Yahoo Shifts Gears on Mobile App

Smartphone browsers are good enough to deliver Yahoo Mobile, so the search provider has killed off an on-device software version of the product that it was beta testing.

Yahoo Mobile was introduced earlier this year and came in three versions: an application for the iPhone, a browser version and an application that ran across hundreds of smartphones, said Adam Taggart, head of product marketing for Yahoo's mobile group.

After running a beta test of the smartphone application, Yahoo has decided to discontinue the product.

"Instead of launching an all-in-one app for general smart phones, what we'll do is continue focusing on the browser version and the iPhone app," he said. "We found that most smartphones have great browsers these days, and so we're finding that the experience we're able to provide in the browser is similar to the experience in an app."

Yahoo Mobile is a single page that connects users to services from Yahoo and others, such as e-mail, IM, Facebook and search.

Rather than continue to develop and support the smartphone application, Yahoo will focus on building vertical applications for specific platforms, including BlackBerry and "most likely" Android, he said. "When you have finite resources, you want to say, 'Where can I give the biggest bang for the buck?'" he said.

As an example, a smartphone user might connect to Yahoo Mobile through the browser, but download a specific application for following fantasy sports that offers more than a browser application would, he said.

Reports this week suggested that Yahoo was discontinuing its individual mobile applications for the BlackBerry, which include Yahoo Mail, IM, search and Flickr. In fact, Yahoo plans to continue to support its BlackBerry applications, Taggart said.

IBM Buys Exeros Data-discovery Software

IBM has bought the data discovery software assets of Exeros, and will use them to enhance the services offered by its business analytics consulting division, it said Tuesday.

Exeros makes software that can automate the search for relationships between different databases, something the company says is a prerequisite for successful data quality or data integration projects.

IBM plans to integrate the Exeros tools with other elements of its Information Management Software range, it said. That range includes software from Cognos, which IBM acquired for US$5 billion in November 2007.

The Exeros software can cut the cost of data warehousing and master data management, IBM said. Among the software's users will be consultants at IBM's Business Analytics and Optimization Services division, created last month following a reorganization of its Global Business Services consulting activities.

IBM did not disclose the terms of the acquisition.

Exeros, founded in 2002, is a privately held company funded by two venture capital firms, Globespan Capital Partners and Bay Partners, and by investment management company AllianceBernstein. Its CEO and cofounder, Piyush Gupta, is a former employee of IBM, where he helped develop an enterprise information integration tool called DataJoiner.

Sun deal poses challenges for Oracle

Oracle Corp., which announced plans last month to acquire Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion, should benefit from the merger but will face significant marketing challenges in communicating the combined brand, industry analysts say.
In announcing the deal April 20, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison emphasized the strength of the end-to-end solution that Oracle will now be able to offer its customers as a result of the acquisition.
“Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system—applications to disk—where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves,” he said. “Our customers benefit as their systems integration costs go down while system performance, reliability and security go up.”
Under the terms of the deal, software company Oracle is acquiring the entire Sun portfolio, which includes hardware, software and services.
Most notably in the software category, Oracle will pick up Sun's Java open source software development platform, its Solaris operating system and MySQL, its open source database software. It will also own Sun's hardware business, which comprises servers, storage devices, desktop workstations and peripherals.
“The first big thing is the cachet, or lack of cachet, that Oracle has had in open source,” said Ray Wong, VP-principal analyst at Forrester Research. “They now have the crown jewels of open source with Java and MySQL.”
Another big advantage of the merger, Wong said, is the end-to-end solution Oracle will be able to deliver. “It used to be just application and database software,” he said. “Now they are trying to make the case that they can deliver hardware, software, middleware and database software all in one-stop shopping, which will help their customers reduce costs.”
Wong added: “The challenge is to figure out the perception of Oracle being in the hardware business. What does it mean, and can they successfully convince people to buy the whole stack from them?”
He noted that Oracle has already been successful in managing and marketing other acquisitions. For example, in 2005 it acquired CRM software company Siebel Systems, and last year it bought enterprise software company BEA Systems.
Jean Bozman, VP-research for IDC's enterprise platforms group, said one of the greatest assets Oracle will get is Sun's installed base of customers and the service contracts and upsell opportunities that go along with that.
“They have at least 1.6 million servers [installed worldwide] and also storage and service contracts,” she said, noting that about 40% of Sun's revenue now comes from services. “From a holistic view, they have a large installed base, the opportunity for new offerings and things like upselling.”
For example, Bozman said that although MySQL is a database product, it does not necessarily compete with Oracle database products. “Oracle has always been about cross platforms and running on as many platforms as possible,” she said. “It may be that the MySQL offering, which is widely used, could bring additional business for other Oracle products.”
Bozman said one of the biggest challenges for Oracle will be integrating Sun into its operations and ensuring that it runs a profitable business.
Bozman also noted that because of the downturn, spending on big IT projects is being cut or deferred but, as conditions improve, IT investment should pick up. That will benefit Oracle in the long run.
Other industry experts, however, were not as bullish on the deal.
Jim Gregory, CEO of brand strategy firm CoreBrand, noted that Sun had a brand score of only 16 on a scale from 1 to 100 in CoreBrand's 2008 Brand Power report, while Oracle had a brand score of 30. “In terms of what they are buying, it is not a heavyweight brand,” Gregory said.
“It seems like it made a lot more sense for IBM [Corp.] to make the acquisition. That seemed like a much better fit,” he said, noting that IBM had a brand score of 76.
In April, IBM made a bid to buy Sun for an estimated $7 billion but was outbid by Oracle, according to people familiar with the talks.
Gregory said one of the immediate challenges for Oracle is to communicate its strategy for the acquisition and what it means to its customers.
“What they will need to do is tell a story very quickly,” he said. “Otherwise, Oracle's image might be hurt. They have to communicate clearly why they made this acquisition, why it fits as a company and what they intend to do with it. They have a short window of opportunity.”

Broadband Britain: who'll pay?

For American readers this is probably a bit of an ordinary day - you go about your business and there's every chance that when you wake up tomorrow things will be much the same as they were when you woke up today. In the UK that's not the case. In the UK the chancellor of the exchequer (the head of our Treasury department, or its equivalent) has been delivering his annual budget speech.
Not all of the changes are IT-specific of course, but one caught my eye. He's promised that by 2012 there will be ubiquitous fast broadband in the UK.
OK, we can take it as read that what counted for fast broadband ten years ago pretty much already is in the UK, and what counts as fast by 2012 won't count as any great shakes a decade later. This sort of pickiness aside, I do wonder who's going to pay for all this.
It's worth noting that many of our phone lines over here are years old. Granted they're not quite Victorian but neither are they as shiny or adaptable as many of their counterparts in America. And yet apparently we're going to upgrade the lot over the next three years.
This is of course going to cost money. Although our higher taxes are going up, I can't see how they're going to end up paying for even half of this. Contrary to what several wise voices in the press will tell you, nobody's certain exactly how long this recession is going to last. We've been overinflating the world economy for quite some time and are now paying the price. America and the UK are among those countries which have put a lot of resource into addressing the shortfall, propping banks and industries up. It's not been pretty and it'll need paying back.
And here we are talking about spending more on an infrastructure which, although not the whizziest or shiniest in the world, actually does the job for which it was designed pretty well.
I can't see how this is going to be affordable. I'll look forward to being proven wrong. I hope.

Original Page

IE8 launch bumps browser's market share by 30%

Analyst takes Microsoft to task for low-key release

By Gregg Keizer
Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) received a small bump in market share yesterday as the company launched the final version midday, according to Web measurement company Net Applications Inc.

IE8's market share averaged 1.63% for the day Thursday from noon Eastern time onward -- when Microsoft posted the new browser for download -- a 21% increase over March's daily average of 1.35% through Wednesday. Net Applications has posted hourly market share numbers for IE8 on its Web site.

The browser's share climbed again today, to an hourly average of 1.75% through 11:00 a.m. Eastern time, bringing IE8's total increase to 30% over the month's daily average.

Even with that kind of increase, Vince Vizzaccaro, Net Applications' executive vice president of marketing, was critical of Microsoft's low-key launch. "I was a little surprised that there wasn't any advanced warning," said Vizzaccaro, "and no marketing push from Microsoft about IE8. At the minimum, there should have been something for IE users that popped up and said 'there's an upgraded browser available ... download it.'"

IE8's market share climbed above the 1% mark for the first time last month, when it accounted for 1.2% of all browsers used. That boost had been fueled by the last January launch of the browser's release candidate.

By comparison, Google Inc.'s Chrome, which debuted last September, had a 1.15% market share during February, while Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox -- IE's biggest rival -- owned 21.77% of the business.

"Chrome got off to a fast start," said Vizzaccaro, "but it really hasn't moved much since then. And they had a low-key approach when they launched it, too. On the other hand, Mozilla made lots of noise about Firefox 3.0, with a special download day, and they got millions to download it.

"Microsoft is doing the same thing that they've done with browsers in the past, but that didn't work for Chrome," Vizzaccaro said. "If I were Microsoft, I would do something more on the Mozilla model. I'd be a lot more optimistic [about IE8's chances] if there was a large public announcement that it was available."

Microsoft released the final edition of IE8 for Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008 Thursday, upgrading the browser for first time in two and a half years.

Overall, Internet Explorer controls 67.5% of the browser market, according to Net Applications' numbers, which are collected from the systems that surf to some 40,000 sites that the company tracks for clients. Almost three out of every four IE users run 2006's IE7, while nearly all of the remainder run the even older IE6.

Currently, IE8 is available only as a manual download from Microsoft's main download center and the IE8 page. The company will begin automatically installing the new browser on machines now running IE6 or IE7 at some unspecified future date, at which point its market share will undoubtedly climb.

Facebook puts privacy controls in hands of its users

Facebook is giving its users greater control so they can specify just how private they want their profiles, updates, photos and videos to be. Want to keep your latest endeavor between you and your network of Facebook friends? Done. Want to open your pages up to public viewing? Well, now you can do that, too.

"One of the top priorities at Facebook is offering privacy controls that let you choose exactly what you share with whom," said Mark Slee, an engineer at Facebook, in a blog post Monday afternoon. "Starting today, you can choose to make your profile and any of your content available to everyone on Facebook. None of your existing privacy settings have changed. This is an additional setting for those of you who wish to share with a broader audience."

Yesterday's change comes on the heels of several recent changes to the Facebook social network.

For example, Facebook fired a shot across Twitter's bow earlier this month with the announcement that its public profiles have been updated to allow users to share personal information with an unlimited number of friends. And the new Facebook setup also will enable businesses, organizations or even celebrities to blast out information to customers, members or fans.

The site recently showed off a controversial redesign that has upset many users. "Please bring back the old Facebook," wrote one user responding to Slee's blog. Yesterday's announcement drew more negative than positive comments from users responding to the blog post.

With this latest change, users now can go to their privacy page and change the setting to "Everyone" if they want to open their content up to the public.

"I think this is a good thing," said Dan Olds, principal analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group Inc. "It gives people on Facebook much more granular control over what they show or don't show the public. Giving customers more control over how they use your product is almost universally a good thing. It helps people get more use out of it. There are some people who will make many more connections because of these new features."

This doesn't mean it will be easier for people to Google your content, but it does mean that it will be easier for other Facebook users to find you and the photos of your new house or your dog's birthday party.

By opening up your privacy settings, Slee explained, people who see one of your posts or who find you through a search on Facebook will now be able to see any part of the profile opened by the user for public viewing. "While some special rules remain in place about who can see your profile if you are a minor, people generally won't need to be friends with you or share a common network in order to view your content if you choose the new "Everyone" setting," he wrote.

Users of Sony e-readers gain free access to classics via Google

Deal boosts digital titles at Sony eBook Store to 600k

Sony Electronics Inc. said users of its two e-book readers can now access more than 500,000 free public domain classic books from Google Inc. through the Sony eBook Store.

The announcement yesterday boosts the available titles at Sony's eBook Store to more than 600,000 titles. Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle library, in comparison, has more than 250,000 titles.

The books from Google can be transferred to Sony's PRS-505 and PRS-700 readers by clicking on a button on the front page at Sony's eBook Store. Those new to the store need to set up an account and then download Sony's free eBook Library software.

Terms of the deal with Google were not announced. Adam Smith, Google's product management director, said in a statement that the Google Book Search was founded "on the premise that anyone, anywhere, anytime should have the tools to the explore the great works of history and culture. ... We believe in an open platform for accessing and reading books, and we're excited to partner with Sony to bring these public domain books to more people."

Steve Haber, president of the digital reading division at Sony Electronics, said Sony is committed to offering an open e-book platform that makes it "easy to find as much content as possible -- from our store or others -- whether that content is purchased, borrowed or free."

Free books from Google include titles by Mark Twain and Jane Austen, with many books in French, German, Italian, Spanish and other languages.

The PRS-505 from Sony sells for about $300 and, as of yesterday, the PRS-700 was available for about $350.

Chrome only browser left standing after day one of Pwn2Own

Browser vendors often make strong claims about their responsiveness to vulnerability reports and their ability to preemptively prevent exploits. Security is becoming one of the most significant fronts in the new round of browser wars, but it's also arguably one of the hardest aspects of software to measure or quantify.

A recent contest at CanSecWest, an event that brings together some of the most skilled experts in the security community, has demonstrated that the three most popular browser are susceptible to security bugs despite the vigilance and engineering prowess of their creators. Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer were all exploited during the Pwn2Own competition that took place at the conference. Google's Chrome browser, however, was the only one left standing—a victory that security researchers attribute to its innovative sandbox feature.

The contest awards security researchers with hardware and cash prizes for finding efficient ways to trick browsers into executing arbitrary code. During the first day of the competition, the contestants are required to do this in default browser installations without plugins such as Flash or Java, which are commonly used as vectors for attacks. Researchers typically prepare for the event far in advance by finding zero-day exploits ahead of time.

Early this month, prior champion Charlie Miller told reporters that he would be attempting to exploit a Safari vulnerability on Mac OS X. Safari, he said, would be the first to succumb to the contestants. As he promised, Safari went down first: he was able to execute his prepared hack in only a matter of seconds. Another security expert known only as Nils took longer, but was able to successfully exploit all three of the most popular browsers.

These contests contribute to the growing culture of commercialism that surrounds the art of exploitation. In an interview with ZDNet, Miller said that the vulnerability he used in the contest was one that he had originally found while preparing for the contest last year. Instead of disclosing it at that time, he decided to save it for the contest this year, because the contest only pays for one bug per year. This is part of his new philosophy, he says, which is that bugs shouldn't be disclosed to vendors for free.

"I never give up free bugs. I have a new campaign. It's called NO MORE FREE BUGS. Vulnerabilities have a market value so it makes no sense to work hard to find a bug, write an exploit and then give it away," Miller told ZDNet. "Apple pays people to do the same job so we know there's value to this work."

Miller also told reporters that he targeted Safari on Mac OS X because he believes that it is the easiest to exploit. Windows, on the other hand, he claims is tougher because of its address randomization feature and other security measures. As for Chrome, he says that he has identified a security bug in Google's browser but has been unable to exploit it because the browser's sandboxing feature and the operating system's security measures together pose a formidable challenge.

The game isn't over yet. During the second day of the event, the focus will turn towards Chrome. Nils, who demonstrated impressive skill during the first day by conquering the three most popular browsers, might have a few more tricks up his sleeve. According to the official rules, the participants will be permitted to use plugins during the second day.

Internet Explorer 8 released

The final build of Internet Explorer 8 has been released in 25 languages. You can also grab the download directly from these links: Windows XP 32-bit (16.1 MB), Windows XP 64-bit (32.3 MB), Windows Server 2003 32-bit (16.0 MB), Windows Server 2003 64-bit (32.3 MB), Windows Vista 32-bit (13.2 MB), Windows Vista 64-bit (24.3 MB), Windows Server 2008 32-bit (13.2 MB), and Windows Server 2008 64-bit (24.3 MB). The final build number is 8.0.6001.18702.

The public Windows 7 beta is not being updated, and although Microsoft released an update for IE8 for Windows 7 in February, the next update is not likely to arrive until the Windows 7 Release Candidate next month. For everyone else, in the coming weeks Microsoft will put IE8 out as an optional download on Windows Update and then later roll it out to users via Automatic Updates. A quick note to all the IT administrators out there reading this post: the IE8 blocker toolkit is already available, so make sure you get acquainted with it if you're planning on avoiding IE8 when it's released via Microsoft's update channels.