Microsoft shocks NOONE with WebGL comments

Friday, June 17th, 2011

Not a day goes by at IT Pro when we don’t hear of a new security threat. Be it viral malware, botnets or even just idiots leaving unencrypted USB sticks, if it is an issue, we have seen it.

So, when Microsoft releases a statement on a new security threat, we want to take it seriously. It is just a shame this flaw has been known about for over a month…

WebGL is the 3D rendering standard used in both Chrome and Firefox and can be turned on in Apple’s Safari browser too. It turns out the technology has a flaw, allowing hackers low level access to graphics cards and possible entry to grab at user’s data.

Obviously, it is of no surprise Microsoft is shouting about the flaw from the rooftops, with its browser being the only one missing from the affected list *cue round of applause for Internet Explorer*.

This type of “look how good we are because the other team messed up” marketing is something I have ranted about on this blog before, but this time I am really riled as the findings aren’t even new!

Our security expert, Tom Brewster, heard about the flaw at the beginning of May after research was conducted by Context Information Security, leading to the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team warning users to switch off WebGL in their browsers.

Ok, I am all for making sure people are aware of security holes in their software and giving them ample opportunity to fix the problems and keep their data safe. But Microsoft, with its monthly – and often lengthy – patches, should perhaps think of the “people in glass houses” adage before bringing up old research to make their product look good.

There are plenty of good points about IE, go and brag about them. I am the target audience here as a loyal Firefox user so if you want to convince me to change, you will have to do better than pointing and laughing at the competition.

Vodafone gets heavy… metal!

Wednesday, June 15th, 2011

We all know how a good sponsorship deal can boost your business. Associating your company with an exclusive event can get your name out there to people whose opinion you want to change, making them more positive about your firm’s reputation.

On the professional side you have HP’s attachment to CERN or Virgin Media’s ongoing Government networks.

When it comes to fun you have Trend Micro last year buying up space at Royal Ascot, SAP plumping for Wimbledon and PC Tools going down the F1 route.

But, heavy metal music in a muddy field? Would this be your first choice? For Vodafone it seems to have been a smart one.

Last weekend was Download Festival at Donnington Park. I’m a regular attendee to the event which was born out of Monsters of Rock and this year dragged along a colleague from Expert Reviews to show him what all the fuss was about.

I wasn’t sure how it was going to work with a mobile firm sponsoring a music festival but it didn’t take long to see they had some smart ideas.

First off was charging. Since we have all become surgically attached to our mobiles, being at a festival for five days can give us panic attacks at the prospect of our phones running out. Plenty of stalls have popped up over the years, offering a basic charge from £5 upwards and this is what I expected of Vodafone.

Instead, it offered all of its customers free charging at the festival in a well organised truck with little queues and knowledgeable staff. This seemingly simple idea actually made people I know buy a pay as you go Vodafone SIM card just to use the facility. Nicely done.

Next there was the “Vodafone VIP Viewing Platform.” Vodafone is using the VIP tag for all its customers, again a clever move to make them feel special. The viewing platform had seats – hard plastic but more comfortable than the soggy ground – with an excellent view of the stage, again exclusively for Vodafone customers.

But, it was behind the scenes that was the best for me personally. The company’s communications team told me they had gone to town on building up connectivity across the festival site, something that stumps any mobile user in a field, and I could really notice the difference from previous years.

The thing with metal, as I wrote last year, is it attracts geeks. These can be a mobile app developer or can go up to the CIO of a company – trust me, I have met them at festivals. Vodafone getting onboard with something like this will undoubtedly raise their reputation in consumer circles but I have a feeling there were a few impressed business customers there as well.

Now, can I convince my big bosses to sponsor Sonisphere? We will see…

Google guy goes Gaga over Backplane

Monday, June 6th, 2011

We know the name of Lady Gaga is used time and time again just to draw attention to websites with no link to their actual content, but trust me, this girl has gone tech.

A blog post in the New York Times has revealed the global phenomenon that is Gaga has put her hand in her pocket to invest in tech start-up Backplane. Why? It is all down to music…

Gaga become a spokesperson for Apple’s Ping project from its launch, even recording video messages for Steve Jobs’ keynote. But, when working closely with the Apple CEO, her manager Troy Carter decided its integration with social networks didn’t go far enough.

Carter, along with tech investor Matthew Michelsen, went on the search for a start-up with the technology to put their plans for musicians to connect and inform their fans around the world into action.

““I said why try to find a platform, let’s try to build one,” Michelsen told the New York Times.

Here they stumbled upon Backplane, a tiny firm with just seven employees but the inventive software to create Carter and Michelsen’s vision.

So Gaga is investing in the Silicon Valley start-up, but she is not going it alone. Enter stage left Eric Schmidt, Google executive chairman and former CEO of the internet giant, to put in his two cents – or million dollars. His investment company, Tomorrow Ventures, is also stumping up the cash and the first round of funding has already raised over $1 million.

A new music service with the backing of the industry’s hottest star and one of the tech world’s most famous CEOs? This sounds pretty exciting to me and with names like Gaga and Schmidt on-board, I am thinking this will be a success rather than a bad romance…

TweetDeck swallowed up by Twitter?

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

I am guessing the majority of you reading this blog have probably been sucked into the microblogging world/social network that is Twitter? (I’m @NifS by the way. Oh, and don’t forget @ITPRO…)

Well, those who use the addictive web tool are also more than likely to have heard of TweetDeck. It is a superb little invention by Iain Dodsworth, arguably the easiest to use and best functioning desktop application to keep on top of multiple Twitter accounts, along with rival social networking sites.

What makes me particularly proud of TweetDeck is it isn’t some large corporate operation, nor another innovation from Silicon Valley we wish to covet. It is from one man based in the new-fangled tech hub of the world in London’s East-End.

So, why bring it up now? Well, it appears Twitter has picked up on its popularity and the rumour mill suggests it has bought the one man band for a tidy sum of $40 million.

This is not the first, and undoubtedly won’t be the last, client Twitter has snapped up, but it has left me in two minds.

As I said, part of me is proud. TweetDeck is exactly the sort of thing we should be showcasing in the UK. A single developer building up a superb application that went viral and became the most popular client, only second to Twitter itself, being recognised and bought in triumph.

At the same time, I am always sad to see the little guys swallowed up into large companies, never sure whether they want to kill the platform to progress their own or just take credit for all the hard work done before them.

Now, I know Twitter is still a relatively small business, despite its global numbers, and it obviously realises something good when it sees it.

But, if this acquisition has gone through, I really hope Dodsworth and his beautiful creation doesn’t disappear into the ether. He is one of the tech champions we need in the UK to encourage others to get on board and TweetDeck is one of the examples we should use to show what can be done with little start-up capital.

Best of luck to all involved and Dodsworth? I hope you get a nice Lamborghini out of it…

Cisco and Dell: A stormy nuptial on the horizon?

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

A matter of weeks ago the death of Flip was announced by Cisco. Not a sell-off or a cut down of resources, a total burial of the device which came from a company acquisition just two years ago.

Now the web is awash with rumours John Chambers’ shake-up of the Cisco catalogue is about to see two more divisions for the chop.

First up is Linksys, a consumer router division bought by Cisco back in 2003. If Cisco is turning away from these types of small fry buyers – let’s face it, the Cius tablet has yet to even emerge – then we could see why it could go.

Second is WebEx, acquired by Cisco in 2007. The online collaboration tool for web and video conferencing seemed to be a natural place for Cisco to put resources, but again, there is not often smoke without fire – ask Ryan Giggs.

What would be the biggest news to come out of all of this though is the possible merger of Cisco with Dell.

After Chambers revealed the shores in the bay were stormy of recent with “disappointed investors” and “confused employees,” the questions have been fired at the company about what they would do going forward.

Also, remember, Chambers has been leading the ship for 16 years and is due for retirement in just three, so how long will he be around to protect his baby?

Dell and Cisco could make quite a team. Despite it spreading itself rather thinly in the past few years, Cisco still has a great dominance in networking and has made a respectable play into the data centre hardware market.

Dell is a more than a worthy adversary in this area, but its failed attempts to buy up smaller firms like 3PAR has left it trailing even further behind its arch nemesis HP.

A pairing of the two would undoubtedly send shivers down the spines of Leo Apotheker, along with the upper esculents of IBM and even Oracle, but can we really see the two giants playing nicely together when they have been on their own for such a long time?

Obviously we asked Cisco about the acquisitions but were given the usual line of “we don’t comment on rumour and speculation.”

We will be watching closely, however, to see how – or indeed if – Chambers can pull this one back or have to row his lifeboat over to Dell’s studier ship.

Should marketing equal moaning?

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

I rarely give up time to interview marketing executives. It isn’t personal, it is just I prefer to hear about the facts of a product/company/innovation rather than the perfectly sugar coated version I could read in a press release.

However, John McHugh, chief marketing officer at Brocade, is the exception. Arguably one of the best speakers on the tech circuit, he is always high on my list to talk to.

His strong presentation, brutal honesty and slightly brash nature that leaves his PR team nervously shaking about what he will say next, is a dream come true for a journalist.

One of my favourite qualities of John’s is his willingness to tear down his competition. It isnt always just for the sake of it; he always has the info to back up his criticisms, but it is always entertaining.

Other networking companies face the largest attacks, along with his ex-employer HP, but whether in a keynote session – which he has led at Brocade’s Tech Day Summit rather than the company’s CEO – or over a drink at the hotel bar – another staple location of his – conversations always lead to the mistakes of others.

As I said, this is brilliant for a journalist or just for someone looking for a fun evening at a tech conference, but it begs the question, is this the right approach to market a company?

When people leave a discussion with McHugh, they don’t leave thinking about the positives he promoted about his own company. Instead they remember his view of the overall industry, along with the slip ups of rivals.

All companies do it, focusing presentations on slides of how their product beats other ones hands down. It gets confusing when rival companies both claim to beat each other and, lets face it, we prefer to independently test things ourselves than rely on their figures, but why put such a focus on the flaws of others than the benefits of yourselves?

The Larry Ellison’s of this world, willing to leap onto any bandwagon to insult another firm’s efforts, may get the company some column inches but it annoys a lot of people and takes away from the products they release. It is kind of like Charlie Sheen – no one cares about the acting, just his latest mental breakdown rant.

McHugh is a far more likeable character than Ellison and much more factually aware. But I think Brocade and other industry leaders need to be aware their products should be the bigger person and speak for themselves without the need to insult rivals. It might not get journalist’s attention as much but we aren’t the ones buying your products.

Saying that, I am off to interview some other executives now and I won’t complain if they start telling me about the mess Cisco is in. Sorry, I am still a journalist…

Tweet, Tweet: It’s the sound of the Police

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

Back in my early days of journalism, I worked on numerous local papers. Admittedly it was mostly killer breaking stories like ‘pet of the week’ or ‘man loses dog,’ but occasionally I got to get involved in crime reporting and traipse down to see who had done what at the local court.

It was a great experience, although often harrowing, but the key takeaway was the journalist’s job of seeing justice being done on behalf of the public unable to attend.

However, the West Midlands Police claim there has been a fall in young pup journos – and indeed seasoned professionals – going down to Birmingham Magistrates’ Court to see what’s what. So, it has come up with a new technological ploy to keep us in the loop.

Essentially, the force will be sending its own staff down to the court to announce the results of various cases over the time-sucking microblogging service that is Twitter.

The journalist side of me thinks, hang on a minute, this is not the same as somebody sitting through the entire case, frantically scrawling down notes in shorthand and writing up in-depth coverage back in the news room for the next edition of the paper.

It also brings into question whether tax payers money should be spent for someone to play on a social network all day.

However, the citizen part of me – trust me, us journalists are rarely referred to as human beings, let alone good citizens – praises the initiative.

It is such a major feature of British society that “justice is seen to be done,” with members of the public able to watch any court case unfold – except in particularly sensitive cases – and have the system prove to us it is doing its job properly.

We can’t all take the day off and spend it touring the courts of the UK, and with less and less local papers, leading to less and less local court reporters, coming up with a new plan to take advantage of modern technology whilst keeping the tradition of making cases public is brilliant.

The Police has its own agenda of course, with the force wanting to show how many crooks it is catching and dealing with. However, regardless of this extra intention, I overall celebrate the proposition and hope many forces follow the example.

Apple, homophobia is worse than Flash ok?

Monday, March 21st, 2011

It is not rare that an article in the Metro gets me all worked up before I have even had my first caffeine shot of the morning. However, today I stormed to work ignoring all coffee shops on route to write this blog post and get off my chest how angry I am with Apple.

Again, regular readers will know I am hardly an Apple fan boy, but this morning the company has gone lower than even I thought possible.

A new app has been approved and launched on the infamous Apple App Store by US evangelical fruitloops Exodus International. The purpose of the app? To cure homosexuals by granting them the “freedom to grow into heterosexuality.”

Reading Exodus’ description of why they think homosexuality is “outside of God’s will” makes the bile rise in my throat on its own before they start with their ludicrous assertions that gay people can be cured and become straight with the power of “Christ and His Church.”

However, the price we pay for freedom of speech is these ludicrous points of view can be made and we can all ignore them, laugh at their expense and carry on with our day as they are given no backing.

In this case though, I feel Exodus International has been given backing by a company that makes a lot of cash out of limiting what freedom users have on their incredibly shiny devices.

Users who want to buy apps for the iPhone or iPad are told there is a stringent approval process to make sure they get the best quality out there. Pornographic apps are prevented from going on sale to protect our minds from filth and, rightly so, openly racist apps are blocked from entering the store.

Yet, homophobia seems to pass muster.

For a company who is willing to write open letters condemning Adobe and telling us we can’t use its products on Apple devices as it will ruin the experience, letting something like this get onto their app store – which Exodus International claims has four star rating no less – is madness.

How dare a company who is so against freedom with their devices and wants everyone to follow the ‘Jobsy knows best mantra,’ allow a horrific app like this to enter its store and enable it to be touted with such a high score?

Apple products are THE modern accessory, it is one of the trendiest companies out there and everyone who uses their devices sacrifices the freedom to install what they like to be part of this movement.

If the company wished to offer freedom of speech, they would have an anything goes policy, but the point is they don’t. Somebody at the company has seen this horrendously homophobic app and given it a big fat tick to be allowed on the app store.

This sickens me to the core and I hope the media furore over the app ensures it gets taken down immediately.

Apple prides itself on being a forward thinking company with products for the future. Well, Mr Jobs, pull yourself out of the dark ages and don’t ever allow an app like this to make you money again.

Public sector can’t cut in time

Tuesday, March 15th, 2011

This morning, I attended what could only be described as a frustrating roundtable with VMware and a number of public sector representatives.

The purpose of the meeting was to launch a new piece of research from the virtualisation company and ComRes, showing how the public sector still had to find £2.6 billion of savings in the IT department as a result of the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) back in October.

The figures spoke for themselves. In the first six months, the average savings made by public sector organisations was just nine per cent of the total they needed to cut over three years.

Over two thirds of those who responded claimed it would be tough to hit the targets laid out for them and a massive 61 per cent claimed the seemingly small nine per cent figure had already impacted on frontline services.

But, here is where the frustrations came in.

Mark Newton, the managing director of VMware in the UK, used these terrible statistics, which should have companies and citizens alike up in arms about how unachievable these cuts are in such a short period of time, as an excuse to push his company’s money saving capabilities.

I am a fan of VMware and yes, virtualisation is a fantastic way of saving cash in large organisations. But saying that these serious issues, ones that are putting police officers out of work, closing down libraries or lengthening waiting lists, should not be treated “as a drain” but as a way to “push forward positive change” in IT departments angers me to the core.

But don’t worry, Mr Newton was the least of my worries at the roundtable discussion. It was the IT representative of the Conservative led council of Hillingdon, Roger Bearpark, that made my blood boil.

We shouldn’t view cuts as “an extra challenge,” he claimed, but see them as an “opportunity.” Now, in some ways Bearpark was right. His claims that local Government should be utilising their IT to the best of its ability, looking for cost savings and efficiencies at every angle so money could be pumped back into frontline services as a rule, is correct.

But defending these massive cuts, when money could be pumped into new schemes to enable better access to local services – such as what Martha Lane Fox has proposed – is preposterous.

When I pulled him up on the fact rushing these decisions, trying to cut the cash spent quickly and looking for short term fixes could lead to long term mistakes losing councils tons of money, he agreed. He categorically said rushed decisions could lead to the wrong ones.

But, Bearpark said it was better to “force the hand” of those not used to making cuts and risk the wrong decision than taking things more slowly. Sorry, but this is just erroneous.

David Cameron and Nick Clegg have presented us with a timeline for cuts that they think is the right one. Many commentators and opposition parties have shouted from the rooftops it is too fast and the public has protested more than ever at what these speedy cuts are bringing – or taking away.

If making all departments cut huge amounts within three years is going to lead to rash decision-making and the wrong call, we will just face even more economic strife in the future.

It is no different to borrowing too much and leaving your head in the sand until the bills roll in. Bills for IT mistakes will roll in just a few years down the line and lead to the need for total reorganisation, ripping and replacing mistakenly installed infrastructures and, shock horror, more debt for UK services whilst front line ones have disintegrated.

IT departments should know as well as anyone that planning a massive shake-up in the way you run your department takes time. Yes, you can’t sit back on your heels and not push it forward, but careful planning to ensure the money spent up front is worth it and the ongoing contractual costs or operational expenses are the best you can achieve.

Picking a vendor out of a hat because they have stuck the word “cloud” on their latest product, whilst crossing your fingers hoping it will save you money rather than cost you in the long term just because central Government is breathing down your neck to save, save, save, is not the way important services should be run.

The Government is forcing departments to make cuts that, as this survey shows, are unrealistic. Tell the Government this. Show them rushing is not going to solve anything. Get on the streets if you have to and protest the cuts, like many public organisations are planning on. But don’t just make these rash decisions as Bearpark proposes and hope for the best. We will all be paying for it again further down the line.

Unless you are lucky and, let’s face it, luck should not come into big decisions like this.

Holy Wi-Fi Allpay!

Monday, January 24th, 2011

We are often writing about the lack of rural broadband connectivity and the need for investment, along with hearing the complaints of village residents begging for a decent connection.

Well, in Herefordshire, it seems some of their prayers may have been answered.

A service provider going by the name of Allpay claims to have “blessed” rural communities in the area with broadband equipment installed… wait for it… in the parish churches.

Yes, a number of holy buildings have been kitted out as Wi-Fi towers, providing 4Mbps connections as standard and even claiming the potential of 35Mbps for business customers.

The director of communications for the Diocese of Hereford (yes, I didn’t realise they needed one either) said the church was “delighted” to be involved and was excited her parishioners would be able to get the same type of services that “urban places take for granted.”

Well, as a spoilt city dweller, I am impressed. The Church as an organisation can never be cited as one of the most forward thinking, yet it has remained a hub of many a rural community for hundreds of years. To convert it into a hub for the digital era too and help smaller regions get online is a superb move.

Obviously, it is not all out of the goodness of their Christian hearts. Each church hosting the kit will receive a £500 sweetener to go towards the church roof fund or some new pipes for their organ. But again, if they are willing to boost Britain’s broadband I think it is a great thing.

Let’s just hope divine intervention doesn’t control what people want to use that internet for. From my youth growing up in a Hampshire village, I can reassure you it isn’t all going to be listening to The Archers on iPlayer and looking up jam recipes the residents want to use their Mb for…