FRAMINGHAM - A little-known group of security researchers will kick off a month of bug disclosures starting tomorrow that target unpatched vulnerabilities in software from Abode, Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple and others.

But the researcher who launched the month-long bug festival practice four years ago isn’t optimistic that reviving the practice would have an impact.

The “Month Of Abysssec Undisclosed Bugs” (MOAUB) will feature flaws in Microsoft’s Excel and Internet Explorer, the Linux-based cPanel Web hosting control panel, and other software, said Abysssec Security Research in a post to the firm’s blog earlier this month.

“They’re threatening — at least, the companies affected will see it as a threat — to release vulnerabilities on all kinds of software, from desktop applications to browsers,” said Jamz Yaneza, threat research manager at Trend Micro, today.

Microsoft , which figured prominently in the MOAUB announcement, said it’s aware of the group’s plan. “As always, if and when a vulnerability is publicly disclosed, Microsoft will take immediate action to determine the appropriate response for our customers,” said Jerry Bryant, group manager with the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC).

Yaneza said he had not heard of Abysssec before this.

According to the group’s Web site, it is made up of four researchers — none of whom were identified by a full name — that specialize in penetration testing, exploit development and application security review. Abysssec’s Web site was registered in 2008, but the WHOIS record is hidden behind a privacy wall.

However, LinkedIn listed Shahin Ramezany, of Albany, N.Y, as a researcher with Abysssec. The group did not reply to an e-mailed request for an interview.

“Starting on the 1st of September, we will release a collection of [zero-days], Web application vulnerabilities, and detailed binary analysis (and [proof-of-concepts]) for recently released advisories by vendors such as Microsoft, Mozilla, Sun, Apple, Adobe, HP [and] Novel [sic],” the foursome said.

Yaneza said users should pay attention to the MOAUB disclosures, but he didn’t seem worried about the threat.

“It’s all going to be low-hanging fruit,” he said, referring to the term that describes easily-found vulnerabilities. “We’ve seen vulnerabilities on these [programs]. I’m not too much concerned. If users patch as usual and keep their automatic patching turned on, they should be fine.”

Bug-of-the-month collections were popular several years ago, but the practice has been little used since 2007. In July 2006, HD Moore, now the chief security officer of Rapid7, used a “Month of Browser Bugs” event to showcase vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer 6 (IE6), Firefox, Safari and Opera.

Moore’s month-long bug event was quickly followed by others, including “Month of Kernel Bugs” in November 2006, and a “Month of Apple Bugs” in January 2007.

Yaneza called Abysssec’s upcoming bug month a “publicity stunt” designed to attract attention to the group.

Moore agreed.

“Sure, they are publicity stunts, but that’s not the point,” he said today. “Projects like Month of Brower Bugs, and the kernel and Apple ones, they get vendors to patch lots of vulnerabilities, dozens and dozens, and focus security research on a necessary area.”

But he wasn’t sure MOAUB would do that. “Other projects focused on one general area, like browsers or Apple,” Moore said. “But this seems like it’s just a bunch of vulnerabilities. I don’t know if this will have the same impact.”

Microsoft’s Bryant also took Abysssec to task. “Disclosing vulnerabilities publicly only puts customers at risk,” he said in an e-mail, repeating a long-time stance by the company.

Abysssec will post its findings on the Exploit Database Web site throughout September.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
September 1, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Nearly five months after the iPad’s launch, Apple has finally matched supply with demand.

Apple’s online store now shows iPad orders will be shipped within 24 hours , the first time the tablet has been available for next-day shipping since its early April debut.

Although Apple took pre-orders for most of a month before the April 3 launch, subsequent orders for the iPad were delayed 15 business days, a mark that fell to 7-10 days by mid-May. Earlier this month, shipping delays dropped again, first to 5-7 days, then to 1-3 days.

Last month, Apple’s executives acknowledged that they had underestimated demand for the tablet.

“We went into the iPad thinking that planning of one million from our capacity was a very bold move,” Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, said in a July earnings call with Wall Street analysts when he was asked whether there were supply issues with specific components.

“What we are doing is we’re increasing capacity as quickly as we can, and you know there are a number of things that we have to increase in order to do that,” Cook told analysts. “But I am fairly confident that we will be able to increase the capacity. It is not a situation where there is something profound that we can’t eventually increase.”

Apple said it sold 3.3 million iPads in the year’s second quarter, one million of them in the first 28 days of availability.

Before that, Apple gave hints of other signs of stress on iPad supply when it pushed back the international launch until the end of May.

Brian Marshall, an analyst with Gleacher & Co., has projected that Apple will sell 12 million iPads this year, with sales in the fourth quarter of 4.9 million units, a 51% increase over 2010’s second quarter number.

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By Matt Hamblen
Computerworld (US)
September 1, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Shipments of Samsung Mobile’s Galaxy S Android smartphone reached 1 million in the U.S. 45 days after it first became available, the company announced Monday.

While Apple sold some 1.7 million iPhone 4 smartphones during its first weekend, some analysts see the Galaxy S initial shipment totals as the beginnings of Android supremacy.

“No question there is an anti-Apple, pro-Android movement afoot,” said Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates. “It’s not just about price. It’s also about having an open alternative with much less dictatorial control of what the user can do with the device.”

Gold said he expects that sales of Android devices from all manufacturers will surpass Apple iPhone sales by 2011. Gartner analysts have said the same thing.

A Samsung spokeswoman today said that today’s announcement referred to “shipments for Galaxy S, not sales.” Presumably that means shipments to all retail outlets (including Amazon.com) and the four major U.S. carriers that will sell the Galaxy S,

Most bloggers ignored the distinction Samsung noted between shipments and sales because shipments to a carrier or retailer usually result in quick final sales to end users for hot phones.

The Galaxy X models from each of the carriers include a 4-inch AMOLED display and 1 GHz Hummingbird processor that are clear draws for customers.

Two of them, AT&T and T-Mobile, are already selling the devices, which they call Captivate and Vibrant respectively. Sprint will start selling a Galaxy S it calls Epic tomorrow while Verizon’s Fascinate model is rumored to become available on Sept. 9.

Samsung’s Web site shows the four models side by side, with the Epic 4G the most notably different, with a slide-out physical keyboard in landscape mode and a front-facing camera. The Epic 4G might have gone on sale earlier, but Sprint decided to stockpile units to meet demand amid a global shortage of display screens.

All four Galaxy S phone models will initially run Android 2.1, and then move to Version 2.2, or Froyo, later this year.

Gold said sales of Android devices like the Galaxy S sales have been bolstered by a growing number of available apps. He noted that developers are finding it easier to get applications approved by Android Market than by the Apple App Store.

Another factor for its success, Gold said, is that hackers and other developers see the Android platform as one that can be used for experimentation, although Google and manufacturers are trying to stop that practice.

Various bloggers have attributed other reasons for Android’s success, including pricing.

Fortune’s Seth Weintraub noted that users who purchase a two-year agreement with AT&T can get a Captivate device for a penny .

Amazon advertises many phones and devices for nearly free or half the cost of what carriers advertise as their cost, a practice Apple has resisted, analyst noted. The purpose of the low-cost up-front pricing is obviously to lure buyers into two-year contracts.

What may intrigue some buyers of Android more than anything is that the Captivate is sold by AT&T, which is also the exclusive carrier behind the iPhone.

Samsung attributed its Galaxy S success to sales by multiple carriers, as well as a broad promotional campaign with print, online, cinema and TV ads, as well as promotions on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

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By Preston Gralla
Computerworld (US)
August 24, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - By some very important measures, Microsoft’s best days are behind it. Once the dominant technology company in the world, it has fallen behind — even far behind — in the market’s biggest growth areas: the Internet and mobile devices. True, it remains dominant on the desktop and in office suites, but that’s not where the growth is these days.

When it comes to the Internet, it trails far behind Google. And when it comes to mobile devices, it has fallen far behind both Apple with the iPhone and iPod, and Google with Android-based phones.

In fact, a milestone was passed back in May, when Apple overtook Microsoft in total valuation. Soon, it is expected to pass Microsoft in revenue as well.

SHOULD MICROSOFT SIMPLY GIVE UP, AND ACCEPT THAT ITS GLORY DAYS ARE OVER?

Certainly not. The technology market changes quickly, and companies can leapfrog competitors, even seemingly entrenched ones, with the right mix of strategy and products. Here is my modest proposal for two steps Microsoft can take to try and regain its technology dominance.

Step #1: Tear down the walls

Microsoft has become large and unwieldy, bedeviled by red tape, bureaucracy and political infighting. In my last column, I showed how infighting and bureaucracy at Microsoft led to the Kin mobile phone disaster, while Google, using technology from the same engineer who had developed the guts of the Kin, rushed ahead and succeeded with Android.

That’s far from the only instance of these kinds of problems. The Web-based version of Microsoft Office, for example, was not able to make use of the superb Windows Live Sync technology at its launch, even though it would have given the product a feature that Google couldn’t match. Why wasn’t Windows Live Sync included? The development cycles of Office and Windows Live Sync didn’t match. Microsoft could easily have incorporated the then-existing version of Windows Live Sync into Office. Instead, it has to wait until the development cycle of Windows Live Sync proceeds.

Microsoft should turn its engineers, designers and product managers loose, and make them entrepreneurial. If they need to step on the toes of other Microsoft products and technologies, or even filch them for their own use, so be it. That’s the only way Microsoft will be able to develop technologies its competitors can’t match. The company has some of the best engineers in the world. Microsoft should use them to their fullest capabilities.

Step #2: Kill the Windows brand

Microsoft’s vast wealth and success is built on top of Windows. But Windows is also holding the company back when it comes to the future, both in the eyes of consumers, and in the company’s own product development. Microsoft should continue to develop Window as an operating system, and should still call it Windows. But it shouldn’t force its other important products to carry the Windows name or even necessarily use Windows technologies.

The Windows Live brand is a perfect example. It’s not at all clear what the “Windows Live” brand is supposed to mean. It’s an unrelated set of Web services and downloadable software, most of which have nothing to do with Windows. What does Windows Live Hotmail, for example, have to do with Windows? Not a thing, given that you can use it with other operating systems, such as Mac OS X. Giving it the Windows name only confuses consumers.

The same holds true for the Windows Phone. In the past, forcing its mobile operating system to be Windows-like has hurt Microsoft; it’s one of the reasons the iPhone and Android both leapfrogged Microsoft in smartphones.

Microsoft should reconsider forcing almost everything it does to use the Windows brand and fit into the Windows ecosystem. Dropping that framework would give it a fresh chance with consumers, and allow its designers and developers to take a fresh look at the products they create.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
August 20, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - About 40 different Windows applications contain a critical flaw that can be used by attackers to hijack PCs and infect them with malware, a security researcher said Wednesday.

The bug was patched by Apple in its iTunes software for Windows four months ago, but remains in more than three dozen other Windows programs, said HD Moore, the chief security officer of Rapid7 and creator of the open-source Metasploit penetration testing toolkit. Moore did not reveal the names of the vulnerable applications or their makers, however.

Each affected program will have to be patched separately.

Moore first hinted at the widespread bug in a message on Twitter on Wednesday. “The cat is out of the bag, this issue affects about 40 different apps, including the Windows shell,” he tweeted, then linked to an advisory published by Acros, a Slovenian security firm.

That advisory detailed a vulnerability in iTunes for Windows that hackers could exploit by persuading users to download and open a malformed media file, or by duping them into visiting a malicious Web site, where they would fall to a drive-by attack.

Apple patched the iTunes for Windows bug last March when it updated the music player to version 9.1. According to Apple, the bug does not affect Mac machines.

Acros’ advisory insinuated that the vulnerability was in more than just iTunes. “Additional details are available to interested corporate and government customers under NDA, as public disclosure would reveal too many details on the vulnerability and unduly accelerate malicious exploitation,” the warning said.

It would have been odd for Acros to note the possibility of exploitation if the bug was iTunes-only and had been patched months earlier.

Moore confirmed that the flaw “applies to a wide range of Windows applications,” and added that he stumbled across it while researching the Windows shortcut vulnerability , a critical bug that Microsoft acknowledged in July and patched on Aug. 2 using one of its rare “out-of-band” emergency updates.

Moore declined to name the applications that contain the bug or to go into great detail about the vulnerability. But he was willing to share some observations.

“The vector is slightly different between applications, but the end result is an attacker-supplied .dll being loaded after the user opens a ’safe’ file type from a network share [either on the local network or the Internet],” Moore said in an e-mail reply to questions. “It is possible to force a user to open a file from the share, either through their Web browser or by abusing other applications, for example, Office documents with embedded content.”

Some of what Moore described was reminiscent of the attacks using the Windows shortcut vulnerability. For instance, hackers were able to launch drive-by attacks exploiting the shortcut bug from malicious sites via WebDAV, and could embed their exploits into Office documents, which would presumably be delivered to victims as seemingly innocuous e-mail attachments.

His advice until the vulnerable applications are patched was also taken from Microsoft’s shortcut bug playbook.

“Users can block outbound SMB [by blocking TCP ports] 139 and 445, and disable the WebDAV client [in Windows] to prevent these flaws from being exploited from outside of their local network,” Moore recommended.

Both workarounds were among those Microsoft told users they could apply if they were unable to apply the emergency update.

But although Microsoft was able to plug the shortcut hole with a patch for Windows, Moore was pessimistic that the company would be able to do the same with this vulnerability.

“Solving the flaw requires every affected vendor to produce a patch,” he said. “There may be other workarounds available, but the core issue is with the application itself, not necessarily the Windows operating system. There may be fixes that can be applied at the OS level, but these are likely to break existing applications.”

Microsoft did not reply to a request late Wednesday seeking confirmation of Moore’s claims, and asking whether any of its applications contain the bug. According to Moore, at least one Microsoft executable — “explorer.exe,” the Windows shell — includes the flaw.

Moore said that Rapid7 would release more information about the vulnerability next week, and added that an exploit module has been written for Metasploit but has not been released.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
August 19, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Analysts split today over reports that Apple may be readying a smaller iPad for launch later this year.

According to a story published Tuesday in Taiwan’s Chinese-language Economic Daily News financial newspaper, Apple is prepping a 7-in. iPad for a holiday launch later in 2010. The newspaper cited sources that said several Taiwanese component makers have won contracts for a smaller iPad.

IDG News Service reported on the Economic Daily News account earlier Tuesday.

Last week, DigiTimes, an English-language IT publication also based in Taiwan, claimed that component manufacturers were preparing for a smaller iPad to be launched in early 2011. The new model would have a screen in the 5-in. to 7-in. range, said DigiTimes, and would be priced under $400.

But a pair of U.S. analysts disagreed on whether Apple would add to its iPad lineup by shrinking the current model.

“If they can find 7-in. screens where they can’t find 9.7-in. screens, it would let them have a larger sell-through,” said Ezra Gottheil. Last month, an Apple executive said the company is “selling every [iPad] unit that we can make,” but the tablet remains backordered, with shipping delays of between three and five business days on Apple’s online store.

By Gottheil’s logic, if Apple could get its hands on more screens, no matter what the size, they could sell more tablets.

Apple sold 3.3 million iPads in the first three months of the tablet’s availability.

“Secondly, a smaller screen would give them the ability to knock a few dollars off the price,” added Gottheil. “If they could drop it by $100, they could make it more of a holiday gift.”

A lower price — the current iPad starts at $499 — would also put it closer in price to the recently reduced e-readers from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The former’s next-generation Kindle, which ships Aug. 27, is priced at $139, $10 under B&N’s least-expensive Nook.

Apple would probably have to strip out some components and drop features to make a $400 price for a 7-in. iPad if it wanted to maintain the estimated 40% margin on the larger model, said Brian Marshall, an analyst with Gleacher & Co.

But Marshall doesn’t see the need for a petite iPad.

“They have such a good lineup now, there’s no void and they cover every price point,” Marshall said, pointing to the iPhone 3GS, now discounted to $99; the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch lines that start at $199 and run to $399; and then the current iPad, which costs between $499 and $829.

“I just don’t see any holes in their portfolio that they need to fill,” Marshall said.

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By Matt Hamblen
Computerworld (US)
August 18, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Apple could be making plans for a big role in mobile Near Field Communications (NFC) with the recent hiring of Benjamin Vigier as its product manager of mobile commerce.

Future iPhones and other Apple devices could be converted to mobile wallets, allowing users to quickly pass or tap a phone over a receiver using the NFC short-range wireless specification.

Nokia has made inroads in NFC, but is not considered a strong mobile phone competitor in the U.S.

“Apple could finally bring NFC to the masses,” wrote NFC expert Bob Egan, global head of research for Tower Group, in a tweet today, regarding the hiring of Vigier.

Egan noted too that Apple is a “magical marketing powerhouse” with a large patent portfolio and widespread distribution alliances that would help Vigier and Apple.

Part of Egan’s optimism is based on Vigier’s strong resume, as detailed on LinkedIn .

Neither Vigier nor Apple could not be reached for comment on his role at the company. Vigier arrived in July at Apple, and previously was product manager for mobile wallet, payment and NFC at mFoundry, where he conceived and managed the Starbucks mobile payment system on the iPhone and Paypal Mobile, which is featured on BlackBerry and some other phones.

Computerworld blogger Jonny Evans said the Vigier hiring is sign that Apple is “moving forward fast” into NFC , possibly with iPhone 5 next year.

Evans noted a 2009 Apple patent for building an NFC antenna into a touchscreen, as well as other patents for ticketing and even use of the service name iPay.

NFC is more popular in Japan than anywhere else, although adoption in the U.S. is considered slow, perhaps due to U.S. consumers’ concerns about security with mobile payments. Generator Research recently said that mobile payments would hit $633 billion in 2014, up from 68 billion in 2009.

Gartner said recently that mobile payments would reach the mainstream in 2012 , when 3% of all mobile device users will be making mobile payments. While a small percentage of the total, that represents 190 million users.

Gartner puts NFC in a list of mobile payment technologies that also include SMS (Short Message Service), Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and Unstructure Supplementary Service Data (USSD), which is not used in the U.S.

In other payment system news, Google said on Monday that it bought Jambool , a company that makes a platform for managing online payments for virtual goods sold on gaming and social networking sites.

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By Elizabeth Heichler
IDG News Service (Boston Bureau)
August 17, 2010

BOSTON - An Apple manager with responsibilities for the company’s contract manufacturing in Asia was arrested Friday and charged with accepting kickbacks.

Global supply manager Paul Shin Devine was charged with accepting $1 million in kickbacks from half a dozen Asian suppliers of iPhone and iPod accessories in a federal indictment and a civil suit, the San Jose Mercury News reported. Devine allegedly was paid for sharing confidential Apple information with contractors that helped them win Apple business on favorable terms, the paper said.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Devine gave confidential information to companies like Cresyn Co. Ltd. in South Korea, Kaedar Electronics Co. Ltd. in China and Jin Li Mould Manufacturing Pte. Ltd. in Singapore. He allegedly shared the kickbacks with Andrew Ang, an employee of Jin Li who the indictment charges helped broker deals with his employer and others.

Meanwhile, Apple Friday sued Devine in a case in U.S. District Court in San Jose, and he is scheduled to appear on Monday, the Journal said.

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By Ryan Faas
Computerworld (US)
August 13, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Apple Inc.’s iPhone has always had something of an image problem in the workplace, which isn’t surprising given that Apple has always marketed its smartphone more to consumers than to the business world.

In fact, when the iPhone debuted in 2007, there was no way to put third-party apps on one without jailbreaking the device, it didn’t support 3G data networks, it didn’t integrate with Microsoft’s Exchange, and you had to use iTunes to activate it initially and back up or sync data later on. Plus, there were security concerns, since there was no way to require a passcode, encrypt business data or remotely wipe an iPhone if it was lost or stolen.

A lot has changed for the iPhone, its operating system and the smartphone industry as a whole in three years. For people who want to use the iPhone at work and the IT departments that support them, the changes have been good. In fact, some of the major updates in each new iteration of the iPhone operating system (now called iOS) were the ones that made it easier to manage and secure Apple’s mobile platform.

With each passing summer, Apple has polished the business and enterprise features of iOS. It has added Exchange support, support for remote wipe, security and configuration policies (either through Exchange or with configuration profiles that can be loaded onto each device), VPN options and encryption — both whole-device encryption on the iPhone 3GS and targeted app data encryption in iOS 4.

While each of the changes was an improvement, it wasn’t until this year’s arrival of iOS 4 — and the iPhone 4 itself — in June that Apple included a new mobile device management (MDM) service that companies could use. As a result, businesses finally got something sorely needed for enterprise iPhone adoption to make sense: the ability to more easily deploy, manage and monitor iPhones used by employees — a capability that has long made Research In Motion’s BlackBerry one of the most trusted mobile platforms.

Note: Although iOS 4 has been rolled out for the iPhone, the iPad won’t get the operating system upgrade until this fall.

THIRD-PARTY VENDORS ARE PART OF THE EQUATION

One surprising thing about how Apple rolled out MDM is that the company largely left implementing it via a server up to other companies. Considering Apple’s penchant for secrecy about upcoming products and its tight control over the App Store, this move seemed out of character. Most people, myself included, figured Apple would offer a robust over-the-air device management solution. And we expected Apple to take a page from RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server and ship something as part of its own Mac OS X Server platform. (That could still happen in the next major OS X Server release.)

Whether or not Apple comes out with its own management server, there are advantages for companies looking to support iOS devices in a secure and managed way. The most obvious one is competition. With seven different options either already on the market or slated to be available by year’s end, companies can choose the one that works best for them. Although many of the core management features of iOS 4 and the MDM service offered by each vendor are essentially the same, there’s still plenty of differentiation among them.

In some cases, the main difference may simply be the management interface. Or it can mean different levels of integration with other technologies such as Active Directory. Other variables run the gamut from the type and format of reports about mobile device use to system requirements (one option is completely Mac-based), cost, existing relationships with providers and the number of non-iOS platforms each can manage.

STANDARDIZING ON A MOBILE PLATFORM IS TOUGH

Having a standard computing platform is a relatively simple task for most businesses, partly because there’s a limited set of choices: some variation of Windows or Mac OS X. (Yes, Linux and Unix are options, but they typically aren’t chosen for people outside of IT.)

Getting hardware is also easy, since most purchases are made in bulk and typically from a single vendor. If you’re a Mac shop, you’re buying Apple hardware; if you opt for Windows, hardware choices are plentiful.

That kind of standardization doesn’t work as well for smartphones and tablets. Even if your company pays for a smartphone for each employee, IT shops are still apt to encounter problems. Being tied to a single carrier may not be a good choice for all workplaces; different phone models may sport different features (and potentially different management capabilities); phones might only run certain versions of operating systems or offer different sets of bundled or available apps; and there may be varying levels of integration with other systems like VPN, mail servers and intranets.

When workers bring their personal devices to work — as more of us are doing these days — there’s even more potential for problems. IT shops may not even know what devices employees are using, or for what purpose — to say nothing about how secure they are.

A few years ago, companies could afford to buy mobile hardware for their employees. That’s no longer true, and many organizations are embracing the concept of bring-your-own-hardware-to-work. That saves a lot of money, since there’s no hardware to buy and no monthly cell phone bill (for the company). But then you have to manage and secure those devices — or try to dictate what your workers use. (Good luck with that one.)

The most important advantage to Apple’s approach to MDM is that all but one of the third-party companies that have announced or released management servers offer support for platforms beyond iOS. Two of them, Absolute Manage and AirWatch, offer management capabilities for devices other than smartphones or tablets.

Apple would be hard-pressed to develop its own such multiplatform system, as would any smartphone manufacturer. Of course, the specific mix of supported platforms varies with each product, as does the extent of supported features. But that’s the advantage of competition: You should be able to get the one that best meets corporate needs.

UNDERSTANDING CONFIGURATION PROFILES IN IOS

A central component to managing mobile devices involves what Apple calls configuration profiles. These are XML lists of different configuration features and optional restrictions that automatically configure an iOS device.

A single configuration file can contain all of the available settings for an iPhone — complete with user credentials for various network resources — or it may contain just a single value that’s not user-specific, such as the details for accessing your mail server, VPN or wireless network. If you put in a server or network-related configuration without specific user credentials, the user will be asked to authenticate the first time they access the resource.

You can assign as many separate granular profiles as you like to any or all phones and they’ll all be enforced. This is helpful if you need to assign configuration data based on job function or department.

The most important features you can set using configuration profiles involve security: requiring a passcode, setting passcode restrictions and forcing employees to use long and complex passcodes. You can also specify how quickly a device locks when not in use and how many failed attempts to unlock it with a passcode are allowed before the device automatically wipes data.

Another security-related option allows you to disable an iPhone’s built-in camera(s). Since it is common for employers to ban camera-enabled devices to avoid sensitive information from leaking, this is an important option in many organizations.

Beyond the security options, there are a number of ways to customize an iOS device for use with your company’s network and resources. You can preconfigure access to Wi-Fi networks, VPN and e-mail servers. You can also pre-populate bookmarks for the mobile Safari browser to ensure that users can easily access internal (or external) Web-based resources. You can even specify Web pages or Web apps to appear as icons on a devices home screen for easier access.

In short, you can do a lot with configuration files to lock down an iPhone.

For more details about configuration profiles, check out Apple’s documentation of the iPhone Configuration Utility. This is the free tool (available for Mac and Windows) that Apple developed for creating and testing configuration profiles. Apple also offers information about various management and deployment scenarios as well as overviews for iOS 4 business integration.

In addition to setting configurations through profiles, the MDM service allows you to query any managed device for more than 20 different pieces of data (including device- and carrier-specific details, as well as usage and verification that security policies are being enforced).

Beyond setting configuration profiles and querying devices, the MDM service allows you to take certain actions on managed devices. You can, for instance, force the device to lock and/or wipe all data. And you can temporarily remove a passcode (in case a remote user has forgotten it). If a passcode is required, the user will be required to create a new one.

You can also install or update configuration profiles as well as installed apps and enterprise application provisioning profiles and in-house apps. All this can be done in the background without user intervention, allowing you to make sure that software, configuration and security policies are in place.

(See below for a full list of the available management and monitoring capabilities of iOS 4.)
Enrolling iOS devices for management

Apple made the process of setting up device management pretty simple using SCEP. A user is instructed to visit a secure Web site and authenticate with his or her user account (typically an Active Directory account or some other LDAP-based directory service). This allows the iPhone to generate a certificate enrollment request and then an identity certificate for the device.

Using that identity certificate and the user’s credentials to establish a secure connection, the device then processes the list of assigned configurations and presents them to the user. When the user agrees to the configurations, the device will download and install the related profiles and can be fully managed.
Management server options

Now that we’ve covered the what and the how of enterprise management, here’s the list of vendors and the expected ship dates for their products:

* Absolute Manage: Expected availability in the third quarter of this year.

* Afaria by Sybase: iOS 4 beta program now in progress, with availability also expected in the third quarter.

* AirWatch: Availability listed as summer 2010.

* Good for Enterprise: Now available.

* MobileIron: Now available, and offering discounts to existing Good customers.

* Tangoe Mobile Device Manager: Now available.

* Tarmac by Equinux: Now available.

Note: Equinux is known for media and networking tools for Mac OS X and iOS. Tarmac is its first step into the realm of device management and is an iOS-specific solution. It lists a Mac as part of its system requirements, and overall it might be better for small and midsize organizations — particularly those that have a strong Apple presence.
Management and monitoring options for iOS devices

When building configurations, you can specify details about the following: Exchange or POP/IMAP mail servers; VPN configurations; Wi-Fi networks (including hidden networks and networks requiring a passcode or radius authentication); LDAP directories for contacts, access to a CalDAV and/or CardDAV server, public or private calendars that support iCal (.ics) subscriptions; carrier (APN) settings; digital certificates; and Web clips.

You can also mandate a variety of security policies, such as requiring an unlock passcode; allowing a simple passcode or requiring an alphanumeric passcode with a special characters; setting how long a passcode can be used; specifying the length of time before automatic screen locking takes place; setting the number of failed passcode attempts allowed before the device is wiped automatically; requiring that the backup created when syncing to iTunes be encrypted; and indicating whether users can remove configuration profiles.

When it comes to locking down an iOS device, you can restrict access to the following: app installation, the camera, screen captures, automatic mail sync while roaming, voice dialing while the device is locked, in-app purchases, items tagged by iTunes as explicit and access to the security settings for the mobile Safari browser. You can also keep users from launching Safari, YouTube, the iTunes Store and the App Store.

The goal is simple: You want to set as many parameters as needed to ensure that the device is as locked down as your company needs.

In addition to device management, MDM is a service that relies on Apple’s push notification system to receive queries and instructions from a management server to interact with any iOS 4 device in the background. That it runs as an always-on background process is the reason third-party vendors couldn’t create such a solution on their own.

You can build queries for a single device or multiple devices that encompass the following areas: unique device identifier (a value unique to each iOS device); the device name; iOS version; model name and hardware version; serial number; total storage capacity and available free space; IMEI number; the modem firmware version; SIM card ICCID; MAC addresses for both the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth receivers; current carrier (home carrier or roaming); the carrier identified by the installed SIM card as the primary carrier; the version of the carrier settings (APN) data; phone number; whether data roaming is allowed; the installed profiles; installed security certificates and their expiration dates; enforced restrictions; hardware encryption capability; whether a passcode is set; installed applications (including app identifier, name, version, and size); and any application provisioning profiles and their expiration dates — something that’s required for internal corporate iPhone apps distributed outside of the App Store.

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS

It’s still unclear whether iOS 4 will truly end the belief that the iPhone (and iPad) platform is more about personal entertainment than workplace functionality. It’s also hard to know for now which smartphone and tablet platforms will have the staying power to dominate the market — though I wouldn’t bet against Apple. For now, it seems clear that workers and businesses will have a wide variety of choices over the next few years, with Apple being just one of many players trying to get their feet in the enterprise door.

Being able to effectively support and manage multiple platforms is crucial for any organization that wants an effective mobile strategy. For iOS 4 devices, and others, these tools offer ways to make the coming diversification easier to manage and secure. And while they certainly don’t ensure that Apple’s devices will be welcomed by IT shops, they do make them increasingly viable options for companies in the years ahead.

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By Robert X. Cringely
InfoWorld (US)
August 13, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - It seems Microsoft didn’t get pummeled enough in the “I’m a Mac, you’re a PC” ad campaign, so it’s coming back for more. This time the marketing marvels at Microsoft have cooked up a new web site detailing the various ways in which the Mac is inferior to a Windows 7 machine. Like, for example, “Macs don’t work as well at work or at school” or “Macs can take time to learn” or “Macs don’t like to share.”

It’s kind of pathetic, really. Most of these arguments are premised on the notion that if you’ve already wasted most of your adult life using Windows, you’ll be more familiar with it than the Mac, so you might as well waste the rest of your adult life. Which is really the only reason why Microsoft continues to dominate desktop market share: It’s harder to switch than to stick with what you got, even if what you got sucks eggs.

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Still, is that the best MSFT can do with its billions in profits? Seriously?

It’s like Redmond has fallen so far behind in the mobile/tablet space that it’s clinging to an era in which the battle for control of the desktop still mattered. (”Remember the good old days when we were kicking the Macintosh’s behind?”) I can’t believe I’m actually writing this, but I’m starting to feel sorry for them.

Meanwhile, of course, there’s that new corporate motto Microsoft is allegedly going to reveal: “Be What’s Next.” So far that tagline has yet to be spotted in the wild, only at an internal Microsoft trade show. But it does reveal the huge gulf between how Microsoft perceives itself and how the rest of the non-Microsoft fanboy world perceives it.

Pop quiz: If you were looking for what’s coming next to the world of technology, is Redmond the first place you’d look? How about the 20th place? Is it even in the top 100?

In a blog post late last month (”Can Microsoft imitate Apple one more time?”), I asked Cringesters what they would suggest for a new Microsoft slogan.

Commenter “engpjp” suggests Microsoft take a page from the pre-second-coming of Steve Jobs era: “Microsoft: Be What’s NeXT.” I think they’d probably get sued for that one.

But the residents of Cringeville came up with some pretty good ones, too. Here are the best, followed by the author’s initials.

* “If you’ve got the solutions, we’ve got the problems” (D. W.).
* “The 500 pound gorilla doesn’t play with toys. Microsoft: We get the Jobs done.” (S. E.)
* Here’s one from the Caesarean section: “We came, we saw, we copied” (C. D.).
* The practical: “Reboot your life (and while you’re at it, your PC)” (R. L.).
* The acquisitive: “If you can’t beat em, buy em” (J. P.).
* The scatological: “Microsoft: We love downloading lots of s**** to your PC” (M. S.).

Here’s one proclaiming hey, at least our CEO didn’t have to resign because of a sex scandal: “We’re not HP” (B. C.).

And this one would sound right at home on that new Windows-vs.-Mac site Microsoft just created: “Lots of people use our software because they have to” (M. B.).

Personally, I like eSarcasm’s somewhat NSFW take on the new Microsoft slogan, especially this one: “Microsoft: Re-imagining the future by clinging blindly to the past.”

Maybe Microsoft should fire all of its marketers and hire the residents of Cringeville instead. We certainly couldn’t do much worse.

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By Nick Spence
Macworld U.K.
August 12, 2010

LONDON - At the request of Japanese authorities, Apple has finally agreed to replace a number of iPod nano music players, which may have proved a fire risk.

Late last month, Japan’s industry ministry once again warned the first generation iPod nano, sold from 2005, had caused a number of accidents. “Four people burned themselves after they touched the device, which had overheated during charging,” an official from the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry said.

The ministry had called on Apple to reveal just how many iPods, both in the US and worldwide, had suffered from similar over heating issues.

Under pressure, Apple’s Japanese unit has agreed to replace the ageing iPods, admitting “very rare cases of overheating” in the iPod nano’s battery, originally sold between September 2005 and December 2006.

Apple blamed the fault, which could also lead to bulging iPods, on faulty batteries, traced to a particular third-party manufacturer used by the Mac maker.

The ministry called Apple’s delay in resolving the issue “truly regrettable,” but noted they are “aware of the amendment” on the Apple site and offer of replacement iPods from the company.

“But we have yet to receive any formal report from the company about it. So we cannot make any comment at this stage,” said Naotake Fujushiro, a product safety official at the ministry told AFP, who adds Apple has sold about 1.8 million units of the 2005 iPod nano in Japan since September 2005.

Apple did not reveal if the company would extend the iPod nano replacement scheme to countries other than Japan.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
August 11, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Apple today began taking orders for its most expensive computer, the Mac Pro, but won’t ship the tower-style desktop to customers for at least a week and a half.

The company announced the impending refresh of the Mac Pro line last month when it revamped the more popular iMac . At the time, Apple said the new Mac Pros would debut in August.

Apple priced the three standard configurations at $2,499, $3,499 and $4,999 for machines with a single quad-core, two quad-core, or two six-core Intel processors, respectively.

The lowest-priced Mac Pro is powered by a 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Xeon processor built on the older “Nehalem” architecture — the same architecture used by the Core i3, i5 and i7 CPUs in the cheaper iMacs — includes 3GB of memory and a single 1TB hard drive.

Upper-end Mac Pros are equipped with the newer “Westmere” Xeon processors in either an eight- or 12-core configuration. The mid-range Mac Pro boasts two 2.4GHz quad-core Xeons, while the top-of-the-line model runs a pair of 2.66GHz six-Core Xeon processors. The previous record for processor cores on a Mac was the eight-core Mac Pro that debuted in March 2009 for $$3,299.

The Nehalem architecture is based on a 45-nanometer (nm) manufacturing process, while the Westmere chips are 32-nm.

While the low-end $2,499 Mac Pro retained its earlier price, the mid-range model jumped $200. As compensation, the newest system features slightly-faster processors — 2.4GHz versus 2.26GHz — a bigger hard drive and more memory on the graphics card.

The new Mac Pros follow the lead of the just-refreshed iMacs, ditching Nvidia graphics cards for ATI-labeled discrete graphics cards from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Nor are there any Nvidia at-the-factory options for the current line of Mac Pros.

All three standard models come with a single ATI Radeon HD 5770 card with 1GB of video RAM, but options include two pair of those same cards or a swap for a single ATI Radeon HD 5870 card with 1GB that raises the price by $200.

Although $4,999 is the top standard-model price in the line, a slew of options — ranging from faster processors and additional hard drives to more memory and solid-state drives (SSD) — can quickly drive up the cost.

The most-expensive configuration of the 12-core Mac Pro, for instance, comes to $17,249 when equipped with 2.9GHz processors, 32GB of memory, two optical drives, four SSD drives totaling 2TB of storage, a pair of graphics cards, a RAID card and a quad-channel Fibre Channel card.

According to Apple ’s online store, orders for the new Mac Pros will ship in 7 to 10 business days.

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By Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld (US)
August 10, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - After Apple recently refreshed its iMac line with chips from Intel ’s Core i Series, some users might be left wondering which processor would work best for them.

Apple announced in late July that it is adopting Intel’s Core i3, i5 and i7 chips for its iMac line of desktop computers. The move meant Apple was casting aside Intel’s older Core 2 series of chips for the newer versions.

This means that for the first time, iMacs are moving on from the Core microarchitecture to the Nehalem architecture on which the Core i Series is based. But for a user who wants to get work done, play online games or upload video to YouTube, what difference does the chip make? And what do they need to take into consideration when forking over the cash to buy an iMac, or any desktop or laptop, running an i3, i5 or i7 processor?

There is quite a bit to consider.

OVERVIEW

OK, so what is it we’re looking at here with the Core i Series? The series includes dual-core, quad-core and even six-core chips for desktops and laptops.

What may be a bit surprising to those who don’t follow processor progressions closely is that Intel has moved its dual-core and six-core chips to a 32-nanometer (nm) manufacturing process, but their quad cores are still on a 45nm process.

The 32nm Core i Series chips, codenamed Westmere , are still based on the Nehalem architecture but are built on a smaller platform. The 32nm chips have more transistors than their predecessors, have built-in graphics and will run faster without consuming more power.

None of the quad-core chips in the Core i Series, whether they’re the i5 or the meatier i7 processors, have been moved from the 45nm process to the 32nm process. And George Alfs, an Intel spokesman, said the quads won’t be moved to a Westmere version. Instead, they’ll transition to Intel’s upcoming “Sandy Bridge” family.

Sandy Bridge , which is scheduled to go into production in the fourth quarter of this year, is Intel’s next chip architecture. When the quad-core chips move to a 32nm process, it will be part of that move.

Industry analysts say they expect to see desktop and mobile systems with the Sandy Bridge chips hit the market early in 2011.

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE CHIPS

Core i3

Core i3 chips make up the low end of the processor line for the Core i Series. They are all dual-core chips (so they’re all 32nm) for desktops and laptops. Most have hyperthreading but none have turbo boost. The i3 chips have the same processor as the i5 dual cores, but they lack some of the i5’s bells and whistles.

What’s hyperthreading? Hyperthreading gives you two threads, instead of one, per core. Software is written so the workloads are split up into threads. While operating systems are getting smarter about this, hyperthreading makes the operating system think it has twice the number of cores.

And how about turbo boost? Turbo boost automatically turns cores on and off as needed. If a machine is running a quad-core processor but only one core is needed, three of the cores will be shut down to save power or to divert some of their power to the one working core. The sleeping cores will automatically power up when needed.

Core i5

The Core i5s include dual-core and quad-core chips for desktops and laptops. While most of these chips have hyperthreading, they all have turbo boost. The i5’s main difference from the lower-end i3s is the addition of turbo boost and higher clock speeds, which is the measure of how fast the processor can complete simple computations.

These processors can also handle multitasking and heftier applications better than the i3s.

Core i7

Core i7 chips have both turbo boost and hyperthreading. The i7s have dual cores for laptops, quad cores for laptops and desktops and six-core desktop chips. With the highest performance, and prices, of all the Core i Series chips, these are considered the best processors for power users.

There’s also the i7 Extreme, which includes a quad-core and a six-core desktop chip. The Extreme versions are Intel’s highest performing desktop chips. These chips provide “unlock capabilities,” which allow enthusiasts to more easily adjust clock speed, bus speed and voltage.

So, what do you need? With so many processor options, it can be difficult to figure out which processor fits your needs or those of your company. So here are a few thoughts.

First, all this depends on what kind of applications you’re running, and what kind of work you’re doing.

“In general tasks, you won’t see a huge difference between i3, i5 and i7 when doing, say, Microsoft Office type tasks,” said Dan Olds, an analyst with the Gabriel Consulting Group. “But the differences will become more apparent if you start getting into heavy multitasking, encryption, decryption, compressing and general fat applications.”

Olds, along with Jim McGregor, an analyst with In-Stat, and Shane Rau, an analyst with IDC, noted that i3 chips are a solid choice for the basic home user or even a lighter business user.

“For casual computer users, they’re going to be OK with an i3. It will make them happy from a budget and performance stand point,” added Olds.

McGregor said the i5 chips are well-suited for the average business user.

“If you’re doing social networking, e-mail or some basic games, you’re not going to notice that much difference between [the i3, i5 or i7 chips],” McGregor said. “You’d have to be an intense user to see it. If you’re a heavy user with multiple windows open and multiple tasks, there are benefits to going to the i5. Anything that uses a lot of memory or instructions could benefit from the i5 over the i3.”

For a power user, the i7 chips are worth the expense. The price of the chips goes up as you move from an i3 to an i5 and then rises more sharply to the i7s. For example, some of the i3 processors sell for $113 per chip in units of 1,000, while the Extreme i7s can cost as much $999.

“With a basic Microsoft application, the difference between an i3 and an i5 is not even noticeable. It’s a less than 2% speed difference,” Olds said. “But when you start to multitask, you start to see more differentiation, and you start to see features like turbo boost come into play. An i7 can be as much as 30%, or a little more, faster than an i5 when doing 3D modeling and rendering. If I’m looking at i7 versus i3 for the same job, the differences could be even greater with the i7 being 50% or more faster in some cases.”

32nm dual-core or 45nm quad-core? McGregor also pointed out that buyers might want to consider going with a dual-core in the Core i Series, rather than one of the quad cores, which are still on the older 45nm platform.

“A combination of the shrink to 32nm and having hyperthreading gives you equal or better performance on the dual cores compared to the previous generation quad cores,” he said. “In the i5s, you’ll get equal or better performance on the dual core as the quad core. And I’d say that, similarly, in the i7s, you’ll get just as good performance in the dual core as in the quad core. I would say you’re better off going with the latest generation duals because they’ll be more power efficient … for the same amount or more performance.”

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
August 9, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Mark Papermaster, Apple’s senior vice president of engineering for the iPhone and iPod, is leaving the firm, according to reports by The New York Times.

Apple spokesman Steve Dowling confirmed to the publication that Papermaster is leaving the company. His responsibilities will be assumed by Bob Mansfield, vice president of Macintosh engineering.

Papermaster’s biography and photograph have already been yanked from Apple’s Web site. Google’s cache indicated that it had been pulled sometime after last Tuesday.

Dowling did not respond to e-mail from Computerworld seeking confirmation and asking whether Papermaster’s departure was connected to the complaints earlier this summer about the iPhone 4’s reception.

Papermaster, a 26-year-veteran of IBM , joined Apple in October 2008, but was barred from working at the Cupertino, Calif. company five days later when IBM filed a federal lawsuit that claimed he had signed a non-competition agreement. IBM also argued that working for Apple would “irreparably harm” his former employer.

The bulk of Papermaster’s time at IBM was in processor design, and he eventually became IBM’s vice president of microprocessor technology development.

Apple and IBM struck an agreement in January 2009 that allowed Papermaster to begin his stint with Apple in April of that year. In his position, Papermaster oversaw the engineering of two of Apple’s four revenue pillars: the iPhone and the iPod. In the second quarter of 2010, those two lines generated 44% of the company’s total income.

Papermaster’s departure immediately ignited speculation that it was connected to what Apple CEO Steve Jobs called “Antennagate” last month.

Shortly after the iPhone 4’s late-June launch, buyers griped that signal strength plummeted and calls were interrupted when they touched the external antenna, a new design feature of Apple’s popular smartphone . Days after Consumer Reports magazine said it would not recommend the iPhone 4 because of the antenna and reception problems, Jobs hosted a hastily-called press conference, where he said Apple would supply free Bumper cases to iPhone 4 owners through September.

Many felt Apple botched its initial response to the problem when it told users to buy a case or hold the iPhone 4 without touching a small gap on the lower left side of the phone.

Patrick Kerley, senior digital strategist with Levick Strategic Communications, a Washington, D.C.-based crisis management firm, said Apple had been caught “flat-footed” by the mess, and gave the company only a “C” grade for how its handling of the problem.

Although not especially noted at the time, Papermaster was not on stage at Apple’s July 16 press conference. Instead, Mansfield, the executive Apple said would assume Papermaster’s responsibilities, joined Jobs and Tim Cook, the company’s chief operating officer, to take questions from reporters.

Although many connected dots between Antennagate and Papermaster’s departure, one analyst rejected the idea.

“I don’t think that’s the case,” said Brian Marshall, an analyst with Gleacher & Company. “When you have a company the size of Apple, you’re going to have turnover at low levels and high levels. I don’t see this as that big of deal.”

Instead, Marshall put forward a different theory.

IBM and Apple have vastly different corporate cultures, with the former known for its button-down ways, while the latter is much more casual, he noted. And Papermaster had worked at the more-structured IBM for over two-and-a-half decades.

“At the end of the day, it might have been that he didn’t have enough t-shirts and blue jeans in his closet,” said Marshall.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
August 3, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Microsoft’s Windows 7 reached a major milestone in July, while Apple’s Mac OS X lost ground for the fourth straight month, a Web analytics firm said Sunday.

According to California-based Net Applications, Windows 7 passed Vista for the first time last month by posting a usage share of 14.5%, versus its predecessor’s 14.3%.

Net Applications uses data acquired from the 160 million unique visitors who browse the 40,000 Web sites it monitors for clients.

Windows 7 has been on a fast pace to supplant Vista as Microsoft’s — and the world’s — No. 2 operating system, behind the nearly-nine-year-old Windows XP. By Net Applications’ calculation, Windows 7 needed just nine months to hit a mark that Vista took more than 21 months to match.

Vista’s share crested at 18.8% in October 2009 and has been in decline since: Vista has lost 4.5 percentage points, or 24% of its peak share, since Microsoft launched Windows 7.

Microsoft has not been shy about flaunting Windows 7’s success, calling it the firm’s fastest-selling operating system with more than 175 million licenses sold , and claiming that Windows 7 runs 16% of the world’s personal computers.

But the rate of Windows 7’s increase during July — just 0.8 of a percentage point — was the smallest since the new edition’s debut.

And for all its success at selling Windows 7 , Microsoft has not had as much luck in moving users off Windows XP.

The aged XP accounted for 61.9% of all operating systems used last month, Net Applications said, a decline of six-tenths of a percentage point from June and down 5.9 points since the first of the year. But Windows XP’s slide has slowed: In the second quarter of 2010, the operating system lost two percentage points, compared to 3.3 points in the first quarter. At that rate of decline, XP won’t drop under the 50% share mark until January 2012.

Combined, all editions of Windows ran on 91.3% of the machines that connected to Net Applications’ sites last month, a decline of just over one-tenth of a percentage point. Windows 7’s growing use appears to have been key to that small slip and in a slowing of Windows’ gradual decline: In the second quarter of 2010, Windows lost only one-fourth as much share as it did during the first quarter.

Meanwhile, Net Applications reported that Apple’s OS X recorded its fourth consecutive month of share decline in July, losing nearly two-tenths of a percentage point, the largest single-month drop in over a year and a half.

Since the beginning of 2010, Mac OS X has lost share in five of seven months. It now stands at 5%, the same number as in February 2010 and off the operating system’s peak of 5.3% in October 2009, the month Microsoft debuted Windows 7.

Net Applications’ numbers don’t equate to sales — two weeks ago Apple reported it sold a record 3.5 million Macs in the second quarter — but they do show that Windows 7 is fueling an even bigger PC sales boom relative to last year’s usage share standings. Windows 7, for example, now powers three times the number of machines than does Mac OS X.

Not all is gloomy for Apple . According to Net Applications, the iPhone ’s operating system accounted for seven-tenths of one percent of all OSes online in July — not just mobile operating systems — a 19% jump from the month before.

July was the first full month that the iPhone 4 was available in the U.S. and several other countries.

In a note on its Web site, Net Applications pointed out that the gain came amid reports of antenna and reception problems in the iPhone 4 throughout much of July. However, the company also said that the jump in share was “typical prior to the release of a major upgrade” as buyers delay purchases until a new version of an operating system or device is available.

Net Applications had a point. The first full month after the introduction of the iPhone 3G in the summer of 2008, iPhone usage share leaped 63%. Two months after the debut of last year’s iPhone 3GS, its share was 20% above pre-launch levels.

Net Applications’ operating system share data can be found on its Web site.

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By Robert X. Cringely
InfoWorld (US)
August 2, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Remember back in early June when Steve Ballmer said the Apple iPad was “just another PC”? He’d like to amend that slightly to “just another PC that’s now kicking our a**.”

In a meeting with analysts yesterday, Ballmer spent a fair amount of time talking about Apple’s iPad and trying to explain why there are no Microsoft-based devices that remotely compare to it.

[ Also on InfoWorld: Cringely is nothing if not an equal-opportunity satirist, as he proves in "Apple's Steve Jobs: He's no Old Spice Guy" | Stay up to date on all Robert X. Cringely's observations with InfoWorld's Notes from the Underground newsletter. ]

Fortune’s Philip Elmer-Dewitt distills the Ballmer discussion of the iPad into 11 words: “We’ll talk about slates and tablets and blah, blah, blah, blah.” (Apparently, Ballmer is also adopting the Steve Jobs 11-word rule.)

The “blah blah blah” part included a) an admission that the iPad has sold “more than I’d like them to sell,” b) “we’re coming full guns” to the slate market, and c) they’ll be “coming when they’re ready” — so don’t bother camping in line outside any Microsoft stores just yet. (Greg Packer, this means you.)

Meanwhile, the one Windows-based slate Ballmer could dig up to demo at last January’s CES — and got virtually heckled off the stage by the blogosphere afterward — may end up not being a Windows device after all. Now that HP has gobbled up Palm, its Slate PC may run Palm’s WebOS, a much more attractive tablet interface than Windows 7. Given how badly HP got jobbed by Microsoft during the whole “Vista ready” labeling debacle, I imagine this would be sweet revenge.

So, once again, Microsoft finds itself in the position of needing to imitate Apple to stay relevant.

Of course, imitation is part of Microsoft’s DNA. Copy something successful, then ram it down people’s throats. CP/M becomes MS-DOS, the Mac GUI gets reborn as Windows, though maybe “stillborn” is closer — it took Redmond 11 years to come up with an interface that approached the Mac’s features and simplicity. Intuit’s Quicken begets Microsoft Money. The iPod spawns the Zune. And so on down the line.

I’m not saying Microsoft has not come up with some innovations over the last 35 years. I still think Excel is the best software Redmond ever made. The Xbox, Microsoft Surface, Project Natal — er, Kinect — are all first rate. But its bread-and-butter strategy continues to be “imitate, then destroy.” And that strategy has grown less successful over time.

Now Microsoft has to play catchup to the iPad, as well as the 3,247 Android-based tablets we’ll be seeing over the next 12 months. Given how long it’s taking Redmond to catch up on cell phones, it may be two years before we see any tablets worth talking about. By then, it will be too late.

Still, this could explain Microsoft’s new slogan, unveiled at its annual Microsoft Global Exchange confab last week: Be What’s Next. In this case, what’s “next” is Apple, a company it seems Microsoft now desperately needs to become.

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By Darren Pauli
Computerworld Australia
July 29, 2010

SYDNEY - The Australian Tax Office is turning to iPhones, iPads and Androids to help teach disinterested school kids about tax and superannuation.

The office will use the chic phones as part of its education plans after its voluntary program based on paper hand-outs failed to interest teachers and students. Almost every school in the country signed-on, but only about a third used the paper hand-outs at best in a limited capacity.

A contract was issued last month to build an application that would teach tax obligations and superannuation using games, quizzes and tests over Windows, Macintosh, and Apple, Windows and Google smart-phones.

The application will attempt to get kids excited about the other certainty in life while the ATO pushes to have its program formally integrated with the national syllabus from 2013.

It will teach school kids about Tax File Numbers, superannuation, and the need for, and difference between personal and business taxes. The application will need to entertain teachers as well as children through a series of activities, multiplayer-online games and challenges.

Parents and teachers will be able to track student progress online, and generate reports and topical teaching materials.

The application will go live in time for the start of school next year.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
July 28, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Apple lost its bid today to criminalize “jailbreaking,” the practice of hacking an iPhone to install unauthorized apps on the smartphone, according to a decision by the U.S. Copyright Office and the Library of Congress.

The decision, which was announced Monday by Librarian of Congress James Billington, adds jailbreaking to the list of practices that do not violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

“When one jailbreaks a smartphone in order to make the operating system on that phone interoperable with an independently created application that has not been approved by the maker of the smartphone or the maker of its operating system, the modifications that are made purely for the purpose of such interoperability are fair uses,” Marybeth Peters, Register of Copyrights, wrote in the ruling approved by Billington ( download PDF ).

Peters also blasted Apple’s 2009 contention that hacking the iPhone was a violation of U.S. copyright law because the practice relied on pirated copies of the smartphone’s bootloader and operating system.

“Apple’s objections to the installation and use of unapproved applications appears to have nothing to do with its interests as the owner of copyrights in the computer programs embodied in the iPhone, and running the unapproved applications has no adverse effect on those interests,” she wrote in her ruling. “Rather, Apple’s objections relate to its interests as a manufacturer and distributor of a device, the iPhone.”

She also called jailbreaking “innocuous at worst and beneficial at best.”

Apple submitted comments to the Copyright Office in February 2009 after the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked for a DCMA exemption in 2008 for cell phone jailbreaking. The EFF, and technology companies that supported it, including Firefox maker Mozilla , wanted the Copyright Office to allow users to install applications not available through Apple’s App Store without fear of copyright infringement penalties.

The DCMA and Apple ’s argument were among the reasons why Mozilla and Norway-based Opera Software declined to create iPhone versions of their Firefox and Opera browsers.

Opera later released Opera Mini , a proxy-based program, for the iPhone. Although Mozilla is actively working on mobile editions of Firefox, it said it would not develop a version for the iPhone. Instead, it recently shipped Firefox Home , a spin-off of the bookmark and tab synchronization technology it currently offers as an add-on to the desktop browser.

The EFF applauded the decision to de-criminalize iPhone jailbreaking.

“Copyright law has long held that making programs interoperable is fair use,” said Corynne McSherry, EFF’s senior staff attorney, in a statement Monday . “It’s gratifying that the Copyright Office acknowledges this right and agrees that the anticircumvention laws should not interfere with interoperability.”

Today’s ruling also gave a limited green light to security researchers investigating vulnerabilities in computer and videogame console software that are defended by technology copy-protection schemes.

“The socially productive purpose of investigating computer security and informing the public do not involve use of the creative aspects of the work and are unlikely to have an adverse effect on the market for or value of the copyrighted work itself,” Peters ruled.

Peters asked for and received confirmation from Billington that a special class be protected against DCMA prosecution. “The Register recommends that the Librarian designate a class of video games protected by access controls, when circumvention is done for the purpose of good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities,” Peters said.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
July 27, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Entrepreneurs, including wags with a serious streak of funny, have taken advantage of Apple’s problem with the iPhone 4’s antenna to make a few dollars and market their wares.

Even though Apple CEO Steve Jobs promised every iPhone owner a free case — either an Apple-sold Bumper or a third-party substitute — on July 16, that hasn’t stopped companies and individuals from touting alternatives.

Irvine, Calif.-based Fusion of Ideas, for example, announced last week that it would give away a five-piece package of its StealthArmor film that users could apply to the edges of their iPhone 4s.

According to iPhone 4 owners and Consumer Reports magazine, holding the iPhone 4 in certain ways, especially by touching a gap in the phone’s stainless steel bezel, causes the smartphone to drop calls and lose signal strength. During a hastily-called press conference, Jobs acknowledged the issue, but claimed that all cell phones were similarly affected.

Jobs, as well as Consumer Reports, said that a case such as Apple’s Bumper, which wraps around the phone’s edges and thus hides the bezel and its sensitive gap, would solve the reception problems .

Fusion of Ideas claimed that its StealthArmor film would “provide a buffer between the user’s hand and the device’s built-in antennae.” Consumers must pay a $1.50 shipping charge for what the company said was normally a $10 purchase. At the same time, Fusion of Ideas promoted a more comprehensive kit of protective film that includes sheets for the front and back of the iPhone 4 for $35, $10 off the usual price.

Other attempts to profit from Apple’s public relations fiasco were more tongue-in-cheek.

A pair of Brooklyn designers, Szymon Weglarski and Jon Dorfman, have produced “Antenn-aid,” tiny vinyl stickers resembling Band-Aids that users can apply over the bezel gap on the iPhone’s lower left side. A six-pack of the stickers sells for $4.99 plus shipping on the Etsy handmade marketplace .

Weglarski and Dorfman made no special claims that the bogus bandages actually resolve the iPhone 4 antenna problem. “Antenn-aid is for entertainment purposes only. Results may vary,” their site stated .

Etsy also sported another for-fun-only solution, a sticker that simply read “End Call.” Like Antenn-aid, the red “End Call” sticker is to be applied over the bezel gap on the left side of the iPhone 4. “Even if you don’t have any issues this is a great little conversation starter sure to get a laugh,” the Etsy copy read.

A package of four stickers runs $4 plus shipping.

Web designer Aaron Draczynski came up with the idea June 17, a day after Jobs’ press conference, and posted an image of his concept on Twitpic that quickly went viral, appearing in stories on scores of sites, including Gizmodo and Silicon Valley Insider.

Although someone else used his idea to produce the “End Call” novelty, Draczynski promised he would “1-up them” in a Twitter message last Thursday.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
July 22, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - For the third time in the last four quarters, Apple today reported it sold a record number of Macs, although sales of the iPhone slipped slightly.

The iPad , meanwhile, debuted on Apple’s balance sheet with 3.27 million units sold, generating $2.17 billion in revenues that represented nearly 14% of the Cupertino, Calif. company’s total income for the period.

“That was out of nowhere,” said Brian Marshall, an analyst with Gleacher & Company, about the iPad’s numbers. “Phenomenal.”

Overall, the company posted record revenues of $15.7 billion for the quarter, with a net profit of $3.25 billion. Revenues were up 61% year-over-year.

“Revenues were driven primarily by the iPad, with strong sales of iPhone and Mac,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s chief financial officer, during the earnings call with Wall Street analysts Tuesday afternoon.

Marshall agreed, saying that strong Mac and iPhone sales, when combined with a stellar debut by the iPad, produced the record quarter.

The iPad’s number should put to rest thoughts that the tablet would cannibalize sales of Apple’s other products. “The Mac upside and the iPhone upside, along with the iPad numbers, makes the idea that the iPad would take away from Apple’s internal dollars null and void,” said Marshall.

The iPad sales weren’t a surprise: In late June, Apple announced that it had sold 3 million tablets in the first 80 days of availability. Apple is selling approximately 1.1 million iPads per month, according to Apple’s figures, putting it on a pace to sell almost 10 million tablets by year’s end.

In the quarter that closed June 26, Apple sold 8.4 million iPhones, down 4% from the 8.75 million it sold the first quarter, but up 61% from the same period last year. Mac sales, however, set a record of 3.47 million, up 33% over the same quarter in 2009 and trumping the 3.36-million mark of the previous bestselling quarter, the final three months of last year.

Apple set Mac sales records in the third and fourth quarters of 2009, as well as in this quarter, turning a hat trick out of the last four periods.

“The Mac is very healthy,” said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research. “That was the one business they might have been concerned about, but it’s looking very good. It’s still far and away from where they once were on an APS [average selling price], but they don’t have to generate a lot of their profit on the Macs anymore.”

Desktop Mac sales were up 18% year-over-year to 1 million, a growth rate significantly less than the 40% increase the prior quarter and the 70% climb of 2009’s final quarter. Apple explained the slippage as part and parcel of its refresh cycle; the company’s primary desktop, the iMac, hasn’t been revamped since October 2009.

Notebook sales were up 41% for the quarter to 2.46 million, a growth spurt dramatically higher than the 28% increase of the prior quarter. “There’s clearly a move to mobility,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, during the question-and-answer portion of the call.

Apple’s executives seemed genuinely surprised by the success of the iPad, which some analysts had once said would do fewer units for the entire year than Apple claimed it sold in just one quarter. “We’ve been pleasantly surprised how fast this product has gotten out of the chute,” said Cook, who added that Apple was “selling every [iPad] unit that we can make,” after an analyst asked when the company would balance supply and demand.

iPad orders are currently backlogged seven-to-10 business days on Apple’s online store, and the supply will likely get even tighter; Apple plans to launch the tablet in nine additional countries this Friday.

The success of the iPad has forced several research firms to revise their sales estimates for either Apple’s tablet or tablet-like devices in general. Before Apple’s earnings call, iSuppli upped its iPad projection from an April estimate of 7.1 million units to 12.9 million iPads for the year. Also on Tuesday, ABI Research almost tripled a sales forecast from six months ago to 11 million for 2010.

“Apple is now a four-product company, that’s pretty darn clear,” said Gottheil, referring to Apple’s iPhone, Mac, iPad and iPod lines.

Gottheil also saw confirmation in today’s numbers that the iPad hasn’t, at least yet, taken dollars from Apple’s own pocket. “Cannibalization isn’t a big issue for Apple, certainly, or for anyone else for that matter,” he said. “As prices for devices come down, it’s more a matter of people having more devices, not having to decide on just one.”

Cook dismissed talk of cannibalization as well, at one point saying it was “too early to tell” if the iPad was taking away sales of iPod Touches or Mac notebooks. Later, he said that if it does happens, it’s actually good news for Apple.

“This is where it’s great to have a lower share, because if it turns out the iPad cannibalizes PCs, I think it’s fantastic for us,” said Cook. “There’s a lot of PCs to cannibalize.”

The one question Gottheil and Marshall had about the iPad was how soon Apple could drive down its cost, and increase the margin it makes on the tablet, which Marshall estimated is currently in the low 30% range. The iPhone, on the other hand, now enjoys a margin of about 60%.

“Will those [margins] scale up over time?” Marshall asked.

Gottheil seemed confident they would. “I think they’re well prepared to ride down the price curve on these devices,” he said. “Ultimately, say in a couple of years from now, tablets should be south of $300. They should be less expensive to make than a netbook , with fewer moving parts and fewer licenses to pay.”

Apple also estimated that it will cost the company about $175 million to fulfill CEO Steve Jobs’ promise to give away a case to all customers who purchase an iPhone 4 through the end of September.

“Seems high to me,” said Marshall of the $175 million. “But that’s an inconsequential number for Apple.”

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
July 20, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Apple’s news conference last week on the iPhone 4 antenna and reception fiasco gets an A- grade, but its overall response rates just a C, according to a crisis communications expert.

“For the test, I’d give Apple a B+ or A-, but for the entire semester, they get just a C,” said Patrick Kerley, senior digital strategist with Levick Strategic Communications, a Washington, D.C.-based firm that specializes in situations where companies are backed against a wall.

Although Kerley gave Apple CEO Steve Jobs high marks for the way he handled last Friday’s press conference, during which Jobs defended the iPhone 4’s antenna design and announced all buyers will receive a free case to improve reception, he knocked the company’s slow response to the three-week incident.

“Apple got caught flat-footed,” said Kerley. “By waiting as long as they did, they created a vacuum of news, and others stepped in, like Consumer Reports, to fill that vacuum.”

Kerley was referring to the consumer testing and rating magazine that spurred the debate about the iPhone 4’s antenna design on July 12 when it said it could not recommend the new smartphone — something it’s done with every previous model produced by Apple — because it dropped calls and lost signals when users touch the external antenna.

Although complaints from consumers about the iPhone 4 dropping calls surfaced within hours of the smartphone’s June 24 launch, media attention reached a crescendo last week after Consumer Reports first said it would not recommend the phone, then added that a case seemed to solve the problems.

Kerley applauded the way Jobs kicked off last week’s press conference. “That was a good way for him to walk into the conversation,” said Kerley of Jobs’ defense of the iPhone 4. At the beginning of his 40 minutes on stage, Jobs showed how BlackBerry, HTC and Samsung phones also lose signal strength when held. “All smartphones have weak spots, this is not unique to the iPhone 4,” Jobs argued.

“That’s a pretty classic way to try to talk about a situation,” said Kerley. “The idea is to soften the focus on Apple.”

Kerley said other companies have used the same tactic, notably Johnson & Johnson nearly 30 years ago when it reacted to murders committed using cyanide-contaminated Tylenol. “They pointed out very clearly that everyone was using the same [bottle] technology,” said Kerley of the 1982 incident. “But they were the ones who came out and said, ‘We are going to be the best.’”

Apple should have done more earlier, though. “This wasn’t a model for other companies to follow,” Kerley said. “Not a lot of other companies can wait weeks to respond.”

While Apple quickly acknowledged that holding the iPhone 4 could diminish the signal, its initial advice — “avoid gripping it in the lower left corner” or “use one of the many available cases” — struck some customers as insulting. A week later, Apple muddied the water by admitting that the iPhone 4’s signal strength formula was flawed, a clear misstep, according to Kerley.

“Their message was different from one week to the next,” Kerley said.

In today’s climate, where bloggers seize on stories and consumers can quickly flood Twitter with negative comments, it’s critical that companies react quickly, if not immediately, when issues arise.

“They didn’t have to have a solution, but they needed to get out in front of it with a statement that they were working on it,” Kerley said, when asked what he would have told Apple if they had been a Levick client. “They should have simply acknowledged the fact that the iPhone 4 has reception problems, said ‘We’re getting reports of problems, and we’re invesitigating,’ then sit on that message throughout,” said Kerley.

Not everyone agreed that Apple blundered in its handling of what Jobs himself called “Antennagate” on Friday.

“One of the worst things you can do is appease bloggers, especially when it’s a technical issue,” countered Michael McGuire, an analyst with Gartner Research. “Apple had to be very careful about how to position [the iPhone 4's problems] and how to disclose them.”

That was important because of posts by people McGuire called “amateur engineers” had made all kinds of technical claims about the iPhone 4’s ability to make calls and hold a signal. Apple had to have hard technical data in hand before it went to consumers.

And moving too fast, argued McGuire, risked making a bad problem worse.

“Reacting too quickly risks exacerbating the situation,” he said, using — as an example of how notto deal with a crisis — Sony’s 2005 response to news that BMG Music Entertainment music CDs planted a rootkit on unsuspecting users’ Windows PCs.

“I think it’s difficult, frankly impractical, to response immediately,” opined McGuire. Apple needed to collect data — which he said Apple showed it did in the numbers Jobs cited of support call and iPhone 4 return rates, and was as on top of the PR emergency as anyone could have expected.

“They identified the problem early on, and then acknowledged the problem with the [signal strength] algorithm,” McGuire said.

More importantly, both Kerley and McGuire agreed that Jobs did the right thing by expressing early in the press conference Apple’s commitment to customers. “Jobs did what was more or less expected,” said McGuire. “He put customers before anything, and got the message on that to customers.”

Not everyone was as sanguine about Apple’s response as McGuire.

Consumer Reports, for example, called the case giveaway a “good first step” in a message on its Web site Friday, but reiterated its no-recommendation position.

“Apple has indicated that this is not a long-term solution, it has guaranteed the offer only through September 30, and has not extended it unequivocally to customers who bought cases from third-party vendors,” the publication said. “We look forward to a long-term fix from Apple. As things currently stand, the iPhone 4 is still not one of our Recommended models.”

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By Jeff Bertolucci
PC World (US)
July 20, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - The Droid X appears to be an opening day hit. Motorola’s new smartphone–Verizon Wireless’ answer to the Apple iPhone 4 via AT&T and HTC EVO 4G via Sprint–has already sold out online and at various retail shops across the nation. The ongoing iPhone 4 antenna soap opera has no doubt helped spur interest in the Droid X, as have positive reviews and Verizon’s aggressive and snarky ad campaign.
With its large 4.3-inch display, 8-megapixel camera, HDMI output, and the ability to capture high-def (720p) video, the Droid X has a strong multimedia focus that’s resonating with consumers. But could the phone be a suitable laptop-replacement for business too?

For most of you, of course, the answer is a big, fat no. If you’re deskbound and spend much of your day working with large spreadsheets, documents, presentations, or other files that demand a big display and a full-fledged productivity suite, the idea of a smartphone as a primary business PC probably seems like a joke.

But phone manufacturers disagree. Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha in June announced plans for a 2GHz Android smartphone that would ship by the end of the year. (By comparison, today’s speediest smartphones, including the iPhone 4, Droid X, and EVO 4G, feature 1GHz processors.) Jha also predicted that mobile computers (i.e., laptops) would be replaced by smartphones in the enterprise within a few years, according to published reports.

A 2GHz smartphone chip would have its pros and cons, of course. The pros: More horsepower for video conferencing and training, and faster access to enterprise applications. The cons: A power-hungry CPU that’s bound to drain your smartphone battery faster than today’s 1GHz processors.

What about the Droid X? Could it cut it as a laptop-replacement device? For field workers, the answer may be yes, albeit with a few caveats. First, the phone now running Android 2.1 would need Android 2.2, the latest version of Google’s mobile OS–an upgrade that’s slated to happen later this summer.

Android 2.2 adds several business-friendly features, including enabling network administrators to secure sensitive data by remotely wiping users’ phones. It also offers calendar sync for Exchange, better security with PIN-based lock-screens, and the capability for an Android e-mail app user to search and autocomplete names from the company directory.

In terms of hardware features, the Droid X just might work as a laptop-replacement–well, for some employees. The phone’s impressive multimedia toolkit, including an 8MP camera and 720p video-capture, is handy for workers who spend a lot of time in the field, such as insurance claims adjusters.

For filling out online forms, the Droid X includes Swype, a data-entry tool that lets you enter text by sliding your finger across the on-screen keyboard. (In my tests with the Droid X, I’ve found Swype superior to single-digit tapping, although there is a brief learning curve.) And the HDMI-out port is handy for business travelers who frequently do PowerPoint presentations on the road.

What’s missing? The Droid X could use a built-in Pico projector like the one in the new Samsung Galaxy Beam. That device projects a 50-inch presentation onto a wall and is convenient for product demos and training sessions.

Other smartphones? I’ve found the EVO 4G’s battery life to be pathetically short, and a laptop-replacement phone needs to run at least a day before dying. And it’s hard to recommend the iPhone 4 until Apple resolves the handset’s antenna glitch. Samsung hasn’t announced a release date for the Galaxy Beam in the United States.

The Droid X may be the latest, and perhaps greatest, mobile phone on the market today, but it’ll be forgotten within months as newer, faster, and more feature-packed handsets take its place. Still, the device does point to a future where the laptop-replacing smartphone is a reality for businesses.

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By Robert X. Cringely
InfoWorld (US)
July 19, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Please make it all stop so that I can have my life back.

No, I am not quoting BP CEO Tony Hayward. It’s how I feel about this whole iPhone 4 antenna mishegas. As I write this, Steve Jobs is about to take the stage at a hastily arranged press conf — er, special event to discuss the problems with the iPhone 4, which have been endlessly reported here and elsewhere.

[ Also on InfoWorld: How about Steve Jobs in a towel? On second thought, that might not dig Apple out of the hole Cringely describes in "Apple iPhone 4 fiasco: Can you hear us now?" | Stay up to date on all Robert X. Cringely's observations with InfoWorld's Notes from the Underground newsletter. ]

The summary: Whatever you do, don’t touch the lower-left edge of the iPhone during a call — unless, of course, you’re in the middle of a call with a collection agent and you need to bail.

The word on the street is that Apple will not recall the phone, regardless of what Consumer Reports wants to happen. I guess we’ll find out very shortly if that’s true.

However, I can say with at least 72 percent certainty there’s no truth to rumors Apple has hired Old Spice Guy Isaiah Mustafa to field questions from the press (though I do believe the rumors that Apple plans to introduce a head-mounted “mantenna” to solve those annoying signal issues).

Mustafa was the one bright spot during this week of endless Apple speculation. If you haven’t seen his wildly funny Old Spice commercials yet, stop what you’re doing and go watch them. Now. I’ll wait. Then dial up his YouTube channel.

In what is easily the most brilliant meld of social and commercial media to date, Old Spice’s creative team came up with the idea of having the “ridiculously handsome” off-the-charts-manly Mustafa respond to questions sent via Twitter and Facebook on YouTube. They recorded some 200 video responses, ranging from 20 seconds to a minute, to questions sent in by both ordinary users and Internet “celebrities” like Digg’s Kevin Rose and Perez Hilton, as well as real celebs like Demi Moore and Alyssa Milano.

Many ad firms have twisted themselves into pretzels trying to prove they “get it” and that they’re down with the Internet generation. Invariably, they fail miserably because they really don’t get it and they really aren’t down. Well, the Old Spice team got it — totally.

Whoever they hired to write these spots was completely in sync with the spontaneous nature of Internet humor. Their response to 4chan/Anonymous — Mustafa delivers a generic “thank you” while periodically holding random items in front of the camera — was brilliant, as was his final YouTube sign-off.

What this means: Prepare for an onslaught of imitators. In a few weeks we’re going to be hip deep in ad companies trying to outdo Old Spice in forced random/funky ways. I wish them luck. I don’t think it’s going to work.

Frankly, I think Apple should hire Mustafa to be its new, towel-wearing spokesmodel. At the very least, he’d smell nice — a lot better than what’s been coming out of Cupertino’s public relations machine lately.

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By Paul Krill
InfoWorld (US)
July 19, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Microsoft, which has witnessed competitors like Apple and Google grab the spotlight in the mobile phone space, acknowledged Thursday that it is willing to co-fund software development projects for its Windows Phone 7 platform.

This tactic, however, is not new to Microsoft, according to a statement from the company. But a company representative said Microsoft itself had not previously co-funded development projects in such a manner.

 [ InfoWorld's Paul Krill reported this week that developers' initial reaction to a Windows Phone 7 beta software development kit was tepid. ]

“Windows Phone 7 is a significantly more ambitious effort than anything we’ve attempted before; the target customer base is bigger, the developer community and opportunity is bigger, and our efforts to redesign the UI and developer platform have been significant,”  Microsoft said.

“This expanded scope offers a tremendous new developer opportunity that we are supporting with investments in traditional activity that predominantly benefit the majority of our extensive developer community: free professional tools, online as well as personal support, test devices, events and hands-on labs, training, marketing support, and in some more limited cases, co-funding strategic projects,”  the company said.

Microsoft said the scope of its opportunity is new but its developer evangelistic tactics are not.

“We have a long history of engaging with developers to offer support in the creation of compelling apps. The limited use of co-funding to help initiate strategic projects is not new to Microsoft; furthermore, developers tell us that we do not engage in any co-funding activity outside the scope of our competitors,” the company said.

A Microsoft representative brushed aside the notion that the company was undertaking such ambitious moves to bolster Windows Phone 7 because its profile is overshadowed by other companies in the mobile phone market.

“Microsoft is doing this because Windows Phone 7 represents a significantly more ambitious effort than anything they’ve attempted before,” the representative said.

Windows Phone 7 was announced in February. The first phones running the OS are due this coming holiday season. Meanwhile, Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android have built prominent profiles in the smartphone arena, with Microsoft taking a back seat.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
July 19, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Mozilla today announced that its Firefox Home iPhone application has been accepted to the App Store, and is available for downloading.

The program is not a full-fledged version of Firefox, but instead is a spin-off of the bookmark and tab synchronization technology it currently offers as an add-on to the desktop browser.

Mozilla submitted Firefox Home to the App Store on June 30.

The wait was longer than for most proposed apps, according to recent comments by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. In remarks last month at the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Jobs claimed that 95% of the submissions it receives are approved, most of them in less than a week.

Firefox Home gives users access to their browser bookmarks and history, as well as to the open tabs from their most recent Firefox sessions. The iPhone application also includes technology from Firefox’s “Awesome Bar” — Mozilla’s name for the revamped address bar in Firefox 3.0 and later — that lets users search for previously-visited pages using keywords or characters in either the URL or the page title.

Mozilla’s application offers one-way sync only — from Firefox on the desktop to the iPhone, but not the reverse. To enable desktop-to-iPhone synchronization, users must first install Firefox Sync in their browser. Firefox Home also works on the iPod Touch and on the iPad in iPhone mode.

Because Apple prohibits competing browsers on the iPhone , Firefox Home relies on the smartphone’s native Safari browser to actually render bookmarked or history-recorded pages.

Mozilla has been a vocal critic of Apple’s ban of rival browsers. Last year, the company backed a request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that would allow iPhone owners to “jailbreak” their phones without fear of copyright infringement penalties. Jailbreaking lets iPhone owners install software not unauthorized by Apple onto their smartphones. At the same time, Mozilla’s CEO said his company would not develop a version of Firefox for the iPhone.

Norwegian browser maker Opera Software is the only other browser maker to have built and submitted browsing-related software to the App Store. Apple approved Opera Mini in mid-April.

Like Firefox Home, Opera Mini sidestepped Apple’s browser ban, but it did so in a different way. Rather than connect to Web sites directly, Opera Mini pulls compressed pages from Opera’s own servers, a tactic that the company claims results in page download and rendering speeds that are several times faster than Safari’s.

Firefox Home carries a warning on iTunes that “You must be at least 17 years old to download this application” and then cites several reasons, including “Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity,” “Frequent/Intense Profanity or Crude Humor,” and “Frequent/Intense Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References.”

That warning got a reaction from Robert Accettura, a Web developer for CBSNews.com who is also a contributor to Mozilla’s open-source projects. “Presumably the reasoning behind this is that a Web browser can view anything on the Internet and 12% of it is porn among other things out there,” Accettura wrote in a post to his personal blog today.

But Accettura questioned why Apple singled out Firefox Home, as it had done earlier with Opera Mini. “If Apple really feels the Firefox Home app is dangerous, why doesn’t it update Safari so that it warns people of the risks before first use?” he asked “Presumably a fair amount [of] iPhone users are under 17 and potentially unaware of the risks. Should parents be warned in the store? Safari is a default app and included in every iPhone that ships.”

Opera Mini also carries a 17-and-older warning in the App Store.

Firefox Home can be downloaded directly to an iPhone or iPod Touch, or via iTunes to a Mac or Windows PC, then synced to the mobile device.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
July 16, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Consumer Reports magazine said on Wednesday that Apple iPhone 4 owners can eliminate reception problems by enclosing their phones in the “Bumper” case Apple sells.

The findings could presage a decision by Apple to offer iPhone 4 owners a free Bumper, as the publication confirmed yesterday that it has been in contact with Apple over its testing results.

Two days after the respected consumer testing organization said it could not recommend the iPhone 4 because of major reception issues when users touched the external antenna, the publication’s engineers went back into their lab to retest with iPhones equipped with Bumpers.

Apple sells iPhone 4 Bumpers — small plastic and rubber skirts that fit around the outside edges of the smartphone — for $29. Until the iPhone 4’s debut, Apple had stayed out of the phone case market.

“With the Bumper fitted, we repeated the test procedure, placing a finger on the Bumper at the point at which it covers the gap [on the lower left side of the case],” said Paul Reynolds, Consumer Reports’s electronics editor, in an entry on the magazine’s blog on Wednesday afternoon.

The publication tested only Apple’s Bumper, although another Consumer Reports editor said yesterday that it was planning on evaluating several different cases.

“The result was a negligible drop in signal strength — so slight that it would not have any effect, in our judgment.”

On Monday, Consumer Reports explained its could-not-recommend decision by describing testing of three different iPhone 4s in its radio frequency (RF) isolation chamber, where a cell tower emulator simulates real-world signals.

The magazine’s engineers also tested several other AT&T-sold phones, including the iPhone 3GS and the Palm Pre. None of those phones showed the signal-loss problems of the iPhone 4 .

Complaints about the iPhone 4’s call reception surfaced within hours of its June 24 launch, as buyers griped that touching the external antenna — embedded in a steel band that encircles the case — often dropped calls or caused the signal strength indicator to plummet.

Apple acknowledged that holding the iPhone 4 could weaken the cellular signal, then a week later claimed that the iPhone 4’s signal formula was flawed and promised to update the software.

Consumer Reports was not the first to say that a case, even Apple’s minimalist Bumper, prevented problems: Users and bloggers, including some with extensive antenna design experience , have said the same in the last weeks.

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Apple also recommended a case in its June 25 statement, one of only two public comments the company has made regarding reception complaints. “Avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases,” Apple said then.

But today’s report from Consumer Reports was the first confirmation of a case remedy from an independent, commercial-quality testing facility.

“The Bumper solves the signal-strength problem,” said Reynolds on Wednesday. “So does a piece of duct tape, as we reported earlier, or just being careful how you hold the phone. But these options all put the onus on consumers to solve or pay for a fix.”

Tuesday, Mike Gikas, a senior electronics editor at Consumer Reports, called on Apple to make good on the problem, a stance that Reynolds repeated today.

“We insist that Apple pays for the fix, not consumers,” said Gikas in an interview with Computerworld on Tuesday. “The best solution would be for Apple to issue a case with the iPhone 4, or give consumers a credit at its online store for one.”

Gikas also confirmed that Consumer Reports had been in touch with Apple over the initial testing it reported. “I know we’re in talks,” Gikas said. “But that’s pretty routine. We have talked with Apple in the past over testing results … we discuss them with all the [cell phone] makers, so this isn’t an exception.”

Others have said Apple should issue free Bumper cases to current iPhone owners, and to those who purchase the smartphone in the future. Wednesday, Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi said the solution would be Apple’s least expensive solution.

“We think that Apple’s most appropriate response would be for it to issue rubber (or any other non-conductive material) cases to all iPhone 4 owners, and on all new iPhone 4 sales,” Sacconaghi said in a note to clients. “It could be done immediately, would directly address the Consumer Reports concern, and would be financially immaterial.”

Sacconaghi said that it would cost Apple $1 or less per unit to hand out Bumpers, significantly less than his estimates of $75 per iPhone 4 for an in-store fix or $250 per unit for a full recall.

Currently, Apple cannot keep up with Bumper demand. The basic black Bumper now indicates a delay of five-to-seven business days between ordering and shipping — the same as two weeks ago — but the case in other colors won’t ship for three weeks after ordering.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
July 14, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Consumer Reports magazine today said it won’t recommend Apple’s iPhone 4 because of major reception issues when users touch the external antenna.

One analyst called the publication’s conclusion a “black eye” for Apple.

“When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone’s lower left side — an easy thing, especially for lefties — the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you’re in an area with a weak signal,” said Mike Gikas, the publication’s senior electronics editor in a blog post Monday .

Consumer Reports non-recommendation — “Due to this problem, we can’t recommend the iPhone 4,” Gikas said — is the latest in a series of knocks against the iPhone 4 over reception problems.

Complaints from consumers about the iPhone 4 dropping calls surfaced within hours of the smartphone ’s launch last month. Apple quickly acknowledged that holding the iPhone 4 can diminish the signal but offered only generic advice, telling users to “avoid gripping it in the lower left corner” or “use one of the many available cases.”

A week later, Apple admitted that the iPhone 4’s signal strength formula was flawed and promised to update the software.

Consumer Reports’s Gikas dismissed that explanation as a red herring. “Our findings call into question the recent claim by Apple that the iPhone 4’s signal-strength issues were largely an optical illusion caused by faulty software,” he said.

The magazine tested three iPhone 4s in its radio frequency (RF) isolation chamber, where a cell tower emulator was used to simulate real-world signals. Gikas said that the publication’s engineers also tested several other AT&T phones in the chamber, including the iPhone 3GS and the Palm Pre. “None of those phones had the signal-loss problems of the iPhone 4,” he said.

Gikas said that the tests hinted that “AT&T’s network might not be the primary suspect” in the iPhone 4 woes, quashing talk by some that the U.S. carrier is largely at fault.

“Consumer Reports carries some weight,” said Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates. “But I’m not sure how many people are actually reading it. Certainly, not many 20-somethings are.”

Still, the magazine’s testing and conclusion is bad for Apple on several levels. “This is a black eye for Apple,” Gold said. “Now people can say, ‘See, we told you it has reception problems.’”

Gold speculated that the antenna issue either escaped Apple’s notice, or that the company knew of it and still released the iPhone 4. “This is basic cell phone 101,” he said, referring to testing Apple should have done prior to launching the smartphone. “RF [radio frequency] is a sort of like black magic, so in order to make sure [handsets] work, cell phone makers have beta devices in the real world running around.” But Apple, with its fondness for security, may have skimped on that part of its pre-release testing.

Consumer Reports also concluded that covering the antenna gap — the small scores in the steel band near the bottom of each side of the iPhone 4 — with duct tape or another thick, non-conductive material helps reduce the reception problem. “It may not be pretty, but it works,” said Gikas.

That advice contradicts an antenna engineer’s take two weeks ago that suggestions to tape over the gaps were just “hokum.”

Consumer Reports continued to recommend 2009’s iPhone 3GS. Last year’s model is priced at $99 in an 8GB configuration, and is available at Apple’s and AT&T’s online stores.

“To me, [the reception issues] are fundamental problems that show Apple didn’t properly test the iPhone 4,” said Gold. “And I’m not so sure that the software update will fix it.”

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
July 8, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Apple today pulled a large number of apps created by a Vietnamese iPhone developer after claims by competitors that he had pushed his software to the top of the best seller list by purchasing them with stolen credit cards.

All the apps previously sold by Thuat Nguyen have been yanked from the iTunes App Store, according to Apple , which confirmed the developers’ suspicions of fraud.

“The developer Thuat Nguyen and his apps were removed from the App Store for violating the developer Program License Agreement, including fraudulent purchase patterns,” the company said in a statement it sent to Engadget early Monday. Apple did not reply to a request by Computerworld for further comment.

More than 40 of Nguyen’s apps — described by one iPhone developer as “roughly coded, non-localized Vietnamese comic book apps” — suddenly shoved aside longstanding popular programs in the e-book category last week, and captured almost all of the top 50 spots in the bestseller list.

That set off alarms with several iPhone developers.

Alexandru Brie, a Romanian iPhone developer and the maker of the 99-cent Self Help Classics e-book app, was immediately suspicious of the quick rise in popularity of Nguyen’s software.

Brie’s conclusion: The Vietnamese apps had been purchased with credit cards hacked from Apple’s iTunes. “It seems people’s iTunes accounts have been hacked, with mass purchases of one developer’s apps being made using their accounts,” Brie wrote on his blog Sunday.

Brie based his speculation on the fact that Nguyen’s software, which had previously been invisible on the top download charts, had captured more than 40 of the top 50 spots in the e-book category’s bestseller list, that there was no company or support site for Nguyen listed in iTunes, and that there were very few customer reviews of the programs.

The reviews that did exist were from customers who claimed that their iTunes accounts had been hacked and the apps purchased without their authorization.

Another iPhone developer, who asked to remain anonymous, echoed Brie’s suspicions.

“This is the first time I’ve seen anything like this,” the developer said in an interview Tuesday. “The App Store is often volatile, but this was very unusual,” he added, noting that Nguyen’s foreign language apps were suddenly a big hit in the U.S. “There were no reviews of these apps, and the fact that 40 apps from a single developer occupied a block of rankings from 10 to 50 was very suspicious.”

In its statement, Apple denied that any hack had taken place. “Developers do not receive any iTunes confidential customer data when an app is downloaded,” the company said as it urged customers who suspected that their credit card had been used to buy Nguyen’s apps to contact their banks, and to immediately change their iTunes accounts’ passwords.

Brie said he had been contacted by Phillip Schiller, Apple’s head of product marketing, and told that Apple was investigating. He also estimated Nguyen’s take over the last month and a half at more than $1 million.

“A quick estimate — it takes at least 100 sales/day needed to secure #9 in the top paid books U.S. chart — multiplied by the $4.99 [that] one app costs and the 41 apps with this behavior, would give us around $20,000/day in ‘earnings,’” said Brie in a follow-up blog Monday. “That’s at least $1 million [from mid-May], although it might be double of that.”

The iPhone developer who asked for anonymity was not as convinced as Brie that iTunes had been hacked. “I think the primary purpose of this was credit card fraud,” he said, noting that although there was no hard evidence to pin on Nguyen, the circumstantial evidence was significant. “A by-product was that the [Nguyen] apps were pushed up in the rankings. They got greedy … this could have gone on much longer.”

Nguyen could not be reached for comment.

Brie said there were hints that other similar scams may be operating and questioned why Apple had not noticed the unusual behavior. “I wonder how is it that no one noticed that the top grossing paid books in the U.S. were owned by similar, weirdly named, expensive-yet-strangely-successful Vietnamese apps,” he said Sunday.

“This comes down to a simple case of credit card fraud,” the nameless developer added. “I don’t think it was specific to iTunes. It could have happened to any online system … iTunes is vulnerable because they have a lot of users.”

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By Neil McAllister
InfoWorld (US)
July 7, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - The PC as you know it is obsolete. So sayeth Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who took the stage at the Wall Street Journal’s D8 conference in June to talk about what he sees as the coming “post-PC era.”

“When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks,” Jobs explained. “But as people moved more toward urban centers, people started to get into cars. I think PCs are going to be like trucks. Less people will need them.” What they will want instead, according to Jobs, are iPads — and devices like them — which do away with traditional desktop PC metaphors in favor of more intuitive, touch-based experiences.

[ Will the launch of the iPad ultimately be perceived as one of the top turning points in tech history or as one of tech's all-time flops? | Test your knowledge of the house that Jobs built with InfoWorld's Apple IQ Test. ]

Depending on whom you ask, the iPad will save journalism, rescue the book publishing business, transform the movie industry, change the way we communicate, and make the perfect omelet. But there are plenty of reasons to suspect that at least some of these predictions will prove overly optimistic. Even more dubious is the idea that the iPad signals a true sea change in computing. Here are 10 reasons why we think the rumors of the PC’s death may be greatly exaggerated.

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By Nancy Weil
IDG News Service (Boston Bureau)
July 6, 2010

BOSTON - Google tops headlines with rumors about the company’s social-networking plans, more changes it made in China and an acquisition during what proved to be a slower-than-usual week for IT news as we ease into the summer here in Boston, where we’ve been treated to some gorgeous days of late. We’ve clustered Google’s news at the top for your reading pleasure and will end our list this week with some “how to” tips that may come in handy for the lazy days ahead (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), ending with some news from Australia where wintertime is buzzing, so to speak.

1. Web abuzz on talk of Google Facebook killer: Speaking of buzzing — the Internet was (and still is) full of chatter that Google is developing a social-networking service that will take on (and take out) Facebook. Given how much Google already knows about us, and its obvious path toward world Internet dominance, we can’t say this comes as a surprise.

2. In its battle with China, Google takes a step back: But it was a bit of a surprise to hear that Google had moved to placate Chinese officials a couple of days before the company’s license to operate there was up for renewal, announcing that it would no longer redirect search traffic from China to its Hong Kong search engine.

3. Google buys ITA for $700M to boost travel search: About that world dominance path …

4. Russian spy ring needed some serious IT help: Of course, there was a heavy IT angle to the news that a Russian spy ring was charged with snooping on the U.S.

5. Apple address iPhone 4 reception, promises software update: So much for the claims that users just don’t know how to hold their new iPhone 4s.

6. The ignominious fall of Dell: Recently unsealed court documents claim that Dell knowingly sold faulty computers, leading to a lot of wondering about both the company’s past and its future.

7. You are here: Scary new location privacy risks: We never have understood why it would seem to be a good idea to broadcast our location, even if we are where we’re supposed to be.

8. How to build a computer: Here’s a summertime (or wintertime below the Equator) project.

9. How to jailbreak your iPad (plus 8 things to do with it): Well, we know what we’ll be doing this holiday weekend.

10. Vuvuzela sales trump Aussie loss: We don’t need a location-based service to tell anyone where we are since it’s easy enough to find us these days by following the buzzing sound. (That said, we’ve come to a new appreciation for the mute button.)

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