Unisys service uses the cloud to manage mobile devices

Unisys is introducing a new service on Wednesday that will allow its customers to better manage, secure and support mobile devices carried around by employees, company executives said on Tuesday. CIOs are concerned about corporate data "roaming the streets," he added. Staff now expect to use their choice of devices anytime and anywhere, and this causes problems for CIOs around cost, the cost of support, and the security of applications and data, said Tony Doye, president of Unisys' Global Outsourcing and Infrastructure Services group, in a telephone interview. The service framework for the new end-user productivity services will support Windows Mobile phones and BlackBerry devices, with support for the iPhone and other devices available in later releases.

Some early-adopter customers, mainly in Central Europe, are already using the mobile-device management framework, he said. Currently organizations generally manage devices with specific technologies that only work with a specific platform, rather than with a consistent framework across a variety of devices, said Sam Gross, Unisys' vice president for global IT outsourcing solutions. The framework is managed by Unisys for customers, and the management and support of the devices is also done from the company's services delivery centers around the world, he added. Unisys is also offering access to standard office suites by subscription through a service called Virtual Office as a service from the Unisys Secure Cloud. The new service will enable CIOs to reduce end-user costs by providing support for different devices, desktop PCs, applications and mobile data access through a mix of traditional, virtualized and secure cloud-based service delivery models, Unisys said.

The Unisys Secure Cloud has technology that protects both data in mobile devices and in storage, using a combination of encryption and dispersion of data. "The model that we are delivering is server-side virtualization services, and in this situation the data never ends up on the end-point," Gross said. Unisys' Unified Communications as a Service, also delivered through Unisys Secure Cloud, offers Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Microsoft Office Communicator applications in a multi-tenant environment. Unisys is also offering generic services such as the ability to destroy the image on a device if it is reported lost, he added. Besides offering these productivity applications, customers can also provide their employees with access to other applications running at the company, through the Unisys cloud, Gross said.

Symantec ties DLP software to third-party security tools

Symantec has updated its Data-Loss Prevention Suite so that if the software finds a data issue that needs fixing, it can apply third-party encryption and digital-rights management controls to the problem. Announced today, Symantec DLP Suite v. 10 adds what's called the "Flex-Response" capability to find sensitive data that has been left unprotected in the enterprise and apply security controls through encryption and DRM products from vendors such as PGP, Oracle, GigaTrust, Liquid Machines and Microsoft. Watch a slideshow of this product. Symantec is also publishing a set of open APIs and a software development kit (SDK) to facilitate support for security controls through additional products, says Rob Greer, senior director of product management at Symantec. "Suppose I scan a file server, finding information not secured, not encrypted.

The data can also be brought under the control of various DRM products so there can be controls placed on viewing, printing or adding to content.  Symantec DLP v.10, expected to ship in December, will have a workflow process that can alert managers to data that's out of compliance with corporate DLP policies; let them choose to apply encryption and DRM; and confirm that security policies have been enforced. For remediation I could apply PGP encryption," Greer says. Other changes in DLP Suite v. 10 are expected to tighten ties with other Symantec products. There will also be integration with Symantec's Control Compliance Suite for risk assessment of operating systems and applications. "You will get a full risk position view," Greer says. For instance, the updated version will be integrated with Symantec Security Information Manager for centralized collection and correlation of event and log data to determine security status.

Symantec has already begun adding ways to trigger policy-based DLP actions on its Symantec Endpoint Protection security software, such as "making [a desktop] a brick" if it's determined sensitive data is at high risk, Greer says. Symantec DLP v.10 starts at $25,000. Other automated actions are also being added to DLP v. 10 to allow interaction between Symantec's DLP and its flagship security software.

TomTom, Navigon update iPhone apps

Navigation vendors TomTom and Navigon this week announced significant updates to their respective turn-by-turn navigation apps for the iPhone. The new version adds a number of oft-requested features, first among them being text-to-speech directions, which allows the app to read aloud the names of places and streets, and an iPhone-app implementation of the company's Advanced Lane Guidance, which gives you detailed, 3-D images of complex intersections for easier navigation. TomTom on Thursday revealed a major update to the company's $100 TomTom US & Canada.

Also included in the latest version are map and safety-camera updates; a new Help menu that provides direct access to emergency numbers and directions to emergency providers; in-app control of iPod playback; and customizable audio warnings for events such as exceeding the speed limit and approaching safety cameras. Meanwhile, Navigon has announced the availability of an update to the company's $90 MobileNavigator North America iPhone app. The free TomTom update has been submitted to Apple for approval. The new version includes several minor enhancements, including an extended-destination search that helps find a destination even if you don't have the full address, and the capability to manually move your destination pinpoint at any time. Available as an in-app purchase, Traffic Live takes advantage of real-time traffic information-gathered from current Navigon iPhone users, commercial fleets, and other GPS systems, as well as data from ClearChannel's Total Traffic Network-to determine the fastest route, update travel times, and warn of accidents, construction, and other incidents. But the biggest new feature is the availability of Navigon's Traffic Live feature.

For the first four weeks of release, the Traffic Live in-app purchase will carry a price tag of $20; the price will then increase to $25. There are no ongoing service charges for Traffic Live, although Navigon notes that if your iPhone service doesn't include a data plan-a possibility outside the U.S.-additional data charges may occur when using the Traffic Live feature.

Microsoft turning configuration management “on its side”

Microsoft is changing up the next version of its System Center Configuration Manager so instead of managing devices it will manage users and their activities across multiple devices. "It will focus on… providing them an appropriate profile for information access based on the job function of the user together with the device they are using," says Bob Muglia, the head of Microsoft's server and tools division. But the change fits into one of Microsoft's recent occurring themes of providing application support across phones, PCs and browsers. While he did not name the version he was talking about, Microsoft is slated to ship the Windows Server-based Configuration Manager 2007 R3 late in the first three months of 2010. Windows 7: 10 Best Features  Muglia admitts that it is a big change for the software that has been around since 1996 when it started life as Systems Management Server. "When I look at the changes we need to do [with Configuration Manager] that is one of the biggest ones that is coming," he says. "It is really turning configuration management on its side and I look at that with both anticipation and a little trepidation because we know it will take customers time to make that key transition." Muglia says Microsoft is gearing up to help customers through that change, although, he did not give details on how that might happen.

And it aligns with the company's intent to provide an integration between security and identity. Muglia said the data center is where things are booming for System Center, now the fastest growing business in the Server and Tools division with 30% improvements year-over-year. In the Configuration Manager case, data access policies could be paired with identity credentials and awareness of the user's current device. He said virtualization is driving growth, as well as, strong uptake with Operations Manager. "Over time what we expect to see is us transitioning our data center offerings to a more complete integrated product which pulls all these things together," says Muglia. "It will help enable these cloud deployments, these on-premise private cloud deployments. You need configuration management, you need operational monitoring, you need virtualization management and you need backup and archiving." Muglia says organizations need all those things together, "and that is sort of the direction in which we are heading." He also says the long awaited System Center Service Manager will finally be out in the first half of next year, but that Microsoft is beginning to take a different angle on that software. We think you need all those components working together.

Service Manager, formerly called Service Desk, helps administrators work through trouble tickets but also anchors automated, pro-active service requests initiated via other system management tools, and can aid in compliance auditing. "We are now really looking at Service Manger as something that deeply integrates across everything to provide business process integration in the context of systems management,"  Muglia says."We look forward to getting the first release out, but the future of that product will be much more around compliance management and policy management associated with business process and business process compliance. That is the direction we will take that over a longer period of time. " Follow John on Twitter

Piracy's global economic impact debated

There's no question that software piracy is a global problem with a heavy financial impact. A May 2009 report by the Business Software Alliance and IDC estimated that 20% of software programs installed in the U.S. last year were unauthorized copies. But just how heavy it is is a matter of debate. Worldwide, the figure is 41%, with an estimated financial impact of $53 billion - a figure based on the retail value of the pirated PC software.

If it were, the BSA's global loss figure of $53 billion would drop sharply, they maintain. "Obviously, not every piece of pirated software will be replaced immediately with legitimate software if underlicensing is addressed or sources of pirated stuff dry up," acknowledges Dale Curtis, the BSA's vice president of communications. But critics of the study say it fails to account for the possibility that pirated software could be replaced with Linux or other open-source options. But he says that over the years, IDC has found "a very strong correlation between piracy rates and software sales. One country that wasn't included is Canada - and that doesn't sit right with Michael Geist, a professor at the University of Ottawa. "What the BSA did not disclose is that the 2009 report on Canada (whose piracy rate declined from 33% to 32% in the study) were guesses since Canadian firms and users were not surveyed. In country after country, as the piracy rate falls, legitimate sales go up." A second criticism of the report is that its country-by-country figures are partly based on the results of an annual survey that in 2009 covered 24 countries. While the study makes seemingly authoritative claims about the state of Canadian piracy, the reality is that IDC . . . did not bother to survey in Canada," Geist wrote in a May 27 blog post.

Further, he says Canadian users were surveyed the previous year, and "there is no reason to assume large changes in results from one year to the next." Ivan Png, a professor of information systems and economics at the University of Singapore, says the BSA and IDC should explain how they applied the results from the 24 countries surveyed to all of the other countries not surveyed. "IDC should make the methodology transparent," Png says. Curtis responds that the study "is not a guess, nor is it a scientific measurement, nor is it based primarily on a survey of software users, as Geist suggests." A survey of 6,200 users is only a piece of the model, Curtis says.

Apple pushes unnecessary software to Windows PCs

Apple again used its software update tool to push a program that was previously not installed on a PC, according to Computerworld tests early Monday. Apple's Software Update for Windows - a utility most often installed on PCs when users download iTunes - was offering something called "iPhone Configuration Utility" to Windows users, even to machines that have never connected to an iPhone. Later in the day, however, Apple removed the software from the update list.

Popular Windows blogger Ed Bott first reported on ZDNet that the tool was included in new updates. The tool, chimed in Simon Bisson of itexpertmag.com , is actually an enterprise-grade tool for network administrators, who use it to create and deploy device profiles so users can securely connect to a company's Exchange mail servers. Computerworld confirmed that the 22MB download was offered to PCs, including those running Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) and Vista SP2, that had never been used to synchronize an iPhone. According to Bisson , the iPhone Configuration Utility also adds the open-source Apache Web server software to the PC. "The thing with that iPhone config utility is that it's an enterprise tool for building device profiles. Apple has been criticized in the past for using its software updating service to push unwanted software. It's not for consumers!" Bisson said on Twitter.

Last year, for example, the company came under fire for offering Safari for Windows to users who had not installed the application, going so far as to pre-check the program so that users who simply accepted the default downloads received the browser. Later, Apple quietly changed Software Update so that Safari was unchecked, requiring users to explicitly request the browser. John Lilly, the CEO of Mozilla, the open-source developer responsible for Firefox, said Apple's tactic "undermines the Internet" because updates are traditionally used to patch or fix existing software, not install new programs. By 3:30 p.m. ET, Apple Software Update had dropped the iPhone Configuration Utility as a potential update to the same PCs that earlier had indicated the tool should be downloaded. Apple did not immediately respond to questions about why the iPhone utility had been offered, and whether the company had erred in listing it as an update for Windows users.

U.S. house decommissions its last mainframe, saves $730,000

The U.S. House of Representatives has taken its last mainframe offline, signaling the end of a computing era in Washington, D.C. The last mainframe supposedly enjoyed "quasi-celebrity status" within the House data center, having spent 12 years keeping the House's inventory control records and financial management data, among other tasks. How to really bury a mainframe The cost and energy savings contribute to the Green the Capitol program designed to improve efficiency in the halls of Congress. But it was time for a change, with the House spending $30,000 a year to power the mainframe and another $700,000 each year for maintenance and support.

Applications running on the last mainframe have been moved to x86 and Unix servers, many of which are using virtualization technology that first appeared on the mainframe decades ago.  "It's a symbolic transition into the latest and greatest in terms of green technology, virtualization, consolidation and all those things," says Jack Nichols, director of enterprise operations at the House of Representatives. "The mainframe plug was pulled, but it was pulled in favor of something that was started in the mainframe world."  The House had been using mainframes since at least the early 1970s, and at one time had a 13,000-square-foot data center dedicated to mainframe and mainframe operations. The last mainframe was an IBM model in place since 1997, and was situated in the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_House_Office_Building ">Ford House Office Building. "It wasn't the fastest box in the world," says Rich Zanatta, director of facilities for the House. "Some of our blades and some of our standard servers have more capability than that entire 8-cubic-foot box has. As mainframes grew stronger, the House moved down to just one machine, in addition to other types of servers. Technology-wise, it's obviously been surpassed." New mainframes are far more powerful and efficient than those built in the 90s, of course. It will be turned over to the U.S. General Services Administration, and could resurface in the used mainframe market.

But the House decided not to buy another mainframe in part because its IT staff has more expertise running x86 and Unix boxes. "We really don't' have those [mainframe] skill sets in house anymore," Zanatta says. "We try not to maintain architecture that we can't support ourselves." The staff for House Chief Administrator Officer Daniel Beard held a ceremony to take the mainframe offline Friday. The House also had a second mainframe in a backup site, the location of which is secret, which was also shut off.  Decommissioning the mainframe involved getting rid of lots of large, bulky cables, not to mention migrating applications to newer systems. But the House staff has been working to move those applications to new servers for the past five years, a process that just ended. The mainframe had been running a half-dozen applications including staff payroll, inventory management, committee calendars and other legislative tasks. Turning off the mainframe is a big step in reducing the House's server footprint. The mainframe was consuming 10,000 to 15,000 watts an hour, and maintenance and support costs were increasing because it was so out-of-date. "As it increases in age, so does the maintenance cost," Zanatta says. "We were starting to hit that threshold of pain."

Already, the House consolidated about 150 test servers down to 20 through virtualization, and consolidated about 120 production servers onto 15 or 20. "Those are dramatic savings for us in the way of power and cooling," Zanatta says.