the U.S. Congress would give the FCC that authority.

But Genachowski said there have been examples in recent years of broadband providers blocking or slowing applications, including peer-to-peer software and VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) service. Several broadband providers have opposed formal net neutrality rules, saying they could hamper provider efforts to roll out new services and manage their networks, and to protect against attacks and bandwidth hogs. There has been one example of a broadband provider blocking political content, he noted. "Notwithstanding its unparalleled record of success, today the free and open Internet faces emerging and substantial challenges," he said. "The rise of serious challenges to the free and open Internet puts us at a crossroads. Or we could take steps to preserve Internet openness, helping ensure a future of opportunity, innovation, and a vibrant marketplace of ideas." A Comcast spokeswoman said the company would comment soon. We could see the Internet's doors shut to entrepreneurs, the spirit of innovation stifled, a full and free flow of information compromised. Representatives of AT&T, Verizon Wireless and CTIA, a trade group representing mobile carriers, weren't immediately available for comment.

In addition, Genachowski proposed two new principles. There are four existing broadband principles that would be formalized: - Consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice. - Consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement. - Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network. - Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers. The first would prevent Internet access providers from discriminating against particular Internet content or applications, while allowing for reasonable network management. Genachowski will seek to launch a notice of proposed rulemaking during the FCC's October meeting. The second principle would ensure that Internet access providers are transparent about the network management practices they implement. The notice will ask the public and interested companies for feedback on the proposed rules and their application, such as how to determine whether network management practices are reasonable, what information broadband providers should disclose about their network management practices and how the rules apply to differing platforms, including mobile Internet access services, the FCC said.

Avaya's Nortel buy might not power it over Cisco

Even after it buys Nortel, Avaya won't dominate Cisco in the battle for business-communications customers, according to a new study. The rise and fall of Nortel   The numbers released Monday put Cisco ahead with 28.7% of sales, followed by Avaya with 18.4% and then Nortel with 9.9% - a combined total of 28.3%. The numbers are for North American sales. IntelliCom Analytics says that in the third quarter of this year, Cisco scored No. 1 in sales of business communications gear, outstripping number two Avaya and number three Nortel's revenues combined.

Global numbers are due out in a week or so. At the VoiceCon conference this fall, analyst Alan Sulkin, president of TEQConsult Group said, "They're going to be a powerhouse. Analysts have said that one key reason for Avaya buying Nortel is that the deal would give the combined entity a dramatic lead in the race for business customers. The last time somebody had a marketshare like this was AT&T in 1900." At the same show, analyst Zeus Kerravala of the Yankee Group, quoted the combined Avaya/Nortel as holding 42% share of the North American market. While Avaya clearly improves its position either way, how much is open to interpretation, says Frank Stinson, partner and senior analyst with IntelliCom, who wrote "Intellicom Market Performance Dashboard 3rd Quarter 2009." Both measurements are muddy because VoIP PBXs and peripheral systems aren't as cleanly measurable as were traditional PBXs and the phones that connected to them, he says.

The difference between the numbers discussed at VoiceCon and those from IntelliCom is that the stats quoted at VoiceCon referred to numbers of phone line equivalents each vendor shipped vs. the total sales reaped for the products as measured by Intellicom. VoIP servers can be sold as software with hardware from a separate vendor a range of peripheral hardware and software. A long-term communications vendor such as Avaya might encourage its customers to upgrade to a hybrid of traditional TDM gear with VoIP products whereas Cisco, which never sold TDM gear, would encourage its customers to rip and replace, he says. So a customer could buy a VoIP server but keep its traditional PBX in service via a gateway and make continued use of the old handsets, he says. That can also skew numbers, he says. "It's not apples to apples," Stinson says. "I think what the numbers show is it gives Avaya a good shot at giving Cisco a run for its money." As for IntelliCom's new study, it doesn't mark the first time that Cisco's No.1 ranked revenues outstripped the combined total for Avaya and Nortel. Regardless, Cisco has held the No.1 spot consistently since the second quarter of 2007, he says.

It achieved that mark in the third and fourth quarters of last year as well, Stinson says. Regardless of the horse race for the first-place ranking, there is a battle going on for Nortel customers, he says. Its competitors, including Cisco, want to use the uncertainty caused by Nortel's bankruptcy as leverage to grab away as many of those customers as they can. Avaya clearly wants to capture as many as it can through the purchase of Nortel. Stinson says that Nortel customers ought to write down their immediate communications needs and their likely communications needs in the future.

At that time, they should see how well needs match up with Avaya plans and decide whether to stick with Nortel or to look elsewhere, he says. It should compare those needs with the road map that Avaya says it will issue within 30 days after its purchase of Nortel is complete. They should look at specifics of the road map such as what Nortel devices Avaya will continue to support, which ones it won't and what its migration path is for replacing the products it cancels, he says.

Lotus goes after Microsoft's 'ridiculous and fabricated' figures

Lotus Software GM Bob Picciano has grown tired of the "hot wind" blowing out of Redmond carrying claims that Exchange is displacing Notes and is singling out CEO Steve Ballmer and COO Kevin Turner as the main culprits spreading "ridiculous and fabricated" information. They are still utilizing capabilities from other aspects of the Lotus portfolio," said Picciano. Exchange alternatives: Front ends and back endsA look at Exchange 2010 "Microsoft is making claims in the marketplace around 4.7 million people have exchanged e-mail from Notes to Exchange and that is just a ridiculous fabricated figure," said Picciano, who took the reins at Lotus in 2008. "Every time they sell a [client access license] they count that as a competitive migration." "People need to recognize that Kevin Turner and Steve Ballmer have blown a lot of hot wind from Washington and there is not much substance or truth to what they are espousing in the marketplace," Picciano said. "They were so bold as to say there are entire countries that have migrated off of Notes and that is utterly ridiculous." Picciano says all the talk has "got me pretty worked up that they would be so bold to make such erroneous statements and not be challenged." The Lotus Software GM says many of the reference companies cited by Microsoft when it made its "4.7 million people" comment in July "are still licensing Lotus Notes technology and still utilizing e-mail and applications from Lotus. At Microsoft's annual meeting this summer for financial analysts, Turner heaped on more numbers during his presentation at the event. "We've taken out almost 13 million Lotus Notes [seats] the past three years. … Now, the thing that I would tell you is there's still 15 — we count — there's still 15 million out there." He cited SharePoint Server as the "fastest-growing, hottest product in the history of Microsoft," and pegged it as a catalyst in the fight against IBM. Picciano said the counter was last week's news that U.S. Bank was replacing Microsoft's SharePoint platform by standardizing on the Notes 8.5 client and would roll out Lotus Connections social networking tools, the Sametime real-time platform and Lotus Quickr, which is IBM's alternative to SharePoint.

He said PNC Bank and Continental Tire are joining U.S. Bank in getting rid of Microsoft's Exchange, Office and SharePoint. On Tuesday, Picciano threw out his own numbers saying a total to 15,421 companies have picked IBM over Microsoft since 2008 in the worldwide integrated collaborative environment market as defined by IDC. In addition, Picciano says customers are expanding their investment in Lotus software and he cited as examples Accenture, BASF, Chrysler, Coca-Cola, Colgate-Palmolive, Continental AG, Finishline, General Motors, GlaxoSmithKline, Gruppo Amadori, KBC Bank, Nationwide, Novartis, Phillips Electronics and PNC Bank. In January, Picciano said more than 12,000 new companies in 2008 bought their first Notes/Domino licenses. People understand what Kevin's motivation is and the prancing around in front of partners and talking about this. And he said half of the Fortune global 100 are Notes/Domino users. "It's important to put [Microsoft's claims] into perspective and call it what it is, a bunch of fabrication," Picciano said. "Kevin is feeling that he is under a bit of pressure.

It's duplicitous and overshadows the real truth." Follow John on Twitter.

What's With Microsoft's FUSE Social Networking Lab?

Microsoft has created a research group to look into how the company can extend its reach into social networking. The new group was announced in an e-mail sent to Microsoft employees by Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, who will oversee the project, according to TechCrunch. The new research team will be called Future Social Experiences (FUSE), and will be headed by Microsoft General Manager Lili Cheng. FUSE reportedly merges three existing research groups within Microsoft into a larger collaborative group.

In Ozzie's world, social networking is transforming how we use computers including our computer's operating system. Ozzie's memo explaining the project is scarce on details, and only emphasizes broad concepts that will guide the new research lab. So FUSE will focus on products "where 'social' meets sharing; where 'social' meets real-time; where 'social' meets media; where 'social' meets search; where 'social' meets the cloud plus three screens [PC, mobile device, television and online] and a world of devices." That last quote may sound like a bunch of nonsense, but it does give us a vague idea of what Microsoft might be trying to do. Microsoft is already trying things like this with Office 2010's SharePoint Workspace collaboration software, as well as Office 2010's Web apps. Clearly, Microsoft isn't too interested in creating another Facebook or MySpace competitor; instead, Microsoft's concept of social is more likely to focus on collaboration and sharing information instead of posting photos and sending pokes on a Website.

We could also see items similar to the Xobni plug-in for Outlook that turns your e-mail client into a social networking hub. These may be just guesses, but you can bet that unlike Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks, Microsoft is interested in introducing products that it can sell and make money from on day one.   So whatever FUSE does work on, I think it's safe to assume the group's projects for everyday consumers will be tied to new or existing desktop programs, with a focus on Microsoft's productivity applications.

NASA: With Atlantis docked, work begins today

With the NASA space shuttle Atlantis successfully docked at the International Space Station this afternoon, hatches have been opened and work has begun 210 miles above the Earth. Atlantis is carrying some 27,250 pounds of spare parts. The shuttle, which lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center on Monday afternoon, arrived and docked at the space station at 11:51 a.m. EST this morning. The load is more than any other current space vehicle could handle.

The shuttle brought up two equipment-carrying platforms. The Atlantis crew is now ready to work with the robotic arms onboard both the shuttle and the station to begin unloading some of that gear, according to NASA. The robotic arm on the shuttle will reach into its own payload bay and lift out one of the equipment carriers and hand it off to the robotic arm on the space station. Both will be attached on either side of the station's truss or backbone during the 11-day mission. The astronauts running the inspection used a suite of cameras and lasers designed to give them 3-D views of the shuttle's heat shield. On Tuesday, the Atlantis crew spent about five hours using the shuttle's 50-foot-long robotic arm, along with its 50-foot-long orbiter boom sensor system, to take pictures of the shuttle craft's wings and nosecap, to inspect for damage that might have occurred during takeoff.

This morning, as the shuttle approached the space station, Atlantis Commander Charlie Hobaugh rotated the vehicle backwards so astronauts on the space station could take pictures of the shuttle heat shield with 800 millimeter and 400 millimeter lenses. The equipment being delivered during this mission is considered critical to the operation of the space station, according to NASA. At this point, there are only six flights left for the space shuttle fleet before it's scheduled to be retired. All of the images will be sent back to ground control, where engineers will inspect them for any problems with the shuttle's thermal protection system, which will be needed to protect the craft during the blazing temperatures it will encounter during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. The equipment that needs to go up is being delivered in order of highest priority. The astronauts are expected to make three space walks to unload the parts from the shuttle and connect them to the sides of the station's truss . Since this is the first mission to deliver what scientists hope will turn into a trove of spare parts, they're taking up the most important pieces.

New gadgets, prototypes to debut next week in Japan

Japan's biggest electronics and gadgets show, Ceatec, runs all of next week and many new technologies and prototype gadgets are expected to be on show. Originally developed by Toshiba, IBM and Sony for use in the PlayStation 3 games console, the Cell is expected to bring functions like real-time upscaling and processing of recorded videos. The first big news is expected on Monday afternoon when Toshiba unveils its first commercial LCD TV that includes the Cell multimedia processor, after showing a prototype of the television last year.

Panasonic will also focus on TV technology and showing a 50-inch plasma TV that can display images 3D. At the IFA electronics show in September the company said it planned to launch such a set next year, so Ceatec will provide more insight into what consumers can expect. The camera is aimed at content producers, not consumers, but the technology could eventually scale down into more compact cameras. Sony is also pushing 3D and will use Ceatec to show a new video camera that can record 3D images through a single lens. In the cell phone arena, NTT DoCoMo is planning to show a cell phone with a wooden rather than plastic case. The phone uses surplus cypress wood from trees culled during thinning operations to maintain healthy forests.

The prototype phone was made in conjunction with Olympus, which has developed a method for wooden casing, and Sharp. DoCoMo and its partners are also expected to show their progress in developing a cell-phone platform for future LTE (Long Term Evolution) wireless services. Meanwhile Fujitsu will show a new cell phone with a built-in golf-swing analyzer. The company is working with Panasonic, NEC and Fujitsu on development of a phone that can download data at up to 100M bps and upload at half that speed. The phone's sensors feed motion data to a 3D sensing program that analyzes the swing and then provides advice.

One of the hits from last year's Ceatec, Murata's unicycling robot, is due to make an appearance and show off a new trick. Each swing can also be compared against past swings. The latest version of the robot is capable of cycling at about 3 times the speed of last year's model. Specifically, the company plans to show off a technology that allows several cars to automatically follow a lead car. Nissan will also be at Ceatec showing off some of its latest research into advanced automotive IT systems. The futuristic system, which will be demonstrated in robot cars, could one day be used to allow cars to automatically move along roads in "trains" of vehicles with little input from the driver.

The exhibition, which is now in its tenth year, attracted just under 200,000 visitors last year. Ceatec runs at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, just outside of Tokyo, from Tuesday until Saturday.

10 Tried-and-True Tips for Switching Industries

With the economic recession wreaking havoc on the financial services, automotive, retail and other industries, many IT professionals in those markets who've been laid off are considering an industry switch to open up their job searches. They say diversifying one's job search will increase their odds of landing a new job more quickly. Indeed, many career experts are urging job seekers to apply for jobs in the few industries that are growing or are poised for growth despite the recession, such as green energy and technology, education, and healthcare.

But switching industries can be an uphill battle for IT job seekers. Hiring any executive is a high-risk and costly endeavor, so employers want to make sure that whomever they hire is right, can hit the ground running, and doesn't need to come up to speed. Companies often don't want to hire executives outside of their industries because it increases their risk. Consequently, that often means that employers seek candidates with experience specific to their industry. (Of course, there are times when a company specifically seeks an industry outsider to bring in a fresh perspective.) Despite the challenges associated with switching industries, doing so is not impossible. Recently, I moved from healthcare to educational publishing.

I have worked in multiple vertical markets, including broadcasting, retail, manufacturing and education. I found this particular transition very challenging, but from this-and other-experiences, I learned several valuable lessons about moving from one industry to another. Consulting or unpaid internships are options to consider if you have the opportunity and the means. I hope my lessons will help you move into a new industry and make your transition a seamless one. 1. Immerse Yourself If you're hunting for a job in a new vertical market, consider spending a week or two in the new environment. As an experienced IT leader, your expertise is extremely valuable to many organizations.

That large-scale project management expertise sets you apart. Have you overseen an ERP conversion? For every vertical market, there is a company struggling with a problem you've already solved. I had experience that a company in those markets found beneficial, and a conversation with the head of each organization led to those opportunities. This is how I got into publishing, health care and education. Start by reaching out to your existing professional network.

Through those conversations, I got the chance to guest-lecture for one of my professional colleagues as an IT industry expert. When I engineered my transition to higher education, I sought out colleagues who taught at colleges and universities, and I talked to them about their experiences and challenges. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and it led to further introductions to other professors, more discussions about higher ed's needs, and gave me the opportunity to explain how my work in publishing applied to their needs. Using Twitter and LinkedIn, I connected with educators all over the country and learned what troubles were universal. If you can't find connections in your professional network, social networking tools like LinkedIn and Twitter are great places to find professionals working in the vertical market you wish to enter. With those insights, I developed a pitch that expressed how my experience could help them.

They introduced me to their peers, and a new professional network was born. Specifically, I explained how my experience with open source tools, web publishing and marketing was valuable to admissions professionals in higher education and how I helped colleagues build tools to measure and improve the effectiveness of their social media campaigns. About two weeks into my social media campaign, I started to get recognized as an industry expert, even though I had never worked in the industry. With the economy being what it is, your target market is likely experiencing a major shortage of training and development dollars. I simply joined the conversation, contributed where I could, and respected those who were already there. Figure out what you can offer folks in that target market and get out there. 2. Practice Nemawashi Nemawashi is a Japanese term that literally translates to "going around the roots." The concept of nemawashi is so engrained in the Japanese culture that it is difficult to translate into English, but it is most often translated as 'laying the groundwork.' As it was explained to me, nemawashi is an informal process of quietly laying the foundation for a change by talking to the people concerned, gathering their support and feedback before any formal steps are taken, and maintaining the harmony and credibility of those involved.

This is a critical practice for gathering information about your new industry and identifying ways to help prospective employers in it. It's similar to our concept of getting buy-in, but the primary difference is that nemawashi is done quietly-almost covertly-before the idea for the desired future state is formed. I wish I had practiced nemawashi during the early stages of my current career transition. The amount of paperwork he had to do to open an IRA account was staggering. I was spending a lot of time with Jeremy, the branch manager at my local bank, to get my personal finances in order.

I helped Jeremy a few times with some simple Windows shortcuts as he was trying to copy and paste information from one form to another. It was enough for Jeremy and I to retire on. I did a little math in my head and realized that for this bank, the 20 minutes of work Jeremy was doing, multiplied by the number of IRA accounts they open (which Jeremy estimated for me) worked out to be a very large dollar figure. I shared my calculation with Steve, a colleague who was doing some programming work for Jeremy's bank. Steve liked my ideas, but said it wasn't quite practical for the bank for security reasons.

I also shared my ideas on how to trim some costs from the process. Had I practiced nemawashi with Jeremy and Steve, I could have learned about the security risk before suggesting the possible change, and perhaps I could have worked with Steve to refine and revise the idea so it more closely matched the needs of the bank. Nemawashi can help you gain support in the rookie stages, win allies, and most importantly, influence an organization in the right direction. 3. Establish Your Credibility I met Chris Brogan and Julien Smith during my days in publishing, when they were working on a book, Trust Agents, about using the web and social media to build influence, reputation and trust. Whether you have five or 50 years of experience under your belt, in a new industry, you are the rookie. One of the core premises of their book is that to have credibility in a social network, you must be "one of us." For example, if a soft drink company is trying to sell a new cola to an online community of gamers, the company can't just join the conversation with, "Hey guys, check this out." Only if an existing, valued member of the group says, "Check this out," will the recommendation have any merit.

I don't know how many times I had ideas shot down because I didn't have experience in the industry, simply because "that's not how it's done." It didn't matter that I was hired to improve things; I had no credibility with the audience and met resistance at every step. Brogan and Smith's notion of "one of us" applies to switching industries. When I moved into education and health care, though, things were different. Staff management is probably the area where this is most true. I was a trusted member of the group from the get-go because I had practiced nemawashi without even realizing it. 4. Don't Assume Your Experience Transfers Not all of your leadership experience is going to apply from one industry to another.

The industry you're in will impact the types of people your company will attract and retain, and this will shape the culture of your department more than any other factor, even when the fields seem similar. Certain aspects of budgeting can also vary from industry to industry. For example, I found that certain management techniques, such as mentoring and motivating employees with challenging projects, worked well in an advertising agency, but were completely ineffective in publishing, where a much heavier management style was necessary. One of the most common mistakes I've seen-and made myself-is miscategorizing information assets and liabilities on balance sheets and improperly valuing the assets stored on a company's IT infrastructure. This made asset categorization very clear and easy.

I learned quickly that in healthcare, an information asset has a fixed shelf life that's normally mandated by a governing body. This was also the case in broadcasting. The morale of this story? But it was not the case in publishing, as I once learned the hard way, after spending a pretty penny to store assets that had little value to the company. Understand the business as well as you can before you categorize your company's assets. 5. Don't Assume Your Experience Doesn't Transfer Some disciplines are stable enough that the differences between vertical markets are barely discernible.

A basic rule of thumb is that if an IT function is frequently outsourced, your experience in that area will be transferable. 6. Learn the Industry's Concept of Customer If you take only one thing from this list, make this it: Who is the customer for your organization or industry? Telephony, application delivery, helpdesk service, and project management easily transfer from one industry to another. In healthcare, our customer varied from conversation to conversation: It's the patient, the insurance company, the government, the referring physician, the patient's employer, and the patient's family. The reason it's so important to know the customer is because the customer truly is your boss. We all understood that it was the patient who chose our practice, and all the other customers were also working for the patient. They can fire you (and your organization) simply by taking their business elsewhere.

What's more, your understanding of the customer guides every decision you make. I've found that the most successful companies are the most customer-centric. Knowing who your organization is ultimately accountable to-and demonstrating this from the earliest point possible-will ensure that your transition is successful. I also recommend you ask prospective employers during your job interviews with them who their customer is. I recommending asking yourself, "Who is my customer," every day. If their answer ever varies, take this as a huge warning sign.

While I was consulting for a media company, the IT staff I was working with pulled me aside to tell me about one person in particular who was troublesome. If the organization can not agree on the central concept of customer, it will have an identity crisis about who it serves and will always struggle to provide exceptional customer service to its ultimate customer base. 7. Identify and Win the Troublemakers Once you're in your new job in a new industry, you have a short amount of time to identify the influential troublemakers and make them your ally. They advised me to avoid that person at all costs. I wanted to know why the IT staff felt the way they did, and if there was any merit to their feelings. Instead, I sought her out immediately. I didn't ask her those questions specifically, but I asked her what she felt the IT organization was doing right and wrong.

By having an open and honest conversation with her, I made a very powerful strategic ally, and in the process, I identified a number of solutions to some of the key issues the IT department was facing. We talked for two hours. We went on to make some great progress together, and those accomplishments were critical in helping me understand the industry, the company, and most importantly, to quickly identify where big progress could be made in a short amount of time. There is a delicate ecosystem of cash flow, and it can be disrupted at many different places. That was several years ago, and this person's name is still on my reference list. 8. Learn the Industry's Revenue Streams Who actually pays for your product or service? Do you clearly understand the industry's revenue stream?

Luckily, I was young when I made it, and I have tried to avoid it ever since. The biggest mistake of my career came in this area. My first "real" job out of college was in radio broadcasting. It was my job, I thought, to entertain the listeners and keep them tuned in to the station as long as possible. I went to work for a large FM radio station.

According to the ratings, I was pretty good at it. There was a partial power failure in the area, and about one-third of the building was without power. One evening when I came in for my shift, I found the afternoon air personality sitting in a dark control room. The transmitter was on, but we weren't able to put anything on the air or to control the transmitter. I knew the station's cash flow relied on our ability to play commercials to our audience, so I proceeded to reschedule every commercial that was missed during the previous hours. Using extension cords, power strips and wirenuts, I managed to put us back on the air nearly five hours before the power was restored.

I thought my program director would be ecstatic; I had saved several thousand dollars of revenue. I had gotten the station back on the air and reestablished our link to the audience, but the audience had turned to other stations when we fell silent a few hours before my shift began. As it turned out, I was only half right. Commercials that should have aired to a few hundred thousand people aired only to a few thousand. In the end, I was credited with saving a large portion of the revenue and making the best out of a bad situation, but I only understood a small portion of the equation that made up our revenue stream. It took nearly a week for our ratings to return to their normal levels.

I never forgot that lesson. Is it directly by the customer, or is it like the health care system where the customer has multiple agents (many with different goals and objectives) serving them and their needs, and therefore funding your cash flow? How is your industry's revenue stream supported? A clear understanding of that cash flow process well help you identify where your IT team can best contribute. 9. Acceptable Risk Always Varies You've probably had a directive from a CEO after a server malfunction that sounded like this: "We simply can not afford any more down time. The conversation immediately following sticker shock is where you and your CEO decide what is the acceptable risk-level for the organization.

Fix the problem!" So you proposed a clustered server, a disaster recovery site, or some other topology proven to increase reliability and uptime, and presented it to the CEO. That's when sticker shock sets in. Basically, it's the amount of risk the enterprise is willing to tolerate in exchange for the cost to mitigate that risk. Healthcare, for example, has a low risk tolerance for data loss: It can't afford to lose historic patient data. And you can not assume that the level of risk an organization in one industry tolerates will be the same for an organization in another industry. But comparatively, publishing has a higher risk tolerance for data loss. 10. Keep an Open Mind Just as individual organizations are at different stages in their IT systems maturity, some industries are categorically ahead or behind the curve. Keep an open mind as you move from one industry to another.

As technical folk, we find it difficult to imagine that magnetic tape is still used as a primary storage medium; however, many broadcasters are just now moving to hard disk and optical-based storage media from tape drives. J. Marc Hopkins is a Cincinnati, Ohio-based veteran of small business technology leadership in a variety of industries, including higher education, healthcare and media. He currently teaches at DeVry University and can be reached through his blog on CIO.com, LinkedIn and Twitter. He specializes in infrastructure design and consolidation, staff development, business intelligence, and business process improvement for non-profit and mission-focused businesses.