Forget DSL Or Cable, Broadband Users Want Their Fiber

By W. David GardnerInformationWeek

The U.K. market research firm said 4.2 million high-speed Internet users received fiber in the first quarter of 2008 versus 2.5 million who received cable. "It's a significant milestone for fiber-optic broadband," Point Topic CEO Oliver Johnson said in a statement Wednesday. "Where it is available, consumers will take fiber over other broadband technologies."

The report removed all doubts that consumers might decline to install fiber because they think they don't need or want additional bandwidth. The Point Topic report concluded that price is a significant factor in choosing fiber. The fast speeds of fiber also appear to be a factor in subscribers choosing the technology, according to Point Topic.

"If you look at the cost per megabit, then DSL comes in at around $20 per megabit per month taking global averages. Cable does better at roughly $12, but they are both completely eclipsed by fiber where costs can get as low as 50 cents per megabit per month," Johnson said in a statement.

Verizon Communications' FiOS fiber-optic-based service remains the fiber leader in the United States. The company said 1.8 million customers were receiving broadband service over its fiber network at the end of the first quarter.

While the United States holds the lead in fiber installations, China is closing in fast, with fiber adding more subscribers than cable and DSL.

The role of governments in the deployment of broadband technologies also can influence rollouts of different technologies.

"There are problems in the deregulated markets when it comes to major infrastructure investment," said Johnson. "Fiber deployment is expensive, and in the U.S. and Europe there are significant regulatory hurdles to overcome."

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Linspire Chairman Frustrated By Futility Of Desktop Linux, Rebuts Carmony

By Charles BabcockInformationWeek

LinspireLinux

Robertson couldn't disclose the terms of the deal with Xandros, a rival Linux distributor, but said Linspire's Click'N'Run download technology would fit in well with Xandros' own bid to establish Linux on end-user machines. To date, its biggest success has been on the Asus Eee PC, a small notebook with long battery life and a low price tag from Taiwanese laptop maker Asustek Computer. It comes with either Xandros Linux or Windows XP.

"Trying to compete with Microsoft on the desktop has been a futile effort. What the last 20 years has shown is that the Microsoft ecosystem goes far beyond Windows" into thousands of drivers for PC devices and applications to run on end-user machines. For Linux to match that may be impossible, he said.

But next-generation devices, including the Asus Eee PC, smartphones, and other mobile devices may yet prove a lucrative end-user market for Linux. "Linux has to look at new markets," he said.

Robertson also addressed former Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony's call for a stockholders meeting after the sale to consider distribution of Linspire assets. Many Linspire employees bought stock in the company through stock options, Robertson said. Carmony claims there are still 100 such stockholders in existence. Robertson said Linspire assets resulting from the sale will be divided among stockholders, as with any other company sale.

But he also warned that Linspire's preferred stockholders were at the head of the line, having provided the money that financed the startup of Linspire. Carmony and other purchasers are not holders of preferred Linspire stock, he said. He had no comment on why Carmony left the company July 31, 2007, other than to note he had "resigned abruptly."

Carmony has called for a stockholders meeting, but Robertson said Delaware law, under which Linspire was chartered, only requires a majority of the stockholders to approve the sale, not a public meeting on the sale or a higher-than-majority vote in favor of selling. No stockholders meeting is in the works, he said.

Linspire once went by the name Lindows and has existed as a company for six to seven years. Its 10-person engineering staff is still located in Linspire's former San Diego offices and will remain there as part of Xandros, said Robertson.

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IDC Report Sees Steady Growth for BI, Pent-Up Demand for Analytics

By Doug HenschenIntelligent Enterprise

business analysts

Another technology seeing increased demand is text mining, says Vesset, with applications blossoming in areas such as voice-of-the-customer analysis. Vendors including Business Objects, SAS and SPSS have responded with recent acquisitions and product releases aimed at combining text mining and data mining techniques. "The two camps of structured and unstructured data analysis remain very separate," says Vesset. "It's important for vendors to respond because if the products aren't there, it makes it harder for practitioners to invest in the technology."

Predicting steady demand, IDC's report concludes that "although the worldwide economy is experiencing a slowdown that is affecting overall IT spending, IDC does not expect a slowdown in the BI tools market similar to that of 2001-2003 [when growth slowed to the 2- to 7-percent range]."

Vesset says IDC has lowered its short-term forecasts "just a bit" in recent months, but he adds that the mainstreaming trend and the emergence of a new generation of BI-savvy business leaders will encourage long-term growth. "Babson, Bentley, Boston University, MIT and North Carolina State are just a few examples of schools that have been offering coursework and programs specifically around BI," he explains. And as these new leaders rise in the corporate ranks, "it signals an opportunity to ask for funding for the BI initiatives that may have been denied in the past."

An excerpted version of IDC's "Worldwide Business Intelligence Tools 2007 Vendor Shares" report covering top-five vendors Business Objects, an SAP Company, Cognos, an IBM Company, Oracle, Microsoft and SAS is available at no charge (and with no registration required) courtesy of SAS click here. The complete 20-page report available from IDC (for $3,500) also covers MicroStrategy, SPSS, Information Builders, Actuate, QlikTech, Panorama Software, IBM, Visual Numerics and TIBCO. IDC figures show that the top-ten vendors now control nearly 70 percent of the market, but Vesset says there are "dozens and dozens of smaller vendors that are doing interesting things, and the innovation is likely to come from these companies."

Business leaders are gaining influence in BI purchase decisions, the advanced analytics market is showing signs of pent-up demand, and text-mining is becoming a core capability. These are three of the most notable conclusions of IDC's latest annual business intelligence software sales report, released late last month. Despite gloomy economic news in recent months, the report forecasts continued growth in BI software sales.

IDC's report, "Worldwide Business Intelligence Tools 2007 Vendor Shares," concludes that the total BI market grew 12.1 percent last year to reach $7.05 billion. The performance marked a third straight year of 12-percent growth, and according to report co-author Dan Vesset, "the biggest point is that BI is starting to get to the mass market."

Pointing to recent IDC qualitative research on "Best Practices in Pervasive BI," the analyst reports increasing line-of-business and corporate executive influence over BI purchase decisions. "One leading indicator of new BI projects these days is executive turnover," Vesset explains. "When new regimes come in, there are usually requests for more information, and for better and faster access to that information."
Mainstream demand is also being fueled by a growing body of popular business literature on BI, says Vesset. "Whether it's the "Harvard Business Review" or "The Wall Street Journal" or books, such as Tom Davenport's Competing on Analytics or Ian Ayres' Super Crunchers, there are many sources that are now calling attention to BI."

Worldwide BI Query, Analysis and Reporting Tools Revenue 2007
(click image for larger view)


IDC breaks the total BI market into two segments. The "BI Query, Reporting and Analysis Tools" segment grew 11.9 percent to reach nearly $5.7 billion in sales in 2007, IDC reports. Microsoft and SAS, the fourth- and fifth-largest vendors in this segment, had the fastest growth among the top-five vendors at 15.4 percent and 18.3 percent, respectively (see Worldwide BI Revenue chart at right).

Worldwide Advanced Analytics Tools Revenue 2007
(click image for larger view)


The "Advanced Analytics Tools" segment grew at a slightly faster pace of 13.1 percent to reach nearly $1.4 billion in 2007, according IDC. SAS continued to dominate the segment with 32 percent of the market, but SPSS and Microsoft, the second- and fourth-largest vendors, had the fastest growth among the top-five vendors at 17.8 percent and 20.0 percent, respectively (see Advanced Analytics chart at left).

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RIM Gets A Delay In Visto Patent Trial

By Marin PerezInformationWeek

Research In Motionwirelesse-mail

The trial was scheduled to begin next Monday in Marshall, Texas, but the judge said a postponement was warranted until the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office re-examined the four disputed patents.

In the order, U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles Everingham said a delay until the patent review is complete "is more likely to streamline the issues for trial than it would in the usual case."

RIM had filed for the stay in April, and it has agreed not to use the information in the review when the trial is held. It also agreed not to file other requests with the Patent Office for new reviews.

Visto produces software for companies such as Vodafone, T-Mobile, and Sprint Nextel that competes with RIM's BlackBerry e-mail and calendar products.

In 2006, it filed a lawsuit claiming that RIM was using Visto's wireless e-mail technology without a license. Visto had asked for unspecified damages and for RIM's network to be shut down.

RIM denies it has infringed on Visto's patents, and it countersued to try and invalidate three of Visto's patents. The maker of the BlackBerry line of smartphones said that the disputed patents should not have been granted because they don't contain new inventions.

On Thursday, the Patent Office validated 21 of claims of a Visto patent that RIM had challenged. The patent involves technology for syncing e-mail between a LAN server and a mobile device. The patent, No. 7,039,679, was filed in 2003 and was granted in 2006.

Both companies are not strangers to the courtroom. Visto has been in similar patent disputes with Seven Networks and Microsoft, while RIM was ordered to pay NTP $612.5 million for infringement in 2006.

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IBM Back On Top Of Server Market

By Antone GonsalvesInformationWeek

Gartnerserver

In May, Gartner reported that first-quarter server revenue grew by 4.3%, and Hewlett-Packard had toppled IBM from the No. 1 spot. But updated guidance and additional analysis of the data prompted Gartner to lower the increase to 2.5% over the same period a year ago and drop HP to second place.

The latest data showed that IBM accounted for 29.4% of first-quarter global server revenue and HP 28.3%. Total market revenue was $13.3 billion, compared with $13 billion a year ago. The remaining top five vendors and their market share were Dell, 12.3%; Sun Microsystems, 9.9%; and Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens, 5.5%.

In terms of server shipments, however, HP remained the leader, accounting for 30.1% of the market, followed by Dell, 22.7%; IBM 13.3%; Sun, 3.7%; and Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens, 3.5%. Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens was the only vendor in the top five to post a decline in shipments, which fell 2.6% from a year ago. Shipments overall reached 2.3 million units, or 7.6% more than a year ago.

IBM shipments are lower, but its revenue is higher, because it sells fewer commodity systems and more high-end mainframe systems. Nevertheless, the race with rival HP remains close. "We commented in the previous release that HP and IBM continue to vie for market leadership in the worldwide server market based on revenue," Gartner analyst Jeffrey Hewitt said in a statement. "This is still the case, but the updated data shows that IBM maintained the No. 1 vendor position in worldwide server revenue in the first quarter of 2008."

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IBM Develops Audio Masking Technology To Protect Call Center Recordings

By Thomas ClaburnInformationWeek

saidcall centers

In a phone interview, J.R. Rao, senior manager of the secure software and services group at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., said that while theft of private information from call center recordings hasn't been a major issue, IBM wants "to proactively address a potential threat that can be used in an attack vector in call centers."

"This is a very important piece of technology because IBM takes security and privacy concerns of its customers very seriously, and it's key to maintaining customer trust," said Rao. He stressed the role that IBM Research is playing in bringing innovation to IBM's services business, a synergy often overlooked.

For IBM services clients with call centers, this technology should help ensure compliance with data security rules. "This is a technology that can be used to mask sensitive data and promote compliance with the numerous privacy and security laws that exist," said Rao.

Using speech analytics, the technology identifies sensitive information in audio recordings, such as credit card numbers, and masks it so that the data is only accessible to authorized people. With the help of metadata, the technology also masks sensitive information captured in recordings of call center computer screens, which are often associated with audio recordings.

Rao said the technology has been piloted in some call centers, but that IBM is not yet sure if whether it will be offered as a service or a shrink-wrapped product.

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Adobe to make searching easier on Flash sites

By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer

Adobe Systems Inc., the format's developer, has released a customized version of its Flash Player software that allows Google Inc.'s search engine and others to see the elements of Web pages embedded with Flash content the same way a human would.

Search crawlers, the programs that find and index content for search engines, currently have a difficult time "seeing" non-text formats.

Although they can often index static text and links within basic Flash files, many Web pages associated with Flash video are dynamically generated on the fly as visitors are ready to view them. And some Web pages are now designed almost entirely in Flash, with menus and other features embedded within the Flash video.

Adobe's new tools help search crawlers navigate dynamic Flash pages more easily. Google's crawlers, for instance, will be able to click buttons along the way and remember the information for the index.

"Improving how we crawl dynamic content will ultimately enhance the search experience for our users," Bill Coughran, Google's senior vice president of engineering, said in a statement.

Google already is using the new tools and Yahoo Inc. plans to soon. Adobe plans to extend support to other search engines.

Web designers don't need change the way they do anything to accommodate the upgrade.

There are limits, however. Google is indexing only actual text within Flash files — not text presented as images such as the words on a street sign. So Google's YouTube video clips still aren't covered because they don't contain embedded text.

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