(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

The company took the logs from equipment used by its customers, and, with permission, pored over the stats to see what applications are being used inside more than 1600 companies, 30 per cent of which are in the Asia-Pacific region.

Asia Pacific big on social

The investigation found that social-networking use in the Asia-Pacific region is higher than in other parts of the world, with local organisations using an average of 20 different forms of social networks. In total, senior product marketing manager Brian Tokuyoshi said that 34 different social-networking applications are seen in total globally.

Another result that Tokuyoshi pointed to is that Tumblr is outstripping Facebook in terms of bandwidth used in the corporate environment. He admitted that this could be the effect of Tumblr being more media intensive, with most Tumblr posts consisting of one or more images. However, he said that this traffic is on the increase more so in Australia than in other parts of the world.

"Tumblr has taken a considerable amount of bandwidth inside businesses inside Australia and New Zealand, and the rest of the world is catching up."

In addition, Tokuyoshi said that people have begun to switch from interacting with Twitter, Facebook and other "traditional" forms of social media as spectators, instead behaving more as participants.

"We used to note that people were taking a very passive role at looking at content. In 2011, we actually noted that people are participating very heavily in the social-media applications. They became not only observers, but actually participants in the environment."

Dropbox, Megaupload popular

Other services that have frequent use are web-based file-sharing services, such as Dropbox and the now-defunct Megaupload service. He is concerned that the use of the services is seeing business processes overridden or bypassed, such as when files are meant to be archived when sent via email.

However, he found that the type of sites typically used for entertainment or non-business use can be easily identified by the amount of bandwidth they use. Services that can be used for business purposes, like Dropbox and Google Drive, use comparatively less bandwidth.

Tokuyoshi said that this is likely due to the fact that the sort of files sent in the corporate environment are only slightly larger than those typically acceptable for email.

Debunking the port 80 myth

Tokuyoshi once had a conversation with an analyst, who said that businesses only need to look at traffic over port 80 to check app usage, since that's the port that web requests are meant to use.

"Does that mean everything that going across port 80 is web based? That it's browser based? There's a lot of stuff that's going on port 80 that's not browser based," Tokuyoshi said.

Tokuyoshi said that from 566 applications, observed running on corporate environments, only 157 applications have been using port 80 exclusively.

"Only 28 per cent of applications were only using port 80, and that leads one to think about what about the other 72 per cent of applications out there - what are they using?"

Tokuyoshi said that Skype and video-conferencing apps, which could be used in business contexts, often use different ports, in order to get around port-based defences. Unfortunately, applications like UltraSurf, Hamachi and Tor use other ports for the same reason. A business generally wouldn't want those applications in its environment, since they can circumvent security controls and URL filtering, and could also make the detection of botnets like TDL-4 harder, as these "proxy" applications operate in a similar way - by opening ports and contacting other servers.

"UltraSurf is a very sneaky application in the way it updates itself. It actually goes out, looks for and tries to contact a command-and-control server [and] it tries to update all the number of new proxies that are appearing, so that even if one goes down, it knows where to go in another location. Oddly enough, that's exactly how things like TDL-4 operate."

Those security managers who only monitor port 80 are missing ports responsible for 67 per cent of all bandwidth, he said.

"If we're only thinking [like] how the analyst was telling me, 'All you need to worry about is port 80', you're missing about 67 per cent of the traffic, and that's not something I would recommend as best practice for anybody."

Hypponen, who has been working in the antivirus and anti-malware business for 21 years, opened the 11th annual AusCERT conference today at the Gold Coast, Queensland. In an interview with ZDNet Australia, he explained that there has been a surge in demand for security experts who specialise in exploiting software and hardware.

"One thing that really blows my mind, is watching what the defence contractors are doing right now ...For example, SAIC [Science Applications International Corporation], the fourth-largest defence contractor in the US; I checked this last week, and they had 137 open positions requiring top-secret clearance, for people able to write exploits.

"Think about that. We are seeing the beginning of the next revolution, on how future wars are being fought. We are, right now, seeing how any developed nation is stockpiling on cyber attacks and cyber arms - it's a cyber arms race, and it is starting right now," he said.

Unlike the nuclear arms race, these weapons are not designed as a deterrent.

"Cyber arms don't go on forever; they have an expiration date, they go bad. You have to have a current constant stockpile of tools, if you are planning on using them at all. But there is one big difference between the cyber arms race and the nuclear arms race of the '70s and '80s.

"Nuclear arms were mostly about being a deterrent. Everybody knew you had nuclear weapons ... we had this balance of power and that is something we don't have with cyber arms, because nobody knows what [other people] have. The only way for others to know you have powerful cybercapabilities is to show it off.

"Maybe we will eventually see cyber arms negotiations and cyberdisarmament," Hypponen said.

Richardson is no stranger to the benefit of filing a patent. In mid-2009, the Australian inventor won US$388 million in damages from Microsoft, after the company was found to be using his ideas without his knowledge or consent. It was because he obtained solid advice from legally minded colleagues that he was able to secure his patent-infringement win.

However, while the patent system worked in his favour, there are many who think it's outdated and stifles innovation.

Richardson disagreed today at an IP Australia forum with the notion that patents, particularly those on software, stymie innovation, adding that big companies aren't all out to squash and steal from the "little guys". Instead, he said that big companies are looking at prominent patent filings as part of their acquisition strategies.

"I personally don't see a lot of small guys getting quashed by big guys, because, in the end, if you do have a patent that protects what you're doing, [corporations] actually value that.

"If you actually have something that's unique, and you stop and say, 'OK, has anyone done this?' and subsequently protect it, that makes you a valuable target, rather than a target to be squashed," Richardson said.

The Uniloc founder added that by removing patents, particularly from the software space, the effect would be tantamount to encouraging intellectual property theft. He added that without software patents, only the biggest players would benefit from original ideas, rather than the person who had conceived the idea in the first place.

"What you say about [patents] stymieing innovation is wrong in my mind. You have great ideas in software development, and you should benefit from coming up with a great idea. To go and say everything should be free and it's only the guy that can go the fastest ... [that] will get to market is the one that should benefit from it is to encourage stealing.

"That's encouraging [companies] to employ people in software companies to just take home whatever they're generating every day, and bring it to repository and sell it as quickly as possible. That's the reality of it," Richardson said.

Richardson added that if he had it his way, he'd teach every IT student in Australia how to patent their own inventions, so that inventors are protected when they put their own skin in the game. Short of that, he said that new inventors just need to get someone to give them great advice. Without it, you can get burned, but it's not the end of the world.

"[To maintain your copyright] you just need to not be a nong, and [instead] get the right advice at the beginning of the process. Everything's fair in love and war. People make decisions that aren't fair, and then you learn from that, so that the next time you'll bring a lawyer in, like I did. It ended up being the most valuable thing the company ever did," he said.

The seeds for the deal were sown almost a decade ago, when CEO Steve Telburn worked with voice over internet protocol (VoIP) start-up Zellor Software, which secured funding from Starfish Ventures.

Zellor didn't pan out as expected - the idea was ahead of its time, Telburn said - but it led him to a fruitful consulting career, and, more importantly, to reconnect with an old friend and colleague, Santosh Kulkarni.

Kulkarni was leading a National ICT Australia (NICTA) research project to commercialise peer-to-peer technology, and in 2010 he teamed up with Telburn to co-found Scalify, after they identified an opportunity in the burgeoning gaming market.

Last year, the pair sought funding to spin out the four-year project from NICTA, a deal that would see the research organisation take an equity stake in Scalify, and Telburn's first call was to his old friends at Starfish. This led to the $2 million to fund the company's growth.

The Scalify technology ("Badumna") is touted as a way for massively multiplayer online (MMO) game publishers to remove capacity constraints by using the end-user network (game players) to perform key computing and processing functions, instead of the traditional client-server model.

Publisher server costs can be reduced by up to three quarters, Telburn said, but the real potential is changing the way that games are designed and played.

The increasingly popular social-gaming segment isn't actually social, because individuals play in isolation or one on one. Scalify's technology, however, can be used to develop games where thousands of people around the world can interact in the virtual universe, something that has been difficult until now.

"If you're trying to support thousands of people concurrently in a virtual environment, and every time somebody moves or changes the environment, such as opens a door or turns a light switch on, that has to go up to servers and back to anyone that needs to see that information or cares about it, it's a pretty horrific load. And it needs to happen in real time.

"What we can do is send that directly [peer to peer], which means the performance improves and means [the games] can scale a lot more quickly. It also means you can design new types of games; you don't need to design your games, mindful of constraints."

The company is targeting [MMO] publishers, in the hopes of reducing their costs and overcoming design limitations, such as the practice of "sharding", where virtual worlds are split, based on server capacity in a particular geography.

Telburn expects that at least one deal will be signed this year, using a subscription model, which charges publishers based on the number of game players.

SWOT analysis

Strengths

The company raised $2 million in funding from Starfish. It's a NICTA-developed technology, and has a targeted business model.

Weaknesses

The company's fortunes are ultimately tied to the ability of the game publishers to extract the most from the technology. There is some customer education required.

Opportunities

The reach of Facebook and the iPhone has created the potential for a new class of social games that can be played on a massive scale.

Threats

Scalify is in a race to develop the first truly social, massive MMO game, but it could be beaten to the punch by another company with a similar technology.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that Scalify will be a commercial success via the anticipated deals with big game publishers.

However, the real question is whether it can be the catalyst for a new type of gaming experience, the truly massive, social game. In order for Scalify to scale, the technology needs to be used to build the next Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja. This will allow it to monopolise the all-important game-developer community.

In this regard, it has quite a task ahead of it; and, at this very early stage, it's impossible to believe that it can achieve this.

Verdict: BUST

Raspberry Pi
(Credit: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic)

And as for Australia, there are only 57 units that have been shipped to customers, or are in the process of being delivered. That's less than five per week that have potentially come into the country.

Some relief will occur for people at the head of the 300,000-strong queue, with Lim stating that 70,000 devices will be available for delivery over July and August. He also said that the company is contacting 15,000 people every two days, to be removed off the waiting list and place their final orders for processing and delivery.

Lim said that the focus of the device remains teaching programming skills, and that the priority is to get the Pi into students' hands after the enthusiast queue has been satisfied.

Via TechRepublic

Turnbull used his speech at the Broadband World Forum in Malaysia to examine Malaysia's policy, which has its government paying 30 per cent of the fibre roll-out. It is being headed by the incumbent telco player Telekom Malaysia, and will reach 20 per cent of Malaysian homes.

Turnbull pointed to the fact that despite Telekom's government support, other broadband players could still compete by entering the market, and that the country would be served by a variety of technologies, including DSL and wireless.

Informa T&M this week said its figures showed that the Malaysian network is "comfortably outpacing" other national broadband networks being deployed in the region, including Australia's.

According to Informa T&M, the joint venture between Telekom Malaysia and the government had 310,000 subscribers by the end of April and had passed over 1.2 million premises in the country. The expectation is that it will be finished on time and within cost, which is spawning interest in extending the network's reach.

In comparison, Informa T&M said Singapore has 130,000 subscribers, while Australia has 7000 and New Zealand only has 500.

"There is no doubt that Malaysia's decision to stick with the incumbent Telekom Malaysia, in deploying its next-generation broadband networks, is definitely bearing fruit at the moment," said Tony Brown, senior analyst at Informa T&Media.

"The other NBN markets in the region have deployed more complex NBN models, with new and independent entities created to build and operate their NBN networks - and that has taken a lot of time and created some significant teething problems, especially in Australia."

Turnbull agreed with Informa T&M's sentiment in his speech, bemoaning what he considers the staunching of competition by using cherry-picking laws, which prevent competitors from rolling out their own networks unless they are ready to wholesale a layer-two bitstream service. He is convinced that the prices will have to rise substantially in order for the government to recoup its investment; he also drew attention to the time it has taken the NBN Co to roll out to the premises it has.

The signing of the deal that will enable NBN Co to use Telstra's ducts, and the transfer of Telstra customers onto the NBN when the copper is decommissioned, took much longer than expected, delaying the roll-out. However, a three-year plan has recently been released, which will see the NBN roll-out speed ramped up.

"On current forecasts, the NBN is scheduled to be completed by December 2020, although we know the project is well behind schedule. By the end of next month, the NBN was forecast to have passed 152,000 houses with its fibre, but as of the end of March, only 18,200 premises had been passed with fibre. It doesn't compare well to Malaysia's HSBB roll-out, which was initiated around the same time as the NBN and is on track to have 1.3 million premises in its footprint by the end of the year," he said.

He urged people to consider the NBN debate - not as a technical debate, but rather in terms of outcome; what the country needs to do to provide super fast broadband.

In a technological-purist sense, the answer would be fibre; in an economic sense, he believes the technology would have to vary, as in Malaysia.

The Coalition has promised to do a cost-benefit analysis of the NBN when it gets into office, to see what parts of the project makes sense to continue with, but ideally the party would like to roll back the Telstra and Optus agreements and the cherry-picking laws, so that it can encourage broadband competition. It would also subsidise broadband in regional areas, instead of having a cross subsidy as with the NBN, and encourage a technology agnostic roll-out of fast broadband.

"We will meet those targets with a gradual approach, based on a mix of technologies. Whether it's fibre to the home, fibre to the cabinet, next generation mobile solutions, or, of course, upgraded cable; they all have their part to play. We need a complementary combination of solutions, introduced incrementally, and tailored to local needs," he said in Malaysia.

Yet, critics have said in the past that the basket case that the Australian telco industry has developed into, in the years after Telstra became private, can only be remedied with an NBN, enabling equal access to any provider, and, further, some say that fibre is future-proofing Australia.

Informa T&M's Brown did say that the Malaysian government's decision to not create an independent wholesale network access operator, as Australia has, could be negative in the long term.

In the 2012-13 Budget, the government had to find money to continue its personally controlled electronic health record (PCEHR) scheme, which will see the roll-outs of electronic records to all Australians who opt in from 1 July. The funds that it had already provided were to run out in June.

When the Budget was released, the government allocated another $233 million to the scheme, on top of the $466 million that it had already allocated in the 2010 Budget.

However, scraping together the money from the program has meant the scaling back of telehealth initiatives, and also making payments to practices for adopting information and technology security measures contingent on general practitioners taking part in the PCEHR scheme.

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has protested loudly against using the loss of incentive payments as a "stick" to force doctors to participate in the PCEHR scheme. The AMA has already questioned this, as it doesn't believe that doctors will be compensated for the time they spend creating patients' shared health summaries to lie at the core of the e-health record.

Plibersek, however, was unapologetic for the government's approach in her speech today.

She said that the last two years have been about building the foundations for the PCEHR systems, with the government spending over $160 million on encouraging GPs across Australia to upgrade their computer systems.

Now, over 96 per cent of Australian practices have what they need for e-health, she said, and the government wants to get that ball rolling to focus spending on the adoption of the PCEHR and the innovations it will bring, instead of the basics.

"We've supported GPs to develop their IT systems. And from next year, by raising the bar for incentive payments, we'll encourage them to offer e-health to their patients through the e-health record," she said.

The reasoning was based on what the government's role should be at any given time.

"As we move forward with our e-health agenda, it makes sense that we regularly reassess the appropriate role for government," she said.

In 2008, that was on making sure that the infrastructure was in place to enable e-health to flourish. Now, the government's role is shifting.

"As we bed down the core infrastructure, I believe we need to turn our minds to how government can help unleash the creativity and inventiveness of the private and not-for-profit sectors," she said.

"As long as the strict security and privacy regime is maintained, we should work to make it easy for private providers and [non-government organisations] to offer e-health-related services to health professionals and patients.

"I am particularly excited about the potential for some seriously interesting innovation in the consumer applications space."

Any cuts to facilitate e-health are all about the most efficient use of the health dollar, according to Plibersek.

"E-health is a great example of how the government is working to get the best value from each health dollar," she explained. "And in this challenging economic environment, the government was able to make this investment by finding efficiencies elsewhere in the health portfolio."

It wasn't about efficiency for efficiency's sake, she said, but more about cutting waste and being smart about investments.

(Credit: CBSi)

Last month, Dell ran a summit in Copenhagen. Michael Dell was doing a keynote. Around 800 people were there, of whom 40 or so were women.

And they got this guy, this public speaker - who's supposed to be funny - to MC the event. Mads Christensen. I don't know who he is; apparently he likes Rolexes and stupid ties.

One Dutch tech journalist was there, Christiane Vejlø. She live-tweeted the event.

And this funny man, this Christensen, came out with some real gems.

"There are almost no girls in this room and I am happy. Why are you here at all?" he asked.

"All the great inventions come from men; women, we can thank for the rolling pin," he told the audience.

He concluded by declaiming to the men, "You are the last bastion in IT, boys. Hiss it through your teeth. Shut up, b****."

Maybe Dell didn't know what it was getting into when it hired him? No, apparently he is well known for this sort of thing.

Who he is, at any rate, is unimportant. He's pathetically boring and un-funny. Seriously, kitchen jokes? He's not worth our notice.

What is worth our notice, however, is that stuff like this keeps happening. Women are constantly belittled, objectified and marginalised - so when a company like Dell knowingly hires a known sexist to talk at one of its events, it's another kick in the guts.

We don't want you, is what it says. You don't belong. Go make me a sandwich.

It doesn't matter that Christensen later claimed that he was being satirical (firstly, satire should be clear; secondly, it really ought to be funny, or at least incisive), and that his "shut up" remark was intended to be said to wives, rather than female coworkers (what a lovely thing that is to say to someone you have promised to love and honour).

What matters is that when women are told these things constantly, sometimes in jest, sometimes not, being hurled kitchen jokes, being told that we're just in the way, being told to shut up and being called b**** (I tried to think of an equivalent masculine insult and couldn't), it just isn't funny. It's insulting.

Dell's Danish CEO, Nicolai Moresco, who apparently hired Christensen, did apologise. Kind of.

"We are very sorry it happened," he said. "I want to apologise, if there is anyone who feels offended by what was said."

We're not sorry we did it; we're sorry you got your knickers in a bunch about it.

This was after he told Version2 blogger Anne-Sofie Nielsen, "Mads Christensen's opinions reflect the views of our position."

My excellent US colleague Molly Wood contacted Dell for comment.

We can tell you that the moderator's attempted humour does not reflect Dell's values, or its strong record on, and commitment to, diversity and equal opportunity. Dell has been recognised for its diversity practices, including by Working Mother magazine, which has named Dell four consecutive years to its best 100 companies in the US. In addition, Dell's Women Powering Business initiative strives to help women entrepreneurs and technologists expand their networks, while offering capabilities to help them use technology to do more.

If that had not been the last of the issue, then we would have had to have serious words. "Jokes" like Christensen's are part of the reason why we need to convince women that technology careers are welcoming to women; if you are with one hand providing initiatives and with the other giving voice to someone who says things like "Girls, go back to kitchen", you're just perpetuating a cycle.

It seems, though, that a month after the summit, Dell finally figured it out, with an apology posted to its Google+ account. (A strange choice, since it's not exactly the most visible place; but, with over 300,000 followers, the message was bound to get out.)

During a Dell-hosted customer and partner summit in Copenhagen in April, well-known public speaker and moderator, Mads Christensen, made a number of inappropriate and insensitive remarks about women. Dell sincerely apologises for these comments. As members of our Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network (DWEN) know, Dell is an enthusiastic and committed advocate of women in business and IT. These comments do not reflect Dell's company values, and undermine much of the work we've done in support of women in the workplace, overall.

Empowering women and their businesses is something close to our hearts at Dell, and is the motivation behind our Women Powering Business initiative and DWEN - a network and annual conference that helps bring female founders, CEOs and innovative leaders together, share best practices and open up new business opportunities around the world.

Over the last few years, we've launched several internal and external initiatives, designed to accelerate the increasingly powerful role women play in driving economic growth. We're proud that some of that work resulted in awards and recognition by various women's organisations. This year, as an example, Dell received recognition as one of The Times' Top 50 Employers for Women in the UK, for the second year in a row.

Once again, we apologise for this unfortunate event. Going forward, we will be more careful selecting speakers at Dell events.

Please do, Dell. Look, I know that it was just supposed to be in fun, I get that. I hate being the person in the room who everyone thinks has no sense of humour. I'm tired of having this conversation. I really don't understand why there has to be this endless bickering, this butting of heads and this pitting of imaginary enemies against each other. Women aren't trying to take anything away; they're trying to share.

And some jokes really, genuinely just do more harm than not. It can't be that hard to find a speaker who isn't going to make stupidly insensitive quips about the minority in the room.

Survey data released today by Google, gathered in Q1 2012 by Ipsos Media CT, shows that 49 per cent of the 1000 respondents surveyed were using an iPhone at the time, with 25 per cent of respondents using an Android smartphone.

Of the remaining respondents, the survey found that 9 per cent didn't know what device they were using, 8 per cent were using a Symbian-powered device, 4 per cent were using a Windows-powered device and 3 per cent reported that they were using a BlackBerry. Only 1 per cent of respondents fell under the "other" category.

The positive result in the Australian market for Apple counters last year's predictions and results from Telsyte and Kantar WorldPanel, which indicated that Android's market share is on the increase, and challenging Apple's supremacy.

The market-share data is also in contrast to the survey results coming out of the US, which show that Android smartphones are beating the iPhone on usage there; 40 per cent of smartphone owners have an Android handset in the US, compared to 32 per cent being iPhone users.

The survey also found that smartphone penetration in Australia has risen 15 per cent year on year, to 52 per cent, meaning that half of all Australians now use a smartphone.

Australians continue to use their devices to research products and discover businesses. Jason Pellegrino, head of mobile advertising for Google Australia, has used the data to scold businesses for not gearing their online offerings toward mobile users.

"The mobile revolution isn't 'coming' - it's already happened. Mobile is no longer optional: businesses need to develop a mobile strategy now, or risk getting left behind," he said.

Despite the tough talk, however, Google's own survey data revealed that while customers are researching products on their phones, many still prefer to use their laptop or desktop to make a purchase.

Of the people surveyed, 60 per cent had made a purchase using their smartphone in the last month. Of the 40 per cent who didn't, over two thirds said that they'd rather use a PC or laptop. Others said that they didn't feel safe making a purchase using a smartphone.

Even fewer people are using their mobile as a physical payments device, while only 1 per cent of the respondents reported that they pay for products using near-field communications (NFC).

(Front page image credit: Google)

(Credit: Andrew Nusca/ZDNet)

Each had their own take on their application of technology to become more nimble or innovative companies. What follows is a summary of each executive's words.

Burberry's Ahrendts:

The fashion house started using SAP about six years ago, globally. It decided early on to set itself up as one global enterprise, eventually in 80 countries. "What we didn't want was a different platform in every country," Ahrendts said.

It just finished implementing China - it took six months and a thousand people. About 90 per cent of the enterprise resides on a single platform. "It is the backbone, the infrastructure of the business." Had it not been in place, Burberry couldn't execute on its digital innovations - including streaming runway shows and implementing click-to-buy capability and click-to-chat capability in eight languages.

"Our customer is going to have the ultimate in service," she said. Maybe you're a customer who bought three suits. Do you need a trench coat? Shirts? Ties? Stores will leverage purchase history to serve customers better.

Burberry used to be "a federation of businesses, very disconnected", she said. From design to distribution, planning to procurement to pricing - all elements are now touched by SAP's platform. Ahrendts said she likes that they're on a single platform, because it's easy to roll out new modules, such as the one for human resources. "Every year, you keep layering on," she said. "If you're a global business, the world is very complex ... keep it simple."

"How do you change your company to move as fast as society?" she asked the audience. "It's not just your customers; it's your workforce." Seventy per cent of Burberry's workforce is under the age of 30, she said. The company sees itself as "an innovation company".

"Society expects businesses to run differently," she said.

Ace Hardware's Griffith:

Ace turned on its SAP platform in 2011. The company positions itself as "the helpful place for most people", but it seeks to interface with the younger generation, and to also help retailers connect more readily with consumers in their community.

Technology was the answer, but it wasn't just for consumer and inventory data mining. Distribution for the 83-year-old company - its "backbone", Griffith said - is vital. Ace has been able to maintain a 97 per cent service level for its distribution centres, meaning that for every 100 products, it had 97 in the warehouse. But the company didn't know how well its supply chain was delivering products to them - were they coming in late? Were its suppliers maintaining a lower service level?

"We're going to take US$80 million out of a US$420 million inventory and reinvest those funds in consumer relationship," Griffith said. Now, the company has transparency into its inventory, both from a corporate point of view, and also from the perspective of individual retailers.

"How do you stay relevant to your end consumer?" Griffith asked. "How do you advance the ball up the field?"

Redbox's Di Valerio:

Di Valerio said that Redbox sees SAP as a tool to line up new businesses over next four to five years. By putting in CRM software and using HANA to query data from the 38 million customer email addresses it has, Coinstar and Redbox can better understand renting preference patterns, which improves suggested movies, and informs how it stocks its kiosks.

"We have to understand not only where our customers go and rent discs, but also [to] which kiosks they return them," he said.

The company had several legacy systems wired together that worked fine, but Redbox's tremendous growth required the quick scale-out capability of a uniform system. Coinstar has been an SAP shop for 10 years.

Now, it's looking at even more growth. One example: a coffee kiosk that brews the real deal. Another example: a gift card return machine that gives you money for those holiday cards you crack once and never look at again. Electronics also came up. And, of course, its EcoATM, which exchanges cash for old mobile phones, which it then resells in the developing world.

"It's about getting to know your consumer," Di Valerio said. "It's not so you blast them with emails and advertisements; it's about establishing a relationship with that consumer, so they feel like they're special and they advocate for the company because the company is bringing them something they like."

Via ZDNet US

Last month, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) announced settlements with three publishers: Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group and Harper Collins. Apple, Macmillan and Penguin intend to fight the allegations in court. (Disclosure: Simon & Schuster is owned by our parent company, CBS.)

Filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the consumers' suit alleges that Apple acted as the ringleader of a coordinated attempt by the five publishers to push prices higher on ebooks. Judge Denise Cote refused to throw out the lawsuit.

"It is presumed that the conduct by all parties would be unlawful under the rule of reason," Cote said today in a written ruling, quoted by Reuters.

The US government's separate complaint stems from 2010 meetings between Apple and several of the book industry's biggest publishers, when they agreed to set their own prices on the electronic books that were carried on Apple's iPad. The government contends that the arrangement amounted to price fixing, since consumers subsequently paid more to buy ebooks.

Apple has denied the allegations.

Via CNET

Closing arguments in the second phase of Oracle v. Google were presented on Tuesday morning, commencing with the plaintiff, Oracle.

Court proceedings actually started approximately 45 minutes late at the US District Court of Northern California, as one juror was late due to car trouble. After she informed the court via telephone that she would not be able to make it at all on Tuesday, Judge William Alsup dismissed her from the jury altogether. That brings the total jury count to six women and five men.

Lawyer Michael Jacobs of Morrison and Foerster LLP spoke for Oracle, outlining Oracle's three core arguments: that Google infringed upon US Patent RE 38,104 or US Patent 6,061,520; and that Google's infringement was wilful.

Jacobs stated to the jury that Google has no defence, because it concedes on most elements of the claims, and, for a few of the disputed elements, he said that Google's arguments aren't credible. He further described that some of Google's experts and evidence were "designed to distract from that focus".

Recalling arguments from phase one, Jacobs described what he referred to as Google's "reckless path to patent infringement", arguing that Google wilfully infringed upon these two patents to speed up the debut of the Android mobile operating system in 2007 as quickly and easily as possible.

Furthermore, Jacobs pointed towards Google lacking a licence for these patents, and said that the "fair-use" argument is irrelevant in the patent portion of the lawsuit. Jacobs added that the "clean-room" and "open-source" defences are also irrelevant.

Trying to counter Google's argument that it had no knowledge of Sun Microsystems's patent portfolio, Jacobs summarised the similarities between the stacks of the Android's Dalvik Virtual Machine and the Java Virtual Machine (which now belong to Oracle), arguing that they still don't excuse Google's infringement.

One example is that Oracle claims that the Dalvik Virtual Machine simulates execution in the same way that the Java Virtual Machine does.

The patent segment of the trial has been far more technical in evidence and presentation than the copyrights phase, focusing as deep as the Java bytecode level, which Jacobs said most Java programmers don't even work on. Although evidence in this phase was presented in a much smaller time frame than it was in phase one, both sides relied heavily upon testimony from engineering and programming experts, rather than company executives.

However, one of the key differences that emerged between experts testifying for both sides was terminology, which has the potential to confuse and sway the jury one way or another.

For example, Google technical expert Terence Parr, a professor of computer science at the University of San Francisco, said that Dalvik involves "pattern matching", but testified that this isn't the same thing as simulation. Oracle disagrees.

On the '104 patent, Jacobs cited that the only issue that Google disputes is "symbolic references". Oracle defined a symbolic reference as "a reference that identifies data by a name other than the numeric memory of the location of data, and that is resolved dynamically, rather than statically".

Dr David August testified as an expert witness for Google last week and this week, asserting that the Dalvik Virtual Machine does not include symbolic references at all, so there is no case for infringement.

But using the contradicting testimony of Dr John Mitchell, a professor of computer science at Stanford University, who testified for Oracle several times throughout this trial, Jacobs argued that the "truth is in the Android source code", and that the indexes in Android's instructions are symbolic references.

Thus, it might end up being an instance where the jurors just have to decide whom they understood or believe more.

During his rebuttal case following Google lawyer Robert Van Nest's closing arguments, Jacobs rejected Google's claim that the Android team was not aware of Sun's patents before the lawsuit was filed July 2010. He stipulated that this is not the same as Google engineers not having any access to Sun's patents before that.

"Google organises the world's information," Jacobs exclaimed. "They have access to all of the world's information."

Also on the recklessness point, Jacobs lambasted Van Nest recalling the November 2007 blog post written by former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz.

Jacobs concluded that the "definition of recklessness is relying on a blog post".

Via ZDNet US

The Queensland University of Technology's Eesa Al Solami has developed an algorithmic system to analyse typists' keystroke dynamics.

This could allow computers to lock down sensitive information in the case of an unauthorised user.

The system is in its early stages, and Al Solami doesn't believe it will ever do away with the internet username and password.

"You need a username and password, but a username and password cannot protect your computer [once you're logged in]," he told AAP.

"My actual approach is to extract the behaviour of users, and see if we can distinguish different users during one session."

Al Solami said that the system would be valuable to industries that collect large volumes of personal information, such as banks and the armed forces, and it could be extended to mobile phones and tablets.

"I hate the term 'legacy' technology," Coles said today at a CSC event in Sydney.

"Legacy means [a system has] got to be replaced, and we've got to get a shiny new one. For us, it's been a key part of our strategy to reuse and simplify rather than rip and replace," Coles added, saying that CIOs who embark on the latter carry a lot of risk on their shoulders by conducting a project that's going to cost more and may never work correctly.

In Coles' case, when the business came to him to solve problems that weren't being addressed by current systems, he decided to analyse Allianz's existing technology, and see what could be innovated upon.

"We've look[ed] at what [a system] does and what it did, and saw that it was pretty damn good. It was very efficient, reliable and had a lot of investment in terms of functionality. Replacing an investment that's been in the business for many years [is] a tough call," he said.

Coles didn't identify what systems he was talking about, but said that bypassing the rip-and-replace mentality means that he is able to deliver on the needs of the business for a fraction of the cost.

"We wouldn't deliver the value we provide for the expense we charge the business if we hadn't used that strategy. It's a key component."

For this reason, rip-and-replace projects will likely fall out of favour with financial-services businesses that are looking to improve upon their infrastructure, he said.

"Internationally, [reusing IT is] becoming more in vogue. Large technology investments are not only a big investment, they're an enormous risk. There's a lot in the market around big technology investment failures, but if we're reusing and reintegrating and adding components, not only does it reduce the cost, it also reduces the risk," he said. He added that being able to complete a successful reuse project depends on what you inherit as a CIO.

"We had a more mature environment that was working well, and it could support some of the things the business was asking me to do, but if you haven't got that, you're not starting from a strong enough base [for a reuse project].

"I wouldn't discount rip and replace ... but for us, it didn't fit. I'm sure we're not alone in the situation we were in. I would predict there's less of a rip-and-replace strategy going forward, due to the level of risk, but it would come back to your starting position," he concluded.

What skills shortage?

Coles said that because he decided to innovate upon Allianz's old infrastructure, rather than implementing an entirely new back end, the Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL) for programming still needs to be supported - but that everyone else ripping and replacing has made that easy.

Coles isn't feeling the bite of the skills shortage, however. Instead, it's never been a better time to look for COBOL resources, he said.

"I'd say that the more people who are getting off [COBOL means] that it's become a lot easier, rather than a lot harder [to hire people], because a lot of [organisations] are getting rid of that technology stack, and it's easier for us to secure resources there. It's easier now than it ever was in the past," he said.

Allianz has 40 employees with COBOL skills in his 350-strong team, some of whom are only 30 years of age. Coles says that because of this, the business will be able to support COBOL operations for the few years.

"The only driver around COBOL is really the workforce to support it. It's something we monitor very closely in terms of having the right workforce strategies, but, for us, it's not an issue for the next five to seven years. Post-that, unless we manage that risk carefully, then we might be left exposed, because we might have people who provide the right level of support, but we'll look at a range of strategies around that."

If you are a CIO, CTO or head of IT at an organisation, large or small, and want to make your voice heard on the big tech issues of the day, you'll want to be part of ZDNet's CIO Jury.

Here's how it will work: every few weeks, the ZDNet editors will choose a question to send out to our specially selected CIO Jury - sometimes focusing on Australian members, other times opening the discussion up to our other CIO Juries around the world.

Jury members can respond with a simple yes or no, and can, if they wish, add additional comments. These comments could be used in a CIO Jury article that we develop from Jury responses. (Jury members can also indicate if they'd like their comments to remain anonymous.)

Previously, we've set up a UK CIO Jury, a US Jury exists on TechRepublic and ZDNet Asia is starting one, too. Now we'll be combining forces around the globe and across our networks, so that we'll be able to focus on perspectives both local and global.

So, if you're the head of an IT department and control an IT budget, you're eligible. You can work in the public or private sector. Right now, however, we're not accepting CIOs who work for technology vendors, or as a one-person IT department.

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As it conducts refreshes, the Department of Human Services (DHS) will provide its old laptops to not-for-profit organisation WorkVentures, which will then rework them to be sold to those who are in need.

"WorkVentures will sell the computers to Centrelink concession-card holders, low-income earners, schools and not-for-profit organisations," the minister for DHS, Senator Kim Carr, said in a statement.

The arrangement is starting with a lot of 800 computers, but is expected to be expanded to more devices in the future.

WorkVentures purchases the computers at a low price and sells them, with Microsoft Windows, Office and a laptop bag, for $319, including delivery. Considering shipping and work costs, it works out to be approximately cost neutral, according to the DHS.

In the past, there have been occasions when selling on government computers has put government data at risk, as data on the machines was not removed properly before the sale. The Western Australia auditor-general conducted a test in 2008, buying 19 second-hand PCs that looked to be ex-government. Of those, 10 were ex-government, and four had sensitive information still accessible on their hard drives. Three of the four hard drives had been formatted, with no attempts having been made to remove information from the fourth.

This isn't going to be a problem in this case, according to the government and WorkVentures. The DHS said that it has taken steps to delete data before providing the laptops to WorkVentures, and adding that it is also a contractual requirement for WorkVentures to make sure that the laptops are clean before passing them on.

WorkVentures CEO Arsenio Alegre said that his company has provided similar services for Westpac and other companies, and has never had a problem, adding that the company's methods comply with US Department of Defence (DoD) standards.

If the laptops are not suitable to sell on, WorkVentures will organise for them to be recycled. When doing that, WorkVentures will go as far as to destroy the hard drive, he said.

Android devices typically ship with the user unable to run commands as the "root user", in order to protect customers from any inadvertent damage they could cause, and to reduce the chance of rogue applications taking complete control of the device. However, following an anonymous post to Pastebin, security researchers have found that ZTE has installed an application on the Score M and the Skate mobile phones, which make rooting these phones simple.

The post said:

There is a setuid-root [set user ID upon execution] application at /system/bin/sync_agent that serves no function besides providing a root shell backdoor on the device. Just give the magic, hard-coded password to get a root shell.

The phone is available in the US and the UK, amongst other markets. While no telco in Australia appears to be selling the Score M or Skate mobile phones outright, it is still possible to purchase it online or through smaller firms. ZTE has offices in Sydney and Melbourne, and is a supplier of a large number of Telstra mobile phones, typically rebranded as Telstra's own T- and F-series mobile phones. Telstra is aware of the issue, and is in the process of testing its devices, to determine if the backdoor exists on them.

"Our preliminary tests suggest that handsets supplied to Telstra are unaffected by this issue. That said, we take device security very seriously, and we are conducting more extensive testing to confirm our initial findings. Should we discover any issues, we will contact customers directly," Telstra said in a statement.

ZTE is also the company behind the Optus-branded MyTab tablet, which runs Android.

ZDNet Australia contacted Optus to comment on whether its devices may be affected, but did not receive a response at the time of writing.

Although Vodafone sells ZTE-branded USB modems, it does not sell any Android devices from ZTE in Australia.

Former McAfee threat research vice president Dmitri Alperovitch is a security researcher that has independently verified the original claim, posting the password to the hidden application on Twitter.

@DmitriCyber @k_sec We have just confirmed this. Password is ztex1609523 in the backdoor

- Dmitri Alperovitch (@DmitriCyber) May 14, 2012

There are also a number of reports from users on Reddit, some who said that there does not appear to be any way of remotely accessing the backdoor. However, other users have pointed out that if the hacker wrote another application to access the backdoor, it would be a trivial matter to first root the device and then take complete control.

The association, which is leading the procurement process for the system, said that it is looking for a system of videoconferencing networking, hardware, software and user support services. The association has released an expression of interest in order to get an idea of what such a set-up might look like, so that it can then develop a project plan, procurement pathway and business model.

Such a system would have to function both for councils that have high-bandwidth connections and those that operate out of remote locations. It would also need to be able to scale in accordance to usage expansions to multiple sites, per local government body. In addition, the association said that the videoconferencing system should be able to interoperate with any existing systems.

The hope is that such an installation would increase participation from local governments in meetings and training sessions, held outside their own sites.

Interested parties have until 5 June to express their interest.