Windows virus spreads quickly, but may be a dud

8:23AM Tuesday Jan 20, 2009
Andrew Vanacore

NEW YORK – A computer virus that may leave Microsoft Windows users vulnerable to digital hijacking is spreading through companies in the U.S., Europe and Asia, already infecting close to nine million machines, according to a private online security firm.

Fortunately, however, it may be a dud.

Though computer bugs have become a common affliction, Finland-based F-Secure says a virus it has been tracking for the past several weeks has surged more rapidly through corporate networks than anything they have seen in years.

But the virus does not appear to be working as its designers intended. F-Secure’s chief security adviser, Patrik Runald, said the virus’s coding suggests a type of bug that alerts computer users to bogus infections on their machines and offers to help by selling them antivirus software.

Instead, the virus is simply spreading to little effect, though it may still pose a threat to infected computers.

“The gang behind this worm haven’t used it yet,” F-Secure’s chief research officer, Mikko Hypponen said by phone. “But they could do anything they like with any of these machines at any time.”

Microsoft issued a security update last week to deal with the so-called “Downadup” or “Conficker” virus, which appears to be a new version of a bug that popped up in October.

“Over the last couple of weeks, a new variant of this worm has been affecting customers,” the company acknowledged in a blog post. Microsoft said the virus is spreading by gaining access to one computer and then guessing at passwords of other users in the same network: “If the password is weak, it may succeed.”

A company representative couldn’t immediately be reached Saturday to comment on F-Secure’s estimate of infected machines.

Most computers with Windows will automatically download Microsoft’s security update, but Hypponen said the virus disables updates on infected machines.

While the origin of the virus is a mystery, F-Secure’s best guess is it came from Ukraine. Hypponen said it is coded to avoid computers there, which may indicate whoever wrote the virus was trying to avoid drawing attention from local authorities.

- AP

from:  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&

Microsoft expected to cut jobs as profit weakens

By Franklin Paul and Jim Finkle

NEW YORK/BOSTON (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp is expected to post a quarterly profit that misses its own target and announce thousands of job cuts this week as the global economic slump hurts even the technology industry’s biggest players.

When the leading software maker reports fiscal second quarter results on Thursday, investors are likely to press for comments on its outlook and on Yahoo Inc, whose search business has been the object of Microsoft’s desires.

The report comes against a backdrop of a wounded global economy that has stifled demand for everything from personal computers to business software and video games, all markets in which Microsoft is a significant player.

“All eyes are on the forecast,” said Jefferies & Co analyst Katherine Egbert. “Expectations for the guidance are pretty low.”

Analysts on average put Microsoft’s profit at 49 cents a share for the quarter ended December 31, which includes a U.S. holiday shopping season that has been called the worst in at least four decades. The Redmond, Washington-based company had forecast a per-share profit of 51 cents to 53 cents for the quarter.

Wall Street is looking for quarterly revenue of $17.1 billion, according to Reuters Estimates, also short of Microsoft’s own target of $17.3 billion to $17.8 billion.

Egbert says she expects Microsoft to report sales of its Windows software for PCs and laptops to drop 3 percent from a year earlier, making it the toughest quarter in eight years. She blames the shortfall on weak consumer sales, noting that businesses have yet to cut back as much as retail shoppers.

Wall Street’s expectations for Microsoft’s performance for its fiscal year ending in June 2009 have declined since it last reported results three months ago.

Analyst forecasts for full-year net income have dropped 10 percent to $17.77 billion, while revenue projections are down 4.4 percent at $63.68 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

POSSIBLE JOB CUTS

With an eye on reducing costs, Microsoft is widely expected to announce that it will cut jobs, following similar moves by other tech firms, including AT&T Inc, Dell Inc, Motorola Inc and Advance Micro Devices Inc.

“Checks indicate that Microsoft is likely to engage in headcount reductions to the tune of 6,000 to 8,000 employees or 6 percent to 8 percent of its 95,000 workforce,” said McAdams Wright Ragen analyst Sid Parakh. “Our checks also revealed some speculation over the potential for a second round of cuts in some groups sometime later in the year.”

Other analysts suggest the cost reductions may occur in the next few weeks and could also include more targeted cutbacks and attrition, rather than the big number of layoffs that some have speculated.

Microsoft has declined to comment on any likelihood of job cuts. Its shares have dropped 41 percent over the past year, while shares in another technology bellwether, IBM, have lost 16 percent. The S&P 500 Index has dropped 38 percent during the same period.

Analysts are also expected to pepper Chief Executive Steve Ballmer with questions about the status of the company’s relationship with Yahoo, now that the Internet company has named Carol Bartz as its new CEO.

Bartz told employees earlier this week that she had a phone conversation with Ballmer, who has repeatedly said he remains interested in pursuing a search partnership with Yahoo but does not intend to renew an offer for the whole company.

Microsoft made a bid for Yahoo last year, but walked away after they disagreed on price. Investors have been skeptical about whether the software company can win online advertising revenue away from Google and Yahoo, which are both stronger than Microsoft in the Internet search market.

(Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

from:   http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE50J7QN20090121

IBM forecasts defy downturn

4:00AM Thursday Jan 22, 2009
Katie Hoffmann

Analysts say emphasising more profitable areas of business has helped IBM weather the poor economic climate. Photo / AP

IBM, the biggest computer-services provider, forecast full-year profit that beat analysts’ estimates, defying an industrywide slump that has curbed growth at other technology companies.

Shares rose as much as 5.3 per cent in extended trading after IBM said yesterday that net income will rise to at least US$9.20 ($17.44) a share in 2009, topping the US$8.75 average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Fourth-quarter profit also exceeded projections.

IBM’s earnings advanced even as sales fell in all units save the software division. IBM’s strategy of focusing on more profitable businesses, such as software, helped the company overcome “an extremely difficult economic environment,” chief executive Samuel Palmisano said.

“They’re using the current climate as an opportunity to cut costs,” Gartner analyst Carl Claunch said. “This is a pre-emptive strategy for improving profitability.”

Selling, general and administrative expenses dropped 3.1 per cent to US$5.83 billion last quarter. IBM reduced expenses partly by using more contract workers, chief financial officer Mark Loughridge said.

BM, based in Armonk, New York, rose as much as US$4.38 to US$86.36 in extended trading after closing at US$81.98 on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock has dropped 21 per cent in the past year.

Net income climbed 12 per cent to US$4.43 billion, US$3.28 a share, from US$3.95 billion, or US$2.80, a year earlier, IBM said. Total sales fell 6.4 per cent to US$27 billion, compared with the US$28.2 billion average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Revenue in the software unit advanced 2.6 per cent to US$6.42 billion. IBM has spent more than US$5 billion in the past year on acquisitions to bolster its software unit, the company’s most profitable business. Gross margin, or the percentage of sales left after production costs, widened to 87.7 per cent from 87.1 per cent a year ago. IBM bought at least six software companies last year, adding new products to take on larger Microsoft.

The biggest of those was the purchase of Cognos for US$4.9 billion, giving IBM programs that track corporate performance. The company spent US$6.3 billion on acquisitions last year, the most ever, Loughridge said.

“They’re being opportunistic,” said New York-based UBS analyst Maynard Um, who has a “neutral” rating on the stock and doesn’t own it. “I continue to be surprised as to how they can grow” software sales.

Sales of computer services, which account for more than half of total revenue, fell 4 per cent to US$14.3 billion.

Revenue in all of IBM’s geographic segments declined, with the largest drop in Europe, the Middle East in Africa.

Sales there dropped 12 per cent, compared with a 2 per cent decline in the Americas and a 1 per cent decrease in Asia. The European decline would have been only 1 per cent when adjusted for currency fluctuations, IBM said.

Corporate earnings have slumped as the first simultaneous recessions in the US, Japan and Europe since World War II tighten credit markets and curb spending.

This month Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, said profit in the fourth quarter fell 90 per cent as demand for computers ebbed. In November, Dell, the world’s second-biggest personal-computer maker, posted sales that trailed analysts’ estimates by more than US$1 billion, hurt by slowing technology spending.

IBM is trying to woo users away from Microsoft programs by offering its Lotus Symphony for free, making money instead from related technology and services. It adapted the software for use with Apple’s Macintosh computers and the Linux operating system in November.

from:  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10552947

Light pollution forms ‘eco-traps’

By Mark Kinver
Science and environment reporter, BBC News

An international team of researchers has found another form of light pollution that could have an adverse effect on wildlife.

The scientists showed that as well as direct light sources, polarised light also triggered potentially dangerous changes in many species’ behaviour.

They added that road surfaces and glass buildings were among the main sources of this form of light pollution.

The findings appear in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

Co-author Bruce Robertson, an ecologist from Michigan State University, US, said polarised light from structures within the built environment overwhelmed natural cues that controlled animal behaviour.

“Environmental cues, such as the intensity of light, that animals use to make decisions occur at different levels of severity in the natural world,” he said.

“When cues become unnaturally intense, animals can respond unnaturally strongly to them.”

As a result, the false cues could create an “ecological trap” for species attracted by the light.

Double vision

Dr Robertson said that water was the primary source of horizontal polarised light in the natural world, and that many animals – including birds, insects and reptiles – had highly developed polarisation vision.

Insects, such as stoneflies, lay their eggs on asphalt instead of water

This particular form of light played a key role in the animals’ lifecycle, such as finding breeding and feeding sites, he added.

A well documented example is the way that baby sea turtles rely on the direction of starlight and moonlight reflected off the water’s surface in order to help them find the ocean when they emerged from their nests.

Yet, there are examples of turtles in urbanised areas heading towards the brighter buildings and street lamps.

Dr Robertson said that expanding urban areas meant that there were more structures and surfaces to confuse wildlife.

“Any kind of shiny, black object – oil, solar cells, asphalt – causes problems,” he explained. “The closer they are to wetlands, the bigger the problem.”

“Light from the sun is vibrating in all possible directions, but after bouncing off smooth flat surfaces, like water, it only vibrates in the horizontal direction; it has become polarised.

“This is why polarised sunglasses make it easier for us to see on a bright day – they remove only the horizontally polarised light that reflects off water and roads,” he told BBC News.

Flying light

The team of US and Hungarian researchers said that more than 300 species of insects were known to use polarised light as the primary source for navigation.

Pollution from artificial light only tends to be a problem at night

“This is used to search for suitable water bodies to act as feeding/breeding habitats,” they wrote.

“Because of their strong signature, artificial polarising surfaces – asphalt, gravestones, cars, plastic sheeting and glass windows – are commonly mistaken for bodies of water.”

The team added that “polarised light pollution” (PLP) differed from traditional forms of light pollution, called ecological light pollution (ELP) because it occurred at any time during the day.

“Because ELP results from the incidence of visible light at times and places where it does not occur naturally, ELP is predominantly a night-time phenomenon.

“In contrast, PLP can occur during both light and dark cycles in terrestrial environments.”

The study also suggested that PLP could also disrupt entire food webs if predators followed their prey into the urban “ecological trap”, or if a generation of prey species was wiped out without reproducing.

It added that PLP also had an impact on marine life: “When scattered light passed through the transparent body of small aquatic prey animals, its polarisation signature was altered, increasing the visual contrast.

“Plankton feeders are adept at detecting zooplankton in the water column that would otherwise be transparent.”

But this hunting technique, it explained, caused problems for the feeders when they encountered marine litter.

“Underwater plastic garbage is another source of PLP, and may prompt aquatic organisms into consuming inappropriate and dangerous items.

“Turtles commonly ingest plastic, particularly transparent plastic bags, which have a polarisation signature similar to that of prey items they commonly target.”

Despite the growing human impact on certain communities of animals, the researchers suggested that the worst examples of PLP could be reduced.

They recommended the use of alternative building materials or employing methods to mitigate the problem, such as adding white curtains to dark windows or adding white markings on road surfaces.

Dr Robertson said the team’s findings could offer conservationists an alternative way to deal with problematic species, such as insects destroying trees.

“You may be able to create massive polarised light traps to crash bark beetle populations,” he suggested.

from:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7821298.stm

Does Facebook Replace Face Time or Enhance It?

By Lisa Selin Davis

Jenny has not returned my calls in roughly a year. She has, however, sent me a poinsettia, poked me and placed a gift beneath my Christmas tree. She’s done all this virtually, courtesy of Facebook, the social-networking site on which users create profiles, gather “friends” and join common-interest groups, not to mention send digital gifts. Although Jenny has three children, ages 4 to 14, and rarely finds time for visits, phone calls or even e-mail, the full-time mom in upstate New York regularly updates her status on Facebook (”Jenny is fixing a birthday dinner,” “Jenny took the kids sledding”) and uploads photos (her son in the school play). After 24 years, our friendship is now relegated to the online world, filtered through Facebook. Call it Facebook Recluse Syndrome — and Jenny is far from the site’s only social hermit.

Although Facebook started as an online hub for college students, its fastest-growing demographic is the over-25 crowd, which now accounts for more than half of the site’s 140 million active members. Why is Facebook catching on among harried parents and professionals? “It makes me feel like I have a grip on my world,” says Emily Neill, a 39-year-old single mother of two. Neill isn’t a techie, per se — “I’ll never have a phone that does anything but make calls,” says the fashion consultant in Watertown, Mass. — but she stays logged on to Facebook all day at work and then spends an hour or two — or lately three — at night checking in with old acquaintances, swapping photos with close friends and instant-messaging those who fall somewhere in between. “It makes you feel like you’re part of something even if you’re neglecting people in the flesh,” she says. (See the 50 best websites of 2008.)

Retreating behind a digital veil started long before the Internet existed, with the advent of answering machines. “People would call a phone when they knew the other person wasn’t available to pick up,” says Charles Steinfield, a professor at Michigan State University who co-authored a peer-reviewed study called “The Benefits of Facebook ‘Friends.’ “ “It enabled them to convey information without forcing them to interact.”

Enter Facebook, which provides a constant flow of information via short updates from everyone a user knows: a distant cousin is glad he skipped the cheeseburger chowder; a colleague has a new book on sale; a close friend is engaged or newly single. Jenny and I, along with three of our childhood pals from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., learned that a dear old friend had ended her seven-year relationship through a Facebook status change. We expressed dismay, albeit through Facebook’s IM feature, that we had to learn such potent information in this impersonal way.

Yet for many users, Facebook somehow remains distinctly personal. Although social-networking sites typically encourage connections among strangers — like on MySpace, where people converge through common interests, or online dating, where the whole point is to greet new faces — Facebook is geared toward helping people maintain existing connections. The site serves as a self-updating address book, keeping users connected no matter their geographical shifts. “There are people from my past life that I never would have tracked through 10 job changes and 20 e-mail changes,” says Nicole Ellison, an assistant professor at Michigan State and lead author of the Facebook “Friends” study, which focused on undergraduate usage of the site. Facebook offers what she describes as a “seamless way of keeping in touch that doesn’t involve all this work.”

Perhaps this is the key. Jenny’s online sociability and offline silence probably has less to do with digital retreating than time management. Facebook offers e-mail, IM and photo sharing in what Neill calls the “one-stop shopping” of online interaction. “It’s not surprising to me that it’s replacing other forms of communication,” says Steinfield.

It’s still surprising to me, however, this combination of Orwell and WALL-E that has humans watching one another through computer screens and socializing in quasi-isolation. Neill says Facebook has brought her closer to her already close friends, whom she has little time to see because of kids and work. “I know more about them now than I did when I was in regular contact with them,” she says.

I believe her. But I can’t help wondering: If for some reason Facebook suddenly ceased to exist, would people like Jenny revert to phone calls or visits, or would they lose touch altogether?

I probably won’t find out. Instead, I gave in. Last week I sent Jenny a note — through Facebook, naturally — requesting a get-together. She accepted. When we met up, it seemed like we were closer than I had thought. I knew about Jenny’s son’s part in the school play, her sledding expedition and what she’d cooked for that big birthday dinner — information we would have shared if we still lived in the same neighborhood and talked regularly, the inane and intimate details that add up to life. The constant stream of data is a digital form of closeness. “A beautiful blossoming garden of information about your friends,” as Neill puts it, adding, “I don’t see how that can be a bad thing.”

from:  http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1871627,00.html?cnn=yes

Securing the Windows 7 beta

Posted by Ina Fried

Despite the fact that security programs are often some of the toughest code to make work with a new operating system, Windows 7 already has several companies ready with products aimed at keeping it safe from attackers.

By comparison, only one antivirus firm–McAfee–had its security software commercially ready by the time Microsoft launched Vista for businesses in November 2006.

That said, it stands to reason, given that Microsoft was making far more dramatic changes to the operating system’s underlying architecture in Vista than it is in Windows 7.

This time around, it is AVG, Kaspersky, and Symantec that have products that are being touted from Microsoft’s site. McAfee said it will have support by the time Windows 7 launches, while Trend Micro is working to have a compatible product in the next month or so.

“It is great to see that these partners were able to have their solutions working so early in our development process,” Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc said in a blog posting.

Dave Cole, a senior director of product management at Symantec, said his company decided to offer up a test version of its Norton 360 product for use with Windows 7, even though the company knows there are still a few things left to work out.

“We determined that we could run reasonably well under Windows 7,” Cole said. “There are bugs that we know about, but we’re comfortable enough with the effectiveness of the product that when they called us to participate we took them up on the offer.”

Having the support lined up is important to Microsoft, which built an “action center” into the operating system that warns users if it detects there is no antivirus software installed. The action center then points to a page on Microsoft’s Web site with links to Windows 7-compatible security software.

The page lists Kaspersky, AVG, and Norton, but adds that “Microsoft is actively working with additional security software independent software vendors (ISVs) so that security software solutions will be available for Windows 7 Beta and (the final release of) Windows 7.”

As far as Windows 7’s approach to security, it appears to draw heavily from the investments the company made with Windows Vista.

The most notable change is probably the fact that users now have the option to choose how often they are required to authorize changes to their system. One of the most frequent criticisms of Vista was the annoyance of the User Account Control dialog boxes that forced users to authenticate many types of changes to their systems.

Microsoft spent a fortune securing Vista, both in engineering new features as well as in testing. The software maker corralled a significant chunk of the world’s penetration testers to help poke at Vista ahead of its release.

The software maker plans some penetration testing for Windows 7, but declined to say how much or whether it would be comparable to its Vista effort.

from: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10143466-56.html?tag=rtcol;pop

USB 3.0 will crush eSATA, FireWire

Posted by Alex Serpo

Intel demonstrated a working version of USB 3.0 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week. Here’s why it will make eSATA and FireWire obsolete.

When USB 3.0 is expected to hit the market in early 2010, it will have been 10 years since the now ubiquitous USB 2.0 was introduced (April 2000). The current USB 2.0 specification runs at a theoretical maximum speed of 480Mbps, and can supply power (for those looking for the hard details, you can find the USB 2.0 specification here (zip file).

According to the USB Implementers Forum, there were 2 billion USB 2.0 devices shipped in 2006 (one for every three people in the world), and the install base was 6 billion (almost one for every person in the world). In November 2007, the USB Implementers forum announced the USB 3.0 specifications, and Intel officially demonstrated the technology at CES 2009.

Now, the juice: USB 3.0 promises a theoretical maximum rate of 5Gbps, meaning it’s 10 times faster than USB 2.0. USB 3.0 is also full duplex, meaning it can upload and download simultaneously (it’s bi-directional); USB 2.0 is only half duplex.

Put side by side with eSATA and FireWire 800, USB 3.0 is far superior. eSATA, an external connection that runs at the same speed as the internal SATA 1.0 bus, has a maximum theoretical of 3Gbps. This makes USB 3.0 faster than eSATA and about six times faster than FireWire 800 (full duplex at 800Mbps).

USB 3.0 also provides another advantage; while eSATA is faster than FireWire 800, unlike FireWire it cannot supply power. USB 3.0 has the advantage of being faster than both, even while supplying power.

Finally, USB 3.0 has improved power management, meaning that devices can move into idle, suspend, and sleep states. This potentially means more battery life out of laptops and other battery-based USB-supporting devices like cameras and mobile phones.

Of course, there are other factors to consider; the FireWire 3200 standard is also in the works and promises to allow 3.2GHz speeds on existing FireWire 800 hardware. USB 2.0 generally doesn’t meet its theoretical maximum throughput, due to its dependence on hardware and software configuration, where FireWire gets much closer.

It’s hard to say whether USB 3.0’s updated architecture will still use more CPU time than FireWire does.

But in the age of powerful hardware (can anyone say “3.2GHz, quad-core CPUs”?), all of this means that FireWire is still not going to match USB 3.0’s theoretical maximum of 5Gbps.

The ultimate signal that this war has already been won is Apple’s recent decision to ditch FireWire from its consumer line in favor of USB. Previously, Cupertino had been one of FireWire’s greatest advocates. And surely the company will be one of the first to adopt USB 3.0.

All in all, we can’t wait for motherboard manufacturers like Gigabyte and Asus to start supporting the technology and mainstream PC builders like Dell to start integrating it into their products. Bring on the speed.

from:  http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10141810-76.html?tag=rtcol;pop

Three million hit by Windows worm

The worm can also spread via USB flash drives.

A worm that spreads through low security networks, memory sticks, and PCs without the latest security updates is posing a growing threat to users.

The malicious program, known as Conficker, Downadup, or Kido was first discovered in October 2008.

Although Microsoft released a patch, it has gone on to infect 3.5m machines.

Experts warn this figure could be far higher and say users should have up-to-date anti-virus software and install Microsoft’s MS08-067 patch.

According to Microsoft, the worm works by searching for a Windows executable file called “services.exe” and then becomes part of that code.

It then copies itself into the Windows system folder as a random file of a type known as a “dll”. It gives itself a 5-8 character name, such as piftoc.dll, and then modifies the Registry, which lists key Windows settings, to run the infected dll file as a service.

Once the worm is up and running, it creates an HTTP server, resets a machine’s System Restore point (making it far harder to recover the infected system) and then downloads files from the hacker’s web site.

Most malware uses one of a handful of sites to download files from, making them fairly easy to locate, target, and shut down.

But Conficker does things differently.

Anti-virus firm F-Secure says that the worm uses a complicated algorithm to generate hundreds of different domain names every day, such as mphtfrxs.net, imctaef.cc, and hcweu.org. Only one of these will actually be the site used to download the hackers’ files. On the face of it, tracing this one site is almost impossible.

Speaking to the BBC, Kaspersky Lab’s security analyst, Eddy Willems, said that a new strain of the worm was complicating matters.

“There was a new variant released less than two weeks ago and that’s the one causing most of the problems,” said Mr Willems

“The replication methods are quite good. It’s using multiple mechanisms, including USB sticks, so if someone got an infection from one company and then takes his USB stick to another firm, it could infect that network too. It also downloads lots of content and creating new variants though this mechanism.”

“Of course, the real problem is that people haven’t patched their software. If people do patch their software, they should have little to worry about,” he added.

Technicians have reverse engineered the worm so they can predict one of the possible domain names. This does not help them pinpoint those who created Downadup, but it does give them the ability to see how many machines are infected.

“Right now, we’re seeing hundreds of thousands of unique IP addresses connecting to the domains we’ve registered,” F-Secure’s Toni Kovunen said in a statement.

“We can see them, but we can’t disinfect them – that would be seen as unauthorised use.”

Microsoft says that the malware has infected computers in many different parts of the world, with machines in China, Brazil, Russia, and India having the highest number of victims.

from:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7832652.stm

Facebook restructures developer platform management

Posted by Caroline McCarthy

In a post on the company’s developer blog on Friday, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced some changes to the management of its third-party developer projects. This encompasses both the Facebook platform, which opened up the social network to third-party applications and took off like wildfire when it launched in 2007, and the newer Facebook Connect, which brings Facebook log-in credentials to participating outside sites.

No employees have departed the company or were laid off in the process, a Facebook spokesman told CNET News in an e-mail.

The new head of platform and Facebook Connect engineering is now Mike Vernal, who takes over from Charlie Cheever. Cheever will be “moving into a new role as an engineering manager where he’ll be focused on building some of our new products and ways for people to share information,” Zuckerberg wrote in the blog post.

More notably, platform marketing responsibilities will now be handled by Ethan Beard, who has until this point been in charge of business development at Facebook. He takes over from Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s vice president of communications and public policy, who will remain in charge of his other tasks within the company.

This makes sense, since Schrage, who was hired away from Google in May to be Facebook’s communications czar, wasn’t the most logical fit for developer platform marketing. His background’s in law, not programming; Schrage had taken over platform marketing duties when Benjamin Ling, another former Googler, left Facebook and returned to Google.

from :   http://news.cnet.com/the-social/?authorId=107&tag=mncol;txt

The evolution of the Netbook

Posted by Erica Ogg

It’s getting harder to tell the difference between a Netbook and a notebook.

Except when you look at the bottom line of the companies making them. Though initially thought of as a way to sell cheaper, less powerful companion devices to notebooks, Netbooks are beginning to lose their distinction, as evidenced by the new Netbooks unveiled at CES 2009. While it’s good for consumers, the blurring of lines between the two could potentially be destroying the business models of PC manufacturers.

Sony’s Vaio P is dwarfed by HP’s Mini 1000 Netbook.

(Credit: CNET)

That lack of distinction between a Netbook and a notebook will become more clear as soon as Windows 7 arrives on the scene, likely in the next nine to 12 months. Microsoft’s new operating system is designed to work on Netbooks and actually may provide a good experience for users on relatively low-powered devices, unlike Vista. That calls into question the value proposition of the Netbook category if the same OS is available on what are supposed to be two different kinds of machines, according to Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis for the NPD Group.

“What does that do to our business model? Have we (just) traded $799 sales for $399 sales?” he asked.

And the timing isn’t great. “The unfortunate aspect is we’re bringing these products out in a recession, which is likely to mean it’s harder to (sell) these as an additional PC and not as replacement for something else you’re going to buy,” said Baker.

For the past year, when a laptop had a screen smaller than 10 inches, an Atom processor, and cost below $400, we’d call it a Netbook. Starting from essentially zero market penetration in late 2007, by the end of last year, roughly 10 million Netbooks have shipped, according to IDC. They now account for 7 percent of all portable PCs, an extraordinary growth rate in a short time. But exactly how the category is growing is the big question mark.

“The market is multi-faceted,” said Loren Loverde, PC analyst for research firm IDC. “You don’t get growth along a straight trajectory, more like growth in an amoeba. It stretches out in different directions and grows and absorbs different things.”

What is a Netbook?
At first there appeared to be a semblance of agreement on what made a Netbook different, and its own category of computer. Intel launched the category with its Atom processor, which promised less computing power, but for far less cost. One Laptop Per Child and Intel led the way with low-cost notebooks intended for developing nations. But Asus broke the category open for consumers in late 2007 with its Eee PC, at first equipped with a tiny 7-inch screen, little chiclet keys, solid-state memory, and Linux instead of Windows.

Much has changed since then. A year later we have almost as many interpretations of a Netbook as we do manufacturers. Dell defines Netbook differently than Sony, who sees the market in a way that Acer and Hewlett-Packard do not. (And Toshiba refuses to see any Netbook market at all–at least in the U.S.)

Acer and Asus essentially agree on what a Netbook is: a low-power notebook with a 9-inch screen with a price point between $300 and $400. They’re not meant for much beyond connecting to the Web. Those two Taiwanese manufacturers were first to market and have been rewarded handsomely for their efforts, capturing the majority of Netbook market share early on. Acer has done particularly well in Europe.

In late summer, Dell, the largest PC maker in the U.S. and the second largest worldwide, threw its hat into the ring, apparently to defend its territory. The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 was a normal Netbook, but the subsequent Mini 12 was puzzling. By grouping it with the Mini line it’s being sold as a Netbook, but the 12-inch screen size is bumping up dangerously close to smaller traditional notebooks. At just under $600, it also appears to compete with the $699 Dell Inspiron 15.

Each PC vendor is trying to mold the Netbook trend in a way that fits with their own product line. Companies like HP are trying to draw a distinction between Netbooks through software: The Mini 1000 MIE has a custom interface designed to hide the fact that it’s essentially a Linux device. Sony’s also putting its touch on the idea, with the Sony Vaio P Lifestyle PC, an expensive device not aimed at the masses.

By each company tweaking their Netbooks a little here and a little there in the name of differentiating and adding more features that consumers want or expect, they’re basically creating something that looks like yet another notebook PC.

At what cost?
Dell VP of Consumer Sales and Marketing Michael Tatelman insisted at CES last week that it’s “still too early to tell” if by selling Netbooks it is drawing customers away from buying traditional notebooks, which cost more and offer manufacturers higher margins.

“In some places it’s a way to acquire new customers faster, in some places it’s a companion device, and in some places it’s a primary computer,” Tatelman told a crowd of journalists while introducing the company’s third Netbook, the Inspiron Mini 10 last week.

HP also insists Netbooks and notebooks are very separate. To which former Seagate CEO William Watkins promptly snorted and rolled his eyes at the idea in an interview last week. He summed up how the category’s naysayers feel, saying, “A Netbook is just a low-end notebook.”

By the midpoint of this year we’ll be able to assess the damage the Netbook craze has done to traditional notebook revenues, said NPD’s Baker. “We know there will be some (cannibalization), but we’ll find out just how much.”

from: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10143614-92.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1