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Micron unveils first solid state drive offerings	28 November 2007
Micron Technology plunged headfirst into the nascent solid state drive marketplace Wednesday with the unveiling of its RealSSD family of storage devices.The RealSSD portfolio features serial ATA II-enabled 1.8-in. and 2.5-in. solid state drives in 32GB and 64GB capacities. Early next year, the company will start mass producing the drives, which are currently being "sampled," said Dean Klein, vice president of memory system development at Boise, Idaho-based Micron.Micron's RealSSD drives, noted Klein, require less than 2 watts of power during active mode and are about 50 percent lighter than hard disk drives of similar capacities. The devices do not require a SATA bridge chip but rather rely on a single-chip controller (optimized for four-channel control of NAND flash) directly targeting the solid state drive application, he added.The new RealSSD line also includes the Embedded USB and Module products. The RealSSD Embedded USB can be plugged into a PC or blade server system to provide operating system storage and boot capabilities via a USB 2.0 interface. The RealSSD Module is a SATA-enabled solid state drive for server-based applications that measures 25mm high by 133.5mm long and less than 4mm thick.Klein acknowledged that adoption of solid state drives for corporate users has been very slow, mostly because of the technology's high price tag. However, he predicted that declining prices of NAND flash technology and the inevitable development of applications for solid state systems will accelerate demand."Technology is going to make [solid state] real. The cost of the NAND components will be a large determining factor in terms of acceptance," said Klein. "Even if we could bring speed of light performance to these devices, there's a lot of applications that still won't take them because the cost is too high or the density isn't high enough."Of the many first-generation solid state drive devices currently available, Klein remarked, "benchmarks have proven them to be fairly lame in terms of performance." Going a step further, he panned BitMicro Networks' 1.6TB solid state drive unveiled this month as a "pricey piece of art." Samsung Electronics and SanDisk are considered two established leaders currently providing solid state drive offerings, analysts noted.Although initially focused on providing solid state drives for the notebook audience -- a natural fit, said Klein, because solid state is lightweight, and offers power savings and a small size -- Micron does have interest in examining larger-capacity solid state products for the desktop and enterprise industry.Jeff Janukowicz, an analyst at IDC, said his IT research firm has forecast that demand for solid state technology will "substantially" increase over the next few years. An IDC report released in July predicted that sales of solid state drives will grow from $373 million in 2006 to a total of $5.4 billion in 2011.While notebook computing will fuel solid state adoption, Janukowicz said he expects the need for improved performance and specialized applications in servers, blade servers, and enterprise storage systems to attract growing solid state interest over time.Janukowicz said Micron's decision to debut an entire family of solid state products with RealSSD and its established NAND and flash memory expertise could prove to be a key differentiator with OEMs. But much work still needs to be done, he noted."Micron needs to work well with PC OEMs that deliver solutions acceptable for the PC market," he said. "The challenge there is [a traditional] usage model of using hard disks in notebook PCs. There is a bit of education process in terms of using solid state disks as primary storage in network computing that needs to take place."Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate
Senior Sales Executive – Telcoms Solution Sales	28 November 2007
Senior Sales Executive – Telco Solution Sales London / South East 35-45k Base, 80-100k OTE + Exec Bens As a specialist one-stop business to business technology services company focused on converged information and communication networks our client has grown organically to become a certified and leading partner to some of the world's leading and best of breed technology companies. With their growing portfolio of Telco solutions that include VoIP, Call Centre applications, Mobile and data solutions to name just a few, they are well positioned to meet the needs of today's technical aware business buyer. Due to continued growth within the London market they now have an exciting opening for a Senior Telco Sales Professional. As a Senior Sales Executive you will focus on the generation of new revenue streams from within both new and existing accounts. It is anticipated that your time will be split between the up-selling and cross-selling to existing accounts and mapping out and generating new business opportunities. This is an involved role that will give you access to an entire portfolio of products and solutions enabling you to deliver cost effective solutions to meet the needs of both SME and corporate accounts. The ideal candidate will be of graduate calibre and have a minimum of 2+ years target driven business to business Telco sales experience. It will be a distinct advantage to have a working knowledge of Avaya, Mitel and or Siemens products/solutions. You will be highly motivated, driven by success and posses first class communication and presentation skills with the ability to liaise within both the SME and corporate market place. This is an excellent opportunity to further your career with an organisation poised for continued growth. The successful candidate can expect an initial salary base of 35-45k with an uncapped and very achievable OTE of 80-100k in the first year. Additionally there is a generous benefits package. Certus Sales Limited is a specialist sales recruitment consultancy with an impressive client portfolio covering opportunities in the following areas: Telecommunication, Business Information, Media, I.T and many more. Vacancy levels recruited include Sales Director, Sales Manager, Account Manager, Sales Executive, New Business Development, Field, Territory and Telesales opportunities. To find out more about us please visit certussales.com
Dell to Offer Google Search Devices to Businesses	27 November 2007
The Google-made search machines scour corporate networks and Web sites for documents and other data.
Data leakage prevention becomes a feature	26 November 2007
Driven by market consolidation and the ongoing efforts of large IT security vendors to meld DLP (data leakage prevention) tools into their broader portfolios, some experts contend that the technologies will increasingly become perceived as product features and less so as stand-alone platforms.As with countless other security technologies that previously flourished as separate products but are now largely consumed as elements of packaged security suites -- including anti-spyware applications, spam-filtering tools, intrusion detection systems (IDS), and firewalls -- some market watchers claim that DLP is rapidly shifting into a mere piece of other offerings.Over the last six months, a slew of independent DLP vendors have been acquired by large security providers, including Vontu, Tablus, Provilla, PortAuthority, and Oakley Networks.Just as customer demand for DLP technologies -- considered valuable tools in stemming the theft and misplacement of sensitive corporate information -- drove Symantec, EMC, Trend Micro, WebSense, and Raytheon to buy those firms, respectively, the ubiquitous need for data protection among enterprises will drive further integration of the applications into other systems, according to some industry watchers."If you look at what DLP does, the real value will become more of a stack value than a vertical play," said Jon Oltsik, analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group. "A lot of devices can do packet filtering at the edge, and that filtering will become the enforcement of a policy, versus stand-alone data leakage prevention; the DLP system will still be where you might classify data, enter policies, and do analysis, but other products will likely take over the enforcement piece."As Symantec had not yet announced details of its $350 million deal to buy Vontu when the market leader convened its second quarter earnings call on Oct. 23, Chief Executive John Thompson deferred questions about the impending acquisition in favor of highlighting DLP features that already resided in a number of the company's existing products, such as its database security programs.While Symantec executives claim that the firm is planning to continue to sell Vontu's technology as a stand-alone platform for the foreseeable future, they also concede that one of the major benefits of adding the startup will be giant vendor's ability to further weave the acquired tools throughout a number of its other products."If you're going to have an agent on the end point, clearly you want all those capabilities to be integrated, and that includes DLP," said Ken Schneider, chief technology officer of Symantec's Security and Data Management group. "One of the things we're always trying to do is take disparate sets of technologies and build them into our architecture; we will continue to sell DLP as a stand-alone, but we will also introduce DLP capabilities throughout the portfolio."As with many other security technologies, one of the hardest parts of effectively using DLP tools in the enterprise setting lies in customers' abilities to manage the systems, Schneider said.Based on that reality, the degree to which Symantec can bond the technology with other security tools to allow for centralized management and policy control will play heavily into further adoption of DLP applications, according to the executive.At rival McAfee, which has made less aggressive moves in adding DLP capabilities -- having purchased a smaller vendor, Onigma, in late 2006 and recently buying Safeboot, more of a device encryption specialist -- executives agreed that the complex nature of the data protection tools makes integration crucial to their overall usability.McAfee executives agree with Symantec's view that there is likely a market for both stand-alone and integrated DLP in the short term, but said that the long-term play favors assimilation into other products -- in particular, more narrow DLP products aimed at protecting only end points, network gateways, or databases will need to be merged with other technologies, said Vimal Solanki, McAfee's senior director of product marketing.Those DLP products that can offer broader coverage across different systems and many types of data have the best chance of selling on their own going forward, he said."The point products that are out there are just features at some point, if they don't have all the pieces, like encryption, they won't meet all the expectations that customers have for DLP," Solanki said. "The key is that the same policies have to apply regardless of the device or the data; vendors have done a good job of marketing individual DLP features, but what we've seen among customers is that unless they can view many areas of risk and manage them with the same policy, DLP becomes a much tougher sell."Some companies who have already been acquired are already questioning the viability of the DLP space they came from."The remaining stand-alones will be very challenged, as DLP is going to be absorbed into all types of networking gear," said Derek Smith, chief executive of Oakley Networks, which was acquired by defense industry giant Raytheon for an undisclosed sum in late September. "I think DLP was probably pretty short-lived as the basis for an entire company, because if all you are doing is putting a box on the network, you're simply deflecting the threat of data loss to another vector that you probably can't see."However, most people in charge of the 35-odd remaining independent providers of DLP tools argue that in many senses it is the larger vendors who have the most work to do.It is the core anti-virus tools and spam-filtering products of security companies including McAfee, Symantec, and Trend that are becoming rapidly commoditized, an argument that has hung over the sector for years, said Seth Birnbaum, chief executive of Verdasys, an independent DLP vendor.The big players are trying desperately to shift from selling those types of legacy products into providing the data protection tools that customers are clamoring for, he said."Maybe if we were more of a point provider I'd be worried, but we are winning deals today based on a platform approach that includes everything from data discovery and policy creation right through to encryption, which is what customers are looking for and not many people have been able to offer," said Birnbaum."These bigger players are going to have a much tougher time trying to realign their entire business around data security since they've been married to all these other product lines for so long," he said. "The stronger point providers will be acquired, and everyone who doesn't have all the necessary pieces of DLP will be wiped out, but there's a lot of room for those of us who are already doing it the right way today."Other stand-alone vendors admitted that there is probably value to be found in arguments for both independent and integrated DLP systems."The answer is that we will probably see escalation of both models," said David Etue, vice president of product management at Fidelis Security, another independent DLP vendor."Some of early DLP market success stories were people were who built more of a feature, and I'm not sure if it was their strategy, but they built something that easily became a feature of other things," he said. "At the same time, we obviously believe that those of us who sell a real DLP platform today continue to have a strong opportunity."Other analysts contend that the stand-alone DLP market does in fact have sustainability but claim that there will only be a few players-- those who have mastered the policy management and enforcement pieces specifically -- who will survive and potentially flourish.At this point, any company whose products do not offer that level of functionality are probably living on borrowed time, said Rich Mogull, a longtime analyst at Gartner who recently launched his own consulting firm, Securosis.In the case of the larger vendors such as Symantec, the analyst said that the company will integrate its DLP tools with other products, while also marketing the policy management and enforcement aspect of the technology as a stand-alone product."There are a lot of elements of content monitoring and protection that can be integrated on the firewall, the end point, or in e-mail, and those more narrow providers who address only those things will probably go away," Mogull said. "For Symantec to connect Vontu's DLP to its end-point products makes sense, but there's still a market for the technologies used to create, manage, and enforce the policy, something for all these other systems to plug back into.""The independent companies who already have a platform and can address the high-level business problems of protecting data will likely be the ones who get acquired next," he said. "But there's probably only a dozen or so left like that, because many of the companies that have identified themselves as DLP only solve a small part of the problem."
Technology researcher predicts growth in use of 3G	20 November 2007
The corporate use of 3G wireless broadband provided by mobile networks has "rocketed", in contrast to WiFi - small networks that allow wireless access to the Internet, which has slowed, technology researcher World Wide Worx said at the Mobility 2007 survey.
Study: Internet could run out of capacity in two years	19 November 2007
Consumer and corporate use of the Internet could overload the current capacity and lead to brown-outs in two years unless backbone providers invest billions of dollars in new infrastructure, according to a study released Monday.A flood of new video and other Web content could overwhelm the Internet by 2010 unless backbone providers invest up to $137 billion in new capacity, more than double what service providers plan to invest, according to the study , by Nemertes Research Group, an independent analysis firm. In North America alone, backbone investments of $42 billion to $55 billion will be needed in the next three to five years to keep up with demand, Nemertes said.The study is the first to "apply Moore's Law (or something very like it) to the pace of application innovation on the 'Net," the study says. "Our findings indicate that although core fiber and switching/routing resources will scale nicely to support virtually any conceivable user demand, Internet access infrastructure, specifically in North America, will likely cease to be adequate for supporting demand within the next three to five years."The study confirms long-time concerns of the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA), an advocacy group focused on upgrading U.S. broadband networks, said Bruce Mehlman, co-chairman of the group. The group, with members including AT&T, Level 3 Communications, Corning, Americans for Tax Reform, and the American Council of the Blind, has been warning people of the coming "exaflood" of video and other Web content that could clog its pipes.The study gives "good, hard, unique data" on the IIA concerns about network capacity, Mehlman said. The Nemertes study suggests demand for Web applications like streaming and interactive video, peer-to-peer file transfers, and music downloads will accelerate, creating a demand for more capacity. Close to three quarters of U.S. Internet users watched an average of 158 minutes of video in May and viewed more than 8.3 billion video streams, according to research from comScore, an analysis group.Internet users will create 161 exabytes of new data this year, and this exaflood is a positive development for Internet users and businesses, IIA says. An exabyte is 1 quintillion bytes or about 1.1 billion gigabytes. One exabyte is the equivalent of about 50,000 years of DVD-quality video.Carriers and policy makers need to be aware of this demand, Mehlman added."Video has unleased an explosion of Internet content," Mehlman said. "We think the exaflood is generally not well understood and its investment implications not well defined."The responsibility for keeping up with this growing demand lies with backbone providers and national policy makers, added Mehlman, also executive director of the Technology CEO Council, a trade group, and a former assistant secretary of technology policy in the U.S. Department of Commerce."It takes a digital village," he said. "Certainly, infrastructure providers have plenty to do. You've seen billions in investment, and you're seeing ongoing billions more."U.S. lawmakers can also help in several ways, he said. For example, the U.S. Congress could require that home contractors who receive government assistance for building affordable housing include broadband connections in their houses, he said. Congress could also provide tax credits to help broadband providers add more capacity, he said.Consumers also pay high taxes for telecommunication services, averaging about 13 percent on some telecom services, similar to the tax rate on tobacco and alcohol, Mehlman said. One tax on telecom service has remained in place since the 1898 Spanish-American War, when few U.S. residents had telephones, he noted."We think it's a mistake to treat telecom like a luxury and tax it like a sin," he said.
GSM group backs LTE for mobile broadband	15 November 2007
The board of the GSM Association voted to back LTE (Long-Term Evolution) as the mobile broadband standard to succeed HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access), the CEO of the group said Tuesday.The vote is an indication that GSM operators are unified in their support for LTE, and gives them a united front as LTE competes with Qualcomm's UMB (Ultra Mobile Broadband) and with WiMax, backed by the computer industry, to become the next mobile broadband technology.LTE is several times faster than HSPA and could help spur demand for more downloading over cellular networks. Japan's NTT DoCoMo may become the first operator to widely deploy the new technology, which is expected to be ready by the end of this decade.LTE is now part of the GSMA push to promote the use of mobile broadband on cellular networks.Rob Conway, CEO of GSMA, announced the association's backing of LTE during a speech at the GSM Association's Mobile Asia Congress in Macau, China, and called on the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the leading United Nations agency for communication technologies, to ensure the industry wins the spectrum needed to offer mobile broadband.GSMA said it will work with other companies and organizations developing LTE technology, and start working with the NGMN (Next Generation Mobile Networks) initiative.NTT DoCoMo is pushing aggressively ahead with plans to speed up its mobile broadband services in Japan, and is looking to LTE to take care of the job. The company counts over half of Japan's mobile subscribers as its customers and has already started running tests on LTE technology to become its "Super 3G" offering. One advantage to LTE is that it can be used on existing 3G networks.Download speeds on Super 3G could reach up to 300Mbps (megabits per second), Masao Nakamura, the CEO of NTT DoCoMo, said in a speech, a huge improvement over HSDPA. A 500-page magazine, for example, takes 3 minutes to download on HSDPA. On Super 3G it takes only three seconds, he said.That means people will be able to download larger file sizes, including videos, music, and more over their mobile phones.A problem for NTT could ultimately be government allocation of the radio spectrum that operators need to deliver wireless broadband. There may not be enough bandwidth available on some of the spectrum the Japanese government is considering for mobile network operators, said K. Jay Miyahara, corporate chief engineer of the mobile network operations unit at NEC."What technology [DoCoMo] ultimately uses depends on the spectrum they get," he said. Certain technologies, including HSPA and LTE, can be used only in certain spectrum. The 800MHz spectrum would be ideal, but most Japanese companies expect to be allocated 700MHz, Miyahara said.DoCoMo hopes to attract users by allowing them to pay a flat rate for speedy downloads. "We want people to use their mobile phone for everything, but we think that if they worry too much about their bill then they won't use this download feature," Miyahara said. "So the answer is to offer a flat rate service, and then people won't worry about their phone bill."NTT DoCoMo is Japan's largest mobile phone service provider, with 53.7 percent of the nation's 99 million mobile users subscribing to the company. Nearly 80 percent of DoCoMo subscribers have already switched to 3G (third generation mobile telecommunications) service from 2G, Nakamura said. The nation is considered a world leader in 3G and mobile phone services.DoCoMo is also researching 4G (fourth generation) mobile technology. When it's commercialized, 4G will promise 1Gbps download speeds, said Nakamura, but in testing DoCoMo has achieved speeds as high as 5Gbps.Testing on LTE is expected to be finished by 2009, said Matthias Reis, head of the LTE business program at Nokia Siemens Networks. Operators are currently using HSPA, and starting to roll out HSPA+ and IHSPA (Internet-HSPA). By 2009, testing will be done and operators will be able to start rolling out the technology, he said.Meanwhile the GSMA continues to back current generation wireless technologies. Separately Tuesday, in partnership with Microsoft, it announced a contest to design laptop PCs with HSPA-enabled chipsets to make it easier for the average user to access the Internet via a mobile network. The hope is that users will begin to use mobile phone networks to download information to more devices other than just handsets, such as laptops, digital cameras, digital music players, and more.
Mobile Web leaders push for open standards	14 November 2007
The technological barriers and business models that have led to the current morass of proprietary handheld devices, closed-off carrier networks, and specialized wireless applications must be eliminated if the mobile Internet is to become as powerful and ubiquitous as it should someday be, according to industry leaders.Content providers, applications developers, and mobile carriers, along with standards backers like Tim Berners-Lee -- the so-called father of the World Wide Web -- stumped for greater openness in the platforms being used to develop future wireless online systems at the ongoing Mobile Internet World conference in Boston on Wednesday.While the lion's share today's of mobile Web applications do not work across multiple devices, wireless service plans, and software environments, the potential of the mobile Internet will only be realized when providers across the industry shift from proprietary systems to open standards, experts presenting at the conference said.Representatives from carrier Sprint Nextel, phone maker Nokia, applications vendor Opera, and even content producer MTV pledged their commitments at the conference to embrace the call of industry leaders like Berners-Lee to move away from the proprietary systems they have previously fostered and to adopt more standards-based platforms.Frequently referencing the launch of Google's Android mobile Linux software environment -- meant to help developers and carriers build applications and services that work across large numbers of different devices -- as a rallying point for the larger industry, nearly every speaker at the inaugural Mobile Internet World conference echoed the calls for a shift away from closed systems."The most important thing about the Web is that it is universal, that it can run on any hardware, use any software, in any language, and be used by people with disabilities," Berners-Lee said to a packed room of several hundred attendees."At the [World Wide Web Consortium], we've been focused on using standards, and it's very important that the mobile Internet platforms use the same standards," he said. "We've already seen a number of false starts where that didn't happen, and what people are realizing is that if you make yourself into a walled garden and block out everything from the outside, you find in the end that the flowers all grow on the outside."Berners-Lee said that his invention of the World Wide Web would have never had the same unilateral influence and adoption that it has enjoyed if it had been created only to work on a certain type of device or operating system."It was crucial that you didn't have to ask anyone for permission to put a new application on the network. If you had to do that, the Internet wouldn't have grown, and the World Wide Web as we know it wouldn't have happened," he said. "It's very important that it was designed as an open platform, not something which tried to control or extract money from what's built on top of it."For the mobile Internet to flourish, said the expert, carriers, along with applications and device makers, must see the larger opportunity that will exist if they are able to abandon their closed-off networks, handhelds, and programs and buy into the open standards approach, he said."Under this open model, you will end up making money not because you have a large piece of the cake, but because the cake is enormous," said Berners-Lee. "If you bet on standards and they don't happen, you haven't really lost a lot, but if you do bet on them and they take off, whoa."In the United States, carriers in particular have been accused of halting broader development and adoption of mobile Web tools based on their business models that have mostly allowed only those programs developed by their partners to find a way onto the devices and services they support.Google's Android and Open Handset Alliance popularize open standards However, even those carriers who have profited most from this arrangement understand that the adoption of standards and open-source development tools will have the ecosystem effect evangelized by Berners-Lee and others standards-backers, said Jack Dziak, senior vice president of corporate strategy at Sprint Nextel.Sprint Nextel has proven its intent to fall in line with standards efforts in part through its participation in the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), launched by Google in coordination with the introduction of Android, he said."Open source is a truly powerful development opportunity, and we will have to embrace it wholeheartedly," Dziak said. "It's an opportunity to create a new economy and open the door to new growth for us and the industry."Efforts like the OHA will provide support for the underlying software that Sprint Nextel believes will "alter how devices work and how applications are developed," the executive said.Among the other strategies the carrier is pursuing to benefit new innovation in the mobile Web space is the planned launch of its Xohm WiMax services, which will potentially open devices to a whole new range of content services, "whether we control them or not," said Dziak.Rich Miner, vice president of wireless strategy at Google, said that response to Android and the OHA has been overwhelmingly positive as industry players appear to have warmed up quickly to the search giant's effort to create a new focal point for open development for handhelds and applications."One of the refreshing things is that we have a large, broad alliance joining to build this platform, the message of openness is resonating, and carriers and device [manufacturers] realize that embracing openness doesn't mean they lose control," Miner said. "This type of effort allows them to balance their interests with the benefits of openness, such as driving a lot more innovation; they understand that they will end up with many more developers who are able to take full advantage of the platform."Mobile applications makers and content providers have struggled mightily in the past with the decisions they have been forced to make in tailoring any products or services they launch to run on the disparate devices and services currently on the market, most of which have been walled-off in proprietary networks.Such companies will truly welcome the adoption of open mobile Web standards as they believe the platforms will take away those barriers and allow them to create more robust applications that can run on any device, or any carrier network, said Greg Clayman, executive vice president of digital distribution and business development at MTV Networks."It's hard to understate the importance of openness in mobile devices and platforms. We must move beyond the carrier-controlled devices and applications model," Clayman said. "There's already an entire world of consumer devices out there for us to take advantage of, and that will only be possible if we open mobile platforms; the Web itself flourished primarily because of its underlying concepts of openness to everyone and anyone."
Customer Operations Engineer- Cisco- MPLS	09 November 2007
Customer Operations Engineer - CCNA, CCNP, CCIP, MPLS Cisco Certified [CCNA minimum] Customer Operations Engineer required for dynamic role with London based ISP. You will be troubleshooting 2nd and 3rd line issues for large corporate customers. Role will involve problem solving of WAN networks- MPLS, Routing, Leased Line, LES, ISDN, DSL. You will need to have: Good understanding of routing and internet concepts Working knowledge of networks In depth understanding of TCP/IP and DNS Understanding of LAN and WAN infrastructure, ideally gained from an ISP environment. 37.5 hours per week on 24/ 7 shift pattern. 20% Shift Allowance Must have had the following experience in the last 12 months: •Worked with Corporate Customers in 2nd line role? •Troubleshooting/Configuring routers •Troubleshooting solutions rather than access circuits •Dealing with routing problems on daily basis •Configuring or Troubleshooting MPLS/ VPN's NOT IPSEC VPN •Experience with both DSL & ISDN If this sounds like you, send in your CV or call Julia direct.
Survey finds companies clueless about unsecured data costs	07 November 2007
A survey by AIIM-The ECM Association indicates that over two-fifths of the companies surveyed said they had no idea whether any of their corporate information on their networks had been inappropriately accessed, updated or deleted within the past two years. How blissful is ignorance?