Saturday, January 28, 2012
Google, Facebook Tempt Scrutiny with New Offerings
Tech giants Google and Facebook are implementing changes aimed at chasing more advertising revenue. Google will track users across its services at computers and mobile devices, while Facebook said it will make Timeline and Open Graph part of the default user interface. Critics worry the changes will open fresh opportunities for cybercrooks.
Google on Tuesday said it will begin tracking people as they use Google search and Gmail, watch YouTube videos and use other Google services -- at their computers and on their mobile devices.
That announcement came hours after Facebook said it will make Timeline and Open Graph part of the default user interface. These new services chronologically assemble and make more easily accessible the preferences, acquaintances and activities of its 800 million members.
The two changes will become effective over the next few weeks, the tech giants said. "It's clear that they're doing this to chase more advertising revenue," says P.J. McNealy, analyst at Digital World Research.
The $32 billion U.S. market for online advertising in 2011, as estimated by eMarketer, is expected to grow at a robust clip. Apple, Microsoft , Twitter, Yahoo, Adobe and a flock of Internet-based companies are part of this gold rush.
Google and Facebook have been sanctioned by U.S. regulators for privacy violations. The moves disclosed on Tuesday are sure to draw scrutiny.
"Google's plan to change its privacy policy raises important questions about how much control Google users will have over their personal information ," said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. Critics worry the tech giants will open fresh opportunities for cybercrooks to prey on users of the sites.
"Both are racing to monetize our private information and in doing so creating collateral damage," says Alisdair Faulkner, chief product officer at security firm ThreatMetrix. "They are essentially indexing more and more private information and, in doing so, serving it up on a platter to cybercriminals."
Previously, any trace of a user's search or surfing activities on a Google product was used to generate ads only on that particular product. After March 1, when the new policy change becomes effective, a Google account holder's search and surfing activities will be tracked and used to generate ads and search results across all of Google's products.
For instance, a search for "2011 Honda Accord" on YouTube may result in a Honda ad flashed on the user's Gmail. "In short, we'll treat you as a single user across all our products," the company said on its blog.
Friday, January 27, 2012
SAP Ready To Tackle Oracle in the Cloud and Database Market
SAP Ready To Tackle Oracle in the Cloud and Database Market
Coming off a great 2011, with a 25 percent jump in software revenue, SAP is ready to set the bar even higher for the year ahead. The German-based enterprise -software maker plans to focus aggressively in the database and cloud computing market for business users, competing head on with Oracle.
On Wednesday, the company held a news conference in Frankfurt to outline a plan building on its success and targeting new opportunities.
ERP for HANA
SAP said it will support an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) module for its HANA in-memory database platform by the end of this year. The new module will include programs for financials, human resources, and operations. It will be offered as part of SAP's Business Suite product family, which is also being developed for HANA.
HANA, which uses memory to store data instead of disks, has been an instrumental part of the company's successful 2011 year. The HANA acronym stands for High-performance ANalytic Appliance, and refers to a system of hardware from third-party vendors that is optimized to work with SAP's advanced HANA technology. SAP reports that HANA's high-performance capabilities enable companies to crunch data faster and more efficiently than ever before.
Going Head to Head
Traditionally, SAP has been the king of ERP, with 24 percent of the market in 2010, followed by Oracle at 18 percent. From this position of strength, SAP said that it will use ERP on HANA as a key driver in its goal to become the leading database company.
But that is, indeed, an ambitious goal. According to industry research firm Gartner , Oracle had 48 percent of the 2010 database market, while SAP had only about 2 percent.
SAP's co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe told news media that in-memory database technology -- like that used in SAP's HANA appliance -- is changing the database market, and will spearhead SAP's effort to eclipse Oracle.
SAP has been a leader in Enterprise Resource Planning since its early years. In contrast, Oracle moved into the world of enterprise apps more recently from its database origins, largely driven by acquisitions of other software providers including Siebel, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards, over the past several years.
SAP's acquisitions of database provider Sybase in 2010 and business-intelligence software vendor Business Objects back in 2007 are helping level the playing field, enabling SAP to become more competitive with Oracle.
SAP has targeted small-to-medium businesses, with several product lines tailored for SMB needs, while Oracle has provided fewer efforts focused at that segment. Otherwise, there are few differentiators in many overlapping product areas between the two in terms of price, system integration or functionality.
The Acquisitions Continue
Last month, SAP announced it was acquiring SuccessFactors, which provides cloud-based human capital management. Industry observers saw the move as an effort by SAP to shore up its position in cloud-based solutions, especially as Oracle moves more aggressively into the cloud.
Other SAP cloud apps include Business ByDesign for ERP, Sales OnDemand for CRM , Carbon Impact OnDemand for sustainability, and Travel OnDemand for expense reporting.
In October, Oracle announced it would acquire RightNow Technologies, a cloud-based customer -service software provider, best known for its CRM (customer relationship management) programs. Oracle is also providing cloud-based solutions for sales force automation, human resources, talent management, and social networking, in addition to databases and Java.
Oracle has said it will make RightNow a complete platform for customer service for B2C and B2B markets, with analytics, CRM, e-commerce, marketing, supply chain, and other functions.
Coming off a great 2011, with a 25 percent jump in software revenue, SAP is ready to set the bar even higher for the year ahead. The German-based enterprise -software maker plans to focus aggressively in the database and cloud computing market for business users, competing head on with Oracle.
On Wednesday, the company held a news conference in Frankfurt to outline a plan building on its success and targeting new opportunities.
ERP for HANA
SAP said it will support an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) module for its HANA in-memory database platform by the end of this year. The new module will include programs for financials, human resources, and operations. It will be offered as part of SAP's Business Suite product family, which is also being developed for HANA.
HANA, which uses memory to store data instead of disks, has been an instrumental part of the company's successful 2011 year. The HANA acronym stands for High-performance ANalytic Appliance, and refers to a system of hardware from third-party vendors that is optimized to work with SAP's advanced HANA technology. SAP reports that HANA's high-performance capabilities enable companies to crunch data faster and more efficiently than ever before.
Going Head to Head
Traditionally, SAP has been the king of ERP, with 24 percent of the market in 2010, followed by Oracle at 18 percent. From this position of strength, SAP said that it will use ERP on HANA as a key driver in its goal to become the leading database company.
But that is, indeed, an ambitious goal. According to industry research firm Gartner , Oracle had 48 percent of the 2010 database market, while SAP had only about 2 percent.
SAP's co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe told news media that in-memory database technology -- like that used in SAP's HANA appliance -- is changing the database market, and will spearhead SAP's effort to eclipse Oracle.
SAP has been a leader in Enterprise Resource Planning since its early years. In contrast, Oracle moved into the world of enterprise apps more recently from its database origins, largely driven by acquisitions of other software providers including Siebel, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards, over the past several years.
SAP's acquisitions of database provider Sybase in 2010 and business-intelligence software vendor Business Objects back in 2007 are helping level the playing field, enabling SAP to become more competitive with Oracle.
SAP has targeted small-to-medium businesses, with several product lines tailored for SMB needs, while Oracle has provided fewer efforts focused at that segment. Otherwise, there are few differentiators in many overlapping product areas between the two in terms of price, system integration or functionality.
The Acquisitions Continue
Last month, SAP announced it was acquiring SuccessFactors, which provides cloud-based human capital management. Industry observers saw the move as an effort by SAP to shore up its position in cloud-based solutions, especially as Oracle moves more aggressively into the cloud.
Other SAP cloud apps include Business ByDesign for ERP, Sales OnDemand for CRM , Carbon Impact OnDemand for sustainability, and Travel OnDemand for expense reporting.
In October, Oracle announced it would acquire RightNow Technologies, a cloud-based customer -service software provider, best known for its CRM (customer relationship management) programs. Oracle is also providing cloud-based solutions for sales force automation, human resources, talent management, and social networking, in addition to databases and Java.
Oracle has said it will make RightNow a complete platform for customer service for B2C and B2B markets, with analytics, CRM, e-commerce, marketing, supply chain, and other functions.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Unusual Google Ad Blitz Tackles Online Privacy
Google is focusing on the importance of protecting personal information in an unusual marketing campaign for a company that has been blasted for its own online privacy lapses and practices.
The educational ads will start appearing Tuesday in dozens of U.S. newspapers, including The New York Times, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal, and magazines, including Time and the New Yorker. Google Inc. also will splash its message across billboards within the subways of New York and Washington, as well as various Web sites.
Google will address some of the basics of online privacy and security in the "Good To Know" ads, which will all include referrals to a Web site for additional information.
Initial topics to be covered include the steps that can be taken to protect online account passwords and the use of computer coding to locate and identify Web surfers. Google will also try to explain why its widely used search engine can produce more helpful results if it knows more about the past interests of the person making the request.
While Google views the campaign as a public service, it may come across as disingenuous to critics who say the Internet search leader compiles too much personal information about its users and then isn't careful enough about protecting the sensitive data .
In a major gaffe, Google exposed the personal contacts of its email users in 2010 when it launched a new social service called Buzz. That breakdown led to a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission requiring the company to submit to external audits of its privacy policies every other year.
wireless networks set up in homes and small businesses.
"This campaign should be nominated for some kind of award for fiction," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. "If grades were given out for privacy protection, Google would get a D plus."
Google's ads are coming out at a time when lawmakers and regulators in the U.S. and Europe have been examining whether to mandate changes on how much information that Web sites can gather about visitors without giving them more controls to prevent the surveillance.
Gathering digital dossiers of personal data helps target Internet ads at people more likely to buy the products and services being peddled. Google has an incentive to ensure online ads remain as effective as possible because those commercial messages generate most of its revenue, which totaled $27 billion through the first nine months of last year. The company's full-year figures are due out Thursday.
The ad campaign is "really just a PR offensive to help dim the increased scrutiny of Google's privacy practices," Chester said.
Not so, says Alma Whitten, who was named Google's director of privacy for product and engineering after the company acknowledged its 2010 missteps.
"We all have family and friends that ask us for advice on privacy and security all the time," Whitten said. Those recurring questions, she said, made Google realize it should do something to give everyone a better grasp on the fundamentals of online privacy.
The total bill for the multi-week bli
The educational ads will start appearing Tuesday in dozens of U.S. newspapers, including The New York Times, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal, and magazines, including Time and the New Yorker. Google Inc. also will splash its message across billboards within the subways of New York and Washington, as well as various Web sites.
Google will address some of the basics of online privacy and security in the "Good To Know" ads, which will all include referrals to a Web site for additional information.
Initial topics to be covered include the steps that can be taken to protect online account passwords and the use of computer coding to locate and identify Web surfers. Google will also try to explain why its widely used search engine can produce more helpful results if it knows more about the past interests of the person making the request.
While Google views the campaign as a public service, it may come across as disingenuous to critics who say the Internet search leader compiles too much personal information about its users and then isn't careful enough about protecting the sensitive data .
In a major gaffe, Google exposed the personal contacts of its email users in 2010 when it launched a new social service called Buzz. That breakdown led to a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission requiring the company to submit to external audits of its privacy policies every other year.
wireless networks set up in homes and small businesses.
"This campaign should be nominated for some kind of award for fiction," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. "If grades were given out for privacy protection, Google would get a D plus."
Google's ads are coming out at a time when lawmakers and regulators in the U.S. and Europe have been examining whether to mandate changes on how much information that Web sites can gather about visitors without giving them more controls to prevent the surveillance.
Gathering digital dossiers of personal data helps target Internet ads at people more likely to buy the products and services being peddled. Google has an incentive to ensure online ads remain as effective as possible because those commercial messages generate most of its revenue, which totaled $27 billion through the first nine months of last year. The company's full-year figures are due out Thursday.
The ad campaign is "really just a PR offensive to help dim the increased scrutiny of Google's privacy practices," Chester said.
Not so, says Alma Whitten, who was named Google's director of privacy for product and engineering after the company acknowledged its 2010 missteps.
"We all have family and friends that ask us for advice on privacy and security all the time," Whitten said. Those recurring questions, she said, made Google realize it should do something to give everyone a better grasp on the fundamentals of online privacy.
The total bill for the multi-week bli
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