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  • Mass Adoption of Web-to-TV Video Will Be "Rapid"


    Millions of viewers already watch Internet video on their TVs but that number is set to climb dramatically, according to In-Stat.

    It forecasts that by 2013 web-to-TV video streaming services will drive nearly USD $3 billion in revenue.

    The under-35 adult population in the US has already adopted Web-to-TV video capability, with over 40 per cent viewing Internet video on the TV at least once per month.

    But within five years, the number of US broadband households viewing Web-to-TV content will grow to 24 million.

    Recent research from the Consumer Electronics Association showed that nearly half of prospective TV buyers in the US intend to purchase an Internet-ready TV in the next year.

    Keith Nissen, In-Stat analyst, said that once Web-to-TV video becomes simple and convenient, mass consumer adoption will follow quite rapidly.

    "Our primary research shows that users want a variety of their consumer devices to enable a web-to-TV video experience," he said.

    Other In-Stat findings include:

    • Already, 29 per cent of US 25-34 year olds with game consoles use the devices to watch streaming video off the Internet
    • In five years, there will be 7.4 million US broadband households that use media center PCs for streaming Web-to-TV content.
    • TV networks and pay TV operators currently view online TV as additive to pay TV services, but Web-to-TV will ultimately force a complete restructuring of today’s video services.
    • Video content will be optimized for broadcast or Web-to-TV based on content type

  • Customised Mobile Banking Key To Future Success

    Lukasz Michalkiewicz, from smartphone software developer eLeader, tells smartphone.biz-news about developments in mobile banking and the importance of tailoring applications to mobile platforms.

    The Polish company has developed the first mobile banking solution customised for specific mobile operating systems.

    Polish software developer eLeader isn’t the first to realise that the mobile world’s different operating systems make it advisable to develop applications tailored to each platform.

    It is, however, the first to develop a mobile banking solution that actually does just that. The user interface of its MobileBanking platform has been designed specifically for smartphones with Symbian, Windows Mobile and Blackberry operating systems.

    The solution has just been deployed by Raiffeisen Bank Polska SA, a subsidiary of Raiffeisen International – making it the first time a tailored mobile banking app has been used in Europe.

    While the development hasn’t exactly sent shock-waves around the mobile world, it does point to the growing acceptance and increasing adoption of mobile banking.

    In the US, the majority of the major banks now offer mobile services, including Bank of America Corp., which has signed up 2.4 million mobile banking subscribers.

    It also highlights the importance of paying attention to user experience when devising potentially complex mobile applications.

    Mobile is Different

    Lukasz Michalkiewicz, account manager with eLeader, told smartphone.biz-news that too often developments for the mobile are treated in the same way as for the PC.

    He said the variations in operating systems, user interfaces, internet browsers, screens and methods of data entry all had to be taken into account.

    "In the PC world there is a dominant operating system and browsers, but in the mobile world it’s different," he said.

    "A really intuitive mobile experience comes from applications tailored to all the different operating systems, browsers and so on.

    "We see that as the way to ensure an intuitive and truly user-friendly mobile experience."

    eLeader plans to roll the solution out to the iPhone in the next few months.

    m-Banking’s Extended Functionality

    As well as improving the UI, the application gives users to access to services, such as being able to contact their financial adviser directly.

    Michalkiewicz said Raiffeisen Bank’s VIP Mobile mobile banking solution extends the scope of m-banking to include advanced functionalities once only found in internet banking applications.

    He said it allows the bank’s customers to conduct the full range of common financial operations via their mobile handset in a very intuitive way.

    "Everything you can do on your PC, you can do on your mobile," he said. "But functionality is extended because with a mobile you can do it anywhere."

    Raiffeisen Bank is a part of Raiffeisen International, a banking group operating in 17 markets of the Central and Eastern European region (CEE) and with 14.6 million customers.

    Mariusz Glinski, head of electronic banking at the bank, said it has developed its mobile channel over many years, initially offering simple SIM-based software and later Java-based applications.

    He said that if m-banking is to be taken seriously then it has to be accepted that the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to mobile applications will only go so far in today’s market.

    "To create truly usable applications we must take into account the characteristics of each type of mobile device," he said.

    "This is the only way to provide successful solutions which consumers really want to use on their handsets."

    It certainly seems as though mobile banking is moving towards wider acceptance and uptake. Please let us know your thoughts on the technology and available solutions.

  • Mobile VoIP Huge Challenge For Mobile Operators


    Traditional network-based mobile carriers face the real prospect of losing a major slice of their voice traffic and revenue to new non-infrastructure players that use VoIP.

    This could mean that within 10 years, more than 50 per cent of mobile voice traffic will be carried using end-to-end VoIP, according to Gartner.

    Its says that the threat posed by mobile portal VoIP is likely to have a huge and direct impact on the USD $692.6 billion global mobile voice market.

    If that all seems a little bleak for mobile operators, there are some bright spots.

    Gartner suggest that despite the significant potential for mobile VoIP, conditions for the rapid expansion in its use are not yet right.

    What’s more, the analysts reckon they aren’t likely to be so for at least five years – and perhaps not for as much as eight years.

    Tole Hart, research director at Gartner, said that mass-scale adoption of end-to-end mobile VoIP calling will not happen until fourth-generation (4G) networks are fully implemented in 2017.

    But he said that once the basic market conditions are in place, transition to mobile portal VoIP should be fairly rapid because of the inherent convenience and end-user cost savings.

    "In 10 years time we expect that 30 per cent of mobile voice traffic will be carried out through third-party mobile portals, such as Google, Facebook, MySpace and Yahoo, which will adopt wireless VoIP service as a voice option to their current communications hub," he said.

    A number of third parties, such as Skype, Truphone and fring, which carry VoIP traffic using a mobile phone, have cropped up in the past couple of years.

    These offer access to voice services via Wi-Fi and/or the carriers’ wireless voice networks.

    This has been the most efficient way to offer the service to date because of the inconsistencies of voice services over third-generation (3G) data networks.

    However, with the advent of 4G networks (WiMAX and Long Term Evolution [LTE]), and increased use of smartphones with open operating systems, Gartner says that it is conceivable, perhaps even inevitable, that wireless voice services will be run completely over VoIP.

    "Ten years from now, more than half of mobile voice traffic will be carried end-to-end using VoIP," said Akshay Sharma, research director at Gartner.

    "Carriers will adopt voice services because of the increased capacity and reduced cost of delivering voice over 4G networks.

    "Third parties will adopt a voice option for their communications hub."

    The Gartner analysts warn that there will also be a number of factors that will inhibit the adoption of third-party, end-to-end VoIP services.

    These include:

    • the delay in rolling out 4G networks because of current economic conditions
    • the general plan to put 4G only in the main cities and build out from there

    Nevertheless, they conclude that in five to 10 years time, as 4G networks become common, mobile VoIP services will have a strong impact on the communications market.

    Competing with mobile portal VoIP will be wireless carriers that offer circuit and VoIP voice and data services, and resellers and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) that also offer services off the carrier networks.

    Gartner expects this opening of the VoIP channels to spawn a number of voice services from companies that offer voice services to communities using voice as a communications link.

    This means that the biggest competitors to mobile VoIP may be text messaging and e-mail, as people may prefer to use these types of communication because of their non-intrusive, less emotional and less time-consuming nature.

    Although the impact of the technology shift will be gradual as 4G networks roll out, Gartner advises carriers to start thinking now about how the transition will occur and how they might cooperate and partner with other types of service providers.

    It suggests that third-party providers, such as Google and Yahoo, should look to offer voice services today using the carriers’ networks and Wi-Fi to leverage their portfolio of services.
    Mobile social communities, such as Facebook and MySpace, which benefit from messaging traffic as it keeps eyeballs on their sites, should also have a voice option.

  • Blackberry Curve Overtakes iPhone To Be Q1 Best-Seller


    Helped in no small part by aggressive promotions, RIM’s Blackberry Curve became the best-selling US smartphone in the first quarter of 2009 – overtaking Apple’s iPhone.

    The Curve’s popularity helped increase RIM’s consumer smartphone market share by 15 per cent over the previous quarter to almost 50 per cent, according to market research firm NPD.

    Apple’s iPhone – the previous top-seller – and Palm each saw their market share slip by 10 per cent during the three-month period ended March.

    NPD’s director of industry analysis, Ross Rubin, attributed the changes to an aggressive "buy-one-get-one" promotion by Verizon Wireless.

    "The more familiar, and less expensive, Curve benefited from these giveaways and was able to leapfrog the iPhone, due to its broader availability on the four major US national carriers," he said.

    The promotion also helped RIM secure two additional top five positions.

    In the third slot was the BlackBerry Storm, and the fourth was made up of all BlackBerry Pearl handsets with the exception of flip models.

    T-Mobile’s G1 handset running Google’s open Android software was the fifth most popular smartphone during the quarter.

    Based on US consumer sales of smartphone handsets in NPD’s Smartphone Market Update report, the first-quarter 2009 ranking of the top-five best-selling smartphones is as follows:

    1. RIM BlackBerry Curve (all 83XX models)
    2. Apple iPhone 3G (all models)
    3. RIM BlackBerry Storm
    4. RIM BlackBerry Pearl (all models, except flip)
    5. T-Mobile G1

    Smartphones, which represented just 17 per cent of handset sales volume in Q1 2008, now make up 23 per cent of sales.

    Rubin said this showed that even in a challenging economy, consumers are migrating toward Web-capable handsets and their supporting data plans to access more information and entertainment on the go.

  • Verbatim Launches Encrypted Products at Infosecurity


    Verbatim has introduced its new range of hardware encrypted USB drives, solid state drives (SSD) portable drives and software encrypted DVD discs at this year’s Infosecurity Show.

    The storage media specialist said its new products will be aimed at anyone carrying sensitive material since the encryption prevents unauthorised accessing of the contents of the storage device.

    Hans Christoph Kaiser, business development manager for Flash Memory, Verbatim EUMEA, said: "There have been many embarrassing instances in recent years of USB drives or other storage products being mislaid or lost, and the confidential data contained within them compromised."

    "It is crucial that confidential information remains confidential, especially if it falls into the wrong hands.

    "Encrypted storage devices have become an essential part of life to huge numbers of people who need to keep their sensitive data private, this includes government officials, hospital staff and lawyers to name just a few.

    "Verbatim offers a comprehensive range that provides a solution to any storage problem requiring confidentiality."

    The new range includes:

    • Executive Secure USB Drive – with a 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) hardware encryption coupled with integrated password protection
    • ExpressCard SSD Secure – Verbatim is launching a range of Secure SSD ExpressCards that guarantee the safety of the stored data if accidentally lost or mislaid
    • Encrypted Hard Disk Drive – Verbatim’s 128-bit hardware encrypted 2.5" hard disk drive offers real-time full disk encrypted storage without performance loss during data transfer
    • SecureSaveDVD – protects files for up to 100 years using AES 256-bit encryption

  • Vembu Launches Online Backup on Amazon Web Services


    Vembu Technologies has made available for production StoreGrid Cloud AMI, an online backup "virtual appliance" on Amazon Web Services.

    The company says that with the StoreGrid Cloud AMI and the Amazon Web Services infrastructure, it is now possible for service providers to offer a scalable, secure and highly redundant online backup service to their small and medium business (SMB) customers without any upfront capital investment in a data center.

    Online backup service providers can now configure the StoreGrid Cloud AMI virtual appliance to run as a backup server in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).

    StoreGrid Cloud AMI will use the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) to store backup data from client machines at remote locations.

    The StoreGrid Cloud AMI virtual appliance also leverages Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) to store meta-data information in the MySQL relational database.

    Steve Rabuchin, director of Developer Relations and Business Development for Amazon Web Services, said AWS is designed to help alleviate for its customers, the cost and effort associated with building, operating and scaling technology infrastructure.

    "We are pleased that the StoreGrid Cloud AMI is able to leverage Amazon Web Services to extend this service to their customers," he said.

    Even service providers who want to keep backup data in their own data centers can use the StoreGrid Cloud AMI virtual appliance as a replication server. This deployment would enable them to replicate the backup data into the Amazon S3 storage cloud, thus offering more redundancy to the data.

    Sekar Vembu, CEO, Vembu Technologies

    Sekar Vembu, CEO, Vembu Technologies, said that investing, managing and scaling server and storage infrastructure is one of the most complex tasks for any online backup service provider.

    "StoreGrid Cloud AMI for Amazon Web Services eliminates this complexity by virtualizing the computing and storage infrastructure in a cloud," he said.

    Vembu released the Beta version of StoreGrid Cloud AMI in December 2008, and since then more than 50 service providers have been testing it.

    This production release incorporates feedback from these Beta partners, including the enhancement to use Amazon EBS as a temporary cache before uploading backup data to Amazon S3.

    StoreGrid Cloud AMI is available for purchase now and is priced as an annual subscription per StoreGrid backup client, with USD $30 for desktops and USD $60 for servers.

  • Oracle Readies Take-Over As Sun's Loss Grows


    As Oracle prepares its USD $7.4bn acquistion of Sun Microsystem, figures have emerged about the server and software maker’s latest quarter losses.

    Sun announced on Tuesday that it lost USD $201 million in the three months ended March 29. A year ago, Sun lost USD $34 million.

    The surprise deal, announced last week, takes Oracle into a whole new area – hardware, writes Samantha Sai for storage.biz-news.

    In a letter to partners and customers Oracle president, Charles Phillips, wrote: "Our customers have been asking us to step up to a broader role to reduce complexity, risk and cost by delivering a highly-optimized standards-based product stack.

    "Oracle plans to deliver these benefits by offering a broad range of products, including servers and storage, with all the integrated pieces: hardware operating system, database, middleware and applications."

    The general opinion in the market, however, is that IBM was a better fit for Sun than Oracle. IBM was already in the storage business.

    Wedbush Morgan’s analyst, Kaushik Roy, said Oracle is getting into totally new markets in which they have no expertise or history.

    "I am skeptical. Oracle is more likely to hold on to the entire storage business," he said.

    "Sun bought StorageTek and destroyed the company because of poor execution. But Oracle has been much better in execution, and it is very likely that the current storage group within Sun will have a better opportunity to grow."

    Oracle president, Charles Phillips

    The impact on other storage players and their relationship with Oracle will be determined in time.

    EMC–Oracle had a good relationship. Now they will be competitors.

    Kaushik Roy said: "But now with Oracle and Sun selling HDS at the high end, it would compete with EMC.

    "We will wait to see how those relationships pan out."

    As a result of this merger, Oracle is likely to wind up Sun’s storage hardware business in the long term.

    However, for the present the operation may continue.

    Illuminata analyst John Webster said that he is going on the assumption that Oracle runs Sun as Sun for a while before it starts restructuring.

    Also unknown as yet, is the positon of Sun-NetApp and the patent dispute over the ZFS file system.

    Stifel Nicolaus analyst Aaron Rakers said that Sun’s Open storage may also hit a question mark.

    "We have often been intrigued by some of Sun’s storage technologies," he wrote in a research note.

    "However, we have continued to see limited traction from an execution standpoint."

    It is expected that the presence of Oracle in the storage market will enliven the scenario. NetApp, EMC or 3PAR must be feeling the heat.

  • IDC: External Storage Cost Efficiency Assumptions Must Change


    While economies of scale have helped reduce power and cooling costs, other costs related to external storage prove to be more expensive than the storage itself, writes Samantha Sai for storage.biz-news.

    A recent IDC report estimates that the total cost to manage the world’s installed base of external storage is around 60 per cent of all storage related spending.

    This includes software, power, cooling, administration, personnel and services and excludes the cost of acquisition of the storage.

    David Reinsel, group vice president, IDC Storage and Semiconductors research, said that power and cooling costs are not the only costs associated with external storage.

    "In fact, in the grand scheme of things, the cost to power and cool external storage pales in comparison with the cost to acquire and manage storage, including the costs for storage software and storage administrators," he said.

    In the context of the economic meltdown IDC’s study comes as a stark reminder that the costs to power, cool and manage enterprise storage must be scrutinized in detail.

    It is also important to calculate the total cost of managing the world’s installed base of external storage.

    It is a fact that for every dollar spent on storage hardware, managers will spend three dollars for managing the stored information.

    There is an urgent and growing pressure to change assumptions around the adoption of more efficient storage technologies.

    The report asserts that the focus on energy reduction technologies is a must and firms must recognize the full extent of firms’ overheads.

    Storage management must be recognized as the key issue in today’s exploding data environment.

    Hundred terabyte and even petabyte sites are not uncommon and managers must look beyond the traditional methods of storing and securing critical corporate information.

    They should appreciate that deduplication, compression and thin provisioning have low penetration but high costs in terms of power and cooling.

    Advances in storage hardware and software have made solutions, like Hierarchical Storage management, archiving and disk grooming and automation, attractive.

  • 3PAR Launches Fastest Midrange Single-System Storage Array


    The global utility storage provider 3PAR has announced the launch of its InServ F400 Storage Server, writes Samanatha Sai for storage.biz-news.

    The company says it is the fastest single-system midrange storage array based on the results of the audit and peer review SPC-1 submitted to the Storage Performance Council (SPC) – a vendor neutral standards company.

    The storage array also is reported to provide one of the best price-to-performance ratios that have been submitted to the SPC so far.

    Brian Garrett, technical director of Enterprise Strategy Group Lab, said the latest round of SPC-1 Results proves that the Mesh-Active 3PAR architecture delivers industry-leading levels of performance across both high-end and midrange Fibre Channel arrays.

    "The advanced features of the 3PAR InServ F400 eliminate the performance and scalability compromises that typically accompany midrange storage," he said.

    "This is particularly crucial in this economy, where organizations are pressed to do more with less and are looking for low-cost, high-performance alternatives."

    The array uses a quad controller and is the only midrange array with this architecture in the market today.

    The quad controller is Mesh Active and was designed to overcome the technical limitations that were bothersome facts of traditional midrange arrays.

    The features and benefits associated with mid range arrays are all available at a price that is targeted to the midrange storage market.

    The results show that it has achieved a total of 93,050.06 SPC-1 IOPS, an 8.85-millisecond average response time, a total ASU capacity of 27,046.695 gigabytes, at a cost of USD $5.89/SPC-1 IOPS.

    Significantly there is 96 per cent capacity utilization right out of the box. Complex configuration or performance tuning such as "short stroking" is also not required to achieve these results.

    The F400 scales up to four clustered, Mesh-Active controller nodes powered by the 3PAR Gen3 ASIC with Thin BuiltIn.

    Moreover, each volume can be active on any mesh unlike the traditional midrange controller architectures where only one volume can be active on one Mesh.
    This results in the delivery of a robust, load balanced performance with mixed workloads.

    The Gen3 ASIC is also designed to process data and metadata independently in different processors or memory subsystems within the controller.

    This delivers high performance for mixed workloads. It also avoids the limitation that encourages legacy array sprawl and maintains performance integrity without having to deploy separate midrange array for each workload.

    David Scott, 3PAR CEO

    David Scott, 3PAR president and CEO, said the new F-Class delivers an efficient and simple midrange storage system that scales not only in capacity but also in performance and connectivity.

    "InServ F-Class arrays were designed to eliminate the scalability, efficiency, and management sacrifices typical with traditional midrange systems, and this SPC-1 Result proves that we have been able to do this while delivering performance and price-performance leadership," he said.

  • iPhone Beats Blackberry in Customer Satisfaction Survey


    The iPhone has come top of JD Power’s customer satisfaction study measuring consumer tastes.

    The Apple handset ranked highest among smartphone consumers judging five factors: ease of operation, operating system, features, physical design, and battery function.

    The only area where the iPhone didn’t score well was for battery life – an issue only too familiar with the devices’ owners.

    Overall the iPhone received 791 out of a 1,000-point scale, ahead of LG’s 772 points and Samsung’s 759 points. The trio were the only smartphone to rise above the industry average of 751 points.

    Those below the average were mainly companies making Windows Mobile devices, with HTC, Palm and Motorola earning scores of 744, 736 and 659 respectively.

    RIM’s BlackBerries also fared significantly lower than Apple with a 739 score.

    JD Power said that generally smartphone satisfaction has risen since its last survey in November 2008.

    Other findings include the fact that smartphone users send an average of 17 emails a day, and 82 per cent report that they use things like address books and to-do lists to stay organized.

    The survey included 2,648 smartphone users who owned their phone for less than two years.