http://www.informationweek.comInformationWeeken-usCopyright 2012, UBM LLC.2012-04-19T08:00:00ZIn the fourth and last installment of our podcast interviews, sci-fi writer and iconic <em>BYTE</em> columnist Jerry Pournelle talks about the multimedia promotion opportunities the Internet offers writers.http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/232800463?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smb<p>From <a target="_blank" href="http://www.nesfa.org/boskone/">the Boskone 49 science fiction convention</a> <em>BYTE</em>'s Daniel Dern interviewed famed science fiction author and <em>BYTE</em> veteran <a target="_blank" href="http://www.jerrypournelle.com/">Jerry Pournelle</a>. In this fourth and final podcast segment, Jerry talks about the value of editors, the multimedia possibilities of advertising books and short stories on the Internet, and the best fields of study for prospective science-fiction authors.</p> <P> <p>Click on the graphic below to listen to the podcast. Keep reading for the full transcript.</p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: We'll take some more questions from the audience. I'll repeat them into the mike to make sure Jerry can hear. Questions writing or otherwise, science fiction...</p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: I'm sorry, I'm not hearing you.</p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: We're going to see if anyone in the audience has questions. I'll repeat them. Hands? Sir.</p> <P> <p><u>AUDIENCE</u>: What technology that's come out recently that you never saw coming?</p> <P> <p><b><hr><blockquote><a target="_blank" href="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/byte/audio/Pournelle/clip4_final_v2.mp3">Click here to download an MP3 version of this podcast</a></blockquote><hr></b></p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: The question is, can you name any technologies that came out recently that you didn't see coming?</p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: I don't think of any. After all, I did talk about this publishing revolution back in a book called <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Step-Farther-Out-Jerry-Pournelle/dp/0441785832">A Step Farther Out</a>, which I wrote from my columns when I was science columnist for <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_magazine">Galaxy</a> in the 70s.</p> <P> <p>And I wrote that there would be these information utilities, and as I remember the way I put it, authors will put their book up in the information utility and the reader will read it. And the royalty will go from his bank account to mine, and where's the need for that blood-sucking publisher? [Laughter]</p> <P> <p>It turns out that there is a need for that blood-sucking publisher, and it's a need that most authors don't foresee, which is the editing function. That's still the one thing that editors do that authors generally can't. It doesn't mean authors can't find a way around it. Some of them are married to good editors. Niven and I edit each other, which is good, because Larry and I are close enough friends that if he writes something I don't like, I can tell him, "That stinks," and if I write something he doesn't like, which is more often, he'd say, "You can't say it that way, that's stupid."</p> <P> <p>And we don't mind doing that, because we know it improves the book.</p> <P> <p>If you can find a partner who is willing to tell you when you write something that sucks, hang onto them. Because editing is probably the one thing that publishers used to do that you don't get in self-publishing.</p> <P> <p>I have to say, I saw most of this world, although not the consequences of the technologies, quite a long time ago. They're mostly in <em>A Step Farther Out</em>, which I wrote, published, what, in '83, '84. The world is not a terribly surprising place any more. That I can say again, because after all, I did spend 20 years as probably the best known technology columnist in the business and I had people like Mr. Dern and the Peterboro staff, lots of people helping me understand that world. Nowadays I don't have that big support outfit. So I'm not so dead sure...</p> <P> <p>Did I see anything that surprised me? Probably we're further along in biology than I thought we would be by this time back in the eighties and nineties. But it no longer surprises me. With DNA sequencing, very little we can do in biology should surprise you now.</p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: Next question... sir?</p> <P> <p><u>AUDIENCE</u>: Are you surprised with the promise of different ways of telling stories with the Internet, that has regressed back to the linear printed-only version?</p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: Given that the Internet and multimedia offer a lot of ways for writers or authors to tell stories and present them, are you surprised that we are still mostly in the linear read-it-in-this-order text, etc? Is that a fair paraphrase? As opposed to hypertext, "choose your adventure," we don't seem to have a lot of those compared to things that could just be presented as books.</p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: That is a very interesting thing to think about, and I have given it considerable thought. I used to think that that would be more what I would call enhanced books, that when electronic publishing came out, there would be more in the way of maps, diagrams, perhaps photographs, authors might even have friends dress up in costume so they could get a picture of what they thought their characters ought to look like. That sort of thing doesn't seem to be happening. But it may.</p> <P> <p>After all, the reason... there used to be people known known as public stenographers, because most people couldn't read, and they couldn't write. And a lot of early books were dictated. It's not known whether St. Paul could read, he dictated all his books, we do know that. Over time, reading became common, everybody could read and write, and you had the era where the amateur writer suddenly became rich and famous. Charles Dickens being a good example of such things.</p> <P> <p>The technology allows the writer to write, that is, to get his words on paper, without any expertise of other people involved. Now we are moving from that. The music industry has taken that step, it is now possible for any artist group in music to have the equivalent of what used to be a million-dollar sound studio in their garage. You just need to take the trouble to put up the sound-dampening stuff. The electronics are well under $20,000, and any garage band can afford the mechanism for doing really good production-quality music.</p><p>That's happening in publishing now. In ebooks, anybody in this room can afford essentially to get their books up. Or, as in my case, many of my old books, I don't myself put them online. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.spectrumliteraryagency.com/eleanor_wood.htm">Eleanor Wood</a>, who is my agent, who is the successor to the Lurton Blassingame agency I started with, they sold those books in the first place, and I let them put them up. And she takes her 15% and sends me the rest.</p> <P> <p>And that works out very well. So <em>[Lucifer's] Hammer</em>, and <em>The Mote in God's Eye</em>, a number of our old books are up, but our agent took care of all the technical work. Now I did in fact proofread the ebook editions, and I am a better proofreader than they were, but they're doing it.</p> <P> <p>So the production side is easy for writers now. It's not hard at all to have a number of books or short works or anything else. What you then need to do is let people know it's there. And we went over that before.</p> <P> <p>As the technology improves, it becomes easier and easier to put production quality, cut scenes. I could, for instance, if I really wanted to, hire a couple of Hollywood actors--they're cheap, there's lots of them, they're waiting on tables. We could, if I really wanted to, with the resources of the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.lasfs.org/">LASFS [Los Angeles Science Fiction Society]</a>, we could put on scenes out of <em>The Mote in God's Eye</em>, complete with costumes and fairly decent actors, and do it all with equipment I have available here at Chaos Manor.</p> <P> <p>I've never done it, but I've often thought, wouldn't that help sell books, to have a reasonably good actress and a reasonably good actor from our local ... do scenes out of some of the books. I don't know. I'm getting old enough I'm not going to try it. But some author is going to exploit the capability. The technology is... there.</p> <P> <p>I'll give you another enhancement. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.gerrold.com/">David Gerrold</a> has a series of interstellar stories, <em>Star Wolf</em>, the ships are very complicated. And they're hard to visualize. I think those books would profit enormously if David had the ability to do a virtual walk-through of that ship, so you could see where the various parts are, how they relate to each other. That wouldn't be beyond his capability, now.</p> <P> <p>I think some author is going to do that. You're going to have complicated scenes, and you're going to have a virtual spaceship. You can sit on the bridge and see what's going on during the battle. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.davidweber.net/">[David] Weber</a> could probably do that very well, with some of his stories.</p> <P> <p>Maybe that's coming. It hasn't become popular, it hasn't happened much yet. But then we are only now getting a generation of young authors who are familiar with all this technology and who could use these dang computers the way I use a doorknob.</p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: I do know there is a growing movement for authors to create video trailers for their books and post them.</p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: Video trailers for books I would think might well help sell them. They could go on Facebook and lots of people might see them, and people might see them and say, I'd like to read that book.</p> <P> <p>I think it may well be that that kind of thing is the means of the new publicity. And the technology is there. Everybody can now, for a few thousand dollars, have the ability to make at least short amounts of Internet video quality production videos and things.</p> <P> <p>Some people are going to be good at doing lectures. There are people who are making a living doing online lectures right now. I heard that there is a significant number of university students taking most of their courses online. I've been asked to teach constitutional law for one of the big ones. I'm not going to do it, I don't have the time or the energy. But a lot of that is in the air, too. I don't know where it's going. But it's going to be a very interesting next decade this way.</p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: We have about five minutes left, so any more questions before we go to wrap up. Questions?</p> <P> <p><u>AUDIENCE</u>: Jerry Pournelle has a uniquely, perhaps diversified background of being an expert in lots of different things. What fields does Jerry believe would be good to be in, before you become a science fiction writer?</p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: It's a very good question. I sort of lucked into it. My first professional job was as an aviation psychologist for the Boeing company. I have a masters' degree, and was working on a doctorate at Boeing in the experimental. And Boeing needed somebody to help conduct a bunch of human factors experiments, and I did that.</p> <P> <p>But the peculiar nature of my psychology degree was that Hal Horst, who was my advisor, required us to take higher math from the math department--not the garbage that's taught in the social science department, statistics and math, but the real thing--probability theory, operations research, that sort of thing. And I ended up as a so-called systems analyst. A systems analyst is a person who knows less and less about more and more, until he knows nothing about everything in the world.</p> <P> <p>And I would say, that kind of generalist education--until I started writing for a living, I made more money out of my advanced calculus course than out of any single thing I studied in school. And interestingly, because I was in the operation research business, I got to look at anything. That's why I ended up as the editor of Project 75, because it was a generalist study, it was about everything we knew about ballistic missiles. And they wanted somebody who had some abilities in technology. But they weren't looking for a technology engineer, they were looking for somebody who could evaluate all this stuff.</p> <P> <p>I notice one of the exciting new writers recently, at least one that I like, is Commander Henry, who was a ship driver in the navy until he retired. That's a pretty good background. Larry Niven's a mathematician by trade, or at least by degree. Asimov was a biologist. Fred Pohl had no college at all, but he was a weather charter for the Air Force, learned a lot about scientific method and methodologies during World War II. Vernor Vinge is a professor of mathematics.</p> <P> <p>So you can look at kinds of writers you'd like to be, and see what their background is, is maybe the right answer to that question. Otherwise I don't have the answer. If you're looking for the field that is going to be the most exciting in terms of what it accomplishes in terms of the next few decades, it's likely to be biology.</p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: And they're going to give us the 'You're Done' signal in a minute. So, Jerry, is there anything else you'd like to add as we wrap up? Anything else you'd like to say that I didn't ask the right question for?</p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: No, I thought you did a great job. [Laughter.] Thank you. I don't know how many of you there are, but thank you for coming, and listening to an old guy with a bad cold trying to make sense at this hour of the morning. It's a little later for you than it is for me, I guess. And thank you all for coming.</p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: Thanks again, Jerry.</p> <P> <p>[APPLAUSE]</p> <P> <p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/personal-tech/science-tech/232800459">Return to main article.</a></p>2012-04-18T06:45:00ZIn part three of our four-part series of podcast interviews with science-fiction writer and <em>BYTE</em> institution Jerry Pournelle, he tells how to write bestsellers in the age of Internet publishing.http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/232800462?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smb<p>From <a target="_blank" href="http://www.nesfa.org/boskone/">the Boskone 49 science fiction convention</a> <em>BYTE</em>'s Daniel Dern interviewed famed science fiction author and <em>BYTE</em> veteran <a target="_blank" href="http://www.jerrypournelle.com/">Jerry Pournelle</a>. In this segment, Jerry discusses the two secrets to writing success in the electronic age: a good editor and good publicity.</p> <P> <p>Click on the graphic below to listen to the podcast. Keep reading for the full transcript. </p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: What can you tell us, what are one or two of the products you have enjoyed using over the last year?</p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: If you're looking for trends... my head isn't working as well as it should be, today...the biggest trend I can see in the last couple of years is the total collapse of the publishing business as I knew it. When I was a youngster, and first getting into the writing racket, you would spend all your time trying to satisfy a bunch of editors in New York. Nowadays, they're almost irrelevant. I make more money out of the electronic editions of my books, many of which are 30 and 40 years old, than I do out of print editions. And that's true of many people.</p> <P> <p><b><hr><blockquote><a target="_blank" href="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/byte/audio/Pournelle/BYTE_clip3_final.mp3">Click here to download an MP3 version of this podcast</a></blockquote><hr></b></p> <P> <p>The publishing industry as we knew it is pretty well gone. It consists of Amazon, one big book chain--Barnes & Noble--and a lot of little specialty book stores. You don't have coffeeshops and bookstores and your local bookstore and places of that kind anymore. We have to learn to adapt to that in the publishing business, and we certainly have not.</p> <P> <p>How many people here in the room are here because you want to learn something about the writing racket?</p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: Is there anyone here who wants to learn from Jerry about the writing racket? One hand, two hands... Is there anything you don't know about the writing racket, Mr. Coville? <a target="_blank" href="http://www.brucecoville.com/">Bruce Coville</a> in the back has raised his hand. What, sir, is your question? I'll repeat it.</p> <P> <p><u>Bruce Coville</u>: I don't have any specific question, I'm waiting for Jerry's wisdom to come at me. Why don't you talk about ebooks? I'm very interested.</p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: Jerry, what wisdom do you have? Any thoughts or suggestions about ebooks? How do we buy them, how do we sell them. How do we promote them?</p> <P> <p><b><hr><blockquote>F. Paul Wilson, a well-known horror writer, has also written extensively for BYTE on the <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/byte/authors/7129">changes in the publishing industry.</a>.</blockquote><hr></b></p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: I can talk about ebooks, because I'm making a lot of money from them. In order to keep up with the technology, I have put some of my books up in ebook form myself, which is mainly to say Eric Pobirs does most of it for me, but I watch over his shoulder and know how it's done.</p> <P> <p>And it's a fairly easy process for any intelligent person. It's mostly being meticulous about the formatting. You have to put it into the format you're going to have it published in, and then read it in that format, and you'll discover that periods are in the wrong places, there are line feeds that shouldn't be there. It's all kinds of nonsense like that. And you have to go over it a piece at a time, proofreading.</p> <P> <p>Now, that's the easy part. </p> <P> <p>The hard part, of course, is writing something that is in fact publishable, and the hard part of that is that very few authors are much good at editing their own materials. Bruce [Daniel] can tell you that about me. I have to acknowledge that one of the reasons I have done as well as I have over the last 40 years is because I've had some very good editors.</p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: There was a session I went to earlier, which you missed, Jerry, on some of the aspects of turning your books into ebooks. Bruce Coville, I believe, wanted to know, once you got them ready for people to buy, how you promote them so people know about them? Buying them is easy, but promoting is still the hard part. Is that fair, Bruce? Jerry, since you're doing this yourself, how, besides posting on your Web site, how do you tell people that they're available and they should buy them?</p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: Promoting has always been the big job. It's the case that it used to be the publishers did some promoting for some books. But science fiction was never much promoted by publishers, except in a few cases. I'm one of the beneficiaries of that. When we did <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Lucifers-Hammer-Larry-Niven/dp/0449208133">Lucifer's Hammer</a>, Playboy Press, which was the hardcover publisher--everybody forgets it was Playboy Press--Playboy Press did a smack-on job of promoting it. And they promoted it so dang well it ended up as number two on the bestseller list, and stayed there at number two for 14 weeks, and stayed there for 25 weeks, and ... the book is still selling to this day.</p> <P> <p>So the simplest way to sell a lot of ebooks is to have a lot of ebooks, and have one be a bestseller. Now that's not going to help you very much.</p> <P><p>But it has always been the case that promotion is as big a part of making a real success at writing as anything else. There is another side to that: you don't have to be a bestseller to make a decent living at this if you're in the right niche. The mid-list writer has never been treated well by publishers. The mid-list writer, the guy who's never going to be a bestseller, but who turns out a good book every couple of years, the problem with it is that in the old days, in order for somebody to buy that guy's book, they had to go to a bookstore wanting the book, because it wasn't being pushed at them. And it had to be on the shelf at the time. And the bookstore owner had to decide whether to keep two copies of, say, "The Whiffenpoof Song" or whatever it is on the shelf, and often it wouldn't be in the inventory.</p> <P> <p>Today, if you get that book up on Amazon, it's there forever. And if somebody tells somebody else, hey, you ought to go read "The Whiffenpoof," the guy can go over and the store is always open and the book is always available. So there is a means for mid-list writers to have a niche in this market that they never could have had before.</p> <P> <p>When I was president of <a target="_blank" href="http://www.sfwa.org/">SFWA</a>, there were only 20 people in science fiction making a living at it. And that included me, [Larry] Niven, who was making what most people considered a living but who didn't have to live on what he was making out of science fiction. It included [Isaac] Asimov, who hadn't written a science fiction novel in 10 years, when I was president. That was 20 people in all the world making a living at science fiction. I would guess there are 100 now.</p> <P> <p>So in that sense, things are not as bad as they look. If you're a beginning writer, it's probably the same as it's always been. You have to find people who think your book is good, and get to those people and let them know it's available. That's not as hard now as it used to be. Things can go viral on Facebook, for that matter any place else. I have <a target="_blank" href="http://jerrypournelle.com/jerrypournelle.c/chaosmanor/">a daily journal that I do</a> that has a fair number of subscribers, so that gives me a base for any new book that comes out. You just have to remember that if your book is under $10, and it's on Amazon, the royalty is 70%. That means you can get as much as five or six dollars per ebook that you sell. And Amazon sends it to you monthly, not on credible threat of lawsuit, which is what the old publishers used to do.</p> <P> <p>So you have this chance now of selling a hundred books a month, at seven or eight dollars. That's not a lot of money, but if you've got 10 of them, that's a fair amount for the old mid-list writer who wrote a few books every now and then, and lived off of faculty teas and speaking engagements and things.</p> <P> <p>There is a bigger place for the mid-list speciality writer who writes a certain kinds of story that appeals to a certain audience that there never was before. You don't have to have a big fan movement, but you do have to be able to find it and communicate with it. I'm going to leave that as an exercise for the reader. But it's possible.</p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: I know, back when I wrote my Internet book [<a target="_blank" href="http://www.dern.com/books.shtml#ig4nu">The Internet Guide For New Users</a>, McGraw-Hill, 1994] 20 years ago, one of my favorite resources was a book, <em>Marketing and Selling Your Book</em>. It started by saying, "If you believe that your job is done when you write, 'The End,' you're not serious about this."</p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: Oh yeah, well, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Mote-Gods-Larry-Niven/dp/0671741926">The Mote In God's Eye</a> became a best-seller, and it did not get a big advance. It was a big advance for those days in science fiction--we got ten thousand dollars, from Simon & Schuster. But the way it became a bestseller wasn't from big promotion by the publisher. They didn't do a bad job of it. But what they didn't do, is because I had been in the space program, and because I had cooked astronauts in the Human Factors Lab, and done some of the war plans and done a lot of things in the space program, I could get on talk shows as a space expert rather than as a fiction writer. Because everybody in the world wants to be on a talk show. And every fiction writer in the world wants to, and the producers are tired of them. But if you can get on as something else, you can still talk about your book.</p> <P> <p>And I did that. Boy, in those days, I was on every coffeepot radio program in the country. I was on the Long John Nebel Show in New York. It was on at two in the morning. They first asked me to be on the Long John Nebel Show and I had to go to New York from California to do it. I asked my agent, I said, "Lurton [Blassingame], is that worth doing?" and he said, "Well, Jerry, you gotta understand, there's a lot of insomniacs who read books..." [LAUGHTER]</p> <P> <p>And boy was he right! I got on that show, they liked me on it, I interacted well with Long John and his wife Candy. I was on it several nights in a row, and our sales just spiked like crazy. And it got me on the Joey Bishop show, he happened to be listening to it, and told his producers to get me on it. </p> <P> <p>So you never know with publicity. You just have to take all the opportunities you can get. And you try to be interesting. That's easier to do when you're 30 years old, than it is when you're an old ghoul like me.</p> <P> <!-- 23:45 --> <P> <p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/personal-tech/science-tech/232800459">Return to main article.</a></p>2012-04-17T08:00:00ZIn this second installment of our four-part series of podcast interviews with sci-fi writer Jerry Pournelle, the iconic <em>BYTE</em> columnist explains how the Cold War launched the computer revolution, and why the Internet will never die.http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/232800461?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smb<p>From <a target="_blank" href="http://www.nesfa.org/boskone/">the Boskone 49 science fiction convention</a> <em>BYTE</em>'s Daniel Dern interviewed famed science fiction author and <em>BYTE</em> veteran <a target="_blank" href="http://www.jerrypournelle.com/">Jerry Pournelle</a>. In this segment, the second of a four-part series of podcasts, Jerry covers totalitarian societies, how the need for better intercontinental ballistic missiles paved the way for the computer revolution, why improved productivity is a problem for society, and why the Internet will never die.</p> <P> <p>Click on the graphic below to listen to the podcast. Keep reading for the full transcript. </p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: These days, it's not just computers but the networks. Arguably, the most prescient story is <a target="_blank" href="http://www.baen.com/chapters/w200506/0743499107___2.htm">A Logic Named Joe</a>, by Murray Leinster, which says, "If you hook a lot of information up and let everyone get to it, interesting things may happen." </p> <P> <p>The question is, where do we see that going, looking forward?</p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: Well, we know one thing: Back in 1970, there was a thing called the Cold War. And there were these societies called totalitarian societies, where everybody had a certain set of beliefs, and the government enforced that.</p> <P> <p><b><hr><blockquote><a target="_blank" href="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/byte/audio/Pournelle/BYTE_clip2_final.mp3">Click here to download an MP3 version of this podcast</a></blockquote><hr></b></p> <P> <p>And Arthur Koestler famously said, back in those days, that a sufficient condition for the disintegration of a totalitarian society would be the free exchange of ideas within it.<p> <P> <p>And in 1970, they put me on a panel where somebody said, "Say something profound." So I thought fast, and did... what I said was, by the year 2000, everybody in western civilization--I didn't really foresee the collapse of the Soviet Union--but everybody in western civilization would be able to get the answer to any question that had an answer.<p> <P> <p>Which is to say, I sort of extrapolated the old ARPAnet that was happening in 1969 and 1970 to something. I didn't forsee anything as big and pervasive as the Internet. But still, the free exchange of ideas within western society, and that included everything, any question you wanted to know, you could get an answer. It seemed to me that would happen by the year 2000. I think I was right on that.<p> <P> <p>And the corollary to that was it would cause the collapse of the Soviet Union, which in fact it did. But it was just quicker than I thought it would be.<p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: What was the question someone asked that collapsed the Soviet Union?<p> <P> <p>[Laughter]<p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: Within a Soviet society, I think the question somebody asked within the Soviet Union was, 'Why the hell are we putting up with this? Why are you doing that?' If everybody can ask, 'Why the hell are we doing things the way we are?' it does seem to be it will have an effect on the way we do things. Look at what's going on in China.<p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: One of the challenges, I know, 10, 20 years ago, it was said that if, say, the government wanted to shut the Internet down, or industry wanted to privatize it, within two to three days, hackers with closets full of stuff would rebuild a new one using phone lines and the like. My guess is that the stuff is still around [but] the infrastructure control could easily be jury-rigged to prohibit that. Are we simultaneously creating centralized power like the Great Firewall of China or the dreaded Obama "kill switch" for the Internet, which I know he declined to get built in.<p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: I know that within my neighborhood, I could easily set up a wireless system that would encompass <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_City,_Los_Angeles">Studio City</a> with what I have lying around in the back room of Chaos Manor. And I presume that since I'm semi-retired, since I'm well out of the business, I presume that in Cambridge and in Boston, you have plenty of that. If they shut down the Internet, I would guess that you would have an Internet back up within a month, in Boston. Just the people I'm talking to in this room I'm talking to would be able to do it.<p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: That's true, you could do it with a Wi-Fi mesh, and just bypass the carriers entirely. Looking ahead, what do you see might happen--putting your science fiction writer hat on, which gives you more margin of error to be wrong, because we're not here to much to predict the future as to look at what might be and do to us--what do you see coming along?<p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: Well, understand, I don't believe you can predict the future. But I think you can invent it. Now that's not original with me. Dandridge Cole said it a very long time ago, and many have repeated it in one way or another. But it is true. In one sense, the Air Force invented the computer revolution because it wanted to have more accurate ballistic missiles. And the reason it wanted that is because accurate ballistic missiles is because accuracy is a great deal more effective than increasing the yield. You can make bigger bombs or you can make more accurate bombs. And 'more accurate' is a lot more cost-effective.<p> <P> <p>So the Air Force wasn't intending to produce the computer revolution when it decided that what it needed was a lot more investment in large-scale integrated circuits. But it had that effect. So the future you think you're inventing may not be the one you get. You may get something quite different from what you think you're doing.<p> <P> <p>But I do see what we are trying to invent, and that is probably what science fiction writers can do... we invent futures in our head, and in doing that, we come up with the requirements for making that happen. If that makes sense.<p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: Is there anything you are working on, either yourself or with Larry [Niven] or other people in the science fiction realm that you care to share some of the assumptions for?<p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: Larry and I are currently working on what amounts to a fantasy, which is to say, some of the people in this country get sufficiently disgusted with the education system and everything else in this mess, and turn to some other means to try to make things better... what would you do?<p> <P> <p>It's a fantasy in the sense that politics doesn't work that way, and things don't work the way you want them to. But at least we are going to try to play that game for a while.<p> <P> <p>One thing I see which is something science fiction writers have dealt with for the last 50 years is, 'What happens when productivity gets really good?' At the moment, the United States is still essentially the largest manufacturing country in the world. We still manufacture more goods than I think anybody else. If not, we're right up there, close to it. The difference is that we no longer employ 30% of our population at doing manufacturing jobs. We've become more and more productive, and it takes fewer and fewer people to do it. And more than that, the people that do it have got to be more and more highly skilled--and this isn't Lake Wobegon. Half the population <em>is</em> below average. And what happens when there isn't anything for them to do? You can think, well, there are things they can do, and at one time, in England, domestic servants took up 20% of the population--and it was generally not the brighter half of the country.<p> <P> <p>But we have an attitude that says basically being a housemaid is not an honorable thing to do, it's disgusting. So the question becomes, is it better to be a housemaid or on welfare? I don't have an answer to that, I think we have better start thinking about questions like that. What do we do with the low half of the bell curve in a time when productivity gets better and better all the time?<p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: I don't have that answer either. I'm going to change up now, and ask, what are some of the things you are currently looking at in the Chaos Manor testing lab side of the house. Any particular products, technologies?<p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: I used to be the guy you could ask that question of. But I have to say, I'm damn near 80, and am semi-retired. People still tell me things, I still see what's going on to some extent. But I'm hardly at the forefront of technology the way we were in <em>BYTE</em> days when we were giving the technology awards at Comdex and really kept up with it.<p> <P> <p>I have to say, by the way, that the <em>BYTE</em> editorial staff, both in the old print mags, and during the Internet days, was probably the brightest group of people and one of the best intelligence services I've ever known. And I've worked for a number of intelligence services in my time.<p> <P> <p>But I don't have that support group any more. I used to pretend I knew everything, and get away with it. But I have to confess, the reason I could pretend that is because we had this big group of people in Peterboro [New Hampshire, site of one of the early <em>BYTE</em> offices] and later in San Francisco, kept me able to pretend it. <P> <!-- 17:13 --> <P> <p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/personal-tech/science-tech/232800459">Return to main article.</a></p>2012-04-16T08:00:00ZJerry Pournelle's work on long-ago defense projects gave him insight into the future of computers. In this first of a four-part podcast series, the popular <em>BYTE</em> columnist talks about how he was able to predict the iPhone.http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/232800460?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smb<p>From <a target="_blank" href="http://www.nesfa.org/boskone/">the Boskone 49 science fiction convention</a> <em>BYTE</em>'s Daniel Dern interviewed famed science fiction author and <em>BYTE</em> veteran <a target="_blank" href="http://www.jerrypournelle.com/">Jerry Pournelle</a> on the history of computers in science fiction.</p> <P> <p>Jerry's bio for his <em>BYTE</em> column, "Computing at Chaos Manor," once read: <blockquote>Jerry Pournelle holds a doctorate in psychology and is a science-fiction writer who also earns a comfortable living writing about computers present and future.</blockquote> Science fiction authors don't predict the future--they create the specifications for people of the future to implement. Jerry is well-qualified to imagine the future of computers. In this first of a four-part series of podcasts, we ask him what sci-fi writers got right--and wrong--about computers today.</p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: Welcome to an interview with Jerry Pournelle, NESFA's Science Guest of Honor. I'm Daniel Dern, a local technology writer. I <a href="http://www.dern.com/bye2byte.shtml">was editor</a> of BYTE.com, the Web-only presence of <em>BYTE</em> from 1998 to 2001, where Jerry was our lead columnist, and "keeping Jerry happy" was the unwritten fifth bullet point of my job. Which would have been a lot easier, Jerry, if you had complained directly to me instead of my hearing it third-hand at times...</p> <P> <p><b><hr><blockquote><a target="_blank" href="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/byte/audio/Pournelle/BYTE_clip1_final.mp3">Click here to download an MP3 version of this podcast</a></blockquote><hr></b></p> <P> <p>Be that as it may, that's ancient history. Jerry is joining us remotely from his home because he is under the weather, and he has graciously decided to share his anecdotes and his thoughts but not his germs with us. So... Jerry, audience. Audience, Jerry.</p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: Hi, everybody. I can see Mr. Dern, but I can't see you, so I don't know how many of you there are. As you can tell, I'm not 100%, but my head is sort of working.</p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: We had hoped that this be archived for possible re-use on <em>BYTE</em>, but that might not happen, so Jerry and I may do that separately. But we're here now, we have a roomful of excited, well-groomed fans [audience laughter]... they're next door. Today's topic, to the extent we can we can control you, Jerry, is one, what computers and science fiction--what did science fiction, either the things that you, on your own or with <a target="_blank" href="http://www.larryniven.net/">Larry Niven</a>, or in general, get right or wrong in what has been written? And from there, what do science fiction writers think about where computers are going, how they will play a role in fiction? And last but not least, what are some of the things that you are playing with, trying, reviewing or yelling at over in your Chaos Manor testing lab?</p> <P> <p>So--science fiction, looking back at computers, what did we--you--get right or get wrong?</p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: It depends on when. In the early days of science fiction, they got it pretty well all wrong. The best-known computers in science fiction stories in the early days, before minicomputers were invented, were maybe Asimov's planet-sized computer, the whole dang planet was one great big computer which presumably was full of vacuum tubes [laughter]. You would think that Isaac of all people would have understood that the speed of light makes it rather difficult to make computers bigger and bigger, that they really needed to get physically smaller and smaller.</p> <P> <p>So they had it all wrong for a very long time.</p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: But to be fair, science fiction isn't really expected to predict what's coming, it's to play with what we know.</p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: Yeah.</p> <P> <p><u>DANIEL</u>: And if I recall correctly, in some of your books, you and Larry [Niven] had hand-held computing and network devices.</p> <P> <p><u>JERRY</u>: I think that the first description of the pocket computer, of which I have an example in the sense, which is to say, an iPhone, I think the first prediction of a pocket computer that I know of... probably others did it too... in <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Mote-Gods-Larry-Niven/dp/0671741926">The Mote In God's Eye</a>, Larry [Niven] and I had essentially everybody in the story having a pocket computer and there were a lot of them. They were their memory, their data assistant, their calendars, it was their communication device. And everybody used them.</p> <P> <p>And that story was published in 1973, I guess--the early 70's.</p> <P> <p>The reason I was able to get that is because, in 1964, I was in the Air Force project, a very top-secret project, called Project 75. The purpose of <a target="_blank" href="http://www.aero.org/publications/crosslink/summer2002/01.html">Project 75</a> was to assess the ballistic missile situation: what did we know about ballistic missiles, and what did we need to do to make them more effective.</p> <P> <p>And the result of the study was that we needed on-board guidance, a means of letting the missile know where it was in relation to where it was supposed to be. And so the recommendation of the study was that the Air Force encourage large investments in large-scale integrated circuits.</p> <P> <p>And that pretty well produced the computer revolution, although I'm not saying I had a notion that that's what it would do at the time we did that. But as soon as it started happening and small computers began coming out, it became obvious that it would be a real revolution. And that's where I got the notion of the pocket computers, which were small rather than big.</p> <P> <p>And I think I may have been the first science fiction writer to spend a lot of time on the subject that computers were going to get smaller rather than bigger.</p> <P> <p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/personal-tech/science-tech/232800459">Return to main article.</a></p>2012-04-16T08:00:00ZYou might know him from his science fiction novels or from his "Computing at Chaos Manor" columns in BYTE. What you probably don't know is that Jerry Pournelle is a polymath with degrees in statistics, systems engineering, psychology, and political science, and a working knowledge of just about anything else you can think of.http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/232800518?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smbIn the computer industry, Jerry Pournelle is best known for "Computing At Chaos Manor," the industry's first and longest-running monthly column, now over 20 years old. The column first appeared in BYTE Magazine in 1979 and ran for several years in one or two overseas publications <a target="_blank" href="http://www.jerrypournelle.com/computing/last.html">through mid-2001</a>. Most recently it was reincarnated as <a target="_blank" href="http://www.chaosmanorreviews.com/">Chaos Manor Reviews</a>, a dedicated site. <P> <p>Jerry Eugene Pournelle was born in 1933 in Shreveport, La. He served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He holds masters' degrees in experimental statistics and systems engineering, and Ph.D.s in psychology and political science, all from the University of Washington. He worked in the aerospace industry at Boeing on Project Thor to study kinetic projectile space bombardment and on Project 75, "a 1964 study of 1975 defense requirements."</p> <P> <p>Jerry is a science writer and journalist but considers fiction his primary profession. He's best known for the sci-fi books he co-wrote with Larry Niven, including <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Oath-of-Fealty-ebook/dp/B004LRPQQ6/">Oath of Fealty</a>; <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Mote-Gods-Series-ebook/dp/B004YDL2CY/">The Mote in God's Eye</a>, and the sequel to <em>Mote</em>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Gripping-Hand-Mote-Series-ebook/dp/B005KSL45M/">The Gripping Hand</a>. He is also known for several books based on Falkenberg's Legion, a fictional mercenary infantry force.</p> <P> Listen to BYTE's <a target="_blank" href="http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/personal-tech/science-tech/232800459">series of podcast interviews with Jerry Pournelle</a>, with topics ranging from how sci-fi writers predict the future to why the Internet will never die.</p> <P> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/byte/news/2012-April/PournelleInterview/Pournelle450.jpg" /> <P>2012-04-16T08:00:00ZJerry Pournelle--iconic <em>BYTE</em> columnist, science-fiction writer, and all-around polymath--talks with us about writing and computers. In our four-part podcast he holds forth on the role of science fiction in predicting future technology, writing bestsellers in the Internet age, and a whole lot more.http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/232800459?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smb<p>Science fiction author and <em>BYTE</em> veteran Jerry Pournelle has written about technology, both present and future, since the 1970s. He was a top writer for <em>BYTE</em> for many years, known especially for his "Computing at Chaos Manor" column. His classic sci-fi books have found new life on the Internet.</p> <P> I interviewed Jerry at the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.nesfa.org/boskone/">Boskone 49 science fiction convention</a> in Boston. From that interview comes the four-part series of podcasts we present here. The <em>BYTE</em> icon and polymath holds forth on a wide range of topics, from the role of computers in science fiction, to the origins of the PC revolution in ballistic missile development, to tips for successful authoring in the age of e-readers. <P> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/byte/news/2012-April/PournelleInterview/chaosmanor.png" /> <P> <p>As for me, I came to <em>BYTE</em> relatively late (at least compared to, say, a friend who was cubicle-neighbor to Carl Helmers, who founded <em>BYTE</em>). I had the fun and good fortune to write two of <em>BYTE</em>'s first articles about the Internet, back in the early nineties. Those articles led to my becoming editor of <em>Internet World</em> magazine. From 1998 to 2001, I was editor of <em>BYTE</em>.com for United Business Media (UBM), where Jerry Pournelle was lead columnist. I quickly discovered that "keeping Jerry happy" was the unwritten fifth bullet point in my job description.</p> <P> <p>I've also known Jerry through the science fiction side of things--seeing him at several SF conventions, helping bring him and fellow science fiction writers Larry Niven and Greg Bear to speak at Comdex in 2001.</p> <P> <p>So when <em>BYTE</em> editorial director Larry Seltzer asked me to interview Jerry for the new <EM>BYTE</EM>, I asked Jerry if we could meet at the the Boskone 49 science fiction convention, where I was scheduled to be on several panels and Jerry would be the NESFA (New England Science Fiction Association) Press Guest. </p> <P> <p>We were able to schedule the interview as a convention event. Unfortunately, a few days before the interview, Jerry came down with a cold and was forced to cancel his trip. Fortunately, the Boskone tech experts were able to set up a Skype session, so we could still do the interview, projecting an image of Jerry in his office for the audience.</p> <P> <p>It was so last minute we weren't able to arrange to get a Skype capture of the session. However, I had brought along a pocket digital voice recorder. I pointed it at the speaker, and <em>BYTE</em>'s techies did some post editing and cleanup. We've divided the interview into four separate podcasts, each accompanied by a transcript of the audio:</p> <P> <TABLE WIDTH="100%"ALIGN="left" CELLSPACING=10 CELLPADDING=10> <TR><TD>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD><TD style="border:1px solid black;"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/personal-tech/science-tech/232800460">Podcast Part 1: Pournelle On Computers and Science Fiction</a></TD><TD style="border:1px solid black;"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/personal-tech/science-tech/232800461">Podcast Part 2: Pournelle On ARPAnet, Totalitarianism, And Productivity</a></TD><TD>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD></TR> <TR><TD>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD><TD style="border:1px solid black;"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/personal-tech/science-tech/232800462">Podcast Part 3: Pournelle On Ebooks</a></TD><TD style="border:1px solid black;"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/personal-tech/science-tech/232800463">Podcast Part 4: Pournelle On Using Multimedia To Sell Books</a></TD><TD>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD></TR> </TABLE> <P> <p>Finally, here's a short Jerry Pournelle <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/personal-tech/science-tech/232800518">bio</a>, and a partial <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/personal-tech/science-tech/232800521">bibliography</a>.</p> <P> <p>Enjoy.</p> <P> <p><em>Daniel P. Dern is an independent technology and business writer. He can be reached via email at <a href="mailto:dern@pair.com">dern@pair.com</a>; his website, <a href="http://www.dern.com">www.dern.com</a>; or his technology blog, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.tryingtechnology.com">TryingTechnology.com</a>.</em></p>2012-04-16T08:00:00ZCheck out our partial bibliography of the prolific computer columnist and sci-fi writer Jerry Pournelle. These representative links should be enough to keep you entertained for some time.http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/232800521?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smbJerry Pournelle has turned out columns, books, and articles on a wide variety of non-fiction and sci-fi topics over the last 40 years. Most of his non-fiction work is about science and computers. He's written science-fiction books both on his own and with fellow sci-fi novelist Larry Niven.</p> <P> <p>In the computer world, Jerry is best known as the industry's first and longest-running computer columnist for his "Chaos Manor" column for <em>BYTE Magazine</em>. He also wrote "A Step Farther Out" for <em>Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine</em>, many of which were collected into a book of the same name.</p> <P> <p>Jerry's science fiction novels include:<ul><li>A Spaceship for the King (later expanded as <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/King-Davids-Spaceship-Jerry-Pournelle/dp/0671720686/">King David's Spaceship</a>)</li> <li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Janissaries-Jerry-Pournelle/dp/0671877097/">Janissaries</a></li> <li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Men-War-Jerry-Pournelle/dp/0812509021/">Men of War</a></li></ul> <P> And collaborations with Larry Niven, such as:<ul><li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Mote-Gods-Series-ebook/dp/B004YDL2CY/">The Mote in God's Eye</a>, and its sequel, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Gripping-Hand-Mote-Series-ebook/dp/B005KSL45M/">The Gripping Hand</a></li> <li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Inferno-ebook/dp/B001F784EG/">Inferno</a>, and its sequel, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Hell-Science-Fiction-ebook/dp/B001QREWRS/">Escape From Hell</a></li> <li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Oath-of-Fealty-ebook/dp/B004LRPQQ6/">Oath of Fealty</a></li> <li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Lucifers-Hammer-ebook/dp/B004478DOU/">Lucifer's Hammer</a></li> <li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Footfall-Larry-Niven/dp/0345323440/">Footfall</a></li></ul> <P> Jerry also has collaborated with other authors including S. M. Stirling, Dean Ing, and Roland J. Green.</p> <P> <p>Additionally, Jerry has edited a number of anthologies, including:<ul> <li>Imperial Stars, volumes 1-3</li> <li>There Will be War (with John F. Carr), Vols I-IX</li></ul> </p> <P> <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/byte/news/2012-April/PournelleInterview/jpbooks.png" />2011-01-04T07:00:00ZThe t5500 series runs Windows Embedded Standard 2009 and supports centralized software maintenance and management.http://www.informationweek.com/news/228901675?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smb<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --><div style="margin:0; padding:0 0 10px 10px; float:right; width:185px; text-align:center;"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/mobility/smart_phones/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224701523&pgno=66"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/galleries/automated/428/HP_t5500_Series_Thin_Client_tn.jpg" width="175" alt="HP t5550 Thin Client" title="HP t5550 Thin Client" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin:0 0 3px 0; padding:0;" /></a><br /> <i><span class="covercredit">(click image for larger view)</span></i><br /> <div style="margin:5px 0 0 0; padding:0;font-weight:bold; font-size:1.2em; color:#990000;">HP t5550 Thin Client</div></div><!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> HP announced Tuesday its new T5500 series Thin Clients, the HP t5550, t5565 and t5570 Thin Clients in advance of the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show. The series replaces the midrange of HP's previous 54xx Thin Client series. HP also announced several news business-oriented desktop PCs, including all-in-one machines, and business-oriented adjustable displays. <P> "HP is the only major PC vendor that's also a major thin client player," said Tom Mainelli, research manager, IDC Clients and Displays. "We know that very few companies go "all in" on thin clients, as there are some employees who simply need a full PC. With its wide-ranging portfolio of both PCs and Thin Clients, HP can act as a one-stop shop for many companies." <P> The 5500 class platform will support Windows Embedded Standard 2009 (an XP derivative), Windows CE, and on the Linux side, the HP ThinPro OS. HP includes its free HP EasyTools Setup Wizard, which, says Bodeman, "let the product connect to Citrix or other environments within five minutes out of the box." <P> According to HP, "The HP t5550, t5565, and t5570 Thin Clients are ideal for environmentally conscious customers seeking simple, reliable computing for office applications and Web browsing for client virtualization or cloud computing." <P> "You can typically put hundreds of users on a single server &#91;supporting the Thin Client devices on the network&#93;, and have a second server as a backup," said Tad Bodeman, director of thin client solutions at HP. <P> According to Bodeman, the new HP 5500 series Thin Clients offers significantly improved performance in a mid-range price Thin Client, such as video streaming for use with Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), Citrix Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) and other protocols, for Webcasts, training, and other multimedia applications. <P> HP's Thin Client 5500 is centrally manageable, noted Bodeman. "You can turn ports off, so they aren't usable, and you can designate ports, like 'This one only for a USB keyboard." <P> The t5500 Thin Clients have standard dual digital monitor support, six USB ports, and the HP Universal Print Driver; Citrix, VMware and Microsoft plug-ins; plus security features including Symantec Endpoint Protection Firewall, Enhanced Write Filter, a secure USB compartment and optional enterprise-class 802.11bgn wireless connectivity. <P> The HP t5565 Thin Client uses the HP ThinPro operating system, and is intended as "an all-inclusive access device designed for business offering convenient access to Windows or Citrix environments, the most common VDI ecosystems, mainframes, mid-range servers, and UNIX/Linux hosts," according to HP.<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --><div style="margin:0; padding:0 0 10px 10px; float:right; width:185px; text-align:center;"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/mobility/smart_phones/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224701523&pgno=66"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/galleries/automated/428/HP_t5500_Series_Thin_Client_tn.jpg" width="175" alt="HP t5550 Thin Client" title="HP t5550 Thin Client" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin:0 0 3px 0; padding:0;" /></a><br /> <i><span class="covercredit">(click image for larger view)</span></i><br /> <div style="margin:5px 0 0 0; padding:0;font-weight:bold; font-size:1.2em; color:#990000;">HP t5550 Thin Client</div></div><!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> The HP t5550 Thin Client comes with Windows CE 6.0 and file viewers for Microsoft Office 2003 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) pre-installed, and, according to HP, "is ideal for client virtualization settings that need support for legacy ports, Citrix ICA, Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), terminal emulation, Windows Media Player, Microsoft Office viewers, and basic Web browsing." <P> The HP t5570 Thin Client comes with Windows Embedded Standard 2009 (a version of Windows XP Professional Embedded), and includes a regular browser, the latest protocol support, write filter, firewall protection, and terminal emulation. According to HP, the t5570 is a good match for client virtualization environments. <P> We see a lot of SMBs deploying Thin Clients for IT reasons -- reducing VAR maintenance, and reducing 'desk walks' to diagnose or replace user's hardware. We see Thin Clients in many places, like replacing PCs in doctor offices for billing and patient checking, for knowledge workers in SMBs, and in warehouses for scanning and tracking inventory." <P> Because Thin Clients have no fan or other moving parts, and a very thin software stack, "They are highly reliable -- we see customers using them for five to seven years, and they are end-user replaceable," said Bodeman. "Because of improvements in the server-side software, and in server and storage hardware price/performance, the cost per seat is lower than using commercial desktop PCs. We look at a roughly 30% reduction in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) over the five to seven year lifetime of a Thin Client deployment, mostly by maintaining and managing software centrally, by not sending people out to desks to fix things, and by buying one Thin Client over that period of time versus 2 desktop PCs." Additionally, Bodeman notes, Thin Clients require less power and cooling than desktop PCs. <P> HP t5500 series Thin Clients will be available by next week. Pricing starts at $249, including the TC, keyboard, mouse, power supply, software to connect to Citrix, VMware, web-based TCs, etc. -- versus HP's previous mid-range Thin Clients, which began at $299.2010-12-16T07:00:00ZThe tool offers a third-party alternative for migrating SharePoint and other legacy data to the Microsoft BPOS-D cloud.http://www.informationweek.com/news/228800680?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smbMetalogix Software on Wednesday announced its SharePoint Site Migration Manager for Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Dedicated Suite (BPOS-D), to help companies migrate SharePoint and legacy content to the Microsoft cloud environment. <P> According to Stephen Cawood, director of product marketing at Metalogix, the new tool is the only one currently certified by Microsoft for the migration of content to Microsoft BPOS&#8211;D, which includes passing Microsoft's CAT.NET performance and security testing, and other Microsoft certification criteria. <P> Cloud-based SharePoint solutions like Microsoft's BPOS, and hosted third-party cloud offerings, let SMBs and others use SharePoint without the initial capital expenses for hardware and software, or the IT administrative costs for management and maintenance. <P> Brian Babineau, vice president, Research and Analyst Services Enterprise Strategy Group, said, "For SMBs who have been using or considering SharePoint, this is a good time to move to the cloud, to reduce IT capital expenditures, and avoid increased IT admin challenges and costs. Metalogix provides the onramp to a more affordable, less complex use of SharePont And if you also have other content, like file shares, now you can move them directly to the cloud/hosted offering, with a a consistent tool." <P> However, Microsoft's tools for migrating data from legacy environments like fileservers, or from premise-based SharePoint, have been time-consuming and expensive, or otherwise limiting for users. <P> For example, said Cawood, "If you're on a 32-bit environment, you can't do an 'out-of-box' upgrade, meaning using just the tools from Microsoft that come free with their standard offering. Microsoft looks to their partner ecosystem for migration tools." <P> According to Cawood, Metalogix's new SharePoint Site Migration Manager for BPOS-D will allow companies to easily and cost-effectively migrate their existing SharePoint and legacy content into Microsoft BPOS-D and BPOS-S, to third-party-hosted SharePoint environments, and from one hosted cloud SharePoint to another. As Microsoft Office 365 moves out of beta in 2011, the tool will also support migrations to Office 365's cloud productivity services. <P> Legacy systems include non-SharePoint content managers like EMC Documentum eRoom, Microsoft Exchange Public Folders, OpenText, and legacy content on file servers. <P> "SharePoint Site Migration Manager for BPOS-D lets a company perform the migration automatically, quickly and transparently, rather than manually, and without being forced to take the existing application, which is presumably mission-critical, down during the process," said Cawood. "This improves efficiency and saves money." <P> Another reason for using BPOS-D, said Cawood, "You can install Metalogix's Microsoft-certified web service, which gives you a much richer environment. For example, you can maintain all the metadata -- the relationships between data -- like look-up lists, which you otherwise couldn't migrate using the native SharePoint web services." <P> Pricing for Metalogix SharePoint Site Migration Manager for BPOS-D is based on factors including whether it's for testing or operational use, for term versus perpetual license, and the number of users or the capacity of data being migrated. "For starting and testing we've seen customers come in as low as a $5,000 annual subscription, and operational users with lots of users and/or data can run into six figures," according to Cawood.2010-12-10T08:00:00ZA Microsoft survey found that almost a third of small and midsize businesses see the cloud as an opportunity for their IT to be more strategic and nearly a quarter believe it offers capabilities not previously available.http://www.informationweek.com/news/228800098?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smb<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --><div style="margin:0; padding:0 0 10px 10px; float:right; width:185px; text-align:center;"> <a href="http://informationweek.com/galleries/hardware/data_centers/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226200070"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/galleries/automated/469/AnalyticsSS_CloudROI_01_tn.jpg" width="175" alt="Analytics Slideshow Calculating Cloud ROI" title="Analytics Slideshow Calculating Cloud ROI" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin:0 0 3px 0; padding:0;" /></a><br /> <div style="margin:5px 0 5px 0; padding:0; font-weight:bold; font-size:1.2em; color:#990000;">Analytics Slideshow Calculating Cloud ROI</div> <i><span class="covercredit">(click image for larger view and for full slideshow)</span></i></div><!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> Small and midsize businesses are turning to cloud services and benefitting from the move. <P> The Microsoft-sponsored survey, "Cloud Computing as an Engine of Growth," polled SMBs about the cloud and found that "26% see the cloud as a technology revolution. 29% see it as an opportunity for their IT to be more strategic. 29% feel that companies who embrace the cloud are innovative. And 24% agree that the cloud provides capabilities not previously available, for example, letting them take advantage of enterprise-type capabilities that were not previously available to the SMB," according to Josh Waldo, director of SMB marketing at Microsoft. <P> "We found that 12% of SMBs use cloud services to start a new business," said Waldo. "'Born in the cloud' means the primary capability for their business is through cloud technology as the leading thing that enables them to do it." <P> "One important challenge in terms of using cloud services is getting companies to be comfortable with them -- and integration is a big part of that," said Waldo. "Most companies have existing investments in software. It's important for new things -- like cloud services -- to integrate with what you've got already on servers and laptops and other machines. You need to be able to integrate these with whatever cloud or web service you're going to buy." <P> According to the survey, said Waldo, "36% of SMBs would be encouraged to buy into cloud services because it integrates with existing technology, and 27% of SMBs bought into cloud services because it integrates with existing technology they had." <P> According to Microsoft, the goal of the survey, conducted in October with more than 1,000 small and midsize businesses with 1 to 249 employees, was "to better understand IT decision-makers and their current and planned adoptions of cloud-based technology solutions to grow revenue, launch new lines of business, hire staff, and innovate." <P> Microsoft's own forays into providing cloud services for businesses include its Windows Azure cloud computing platform, and Office 365, an online collaborative offering <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/web_services/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227900308">announced in October</a>, which combines Office Online Web apps with SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Lync Online. Office 365 replaces Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), Microsoft Office Live Small Business, and Live@edu offerings. <P> Waldo said, "We see customers in the process of taking advantage of the cloud." Because many of today's cloud offerings are more affordable and scalable than previous hosted and managed services, "We've seen a lot of customers consume IT services they didn't before," said Waldo.2010-12-09T12:05:00ZNorth American businesses lose $26.5 billion in revenue each year from IT system downtime with the biggest impact on SMBs, according to a CA Technologies report.http://www.informationweek.com/news/228800039?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smbBusiness are losing more than a quarter billion dollars annually due to IT system downtime with small companies suffering the most. <P> An independent study released Thursday reports that North American businesses "are collectively losing $26.5 billion in revenue each year as a result of slow recovery from IT system downtime," with an average loss of around $160,000. The average company suffers 10 hours of IT downtime a year -- which translates to more than 1.6 million hours across North America. <P> During these periods of downtime, "Respondents estimate that their ability to generate revenue is reduced by nearly a third (29%). Even after service is restored to critical systems, businesses experience an additional 7.5 hours of compromised operation because of the time it takes to recover lost data." <P> The study, commissioned by IT management software and solutions provider CA Technologies, surveyed in November 200 small, medium, and large companies in the retail, finance, manufacturing, and public-sector segments. <P> The study, said Steve Fairbanks, vice president of product management for data management at CA, "looked at the cost of outages or downtime to business-critical systems -- typically that would interfere with productivity or sales." According to report, "Small companies suffer the most during periods of downtime, showing the least ability to generate revenue -- 39% compared to 19% for medium-sized companies and 28% for large companies. A similar pattern emerged during recovery time -- 23% for small companies, 11% for medium, and 18% for large." <P> Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, Inc., commented, "It's a good size sample group, and I like that they spread their survey across different industries and business sizes. The basic lesson is that IT reliability continues to be an issue that businesses need to be concerned about, especially for smaller businesses, where there's a smaller margin of error to deal with problems." <P> "IT outages reduce companies' ability to generate revenue by 29% -- for small businesses, close to 40%," said Fairbanks. "And even after the outage, while data is being restored, there's a 17% reduction (23% for small businesses) in reduced capacity to generate revenue while data is being restored and systems being reconfigured. So small businesses tend to be impacted even more by outages."For example, said Fairbanks, "A few months ago, I interviewed about 20 companies that had experienced downtime&#8230; one small health food storefront that its order-to-cash system on SQL had two drives in a RAID system fail. They were completely shut down for two to three days while they rebuilt the system that let them take orders. They were able to do a little business manually, but it had a large impact on their revenues and reputation. And since they did not have a good backup strategy in place, the backup failed, so when they were back up, doing taxes later that quarter meant they had to recreate thousands of records by hand." <P> Given most companies' reliance on IT for daily operations and for sales, it's no surprise that outages of mission-critical IT systems typically means lost productivity and lost revenue. What may be surprising to some are the findings on just how big these costs are -- and that they aren't just for during the time of the outage, but also during the period while systems and data are being restored. <P> King said, "The numbers are somewhat shocking, the possible losses of billions of dollars, distributed among many companies. On the plus side, smaller businesses can take comfort in the fact that they have more options and opportunities than ever to keep their businesses up and running, including better hardware, and new cloud and managed services." <P> The results, according to Fairbanks, "mean that the ROI for accelerating data recovery may be greater than people realize. It's important for small businesses to look at the impact of outages and the ROI for faster recovery, rather than just the hard cost of recovery offerings. ROI on data protection and recovery can be realized much faster if you take these statistics into account." <P> "Over 50% of the companies surveyed do not have a good Disaster Recovery plan in place," Fairbanks noted. "But downtime is avoidable if there's a good plan and solutions in place."2010-12-09T07:00:00ZZoho PhoneBridge integrates the cloud-based company's CRM with digital PBX systems, making it easier to leverage contact data during phone calls.http://www.informationweek.com/news/228702010?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smbZoho has integrated its Zoho CRM with Intuit QuickBooks and with several digital telephony PBX systems. <P> Zoho CRM for QuickBooks helps users synchronize customer data such as contacts, vendors, invoices, sales orders, products, and quotes between Zoho CRM and QuickBooks, either manually or automatically. Other features include resolving conflicts while synchronizing data; setting up field mapping for standard and custom fields; and viewing history of data transfers. <P> "We believe in the value of contextual product integration, both within the Zoho suite as well as with third-party applications,&#8221; said Raju Vegesna, Zoho evangelist. "When performing a task, users want to transparently move from one step to the next, regardless of how many applications it takes to perform that task. Zoho CRM for QuickBooks and Zoho PhoneBridge make it easy for people in accounting departments and contact centers to tap the customer data found in Zoho CRM." <P> According to the company, "Transferring customer data helps organizations maintain complete and up-to-date customer information, reduce duplicate data entry, and maintain consistency." <P> Zoho CRM for QuickBook works with QuickBooks Premier 2008, 2009, and 2010 (US Edition); QuickBooks Simple Start 2008 and 2009 (US Edition); and QuickBooks Web Connector: Version 2.0.0.116 and above. <P> Zoho PhoneBridge integrates Zoho CRM with digital PBX systems, making it easier for sales reps, customer support agents, telemarketers, and others to use contact data that is in Zoho CRM during outbound and inbound phone calls. <P> Zoho PhoneBridge captures and logs all call details, including notes added during the call. Zoho CRM users have access to a complete history of the customer's interaction with the organization, including letting users view key contact details in a screen pop-up during a call, including name, telephone number and email address. <P> Zoho PhoneBridge currently supports PBX systems from Asterisk, Avaya, Elastix, and Trixbox. Zoho CRM for QuickBooks and Zoho PhoneBridge are available immediately. Pricing for Zoho CRM for QuickBooks is $25 per organization per month. Zoho PhoneBridge is priced at $6 per user per month.2010-12-08T07:00:00ZUsing the Prism Lite data protection reporting and troubleshooting tool, businesses can automate previously manual administrative tasks.http://www.informationweek.com/news/228600186?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smb<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --><div style="margin:0; padding:0 0 10px 10px; float:right; width:185px; text-align:center;"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/hardware/reviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228300042&pgno=30"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/galleries/automated/542/Prism_Lite_1_tn.gif" width="175" alt="Bocada Prism Lite" title="Bocada Prism Lite" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin:0 0 3px 0; padding:0;" /></a><br /> <i><span class="covercredit">(click image for larger view)</span></i><br /> <div style="margin:5px 0 0 0; padding:0;font-weight:bold; font-size:1.2em; color:#990000;">Bocada Prism Lite</div></div><!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> Bocada on Tuesday announced Prism Lite, a less expensive version of its Bocada Prism data protection reporting and troubleshooting tool that lets companies determine the overall health of their data protection environments. <P> According to Bocada, the Prism tool can help improve a company's backup "health" by pinpointing and diagnosing trouble spots, evaluate current policies to see if they support business goals such as being able to meet Recovery Point Objectives and Recovery Time Objectives and deliver on SLAs. <P> Additionally, according to the company, using DPSM can reduce capital costs for backup, and reduce the risk or cost of backup-related downtime. Bocada provides data protection management software, based on its Data Protection Service Management (DPSM) process, a workflow analysis that the company developed. <P> "Data protection activities can include everything from traditional backups to replication, backup deduplication in-application backup 'dumps' and storage system snapshots, all data backups intended for the purpose of recovery," according to Nancy Hurley, CEO of Bocada. "These days, companies have to not only do backups, but be able to confirm and prove they were done, including for compliance." <P> George Crump, analyst at Storage Switzerland, <a href="http://www.bocada.com/Download%5CData%20Protection%20Needs%20A%20Model-Handout.pdf">has stated</a>, "...data protection for many organizations is a patchwork of unrelated tasks all trying to protect different parts of the data center with little communication between each other, and little relationship to the service level commitments of the organization... This multitude of overlapping data protection efforts often leads to redundant purchases of data protection hardware and software and additional processes for the administrators to monitor."<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --><div style="margin:0; padding:0 0 10px 10px; float:right; width:185px; text-align:center;"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/hardware/reviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228300042&pgno=30"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/galleries/automated/542/Prism_Lite_1_tn.gif" width="175" alt="Bocada Prism Lite" title="Bocada Prism Lite" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin:0 0 3px 0; padding:0;" /></a><br /> <i><span class="covercredit">(click image for larger view)</span></i><br /> <div style="margin:5px 0 0 0; padding:0;font-weight:bold; font-size:1.2em; color:#990000;">Bocada Prism Lite</div></div><!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> "Right now, most organizations need to have the visibility to know that backups have been completed and that data is recoverable, but also see how you're using resources," said Hurley. "If you're over-protecting, you're spending too much, for example, and to make sure that your policies align with your priorities, like making sure that critical data is backed up frequently, and that you are using your storage capacity effectively. Solutions like this also help reduce the administrative tasks, by automating tasks otherwise done manually or requiring admins to write scripts. For SMBs, where a single person may be managing all the backup, the more you can automate in data capture and reporting, the more time they can save." <P> According to Bocada, "Prism Lite provides the ability to determine the health of the overall data protection environment, troubleshoot problem areas and trend use over time for auditing, capacity planning and policy management purposes." <P> Prism Lite is intended for companies, or departments within companies, whose data protection environments consist of 500 or fewer managed clients -- server applications that require being backed up, like instances of Microsoft Exchange or SQL. <P> Bocada claims that "Prism Lite is functionally equivalent to traditional heterogeneous backup reporting solutions like ApTare or Symantec Operation Center (formerly known as Veritas Backup Reporter, VBR), but those cost about what our full enterprise service management version of Prism costs." <P> The full version of Prism, intended for enterprises looking for service management for data protection, also includes advanced problem management, SLA Compliance Management and Analysis, impact analysis, built-in workflow, and Policy Management and Change Analysis. <P> Bocada sells Prism via channels; MSRP for Prism Lite is roughly $10,000 for Tier 1 (up to 100 managed clients), $20,000 for Tier 2 (up to 250 clients), $30,000 for Tier 3 (up to 500 managed clients). The full enterprise version of Bocada Prism is sold on a per unit basis at a list price of $150 a unit.2010-12-07T14:56:00ZSlimDrivers and DriverUpdate scan Windows PCs for missing, broken or out-of-date drivers and then install them from the cloud.http://www.informationweek.com/news/228600180?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smb<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --><div style="margin:0; padding:0 0 10px 10px; float:right; width:185px; text-align:center;"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/hardware/reviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228300042&pgno=28"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/galleries/automated/542/SlimDrivers2_tn.gif" width="175" alt="SlimWare SlimDrivers" title="SlimWare SlimDrivers" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin:0 0 3px 0; padding:0;" /></a><br /> <i><span class="covercredit">(click image for larger view)</span></i><br /> <div style="margin:5px 0 0 0; padding:0;font-weight:bold; font-size:1.2em; color:#990000;">SlimWare SlimDrivers</div></div><!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> SlimWare Utilities announced Monday its new SlimDrivers and DriverUpdate software for updating and maintaining driver software and other software updates for Windows PCs <P> Many new systems and applications include programs to automatically check for and apply driver updates -- but not many do not, nor do many older systems or devices. SlimWare Utilities provides software and services to maintain software on Windows PCs, including 'cleaning,' repairing, restoring missing components and updating. <P> "As SMBs replace or add printers or other peripherals, buy new computers, or replace hard drives, their systems may need drivers -- and SMBs don't have the IT infrastructure that enterprises do to handle this automatically," said Chris Cope, CEO, SlimWare Utilities. "New drivers can resolve conflicts with other devices, or improve performance." <P> Andy Rathbone, author of "Windows 7 For Dummies," commented, "Many manufacturers release driver updates every few months. But very few driver updates trickle down to the user. And that's a shame, because some driver updates can fix nagging problems that have plagued users for months. Many driver updates can be skipped, as they only fix problems that few consumers experience. But if somebody's experiencing a problem with their computer, I always recommend updating their drivers to the latest versions. Driver updates can be a quick, easy, and free fix."<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --><div style="margin:0; padding:0 0 10px 10px; float:right; width:185px; text-align:center;"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/hardware/reviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228300042&pgno=28"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/galleries/automated/542/SlimDrivers2_tn.gif" width="175" alt="SlimWare SlimDrivers" title="SlimWare SlimDrivers" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin:0 0 3px 0; padding:0;" /></a><br /> <i><span class="covercredit">(click image for larger view)</span></i><br /> <div style="margin:5px 0 0 0; padding:0;font-weight:bold; font-size:1.2em; color:#990000;">SlimWare SlimDrivers</div></div><!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> SlimWare's products use a combination cloud and crowd-sourcing input to guide their tools' decisions and recommendations for user hardware and software configurations, "to gather input from IT professionals and make unique, personalized decisions that improve a consumer&#8217;s computer hardware and software configurations." <P> "All of our applications talk to the cloud," said Cope. "We aggregate the configurations of computers that use our software, to build a database of what's in use. The configuration data helps us know what motherboards have what drivers installed, for example, so we can recommend the optimum configuration." <P> Additionally, according to Cope, "We repackage the drivers inside our cloud, so a user doesn't have to sort out whether they've found the 32-bit versus 64-bit driver, or find and download drivers from multiple sources. Our system finds and installs the proper driver, and while one driver is being installed, it's working on the next one, which also removes risk of installing the wrong driver, or in the wrong order." <P> Both SlimDrivers and DriverUpdate scan a computer for missing, broken or out-of-date drivers or missing components, identifying when a driver needs updating and the proper executable for a system, along with updates for software like Adobe, Java and Microsoft Windows. <P> Rathbone pointed out, "Software companies do a fairly good job pushing through new patches. But most hardware companies just post the new driver on their website. The only people taking advantage of the updates are those few who know where to look." <P> SlimDrivers manually downloads updated drivers. DriverUpdate does the download automatically. "SlimDrivers provides a more self-directed experience for tech-savvy IT users," according to the company. "DriverUpdate automatically starts the installation process for multiple drivers, allowing users to update all their drivers software simultaneously." <P> It can take hours to manually download and install drivers," noted Cope. The tools include backup and restore features for drivers and settings, allowing the user to revert to previous configurations. <P> While Windows 7 does perform some driver updates automatically, "You're still limited by what Microsoft has in its database, and many companies still have legacy hardware," said Cope. <P> In addition, they both implement the latest developments in analysis technology, coordinating checks with the Windows Device Manager, Windows System Manager and Windows Update Online. <P> SlimDrivers and DriverUpdate work with Windows XP, Vista and 7. <P> Both products are available for download from the company's website. SlimDrivers is available free; DriverUpdate costs $29.97 for a one-year subscription.2010-12-03T13:16:00ZVersion 5.5 adds fault-tolerant features that improve recovery time, performance, synchronization speed and availability of storage attached networks.http://www.informationweek.com/news/228500275?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smbStorage virtualization software vendor StarWind Software announced on Friday the release of version 5.5 of its StarWind iSCSI storage area network (SAN) management software. <P> StarWind provides storage management and SAN software for small and midsize companies as an alternative to traditional enterprise-oriented solutions. According to StarWind, "Traditional, legacy high-availability SAN products have always been expensive and complicated. This has been a roadblock for small and midsize companies who are in the process of deploying VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V and other server applications that need to be configured as Windows server clusters." <P> StarWind's flagship iSCSI SAN software runs on x86 servers running 32-bit or 64-bit Windows and creates a fault-tolerant iSCSI SAN for use as centralized iSCSI storage or as a SAN. According to the company, StarWind is designed for use as networked storage for VMware, Hyper-V, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint and other server applications configured in server clusters. <P> New features in version 5.5 include a "Heartbeat" feature, improved performance, and new high-availability features. <P> According to the company, StarWind's new Heartbeat feature "solves a single point of failure problem and prevents an isolation mode by choosing which node stays online serving the client's requests and which node is alive but must stop serving until full recovery of synchronization channel." <P> The new fast-synchronization option for devices with write-back cache mode shortens the recovery time for performing data synchronization after a node failure. <P> Additionally, StartWind has added challenge-handshake authentication protocol (CHAP) authentication support to its high-availability plugin; when a high-availability node becomes active, "it is synchronized and brought online automatically if autosync option has been set," according to the company. <P> Tom Henderson, principal researcher for Extremelabs.com, commented, "Using iSCSI and clustered commodity boxes is becoming more popular for companies who want storage that is reliable but still affordable. This works where their network architecture -- bandwidth -- permits them to push the storage traffic over Ethernet instead of dedicated, more expensive, SAN connectivity like Fibre Channel." <P> StarWind is available in several editions; pricing begins at $995.2010-12-03T07:00:00ZIncreased malware protection with sandboxing, link checking, and an enhanced dashboard are included in the on-premises email security software.http://www.informationweek.com/news/228500221?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smb<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --><div style="margin:0; padding:0 0 10px 10px; float:right; width:185px; text-align:center;"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/hardware/reviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228300042&pgno=24"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/galleries/automated/542/GFI_MailSecurity_2011_Dashboard_tn.jpg" width="175" alt="GFI MailSecurity 2011 Dashboard" title="GFI MailSecurity 2011 Dashboard" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin:0 0 3px 0; padding:0;" /></a><br /> <i><span class="covercredit">(click image for larger view)</span></i><br /> <div style="margin:5px 0 0 0; padding:0;font-weight:bold; font-size:1.2em; color:#990000;">GFI MailSecurity 2011 Dashboard</div></div><!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> GFI Software on Thursday introduced GFI MailSecurity 2011 email security software. The on-premises software checks inbound and outbound email using multiple antivirus engines, as well as an exploit detection engine, spyware detection, HTML sanitization and attachment checking. <P> Enhancements address two key attack vectors, according to Nicholas Sciberras, product manager, GFI, which are, "the most recent malware for which definitions have not been released and links in emails that point to malware." <P> Other features include an updated dashboard, an HTML Sanitizer exclusion list, more comprehensive scanning of internal email and enhanced attachment checking. <P> GFI MailSecurity 2011 uses Norman AV's Sandbox technology, which runs suspect malware in attachments, and analyzes the code activity, within a sandbox. This identifies, stops and isolates new and previously unknown malicious code that is in an attachment, "before it can damage computer networks or compromise data," according to the company. <P> When running the optional AVG antivirus engine, GFI MailSecurity 2011 can now also detect links within email message body that point to malware. <P> The HTML Sanitizer exclusion list addresses the challenge of HTML tags and HTML forms in legitimate email being disabled by GFI MailSecurity's HTML Sanitizer. The exclusion list lets email messages from approved senders bypass being scanned by the HTML Sanitizer. (Bypassed messages are still checked by MailSecurity's other filters.) <P> GFI has improved checking of email attachments, including the ability to block attachments that exceed a specified size or are suspicious, while letting the rest of the message be delivered. GFI MailSecurity can now also do full scans of all internal email messages, using all of the product's various filters. <P> Additionally, GFI MailSecurity's dashboard now gives administrators access to various counters and important logs. <P> GFI MailSecurity runs on Windows Server 2008 or 2003 and requires an email server such as Microsoft Exchange. Pricing starts at $160 dollars for 10 mailboxes for the first year, and $102 for subsequent years, with volume discounts.2010-12-01T18:33:58ZInvincea's Document Protection, for safely opening, reading and printing PDFs, like its Web Protection, wraps the core program in a virtual machine to keep threats from touching the system.http://www.iweek-interim.com/news/229200383?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smbInvincea's Document Protection, for safely opening, reading and printing PDFs, like its Web Protection, wraps the core program in a virtual machine to keep threats from touching the system.As if worrying about unsafe web sites and virus laden email wasn't bad enough, PDF documents still aren't safe, either. <P> According to Anup Ghosh, founder and chief scientist) of <a href="http://invincea.com/">Invincea</a>, Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report identified the PDF as the number one infection vector in 2009 of all Internet exploits, with Microsoft Internet Explorer placing second, third, and fourth, Adobe Flash in fifth place, and numbers 6 through 10 going to MSIE plugins. <P> And Kaspersky Lab's Information Security Threats in the First Quarter of 2010 Report echoes these findings: "Exploiting Adobe applications accounted for almost half of all reported security threats." <P> "Infected PDf files are a greater carrier of threats than web sites, making the programs used to read PDF files as potentially dangerous as web browsers," said Ghosh. <P> That's the bad news, joining the steady stream of bad news about insecurities and vulnerabilities in what seems like almost every type of file and every application used to work on them. <P> The good news: there is a steady stream of securing solutions. <P> In April 2010, for example, Invincea (previously known as Secure Command) introduced its <a href="http://www.invincea.com/solution/invincea_browser_protection/">Invincea Browser Protection</a>, which uses a form of virtualization to insulate and isolate the user's computer from threats executing within the browser. Currently, according to a chat I had with Ghosh mid-November, Browser Protection runs on Windows, and supports Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8, and will soon support FireFox. <P> More recently -- mid-November -- Invincea intro'd its <a href="http://www.invincea.com/solution/invincea_document_protection/">Invincea Document Protection</a>, using its virtualization technology here with Adobe Reader. <P> Given the ongoing onslaught of PDF vulnerabilities, this is the kind of tool we, sadly, need to be looking at, and using. <P> Adobe has been working on more secure versions of its Reader (as well they should!), using, according to Ghosh, Microsoft Practical Sandboxing, which is what Microsoft uses for Protect Mode in MSIE 8, as does Google for Chrome." <P> Practical Sandboxing in these browsers, according to Ghosh, "takes the browser's rendering engine, puts it in a separate process, and assigns a lower privilege to that process, and Adobe does the same for its rendering engine in its PDF reader." The rendering engine handles tasks like running JavaScript and Flash. "This means it can't write to certain system libraries," said Ghosh. <P> This is somewhat similar, Ghosh agrees, to running applications on Windows as a user rather than Administrator. <P> However, this sandboxing isn't sufficient, Gosh notes. "This still leaves all the other Adobe elements." <P> As I understand it, some of the PDF danger is from JavaScript, which free PDF readers like <a href="Nuance PDF Reader</a>Nuance PDF Reader</a> and <a href="http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/">Foxit Reader</a> can let you turn off/block. <P> However, as Ghosh points out -- and as anybody using a browser add-on like the <a href="http://noscript.net/">NoScript</a> extension to FireFox, there's a lot of places where you do want/need to let JavaScript run. According to Ghosh, there are a number of applications for Adobe today that require JavaScript, like browsers, ditto Flash content. Perhaps not so much with PDFs as web pages, but still, "Just say no," isn't always granular enough. <P> Also, the problem is not just with JavaScript. <P> "There are various ways to attack Adobe Reader besides JavaScript, including buffer overflow and Flash attacks," according to Ghosh. "Adobe works with system libraries, so Adobe attacks can use vulnerabilities in them." <P> So Invincea's putting a wrapper around Reader makes sense. <P> "Whenever you open a PDF, we do it in a fully virtualized secure environment using Adobe Reader," said Ghosh. By using Invincea Document Protection, "You're protecting against things escaping to the operating system, to the hard drive, to the working environment, or other places," said Ghosh. <P> According to Invincea, when a user opens, reads or prints a PDF file, "If any malicious application behavior is initiated -- execution of a suspicious script, a corrupt file, or a potentially damaging program-Invincea Document Protection automatically detects the threat in real time, terminates it, captures forensic data, disposes of the tainted environment, and quickly restores to a known good state -- providing the same exceptional protection as Invincea Browser Protection." <P> Selecting a secure PDF reader doesn't strike me as tricky as securing a web browser, where features vary among the browsers, and where many users have a carefully cultivated and configured ecosystem of add-ons and plug-ins. On the other hand, there is a range of features and usability even within PDF readers. <P> There's no shortage of other sandboxing/virtualization solutions out there, from Zone Alarm's <a href="http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-us/zonealarm-forcefield-browser-security.htm">ForceField</a> for use with FireFox and Internet Explorer (included in Zone Alarm's full security suite, also available separately). <P> Other approaches include running a hypervisor like VMware, Xen or Microsoft Hyper-V, and running a separate virtual machine, OS instance and all, with the browser in that; possibly some an application virtualization tool like Altiris SVS (which "shims" the Windows Registry). Or a separate computer and a KVM switch... <P> FYI, I've been using ForceField for several years, since its original beta. Whether it -- and, to be fair -- whether any of the security software I'm running -- has protected me from anything, I don't know. <P> "FireFox is also a sandboxing technology," according to Ghosh. "Our approach is different. We don't run the Adobe Reader natively on the system, we run it on a separate &#91;virtual&#93; machine." <P> "There's a Federal and defense sector that understands the threat," says Ghosh, in terms of initial, ahem, target markets for Document Protection. Other likely sectors include financial services and health care... but ultimately, any Windows user is likely to encounter PDFs. <P> Somewhat like Dell KACE's free Secure Browser (<a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/security/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=225900195">see my July 19, 2010 blog post</a>), Invincea is bundling a copy of the browser and its security wrapper. <P> Some important things to understand about Invincea's security products: <P> One: You can't use Document Protection as a browser plug-in, per se. According to Ghosh, if you open PDFs within Browser Protection, it will providing the security. <P> Two: End users can't add their own plug-ins. According to Scott Cosby, vice president of products and operations at Invincea, "Today, our product does allow IT to add plug-ins into their implementation of our browser, and they can customize that to their exact specs. Our customers have indicated that in the future they need more flexibility to allow certain users to add plug-ins directly and we will support that use case." <P> And, said Ghosh, "We ship &#91;Browser Protection&#93; with every plugin you need to render content on the web." <P> Both products work with Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. <P> Current pricing for Invincea Document Protection is $15/seat/year, and Invincea Browser Protection, $60/seat/year. (Volume discounting applies.) <P> PDF-wise, my two questions: How much of the PDF threat is NOT JavaScript-related? And does Document Protection let you copy (for pasting) text or other content from a PDF you're reading?2010-12-01T11:36:00ZWebex video conferencing, unified messaging and voice-to-text voicemail are among the services targeted to SMBs and remote office workers.http://www.informationweek.com/news/228500063?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smbDavinci Virtual announced Tuesday that it has added several products and applications to its virtual office communications services. <P> The company provides physical virtual offices and virtual office services locations for small businesses and entrepreneurs as well as larger organizations and competes with, among others, Regus, which acquired both Stratis and HQ Global Workplaces. <P> Physical offerings including business addresses in over 600 locations, mail forwarding, lobby and directory listings, and access to conference rooms and day offices. Virtual communications and office services include local and toll-free telephone and fax numbers, digital voicemail, unified messaging, voicemail to email, fax to email, live call answering, screening and forwarding, customer service, appointment scheduling and order taking. <P> According to Bill Grodnik, President and CEO of Davinci Virtual, the company's Davinci communications services now also include speech-to-text transcription of voice mail; live web chat; and video conferencing. <P> Davinci currently offers access to voicemail as WAV attachments in email. The new voicemail speech-to-text service adds a text transcription of the message to the WAV file. According to Grodnik, transcription is done using a mix of software, and, "where the software is having trouble translating, a person." <P> The web chat feature lets Internet users accessing Davinci customer web sites talk with somebody. "This is for our small business customers," said Grodnik. "Since we are already answering their phones, and know their products and company, we can offer to do this." <P> Lastly, Davinci now offers Webex video conferencing, for up to 15 people in a session. "This lets our clients hold virtual meetings with ease," according to the company. <P> Pricing for Davinci's general Live Receptionist Services starts at $99 per month and Virtual Office Locations start at $50 per month. Pricing for Live Web Chat starts at $49 per month, transcribed email is $9.95 per month for up to 40 transcriptions or $39.95 per month for up to 200 transcriptions, and Webex video conferencing is $69.95 per month.2010-11-30T12:48:00ZAmazon EC2 specific monitoring capabilities are included in up.time, along with single view monitoring of cloud, virtual and physical resources.http://www.informationweek.com/news/228400225?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smb<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --><div style="margin:0; padding:0 0 10px 10px; float:right; width:185px; text-align:center;"> <a href="http://informationweek.com/galleries/hardware/data_centers/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226200070"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/galleries/automated/469/AnalyticsSS_CloudROI_01_tn.jpg" width="175" alt="Analytics Slideshow Calculating Cloud ROI" title="Analytics Slideshow Calculating Cloud ROI" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin:0 0 3px 0; padding:0;" /></a><br /> <div style="margin:5px 0 5px 0; padding:0; font-weight:bold; font-size:1.2em; color:#990000;">Analytics Slideshow Calculating Cloud ROI</div> <i><span class="covercredit">(click image for larger view and for full slideshow)</span></i></div><!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> Uptime Software announced Tuesday cloud services monitoring and physical and virtual resource monitoring for its up.time offering. <P> The management console program, plus agent programs that reside on servers provided by the Toronto-based software company can monitor cloud, virtual and physical resources in a single view. <P> "You connect the local management console and the cloud-based one together, and have a complete view of your datacenter and cloud from the up.time dashboard," said Alex Bewley, CTO, Uptime Software. "Using up.time, companies can now easily monitor, measure and manage cloud resources as well as physical and virtual stacks including applications, services and physical infrastructure like servers and network devices. This includes companies at any stage of cloud implementation, whether they are already running public clouds or just starting out." <P> Jean-Pierre Garbani, vice president and principal analyst, Forrester Research, commented, "IT is now fundamentally service oriented, and a service may span multiple platforms. It is necessary to provide service quality that the technological silos of IT be broken and replaced by cooperation. This is what a common view provides: a tool to facilitate this cooperation. Uptime Software is probably one of the few that are offering this capability today, although other companies working on application performance management are getting there quickly. None of them, however, provides the price/value ratio that Uptime provides today." <P> "With services like Amazon EC2, and infrastructure-as-a-service, ITR infrastructure is getting more complicated," said Bewley. <P> According to the company, "up.time can monitor services, monitor applications, monitor servers and monitor platforms from a unified dashboard, even across multiple datacenters." Physical resources that up.time can monitor Windows, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, Linux and Novell NetWare servers across one or many datacenters for all applications, services and infrastructure at every layer. It can monitor many virtual resources including VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix Xen.<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --><div style="margin:0; padding:0 0 10px 10px; float:right; width:185px; text-align:center;"> <a href="http://informationweek.com/galleries/hardware/data_centers/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226200070"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/galleries/automated/469/AnalyticsSS_CloudROI_01_tn.jpg" width="175" alt="Analytics Slideshow Calculating Cloud ROI" title="Analytics Slideshow Calculating Cloud ROI" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin:0 0 3px 0; padding:0;" /></a><br /> <div style="margin:5px 0 5px 0; padding:0; font-weight:bold; font-size:1.2em; color:#990000;">Analytics Slideshow Calculating Cloud ROI</div> <i><span class="covercredit">(click image for larger view and for full slideshow)</span></i></div><!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> up.time has Amazon EC2 specific monitoring capabilities built-in, as well as the ability to remotely monitor cloud providers including Rackspace, Terremark and GoGrid. "For companies with infrastructure and using cloud resources, we have an Amazon EC2 Amazon Machine Image of our management console program," said Bewley." <P> In terms of competition, according to Bewley, the established players in this market, which he called "the Big Four" -- HP, CA/Nimsoft, EMC and IBM Tivoli -- are enterprise oriented tools. "Many companies that have been using Open Source tools, and are looking for more reporting, and go with up.time. <P> "One of our key strengths which resounds well with our SMB base is that we're very easy to use and deploy," said Bewley. "A company can be up in 15 minutes, and we can do an 800-server deployment in three days." Another example of a likely customer scenario, said Bewley, "could be a company with 25 to 50 servers, and probably one IT person. Then someone in the company starts using some Amazon EC2 instances to deploy an application but didn't think about monitoring." <P> Most up.time customers "expose up.time to their business users, who tend to use services like Salesforce.com," noted Bewley. "This lets them know when a <P> Other uses for up.time, according to the company, include triggering automated actions to respond to changing workloads, to keep up with capacity demands. Also, according to the company, up.time can be used to determine and prioritize what to migrate to the cloud, based on performance metrics.2010-11-24T07:00:00ZThe Shop & Share application lets businesses create custom storefronts on FaceBook fan pages that incorporate social sharing options.http://www.informationweek.com/news/228300487?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smbShoutlet announced Tuesday "Shop & Share" for businesses who want a FaceBook fan page storefront. The tool also includes social elements, including sharing purchasing decisions or asking questions of Facebook friends or connections on other social sites. <P> <a href="http://shoutlet.com/features/shopandshare.php">Shop & Share</a> lets companies create a customized "storefront" in FaceBook that appears as a tab on a FaceBook page. According to the Shoutlet, "Shop & Share fulfills the need to easily and quickly create a Facebook storefront without a custom creation cycle that can take weeks to complete. It is a solution that can be created in drag-and-drop style and implemented instantly. With Shop & Share, the retailer maintains ownership of the purchase experience with the actual 'buy' conversion taking place on the retailer's check-out site, versus a third-party platform." <P> Shop & Share does not include a "shopping cart" or otherwise supporting any actual selling; FaceBook users would click on product links to take them to the company's selling page. <P> "Shop & Share is a component of what we call FaceBook management," said Aaron Everson, president and COO, Shoutlet. "Shop & Share listing includes a 'where to purchase link,' like to your company's website; a 'share' button under your own stream, for, say, asking opinions; and the ability to share information. You can have hundreds or even thousands of products." <P> Businesses can easily change and update entries, according to Everson. "For example, each tab can be automatically published and deactivated at a time you choose, and Shop & Share tabs can include current price and sale price for shopper comparison." <P> The "social shopping experience," said Everson, can be as significant as the actual purchases, in that recommendations and discussions can lead to more purchases. "And this lets retailers retain control over the shopping experience, like keeping the analytics data." <P> Kailin Terrill, marketing manager, BikeBandit.com, a Shop & Share beta user, said, "A digital storefront is a significant part of our online marketing success. Being able to create a uniquely designed e-commerce tab on Facebook allows us to not only engage with our fan base on the world's largest social site, but also watch them share our products with their friends and then drive customers to our website where they can dive deeper into our company and what we have to offer." <P> Ina Steiner, editor, AuctionBytes.com, a trade publication for online merchants, commented, "Everybody in the e-commerce space is trying to figure out FaceBook, and to recreate the social aspects of shopping like other people's opinions that can drive sales. Amazon was a pioneer of this, with their 'reviews,' for example. Any brand that can help their shoppers share potential purchases will benefit, and any service that makes it easier to work with FaceBook can be tremendously helpful."2010-11-23T12:21:00ZCloud-based platform allows companies to control spending in real time, including creating expense reports, viewing project costs, and more.http://www.informationweek.com/news/228300434?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smb<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --><div style="margin:0; padding:0 0 10px 10px; float:right; width:185px; text-align:center;"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com//news/galleries/hardware/reviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228300042&pgno=8"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/galleries/automated/542/Coupa_Expenses_Salesforce_tn.jpg" width="175" alt="Coupa Expenses for Salesforce" title="Coupa Expenses for Salesforce" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin:0 0 3px 0; padding:0;" /></a><br /> <div style="margin:0 0 5px 0; padding:0;font-weight:bold; font-size:1.2em; color:#990000;">Coupa Expenses for Salesforce</div> <i><span class="covercredit">(click image for larger view)</span></i></div><!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> Coupa Software Tuesday announced the availability of Coupa Expenses for Salesforce on SalesForce.com's AppExchange 2. <P> "A small company like Coupa needs association with a big, known company like SalesForce," noted Jason Hekl, VP of marketing at Coupa. (In a similar vein, Outright.com recently <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/services/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228200561">announced</a> its availability through Google Apps.) <P> Coupa Expenses for Salesforce is part of the Coupa Cloud Spend Management platform, a cloud-based service that, according to the company, "consolidates e-procurement and expense management into a single solution for managing, and more effectively controlling, all business spending." <P> The product allows salespeople to electronically file receipts and put the information into expense reports, and lets managers see how travel and entertainment expenses impact their budget before reimbursements are approved. Additionally, according to the company, "accounting managers gain intelligent scoring to prioritize expense report audits, and executives finally have insights into the true cost of sales." <P> "Expense management is very hot right now," said Rick Telberg, president and chief executive of Bay Street Group, which provides custom research, marketing, strategic consulting, and other services to the professional tax, accounting, and finance sector. "Expense management -- getting hold of your payables -- is a key component in managing cash flow. Particularly for today's self-financing companies, it's the difference between life and death." <P> As a software-as-a-service (SaaS) product, "financial managers can treat Coupa as an operating expense instead of capital expense -- and that is better for cash flow and for reducing taxable income," Telberg pointed out. <P> "You now have an expense reporting interface directly from within SalesForce," said Hekl. "This includes features new to SalesForce, like associating specific line items like a plane fare, or a meal with a customer or prospect, to specific activities. You can break it down by prospect, or by sales person. So the company gets more insight into the cost of sales." <P> "Most companies do their budgets in Excel spreadsheets. With Coupa, you review spending as it occurs against the budgets, and can make changes on the fly," said Hekl. <P> Also, according to the company, "Coupa Expenses for Salesforce.com provides decision makers with an accurate reflection of their total cost of sales -- including T&E expenses -- so they can effectively forecast revenues, estimate expenses, and strategically plan business resources. With Coupa Expenses for Salesforce.com, organizations can accurately calculate the costs associated with closing business." <P> Coupa Expenses for Salesforce isn't just for use with a sales force, Hekl stressed. "It's for anybody who does expense reports, like travel, going to events, service organizations. So it's also useful for customer service, consulting, and other services." <P> Coupa Expenses for Salesforce.com features include: preconfigured dashboards; expense reports that allow costs to be associated to a specific opportunity; and, according to the company, "intelligent audit scores and frugal meter &#91;that&#93; keep employees honest and help prevent fraud." <P> Available now, pricing for Coupa Expenses for Salesforce depends on company size, starting at around $20,000/year for 20-50 users.2010-11-23T11:10:00ZSMBs using the remote backup service can access their files, view, print and fax directly, instead of going through the website.http://www.informationweek.com/news/228300407?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smb<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --><div style="margin:0; padding:0 0 10px 10px; float:right; width:185px; text-align:center;"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/mobility/smart_phones/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224701523&pgno=62"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/galleries/automated/428/ATT_iPhone_App_Screenshots_tn2a.jpg" width="175" alt="AT&T iPhone App" title="AT&T iPhone App" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin:0 0 3px 0; padding:0;" /></a><br /> <div style="margin:0 0 5px 0; padding:0;font-weight:bold; font-size:1.2em; color:#990000;">AT&T iPhone App</div> <i><span class="covercredit">(click image for larger view)</span></i></div><!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> AT&T announced on Monday a free iPhone app that aims to give small business owners better mobile access to the files in their AT&T Backup and Go accounts. AT&T offers similar free mobile apps for BlackBerry and Android devices. <P> AT&T's <a href="https://tech360.att.com/ATT/backupandgo.asp">Backup and Go service</a>, part of AT&T Tech Support 360, provides remote backup of files on Windows and Mac desktop and notebook systems, for unlimited amounts of internal drives (but not external drives or devices). According to the company, backup is continuous and is performed each time a file is changed or saved. Files on the remote service can be accessed using a browser; this access can include viewing, sharing, faxing (for users who also have an eFax account), or emailing a URL. That allows the message recipient to view, download or print the specified file. <P> The new AT&T Tech Support 360 Backup and Go Mobile App provides better access than using the web browser on a smartphone. According to AT&T, the mobile app "uses an enhanced user interface that integrates seamlessly with smartphones, and can display 52 of the most common file types, including documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and photos. Previously, smartphones were limited to browser-based access to the Backup and Go service." <P> Nancy Mineo, marketing director for AT&T Small Business Product Management, said, "This app makes it even more convenient for iPhone users to access their files, view, print and fax, directly instead of going via the web site. And for a smartphone user, the app's user interface is much more user-friendly than the web site." <P> <a href="http://www.Strom.com">David Strom</a>, a computer/network consultant who maintains a <a href="http://strom.com/places/onlinebackup.html">comparison table</a> of online backup services, commented, "The ability to quickly view documents, and to easily send them to other people, from your smartphone, has increasing utility -- it eliminates another reason to pack a notebook or netbook." He added that Backup and Go offers intriguing features, such as the no-size-cap pricing and the easy document sharing. Making the service easier to use on an iPhone, at no extra cost, makes it more tempting to more business users." <P> The AT&T Tech Support 360 Backup and Go Mobile App is available free, from <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/at-t-tech-support-360-backup/id338304973?mt=8">iTunes</a>. According to the iTunes page, the new AT&T app is compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad (requires iOS 3.1 or later). Users need an active Backup and Go account from AT&T Support 360. <P> Similar free mobile apps are already available <a href="https://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/13751">for BlackBerry</a> and <a href="http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/productivity/att-tech-360-backup-and-go_kiam.html">for Android</a> devices.2010-11-17T12:03:00ZAvailable in locally and centrally managed options, Dell Data Protection Encryption, includes policy templates to support regulatory compliance and reporting.http://www.informationweek.com/news/228300041?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smb<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --><div style="margin:0; padding:0 0 10px 10px; float:right; width:185px; text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/hardware/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227500455&pgno=99"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/galleries/automated/522/Local-Managed-Console_tn.jpg" width="175" height="108" alt="Dell Data Protection Encryption Local Managed Console" title="Dell Data Protection Encryption Local Managed Console" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin:0 0 3px 0; padding:0;" /></a><br /> <i><span class="covercredit">(click image for larger view)</span></i><br /> <div style="margin:5px 0 0 0; padding:0;font-weight:bold; font-size:1.2em; color:#990000;">Dell Data Protection Encryption Local Management Console</div></div><!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> Dell on Wednesday launched Dell Data Protection Encryption software. Targeted to SMBs and enterprise customers, Dell claims it provides flexible, manageable and auditable endpoint encryption while simplifying data protection and complying with security regulations. <P> <a href="http://www.dell.com/encryption">Dell Data Protection Encryption</a> is file-based, encrypting on a per-file basis, rather than for an entire logical volume or physical disk, and can be used on desktop and notebook computers, tablets, external/removable media and other endpoint devices. Encryption for external/removable media includes external hard drives, eSata drives, 1394 devices, optical and secure digital. <P> The small business offering, the Dell Data Protection Encryption Client, is locally managed, with encryption keys saved to on site to media such as USB flash drives. <P> The Dell Data Protection Encryption Enterprise Edition is intended for midsize to large organizations, includes client and console licenses and central centrally management. It also offers reporting via a remote management console that allows users to detect devices, enforce encryption and audit encryption state. <P> File access can be constrained to only the machine on which the encryption key is generated. <P> Dell plans to offer the software pre-installed on Dell Latitude notebooks, Dell OptiPlex desktops and Dell Precision mobile and desktop workstations. <P> "This is one of Dell's first offerings in endpoint solutions with back-end management," said David Konetski, business client, office of the CTO at Dell. <P> Encryption of files on endpoint devices, external storage and removable media is one way for organizations to meet government and industry compliance regulations regarding "data at rest," for example, in case the device or media is lost, stolen or misplaced. If devices are configured properly, users cannot unintentionally create unprotected removable files. <P> Eric Ouellet, VP, secure business enablement, Gartner, commented, "Regulatory compliance is pushing companies to protect or risk fines. File-based encryption is more granular than whole-disk encryption, making it a good match for use with remote devices, external drives and removable media, which are what employees take on the road and to and from home. A solution like this is especially useful for organizations looking to keep the number of vendors to a minimum. And Dell's solutions doesn't force a company to change what computers or devices they are using or will buy."<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --><div style="margin:0; padding:0 0 10px 10px; float:right; width:185px; text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/hardware/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227500455&pgno=100"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/galleries/automated/522/Remote-Management-Console_tn.jpg" width="175" height="109" alt="Dell Data Protection Encryption Remote Management Console" title="Dell Data Protection Encryption Remote Management Console" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin:0 0 3px 0; padding:0;" /></a><br /> <i><span class="covercredit">(click image for larger view)</span></i><br /> <div style="margin:5px 0 0 0; padding:0;font-weight:bold; font-size:1.2em; color:#990000;">Dell Data Protection Encryption Remote Management Console</div></div><!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> According to Dell, the encryption offered by Dell Data Protection Encryption is Federal Information Process Standards validated, and "provides auditing and regulatory compliance management for industry, federal and state regulations like the Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards." <P> Unlike whole-disk encryption, file-level level encryption does not need to interfere with IT administration, patching, backup or migration. <P> "Sector-based encryption, which treats encryption as a drive technology, has deployment and other issues," observed Konetski. "Deploying file-based encryption, for example means there is no need to erase disks and to Chkdsk or reformatting on a drive to make sure there are no bad sectors and no data left visible. Backups don't require full decryption, and, Konetski said, "To migrate data for machine end-of-life, or in the event of a catastrophic failure, you simply move files over and transfer the keys. When we developed this product, we had experience in deploying and supporting encryption on endpoints. So we are familiar with the pain points in wanting to do and maintain encryption." <P> Dell Data Protection Encryption includes compliance templates to help set up policies that comply with the relevant regulations and generate needed reports. According to Dell, the files to be encrypted can be specified, for example, based on end-user profile, data sensitivity and compliance needs. <P> Volume licensing is available for Dell and non-Dell systems for both Windows and Mac. Through a relationship with Credant, Dell offers optional support for encryption on select smartphones and non-Windows OS. There is also a stand-alone version of the solution that can be used by end-users. <P> Pricing for the SMB version is $59.99/seat, and includes a local management console. Pricing for the managed enterprise version seats is $85/seat for 1 to 999 seats, including console and client agent.2010-11-17T07:00:00ZThe five-bay Direct Attached Storage array for small and remote office settings also supports eSata and FireWire 800 connections.http://www.informationweek.com/news/228201094?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smbData Robotics (Drobo) announced Tuesday new features for some hardware and software storage/backup products. In addition, the company has reached a reseller agreement that makes Drobo products available through HP Small Business Direct, HP's online store focused on small businesses. <P> The <a href="http://www.drobo.com/products/drobo-s.php">Drobo S</a> five-bay DAS (Direct-Attached Storage) array, intended for SOHOs, now supports USB 3.0, eSata and FireWire 800 connections. (And it's backward-compatible with USB 2.0.) Data transfer using USB 3.0 is up to 10 times faster than current USB 2.0 solutions and up to 50% faster than using FireWire 800, according to the company. <P> One currently distinctive aspect to the Drobo S as a USB 3.0 device, according to Jim Sherhart, senior director of marketing, Drobo, is "we are the first to allow multiple volumes. For example, if you insert a new drive that is larger than the size of the current logical volume, the Drobo S will see that additional space, and automatically create a new volume to use it, and present an additional Drobo icon on the desktop representing that new volume." <P> This volume support is new to USB 3.0, according to Sherhart: "We had to work with the chip manufacturers to ensure we had the capability." Available now, the USB 3.0 Drobo S is the same price as the existing Drobo S: MSRP starting at $799, up through $1,799 for a 10TB system. <P> Drobo's <a href="http://www.drobo.com/products/drobo_sync.php">Drobo Sync</a> data offsite backup/replication software is now available, and included for free, on the company's <a href="http://www.drobo.com/products/drobopro-fs.php">DroboPro FS</a> product family, which was <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/hardware_software/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227700078">announced Oct. 5</a>. <P> "This is an offsite backup system that's ideal for small business disaster recovery," said Sherhart. <P> "You can configure Drobo Sync in five or less clicks to set up an automated scheduled or on-demand backup to a second DroboPro FS, which can be remotely located off-site," said Sherhart. "This lets a business user quickly configure and begin full remote backups. Since the backup is on a disk-based system, you can bring that data up within minutes to an hour, and resume business operations -- for example, make that second site your primary, or clone it locally -- while you try to restore the primary system." <P> "Cloud protection for a terabyte of data can cost $200 to $300 a month," according to Sherhart. A DroboPro FS system can cost from $1,995 for bare chassis up to $3,299 for 16TB system, said Sherhart. "We can lease a pair of Drobo FS systems for about half that -- between $100 and $200 per month." <P> Mark Peters, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), commented: "Drobo, specially with their Synch software, offers a very inexpensive way to get into off-site backup, which is what many small businesses want to do, especially ones with local partners or suppliers with a location the company can park a DroboPro FS."Drobo has established a new reseller relationship with HP, under which Drobo products will be available on HP's <a href="http://www.shopping.hp.com/small-business">Small Business Direct</a> online store for small business solutions, along with Drobo's other reseller partners. <P> Both the new Drobo S and the DroboPro FS with Drobo Sync are immediately available through HP along with the Drobo, Drobo FS, and DroboPro models. <P> "HP has a team of about 200 sales people for this presence -- that's more than double Data Robotics' total headcount," said Sherhart. "This gives us a significant channel presence, especially to HP's small business customers. And it makes HP more of a one-stop shop for small businesses." <P> ESG's Peters said, "As Drobo moves up from products aimed at prosumers and SOHO to business products, getting HP as a channel is a 'check-off box' affirming that these are business products and are a fit as tools for SMBs."2010-11-16T16:13:00ZAimed at companies with nine or fewer workers, the bookkeeping and invoicing service lets you designate transactions as business or personal.http://www.informationweek.com/news/228201087?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Security_smb<!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <div style="margin:0; padding:0 0 10px 10px; float:right; width:185px; text-align:center;"> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/hardware/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227500455&pgno=98"><img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/galleries/automated/522/Business-Dashboard2_tn.jpg" width="175" height="175" alt="Wave Business Dashboard" title="Wave Business Dashboard" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" style="margin:0 0 3px 0; padding:0;" /></a><br /> <i><span class="covercredit">(click image for larger view)</span></i><br /> <div style="margin:5px 0 0 0; padding:0;font-weight:bold; font-size:1.2em; color:#990000;">Wave Business Dashboard</div> </div> <!-- /KINDLE EXCLUDE --> <P> Wave Accounting on Tuesday launched a free online accounting application for small business owners that lets them track and manage their business and personal finances. <P> <a href="http://www.waveaccounting.com">Wave Accounting</a> is a full double-entry bookkeeping system that allows the small business owner to track income and expenses," said Kirk Simpson, company president and CEO <P> Kirk Simpson, company president and CEO, said, "Our core market will be companies with nine employees and under, a market currently dominated by spreadsheets and shoeboxes. People are not fond of back-end tasks; we want to get them into a mostly automated accounting engine." <P> In North America, there are about 28.5 million companies with 20 or fewer employees, claimed Simpson. And, he added, according to <a href="http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs276tot.pdf">a report</a> by the United States Small Business Administration, out of 13.2 million small business owners, 22% -- 2.9 million -- own more than one small business. <P> "Wave Accounting is mostly for companies where the owner is managing the books, even if they have help from someone like a bookkeeper," said Simpson. <P> There is no cost to use Wave. Its business model is "similar to what Mint.com is doing on the personal finance side, placing small icons representing offers against specific transactions, such as a $65 wireless package against your wireless bill," Simpson said. These are done as database queries, not against personal data, and "information is never passed to the advertiser unless the user takes action on an item." <P> Wave Accounting lets users do bookkeeping for both business and personal activities, and for multiple businesses, and to assign accounts and specific transactions to the appropriate place. "For example, a lot of small businesses are running through personal checking accounts and credit cards," said Simpson. "When you bring in a financial institution, you can assign it to Business or Personal. If you use a credit card for both, when you see the transactions, you can drag and drop them to either your Business or Personal chart of accounts." <P> Wave's initial features include income/expense double-entry bookkeeping, and creating, sending and tracking invoices. "We believe that a good portion of our users will want to have invoicing within the app," said Simpson. "But we are also integrating with FreshBooks." <P> Users can view a real-time dashboard showing information such as graphs of income versus expenses, and due dates and bookkeeping actions.Like other online accounting services, such as Outright (see <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/services/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228200561">Outright.com Available In Google Apps</a>, Wave can automatically retrieve transactions histories from a user's financial accounts. <P> "We integrate with 10,000 financial institutions for pulling data in and beginning to auto-categorize transactions," said Simpson. "This includes banks, credit unions, credit cards, PayPal, brokerage accounts, and mortgage companies. Wave Accounting also allows users to manually enter income and expenses. <P> In terms of integration with other applications, Wave Accounting supports some integration with Google Documents. "For PDF documents such as receipts, users can manually enter the data into Wave Accounting, and associate the PDF to that transaction, using Google Docs as a document repository," said Simpson. <P> Wave Accounting currently offers nearly a dozen business reports, including balance sheets and income statements. <P> Some of Wave Accounting's benefits are those common to all on-line services, Simpson noted, notably accessibility, collaboration and off-site data. Users can access data from any Internet-connected machine (give or take browser constraints). A user can work with a bookkeeper, accountant or business partner without having to exchange workbook files, by extending edit or view-only access to balance sheets, income statements, and other reports. <P> As with all cloud-based applications, data resides online, so there is no need to do regular backups to off-site. <P> Unlike some other accounting tools, such as Intuit QuickBooks (see <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/hardware_software/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227500815">QuickBooks 2011 Now Available</a> Wave does not yet support invoice payment, but, said Simpson, "We view this capability as important." <P> While Wave Accounting does not do tax preparation, "It provides all the information you need for doing taxes at year-end," said Simpson. <P> Like other SaaS, cloud and web-based accounting services and other financial tools for businesses, such as Intuit QuickBooks Online, Outright, WorkingPoint, Xero, FreshBooks, and Invoice.com, Wave Accounting is browser-based, with all data being stored online. According to Simpson, "We do not support Internet Explorer 6, but support all other OSes and browsers." <P> Wave Accounting is available now. According to Simpson, mobile applications for iPhone and Android platforms are coming soon.