Microsoft gears up for OCS launch (InfoWorld)

At its San Francisco launch event for OCS on Oct. 16, the software behemoth will also announce availability of new devices that can be used with the unified communications software, said Kim Akers, general manager of unified communications at Microsoft, in an interview Wednesday. At the same time, Microsoft will line up device, infrastructure, and software partners who are part of the "ecosystem" the company will promote as part of its edge in combined voice, e-mail, text, and video. The Office Communicator 2007 client and Office Live Meeting will also debut at the event, which will feature Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates. OCS will bring Microsoft into a fast-growing market for platforms that put all forms of enterprise communication in one place and will put it in competition with dominant networker Cisco as well as a host of telecommunications switch vendors. Unified communications is intended to let people make calls from within software applications on a PC and easily start up collaborative sessions, including videoconferences, from many locations. Microsoft sees a $45 billion total market for the technologies this year. One tool to help users get the most out of Microsoft's unified communications technology is the RoundTable, a small tabletop device with a panoramic camera and a directional microphone that can find the current speaker in a meeting. Microsoft previewed it earlier this year. The RoundTable represents Microsoft's approach to videoconferencing, which has been a major focus for Cisco since the launch of its Telepresence high-definition meeting systems late last year. Both companies think videoconferencing has a big future, Akers said. But while Cisco goes after the top 20 percent of the market with its 65-inch plasma displays and specialized furniture, Microsoft is targeting the other 80 percent with a less expensive system, she said. "There are a lot of activities that happen inside of an organization that don't require something as rich as Telepresence," she said. Although Telepresence still is being used primarily for high-level executive meetings, Cisco has started to see a second wave of sales to organizations that are rolling out systems for other employees, Cisco executives said on a webcast on Wednesday. Also coming from Microsoft on Oct. 16 is a portable conference phone, also previewed earlier this year, and devices coming from hardware partners, Akers said. Vendors of PBXes (private branch exchanges) will also be on hand to talk about interoperability with OCS, along with independent software vendors, she said. Working with PBXes will be critical to Microsoft's plans. OCS adds VoIP to the messaging features Microsoft already brought together in Live Communications Server. But the company doesn't expect organizations to immediately rip out traditional phone switches to start relying on Microsoft for all their phone calls. Most organizations upgrade their messaging and voice systems separately, and this is key to Microsoft's customer migration strategy. Enterprises can start using OCS for functions such as presence, instant messaging, and collaboration while keeping their current phone systems for voice calls, Akers said. Along the way, OCS can be integrated with the PBX so that, in some cases, employees may get calls ringing on both their PC softphones and their desktop phones. Eventually, most enterprises plan to migrate to VoIP, but they will be able to make that decision separately from the OCS purchase, as part of their telephony upgrade path, she said. OCS became available in a public beta test in March. So far the beta software has been downloaded 80,000 times and Microsoft has delivered 170,000 packages of it on discs, Akers said. Akers acknowledged Microsoft will continue to compete with Cisco and other telephony vendors despite pledges earlier this year by Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to cooperate. But engineers from the companies are working together to ensure interoperability, she said.

New Dinosaur Was A Pumped-Up Vegetarian

UC Berkeley expands online content (AP)

“To a teacher who has a passion for teaching, this is enormously exciting,” said physics professor Richard A. Muller, whose “Physics for Future Presidents,” is among courses available online. “My students are everywhere and I don’t have to give them exams.” Berkeley and other universities have been broadcasting a variety of courses on the Web for some time, including an arrangement Berkeley started in 2006 with YouTube’s parent company Google Inc. The agreement with YouTube was formally announced Wednesday. Watching the videos is free and for the joy of information only. You won’t get course credit. “It’s not meant as a substitute for going to class. You can’t interact; you can’t be part of that dialogue,” said Ben Hubbard, co-manager of webcast.berkeley, a local site delivering course and event content as podcasts and streaming video. But Muller gets e-mail from all over the world — “Even Timbuktu!” — and Hubbard said course videos previously distributed online through Google scored more than a million hits and about 700,000 downloads. UC Berkeley launched an audio podcast program with more than 25 courses in 2006. In 2007, the campus is to deliver audio or video for 86 full courses and more than 100 other events — 3,500 hours of content. More than 300 hours of videotaped courses and events already are available at . Berkeley’s offerings join an eclectic mix of content on YouTube, including the breakout rant from the young man known as “Leave Britney Alone Guy” for his tearful defense of singer Britney Spears’s performance on the MTV Video Music Awards. Muller, known for presenting physics with innovation and relative simplicity, has found his audience is as diverse as it is far-flung. “I get e-mails from high school students, I get e-mail from college students, people who graduated and never learned this stuff. People listen to this because they enjoy learning,” said Muller, who is at work on a book under the same title as his course that he plans to have ready before Election Day. ___ On the Net:

Software AG upgrades registry and repository for SOA (InfoWorld)

The Software AG CentraSite Governance Edition 7.1 is a rebranding and updating of the former Infravio X-Registry product. , which in turn was earlier this year. The product was unveiled this week Available now, CentraSite Governance Edition manages services, policies, and business rules for SOA, Software AG said. Users can define a governance model and extend governance across an enterprise. Software AG defines governance as encompassing such factors as management of permissions, determining usage, and registration of services and policies. "We have a new product, CentraSite Governance Edition, which is three things," said John Conley, Software AG spokesman. "First, it is a rebranded version of the webMethods registry. The second, it is a number of developments and improvements that have been in the process of being developed, and third, some new elements [have been added] to maintain or take advantage of interoperability with existing Software AG products." CentraSite supports the storage of IT assets, such as a service, a document definition, or a process definition, said Susan Ganeshan, senior vice president of product management and product marketing at Software AG. New features include automated governance process and policy enforcement directly in the platform. A more extensible metadata repository also is featured, along with a more intuitive user interface. Prepackaged best practices are featured, as are wizard-driven templates for lifecycle management of SOA assets. Software AG, said analyst Ronald Schmelzer of ZapThink, approaches governance from two perspectives: From the design time perspective, where the main idea is managing services creation, and extending the runtime to manage policy and metadata for running services. "So the big story is that Software AG sees SOA governance as being much bigger and broader than simply Web services governance and their products support a wide range of service implementation types," Schmelzer said. CentraSite Governance Edition starts at $100,000. While a found that the cost of registries and repositories has impeded adoption of SOA, Software AG officials noted the company does offer a community edition of its registry, which is free but lacks the full functionality of the enterprise-level product. "It's a competitive market," in this space, Conley said. Use of a registry and repository can make developers more productive by ensuring applications are more reliable, he said.

For the second time, EU regulators approve Sony BMG merger

eBay: Phishers Getting Better Organized, Using Linux (PC World)

eBay recently did an in-depth analysis of its threat situation, and while the company is not releasing the results of this analysis, it did uncover a huge number of hacked, botnet computers, said Dave Cullinane, eBay's chief information and security officer, speaking at a Microsoft-sponsored security symposium at Santa Clara University. Cullinane, who one year ago downplayed the role of organized crime in phishing ("It's not the Sopranos," he said), believes that online attackers are indeed becoming more sophisticated, with malware developers now being funded to develop new and improved attacks. In the past year, Cullinane has seen better organization by eBay fraudsters. Criminals are being paid to develop better types of attacks, and the attacks are getting harder to detect, he added. "The phishing e-mails I see are extremely sophisticated," he said. Apparently, this growing professionalization has even cut down on mangled grammar. "The language they're using is very good." Cullinane said. Last week eBay said data on 1,200 eBay members had probably been stolen via an phishing scam. The members' data was posted to the company's Trust & Safety discussion forum. Cullinane's experience with phishing goes back to his previous employer, Washington Mutual Inc., which has been one of the top phishing targets in the U.S. While there, he noticed an unusual trend when taking down phishing sites. "The vast majority of the threats we saw were rootkitted Linux boxes, which was rather startling. We expected Microsoft boxes," he said. Rootkit software covers the tracks of the attackers and can be extremely difficult to detect. According to Cullinane, none of the Linux operators whose machines had been compromised were even aware they'd been infected. Although Linux has long been considered more secure than Windows, many of the programs that run on top of Linux have known security vulnerabilities, and if an attacker were to exploit an unpatched bug on a misconfigured system, he could seize control of the machine. Because Linux is highly reliable and a great platform for running server software, Linux machines are desired by phishers, who set up fake Web sites, hoping to lure victims into disclosing their passwords. "We see a lot of Linux machines used in phishing," said Alfred Huger, vice president for Symantec Security Response. "We see them as part of the command and control networks for botnets, but we rarely see them be the actual bots. Botnets are almost uniformly Windows-based." Since Linux machines can be used to more easily create specially crafted networking packets, they can be used in highly sophisticated online attacks, said Iftach Amit, director of security research with Finjan Inc.'s malicious code research center. Capabilities like this make Linux machines highly coveted by online attackers, and they fetch a premium in the underground marketplace for compromised machines, Amit said.

Griping, with an audience: Malcontents criticize companies online

Microsoft upgrades Zune players to challenge Apple iPods (AFP)

Zune models featuring touch-sensitive navigation buttons instead of track wheels, wireless synching to home computers and more ability to transmit music wirelessly between Zunes, will be in stores next month, Microsoft said. "Twenty years ago we bet the company on an integrated productivity suite of word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, and we changed the way people work," Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said while unveiling new Zunes on Tuesday. "Today, we're making big bets on games, music, and video and connecting these entertainment experiences to help change the way people play." Microsoft has three new Zune models. A black Zune with 80 gigabytes of hard drive memory and a 3.2 inch screen is priced 250 dollars (US). Colorful "ultra-portable" Zunes with flash memory are priced 150 dollars for a four gigabyte model and 200 dollars for eight gigabyte versions. The devices are the first additions to the line since the original 30-gigabyte Zune debuted in November of last year with a price of 199 dollars. "It's a nice evolutionary development to the product line," said Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg. "The real challenge is winning the hearts and minds of consumers. The iPod has gone from being a music player to being a cultural icon. This is going to involve the cool factor and Microsoft isn't known for being a cool company."

O2 UK digs deep for iPhone advertising splash (Reuters)

O2 UK, which is owned by telecoms group Telefonica (TEF.MC), declined to divulge the size of its marketing budget for the television and poster campaign, which kicks off two weeks before iPhones go on sale in Britain on November 9. O2 UK Chief Executive Matthew Key told a journalists on Tuesday it would be the company's "most significant campaign" in the run-up to the key Christmas trading period — but that it would cost well short of 20 million pounds ($40.8 million). In remarks embargoed for Tuesday Key said he believed 80 percent of O2 UK's high-value customers wanted an iPhone, while 40 percent of the higher-spending customers on rival networks would be prepared to switch operators to get the handset. Apple, which broke into the mobile phone market when it unveiled its iPhone in January, has flouted European telecoms conventions by not allowing its handsets to be subsidized and by demanding a share of voice as well as data revenues. The terms of the deal between the two companies have not been published for commercial reasons. But analysts speculate O2 was prepared to give away 20 to 30 percent of voice and data revenues in return for clinching an exclusive, "multi-year" contract to sell iPhones, which combine Apple's popular iPod music player, a video player and Web browser in a slick, touch-screen device. However, Key also noted "it would make sense" for Apple to also give a revenue share to O2 UK in return for using its network. He said the phones, which will be sold for 269 pounds ($548.8) including tax to customers willing to sign up for an 18-month contract with O2, would "absolutely" secure a profitable deal for O2 UK. O2 UK, which has declined to divulge customer targets, is banking on iPhones helping to fuel customer demand for non-text mobile data services such as music and video, which currently account for only 5 percent of annual group revenues.

Hotlines: $150 Mil. Monster.com Consolidates Account at MEC (AdWeek.com)

The WPP agency, which worked for the client in some overseas markets, now adds domestic online and offline chores from IPG's Deutsch, per sources. Maynard, Mass.-based Monster's estimated annual global ad spend exceeds $150 million. Sources said the media account shifted to MEC without a review, based on work the agency had done for Monster in Europe. Monster tapped Omnicom's BBDO for creative earlier this month. Agency and client officials either could not be reached or declined comment.
Sprint Nextel Snoops Around For New Boost Mobile Partner LOS ANGELES Sprint Nextel-owned Boost Mobile is reviewing its $35 million creative, according to sources. An RFP issued in mid-September was due back last week. The client could not be immediately reached. Bill Grogan, president of the incumbent, WPP Group's Berlin Cameron United in New York, said he was aware that agencies were being contacted but believed it was for a project only. Berlin Cameron has held the account since 2003.

• To subscribe to Adweek, .