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Seinfeld & Gates: Was this ad supposed to be funny?
The long-awaited $300 million ad campaign that Microsoft launched to counter Apple's successful "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" campaign aired. I don't get it. And seeing how the punchline... Continued »
Archive for: July, 2008
July 31st, 2008
IBM plans building spree: To build $360M data center in N.C.
IBM on Friday will announce that it will build a $360 million data center in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina to deliver cloud computing services. Big Blue will also launch its eighth cloud computing center in Tokyo.
The building spree is all part of IBM’s plan to deliver cloud computing services to its clients. To build out the North Carolina data center, IBM said it will renovate an existing building on its Research Park campus to test out its “new enterprise data center design principles.”
Needless to say IBM’s new data centers will focus on energy efficiency and the Research Park location will play a big role in its Project Big Green initiative.
Among the key specs of the Research Park data center:
July 31st, 2008
Will consumer economics have an impact on RealNetworks?
RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser almost made it through his company’s quarterly earnings call without taking a jab at Apple and the iPhone. But near the end of the call, he took a quick mathematical poke at Apple to drive home his point that there are plenty of opportunities to launch a mobile music service that utilizes a device other than the iPhone.
If you measured mobile music devices by column inches. you’d think everyone has an iPhone. Apple’s goal is to sell 10 million iPhones… If they sold 10 million, that would be one percent of the market. That means 99 percent of the market is not buying an iPhone.
Point taken. There’s a lot of room out there for some solid competition and, on the surface, Real’s latest attempt to revitalize its music business through the Music Without Limits initiative that launched one month ago has some attractive components, including the marketing message that its mp3 files are compatible with the iPod.
Still, I still tend to cringe when I hear the word “subscription” and it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about Rhapsody or Verizon’s VCAST (one of Real’s partners). Glaser made an interesting point during his call with analysts today. As part of a larger point he was making, he noted that macroeconomics will have an small impact on his company, most likely by an overall advertising slowdown. Advertising, he said, is one of those expenditures that companies can reduce or eliminate for short-term savings without compromising revenues. They do it even when there’s a rumor of an economic slowdown, referring to it as a sometimes knee-jerk reaction. But revenues from other sectors, notably ringtones and other small scale transactions, don’t feel the pinch. “That’s 1$ or $1.50 for consumers. That pocket change level of expenditure doesn’t seem to change,” Glaser said.
Here’s the thing: Businesses aren’t the only ones who make knee-jerk spending cuts when economics shift. So do consumers. And, at least in my household, some of the first things to get sacrificed are the monthly subscriptions that we can quickly eliminate without impacting our livelihood. It’s harder to cancel electricity than it is to, say, cut out HBO. It’s not so easy to get out of the monthly cell phone bill these days but the Rhapsody subscription could easily go. Of course, I don’t want to be a complete curmudgeon in the eyes of my kids so when they ask if they can download a ringtone to their phones, I usually give in. It’s a buck or so. Pocket change.
The company also noted that it is still developing a plan for the spin-off of its games division, which was the best performer of the quarter, and how that will be conducted. The company plans to file the necessary paperwork for the spin-off by the end of the year. For the full year, it adjusted its expected revenue to a range of $620 million to $630 million and a net loss of 2 cents to 6 cents per share. For the second quarter, it reported a loss of $1.3 million, or 1 cent per share, compared to a profit of $1.3 million, or 1 cent per share, for the same quarter lsat year. Revenue was $152.6 million, up from $136.2 million a year ago. Wall Street had been expecting a net loss of 2 cents per share on $153 million in sales, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.
July 31st, 2008
McAfee acquires Reconnex, inks distribution pacts
McAfee on Thursday acquired data loss prevention company Reconnex, inked distribution pacts with HP and Toshiba and reported better than expected second quarter earnings.
The company said it acquired Reconnex, which makes technology that automates data protection, for $46 million. McAfee said Reconnex will allow it to deploy data loss protection systems faster and offer customers better security bundles. The deal will close in the third quarter.
Separately, McAfee said that it will bundle its Internet Security Suite on Toshiba laptops in an exclusive deal that gives consumers a 30-day trial. McAfee and Symantec often duke it out for desktop PC real estate. McAfee also announced that it will provide a 60-day trial of its Total Protection Software on “select HP commercial desktop computers and notebooks.” The offer targets small business customers.
McAfee also reported second quarter net income of $47.8 million, or 30 cents a share, on revenue of $396.8 million, up 26 percent from a year ago. Excluding charges earnings were $83.8 million, or 52 cents a share. Wall Street was expecting earnings of 45 cents a share. Corporate revenue was $240 million in the quarter with consumer sales of $157 million.
The outlook for the third quarter and 2008 was solid. For the third quarter, McAfee sees earnings per share of 46 cents a share to 50 cents a share compared to estimates of 48 cents a share. For 2008, McAfee also upped its outlook.
McAfee’s results follow Symantec’s quarterly financials. The message: Security vendors aren’t being dinged by tight IT budgets.
July 31st, 2008
AT&T to FCC: We Ban P2P Traffic
If blocking P2P traffic is bad, isn’t banning it worse?
It’s now been reported not just once, but twice, that AT&T is banning P2P traffic by its wireless customers. That will not make iPhone 3G customers happy.
So if the first item on the agenda tomorrow for Kevin Martin’s Commission is to penalize Comcast for “secretly degrading” Internet traffic by throttling back BitTorrent packets last year, shouldn’t the second item be AT&T’s open and complete degradation of all P2P traffic, on its airwaves?
And wouldn’t you want to look at how AT&T might be managing P2P traffic on the ground as well?
Or, is there only selective outrage — inside or outside the FCC — when it comes to stated violations of the Commission’s own Internet poiicy?
See also: “Network Neutrality & Google’s Openness Before the FCC”
July 31st, 2008
EDS shareholders approve HP deal; EDS shoots down layoff rumors
Updated throughout: EDS said Thursday that shareholders have approved the HP acquisition of the IT services company. Internally, rumors about impending layoffs at EDS are surfacing, but a company spokesman called the rumors “completely factually incorrect.”
According to a statement, 98.8 percent of EDS common stock was voted for the HP deal–that equates to 72.4 percent of the outstanding shares.
The HP purchase of EDS has been cleared by the European Commission and U.S. regulators. Pending clearance from other jurisdictions HP’s purchase of EDS should close in the third quarter. Meanwhile, EDS and HP have settled five shareholder lawsuits following the merger announcement.
Also see: HP’s Hurd: U.S. demand ’spotty’; Data center, app consolidation continues
While all of this news is good from the corporate perspective, EDS employees have been skittish. Rumors on Wednesday began percolating among EDS technology managers that the company is planning on laying off 20 percent of its workforce across all hubs in the Americas. As noted previously EDS said the rumors are incorrect. On Wednesday, EDS said wouldn’t comment on the rumors, but moved to squash them Thursday.
For now you can chalk this layoff chatter up to jitters over the impending HP merger.
July 31st, 2008
Roboform launches Enterprise, still wondering if this Mac thing will take off.
I hate passwords - especially in a corporate setting. We’ve all been there - your password must be between 6-8 characters and must include at least one letter, one number, one symbol, yadda yadda yadda. Oh, and you’ll be asked to change it every 60 days. Sigh. OK, I recognize that IT departments do that sort of stuff to keep the network safe. But I also can sympathize with employees who, because of password overload, write their passwords on sticky notes and keep them at their workstations. Yeah, like that’s keeping the network secure.
Now, here comes RoboForm, a longtme password-management and form-filling product for consumers, with a new Enterprise version. The company released it a few months back but the release from parent company Siber Systems just recently fell in my inbox. I have to admit I was pretty excited to see it. The product is top-notch and its Robo2Go product, which stores all of your passwords on a removable USB drive for use on any computer, was one of my favorites. (”Was” is the key word there.)
Years ago - at least four, maybe five - I had all of my user names and passwords stored on a USB drive in a Roboform file. Access to my bank, credit card and email accounts was as simple as finding an open USB port… until I became a Mac guy. Apparently, RoboForm was not compatible with the Mac. Oh sure, I complained and even resorted to begging and pleading for a Mac version. Yes, that’s how much I liked this product. Instead, I was given the obligatory “We’re working on it.” reply and was sent back to pen-and-paper to keep track of my passwords. In all honesty, I’d kind of forgotten about RoboForm until I heard from them again this week.
Guess what? Still no Mac version. Five years later. In 2008. Can you believe it?
I have a hard time comprehending that, in five years time, this company has not figured out a work-around to make this happen. They have adapters for Firefox (a good thing) and Netscape 7 (who uses that?). It also supports the AOL browser. (I can’t even muster up a sarcastic comment about this.) The underlying message is that it works best with Internet Explorer. (Well, there went that whole security issue.) 
Maybe the folks at SiberSystems hasn’t heard but real people and real companies - not just the ultra-geeky - are using Macs. This isn’t 1998. This is 2008. Mac sales are up. There’s even a whole line of Mac computers - desktops, laptops, the whole bit. You might have heard of them. Macs even connect to the Internet now using a number of different browsers and even are compatible with wireless networks. Microsoft even makes a version of Office for the Mac.
Apologies for the sarcasm but I really want to stand on rooftops and shout out the praises of Roboform - but I just can’t. Not yet. I’ve been on this cloud computing kick lately and am a firm believer that the computing work we do - whether for business or pleasure - no longer should be tied to one particular operating system. VPN or not, I can access my corporate email from any machine with a browser and a Web connection. Same goes for my Yahoo mail, my Flickr account, my Facebook page and so on.
So what’s the holdup?
I just heard back from Bill Carey, VP of Marketing at SiberSystems, who was a good sport about my whining and even sympathized with my beef. The short answer: it’s coming. Maybe as early as next year. He tells me that the company has been wanting to launch a Mac version for a long time (at least five years, right?) but “we’ve never been able to get out of the starting block. We’ve always had problems finding Mac developers.” (Insert long, awkward, silent pause here.)
The good news is that the company has “recently brought in additional resources” to work on Mac versions of its products. I’ve waited this long. I guess I can wait a little longer. But if I wait too long, I’ll just be using biometrics - fingerprints, eye-scan, whatever - and won’t even need a password.
July 31st, 2008
Facebook teams with Intel to set stage for Web 2.0 growth
The headline on a Facebook-Intel announcement today is FB’s selection of Intel-based processors to beef up its infrastructure as the company expands. That’s good news for Intel. Facebook has become one of the most popular Web 2.0 sites/platforms on the Internet and people are starting to use it as a replacement for e-mail, photo- and video-sharing and more. A redesign of the site is being launched now and its seems that everyday there’s some sort of new application built on Facebook’s open-source platform. (Someone actually “bought” me as a pet the other day. Seriously.)
But this announcement is about more than just boasting a big score for Intel. This is testing ground for the future of open-source Web 2.0 development. The companies lay it out for us in their release:
Both companies envision that the collaboration may benefit not only Facebook, but ideally the Web 2.0 industry at-large. Intel plans to work with Facebook to evaluate ways to improve its software performance on Intel-based servers. Intel has a wealth of software engineering expertise as well as such tools as Intel VTune™ and Intel Thread Checker to help companies improve application performance on multi-core Intel processors. Since Facebook’s applications are mostly built on open source technologies, the companies believe that some of the insights from this collaboration may be contributed back to the open source community, benefiting other companies that use similar underlying technologies.
That’s a good spin. No one wins when popular, trend-setting, cutting-edge sites go down. (Just ask Twitter about it’s efficiency problems.) It’s good to see that Facebook is recognizing that early. As Jonathan Heiliger, vice president of Technical Operations at Facebook, said, “When you are responsible for providing a fast, high-quality experience to more than 90 million people worldwide, every ounce of efficiency matters.”
July 31st, 2008
Oracle to acquire partner GKS
Oracle said today that it will acquire longtime partner Global Knowledge Software LLC, a provider of self-service training automation software. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter.
GKS’s Personal Navigator product is resold as a component of Oracle’s User Productivity Kit, in use by more than 2,000 Oracle customers. Its products are complementary to Oracle Tutor, the company’s own training software. In a release, the company said it intends to form a global sales unit to expand its focus on non-Oracle applications that utilize GKS products.
July 31st, 2008
Icahn: I’m not showing up to Yahoo’s shareholder meeting
Talk about anticlimactic: Billionaire investor and proxy war ninja Carl Icahn isn’t going to bother showing up to Yahoo’s shareholder meeting on Friday.
In a post, Icahn–newly muzzled courtesy of a deal he cut with Yahoo–writes:
I will not be attending. The proxy fight is over and it will not do shareholders or Yahoo! any good to have the annual meeting turn into a media event for no purpose. Last week, I realized it was impossible to gain enough support from the large institutions to win a majority of the Yahoo! directorships. In today’s corporate governance system where large mutual funds control so much of the stock, it is extremely difficult to oust an entire board, no matter how strongly a large number of shareholders feel about the board’s previous actions. Realizing I could not gain control, I saw no point in spending the final two weeks in a debilitating fight, where little would be accomplished except to build animosity between both camps and the end result would be no better than the compromise that was reached.
Icahn added that he has met with chairman Roy Bostock and CEO Jerry Yang and said “I believe both gentlemen genuinely wish that we will be able to work together to enhance value. While we still disagree on many points, I have great hope “this will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
A beautiful friendship? That’s overdoing it a bit isn’t it Carl?
I’m sure there will be a few shareholders that will be griping, but without Icahn being the ring leader the shareholder meeting is a bit of a buzzkill. Hell, even T. Boone Pickens has sold his shares. Booorrrrinnng.
July 31st, 2008
Forrester to acquire JupiterResearch for $23 million
Forrester Research said today that it will acquire the smaller but well-recognized firm Jupiter Research for $23 million in cash, plus assumed liabilities. Jupiter, which has 82 employees and had revenues last year of about $14 million, will be wrapped into Forrester’s Marketing & Strategy Client Group. Last year, Forrester had revenues of $212 million. It has more than 1,000 employees. Jupiter brings to the table its syndicated research library, proprietary data and its analysis expertise.
Forrester also reported its second quarter earnings this morning. Revenues were $63.5 million, compared with $55.2 million for the same quarter a year ago. It reported net income of $8.6 million, or 37 cents per share, compared to $4.5 million, or 19 cents per share, last year. Shares of Forrester were up more than 3 percent in morning trading.
July 31st, 2008
Tech ‘tips’ for Beijing visitors
It looks like foreign tourists are avoiding Beijing in droves. China originally expected 1.5 million visitors. Now that’s down to 450,000.
Still, that’s nearly 450,000 journalists coming to town. Everyone’s a reporter now, thanks to tiny electronics and the Web. Even tourists should regard themselves as such. And don’t think Beijing isn’t watching those who watch it.
In most parts of the world, it’s 24 years past 1984. The ubiquity of video screens, cameras and communications has gone a long way toward upending Big Brother.
Citizens have more power over police, for instance, thanks to the technology they carry in their hands every day.
A good example in the last week was the capturing of this video concerning a policeman’s attack on a bicyclist in New York City – which the policeman had reported was an attack on himself and a threat to vehicles that no one could find.
Simple camerawork can also document man’s inhumanity to man, as in this video on a hit-and-run accident in Hartford, CT.
But if you’re Liu Shaokun and you live in China, you are beholden to a government which feels most comfortable sticking with a 1984-like script. If you’re found posting images of schools that collapsed in an earthquake on the Internet, Big Brother gives you a year of “re-education†– in a labor camp.
And if you are professional journalists on the job at the Olympics, you get blocked from any sites that might give you a whiff of human rights abuses or other information that might affect the “stability” of the country.
So, dear citizens of the world, as you head into Beijing over the next couple weeks, you may be able to help advance the cause of human freedom in China by recording what you see, on the street, when you least expect it.
But, as citizen journalists, beware. The definition of “media freedom†in China is a moving target. And you could be one.
That means:
• Be alert, but be cautious.
• Don’t be too obvious, in what you try to record outside the stadium. You may have eyes or cameras trained on you, too.
• Pick your spot.If you are so bold as to try and take down an account of an event from a Chinese citizen using a digital recorder, do so out of sight, if you must.
• Make copies. Store them in multiple locations.
• Don’t distribute a single one, until after you’re safely home – or outside the borders of China, in a free country.
If you think you’re going to file an “iReport†for CNN, make sure the “i†is not about you.
Any other tips, techies?
July 31st, 2008
Predictive markets: Can they work for the enterprise?
Best Buy, Corning, Google and a bunch of other companies are dabbling in prediction markets for corporate decision making and there may even be a little return on investment given that traditional forecasting methods aren’t better.
Prediction markets are speculation hubs where traders predict future events. In the enterprise, prediction markets are a handy way to aggregate community knowledge, according to a report released by Forrester Research. Prediction markets have also been hitting the roundtable circuit as Google and Best Buy shed light on the approach at a recent event chronicled by Dave Greenfield.
Applied to the enterprise, these markets could get interesting. The use of prediction markets is another milepost in the enterprise 2.0 movement as social technology gathers momentum. According to Forrester analyst G. Oliver Young Qualcomm is using prediction markets to come up with product ideas and new features. Corning is using them to forecast retail sales of LCD TVs. Meanwhile, enterprise prediction market vendors–Consensus Point, Inkling, Gexid, NewsFutures and Spigit–abound.
Also see: Eight pitfalls of predictive markets
SEC unanimously approves use of corporate blogs to meet Reg FD requirements
Here’s a look at the typical enterprise prediction market process via Forrester:
The most common uses for prediction markets revolve around sales projections, features, project management, competitive analysis and market conditions. Obviously the third one applies the most to information technology management. If used correctly I’d argue that prediction markets could prevent IT projects from becoming full-blown failures. Why? Prediction markets cut through the pressure to report only good news. And I also have a hunch that many IT projects have rank and file workers that can tell you what’s really going on. The problem is these people aren’t consulted and certainly aren’t encouraged to say “hey this project makes no sense.”
Too often IT gets projects thrown at them from above without much of a reality check. Could prediction markets change that equation? Perhaps. Even if the answer turns out to be a definitive “no” prediction markets are worth a shot.
Young writes:
Throughout its life cycle, the market reports the best collective estimates of a future event. Decision-makers then programmatically apply these estimates to inform and synchronize key decisions. Consequently, organizations should design prediction markets to effuse management information at specific decision-making junctures, usually well in advance of the event the market is tracking. As the market continues to trade, new information will undoubtedly come to light, giving executives guidance for mid-course correction.
Assuming execs play along how many IT projects (not to mention the dollars that go with them) could have been saved?
The other thing worth noting about prediction markets is that they are as good–and a lot cheaper–than traditional forecasting methods. Young writes:
There are academics, economic journals, and even industry trade groups devoted to the topic. In nearly all tests, prediction markets have shown tremendous efficiency for aggregating knowledge
and, as a result, are remarkably accurate…All enterprises want to improve forecasting; however, even if the accuracy of prediction markets were no better than traditional processes, they would still represent an upgrade on several major fronts.
Young notes that prediction markets are cheaper, surface information better and offer a diversity of opinions. Young writes that latter point may be critical to getting employee buy-in on a project:
The common criticism of a traditional enterprise decision-making process is that decision-makers are often hindered by limited participation, incomplete information, and political compromises that better reflect individual agendas and goals than what is best for the company. These failings can result in employee frustration and disillusionment with management decisions.
As Greenfield notes there are pitfalls to these predictive markets. Management may not be committed to them, questions may not crafted well and employees may not want to participate. And prediction markets may not apply to all projects and management decisions. But with low investment and some possible upside prediction markets are worth a shot.
July 31st, 2008
Video: Don’t look for satellite TV merger anytime soon.
It’s final. Satellite radio has been given the thumbs up to merge. That doesn’t mean that a satellite TV merger is around the corner, though. The dynamics of TV and radio are different - even though some of the tech’s competitive forces are standing on the sidelines of the satellite TV world.
July 31st, 2008
Surprise! Motorola posts profit; Isn’t unraveling as handset sales crater
Motorola posted a small profit excluding charges–a small victory, but enough to top Wall Street estimates calling for a loss of 3 cents a share. The company’s enterprise and networking business carried the quarter.
If you’re Motorola you’ll take what you can get. The company reported second quarter earnings of $4 million, or nil a share (statement). However, that earnings tally includes charges of 2 cents a share. Back that charge out and you get Motorola beating estimates by 5 cents a share. Revenue was $8.1 billion in the second quarter.
Meanwhile, Motorola shipped 28.1 million handsets to stay the No. 3 spot in market share. Motorola also said it will report earnings of nil a share to 2 cents a share in the third quarter and earnings excluding charges of 6 cents a share to 8 cents a share.
Motorola, which is planning to split itself up, was fueled by its home and networks division and enterprise systems in the quarter. The home and networks mobility unit had sales of $2.7 billion, up 7 percent from a year ago with operating earnings of $245 million. The division features cable modems and set-top boxes.
The enterprise unit had revenue of $2 billion, up 6 percent from a year ago, with operating earnings of $377 million. The enterprise unite includes mobile networking systems for companies and public safety departments.
The good news: Those two aforementioned units will be together when Motorola splits itself up. The handset division, which will become its own company, still had a tough slog. Sales in the second quarter were $3.3 billion, down 22 percent from a year ago, with an operating loss of $346 million.
These results will inevitably lead to questions about whether Motorola has turned the corner. The short answer: The company hasn’t turned anything around yet, but the second quarter is a small win for Motorola. And once the company ditches the handset unit it’ll look much stronger.
July 31st, 2008
Symantec is commanding more of your IT budget
Symantec’s strategy of selling security and storage together is apparently paying off as companies consolidate the number of vendors they use.
The security and storage management software company reported strong fiscal first quarter results (statement) as net income more than doubled from a year ago. Symantec reported first quarter earnings of $187 million, or 22 cents a share, compared to $95 million, or 10 cents share a year ago. Excluding charges, Symantec reported earnings of $342 million, or 40 cents a share, well ahead of Wall Street projections of 35 cents a share. Revenue was $1.65 billion, up 16 percent from a year ago.
Symantec also upped its outlook for the second quarter and projected revenue between $1.52 billion and $1.56 billion and earnings between 15 cents a share and 17 cents a share. Excluding charges Symantec sees earnings between 34 cents a share and 36 cents a share.
Under the surface it appears that Symantec is winning more wallet share. Symantec had 336 agreements worldwide versus 249 in the same period a year ago with a contract value of more than $300,000 each. Of the 336 agreements, 85 had a value of more than $1 million compared to 48 a year ago. And 80 percent of those transactions included multiple products.
Meanwhile, Symantec is weathering economic uncertainty well. On the company’s conference call, CEO John Thompson said:
The June quarter results highlight the critical nature of our product portfolio to customers around the world. In addition we saw CIOs of large enterprises purchase more products from Symantec as they strive to reduce the number of vendors they much manage. This is a trend we expect to continue particularly during these more challenging economic times…
I think its fair to say that there are a number of customers out there that are cautious in their view of what their spending plans are for the second half of this calendar year and so we can’t be unmindful of that but by the same token we happen to have key product portfolio items in security and storage management which are almost un-deferrable expenditures for them as their data volumes continue to grow. So as data volumes grow so will our business independent of perhaps the broader macroeconomic environment. While we’re not immune we think we do have some degree of insulation from that problem.
Thompson added that the pipeline for September also looks strong. Could it be that Symantec’s security and storage strategy is working? Symantec had bought Veritas to enter the storage software market but the results of the combination have been spotty over the quarters. Now Symantec is in storage, security and virtualization via the purchase of Altiris.
“I also think you’re starting to see a little bit more of products that are not just either storage or security but the combination of the two,” said Enrique Salem.
To Symantec all of these ventures flow together to manage and secure data:
Let me put our strategic intent around virtualization in context for you today. At the endpoint our strategy is based on freeing valuable information from the underlying systems functions. Today important enterprise information is scattered across a broad range of devices from PDAs to storage arrays. This valuable information is deeply entangled with other data such as operating systems and application code, which is far less valuable to any enterprise.
We believe that virtualization when properly applied can decouple information that matters from the rest of IT environment so that it can be independently secured and managed. To help our customers achieve this benefit Symantec is infusing virtualization capabilities across our portfolio from server management and high availability to security.
If CIOs are really consolidating vendors and gravitating to the big vendors Symantec could be in a good position to leverage its storage and security beachhead.
Other odds and ends worth noting:
July 31st, 2008
News to know: 64-bit Windows; JavaFX; Net neutrality; Apple
Notable headlines:
Ed Bott: Suddenly, 64-bit Windows is mainstream
![[image]](http://mowser.com/img?url=http%3A%2F%2Fi.zdnet.com%2Fgallery%2F213295-480-408.png)
Larry Dignan: JavaFX SDK preview launches: Can Sun play the RIA game?
Mary Jo Foley: Microsoft launches new search home page; refreshes Live Mesh preview
Gallery: Configuring Virtual PC 2007 to run Windows 3.11 (right)
Paul Murphy: Considering a Windows Innovation Demo
Tom Steinert-Threlkeld: Network neutrality & Google’s openness before the FCC
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes: Psystar retains Apple-beating law firm
NYT: China to Limit Web Access During Games
Jason O’Grady: VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2
Nate McFeters: McAfee SiteAdvisor blocks SANS
Deb perelman: Signs you might not be IT management material
July 30th, 2008
JavaFX SDK preview launches: Can Sun play the RIA game?
Sun Microsystems on Thursday will launch the JavaFX preview release as it aims to round up its bevy of Java developers to be a player in rich Internet applications.
The preview release gives designers, web scripters and developers a peek at Sun’s tools to make RIAs across multiple screens–mobile to PC and other devices. “We have Java in just about any device,” said Jacob Lehrbaum, senior product line manager for JavaFX, who added that JavaFX is designed to “deliver content across all the screens of your life.”
In May, Sun outlined its plans to launch JavaFX. According to executives, Sun’s timeline looks like this:
The JavaFX preview includes the software developer kit that includes runtime and compiler tools, 2D graphics and media libraries as well as APIs and sample code; NetBeans 6.1 IDE with JavaFX plug-in; Project Nile to export assets to Adobe’s platform and Java runtime environment 6.
The big question here is whether Sun can elbow its way into the RIA game where Adobe’s platform is entrenched and Microsoft has Silverlight. Sun believes it can make an impact because Java is installed on millions of PCs and billions of mobile phones and devices.
Ed Burnette doesn’t project JavaFx to be an Adobe killer:
Will JavaFX be enough to unseat Flash/Flex? At this point, I just don’t see it. Flex 3 is growing like gangbusters, and Adobe controls the whole tool chain. They have the workflow covered, and they have years of experience bridging the gap from designers to developers. More importantly, Adobe has earned the trust of those same designers and developers. It’s a shame, really, but after 10+ years of leaving Java applets to wither on the vine, it’s going to take many more years for Sun to prove that it understands rich internet applications and that it can deliver a compelling vision of the future. Tellingly, even the JavaFX home page doesn’t actually use JavaFX; it uses Ajax and Quicktime movies.
While Sun and Adobe plan on being RIA kingpins both are coming at it from different angles. Sun will start its JavaFX adoption curve with developers and then hope scripters and ultimately designers buy into the platform. Adobe has started with designers as evangelists and then moved in the opposite direction. If the RIAs bounce Sun’s way the company will meet Adobe somewhere in the middle.
Param Singh, senior director of Java marketing at Sun, says the company is focusing on the RIA workflow to pitch JavaFX. Singh noted that there are 6 million Java developers and JavaFX “extends those developers to create RIAs. We’re coming from a different core strength.”
In reality, Sun probably has a long way to go to be synonymous with RIAs, but Singh says the company is in the game for the long haul. Sun will also follow customers and port JavaFX to any platform including Android and the iPhone.
July 30th, 2008
A bad day for Garmin; Wall Street hammers stock
It’s been one tough day for Garmin. The stock was hammered, down almost 22 percent to close at $35. 19, a drop of almost $10 in regular trading. Its quarterly earnings missed Wall Street’s expectations, the company announced a delay of its smartphone and the outlook for the rest of the year will be, well, not as good as executives originally had hoped.
For the year, Garmin lowered expectations to revenue of $3.9 billion, down from $4.5 billion, and earnings per share of $4.13 instead of $4.40 per share. Analysts has been expecting earnings to exceed $4.03 per share on revenue of $4.13 billion, according to Reuters.
For the second quarter, Garmin reported revenue of $911.7 million, up from $742.5 million for the same period a year ago. Earnings were $256.1 million, or $1.19 per share, up from $214.3 million, or 98 cents per share, for the same quarter last year. Excluding adjustments, the company earned 92 cents a share, missing analysts’ estimates of $1.01 a share, according to Reuters.
For the quarter, its biggest gains were in the North American region. And by segment, the biggest growth was in its Outdoor/Fitness segment. For the year, Europe and Asia were the gainers.
  Blame the economy, consumer spending or the price of fuel, if you’d like. But even government stimulus checks won’t send consumers into Best Buy for a portable GPS unit these days. Recognizing that, Garmin had plans to launch a smart phone of its own - called the nuvifone - but now has delayed it until next year. What’s the hold up? Dealing with the wireless carriers, of course.
The field is gaining some competition in the form of GPS-enabled mobile phones. Even those that aren’t GPS-enabled, those that are using mobile data plans and basic triangulation to estimate location seems to be a good-enough solution for now. Third-party mobile apps are offering mapping, directions, local business listings and even reviews. For every delay (this is the third), Garmin loses valuable time to tap into an increasingly crowded market.
July 30th, 2008
Akamai: Broadband consumption clouds outlook
Akamai said Wednesday that broadband speeds may have as big of an impact on its financial results as the slowing economy.
Akamai, which makes software that caches content to speed up Internet traffic, reported net income of $34.3 million, or 19 cents a share. Excluding items the company reported earnings of $76.5 million, or 41 cents a share, to match Wall Street estimates. Revenue for the quarter was $194 million, up 27 percent a year ago.
But the big news was Akamai’s outlook (statement), which indicated that the company would land on the low end of its earnings and revenue target. The company said it expects 2008 revenue to be at the low end of its $785 million to $800 million range. Earnings will also fall at the low end or below the previous 2008 outlook calling for earnings of $1.63 a share to $1.69 a share. The third quarter will also be seasonally slow with revenue between $193 million or $198 million with earnings between 39 cents a share and 40 cents a share.
CEO Paul Sagan cited a “challenging environment” in the company’s statement, but there are also worries about the amount of content that U.S. users can realistically consume. Sagan noted that Internet traffic wasn’t slowing, but growth rates are being affected by broadband speeds. Sagan’s message: Unless broadband speeds perk up the ability of consumers to watch content (the type that Akamai delivers) will see slower growth. Sagan would like to see the day where you can get high-def video over IP.
Sagan said:
“We shouldn’t mix up economic factors and traffic. The consumption issue is how much can people consume. (Consumpution) can’t grow if broadband doesn’t increase.”
Needless to say those comments didn’t go over to well as Akamai shares fell about 17 percent afterhours. Indeed, Akamai’s comments about U.S. broadband speeds are more worrisome than the economy. It’s safe to say that the economy will come back faster than broadband speeds jump in the U.S.
Sagan added that Web content consumption isn’t falling off of a cliff, but there are slower broadband speeds in the U.S. that will hamper growth rates. Internationally, the broadband speed issue isn’t as much of a factor.
That thread was notable since Sagan still has some economic issues to confront. Akamai’s tools speed up Web advertising and some verticals–automotive and media–are slowing spending.
“The economic issue is in verticals we sell into where there is a strong slowdown. There’s not one single event there, but we’re conservative about the second half,” said Sagan.
July 30th, 2008
Video: Cuil is not cool
New search engine Cuil - pronounced “cool” - could have been a contender against Google but fell short on opening day. Was the launch premature?
Sam Diaz is a senior editor at ZDNet. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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