Apple said that it retains user mobile data from its Siri personal assistant for up to two years.

According to a report from Wired and the ACLU, the company said that it maintains information in an anonymised capacity and uses the data for development of the platform.

The report cited Apple spokespersons in explaining that while it retains the information, the company does not log user names or mobile numbers, opting instead to associate collected data with a random numerical token.

The company said that the information is kept on file in Apple datacentres for six months and is then disassociated with the identification number. The information is then housed for another 18 months for developer reference.

The storage and retention of user data has become a contentious issue, both in the public and private sectors. Social networking sites and web application providers in particular have found themselves facing criticism for the retention of user data.

The issue came to a head in 2010 when Google was found to be collecting data from public wi-fi networks with its Street View imaging vehicles. Earlier this week the company was slapped with a fine from German authorities over the practice.

Last year, the UK government triggered debate when it unveiled a controversial new set of data retention laws. Critics argued that the laws will allow government agencies to further pry into the personal lives of citizens.

Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison once called cloud computing a fad. Well, that fad is now making Oracle money.

According to an IDC study, Oracle software revenues grew over three percent on the back of big data and cloud software. According to the study, Oracle owned a 21 percent share of the application development and deployment (AD&D) software market.

Ellison unveiled Oracle’s first IaaS offering last October at OpenWorld. Now, the firm is seeing growth in the software market. Oracle’s slow march to cloud software looks to be paying off this year.

However, Oracle still has a while to go before it can truly compete in the evolving world of enterprise software. The firm still lags behind IBM and Microsoft in overall enterprise sales.

Microsoft has been the top dog in the enterprise software world for a long time. Its grasp on the market doesn’t seem to be slowing anytime soon either with a 17 percent share of the sector.

However, Oracle can still look to get into the number two spot by leaping over IBM. Big Blue didn’t see much growth in enterprise software revenues for 2012. The firm only registered a little under a one percent growth mark year-over-year.

That in comparison to Oracle growth could mean big things for the firms future. If Oracle continues its trend towards growth, and IBM continues to stay consistent, it can take the number two spot.

To do that Oracle would need to continue to bring out cloud software offerings going forward. The world of enterprise is increasingly becoming cloud-centric. IDC reported that the cloud would be a major growth sector moving towards 2015 and that has proven to be coming true.

For Oracle to capitalise on that growth it would need to continue its push towards the ether. Oracle’s executives have been hesitant to embrace the cloud on the level of some of its competitors, but its getting their.

It will be interesting to see if Oracle will attempt to bring out ground-breaking cloud software offerings in the future or if it will stand content to just play catch up with its competitors.

The firm’s Q3 earnings were less than impressive. Commentators mentioned that a probably cause of the poor earnings was the firm’s failure to offer compelling cloud services.

The products the firm released over the second half of last year were a good start. However, to truly capitalise on the cloud market it will need to do more by stop playing catch up and start being an innovator.

23 Apr 2013

CA Technologies has acquired application programming interface (API) management and security provider Layer 7 Technologies, giving CA an inroad into an area of technology boosted by the growth of mobile and cloud.

APIs are designed to let applications talk to each other, so that an e-commerce site can process an online transaction calling on a user’s bank details or a smart meter can connect to a utility system and back to an energy monitoring company. Canadian firm Layer 7, founded in 2002, offers technology that manages these API integrations, to check they are working properly and securely.

According to CA, the acquisition will let customers deploy cloud, mobile and Internet of Things initiatives, accelerate service delivery and govern API activity to enforce SLAs. CA plans to combine the Layer 7 technology with its own identity management and Lisa application delivery suite.

Layer 7 pointed out that there were more than 8,000 public APIs available at the end of 2012, meaning “there is a vast library of proprietary components and data that need to be managed and secured from unauthorised access”.

Jacob Lamm, executive vice president of Strategy and Corporate Development at CA, said the firm is “really really excited” about the Layer 7 deal, which has only just been signed so still has to officially go through. He explained that the technology is a critical part of rounding out CA’s authorisation and authentication services.

“Think of the front door as the identity management, you knock on the door, we need to tell if you are who you say you are,” he told V3.

“The back door are the applications, the APIs. Now especially with the cloud, with mobility, any application can be connected to hundreds of other services. How do I know they are who they say they are. We need to manage the connections between all those applications. API governance and security, that’s what Layer 7 adds to our security perimeter.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The Layer 7 acquisition follows hot on the heels of Intel’s purchase of Mashery last week.

Mashery also offers developers a way to manage application programming interfaces (APIs). Intel said that the team will report to its Services Division, founded in 2011 in a bid to have a potential revenue stream from devices that don’t use its chips.

Yahoo has announced the end of several products in an effort to narrow its business focus and reduce losses.

The company said that it would be shutting down six services, including old versions of its Mail service.

“Like we announced last month, we want to bring you experiences that inspire and entertain you every day,” wrote Google executive vice president of platforms Jay Rossiter.

“That means taking a hard look at all of our products to make sure they are still central to your daily habits.”

Among the services set to be dropped are the Yahoo Mail Classic service and the Mail and Messenger platform for feature phones. The company will also be dropping the Yahoo SMS Alerts, Deals and Upcoming services. Also set for the chopping block is the Yahoo for Kids family service.

The cuts come as yahoo attempts to right itself under new chief executive Marissa Mayer. The company has started to see signs of progress as profits have risen under the new boss.

Yahoo had in previous years been notorious for its older and unprofitable services. A former vice president once likened the firm’s web holdings to thinly-spread peanut butter on a slice of bread.

Yahoo is not the only company to cut its old services. Google routinely axes its failed web properties in seasonal ‘cleaning’ audits.

Microsoft moved to shift focus from its Windows PC division to its mobile and cloud operations in what the company and analyst termed a transitional quarter for the Redmond giant.

Microsoft reported that revenues over the first quarter were $20bn up 18 percent on the quarter. The company’s business division posted an 8 percent gain on the quarter while the server and tools branch saw revenues climb by 11 percent.

Riding on the upgrade cycle of Windows 8, the Windows division grew revenues of 23 percent, while the online services division grew by 18 percent.

In outlining the quarter, Microsoft executives noted that the company was continuing to shift its focus toward the cloud services division, a key market for Redmond as it tries to avoid being pulled down by dwindling PC hardware sales.

Speaking to analysts on the report, Microsoft chief financial officer Peter Klein said that the company is working to increase its reach into the tablet market, including expanding the reach of Windows 8 into the small-screen tablet space.

“The biggest thing we are doing is helping them develop new and improved user experiences across the price points,” Klein said.

Rob Helm, managing vice president of research for Directions on Microsoft, said that the company would likely be looking to smaller form factors with both its branded hardware lines and OEM partners as it moves to take a cut out of the fastest-growing portions of the tablet space.

“Microsoft, like Apple, was late recognise how important smaller tablets were going to be market,” Helm told V3.

“I think it is going to turn rapidly around on that, by Christmas or back-to-school we will see devices more like the Nexus 7 or Kindle that are more portable and cheaper.”

Helm noted that Microsoft’s increased efforts to ink its business customers to Windows enterprise agreement contracts will allow the company to collect Windows licencing fees up front and get past a changing upgrade cycle as customers hang on to older systems.

That shift, along with the movement into cloud computing services, looks to be Microsoft’s strategy for overcoming the drop in PC sales.

Canonical and VMware have announced a collaboration that enables Canonical’s Ubuntu-based implementation of the OpenStack cloud computing framework to integrate with VMware-based infrastructure.

Announced at the OpenStack Summit in Portland, Oregon, the collaboration involves Canonical shipping its Ubuntu/OpenStack build with the plug-ins required to make it operate with VMware’s vSphere and Nicira network virtualisation platform.

The plug-ins, developed by VMware as part of a commitment to deliver vSphere support in OpenStack, provides improved support for an OpenStack Compute node to run atop VMware’s hypervisor.

This move enables those interested in building an OpenStack cloud to preserve any investments they may have already made in vSphere infrastructure, VMware said.

“By fulfilling our promise to deliver VMware vSphere support in OpenStack, and teaming with Canonical to serve our collective customers, we’re delivering customer choice by providing a powerful platform for those interested in OpenStack clouds,” said VMware vice president for Product Management, Joshua Goodman.

Canonical and VMware said they will work together on software testing, deployment automation, technical support and reference designs for interested customers.

VMware’s plug-ins were delivered as part of the latest OpenStack release, codenamed Grizzly, unveiled earlier this month. This extended VMware’s existing code contributions to the OpenStack Networking project, based on its Nicira NVP technology.

Google has announced two major updates to its Chrome for Business suite of tools including a cloud-based management system for IT teams.

The cloud platform is designed to let firms running Google’s suite of business apps put access control policies in place, with over 100 different settings available, so staff can access their accounts from either work or personal devices.

Senior product manager for Chrome for Business, Cyrus Mistry said in a blog post the updates would help meet the needs of the increasing numbers of firms with mobile workforces.

“Now, whether employees are working from the company’s desktop or their personal laptop, they will be able to access default applications, custom themes, or a curated app web store when they sign-in to Chrome with their work account,” he said.

“With cloud-based management, IT administrators can customise more than 100 Chrome policies and preferences for their employees from the Google Admin panel.”

The second update, Legacy Browser Support, targets firms running older apps that do not run in Chrome. 

This means if an employee tries to access a legacy app still in use, it can be automatically opened in a browser that will run the app, as defined by IT.

With Legacy Browser Support, employees on Chrome are automatically switched to a legacy browser when they begin using an older app,” said Mistry.

“IT managers simply define which sites should launch from Chrome into an alternate browser, and then set this Chrome policy for all employees.”

Google recently improved the search and sharing features for its Chrome browser running on Apple’s iOS smartphone and tablet platform. Chrome’s update includes features that allow users to share web pages via email, messages and Facebook.

Microsoft is aiming to build its Windows Azure platform into the public cloud service of choice for enterprise customers with the official introduction of its infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) capabilities, enabling firms to seamlessly extend their corporate network into Microsoft’s cloud.

First announced last year, Windows Azure Infrastructure-as-a-Service enables customers to operate virtual infrastructure on Azure, moving workloads between Microsoft’s cloud and their own datacentre as necessary.

However, a key point for enterprises is that Microsoft enables customers to link the virtual infrastructure with their on-premise network, enabling virtual servers and their workloads to appear as if they were part of a customer’s corporate domain and be controlled using the same management tools.

This move brings Microsoft’s Azure into direct competition with Amazon Web Services (AWS), currently the largest provider of public cloud services globally.

As if to drive this point home, Microsoft announced it intends to match AWS on price for services like compute, storage and bandwidth. Amazon aggressively cut its cloud subscription prices earlier this month, following on from similar cuts last year.

A vital feature of today’s update is the Windows Azure Management Portal, a browser-based console that an administrator is expected to use as the primary point of control for creating an organisation’s virtual infrastructure.

David Aiken, Azure technical product manager at Microsoft, demonstrated how the portal can be used by a customer to create a virtual network on Azure, then populate this with virtual servers and link it all via a virtual private network (VPN) to a customer’s own premises.

“This is no different to doing things on premise. Can I install and run third party software Can I manage it with System Center The answer is yes – Windows Azure makes it easy to create virtual machines and provision resources, but once you’ve got them, it’s just Windows,” said Aiken.

The Linux Foundation has taken over development of virtualization platform Xen from Citrix.

Xen is a virtualization offering that Citrix began sponsoring as a community project in 2007. The 10-year old platform is used by a variety of cloud service providers. At the Linux Foundation, Xen will be worked on collaboratively by firms such as Amazon, Intel, and AMD.

“Industry interest in Xen has been growing rapidly over the past few years, thriving on strong industry support and commitment from the project’s founding members,” said Citrix vice president of open source solutions Peder Ulander in a statement.

“By widening the scope of collaboration under The Linux Foundation, the Xen Project community can set the bar even higher for innovation. Citrix will remain committed to the project and advancing the technology for Xen Project-based products across the industry, including its own Citrix XenServer.”

Citrix had been looking to find a neutral community to lead development of Xen for the past year. For the last six years Citrix had been sponsoring the development of the open-source software.

By handing over responsibility of the software to the Linux Foundation, Citrix will be able to work on the product without leading its development. The Linux Foundation has a large base of community developers that work together to build out open-source technologies.

Xen is a hypervisor platform that allows multiple computer systems to work off the same computer hardware at the same time. The cloud offering is used by products such as RackSpace’s public cloud and Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud.

Following the news, the Linux Foundation will handle development for both Xen and KVM virtualization tools. According to the foundation, being able to advance both platforms will help promote its open-source philosophy.

“Virtualization is important to Linux and the open source community and both Xen and KVM are widely accepted by users and developers. The advancement of both benefits developers, users and vendors,” wrote Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin in a blog post.

“The open source model is predicated upon freedom of choice, so supporting a range of open source virtualization platforms and facilitating collaboration across open source communities is a priority for The Linux Foundation.”

Last year, Citrix made a similar move when it donated CloudStack to the Apache Foundation. The cloud service provider gave CloudStack to the foundation last April.

Red Hat has launched a pair of initiatives aimed at increasing the use of its Enterprise Linux platforms in OpenStack clouds.

The company said that it would be launching a partner programme along with an early adopter programme aimed at getting updates to users with greater frequency.

Known as RDO, the OpenStack build will run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Fedora and other versions of the Red Hat Linux platform.

Designed to function as a community-supported version of OpenStack for early adopters, the RDO will be closely integrated with OpenStack’s development channel and will get new updates and editions quickly.

Additionally, the company said that it would be launching a partner programme for other OpenStack developers. Designed to operate as an ecosystem for public and private cloud computing deployments, the partner programme will support partners working on Red Hat Linux-based OpenStack clouds.

Though Red Hat said that it was the single biggest contributor to the latest version of OpenStack, chief technology officer Brian Stevens said that in order to further advance OpenStack on Red Hat Linux it will need to reach out to third parties.

“You are no longer seeing one company solely lead the effort,” Stevens explained.

“It has become a more-balanced network.”

The Red Hat news comes in the wake of the release of OpenStack’s ‘Grizzly’ release. The cloud platform was updated to provide improved storage support.