Google buys Postini for $625 million

Continuing in its quest for trying to beat Microsoft in the office category, Google made another big buy, buying a 'communications security' firm, Postini, for $625 million. What does Positini do ? Well, it lets corporations set security rules for all communication happening inside the company, such as e-mail, instant messenger and browsing activities. Such policies are necessary for companies, be it to maintain a track of communications for legal purposes, to filter e-mail for spam and viruses, or to prevent employees from accessing certain type of information.

When corporations adopt Postini's software, they can access, filter and impose restrictions on their employees' e-mail, instant messaging and Web habits. And because Google's moving into corporations -- it's fighting Microsoft for the right to rule over our cubicles -- helping firms keep an eye on their workers is an important goal.
There's a useful purpose to these corporate lockdowns, of course. Google notes that companies are under regulations to preserve all their data; the SEC is going to want to know if you discussed setting up Cayman Island shell corporations over AIM. So companies that are itching to use Google's office apps -- Gmail, Google documents, Google Talk, etc. -- can't switch over until the software can be made to obey such archiving rules. Companies are also targets of espionage, they're subject to leaks, and they suffer losses due to viruses and other network attacks. By keeping workers' computers pinned down and monitored, Postini can mitigate all these risks, it says.

Postini is not meant for the employee, it is meant for the corporations to better enforce policies. This acquisition by Google will help make Google's apps (such as Google Pack, Google Talk, etc) be more usable in an office context, and give them a realistic chance of competing with Microsoft's products, Google's prime goal.

Don't use iPod in a thunderstorm

In a report on a man struck by lightning while jogging and using an iPod, the report concludes that even though the iPod did not attract the lightning, once struck, he suffered far greater harm to his body due to wearing the iPod. Refer this report:

His eardrums were ruptured, his jaw fractured and he suffered first- and second-degree burns from his chest — where the device was strapped — up into his ear channels, along the trail of the iPod's earphones. He also had burns down his left leg and foot, where the electricity exited his body, blowing his sneaker to smithereens in the process.
Heffernan said in an interview with the Canadian Press that the man's experience ought to be a cautionary tale for anyone wearing earphones outdoors during a thunderstorm. "Using things like this, a mobile phone or an iPod, there isn't actually an increased risk (of incurring a lightning injury)," he said from Vancouver. "But we just suggest that if you are unlucky enough to be hit by lightning while listening to anything with earphones, you may be more likely to do yourself some damage."
"But once electricity contacts the iPod, then the metal will conduct the electricity and can cause secondary burns, as this gentleman had to his chest underneath where the iPod was and up where the wires went up into his ears, and possibly even cause enough muscle contraction that either caused the jaw fracture or perhaps he fell forward onto his jaw."

Sp, even though the iPod did not cause the electricity to hit him, once he got hit, it amplified the damage and caused him some permanent damage. So this is more of a precaution to not use devices such as iPod's and mobile phones in a thunderstorm or when there is a higher chance of electricity hits.

Selling security exploits

The biggest fear of software makers, application system makers and the like (Microsoft, Adobe, Apple, and numerous other big entities) is coming true. Ever since software holes and bugs started to come into existence, there was always the pressure between the software company trying to release a patch, and hackers trying to exploit this defect. In the past, software makers would try to apply pressure on the defect finders to keep it quiet till the patch is released. If the patch was found by a big company, they would normally respond to pressure from the likes of Microsoft and not release into the public domain.
However, this was not happening more and more, with the security companies releasing their findings independently of the software makers. Some of them would even sell these to people who would exploit them for nefarious purposes. As an example, review the number of botnets that exist in the internet today, with millions of computers being hacked into and controlled. The situation was literally demanding a market-place for such bugs:

An eBay-like auction site that sells vulnerabilities will improve security by ensuring researchers get a fair price for their work, its founders say. "The existing business model to reward researchers is a failure," said Herman Zampariolo, chief executive of WSLabi, and the man behind the WabiSabiLabi auction site. A tiny minority of vulnerabilities currently get patched, he said, because IT experts aren't paid for their work in uncovering them.
"As long as vulnerabilities are bought and sold privately, the value can't be the right one," Zampariolo said. "Our intention is that the marketplace facility on WSLabi will enable security researchers to get a fair price for their findings and ensure that they will no longer be forced to give them away for free or sell them to cybercriminals," he added.
So far, no bids have been posted, possibly because of delays in identifying the buyers, each of whom must use snail mail or fax to deliver proof of their identity and their bank account--electronic currencies are not accepted on the site. Around 20 buyers have been registered so far, as well as 30 sellers, who have provided another batch of flaws that should be on the site next week.

In this case, the intention may be genuine; however, where is the control mechanism to ensure that these sales are happening to the right people. If we are just dependent on the operators of the exchange, then there is no guarantee. Later, if the number of such buyers increases, it would be very easy for the cyber-criminals to pretend to be a genuine buyer and get access to top-notch holes on a very quick basis.

Playstation prices to reduce

Sony's Playstation 3 has got walloped by the Wii in its major markets, and the fact that the PS3 is much more expensive than the Wii. One thing that is expected to happen is that the price of the PS3 would be dropped, not only to compete better with the Wii and the Xbox 360, but also to promote Blu-Ray movies more effectively. This is a particularly critical time to promote the new standard, since a lot of the decision making by other stakeholders such as major studios, etc is being done. Their decision will have a big impact on which of the 2 rival formats (Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD) eventually gets selected as the default format.
Currently, the President of Sony (Ryoji Chubachi) sticks to the no-price-drop-for-PS3 stand, but things may change before the Christmas season:

The fact is that Sony, bereft of PS3 games at present, has flushed out most of the hard core gamers who would buy Sony's latest latest console at any price. The Wii is in a different class and the real competition for the high end of gaming is Xbox 360.
Sony will cut the price of PS3 for two reasons. One is to bridge the gap with Xbox 360 and the other is to drive the nail deeper into the coffin of the HD DVD high definition format.
Given the fact that there are hardly any PS3 games worth buying yet, Sony's nextgen console has done remarkably well to have sold nearly 4 million units worldwide so far. Despite the naysayers, I believe much of this has to do with the PS3's capability as a Blu-ray player. After all, until PS3 games hit the market en masse why would you buy the most expensive console on the planet?
Sony has promised 380 PS3 games will hit the market by next March. If that promise is kept, it will provide a huge filip to PS3 sales. Meanwhile, Blu-ray movie titles continue to grow, HD flat panel TVs continue to sell and PS3 continues to be the best selling HD video player on the planet.

Sony would be constantly trying to evolve its strategy. Both the Blu-Ray and PS3 are high-stake strategies for Sony, and if a price cut is required for sales to increase, a price cut it will be.

Open document formats push by states and Microsoft

There is a large amount of money in software contracts by American states. Hence if a state makes a push for moving onto an independent document format, it has a major impact on Microsoft, since Office makes around 1/3rd of Microsoft's revenue, making around $14 billion.
There have been attempts by some American states to try and push through legislative bills to mandate the use of an open document format (ODF), something that Microsoft's Office did not have. Such a measure could have a domino effect on other states also trying out similar efforts, and hence Microsoft's intense lobbying of legislators paid off. The states of Florida, Texas, California, Oregon, and Connecticut had these bills defeated and never became law. Chalk one up for Microsoft. Remained Massachusetts.
To get around the obstacle of not having an Open document format, Microsoft proposed a new format called 'Open XML' and promised to allow any company to make software that will produce documents in the Open XML format. In addition, the new format was also validated by an open standards body called ECMA International.
These gambits seem to have worked. When Massachusetts finally decided on this topic, the decision was 'Okay, fine'. This means that Microsoft Office is still on the list of softwares that can be bought by the state of Massachusetts, handing Microsoft a great victory and crushing the hopes of some open source competitors such as Open Office. Now that state agencies can continue to use MS office, there is much less of an incentive to switch to open source software.

Bethann Pepoli, Massachusetts' acting chief information officer, said her office is seeking public comment through July 20 on the plan to approve the Microsoft format. But Pepoli already seems convinced. "It does meet our criteria for an open standard," she said.
Andrew Updegrove, a Boston lawyer who tracks the open document dispute, said that Microsoft's embrace of its Open XML provides more choices to consumers, because rival software companies can make compatible products. "If you look at it from the standpoint of Microsoft customers, it's a good thing," Updegrove said. But he warned that if Microsoft's Open XML becomes the dominant format, driving out ODF, Microsoft could try to modify the standard in ways that would put competing software products at a permanent disadvantage.

And that last point is the major one. Microsoft has not been known for its usage of business ethics and has been known to use all sort of tactics to get victory. The hope remains that things will change this time.

iPhone: The hacking race begins

In the past, there was a great market for cracking the service linkages of phones. The concept being, SIM based GSM phones in many countries are locked to service providers. They are much cheaper than their cost because of the service conrtract, with a subsidy being provided by the telecom carrier such as AT&T, SPrint, etc. This subsidy is provided because the contract normally locks the user in for a 2 year conract, and the company can recover the subsidy during this period.
The iPhone is a somewhat different model. AT&T does not provide any subsidy for the iPhone, with the full cost of the phone being the amount charged ($499 for a 4 GB one, and $599 for a 8 GB one); but Apple, presumably in a bid to repay AT&T over the allowances allowed to Apple while designing the phone prevents another SIM from being used in the phone. In addition, no functionality of the device such as music playing, video, camera, etc can be used without activation (which can only happen with AT&T in the US - and not yet allowed outside the US).
Thus the cat and mouse game between a company and hackers has now begun. The iPhone is a prime target for hackers and crackers, many seeing it as a game / test; and many seeing it as something worth a great deal of money. When Apple would have designed the phone, it would have been a priority to set the security of the phone such that the protection would have difficult to crack:

Locked phones can only be used with cellular service from one carrier, a move designed to guarantee carriers recover the cost of subsidizing a handset through monthly service charges. But the cost of the iPhone, which is priced at either US$499 or $599 depending on the model, is not subsidized by AT&T. Users must pay full price for the handset and sign a two-year contract, which requires them to pay from $59.99 to $99.99 per month for cellular service.
Unlocking the iPhone will enable the handset to be used with any cellular provider with a GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) or EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) network, not just AT&T's network. That's an attractive proposition for users who already have a cellular contract with another carrier, or users outside the U.S. who can't wait to get their hands on Apple's new handset.
Efforts to unlock the iPhone are being tracked on several Web sites, including Hackint0sh and the iPhone Dev Wiki.

This is also something that is a bit odd. If users are being made to pay the full amount for the phone, then they should be able to use the phone at their discretion. It is understandable if the iPhone was subsidized, in which case the service provider locks the phone until the subsidy has been paid. But to lock the phone till activation and prevent usage of other functions is very strange, and once could argue, an extra charge that a user has to bear for having the iPhone. Especially because the AT&T network has been shown to be a slow one, and limiting the speed of wireless browsing.
It is bound to happen sooner or later that the unlocking scheme will fail, and when that happens, it will be a pretty simple job to do this in mass. That will be time when the world proliferation of the iPhone begins.

The time involved in getting the iPhone to actually start working

In all the launch buzz of the iPhone, there has been an incredibly successful publicity campaign that has been run, and market watchers have been waiting to see whether Apple will do anything to trip up on this success story. Well, there is some news, just not enough to trip up the iPhone story, but enough to give a serious headaches to the thousands of people affected.
Normally, the process of wireless activation involves the sales person in the shop handling the activation process, something that would take rougly an hour. However, to make things easier for the large crowds expected, Apple changed the activation process to something that can be done via the user's own computer, through their version of iTunes. However, in the end, this caused problems for a number of buyers, with no clarity regarding contact numbers, and in many cases, with buyers having to spend more than 10 hours waiting for activation to happen.
This can actually be the most frustating thing in the world as of that point, if you imagine spending some time in queue to buy a new phone for around $600-700, and then having to wait while customer service tells you that you need to wait. Obviously, these are teething problems, and Apple should be happy that otherwise people are happy with the phone, otherwise this issue would have escalated into a disaster.

Apple and AT&T unveiled an innovative activation scheme with the iPhone launch. Usually, activating a new cell phone means spending almost an hour or so in a wireless store as the sales representative lights up the phone. But with the long lines expected last Friday, Apple came up with a way to use iTunes to connect to AT&T's activation process so iPhone customers could set up the device at home.
Activation was supposed to be a snap: hook up the iPhone to a Mac or PC with the latest version of iTunes installed, and the software would automatically walk you through the process. After entering a credit card number and selecting a rate plan, the system was supposed to send an e-mail confirming the iPhone had been activated. But waiting for that e-mail turned into a frustrating experience for some iPhone customers.
Other iPhone owners on Apple's Web site reported problems with the SIM (subscriber identity module) cards inside their iPhones. SIM cards hold information unique to a mobile phone account and allow users to easily switch between phones while keeping their numbers and contacts--except on the iPhone, which uses a SIM card that works only with the iPhone. It seemed that the activation system was unable to recognize the SIM cards in some iPhones, which led it to bypass the activation screen and move straight into syncing music, movies and contacts. One user reported that his local AT&T store switched the SIM card that originally came with his iPhone for a new one, fixing the problem. Others said they had done the same thing.

Of course, Apple made a feature that caused a lot of worry to those users who were not activated. Unless the phone was activated, users could not even access other features on the phone; this was something that Apple should have thought through much more clearly, and from the perspective of phone users, not from the perspective of AT&T.