The IT labor shortage is real

Paul Mah — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:29:42 -0500

Jason Hiner over at TechRepublic wrote a piece yesterday where he presented the results of the 2008 "IT Trends Survey" by the Society of Information Management. Despite perceptions fueled by the media, it appears that the budget allocated to offshore outsourcing accounts for between just 3 and 4 percent of IT budgets. This is dwarfed by the projected 2009 IT budget of 33.7 percent that is dedicated to internal staffers, or the 6.2 percent of the budget for domestic outsourced staffers.

Jerry Luftman, an IT professor and SIM director, points to the media for exaggerating the impact of IT outsourcing. Indeed, CIOs are saying that they have trouble finding enough candidates to fill open IT positions. Hiner notes that the bigger threat in the current economic climate is not outsourcing, but the lack of qualified candidates in the labor market. On the other hand, there is no question that abuse of the H-1B visa program appears to be rampant. What do you think? What is your opinion on this matter?

To read more about this story:
- check out this TechRepublic article

Microsoft unilateral downgrade of 'Vista Capable' specs upsets HP

Paul Mah — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:24:56 -0500

Like an extended soap opera, additional information related to the ongoing "Vista Capable" class action lawsuit against Microsoft has surfaced. It appears that Microsoft made a commitment to HP back in 2005 that it will not loosen the requirements for its "Vista Capable" logo program. Even as HP put in significant investments to upgrade to newer PC graphics technology (in order to meet the specifications), internal miscommunication resulted in Microsoft agreeing to Intel's request to lower it. This is precisely what HP feared would happen. It was confirmed by an email from Jim Allchin, Microsoft's co-president of platform products and services, who angrily emailed Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on the mismanagement. Ballmer rejects all responsibility however, pointing to another Microsoft executive instead. Expect this lawsuit to dog Microsoft for years, even as it prepares to release Windows 7--the upgrade to Windows Vista.

To read more about this story:
- check out this article from the Inquirer

Gartner: 85 percent of companies using open source

Paul Mah — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:21:20 -0500

The analysts at Gartner say that 85 percent of 274 companies surveyed are already using open-source software, with the remaining 15 percent expected to do so by next year. The companies surveyed are end-user organizations from around the world; cost is consistently identified as the primary motivator for switching to open source (so much for the freedom of choice, though to be fair, some did mention OSS as a balance against vendor lock-in).

More revealing from the survey though, is the revelation that very few organizations have formal policies in place to protect against intellectual property violations, inadvertent or otherwise. As a result, Gartner says that the biggest barrier preventing the adoption of OSS has to do with area of governance. This includes issues like deciding which applications will be supported by OSS, as well as identifying risks in terms of supportability of OSS. This is important, as an increasing number of companies such as Google to Nokia are releasing open-source software.

To read more about this story:
- check out this article at ZDNet

Proxim Wireless breaks 320 Mbps with 802.11n

Paul Mah — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:17:55 -0500

Proxim Wireless has rolled out a new 802.11n dual-radio solution that promises 320 Mbps of throughput, or a maximum speed of 170 Mbps using the single radio version. What caught my attention is Proxim's claims that the dual-radio version can be powered off of existing POE (Power over Ethernet) infrastructure. This results in savings by eliminating the cost of additional wiring or power injectors to each access point, as is typical of other 802.11n products. The dual-radio AP8000 will cost $1,099 while the single-radio AP800 will be available for $799. Proxim did away with the use of a centralized controller found in products of its class, which the company says creates network bottlenecks; the result is cost savings compared with similar systems. Despite the promise of newer 802.11 products, cost and complexity in deployment put a damper on the predictions of the end of Ethernet by some.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at eWeek

USB 3.0 finalized, at last

Paul Mah — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:10:35 -0500

The USB Promoter Group finalized the USB 3.0 specification on Monday this week--almost eight years after the launch of USB 2.0 at WinHEC. Also known as "SuperSpeed USB," discrete controllers based on this standard are expected in the second half of next year, with consumer products poised to follow in 2010. About 10 times faster than USB 2.0, transferring a 25GB HD movie file will take just 70 seconds compared to 13.9 minutes using USB 2.0's 480Mbps data transfer rate. On the other hand, the delays in rectifying the USB 3.0 standard meant that Microsoft will not have support for USB 3.0 in Windows 7 at RTM, according to Lars Giusti of Microsoft. At this moment, Microsoft is trying to decide if it will even incorporate USB 3.0 support in Microsoft Vista. We talked a bit more about USB 3.0 a few months back, you can check out the in-depth examination of USB 3.0 here.

For more on this story:
- check out this article from CNET News
- check out this article from MarketWatch

Related Article:
An in-depth examination of USB 3.0

Jerry Yang to step down from Yahoo

Paul Mah — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:08:02 -0500

Jerry Yang, the embattled co-founder of Yahoo will be stepping down from his position as the chief executive officer once a replacement is appointed, said the troubled Internet company on Monday. Yang drew intense criticism for rejecting an initial offer from Microsoft to buy the company in a deal worth $33 a share, or more than three times its price at the time of this announcement. Article

AMD unveils Shanghai server chip

Paul Mah — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:57:06 -0500

Beleaguered Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has unveiled its next Opteron quad-core processor--code named Shanghai--yesterday. The 45nm Shanghai was released ahead of time, while the ill-fated Barcelona processor, announced in September 2007, was delayed by a bug that pushed volume shipments until April 2008. AMD says Shanghai performs 35 percent better than Barcelona, as well as a decreased power requirement of 35 percent. In addition, the processor comes with enhancements that are touted to benefit customers implementing virtualization. Engineers have managed to reduce the time it takes for the CPU to shift control from one virtual machine to another by 25 percent.

Customers who had the chance to try out Shanghai on their machines gave it rave reviews, though Gartner analyst Martin Reynold remains unconvinced that Shanghai will steal the market. He notes that Shanghai's likely customers will be those shopping for a good price/performance ratio.

To read more about this story:
- check out this BusinessWeek article
- check out this Computerworld article

Citrix implements an open virtual machine format

Paul Mah — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:52:03 -0500

Citrix has released an early version of its Kensho tools, which implements the Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF). The OVF is a specification that defines a neutral format for virtual appliances. A virtual appliance is a set of files that represents an application with its own operating system, and is typically encapsulated within one or more virtual machines.

The purpose behind the OVF specifications is to create a vendor-neutral file format that is portable between the different hypervisors on the market. In addition, the OVF package may also contain directions to construct several virtual machines that work together to represent a complete enterprise service or a web service. At the moment, OVF supports exporting between the VHD and VMDK file formats, which constitutes 99 percent of the virtual machines out there, according to Simon Crosby, CTO of XenSource, which was acquired by Citrix earlier this year.

To read more about this story:
- check out this article from the InformationWeek

Serena dumps Microsoft Exchange in favor of Google Gmail

Paul Mah — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:45:02 -0500

Web development software maker, Serena Software has decided to move from its current Microsoft Exchange setup by favoring Google's Gmail cloud-based infrastructure. With a total of 800 employees, the move is expected to result in savings $750,000 per year when it is completed by the end of 2008. The company was paying $1 million a year to use Exchange once all related software costs such as client access licenses and software assurance fees are factored in. It is not known if this is inclusive of related bandwidth and server co-location services to run Exchange. Ron Brister, senior manager of global IT operations at Serena told eWeek that the company has subscribed to Google's GAPE, or Google Apps Premier Edition service, which costs $50 per user, per year.

While this may only be a trickle, in terms of the worldwide base of Exchange users, it does appear to validate Microsoft's shift toward a cloud-based infrastructure in the form of its Windows Azure as well as the upcoming Web-based versions of its Microsoft Office suite. Indeed, software giant EMC also unveiled its own cloud offering earlier this week.

To read more about this story:
- check out this article at eWeek

Giant scale DDoS tops 40 Gbps

Paul Mah — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:35:10 -0500

Arbor Networks has released the fourth edition of its Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report, which summarizes the responses of 70 lead security engineers worldwide. The report indicates that the largest DDoS attacks have grown a hundredfold from their humble megabit beginnings in 2000, scaling to more than 40 gigabit this year. More worrisome is the statement that "the growth in attack size continues to significantly outpace the corresponding increase in underlying transmission speed and ISP infrastructure investment."

Still, it appears that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) surveyed are less worried about DDoS attacks than they were a year ago. Instead, more than half are battling an increase in service-level attacks that attempt to exploit vulnerabilities and limitations of computing resources. Chief scientist for Arbor, Craig Labovitz, explains, "Sophisticated, service-level attacks...wouldn't show up as a multigigabit DDoS. But they are still enough to cause outages on large, distributed services." Overall though, ISPs did admit that the main threat they face comes from "external, brute force attacks," or in other words, DDoS. Arbor Networks released an earlier study in August that revealed negligible IPv6 usage.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at ZDNet News
- check out this blog post at Arbor Networks
- check out this article at DarkReading

IDC: Slower IT spending expected for next four years

Paul Mah — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:30:34 -0500

IT spending will drop next year as a direct result of global financial problems. This is the latest word from analyst firm IDC, who slashed growth projections to less than half of its earlier predictions. In a move that mirrored IDC's forecast, chip giant Intel Corp has also sharply cut its fourth-quarter sales projection in another indication of just how severely technology spending is being affected in the midst of the current economic turmoil.

Despite the negative news, IDC analyst John Gantz said in a statement that IT is still in a "better position than ever to resist the downward pull of a slowing economy." This optimistic sentiment is not shared by the stock market however, as shares of computer makers Dell and Hewlett-Packard dropped in the wake of the latest prognosis from IDC. Shares of HP fell $1.69, or 5.1 percent to $31.56, while shares of Dell fell 60 cents, or 5.2 percent, to $10.73. On the other hand, both Gartner and IDC are predicting a bright future for SaaS over the next several years.

For more on this story:
- check out this article from ComputerWorld
- check out this article from Forbes
- check out this article from CNNMoney.com

Yoggie opens up its miniature hardware firewall

Paul Mah — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:25:17 -0500

Yoggie Security Systems has launched the first open hardware firewalls based on its embedded Linux appliance. Source code will also be released in a full developer SDK to enable security professionals and hobbyists to experiment with its hardware. Article

More than 250 mainframe customers have switched in last two years, says HP

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:21:07 -0500

Hewlett Packard announced that it has helped more than 250 customers, from around the world, to switch from mainframe to its own Integrity-based servers. While not a huge figure, the dollars represented by these numbers do stack up over the years--especially since there are only about 10,000 mainframes in use in the world today. Indeed, HP has been giving away free NonStop-Integrity blade to interested companies who run mainframes since June this year. HP contents that customers can save up to 70 percent by getting away from the mainframe to its Integrity-based servers. No doubt it hopes to grab the attention of organizations who might be reevaluating their hardware line up in these hard times.

To read more about this story:
- check out this article at The Register

Parallels Desktop 4.0 runs 50 percent faster than 3.0

Paul Mah — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 05:21:42 -0500

The final version of Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac has been released. This new version of the popular virtualization tool allows Intel-based Mac hardware to run Windows applications, and features full support for DirectX 9 and OpenGL 2.0. However, the biggest highlight is probably the claim that Parallels Desktop 4.0 now runs 50 percent faster than its predecessor. The software is now 64-bit compliant, with experimental support for up to eight processors built in. Other interesting features include the ability to search inside virtual machines using the Mac Spotlight tool; also, Windows Notifications will now be displayed on the Mac menu bar.

To read more about this story:
- check out this article from the vnunet.com

EMC unveils its cloud offering

Paul Mah — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 05:19:21 -0500

On the heels of Microsoft's launch of Windows Azure, EMC has stepped out, this week, as the latest IT juggernaut to unveil its own cloud-based platform. Called Atmos, the platform is a combination of both software and x86 server hardware that culminates in an enterprise-level cloud infrastructure for delivering Internet applications on a massive scale. Completely designed and built as an in-company project, Atmos represents two years' worth of development. It includes web service APIs, REST and SOAP interfaces, as well as other administration interfaces and features for remote management. What is unique about Atmos is that it bypassed the traditional paradigm of delivering storage in block, instead it stores data as objects with user-defined metadata. This ability makes it easier to search for and retrieve information, which is crucial for processes such as legal discovery and regulatory contexts. No pricing information is available at this moment, though the offering will initially be targeted at media and entertainment companies, as well as telecoms and Internet providers.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Network World