Margaret Walsh

Hewlett-Packard is building collaboration software with video, application-sharing and 3-D graphics support into several of its workstation models, giving the high-definition conferencing market an option well below the cost and scale of telepresence. It needs only an Internet connection of 400Kb per second, plus a VPN (virtual private network) to connect to systems outside an enterprise firewall. The HP SkyRoom software, which was set to be announced on Tuesday, works on systems with a fairly modest set of requirements, starting with a 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo or equivalent processor.

With the software, users can click on the name of a contact to start up a SkyRoom session with them. Multiple users can join in to these sessions and see the host presenter's desktop as if they were using their own machines. With another click, they can share rich media or what's happening on their desktops. The software supports display of any type of application on a Windows XP or Vista PC, including streaming video, according to HP. HP says SkyRoom is based on video and image compression algorithms it developed over the course of three years. SkyRoom saves work by updating only changes in screen appearance, not the whole screen, HP said.

It can deliver a high level of performance on relatively modest systems and networks by compressing and encrypting data before it's sent to participants. The company named digital content teams, animation production houses and global financial teams running live economic models as possible users of the software. It's another thing to describe it over video," Germanow said. The software should be an ideal tool for teams that design physical things, because it will let one designer show others what's wrong with the item, such as a corner that's too sharp, said IDC analyst Abner Germanow. "It's one thing to describe a design problem over e-mail. Telepresence, which typically involves dedicated rooms or purpose-built systems, would be overkill for these kinds of sessions, he said.

SkyRoom is available worldwide as a free, preinstalled feature of HP Z800, Z600, Z400 and xw4600 workstations. SkyRoom is strictly software, with lower network requirements and no special service fees, and engineers may use it for all-day sessions, he said. Some premium business PCs and laptops coming from HP in the next few months will offer the software on a 90-day trial basis. In addition to the Core 2 Duo or equivalent processor, those systems will need at least 2GB of RAM, a webcam and XP or Vista. The software is also available for purchase for an estimated U.S. street price of US$149 and can be used on workstations and PCs from Dell, Lenovo and Sun, HP said. HP is also offering the HP SkyRoom Accessory Kit, which includes a high-resolution webcam and headphones or speakers, for $119.

Mozilla plans to let people running rivals' browsers use Firefox's new plug-in update service, company officials said today. The service, which relies on a Web page users must steer to manually, is part of the company's effort to prod people into upgrading potentially-vulnerable add-ons, such as Adobe Flash Player, which have become a major target for attackers. After a week of testing , Mozilla late Tuesday launched a Web-based service that checks for outdated Firefox plug-ins. The check scans for installed plug-ins, identifies those for which updates are available and provides a link to the vendor's download site.

In fact, the service already detects plug-ins when the page is accessed by some browsers, such as Apple's Safari, although it isn't able to tell which plug-ins are outdated. Although the service currently works only in Firefox , a pair of Mozilla managers said that the company wants to open the plug-in check to other browsers. "Right now, this page only works with Firefox, but we care about all of you and we're working to support those of you on other browsers as well," said Asa Dotzler , Mozilla's director of community development, in a post to his blog yesterday. However, other browsers, including Microsoft's market-leading Internet Explorer (IE), can't use the page: When IE8 reaches the check-in page, the message "No plugins were detected" appears. Firefox 3.6, which is slated to launch in beta next Wednesday, will warn users when they visit a Web site that relies on an outdated plug-in. Johnathan Nightingale, the manager of the Firefox front-end development team, declined an interview request Wednesday, but today confirmed Dotzler's comment about future plans for the service. "Right now, we're focused on expanding our plug-in coverage and trying to bring greater consistency to the way this information is reported," Nightingale said in an e-mail today. "Longer term, we'd like to make the page as universal as possible, both in terms of the plug-ins we check and the browsers people can use when they visit." According to another Mozilla blog , the plug-in checking service can also be called by any external site using a JavaScript API. Mozilla has already promised to add more plug-in checking functionality to the next version of its browser.

The plug-in check service detects more than a dozen different plug-ins, but isn't always able to tell whether one is outdated. Mozilla kicked off its campaign to eradicate out-of-date plug-ins last month, when it shipped a Firefox update that included detection for only Adobe Flash Player. Adobe's plug-in to render PDF documents within the browser, for example, was detected on a Computerworld system running Windows XP, but the checker said it couldn't sniff out the version number. Later, Mozilla said that the Flash check had prompted more than 10 million users to go to Adobe's Web site to download the newest version of Flash.

Unisys announced Monday software and services that will enable organizations to deploy and run their own internal private clouds, as part of its strategy to offer customers a variety of cloud computing options. In a poll of customers conducted in June by the company, 72 percent said security was their biggest concern about moving workloads to the cloud. The private cloud offering addresses the requirement of organizations that prefer a private cloud for mission-critical applications that use sensitive data, so they can retain greater control over their own and their customers' information, Rich Marcello, president for Consulting and Integration Solutions at Unisys Technology, said in a telephone interview on Thursday. Although there is no technical reason for this, some customers are still not convinced that an external cloud is reliable or robust, and are likely to move in stages, Marcello said.

The company also plans to launch next year a hybrid cloud that combines private and public cloud capabilities. The new Unisys Secure Private Could Solution, which will be available from next month, follows the company's introduction earlier this year of technology and services for a managed cloud service on shared IT infrastructure that is hosted by Unisys. Customers will be able to run many of their applications unchanged in a private cloud, and Unisys is also offering these companies services to help move their workload into the cloud, Marcello said. Organizations of any size can set up their private clouds with an up front investment of US$50,000 for the management server, software, and services, Marcello said. Customers can also use their own hardware, or buy hardware from Unisys, he added.

The software will include provisioning, virtualization, and management software that provides for features such as a self-service portal, he added. Unisys' Stealth technology, that cloaks data through multiple levels of authentication, encryption, and bit-splitting into multiple packets, is also available for private clouds though at an extra price, Marcello said. Ongoing maintenance will involve extra fees for hardware and software support and updates. He did not however expect customers to deploy Stealth on private clouds, as they would have their own firewalls and other security mechanisms in place. Unisys has also announced that its managed cloud service will support new platforms including Microsoft's .Net, IBM Websphere, and Oracle software platforms from this month, so that customers can move their applications that were developed on these software stacks unchanged to the cloud. Stealth is a key component of Unisys' managed cloud service.

When the service was launched earlier this year it supported only Java, Marcello said. This new service provides business continuity and disaster recovery services on a subscription basis, it added. The company has also added disaster recovery as a service for customers of its managed Secure Cloud Solution.

Social networking site MySpace.com announced today that it has switched from using hard disk drives in its servers to using PCI Express (PCIe) cards loaded with solid state chips as primary storage for their data center operations. MySpace said the solid state storage uses less than 1% of the power and cooling costs that their previous hard drive-based server infrastructure had and that they were able to remove all of their server racks because the ioDrives are embedded directly into even its smallest servers. "We looked at a number of solid state solutions, using many different kinds of RAID configurations, but we felt that Fusion-io's solution was exactly what we needed to accomplish our goals," Buckingham stated. The PCIe cards, from Fusion-io Inc., have allowed MySpace to replace multiple server farms made up of 2U (3.5-in high) servers that had used 10 to 12 15,000 RPM Fibre Channel drives each with 1U (1.75-in high) servers using a single ioDrive . "In the last 20 years, disk storage hasn't kept pace with other innovations in IT, and right now we're on the cusp of a dramatic change with flash technologies," said Richard Buckingham, vice president of technical operations for MySpace, in a statement. MySpace's new servers also have replaced its high-performance hosts that held data in large RAM cache modules, a costly method MySpace had been using in order to achieve the necessary throughput to serve its relational databases.

Salt Lake City-based Fusion-io claims the ioDrive Duo offers users unprecedented single server performance levels with 1.5GB/sec. throughput and almost 200,000 IOPS. The system can reach such performance levels because four ioDrive Duos in a single server can scale linearly, which provides up to 6GB/sec. of read bandwidth and more than 500,000 read IOPS. The cards come in 160GB, 320GB and 640GB capacities. MySpace said its new servers using the NAND flash memory modules give it the same performance as its older RAM servers. A 1.28TB card is expected in the second half of this year. "Social networking sites and other Web 2.0 applications are very database dependent. Ethernet pipe," David Flynn, CTO of Fusion-io, said in an interview. Our 320GB ioDrive can fill a 10Gbit/sec.

The H1N1 pandemic is pushing companies to upgrade their secure remote access capabilities in order to enable more employees to work out of their homes and other remote locations in an emergency. What they are doing is planning for scale," he said. Vendors of remote access technologies are reporting an unexpected increase in demand for their products over the past several months as a result of H1N1-related concerns. "What companies are really looking for is the ability to provide secure, remote access to more of their employees," said Michael Oldham, CEO of Portcullis Systems, a Marlborough, Mass.-based vendor of secure access appliances. "Most companies already have mobile workforces. Much of the increased interest has come from government agencies and larger enterprises, Oldham said. "They are the ones that seem to be more aware of the need for planning.

Secure access technologies such as those offered by Portcullis and other vendors provide teleworkers with secure access to enterprise applications from any location, using a broad range of devices. We have seen a number of these organizations purchasing lately with H1N1 in mind," Oldham said. They enable IT administrators to enforce security and information usage policies. Such tools can be vital to enabling business continuity during a pandemic, said Sam Curry, vice president of product management and strategy at RSA, the security division of EMC Corp. These security enhancements are used to make sure that any devices connected to a corporate network from a remote location meets internal security requirements. Last spring, when H1N1 pandemic fears were at their peak in Mexico, RSA saw a massive spike in demand for its SecurID authentication tokens from companies with operations in that country, Curry said.

The RSA tokens enable a company to implement two-factor authentication for accessing enterprise networks and applications. One company, which is among the largest producers in the food and beverage industry, placed an order for nearly 50,000 tokens to be delivered in a single day, he said. "They were fork-lifting thousands of these things directly to their operations in Mexico," to ensure they kept running through the worst of the crisis, Curry said. Many companies provide these tokens to workers who log in to company networks from remote locations. But most other companies would need to do some advance planning to quickly expand their remote workforce, Curry said. The Mexican company, which he would not name, already had a well-established infrastructure in place and easily implemented the additional tokens, he said.

As part of an effort to help companies support more teleworkers in a hurry, RSA recently introduced an on-demand authentication system that companies can use to enable workers to securely log in from remote locations. A worker logging in from home would go to a self-service Web site and request a one-time password to be sent to his mobile phone. Instead of hardware-based tokens, workers get one-time passwords sent via SMS (short message service) to their mobile phones. That password can then be used to securely log-in to the company's network. SonicWall, a vendor of secure SSL (secure sockets layer) VPN appliances has recently added a 10-day "spike license" option for large customers that need to temporarily support more employees working out of their homes and other remote locations. Though the SMS-based approach is less secure than RSA's hardware tokens, they are ideal for when companies need to quickly support an expanded remote workforce, Curry said.

The license allows companies that are running SonicalWall VPN appliances to temporarily increase the number of users that are licensed to log in remotely via VPN. For example, a company that might have purchased a 500-user license would temporarily get the ability to support 2,000 users, by using the spike license option. We have seen them alter their (business continuity and DR) plans in preparing for H1N1," he said. SonicWall has been offering a 30-day and a 90-day spike license option for some time, but decided to add a 10-day option to address requests from customers planning for the H1N1 outbreak,said Chris Witeck, director of product management at SonicWall. "We have definitely seen larger organizations expressing much more interest in incorporating pandemic planning into their disaster recovery plans. SonicWall has seen greater interest in its spike licenses after the company introduced the 10-day option, Witeck said, and the interest is not limited to the U.S. market. H1N1-related planning exercises have resulted in increased demand for SonicWall's products especially in Japan where concern over the pandemic seems to be especially high, he said.

Network World's DEMO conference always features a wide range of flashy new consumer and enterprise technologies and this fall's show is no exception. In this article, we'll run through 13 of the new technologies generating the most buzz and highlight some of the innovations on display at the show. Products from DEMOfall '09 run the gamut, from cloud video surveillance technology to Web 2.0 patent databases to software that helps you scope out your dates for sketchy Internet activity.

Get an overview of the products Company: Third Iris Corp. The company's package includes video cameras that users can manage from a central Web site and that use "intelligent camera" software to provide analytics. Product: VIAAS With IT video surveillance becoming increasingly more complex, Third Iris Corp. has developed the Video Intelligence-as-a-Service (VIAAS) system that outsources analysis to the Third Iris cloud. Company: Armorize Technologies, Inc.  Product: Armorize HackAlert This software-as-a-service automatically scans Web Sites for injected malicious codes and links and also provides users with real-time alerts if their computers are visiting a site containing malware. Company: Intelius Product: DateCheck This is a mobile application that allows you to check up on your potential date any place where they have a presence on the Web.

According to DEMO, this product has had success in Asian markets in recent years and is coming to the U.S. for the first time this year. So for instance, if you have their e-mail address or phone number and their e-mail address or phone number is linked to their Facebook and Twitter accounts you can check up on them to see if they are who they say they are or to find out if they have any sleazy interests. The HP SkyRoom video conferencing service aims to change that by providing high-definition videoconferencing technology that HP says can support "up to four people using rich media content over standard business networks." DEMO says that while the system shouldn't be seen as a strict replacement for high-end conference room equipment, it does provide improvement for people working at individual stations who want to collaborate more easily on projects. The slogan that the company is using for the app is (we're not making this up): "Look up before you hook up." Company: Hewlett-Packard Product: HP SkyRoom If you want to participate in a video conference from your office computer, you typically have to use a puny Web camera that provides low resolution and high jitter. Company: Hashwork Product: Hashwork This is a sort of Twitter for your workplace that can integrate Google Calendar and Twitter to give workers a hub they can monitor throughout the day to see what their coworkers are up to. Company: dotSyntax, LLC Product: Digsby One annoying feature of having multiple accounts with different social networking and instant messaging protocols is the need to keep multiple windows open at once if you want to keep track of them all.

The folks at DEMO claim that Hashwork has become a staple in their daily work environment. Digsby is a program that aims to consolidate all these protocols by merging all instant messaging screen names onto one single messenger and by merging social networking sites to give real-time updates on all of them simultaneously. Company: Article One Partners, LLC  Product: AOP Patent Studies The goal of this technology is to apply Web 2.0 collaborative technology to the field of patent research. For instance, if you had accounts with MySpace, Twitter and Facebook, Digsby would serve as a one-stop hub that would tell you every time a friend wrote something on your wall or responded to your tweets. In other words, if you are a company looking to see if your patent claim will hold up in court, you can use AOP's community of patent advisors to help you out. The application is now available for the iPhone and it will let iPhone users sync with Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple iCal and Entourage for Macs.

Article One says that it charges clients for an annual subscription that will give them "real-time access to validity evidence" and communication "with AOP's scientific community… to optimize their research."~~ Company: Tungle Corp.  Product: Tungle for iPhone Tungle, which debuted last year at DEMO, is a planning application that helps friends and coworkers share their calendars and create schedules for meetings based on availability. Company: Waze, Inc.  Product: Waze Waze combines the open-source editing capabilities of Wikipedia with the real-time immediacy of Twitter to provide users with fast-breaking updates on traffic conditions. This technique can also be used to flag areas that have speeding cameras or areas that are well-known police speed traps. Essentially it works like this: If you're stuck in a traffic jam, you send an update explaining your location and the density of the current traffic. This mobile app is available on Android phones, the iPhone, RIM devices and Windows Mobile devices.

Product: Micello We all love Google maps for helping us get from one place to another on the road. Company: Micello, Inc. But what happens when we're inside a large building such as a stadium and we're looking for a particular restaurant or souvenir shop? This application supports user-generated maps of large public places that will eventually help you find a public restroom no matter where you are. That's where Micello comes in. Company: Piryx, Inc.  Product: Piryx Think of Piryx as sort of a PayPal for politics.

DEMO praises the Piryx platform for bringing "smart payment processing technology to the $300+ billion non-profit sector." Company: Answers Corp. It essentially lets users send contributions to political candidates, action committees and non-profit groups. Product: Answers.com Answers Corp, which already maintains the popular WikiAnswers, is launching this new Web site as a way to provide "one-stop answers about anything, combining the world's best licensed and user-generated content." The site will incorporate similar features to WikiAnswers, where users ask questions and rely upon a team of open-source writers and editors to answer them. Product: Symform Cooperative Storage Cloud This is new approach to cloud storage that Symform describes as a "storage potluck." When users sign up for the Cooperative Storage Cloud, they can get as much storage space as they want within the cloud as long as they contribute an equal amount of storage space on their own premises for Symform to use as storage for other customers. DEMO says that the new site's strength is that it integrates "the depth of ReferenceAnswers with the breadth of WikiAnswers." Company: Symform, Inc.

As Kevin Brown, the vice president of sales and marketing for Symform, explains it, the customer "contributes what they consume." So for example, Brown says that a customer "can contribute from an internal drive or some external drive, e.g., a $100 USB drive, and backup an unlimited amount." This cooperative approach to storage makes Symform's cloud storage cheaper than other kinds of cloud storage.

With quarterly IT sales results pouring in, vendors including IBM, Google, Advanced Micro Devices and Intel appear more confident than ever that the global recession's depressing effects on the tech market are lifting. IBM, the second-biggest IT company in the world behind Hewlett-Packard, reported better-than-expected third-quarter results Thursday. Major U.S. market indexes including the tech-heavy Nasdaq dipped Friday, however, as investors absorbed mixed macroeconomic news.

Though revenue dropped 7 percent from a year earlier to US$23.6 billion, it rose 1 percent sequentially from the second quarter and bested the $23.4 billion consensus forecast of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. The company reported its third-quarter net earnings rose to $3.2 billion from $2.8 billion a year earlier. IBM's diverse portfolio of services and its global footprint helped it weather the economic storm this year. More important - in terms of signs of recovery - is that Chief Financial Officer Mark Loughridge, in a conference call, forecast a return to revenue growth in the fourth quarter. IBM shares slipped by $5.80 to $122.18 in midday trading Friday, however, as investors questioned the extent to which foreign exchange rates factor into the revenue figures.

Revenue increases are often seen as the real signal of growth for any company, since earnings can be boosted by cost cuts. Google, also reporting results Thursday, said revenue for the quarter ending in September jumped 7 percent to $5.94 billion - the Internet ad giant's fastest sales growth rate so far this year. Google, which generates more than 90 percent of its revenue from search-related advertising, is widely seen as a barometer for Internet commerce. It said net earnings were $1.64 billion, a 27 percent jump from last year and on a per-share basis, higher than analyst expectations. "The worst of the recession is clearly behind us," proclaimed CEO Eric Schmidt in a company statement. Google shares bucked the downward market trend Friday, hitting a 52-week high for the company at $554.75 in midday trading. Analysts have for several months forecast a return to growth for the hardware sector.

On the hardware components front, AMD said Thursday that revenue fell in the third quarter, but that it expects sales in the last three months of the year to rise "modestly." Revenue in the quarter dropped 21.3 percent to $1.4 billion from a year ago, but beat the $1.26 billion expected by analysts. IDC said Wednesday that global PC shipments in the third quarter did in fact rise 2.3 percent from the same quarter a year earlier, to 78.1 million units - the first quarter this year in which PC shipments increased compared to 2008. Gartner also said this week that PC shipments rose during the quarter. Rising PC sales are boosting the fortunes of chip companies. Though Gartner's estimate of a 0.5 percent year-over-year growth was smaller than IDC's, its figure for total shipments was higher, at 80.3 million units. "These are good results especially given that PC shipments for the third quarter of 2009 are being compared to a very strong third quarter from 2008," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, in the report. Intel on Tuesday reported strong quarterly results and forecasts that beat industry expectations. Intel forecast fourth-quarter revenue of $10.1 billion "plus or minus $400 million," while analysts had been expecting $9.5 billion. "The timing of Windows 7 is favorable for the industry due to expected economic improvements and an overdue hardware replacement cycle," Gartner's Kitagawa noted.

Intel's revenue of $9.39 billion was up by $1.4 billion compared to the prior quarter, though it was lower than the $10.2 billion in the third quarter last year. Not all vendors are upbeat, however. Though Nokia now expects global, industrywide mobile-device sales to fall by only 7 percent this year - compared to its prior forecast of 10 percent - CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo injected a note of caution in an otherwise upbeat earnings week. "Let's be clear, uncertainty in end-consumer demand remains," said Kallasvuo on a conference call. Nokia on Thursday reported a third-quarter loss of €559 million (US$833 million) mainly due to charges related to its Nokia Siemens networking infrastructure business, which has been losing market share. That uncertainty spooked investors Friday, as markets tumbled.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped by 67.9 points to hit 9997.35 in midafternoon trading, while the Nasdaq Composite dipped 13.08 to 2160.21. IT companies have been riding a wave of optimism recently. Though most tech leaders were upbeat this week, news about financial and consumer companies - including disappointing earnings results from Bank of America and General Electric - spooked investors. Shares of Nasdaq computer companies are as a group up by 38.25 percent from a year ago, when the U.S. financial sector was crumbling. Whether this trend continues will depend to a large degree on quarterly results from other tech leaders such as Microsoft, BMC, Yahoo and AT&T in the next few weeks. Nasdaq telecom shares are up 32.74 percent from a year ago.