data

Linux and Windows grow data center market share

As Computerworld reports, the search for simplicity is driving Linux and Windows into the data center in ever growing numbers. Gartner expects Windows to hit $19.6 billion in 2007, growing to $22.2 billion by 2012, 13% growth. Linux will pull in $8.6 billion in 2007 and boom to $12.2 billion by 2012, 40% growth. Linux, then, is growing faster, but largely because it's starting from a smaller installed base.

The big loser in all this is Unix, which will not lose revenues (holding flat at roughly $16 billion), but won't grow them. Consolidation of … Read more

Microsoft plans Russian data center

As if the Microsoft vs. Google battle didn't already resemble a game of Risk, the software giant announced plans to move into Irkutsk.

The software maker confirmed Monday that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the regional Siberian government, but said that it is too soon to say whether Irkutsk will be the site of a planned data center in Russia.

"Though Microsoft Russia is working on potential data center construction in Russia, we are still far from final site selection," the software maker said in a statement.

Microsoft has been on a building spree … Read more

Lessons from Google and Red Hat for Facebook and open source

Something hit me the other day. Perhaps it was two years of education at the hands of Larry Lessig finally sinking in. Or perhaps it was my reading of Gene Simmons' commentary on those pesky kids who steal his music. Whatever the impetus, it finally all came together.

Twentieth century software business models focus on scarcity because they're founded upon 20th century conceptions of property (actually, their origin is a few centuries' older than that, but never mind).

Scarcity is the absolute wrong way to build a software business in the 21st century, with the rise of digitization. It is pointless and fruitless to insist that the digital world act like the physical or analog world, and build business models that conform to this false view. To thrive in the new software world, we need to embrace its changes rather than fight them.

Inspired by Glyn Moody, I wrote a few weeks ago that "in a digital world, the money is in analog." But the principle is actually much deeper than this.

To get at the principle, it's useful to look at the successful business models of a few 21st century pioneers, including Google and Red Hat:… Read more

Dell shows off tablet and all-in-one at Oracle OpenWorld

Though beaten to the punch by the FCC, Dell introduced the world to its forthcoming all-in-one PC at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco Wednesday.

Well, it wasn't a formal introduction as much as an all-too-brief glimpse of the XPS One A2010, which resembles a wide-screen TV with separate keyboard. Chief Executive Michael Dell drew the crowd's attention to the all-in-one during his keynote when he asked Chief Technology Officer Kevin Kettler, who joined him on stage, what "that" device was. Playing along, Kettler "guessed" that it looked like a TV, since it had a … Read more

HP CEO talks consolidation, management software, and Seinfeld

SAN FRANCISCO--For the record, Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd would not let Oracle grand poobah Larry Ellison beat him at tennis.

These and other important questions were answered in a more conversational approach to the afternoon keynote slot at this year's Oracle OpenWorld here. In lieu of a traditional speech, Hurd, chairman and chief of the world's largest PC company, answered previously videotaped questions--most of which seemed canned--about a variety of topics.

The questions, posed by ostensibly random conference attendees, ranged from the obvious ("Should I buy an HP or a Dell?"), to the unnecessary ("Would … Read more

Letting your data go for good, without a computer

Keeping data is crucial, there's no doubt about this. Data backing up has evolved from as painful as copying files onto a floppy disk to an eye candy with Apple's recent invention of the Time Machine.

However, on the other hand, completely losing data is equally important, when you decide to let go your old hard drive. Trashing files from within the operating system generally doesn't make the information completely go way. And you don't want it to be retrieved by people with ill intention.

Today, Wiebetech introduced the first standalone, consumer-friendly hard drive wiping device … Read more

Symantec becomes instant leader in data loss prevention

Just last week I wrote a blog that described the ongoing market consolidation around data loss prevention (DLP) and its effect on market leader Vontu.

The blog titled, "High noon for Vontu?", was generally accurate but I got the details wrong. Rather than high noon, it turned out to be midnight on New Year's Eve for the Vontu team: investors got to party like it was 1999 this week when Symantec acquired Vontu for $350 million.

It was a pretty sure bet that Symantec would buy a DLP company, but why Vontu? After all, other security leaders--for … Read more

Patent by numbers

Growth in the IP lawsuit sector of the economy and the resulting patent-reform movement can leave you thirsting for reliable data on which to base policy judgments and cocktail-party conversation. Initially, I thought the IEEE Spectrum's annual patent stats roundup, Keeping Score in the IP Game would handily rehydrate my chit-chat cortex. After all, the data contains glittering--although frequently unsurprising--infonuggets like:

Microsoft ranks fifth for total patents awarded in the Computer Systems and Software category (1,469), but first in IEEE's computed measure of the power conferred by those patents. The other four top players in that category … Read more

Did credit card companies collaborate with the FBI's grocery data mining program?

The Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein recently reported that the FBI went trawling through grocery store records in order to track down Iranian terror cells. In his article, he writes, "like Hansel and Gretel hoping to follow their bread crumbs out of the forest, the FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian terrorists." The program, however, was short lived and was quickly "torpedoed by the head of the FBI's criminal investigations division, Michael A. Mason, … Read more

High noon for Vontu?

There is absolutely no question that large organizations are growing more and more concerned about data privacy and security. In fact, a recent ESG Research survey reveals that security professionals rate "protecting confidential/private data" as the biggest influence on their security management needs--more important than regulatory compliance or corporate governance. The survey was based on a recently released Enterprise Strategy Group report titled "Security Management Matures," which I co-authored.

Obviously, product demand should be healthy but suppliers may be facing a tougher market because of growing consolidation in the data loss prevention market. The market … Read more