GigaOM » mobile computing

Cloud security market landscape, 2013–2017

Keren Elazari — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 06:55:57 +0000

Cyber threats are now a critical issue affecting the national security of nation countries worldwide. At the same time, the IT world is witnessing a wave of new innovation, and there are numerous business opportunities for technologies built around the emerging market sectors of mobile and cloud computing. These technologies and the companies creating with them will form the future of cloud security over the next several years.

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Patent troll strikes NYT, media industry over mobile web sites

Jeff John Roberts — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 16:03:19 +0000

A shell company is suing the New York Times, the Huffington Post and five other media companies over patents related to mobile computing.

In a series of complaints filed in Delaware, Clouding IP LLC claims the media outlets are infringing on two patents from 2005 and 2007 entitled “technique for enabling remote data access and manipulation from a pervasive device.”

Clouding IP, formed in February of 2012, points to readers’ ability to read the New York Times’ website and mobile apps through a smartphone as evidence of infringement:

New York Times has infringed and continues to infringe the ’481 patent by, among other things, making, using, offering for sale, selling and/or importing products and/orservices in the United States that enable access to and manipulation of data using a pervasive device, such as a mobile phone, by receiving a data request from a pervasive device, obtaining the requested data, determining the available data manipulation operations and locations of such operations for the obtained data and returning the obtained data and the data manipulation operations and locations to the pervasive device.

In separate filings, Clouding IP makes similar allegations against Time Inc, the Huffington Post, Reuters, Ti-Media, Gannett Co and Fox News. Earlier this year, it also sued major tech companies, including Amazon, Apple and Google. A New York Times spokesperson declined to comment on the Clouding IP lawsuit.

Richard Kirk, the head lawyer for Clouding IP, did not immediately return a request for comment about the identity of his client or elaborate on the alleged infringement. The people behind Clouding IP are likely to remain a mystery because Delaware is one of three states that permit shell companies to be owned and managed anonymously.

This is not the first time the New York Times has been targeted by a so-called “patent troll” — shell firms backed by investors who make a business of obtaining old patents and then suing those who refuse to license them. Last year, a company called Boadin Technologies sued the Times, Bloomberg and others for using the common feature known as autocomplete. The Times elected to fight that suit, and recent court filings show the parties agreed to dismiss the case with each side paying their own costs. In August, the NYT’s general counsel described the troll activities as a “tax for being on the Internet.”

The trolls represent a dilemma for cash-strapped media businesses because it can cost millions in legal fees to defend a patent suit. Paying the unwanted license fee may be a cheaper option than going to court; however, doing so may encourage other trolls to seek their own payments.

In a rare piece of good news for potential targets of such shell companies, the US Patent Office proposed a rule to force patent trolls to identify their real owners. This comes during a week in which another patent troll sued America’s major retailers for using online chat.

Clouding IP LLC

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RIM CEO hopes carriers do for BlackBerry 10 what they once did for Android

Tom Krazit — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 21:27:47 +0000

If you think you had a crazy year, put yourself in Thorsten Heins’ shoes. The CEO of Research in Motion was dropped into the middle of a “crisis” (his word) in January when he assumed control of one of the pioneering mobile companies of our time in the midst of a downward spiral. He was immediately presented with plunging sales, consumer and press apathy, and the need to remake a company that was terrified of making a decision unless 24 people agreed on a direction.

As the year winds down, Heins is feeling better. “It’s fascinating to see how RIM has evolved in the last 10 months,” he said in an interview Thursday in downtown San Francisco.

BlackBerry 10 handsets, delayed several times already as RIM tries to perfect the device that will have to save the company, are on track for a January launch. New, decisive leaders are in place throughout the organization who are “being honest” with employees — a new concept at RIM — and a semblance of a plan for 2013 has emerged that banks on Heins’ belief that wireless carriers are sick of Apple and Samsung dominating the smartphone market.

RIM hopes to keep up its strong but low-margin performance in countries outside the U.S., regain the confidence of the US smartphone buyer with the BlackBerry 10 handsets, and eventually transition into a true “mobile computing” company that offers phones, tablets, medical devices, connected cars, and all manner of smart connected devices we commonly refer to as the internet of things.

It sounds good on paper. But the challenges are mighty: even assuming that RIM launches BlackBerry 10 handsets without incident in early February and they are well received by the critics, it has been a long time since most people in the U.S. with even a passing interest in smartphones thought about buying a BlackBerry. Unless those folks spend their money with RIM, Heins’ dreams of a mobile computing future may never get off the ground.

So what’s the short-term plan for recapturing the US? “You cannot be a leader without being in the U.S.” Heins said, hastily adding “North America” in a nod to his company’s home country. He thinks that U.S. carriers are salivating at the chance to offer RIM handsets because they offer “choice” that carriers currently don’t have; wireless carriers aren’t crazy about getting the lion’s share of their smartphones from just two companies.

“Android is mostly dominated by Samsung,” he said, adding “my prediction is that Samsung will basically be the strongest player in Windows 8.” Other handset makers can’t compete with Samsung’s in-house advantage in sourcing processors and displays from corporate siblings, Heins said.

RIM is the only other smartphone company that offers unique hardware and software in one package, Heins said. Microsoft may be poised to change that equation should it release its own smartphone, which seems more and more likely, but Heins believes that carriers are happy to see RIM back with a competitive product, and that the same kind of aggressive promotion that made Android a success can help BlackBerry 10.

The details of how that plan will unfold are apparently not ready for public consumption. RIM has spent a great deal of time and money this year convincing software developers that it is ready and willing to help them become successful on BlackBerry 10, but it’s these carrier relationships that will be crucial to RIM’s chances of coming back in the market. Heins declined to share 2013 shipment goals for BlackBerry 10: obviously, RIM has internal goals for the product, but a lot of what will happen with device shipments is “governed by our carriers. It’s not all in our hands.”

Heins drew some flak earlier this year for being quoted as saying “we have a clear shot at being number three” in the smartphone market, as if he weren’t setting his goals high enough.

“Make no mistake, my aspiration is to win,” he said Thursday. “But I can’t sit here in front of investors and partners and say we will be number one.”

What Heins is trying to do is shift the mobile playing field away from smartphones and toward the internet of things, or the spread of intelligent hardware, software and connectivity into everyday devices. That’s the market in which he thinks RIM has an advantage:

“iOS is five years old. At the end of the day it is a downsized PC OS. Look, they did a great job. My point is I’m ahead of them, I have a true mobile computing platform.”

If Heins is to ever make that claim stick, however, he’s going to have to convince a lot of people who have been buying that downsized PC OS for years to switch back to the BlackBerry in 2013.

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Amazon’s Vogels ponders the new IT metrics: a topic even foggier than the cloud

Stacey Higginbotham — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 16:39:11 +0000

Amazon’s CTO Werner Vogels offered up some cloud-related eye candy on Thursday night in a blog post discussing the challenge of choosing the right metrics for cloud computing. The post contributed to the ongoing conversation about how to calculate the benefits of choosing on-demand infrastructure over building your own with some charts from an Amazon white paper and a few AWS customers explaining what they have saved and spent in going to the cloud.

But the key with cloud computing is that the search for metrics really relies on a keen understanding of what business your company is in. Much like different industries have different metrics associated with their costs, figuring out how to measure IT costs first means someone has to understand the role IT plays in their business. For Google, the important metric is knowing exactly how much it costs to deliver a search result in the maximum amount of time customers will tolerate. Wal-Mart’s ideal metric might involve calculating the trade-off between how much profit margin could be gained by a real-time data analysis and the cost of performing that analysis.

And as those examples make clear, each company probably could use a variety of metrics in their business depending on what aspect of the business is using IT, which just underscores the point that there are no GAAP-like metrics that will help companies easily understand the trade-offs between building their own IT and the cloud. Vogels tries to offer up a “return on agility” concept that is pretty nebulous, but he hints at the real thought process that must take place when thinking about IT.

From Vogels’ post:

“Many of our customers come to AWS with a reduction of TCO and other cost savings in mind but after using AWS for a while most of them will claim that agility is the even more benefit for them. Agility has many different faces within an enterprise: Operational advantages such as setting up infrastructure in minutes rather than months, completing massive computational projects with a large number of resources quickly, and scaling architecture up and down to provide the needed IT resources only when you need them, deliver targeted IT solutions fast for individual business units – these deliver a ‘return on agility.’ The return on agility delivers business value by allowing you adapt rapidly, while remaining focused on your core competencies rather than distracted by operating IT infrastructure.”

The heart of the issue is that for most companies IT is really a tool as opposed to a business differentiator. And once a business understands that, then it can focus its efforts not on calculating total cost of ownership of that tool but in figuring out what features of that tool matter to their business and then choosing the best cloud. Instead of thinking of cloud versus owning your own infrastructure as some kind of apples-to-apples comparison, companies should think of it more like the shift from desktop to mobile computing on worker productivity.

Companies used to issue employees desktops that had all of the company’s programs stuck on the device. Then they issued laptops that allowed employees to take their work home with them. Now many offer an array of work-related apps, tablets, smartphones and other tools to let employees take their work with them. Sure, this presents challenges, but it’s also changing and improving the way people work. And few companies decide whether or not they should issue tablets, or provide data via a mobile app, based on comparing the cost of doing so with the cost of issuing the same app on a desktop.

Much like that shift to mobility, cloud computing has the same possibilities and should engender similar debates at the executive level. The issues aren’t about trying to calculate apples-to-apples cost comparisons but about how to deal with the challenges posed by sending data outside a firewall or developing a company culture and policies that squeeze the benefits out of the new tool while also reducing risks. That’s much harder than a TCO analysis, but the benefits are a more agile business that’s likely to save some money on IT.

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So who picks the browser on a mobile device: You or “them”?

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 10 May 2012 18:51:33 +0000

There’s quite a ruckus going on over Microsoft Windows 8 tablets that will run on ARM-based smartphone chips. Ed Bott nicely explains how both Mozilla and Google are crying foul over third-party browser restrictions that Microsoft has put in place on these tablets. Such browsers — Firefox and Chrome, to name two — won’t have access to APIs that Internet Explorer can take advantage of. According to Asa Dotzler, Mozilla’s product director for Firefox, the restrictions will ensure “there’s no way another browser can possibly compete with IE in terms of features or performance.”

How did we get here?

I can certainly understand why both companies are up in arms — no pun intended. Each has long supported an open web and have built some or all of their business with such products. Along the transition from traditional desktop to mobile computing, however, the rules have changed. Smartphones and tablets are at times are obviously considered to be portable computers, but they’re also looked upon as consumer electronic devices, which have a long, rich history of proprietary software, connectors and technologies.

Along the timeline of this change from standard computer to CE device, Apple has arguably best made the transition. The “it just works” mentality isn’t 100 percent accurate, but the latest Apple devices come closest in that regard. Think of the iPhone, iPad and even Apple TV: These aren’t just high-priced computing products; instead, you turn then on and use them just as you would a standard television set, an old VCR or an electric fan. All of the complexities inside the Apple product line are hidden by simple, intuitive controls, for example.

This isn’t a new problem

I don’t use Apple as an example to say they have the best products. Instead, it’s to show that their smartphones and tablets are more like traditional consumer electronics devices than products from most of their peers. And there’s another reason for using Apple here: For some time, Apple didn’t allow third-party browsers on its iOS devices. It does now, but they’re restricted just as Microsoft is restricting other browser capabilities in Windows 8: You can’t set a third-party browser on iOS to be the default browser, which is terribly inconvenient and likely holds back a significant amount of iOS users from using Dolphin HD or Opera to name a few.

Why is this allowed? Because Apple controls everything about its product from hardware to software to ecosystem. Perhaps you don’t like that example though. That’s fine. Consider this timely tweet from Ian Betteridge this morning because it’s spot-on in the point I’m trying to make:

Google's griping about not being able to put Chrome on Windows RT. So when will I be able to install IE on a Chromebook?—
Ian Betteridge (@ianbetteridge) May 10, 2012

The obvious answer is that you’ll never be able to install Internet Explorer — or any other third-party browser, for that matter — on a Google ChromeBook. Google developed the ChromeOS, which is essentially a Linux core that runs Google’s Chrome browser. How is that different from what Apple does or what Microsoft intends to do?

The choice is yours, but there are trade-offs involved

As a consumer, I personally like choice. It’s choice that drives some away from Apple’s iPhone, for example, and towards a phone that runs Android or some other alternative. Mobile technology however is a huge series of trade-offs because it’s so personal. If you want the rock-solid and intuitive experience from Apple, you give up some choice to gain that experience. Willing to tinker with your device so you can run any app you want and have your phone look the way you want it to? You may give up some of the polished refinement of iOS in order to get that freedom.

Unfortunately, as mobile technology intersects more with and emulates a consumer electronics mindset, some companies are going to continue to control more of the experience, and in this case that experience is web browsing. I’m not sure this is in Microsoft’s best interest, however, mainly because the company has tried tablets for over a decade with relatively little success. Simply put: it doesn’t need another potential obstacle in the way of Windows 8 tablet sales, considering the competition from and traction of Apple’s iPad.

No matter how this browser battle plays out, I’ll do what I always do. I’ll consider the overall product, look at the trade-offs made by choosing one tablet over another and simply vote with my wallet. Ultimately, you do have the choice because it’s your money to spend on the device and browser(s) you want to use.

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Near-term strategies for IT managers

Dow Brook Advisory Services — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 06:55:40 +0000

Three powerful, fast-moving trends are altering the landscape for business information technology (IT) managers and their staff: cloud computing, mobile computing and the consumerization of IT. The final section of a three-part series, this report presents actionable strategies and tactics that IT managers may use to respond to the new realities of corporate computing. The primary recommendations are to redesign the IT organization for the loss of control, accelerate the IT department’s shift to a service provider model, become more aware of external and internal current realities and emerging trends, and become a proactive leader in developing and implementing IT and corporate strategy.

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New challenges for the IT organization

Dow Brook Advisory Services — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:38:23 +0000

Cloud computing, mobile computing and the consumerization of IT are combining to create another force that is overwhelming many IT departments: complexity. This report, the second in a three-part series, examines several types of complexity in the business IT environment, including complexity of devices and applications, physical and virtual computing environments, and the related challenges for IT staff.

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Woe Canada: RIM falls behind iPhone on home turf

Tom Krazit — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 17:43:01 +0000

Given the wider trends, this day was probably inevitable, but it probably doesn’t make it any easier to swallow at Research in Motion. Sales of the interloper from the south, the iPhone, surpassed the BlackBerry in Canada during 2011, a year in which will probably go down as the worst in the company’s history.

There has been little to cheer about for Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM over the last 18 months, but it had at least felt some semblance of support from the citizens of its home country. But with U.S. sales of BlackBerrys cratering amid competition from the iPhone and Android phones–developments that cost co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis their jobs–sales in Canada fell behind the iPhone, according to research from IDC and Bloomberg.

Apple sold 2.85 million iPhones in Canada during 2011, compared to 2.08 million BlackBerrys sold in the country during the year. It’s not hard to imagine why: even hometown pride in a company can’t last forever when key product improvements are repeatedly delayed and RIM continues to fall farther and farther behind the modern concept of mobile computing.

At a certain point, even the diehards are going to buy the better product. RIM’s three-day service outage last year could have been the last straw for many.

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The new IT manager, part 1

Dow Brook Advisory Services — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 06:55:53 +0000

The days of IT departments dictating which computing assets would be used and how are numbered, in large part because of three trends that are converging on organizations and their IT departments: cloud computing, mobile computing and the consumerization of IT. This first section of our three-part report describes and quantifies each of these trends, demonstrating that they are real now, growing rapidly and perilous to ignore.

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Tablet market to hit over 377 million units by 2016

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:34:21 +0000

Tablets represent the next evolution in the advancement of mobile computing. This report summarizes the current state of that market and provides a detailed five-year forecast of estimated sales by vendor, operating system platform, region, form factor, embedded wireless and consumer vs. enterprise. The tablet market is forecast to be slightly over 377 million units by 2016. Android is expected to have the overall leading market share, but Apple is expected to continue to lead the share by vendor.

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