June 2011 Archives

Most of the world's ecommerce shops need certifying, says SSL merchant Vasco - and we're the right people to do it.

Authentication specialist Vasco is launching into the SSL and EV SSL markets across the globe.

Hang on. Who 'authorised' Vasco? Vasco specialises in software, not SSL certificates. After all those years of authenticating strangers, has it suddenly turned native and started faking IDs? Did they get bored with the authentication business?

No. Apparently, Vasco's new confidence is not misplaced. It recently bought Dutch security outfit DigiNotar, a specialist in internet trust gizmos. Now Vasco's dying to apply its newly-acquired powers.

Who wouldn't? We're all a bit like that when we've just bought something new. Look out, fraudsters and imposters. Vasco's got your number now!

Vasco bought DigiNotar in advance of a massive boom in for its services, driven by a surge in volumes of sensitive data put online just as our faith in Internet security plummets. These two tectonic shifts will have people crying out for better protection.

They'll create a massive groundswell of interest that could lead to an eruption of cash, for Vasco and its resellers, as insecure traders buy Vasco's new CertiID SSL and EV SSL certificates as a way of beating off the conmen.

According to Vasco, it has 10,000 likely prospects in its customer base.

How does it work?

The certificates add an extra layer to their web security, by identifying the server and encrypting the data transport between the end user pc and the server.

You can buy Vasco's CertiID SSL and EV SSL certificates from Vasco or Diginotar.

"DigiNotar's certificates are the most reliable in the field," says Vasco president Jan Valcke, "the quality of our offerings and our flexibility will win us a foothold in the SSL certificate market."

Channel 4 is looking new ideas for using technology to save electricity, for a new programme being made in association with E.ON.

They want you to go to their website and submit your product ideas/surrender your business secrets (depending on whether you've taken out a patent) for a new five part series that seeks to 'revolutionise' the way we use energy.

It doesn't matter if it's for work or play, as long as your 'next-generation technology' will change the way we live.

"We really want to find new and original products," says series executive producer Dan Adamson of programme makers TwoFour. "The series is a great opportunity to give budding entrepreneurs a national audience for their creations."

The programme makers have told us that they expect people to have patented their ideas, a painfully expensive and time consuming process that will frighten off most of the 'budding entrepreneurs' that they hope to attract.

Which leaves the field open to Britain's IT developers to clean up.

Don't worry, from my experience of TV production companies, most of them won't know a thing about the subject they're filming; you could tell them you'd just invented direct current and they'd believe you.

Which means the TV show could be an open opportunity to promote your company.

Threats? Well, some TV companies aren't exactly scrupulous. They set people up and edit the footage to make them look like idiots. They're endlessly conning viewers into phoning premium rate numbers for rigged competitions. Compared to many TV producers, even the lowliest tabloid newspaper reporters from the bad old days of 1970s Fleet Street are boy scouts.

And yet, and yet. There are some good people in TV. We are sure that TwoFour is one of the honest companies.

Dan Adamson won a BAFTA for his work on the first two series of The Apprentice. So he must understand business culture very, very well.

We all know how perfectly The Apprentice captures the zeitgeist (as they say in TV) don't we?

Good luck...

Photo courtesy: Digital Vision

It's only when you look at an ant under a magnifying glass that you realise how often they spontaneously burst into flames, according to a study by Dr Harry Hill, at St George's teaching hospital in Tooting.

Now new research by Solarwinds aims to make virtualisation an equally simple pleasure.

Solarwinds has launched Virtualization Manager in a bid to make virtualisation less complex. By simplifying the process it aims to environments more scalable and solid. The key to this master the server virtualisation layer and manage it more skillfully.

With the rapid adoption of virtualisation and cloud technologies, IT organisations of every size are facing new IT management and operations challenges related to the higher rate of change and increased scale of these new environments.

As businesses lay the foundations for cloud strategies, they go through three stages of growing pains, which Solarwinds has dubbed 'phases of virtualisation maturity'.

In short, these are known as Assuring, Optimising and Transforming.

The first phase, Assuring Availability, is when the virtualiser has an identity problem. This is very common among the majority of companies that have virtualised up to 30 per cent of their environment. They will start to question themselves as this stage. Typical identifying questions might be: How many VMs do I have? What VMs are using which physical storage resources?

Phase Two finds the fledgling virtualiser in a more confident mood. By this stage they will be thinking of Optimizing Performance, as phase two is known. By this stage we will have typically developed a more experienced set of virtualisation admins and be preoccupied with questions like: What if I add more hosts or VMs? When will I run out of physical storage?

By the third and final stage - Transforming the Environment - maturity is setting in. We are more confident about ourselves, and don't move so quickly. We don't need to. This phase finds 80 per cent (and more) virtual. They will have a solid foundation to implement and manage a cloud strategy.

There will still be questions, only this time it will be: What departments are using what resources? Am I ready for chargeback?

Is there life after chargeback? That's the question none of us dare contemplate.

Photo courtesy oddharmonic via Flickr

Under EC regulations, we are all entitled to refunds for cancelled and delayed flights.

But there's a catch, of course.

The airlines hold all the cards and make claiming your refund nigh on impossible.

With all the narrow eyed, rat like cunning of a riverboat gambler, they've devised systems that are so labyrinthine that Indiana Jones would throw in the towel.

The evidence you need to prove your case is out there. But it's impossible to find. By the time you have dug it up, you will have gone mad or dead. If you do get lucky and find forensics of sufficient quality, the return wil barely justify the effort you had to put it.

And that's exactly the way RyanAir and BA and all the other Fly Lows like it.

So hats off to Dutch boffin Hendrik Noorderhaven, who has invented EuClaim, a system that scours all the sources of airline information around the globe, and presents the information to you.

Suddenly, you're presented with a level of detailed forensics that would make the CPS look like a bunch of useless amateurs.

All of a sudden, your claim against RyanAir won't seem like a waste of time. If you bring BA to justice, your refund won't seem like a pyrrhic victory. Because EuClaim does all the work for you, so you don't need to play detective to find out all the published airlines schedules and performance results.

Mr Noorderhaven, the consumer champion of the oppressed airline passenger, has done it all for you.

Move over, St Christopher, your time is up. There's a new patron saint of travel in town, and his name is Hendrik Noorderhaven.

(His name's not quite as catchy, but there you go)

How does he do it?

See part 2.

MSN Money has produced a list of the 13 most-hated little rip-offs:

These include, being charged extra for not paying by direct debit, premium rate phone numbers and cinema food and drink prices.

Simon Ward, Senior Editor of MSN Money, commented: "At a time when every penny counts, it's clear that most of us are fed up of these little rip-offs."

Absolutely

Here's another one. Conference calls which ask you to dial a premium rate phone number. Why on earth would I want to pay 35p a minute to speak to someone trying to publicise his new social media for the channel programme?

That's why we haven't bothered to report the new communication service, by SocialOnDemand.

Which is a tragedy, because it's run by Olivier Choron, who has worked in every technology company that matters and has now founded PurechannelApps, so he probably knows what he's talking about. He says vendors should use social media skills, harnessed by his company's applications, to disseminate their messages to reseller and distributor partners.

It uses industry standard APIs from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, so it should be secure, and is being used on a trial basis by Trend Micro.

Ten More Hated Rip Offs (source: MSN Money)

Denise McFarland a specialist trade mark and intellectual property barrister at Three New Square, recently appeared in court for Yell, the owner of leading UK directory the Yellow Pages, in a case which gave a stark warning that the internet is not a nebulous international space.

Yell was suing a man called Louis Giboin, McFarland writes. He was the 'architect' of two websites which provided online directories for transport businesses and road haulage users. The websites used the sign 'Transport Yellow Pages' and a 'walking fingers' logo identical to Yellow Pages' well known brand. Yell objected to the websites using its trade marks.

In court Giboin argued that 'Yellow Pages' and the walking fingers logo were 'generic' over the internet, and were used all over the world in relation to directories which had nothing to do with Yell. He also said that because the websites weren't UK-based and operated abroad (he lived in Qatar) they weren't anything do with the English courts. He claimed that trying to stop his websites from operating was to somehow overextend the power of the English court and Yell's limited territorial rights.

But the English judge looking at the case said Yell's trade marks were well known brands in the UK, and that it was irrelevant that users of the internet in another country might not think they were distinctive. The judge came down in favour of Yell.

Giboin wasn't able to hide from the English courts behind the veil of operating outside the UK. Other international web entrepreneurs need to be aware of the laws of the countries in which their websites can be accessed, to avoid getting into similar hot water.

Denise McFarland is a specialist trade mark and intellectual property barrister at Three New Square.

Fans of old fashioned business technology, who like to work on desktop PCs, enjoy speaking to people on the phone and refuse to communicate via Facebook or Twitter have been cleared by an enquiry of smuggling Androids into the Enterprise.

The group - known collectively as The Klingons, because of their server hugging mentality - were widely suspected by IT managers and CIOs of smuggling Androids into the enterprise, but a forensic examination of their IP records found there was no case to answer.

Now CIOs, who are desperate to deal with the problem of smartphones being smuggled into their organisations, are back to square one. The level of threat to security has been elevated to Dramatic.

"The consumerisation of IT is gonna break us, captain," said Enterprise CIO, Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott.

David Ellis, director of new technology and services at Computerlinks, said the proliferation of alien gadgets, like smartphones and tablets, is a problem that many organisations must wrestle with. "If you take people's devices off them you could neutralise their productivity," he said.

Everyone knows that the advent of cloud computing could destroy the IT channel.

If cloud computing delivers everything it promises (and that's a big if, mind you) then buying IT will be the work of a few mouse clicks.

Suddenly, resellers and systems integrators will seem like superfluous middle men, who add nothing to the process except a massive markup. People will naturally think - who needs these blood suckers?

Which is a bit unfair on all the clever consultants out there who have got years of invaluable business and technology experience.

So, what how do the channel players react? How do they survive the hype of the cloud?

With this in mind, you might consider attending a seminar advising 'The Channel' on strategies for surviving Cloud Computing.

Or maybe not. If this advice from a recent round table event is typical of the return you'll get for investing your time then take my advice; don't bother!

Think about how you can deliver cloud as a value-added proposition.

You don't say!

Use the relationships you already have with customers.

Duh!

Become a trusted advisor on how to migrate to cloud.

As opposed to, what, a furtive supplier?

Don't ignore it. Channel partners MUST have a proposition.

Promote your services as part of an eco-system of suppliers.

Do resellers enjoy being patronised like this? I'm only asking.

Quizaniac is an online quiz you can play on your mobile, for cash prizes, where you can bet on yourself. 

Click here to understand how a multiplayer real time trivia game comes with a betting twist.  

It's basically a quiz game, where you can gamble on yourself.

It sounds brilliant to us, but we can see why many people might think it's 'just another mobile app'.

But, imagine the marketing benefits this might have.

Think how channel managers might use it. If you're having trouble getting people to digest any information that you desperately want to impose on them, your lessons might be more acceptable if delivered as a quiz. 

Maybe Quizaniac could offer a more interactive way of learning. Especially if there's a chance to show off or win prizes.

You can devise your own quizzes too.

So imagine, say, you're the channel manager of some new virtualisation outfit and you want partners to learn about some service you are pushing. A quiz might provide a good incentive for the partners to do their homework.

The security and legal sectors could use this. Compliance officers often struggle to get people to read their tedious documents about new regulations.

Law firms have the same problem convincing people in the company to read their latest dirges. Personnel officers (or human resources officers, as these buffoons insist on calling themselves) have the same problem too.

In all these cases, an online test, using Quizaniac, could be the spoonful of sugar that makes the bland corporate medicine go down, says Pierre Thiercelin, CEO of Social and Gaming FatMarmots 

'>Play

Don't get Fat Marmot Ltd confused with this fat marmot 

The latest threat on the web is SEP.

It's got nothing to do with Sepp Blatter, despite what you might be thinking - it stands for Search Engine Poisoning

Imperva has produced a report on SEP, but unfortunately, it's so long-winded and difficult to read that it may be some time before we can work out what they're trying to say and publish it.

We've asked Imperva to explain what it is, why people do it and how. And to explain this succinctly, in layman's terms.

Is this a challenge beyond them?

Watch this space.

Oscar Jenkins, chief executive at Dynmark, says the mobile operators could make a lot more cash out of SMS if they had a half decent message manager.

How complacent are the buffoons of the mobile phone industry? They unwittingly created a brilliant money maker in the form of text messaging.

Even today, SMS revenues are a significant amount of revenue to mobile operators. Don't be fooled by the fact that only around 15 per cent of the revenue for the likes of Vodafone, Orange or O2 comes from messaging. It's all pure profit as they don't have to do anything.

Imagine how much more money they could make it they updated the system? But SMS hasn't changed much since it was first invented, some time last century. It's a mystery why they haven't brought it into the 21st century. Isn't it?

No, it's not, it's a bloody tragedy, says Oscar Jenkins, the CEO of messaging company Dynmark.

"The mobile operators have done nothing to further SMS over the years. WAP failed and MMS was still born. Even though they're still making bundles of cash from SMS they've given it no love," says Jenkins.

Jenkins has taken pity on this poor little cash cow and decided to give a much brighter outlook. Not an Outlook, mind, or Microsoft would sue. But something just as game changing.

Dynmark is calling this new text message app Wiz Messenger. Think of it as a sort of Outlook for your mobile phone.

Wiz Messenger will do all those tasks that Nokia and all the other handset manufacturers couldn't be bothered to help you with.

Like searching through your old text messages. Making them easier to sort into files. Making it easier to delete the old ones. Al the things that are too fiddly to do.

I don't know about you, but even when I'm on a long crowded train journey and the only limb you can move is your thumb, I still can't be bothered to sort out the inbox on any of my mobiles.

Jenkins doesn't like the Outlook comparison. He says Wiz Messenger will be more like Skype for SMS users. Whatever.

Jenkins is banking on the quantum leap in user friendliness that Wiz Messenger offers, will build Dynmark a constituency of millions of users in a few weeks. That's the plan, anyway.

Apple took its time with iCloud, didn't it, says Ovum analyst Mark Little. Good, he says, it's all the better for it. But don't cock things up by using MobileMe. It its current state, it's a donkey.

It's not easy to make it in the music business. You can't just go out and start broadcasting on the Internet and expect to get an audience.

That's a myth! Just ask Lily Allen. Or that girl who did that song about wanting to be a punk rocker.

You need a solid foundation behind you, you need assemblers to create your back story, and once that initial image has been built and tested, you need dissemblers and remote PR and marketing agents to act in local markets, pushing the brand and selling the myth.

You don't just launch a product and expect the brand to last. A lot of thought and money has to go into it.

It's much the same with media players; Apple has taken its time with iCloud, its cloud-based media streaming thing.

But it looks like it's all been worth it, says Ovum principal analyst Mark Little.

In the face of rival launches from both Amazon and Google, Apple has held its nerve and taking its time, Little writes.

It has stood Apple in good stead, allowing licensing deals to be inked and enabling existing iTunes collections to be streamed from the cloud to any Apple device without the need for laborious uploading.

Compared with Amazon's Cloud Drive and Google's (rather lazy) Beta for Music, which force users to upload their music collections all over again, iCloud looks good.

In fact, it could be the more user friendly offering; its focus on consumer experience will support Apple's continued dominance of the digital music market.

The only fly in the ointment could be the business model...

If iCloud is bundled with an unchanged MobileMe, Apple's aged and lame cloud services offering, Apple could land itself with a handicap. But if the storage and applications in MobileMe were upgraded with other useful services, it could be different.

"At the right price, Apple could at last be creating a cloud platform as a base from which to defend iTunes' dominant position, not just against Amazon and Google but perhaps more importantly, against Spotify," said Little.

AdGent Digital is an iPhone app that allows you to rate things. You take a picture, apparently, and rate it in 140 characters. (Whatever happened to the days when a picture painted a thousand words?)

Anyway, in the spirit of things, I'm going to give this an instant rating. It sounds like a load of juvenile nonsense. I'll give it two. As in two months before they go bust.

But hang on, am I being fair?

Make up your own mind...

The global digital and social media technology company today announced the release of Rateable, an iPhone app that lets users rate and comment on whatever they like.

Rateable allows users to rate things - celebrities, hotels, restaurants, beer, cars, the latest news events, whatever and yes, NSFW stuff - using a 5 star system. Users take a picture of the object they are rating and can also comment in 140 characters. Rate, pictures and comments are then posted to Facebook and Twitter.

AdGent Digital Founder and CEO Cameron Yuill commented: "We built Rateable so we could quickly, easily and concisely express our opinion while we were feeling passionate about something.

You can take a picture and rate the meal you just ate, the show you just watched or if you are The Lonely Island and you "Just Had Sex" you can rate it and broadcast your feelings to the world."

Though Google's entry to the mobile payments sector could be seen as a shot in the arm, John Milliken, MD of Mobile Money Network is less than ecstatic about this supposed validation.

The mobile payment bandwagon is already becoming crowded, he argues.

"Sure Google's entry could consolidate things," he concedes, but the problem is the Android species itself is cursed by fragmentation. "Android handsets across the globe run different versions of the operating system. So they have varying capabilities."

So Google's entry to the market, though a big validation, introduces yet another fragmented approach, initially using NFC capabilities in the Nexus S handset. Though some experts and analysts herald the Android as the platform to kick-start mobile payments, it might not be, warns Milliken.

"To truly achieve critical mass the market's approach must be agnostic. Any handset, any financial service provider, any network, all consumers," says Milliken.

According to a report on NewsBiscuit, the new Glib Advisor, currently available on Android but coming to the iPhone soon, will offer manly friendship to isolated men on the go.

Though Glib Advisor's voice recognition software is only 80 per cent accurate, this is irrelevant as its main function is to listen to the first few words of any conversation before telling you what you ought to be doing.

An unemployed man in his mid 50s, in a depressed industrial area, for example, could benefit from Glib Advisor's manly counselling.

"Sell your house, move the family to London, and get a job in Silicon Roundabout as a digital marketing consultant. You're sorted," Glib Advisor will tell anyone seeking solace from their handset. "Don't worry, the kids will soon make new friends."

Glib Advisor comes with a database of anecdotes about uncontactable acquaintances who've been in your situation and triumphed - unlike you, you loser. Though details of how they achieved this will remain sketchy and often implausible, these urban myths are sufficient to make Glib Advisor the leader in its field of manly counselling.

Should the Glib Advisor continue its initial success, it is hoped that a female equivalent will soon follow into the marketplace. "The 'BFF' will strenuously support every decision a female downloader puts to it, with a whole memory packed full of supportive phrases including 'you're so brave', 'if he can't see it, that's his bad' and 'you go girl'," explained the software developer.

"But once the decision has irrevocably been made, the app will connect via Bluetooth to all other phones in the vicinity and remark how obviously irrational and stupid the life choices of its owner have become - and incidentally, she should avoid strong winds lest her new bingo wings carry her to Belgium and beyond."

Inventor Gerry Absalom answered critics who said Glib Advisor is not a good listener.

"Since when did that matter?" he told a press conference. "You wanna grow some balls. Then you might get a better job than being a bloody journalist."