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Betanews Podcast: Rupert Murdoch and the buying stuff online problem

Publié: décembre 8, 2009, 11:17pm CET par Scott M. Fulton, III
By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Click here to listen to the inaugural What Are We Learning Today? Betanews podcast (MP3 format)
We inaugurate our first Betanews podcast today with a look at two serious problems -- the quandary over how publishers can make the online news business sustainable long-term, and the problem with securing the Web's transaction layer. From the top of the cliff, to borrow an Arlo Guthrie analogy, they look like two little piles; but up close, they're one big one: We haven't really solved how to pay for things online, and the TLS problem is an illustration of that.
Here's links to some of the source material referenced in the podcast:
- Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal editorial on the business of online news.
- Fee or free? Murdoch, Huffington square off over the cost of Internet news by Scott Fulton.
- Marsh Ray and Steve Dispensa's blog entry on the TLS renegotiation problem.
- "You can relax about the SSL break, mostly," from IBM Internet Security Systems engineer Tom Cross.
- Indiscreet tweet trips awareness of Web SSL vulnerability by Scott Fulton.
- Windows fix for TLS security bug still forthcoming, won't be Tuesday by Scott Fulton.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
What does AT&T's 'Mark the Spot' app say about service quality?

Publié: décembre 8, 2009, 7:38pm CET par Joe Wilcox

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Do you have AT&T as wireless carrier? Are you happy with the network service quality? I encourage Betanews readers to respond in comments to these questions, which are suddenly surreal now that AT&T has released the "Mark the Spot" app for iPhone. There's something comical about an app that tells AT&T about its connection problems. The app also is tacit admission that AT&T has voice service problems. Surely for some greedy lawyer, there's a lawsuit for that.
Some readers will ask why post a commentary like this one. What's newsie about whacking AT&T aside the head for its well-publicized service problems? Answer: Most of us here -- me writing and you reading -- are gadget freaks. Many American Betanews readers use iPhone, for which there is only one official carrier choice: AT&T. In that context, bad service is a problem. Additionally, it's the holidays, when some people give the gift of phone. Since most dumbphones and smartphones are sold subsidized and locked to a single carrier, network should be considered in any handset purchase.
By the way, I want to make a distinction about two different kinds of service: Voice and data. There are plenty of complaints about AT&T calling problems, but I don't read (or hear) nearly as many about data quality. There, AT&T might just deliver. So I ask commenters to make a distinction between data and voice in answering the question: Are you happy with your AT&T service?
If the January 2010 issue of Consumer Reports is any measure, U.S. cell phone users are happier with the other three major carriers. In CR's survey of "3,257 respondents who had prepaid service," AT&T ranked last, with a score of 66 out of 100. Top-ranked Verizon scored 75. AT&T got a black circle, meaning worse, for voice. In San Diego, where I live, AT&T scored 64. Verizon's lowest score in any of the 26 metropolitan areas was 72.
My AT&T Customer Story
I became an AT&T Wireless subscriber when it rolled out GSM services more than a half decade ago. Cingular later acquired AT&T Wireless, which later became AT&T following another merger. I had generally been satisfied with the service, both in San Diego and Washington, D.C., until about six weeks after Apple launched the iPhone 3G in July 2008. Service quality tumbled, seemingly overnight. Calls regularly dropped on three different iPhones through autumn 2008. My wife insisted on my returning her iPhone during the 30-day grace period for refund. She switched back to the Nokia N95.
In the early days of service problems, I blamed iPhone for the connection problems. But after months of tests using other handsets, I found calling problems to be persistent, although not as severe, on them all. Overall call quality was noticeably better on HTC and Nokia handsets than iPhone, and calling problems were frequent just not unbearable.
But all that changed again in summer 2009. Ahead of the June iPhone 3GS launch, AT&T service actually improved, only to return to its wicked, dropped-calling ways by August. My service quality went all to hell after AT&T opened up MMS to iPhone customers. I started experiencing dropped connections on most calls, and failed connections went from annoying to unbearable.
After six years as an AT&T customer, I switched to T-Mobile in October, days before the carrier introduced unlimited voice, data and texting plans. My reason for giving up AT&T: Relentless calling problems. In the nearly two months since switching carriers, I have had one dropped call and two failed connections, both on the same day last week. The calling consistency is simply liberating.
But leaving AT&T meant dealing with broken contracts. In California, carriers must prorate rate the fee, which is $175 per line for AT&T, based on time remaining on contract. Among my four lines, only one was out of contract. AT&T and I haggled over the remaining fees, which I disputed because of my reason for leaving. In the end, AT&T discounted my final bill by one's month service fee, which brought my contract-breaking fee to around $200.
There's more I'd like to say about my satisfaction with T-Mobile, but I don't want to turn this post into an advertisement for the carrier or for it over AT&T. Verizon conistently ranked No. 1 in the Consumer Reports survey. But I can't let AT&T off so easily, either. I'm a fan of telecommunications student Trent Sense's blog. He changes handsets more often than I do. Sense also switched to T-Mobile, in November, and he writes:
AT&T is due for some hard times in the coming future if it doesn't totally focus on improving the infrastructure of its 3G network. Dropped calls at home and a lack of comparable plans are what caused me to eventually choose TMobile and make the most of my money.
Mark the Blind Spot?
All this comes full circle back to AT&T's new "Mark the Spot" app, which essentially marks where your service went to hell and tells the carrier all about it. From one perspective, AT&T deserves praise for providing an app that can help identify troubled services areas. But from marketing and public relations vantage points, the app is potential disaster. Now subscribers will be reminded by this app every time there is a calling problem -- and somebody at AT&T thinks that's a good thing? Better approach: Offer a background service (for shame, on iPhone?) that silently notifies the carrier of problems, after subscribers agree once to the information being sent.
If comments on the app at iTunes App Store are any indication, "Mark the Spot" could do much PR harm -- that even with a majority of five-star ratings. Commenter Kovanen, who rated the app five stars, complains: "The AT&T network is just consistently terrible!" The commenter wants to take the iPhone to Verizon. "You have no service on AT&T and you're expected to notify AT&T of no service on AT&T with an app that needs AT&T service to let them know there's no service on AT&T," writes App Store commenter Marin Princess. Many other commenters did acknowledge the app as a good step forward, but several others thanked Verizon for putting competitive pressure on AT&T. The point: AT&T listened more to Verizon than to its own customers.
Now it's your turn. Are you satisfied with AT&T service? If you switched from another carrier, how does it compare? I've told my story, and I should emphasize that switching was a hard decision. I was satisfied with all other aspects of AT&T service. How about you?
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
Nokia, can you please stop kicking yourself in the head?

Publié: décembre 8, 2009, 7:30am CET par Joe Wilcox
By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Nokia has long been one of my favorite tech companies, but recently I started to lose faith in its future. When an enthusiast/fan says something like that, a company either has a serious public image crisis or serious problems. Both situations are about equally bad. I want to believe in Nokia, I really do, but recent events unravel my confidence.
Nokia's fundamental problem is retreat. The company has started to retreat before the great econolypse. Now should be the time for Nokia to make new investments -- in products and research -- not pull back on them. Retreat signals to competitors that there is vulnerability, which also can unravel customers' confidence about buying new products. In October, I switched from AT&T to T-Mobile, because of constantly annoying dropped calls and in preparation for the Nokia N900. T-Mobile service satisfies, but I still haven't bought the N900. I'm too unnerved about Nokia's future and its product and services strategy.
Nokia's Retreat Documented
My Nokia unnerving has been a process, but one accelerating over just a few months. I'll start with Friday's disturbing Nokia news and work backwards to explain.
Regent store closing. Mobility Today reported that Nokia would be closing its flagship store on Regent Street, London. World of Nokia's Dan Carter lamented that for "a Nokia fan it is a sad day." I agree with that. Over at Engadget, Chris Ziegler expressed my sentiments: "If Nokia can't generate sales in the heart of one of its strongholds -- Western Europe -- we can't imagine that this bodes well for the other flagships either."
Closing even one Nokia store might make sense for a company trying to cut costs. But for Nokia, which excels at lifestyle marketing, the store closure is a big mistake. The flagship store doesn't have to make loads of money. The store should promote the Nokia brand and the mobile digital lifestyle associated with using its products. Since Nokia has so few stores, the company should seek to make them fan customer and tourist destinations. No cost savings can recover what Nokia will lose by closing the London store, or, gasp, others.
Cutting number of smartphones. On Thursday (December 3rd), Reuters reported that "Nokia will drastically cut back on the number of different smartphone models it rolls out next year." I could imagine Nokia cutting back the number of dumbphones, but smartphones? Does Nokia perhaps have a different definition of smartphones? Nokia doesn't produce that many. There are two major "E" series smartphones -- the E63 and new E72 -- and two "N" series smartphones, the N97 and N900.
If anything, Nokia needs to release better smartphones, combining features from other N Series handsets like the N85 and N86 into its smartphone line up. Related, Nokia needs to greatly improve its smartphone software and services and number of useful third-party applications.
Last week, Betanews' Tim Conneally reported that "Nokia expects 33 percent of its 2010 smartphone lineup to have both touchscreens and QWERTY keypads, another 33 percent to have QWERTY only, 25 percent to have all touch, and the remaining 9 percent to have an ITU-T keypad."
The handset growth market of the future is the smartphone. The global install base of handsets is about 4 billion units, with manufacturers shipping about 1 billion every year. The majority of people use dumbphones, most of which could eventually be upgraded to smartphones. Nokia is still the market share leader for smartphone devices and operating systems -- 39.3 percent and 44.6 percent, respectively, in third quarter, according to Gartner. Nokia should build from its strength, not retreat before long-term threats posed by iPhone or handsets running Google's Android OS.
Research cutbacks. In November, Nokia announced two separate research and development layoffs -- 330 employees in Denmark and Finland and another 220 in Japan. The layoffs represent only about 3 percent of Nokia's R&D workforce. But research is where Nokia needs to invest even more, particularly to bring its smartphones, software and services up to competitive pace with iPhone and Android handsets.
Research has been one of Nokia's differentiators and the outreach from its research staff, such as the team behind Nokia Labs. Then there is the Nokia Research Center, which does bleeding edge mobile technology development. Nokia does great research. The problem isn't the research but how Nokia brings some of the products and services to market. Too many are disjointed, rather than working well together.
U.S. market doldrums. Nokia is a truly global handset manufacturer, with leading market share in most geographies. But three markets have proved tough for Nokia, in part because of how carriers operate there: Japan, Korea and United States. Nokia simply pulled out of Japan, which is no solution. In the United States, Nokia is better known for low-cost (many times free) dumphones. The E71s is the only smartphone available subsidized from any carrier (AT&T). I'm still waiting for the N900 to pop up at T-Mobile, which 3G frequencies the device supports. Nokia needs America, but for its high-end handsets. Nokia offers unlocked phones for the U.S. market, but prices are high without carrier subsidies.
Will 2010 be Make or Break?
Last week, Nokia outlined its plans for next year. They're encouraging. Nokia plans include:
- Revamping Symbian OS (in first half 2010)
- Bringing multitouch and more capacitive handsets to market
- Releasing the first Maemo 6-powered device (in second half 2010)
But from where things stand today there is a huge disconnect between Nokia's lifestyle marketing, which is simply awesome, and the delivered experience. Nokia handsets simply don't deliver as good a connected and social Web experience as iPhone or Android-powered handsets. Nokia's "connecting people" slogan promises much, but Apple and Google connect better. If you disagree, that's what comments are for.
I've long loved Nokia marketing, which is sometimes oddball but entertaining and engaging. One example: "Offline as It Happens" campaign for N Series touchscreen smartphones. Another: The recent team up with singer Rihanna. More: The N79 and N79 Active marketing videos. Marketing and many other videos from Nokia Conversations wonderfully engage customers.
Last week, Michael Gartenberg, vice president of strategy and analysis for Interpret, expressed even more misgivings than I have here about Nokia in a blog post at Engadget:
Truth be told, Nokia now reminds me a lot of Apple back in 1996, losing relevance and market share in places that matter but with huge potential to leverage core assets and a terrific brand with millions of loyal fans. And as Apple did in its day, Nokia must now either try to decisively seize back its leadership position -- or lose it entirely.
I want to believe in Nokia, I really do. But I'm pragmatic as I survey the mobile landscape ahead. Android OS had 3.5 percent market share in third quarter, according to Gartner. That might seem small, but it was zero a year earlier. Apple's App Store has more than 100,000 applications and increasing. As the market share leader, Nokia has everything to lose. Will it? You tell me, please in comments.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
Windows fix for TLS security bug still forthcoming, won't be Tuesday

Publié: décembre 8, 2009, 3:33am CET par Scott M. Fulton, III

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The question over whether Secure Sockets Later, and later Transport Layer Security, was ever sufficiently impregnable never rose to such a crescendo for malicious users to become inspired to exploit it. In the end, the discovery that TLS had a weak spot was made by a security engineer, PhoneFactor engineer Marsh Ray, last month. It was when other engineers started tweeting about themselves being possibly on the verge of the same discovery, that Ray felt he had to go public to encourage everyone else to hush.
Now that the news of TLS' latent vulnerability is public, the threat of a possible exploit is real. Such an exploit, if discovered, could effectively negate the encryption system used to protect essentially every credit card transaction on the Web. And Ray and partner Steve Dispensa have been sounding the alarm with regard to other conceivable permutations of the man-in-the-middle mechanism, including forging a user's Twitter credentials.
As the above-linked blog post from Ray and Dispensa indicates, a lot of what they've been receiving in return is downplaying and damage control from the likes of IBM. Nontheless, a coordinated response to the SSL problem from multiple vendors, including Microsoft, is in the works, according to a Microsoft spokesperson Monday evening -- an effort that appears to have been modeled against the largely successful response to researcher Dan Kaminsky's discovery in summer 2008 of a serious flaw in the Internet's DNS scheme.
"Microsoft is aware of claims of vulnerabilities affecting the Transport Layer Security specification that could potentially lead to man-in-the-middle attacks," the spokesperson told Betanews. "We are investigating these claims for any possible impact on Microsoft's implementations of the standard. As an issue potentially affecting an Internet standard, we recognize this issue potentially affects multiple vendors, and Microsoft is working with its partners in the Internet Consortium for Advancement of Security on the Internet (ICASI) on a coordinated response."
Last month, ICASI acknowledged having been contacted by Ray and Dispensa's employer, PhoneFactor, about their discovery. Since that time, member vendors have acknowledged the critical nature of the issue, and both Cisco and Juniper Networks have issued advisories.
"Successful exploitation could allow an attacker to inject data into a legitimate SSL/TLS-protected session and trigger a renegotiation," reads Cisco's latest advisory, updated last Friday. "This may allow the attacker to execute operations on the server using the client's credentials but does not allow the attacker to read, decrypt, or alter encrypted traffic between client and server. While the vulnerability exists within the TLS protocol, the impact of an attack depends on the application protocol running over TLS."
No vendor has released a patch just yet, but the reason for that may be because all ICASI vendors may need to deploy patches in the field simultaneously for any of them to be effective.
"Once we're done investigating, we will take appropriate action to help protect customers," Microsoft's spokesperson told us Monday evening. "This may include providing a security update through the monthly release process, an out-of-cycle update, or additional guidance to help customers protect themselves."
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
Not the first, not the last, technology predictions for 2010

Publié: décembre 8, 2009, 2:35am CET par Carmi Levy
By Carmi Levy, Betanews

December never fails to make me cringe. I know full well that journalists will be filling my inbox all month long with countless requests to guess what next year's hot technologies will be.
I can understand why they would. Trying to predict what comes next in tech has always been an important way for businesses and consumers alike to make the right decisions about what to buy -- and what to avoid -- in the months ahead. Like the groundhogs who have been doing something similar for generations, we all want to know what's coming so we can plan more effectively for the future.
Fine, fine...I'll do it
Being the good little soldier that I am, I'll do my best to give them folks the answers they need. Virtualization? Absolutely. Anything green? Without a doubt. Wireless? That's about as sure as shooting fish in a barrel. Then I'll put my crystal ball away for another year before pulling it out and replaying the process yet again, albeit with slightly updated predictions.
No one ever bothers to...Okay, I take that back. No one except Joe Wilcox ever bothers to measure whether these predictions are on the mark. But I don't see small business owners prowling the aisles of the local big box store with these end-of-year or end-of-decade prediction articles in hand, zeroing in on the stuff the analysts thought would sell.
I realize I'm selling my profession somewhat short, but we're no more clairvoyant than the next guy. Indeed, clairvoyance isn't what being an analyst and making annual projections is all about. Because we spend all day, every day, studying this stuff, we certainly have lots of hard-earned insight. We can certainly speak to the forces that may be driving one particular technology faster than another. We also understand, innately, what all this could mean for the average person or organization using these new tools. But asking us to list them in precise order of priority, or predict where Company A's market share will be at this time next year is about as precise, productive, and effective as choosing the trifecta at a soon-to-be-shuttered racetrack.
Still, my curmudgeonly attitude aside, I realize nothing I do or say will stop the annual ritual. So since I can't beat 'em, I may as well join them. Here's how I see 2010 playing out:
- Lots of wireless carriers will claim to have 4G or 4G-ready devices, networks and services. They'll all be lying. They might want to wait until the ITU actually ratifies one or more of the dozen or so proposals in front of it before laying claim to a technology that, as of today, doesn't officially exist.
- Apple's App Store will more than double in size to over 200,000 apps. The actual number will matter less to the planet, and to the average user, than it does today. Its competitors will continue their futile efforts to stay in Apple's numbers orbit. They, too, will be wasting their time.
- The term "netbook" will officially be banned in my presence. It's a really small notebook, people. Why it merits its own name when other machine sizes don't is beyond me. No one calls 17-plus-inch laptops "heavybooks", so they?
- Palm's comeback stalls as developers stay away in droves and carriers move on to the Next Big New Thing. It simply lacks the resources to maintain a consistently full product pipeline, and will be a lovely acquisition target by this time next year.
- Google's Android becomes The Next Big New Thing as consumers and businesses alike learn that platforms matter far more than devices. Platforms that advance the state of the mobile Web services art -- which Android will do in spades as developers improve their skills on it -- may even remain The Next Big New Thing well into 2011.
- Microsoft's Windows Mobile 7.0 finally ships, but turns out to be too little, too late, and fails to stop the company's mobile slide. Since it hasn't yet converted its Danger acquisition into a strategic driver of future mobile growth, Microsoft will be actively looking for a new acquisition target next year to re-energize its mobile ambitions.
- Apple finally kills its iPod Classic. The Shuffle isn't too far behind: Do we know anyone who owns one?
- The iPhone won't grow a keyboard. Apple's single-form-factor strategy has worked nicely so far, so it sees no reason to mess with a good thing.
- The mythical Tablet won't ship in 2010, but unseen forces at Apple's Cupertino campus will nevertheless continue to enjoy pulling the strings on the most masterfully conceived shadow marketing campaign ever.
- Windows 7 will continue to do well in the market. Lots of folks will continue to whine about Vista. Not because there's any point, mind you. Just because.
- Office 2010 will ship. The Office 2003 holdouts still complaining about Office 2007's radical new interface will continue to be the ones least likely to actually own legal copies.
- Facebookers, Twitterers, and bloggers will continue to post frightening volumes of private information online, and will continue to scream bitterly when their boss (or mother, or spouse, or mistress) finds out about their so-called "private" postings. I predict the Internet in 2010 will be just as private (namely, not at all) as it was in 2009. And every year beforehand, too. The rest of us will continue to be entertained by folks who still don't get it.
- Speaking of Facebook, it will introduce more changes to its interface as it zooms through half a billion users and becomes a UN-recognized nation. Users, who all pay nothing for the service, will howl to anyone who will listen that Mark Zuckerberg ruined their lives.
- Google's relentless campaign to own every shred of data we've ever created, owned, or touched picks up steam thanks to legions of users who, in the rush to start using the latest doodad from Mountain View, still refuse to read the Terms of Use statement before clicking the "I Agree" button.
- I will polish off my crystal ball around this time next year, because maybe this prognostication thing isn't so annoying after all. Just don't hold your breath waiting for any or all of these to come true. Sometimes, technology should just follow its own course.
Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
More employees are using a personal laptop as primary work PC

Publié: décembre 8, 2009, 12:34am CET par Joe Wilcox
By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Should businesses let employees use their personal laptops at work? For 10 percent of mid-size businesses and enterprises, the answer is more than yes; they have employees using personal portables as primary work PCs. Today, Gartner released survey results from second quarter (why so late in the year, I ask) stating that number and its expected rise to 14 percent by mid-2010. Gartner surveyed 528 technology managers from companies with more than 500 employees.
I'm actually surprised the number isn't higher, and surely it is in other categories, such as smartphones phones. Official policy is one thing, what employees might actually do is another. According to various analyst reports, most enterprises only started deploying laptops, PDAs or smartphones after employees used them for work purposes.
According to Gartner, 90 percent of companies have some kind of policy governing personal device usage. Forty-three percent have enacted policies for using personal devices in the workplace, while 48 percent prohibit them. Confession: Regardless of policy, I've used personal equipment for better part of a decade. Employers issued equipment, which went right into a closet.
Even the stiffest corporate IT manager resisters have in this weak economy reason to lighten up policies on personal devices in the workplace. "While employee-owned notebook programs started to appear a couple of years ago, the acceptance of such schemes by organizations varies greatly," Annette Jump, Gartner research director, said in a statement. "However, in the current climate of cost containment, large enterprises are exploring all possibilities offered by alternative client computing architectures and device solution, and that includes employee-owned PCs."
In a separate statement, Meike Escherich, Gartner principal research analyst, said that a "growing numbers of employees are asking to use personally owned notebooks for work and an increasing proportion of companies will meet these requests through employee-owned notebook programs, which define policies for usage, technical requirements and process for maintenance and support."
Policies make sense, and I'll give some recommendations that Gartner doesn't:
- Commingled data -- Employees using the same laptop personally and professionally commingle usage and data. IT policies and software tools should protect corporate data from loss or theft. Hosted Web service that keep data behind the corporate firewall is one solution.
- Security -- A laptop or smartphone used personally and professionally is potentially higher risk for malware infection. What if the employee's teen downloads games or music from Torrent sites? Businesses should enact and enforce policies about laptop usage and add extra security layers to protect the company.
- Theft or loss -- Companies should insure personal laptops against theft, loss or damage when used for professional purposes, which could be office work or business travel.
Gartner found that some industries are more likely to allow personal devices than others. For example, insurance and telecommunications companies are more likely to embrace personal PCs than governments, manufacturers or wholesalers. Usage varies by country, too, with 30 percent of U.K. and U.S. companies allowing personal PCs compared to a whopping 60 percent in Germany.
I think Gartner's 14-percent figure will prove to be too conservative or non-reflective of employee laptops used a secondary work PC. Netbooks are the reason. The category has exploded this year, something a second-quarter survey may not fully account for.
It's once again question time: Do you use a personal device -- let's say laptop, mobile phone or smartphone -- for work purposes? How is the arrangement working out for you? Comments are open for your responses.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009