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Wednesday, December 9, 2015
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Microsoft and Apple Share a Peaceful Moment

Can you imagine Microsoft and Apple actually liking each other? Who'da thunk such a thing was even possible? However, the holiday spirit is alive and well at Microsoft. The company flew a bunch of workers from around the country into New York City for something very special.

Microsoft workers and a local NYC children's youth choir met at Microsoft's new Fifth Avenue store to spread some special holiday cheer. Their goal was to share a message of peace and harmony with Microsoft's neighbor down the street... Apple.

The Microsoft employees and the youth choir broke into song as they walked from their Fifth Avenue location to the iconic Apple store near Central Park -- you know, that big, clear, square block with the giant Apple logo on the side.

What happened next was very inspiring. The carolers brought the Apple workers out of the store, and they all enjoyed a touching moment with many other New Yorkers watching, but not believing what they were seeing.

Could this be the beginning of a new era of peace and prosperity between these two tech giants? Perhaps. If nothing else, this is a great first step. Microsoft is saying "let there be peace." Not bad.

We don't yet know how Apple will respond, but I would expect to see chapter two coming soon.

Reagan and Gorbachev

Not so long ago, Russia was the big, bad enemy of the U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev really shook things up, though. They became friendly, and the resistance softened. Reagan's policy of "trust, but verify" was necessary, due to the longstanding feud.

Things were quite nice for a while. After a few decades, though, the walls went back up, and we are now back to where we started.

New Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella must have given the go-ahead for the New York City gesture. That is a good sign. He seems to have a fresh new understanding of the marketplace and his role at this time in history. He seems to understand that people use many different devices, often from competing brands -- yet they want them all to work well together.

So the question is, can Nadella soften the heart of Apple CEO Tim Cook? That's the big question. Let's hope so. These are two new leaders in a new chapter. New thinking should be welcomed by all right now.

We Can Hope for Peace

Perhaps we can enter a new age. Perhaps Microsoft and Apple actually can become less combative. Sure, they will have to live in a world of "trust, but verify" for a long while. However, wouldn't it be a better world if everyone could sit down and have a cup of coffee together once in a while?

Will this appeal for peace go beyond a gesture? Who knows? However, one thing we can enjoy today is how the holiday spirit really seems to be changing things on the tech battlefield. Let's hope it continues to spread.

E-Commerce Times columnist Jeff Kagan is a wireless analyst, telecom analyst, industry analyst, consultant and speaker who has been sharing his colorful perspectives on the changing industry for 25 years. Email him at jeff@jeffKAGAN.com.

6:15 AM

Can you imagine Microsoft and Apple actually liking each other? Who'da thunk such a thing was even possible? However, the holid...

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Feinstein Revives Terrorist Activity Reporting Bill

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Tuesday reintroduced a bill that would require technology companies to alert law enforcement of certain activities that might be related to terrorist threats.

Cosponsored by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., the Requiring Reporting of Online Terrorist Activity Act would mandate that technology companies notify authorities of communications regarding attack planning, recruitment, or distribution of information relating to explosives if they should become aware of that activity. The bill would not require active monitoring or force them to actively search for such activity.

Feinstein earlier this year failed to attach a similar bill to the Senate Intelligence Authorization Act. However, because the current version is modeled on existing legislation that requires the reporting of online child pornography, it might have a better chance of success.

The Child Porn Connection

Terrorist organizations like ISIL are using social media to reinvent how they recruit and plot attacks, Feinstein said, and the government needs help from technology companies to thwart them.

"This bill doesn't require companies to take any additional actions to discover terrorist activity," Feinstein emphasized. "It merely requires them to report such activity to law enforcement when they come across it. Congress needs to do everything we can to help intelligence and law enforcement agencies identify and prevent terrorist attacks, and this bill is a step in the right direction."

The act is not limited to social media companies; it applies to any operation that provides an "electronic communication service or remote computing service" to the public. That arguably could include libraries, cafes and other places that provide technology services.

The current bill is the same as the one that was approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee in June, which was removed in order to secure passage of the more comprehensive Senate Intelligence Authorization Act.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., one of the earlier bill's chief critics, on Tuesday tweeted that he would oppose the reintroduced version, because it would make technology companies reluctant to cooperate.

"I'm opposed to this proposal because I believe it will undermine that collaboration and lead to less reporting of terrorist activity, not more," he said.

FBI Director James Comey earlier this year testified that social media companies were "pretty good at telling us what they see," Wyden noted.

Feinstein reintroduced the bill following last week's mass shooting in San Bernardino. Tashfeen Malik, one of the suspects, reportedly posted her allegiance to ISIS on her Facebook page before the attack.

Facebook deleted the posts, as per policy, according to Feinstein's office.

In another case, British citizen Junaid Hussein, a recruiter and hacker for ISIS, contacted several individuals in the U.S. and UK through multiple Twitter accounts, inciting several attempted attacks prior to his death in a U.S. drone strike earlier this year.

An official familiar with Google's policy, who requested anonymity, said the company was on board with a strong effort to combat terrorism, but said "we aren't confident this is the best approach," as the term 'terrorist activity" in the legislation is overly broad.

Twitter did not address the Feinstein legislation directly but did confirm that it has teams around the world actively investigating reports of rule violations, and noting that it works with law enforcement entities around the world when appropriate.

Tech, Privacy Advocates Not Having It

The proposed bill will do more harm than good to the privacy rights of ordinary citizens engaged in political speech, according to privacy advocates, who have argued that it would put tech companies in an uncomfortable position and open the process to government abuse.

"This proposal is identical to the one last summer that was roundly criticized by tech companies, Internet advocates and politicians alike before it died a natural death," said Michael McCloud Ball, chief of staff at the ACLU's Washington office.

The bill is so vaguely worded that "innocent social media users" would feel the most impact after being "swept up in an overzealous attempt to comply" with the mandate, he told the E-Commerce Times.

The policy would lead some companies to be overzealous, while others would stick their heads in the sand, warned Emma Llansó, director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology.

"Some would decide to significantly over-report their customers' information and private communications to the U.S. government to ensure that the company stays on the right side of the law," she reasoned. "Others would refuse to review any content that was flagged to them, for fear that doing so would mean they obtain the 'actual knowledge of any terrorist activity' that triggers the reporting obligation."

David Jones is a freelance writer based in Essex County, New Jersey. He has written for Reuters, Bloomberg, Crain's New York Business and The New York Times.

3:20 AM

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Tuesday reintroduced a bill that would require technology companies to alert law enforcement of...

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Tuesday, December 8, 2015
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Mozilla on Monday launched Focus by Firefox, a free ad blocker for Safari users on iOS 9.
It lets users block the same trackers blocked by Private Browsing with Tracking Protection in Firefox for the Windows, Mac, Linux and Android platforms. The protection is based on Disconnect's open source block list.
Focus by Firefox doesn't work with Firefox for iOS because Apple doesn't make content blocking available to third-party browsers on iOS, Mozilla said. It's exploring ways to provide Focus on Firefox for iOS.
"Presumably this will provide iPhone users with more privacy," said Mike Jude, a research manager at Frost & Sullivan.
The Basis of Focus for Firefox
Focus is based on Mozilla's three content-blocking principles: content neutrality, transparency and control, and openness.
Content neutrality means content-blocking software should focus on addressing potential user needs, such as performance, security and privacy, instead of blocking specific content types, such as ads, the company said.
Content-blocking software should provide users with transparency and meaningful controls over the needs it's trying to address, Mozilla said.
When it comes to openness, content blocking should maintain a level playing field and block content under the same principles, regardless of its source. Content providers should be given ways to participate in an open Web ecosystem, the company contended, rather than being placed in a permanent penalty box that shuts off the Web to their products and services.
"Some ad blockers promote a scorched-earth strategy of denying every advertiser's content regardless of whether it's an annoying pop-up or a personally tailored advertisement," observed Alan McQuinn, a research assistant at the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.
That "can seriously damage an online content creator's revenue stream," he told the E-Commerce Times.
A Matter of Trust
Focus aims to help create and maintain trust among Internet users, whose lack of meaningful controls over their digital lives has eroded their trust, Mozilla said. Much of the loss of control comes from the erosion of privacy caused by tracking consumers in their movements across the Web.
Tracking is the collection of data regarding a user's activity across multiple websites or applications not owned by the data collector, and retaining, using or sharing that data, according to Disconnect. That definition doesn't apply to data that's immediately aggregated or where there's a first-party relationship with the user.
With Focus, "direct ad revenue would still be protected, but downstream or upstream tracking would be limited to that known and approved by the user," Frost's Jude told the E-Commerce Times.
"There are many cases where a user might want [tracking] to be enabled, and if a user enabled tracking, then they would, in a sense, self-qualify themselves as a lead," he added.
The Impact of Focus
Focus "won't impact Apple much," Jude suggested, as it "seems to be trying to manage this as a value add for Safari."
Mozilla might benefit from the use of Focus, because "browsers are about numbers. The higher the number of users, the better the advertising value," he pointed out. "So Mozilla becomes a more private experience and the ads, although not tracked, will be more valuable."
Advertisers "are willing to pay more to advertise to individuals who are more likely to be interested in their products," the ITIF's McQuinn said.
"In this system, everyone generally wins," he continued. "Ad-supported websites increase their revenue, users receive fewer irrelevant ads and more free content, and advertisers get to be in front of their target audiences."
"The Mozilla Focus ad blocker is free and it claims to improve performance, so that's a win-win for users," said Laura DiDio, a research director at Strategy Analytics.
"It can also reduce mobile data usage," she told the E-Commerce Times, "so it's all good."
Richard Adhikari has written about high-tech for leading industry publications since the 1990s and wonders where it's all leading to. Will implanted RFID chips in humans be the Mark of the Beast? Will nanotech solve our coming food crisis? Does Sturgeon's Law still hold true? You can connect with Richard on Google+.

10:46 AM

Mozilla on Monday launched Focus by Firefox, a free ad blocker for Safari users on iOS 9. It lets users block the same track...

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Yahoo Spins in Reverse

Yahoo on Wednesday announced that its board of directors decided to suspend plans to spin off its Alibaba holdings and instead will undertake a reverse spinoff, transferring its other assets and liabilities to a newly formed company.

The stock of the newly formed company will be distributed pro rata to Yahoo shareholders, resulting in two separate publicly traded companies.

Concern about the market's perception of tax risk is one of the factors that led to the suspension of the planned Alibaba share selloff, said Yahoo Chairman Maynard Webb.

If it were to sell its Alibaba shares, Yahoo would be obligated to pay at least US$10 billion in taxes. The reverse spinoff will turn Yahoo into a shell that owns shares in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan without incurring the possible tax burden.

It will take at least a year to separate the companies, Webb remarked.

Kudos for Yahoo

"Separating the underlying operational business from the stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan is the right thing to do," said Barry Randall, a Covestor technology portfolio manager.

That operational business "has substantial operational cash flow" -- he estimated about $600 million annually -- as well as "several leading assets with substantial brand equity."

"Yahoo Finance is the No. 1 website, by traffic, for financial information," Randall told the E-Commerce Times, "and Yahoo Sports is a very credible media outlet."

Following the spinoff, the Internet business side of Yahoo probably will "continue to refine Marissa Mayer's message of being an everyday website where users have a reason to use one or more features -- news, sports, weather, business," Randall predicted.

The reverse spinoff likely will accelerate the company's efforts to make that Internet content more usable on mobile devices, he surmised, "and probably fend off interest from larger companies eager to have its traffic, if not its tepid growth."

Going to Market

Yahoo's Web business could be an attractive acquisition for a number of media, cable and telecommunications firms.

Verizon has been up front about its desire to snap up Yahoo. If that happens, Verizon would become a media giant, having earlier this year purchased AOL.

Chances of Verizon's making the buy "are quite good, as Yahoo would be quite complementary to AOL," Randall observed.

It's unlikely that regulators would block such a deal, he added. "While Yahoo has a significant media footprint, neither it nor AOL is dominant enough to trouble consumer watchdogs with the threat of some media monopoly."

Twitter also could be a suitor, Randall suggested. Its market cap is "about $18 billion, so issuing $2 billion to $3 billion in stock to pay for Yahoo is quite doable. It would be buying a company with roughly twice its own operating cash flow for a fraction of its own value."

However, members of Yahoo's board indicated in a conference call Wednesday morning that it had not decided to sell Yahoo or any part of it.

What About Mayer?

The reverse spinoff could be construed as a rebuff of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who proposed the Alibaba stock selloff. The resignation of Mayer ally Max Levchin from Yahoo's board is viewed as evidence of that.

However, Levchin tweeted that his departure was not a sign of anything, noting that he ended his participation in all other major company boards months ago.

Mayer has vowed to stay on as Yahoo's CEO.

That's a good thing, said Trip Chowdhry, managing director at Global Equities Research.

"Marissa is doing a wonderful job," Chowdhry told the E-Commerce Times. "She has brought innovation back to Yahoo. Before she came on, Yahoo wasn't on any mobile devices, for example."

Mayer is "one of only four people in the world who understand technology and where it's going," Chowdhry said, adding that Larry Page is another.

However, Chowdhry took issue with Mayer's statement on CNBC that Yahoo is exploring options for doing a taxable or tax-free spinoff.

"Do you think the CEO's primary job is to figure out how to dodge taxes?" he asked. "That's not Marissa's responsibility; if that's what Yahoo wants to do they should get Bernie Madoff to run the company."

Richard Adhikari has written about high-tech for leading industry publications since the 1990s and wonders where it's all leading to. Will implanted RFID chips in humans be the Mark of the Beast? Will nanotech solve our coming food crisis? Does Sturgeon's Law still hold true? You can connect with Richard on Google+.

9:36 AM

Yahoo on Wednesday announced that its board of directors decided to suspend plans to spin off its Alibaba holdings and instead will...

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Federal IT Opportunities: Steady Funding, Constant Challenges

The good news for federal information technology managers -- and the vendor community -- is that government IT budgets will remain stable for the next few years in terms of projected spending. An additional potential benefit is that a recent budget agreement will support agencies for two years, removing some of the uncertainty that has characterized recent government funding.

The spending stability doesn't mean federal IT procurement will remain boringly routine, however -- far from it.

The government-wide flat-funding scenario masks the fact that the pace of spending will proceed at different rates among individual agencies. As a result, vendor opportunities will emerge within departments and agencies that have more energetic IT investment programs, according to several recent reports. Investments will involve a wide range of activities, posing challenges for vendors.

First, on an overall funding basis, federal IT investments will remain close to US$80 billion every year from fiscal 2016 to 2021, according to the Professional Services Council, which released its latest forecast at its 2015 Vision Conference last month.

In constant dollars, civilian IT spending will dip from $49 billion in fiscal 2016 to $48 billion in 2021, while defense-sector spending will edge up from $30.5 billion in 2016 to 30.7 billion in 2021, the forecast said.

The departments of Health and Human Services, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and Justice will see more aggressive IT spending, according to the PSC analysis. Within the Defense Department, the Air Force will show a sprightly pace of IT investment through 2021.

Vendors Need a Flexible Approach

Marketing opportunities are available even in the face of funding, program and policy challenges, Robert Haas, PCS's team chair for the federal IT budget outlook, told attendees at the event. Vendors should "be a trusted partner to your agency" and "bring flexible, innovative, cost-effective solutions to the problem."

Agencies will continue to struggle with devoting more funds to innovative projects, known as development, modernization and enhancement spending, versus operation and maintenance -- or steady-state expenditures, he noted. For 2016, DME will remain at a relatively low level of 23 percent of all federal IT spending, in line with recent years.

Yet even a flat allocation for DME across the government will involve some interesting IT market opportunities at some agencies, an analysis by immixGroup released at its Government IT Sales Summit last month showed.

For example, the Department of Health and Human Services' proposed 2016 IT budget of $11.3 billion includes $4 billion for DME programs. These include $313.1 million for IT related to operating health insurance market exchanges and $59.9 million for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for a quality-assurance initiative related to various IT functions, including infrastructure and management.

Innovation Spending Projects

At agencies where the ratio of DME is on the low side, a number of projects still have some hefty funding support. The Department of Homeland Security is aiming to spend $150.3 million to transform a fragmented and paper-based system dealing with benefits processing to an electronic program at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The VA is planning to spend $197.9 million in DME funds in 2016 for its 21st Century medical and patient records program.

Within the Defense Department, the U.S. Army has allocated $3 billion to DME projects in fiscal 2016. The department's Defense Information Systems Agency projects it will spend $470 million for the defense enterprise computing effort, which involves core data centers and other functions, including email and business programs.

Another factor that could tilt spending toward innovative IT projects will be adherence to the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act, which became law last year. Agency progress in meeting FITARA standards has been disappointing to date, according to a study released in last month by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

Agency implementation of the law is still in the early stages, PSC's Haas noted. The requirements of the act, such as enhanced transparency, better risk management, and the expansion and deployment of special, expert teams known as "IT cadres," eventually will help drive IT investments.

"FITARA holds a lot of promise," he told the E-Commerce Times.

In terms of the types of spending for more innovative aspects of IT, cloud technology and big data are advancing as areas of interest to federal agencies, according to an update Deltek issued earlier this year.

The federal addressable cloud market will grow from $2.35 billion in 2015 to $3.10 billion in 2016 -- a significant jump for one year. In 2020, federal cloud spending will reach $6.20 billion, according to the Deltek forecast.

"Policy imperatives from Congress and the White House, as well as the need for innovation, agility, and cutting costs, have motivated agencies to take a good, hard look at cloud solutions," Alex Rossino, senior principal analyst at Deltek, said in the report.

The pace of cloud adoption is picking up even though agencies "continue having difficulty understanding how to procure cloud using available acquisition methods," he said. The awkwardness in contracting vehicles is being addressed and improvements are evolving.

"Fundamentally, what needs to occur is that agencies need to be given a flexible budget authority that is on-demand and which contains money that is multiyear applicable," Rossino told the E-Commerce Times. Such an approach matches the inherent characteristic of cloud capability as an on-demand IT resource.

In the same report, Deltek estimated that federal big data spending will show steady growth, from $1.62 billion in 2015 to $1.95 billion in 2016, and then will reach $3.18 billion in 2020. Big data allocations are picking up even though budget concerns have slowed the pace of procurements.

"Despite the steep learning curve associated with big data solutions, agency pilots, niche uses, and ongoing dialogue with industry is increasing awareness and understanding of big data that Deltek believes will translate into accelerated spending through the end of this decade," Rossino said in the report.

Cybersecurity Spending a Constant Factor

Hovering over all federal IT operations, if not over all government activities, is the threat of cybersecurity breaches.

"Persistent and diverse threats, growing interconnectivity, and the criticality of technology and data to the mission of federal agencies make securing their information systems more crucial than ever," Deltek said in a separate report on federal information security, also released in October.

Federal agency demand for "vendor-furnished information security products and services" will increase from $8.6 billion in fiscal 2015 to $11.0 billion in 2020, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of 5.2 percent, according to the forecast.

"Government-wide IT policies will continue to embed cybersecurity into the fabric of federal IT acquisitions and management. Security is widely impacting acquisition policy, contract types, and RFPs," the report said.

Deltek noted several areas of focus for cybersecurity attention, including security operations service; governance, strategy and compliance; security tools and appliances; and identity and access management.

The reports from PSC, immixGroup and Deltek underscore the reality that agency discipline will be the order of the day in federal IT spending in the foreseeable future. However, valuable productivity gains associated with IT may ensure that funding will remain at stable levels even as overall federal spending comes under closer scrutiny.

"We typically don't comment on projections outside the current budget year. However, it is worth noting that OMB has asked agencies for another 5 percent cut to their overall budgets in their fiscal 2017 submissions," said Tomas O'Keefe, market intelligence consultant at immixGroup.

However, he told the E-Commerce Times, that directive "may or may not impact agency IT budgets."

John K. Higgins is a career business writer, with broad experience for a major publisher in a wide range of topics including energy, finance, environment and government policy. In his current freelance role, he reports mainly on government information technology issues for ECT News Network.

3:51 AM

The good news for federal information technology managers -- and the vendor community -- is that government IT budgets will remain ...

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Monday, December 7, 2015
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Now Let's  Encrypt HTTPS certificates are all free. Let's Encrypt allowed everyone to get SSL/TLS certificates are fre...

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Music lovers are receiving an early holiday gift from Apple: It has increased from 25,000 to 100,000 the maximum number of music tracks that can be uploaded to the personal libraries of Apple Music and iTunes Match users, MacRumors reported Sunday.

When Apple launched its streaming music service, Apple Music, in June, Eddy Cue, senior vice president of Internet software and services, revealed on Twitter that the company was working on raising the library ceiling for iOS 9. It had yet to do so when the new version of the mobile operating system debuted in September.

Cue confirmed that Apple had begun rolling out the larger library feature for all users, according to MacRumors.

The company hasn't changed its Apple Music support page yet to reflect the new upper limit.

Both Apple Music and iTunes Match allow users to upload tracks they own into Apple iCloud where they can accessed from any Apple device. With Apple Music, for US$9.99 a month, users also can stream music they don't own from Apple's music library.

A Lot of Music

For most people, 100,000 tracks is a staggering number, but the increase probably isn't for most people.

"For people who are really into music, 25,000 can be a severe limitation," said Bob O'Donnell, founder and chief analyst for Technalysis Research.

"Apple doesn't want those people to be cut off. That would be a big mistake," he told the E-Commerce Times.

"People who are intense music fans tend to have big libraries and they tend to be influencers," O'Donnell noted. "Apple doesn't want to cut off people from using its services who are really strong influencers." The 100,000-song ceiling will have appeal to only a very small number of users, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

"That's a lot of music to manage, and you're never going to listen to all of it," he told the E-Commerce Times.

"In a library of 25,000, there are a lot songs you're not going to want to listen to again," Enderle said. "In 100,000, there's a whole lot more music you really don't want to listen to again, but you're still going to have to manage."

Late to the Party

While hard-core music lovers still groom and nurture their large libraries of tunes, streaming has been where the music scene has been moving for years. That's been a challenge for Apple.

"For many years, Apple was the clear leader in downloaded tracks," said Ross Rubin, senior director for industry analysis at App Annie.

"Now that a lot of the focus has shifted to streaming, Apple is more of a newcomer," he told the E-Commerce Times.

"Apple hasn't been doing well in streaming," added Technalysis' O'Donnell. "They've been challenged. They don't have the dominant position in streaming that they have in virtually every other market that they're in."

Although it arrived late to the streaming party, Apple still may have time on its side.

"They were late to the game, so many of their users already had subscription services they liked and used. Once you subscribe to a service and you're happy with it, it's hard to get you to switch because you have move your playlists and music to the new system," Enderle noted.

"Apple can overcome that as they add new Apple users because Apple users tend to stay with Apple services," he said.

Radio Without Commercials

With streaming becoming important to mobile users and so much of Apple's bottom line tied up with the fortunes of the iPhone, getting streaming right will be important to the company.

"Streaming has become more prevalent on mobile as smartphones have become de facto portable music players," App Annie's Rubin said.

"It's definitely become a much more prevalent way for consumers to access music on connected portable devices," he added. "That was surely part of the reason that Apple launched a streaming-based service."

The buying, downloading and uploading of music world where Apple is king is waning in importance.

"It's a sign of the way the world was, not the way the world is," Enderle said.

"Streaming is like radio without commercials, which, for a lot of folks, is all they really want. They don't want to manage a whole bunch of tracks," he added.

"For the last decade," Enderle continued, "the trend has been toward streaming and away from buy to own."

John Mello is a freelance technology writer and contributor to Chief Security Officer magazine. You can connect with him on Google+.

7:39 AM

Music lovers are receiving an early holiday gift from Apple: It has increased from 25,000 to 100,000 the maximum number of music tra...

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