Abit To Close Its Doors Forever On Dec. 31, 2008
Abit To Close Its Doors Forever On Dec. 31, 2008
ki1obyte writes “Earlier this year the Taiwanese firm Abit, once a leading-edge maker of computer mainboards and other components, was slated to shut down motherboard production by the end of 2008 and focus on consumer electronics devices. Now X-bit labs reports that Abit will cease to exist entirely after midnight on the last day of 2008 because the owner of the brand, Universal Scientific Industrial, is in the process of restructuring and cutting their costs.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Microsoft has long been worried about Linux competition in the server market. When it came to ordinary PCs and laptops, however, it knew it had little to fear.
But that was then. Now Microsoft may fear Linux on the desktop as much as it does the Mac. It's finally taking Linux seriously as a desktop operating system, and it has designed Windows 7 to kill it.
[ Randall C. Kennedy reveals performance specs for InfoWorld's Test Center in "Windows 7 unmasked." | Discover the top-rated IT products as rated by the InfoWorld Test Center. ]
Let me explain.
The threat to Windows comes entirely from "netbooks" — lightweight, inexpensive laptops that typically use Intel's low-powered Atom processor and don't come with substantial amounts of RAM or powerful graphics processors. They're designed mainly for browsing the Web, handling e-mail, writing memos, and taking care of simple word-processing or spreadsheet chores.
Netbooks will account for about a third of all PC growth this year, according to Citigroup. Shipments will rise at an annual average rate of 60 percent to reach 29 million netbooks in 2010, compared with 18 percent growth for standard notebooks, says a September BNP Paribas report.
Clearly, the future is in netbooks. And that has Microsoft worried. Netbooks can't handle Vista's hardware demands, so XP is the only Microsoft operating system that runs on them. But Linux is ideally suited for lower-powered netbooks.
The result? Acer and Asustek, which account for 90 percent of the netbook market, are using Linux on about 30 percent of their low-cost notebooks, according to Bloomberg. Making matters worse, if Linux is used on those netbooks, it means that Microsoft Office isn't. So Microsoft takes a double hit every time someone buys a Linux netbook.
Microsoft isn't just worried about ceding 30 percent of the netbook market to Linux. It's also worried that if people get used to running Linux on netbooks, they'll consider buying Linux on desktop PCs as well. Here's what Dickie Chang, an analyst at IDC in Taipei, told Bloomberg: "It's a real threat to Microsoft. It gives users a chance to see and try something new, showing them there is an alternative."
Microsoft, though, has a not-so-secret weapon against Linux: Windows 7. Its new operating system, slated to be introduced sometime next year, is designed to work fine on netbooks. In fact, at Microsoft's recent Professional Developers Conference, where the pre-beta of Windows 7 was unveiled, Windows senior vice president Steve Sinofsky showed off Windows 7 on his Lenovo S10 and said it used less than half of the netbook's 1GB of RAM.
When Windows 7 ships, expect a massive marketing blitz pushing it on netbooks with special deals, and netbook hardware taking advantage of Windows 7 capabilities, including touch screens.
In fact, the blitz has already begun. Asus CEO Jerry Shen announced that he plans to release versions of the Eee PC powered by Windows 7 in mid-2009, including a touch-screen version.
This is anything but a level playing field. Because no company owns Linux, there won't be a competing marketing push for Linux netbooks. Microsoft has shown before how tough it can be on competitors — remember Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, and Harvard Graphics? So expect Linux netbook sales to fall when Windows 7 ships.
Despite Microsoft's killer instincts, I don't think Linux netbook sales will stop dead. There will always be a niche for them. But within a year of the Windows 7 launch, Linux market share will drop. The high point for Linux netbook sales will be from now until the launch of Windows 7. After that will come the inevitable decline.
Preston Gralla is a contributing editor for Computerworld.com and the author of more than 35 books, including "How the Internet Works" (Que, 2006). Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiiliate.
What can you afford NOT to do on IT security?
With the ailing economy putting a crimp in IT budgets, information security managers — like just about everyone else in the tech world — are feeling pressure to keep their costs in line.
Few expect to be hit with outright budget reductions, at least in the short term; regulatory requirements and the ever-expanding list of external and internal threats make it hard to devote less money to security efforts. But there is a growing push to curb or defer spending increases, according to IT managers and security analysts.
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"It's imperative to squeeze every penny of value out of everything you do," said Jim Kirby, senior network engineer at DataWare Services, an IT services firm in Sioux Falls, S.D. This is a good time to stop working on "marginal" projects and redirect resources to security capabilities that are absolutely necessary, Kirby said.
Matt Kesner, chief technology officer at Fenwick & West LLP in San Francisco, said the law firm's security strategy for next year is to "focus on basics." Its 2009 IT budget doesn't call for reduced spending on security — but neither does it include a funding increase.
And Fenwick & West is taking some steps to cut costs. The firm is deferring an earlier plan to hire a full-time networking and security expert because of the recession, Kesner said. It is also looking for opportunities to use open source alternatives to some of its security tools.
One of the few new IT projects approved for next year is a replacement of the anti-virus software installed on all of the law firm's PCs — an upgrade that Kesner said is being driven by the increased threats to corporate data from malware and phishing attacks. Fenwick & West also plans to train end-users more intensively on how to secure their PCs and mobile devices, and on the importance of creating strong passwords.
Even in an economy gone sour, a growing number of government and industry regulations impose security compliance costs that there is simply no getting away from. For instance, new data-protection laws in states such as Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Nevada require companies to use data encryption tools and implement other security controls to safeguard the personal information of state residents.
Similarly, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, created by the major credit card companies, requires all businesses that accept credit and debit transactions to adopt a broad set of data protection controls. And the federal HIPAA law includes data security and privacy rules for health care providers in order to protect patient information.
Meanwhile, cybercrooks are targeting companies with increasingly sophisticated — and successful — attacks. For example, Symantec Corp. said in a report last month that at least $1.7 billion worth of bank accounts were compromised in the United States during the 12-month period that started in July 2007.
In light of all that, not making cutbacks in anti-virus subscriptions and purchases of frontline security tools such as firewalls and network intrusion-detection systems is a no-brainer, security managers said.
Kirby said investments in outbound-traffic inspection tools and controls for locking down portable media devices also are worthwhile because of the heightened risk of insider attacks at a time of increased layoffs. In addition, he thinks that cutting back on disaster recovery and business continuity projects wouldn't be wise.
Whittling away at risk management and compliance oversight functions is another bad idea, said the chief privacy officer (CPO) at a large financial services firm. That could leave companies facing potentially serious consequences for not complying with security requirements, he said.
What to cut
But there are other areas in which IT and security managers may be able ease up on spending. Kirby said that although intrusion-detection systems are a must-have item, many companies can live without intrusion-prevention tools, which are more sophisticated but also more expensive and harder to manage. He added that biometric security projects can often be postponed.
Paring back on third-party security education and training programs can also yield some extra dollars that can be used for other purposes, said the CPO, who asked not to be identified. "Companies have a lot of vendor-hosted or vendor-provided education programs — kind of, 'Here's how you do data security if you're covered by HIPAA or by PCI,' " he said. According to the CPO, the cost of individual programs can sometimes top $200,000 annually, depending on the number of employees being trained.
Marcin Czabanski, director of IT at LifeSecure Insurance Co. in Brighton, Mich., said companies should also look for ways to move applications — and their security functions — into the computing clouds offered by vendors such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.com.
By doing so, Czabanski said, "you can outsource a lot of the headache" of managing and securing desktop applications — and do so for less money than keeping the work in-house.
E-mail is another application that can move to the cloud. The Henssler Financial Group in Kennesaw, Ga., is a user of Google's Postini e-mail security and archiving services. Tim O'Pry, Henssler's chief technology officer, said the arrangement has enabled the financial services firm to offload to Google the hassle and expense of securing its e-mail system.
In addition, using the hosted services has "dramatically" reduced Henssler's e-mail archiving costs while making it easier for employees to search for and retrieve old messages, O'Pry said.
Moving e-mail to a cloud infrastructure such as Google's can also help organizations lower the costs of complying with e-discovery rules in legal cases, said David Jordan, chief information security officer for Virginia's Arlington County.
For instance, Google earlier this year launched a Postini service called Message Discovery that is designed to help businesses comply with e-mail retention regulations and speed up the process of retrieving messages in response to lawsuits or other legal matters. Such setups can also help customers trim their e-mail hardware, software, management, and security costs, Jordan said.
Another possible cost-saving option, he noted, is deploying virtualization and thin-client technologies that let employees access a set of centralized applications. Jordan said he thinks that thin-client architectures are inherently more secure — and thus less costly to manage and control — than traditional client/server computing models.
Any cutbacks should be carefully weighed, though.
Phil Hochmuth, an analyst at Yankee Group Research Inc., said it's understandable that companies might want to rein in their security spending (see related story, at left). But on a longer-term basis, "it would probably be a mistake if they backed off strategic initiatives" just to cut costs now, Hochmuth said.
O'Pry agreed. "Trying to scrimp and save on security in this economy would be a penny-wise, pound-foolish thing to do," he said. O'Pry noted that as a financial services firm, Henssler is "affected more than anyone else" by the downturn. Even so, there's little talk within the company about cutting security spending. "Your most valuable nontangible asset is your reputation," O'Pry said. "You can't risk taking any hits to that."
Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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