Weekly Digest
Weekly Digest Issue No. 469
11-06-2009
by Deirdre McArdle
iPhones and MacBooks, but no Jobs | Bing pings into action
Irish firms getting to grips with broadband
Broadband usage among businesses in Ireland continues to grow, according to figures released by ComReg for the first half of 2009. Overall, 92 percent of SMEs and 96 percent of corporates say they have an internet connection. Of those connected to the internet, 75 percent of SMEs use DSL, a marked increase from the year-ago period when 66 percent used DSL. Wireless broadband is the next most popular internet access technology for SMEs at 10 percent. Dedicated leased line (3 percent), satellite broadband (3 percent), dial-up (3 percent), ISDN (3 percent), mobile broadband (2 percent) and fibre optic cable (2 percent) are the other technologies mentioned, while 7 percent didn't know. Meanwhile, just 46 percent of corporates favoured DSL, with 24 percent using a dedicated leased line, and 14 percent using wireless broadband. Nine percent opted for fibre optic cable, while mobile broadband (6 percent) and ISDN (5 percent) were other technologies used. By and large e-mail, web browsing and online banking are the most popular applications used by both SMEs and corporates, but businesses are starting to make better use of their broadband connection with over half (51 percent) of all businesses using secure electronic ordering or supply of goods and services. Interestingly, Web 2.0 applications appear to be growing in favour among Irish businesses; 14 percent of SMEs and 21 percent of corporates said they use social networking sites, while 15 percent of SMEs maintain a company blog, this compares to just 7 percent of corporates who said they have a company blog. VoIP (41 percent) and video conferencing (52 percent) are proving popular with corporates; these technologies are less well used by SMEs at just 16 percent and 10 percent, respectively. The full results of the survey, which include mobile and fixed line usage figures, are available here (PDF).
iPhones and MacBooks, but no Jobs
Apple hosted its annual Worldwide Developers Conference this week and made a number of interesting announcements. Prior to the event, the biggest question on everyone's lips was not "will Apple release a new iPhone?" but rather "will Steve Jobs make an appearance?". Well, we're in day four of the five-day conference now, and no sign of Jobs yet. In January Jobs announced he would be taking a medical leave of absence until the end of June. Still, it has to be said that Apple has coped well without Jobs, although industry observers are sure he has been involved in the product developments revealed during the week. At the conference Apple rolled out a range of Mac Book Pro laptops; gave a demo of Snow Leopard, the long-anticipated update to Apple's OS X Leopard operating system; revealed a new family of iPhones, including an 8GB version for USD99 and two new iPhone 3GS (16GB and 32GB); and released iPhone 3.0, a software upgrade for the iPhones which Apple claims will add 100 new features to the phones, including the much-requested cut, copy and paste feature. It was a busy week for Apple and though Jobs didn't show up, the company proved in no small way that it could conceivably operate without its charismatic leader, if and when the time comes. For now, the company has confirmed Jobs will return to work at the end of June.
China net filtering spurs criticism
The Chinese government has stepped up its internet censorship plans, or 'protecting' its citizens as it calls it, by requiring all PCs sold in the country to be shipped with software that blocks access to certain websites. According to the new regulations "Green Dam," a program developed by Jinhui Computer System Engineering, has to be pre-installed on all new PCs from 1 July. The filtering software is aimed primarily at blocking pornography, the government said. The development has raised concerns among the PC industry, rights groups and Chinese citizens. In a joint statement the Information Technology Industry Council, the Software & Information Industry Association, the Telecommunications Industry Association and TechAmerica urged the Chinese government to "reconsider implementing its new mandatory filtering software requirement and would welcome the opportunity for a meaningful dialogue". PC manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard and Dell say they are currently reviewing the mandate, which has caused some confusion. Specifically, the government hasn't indicated what penalty companies might face if they don't comply. Ultimately, the requirement could force the likes of HP and Dell to choose between refusing a government order in a major market or opening themselves up to charges of abetting censorship.
Microsoft and the monster patch
Microsoft broke one of its own records on Tuesday, issuing a monster patch that addresses 31 bugs. This is the largest number of flaws addressed with one patch since Patch Tuesday began back in October 2003. June's patch contained 10 security bulletins: six were deemed 'critical', three 'important', and one 'moderate'. Among the critical fixes are patches for Word, Excel, the Windows Active Directory component, and several new and previously reported issues in Internet Explorer, the worst of which could lead to random code execution. The 'important' updates are fixes for privilege elevation holes in the Windows Kernel, Remote Procedure Call component and Internet Information Services software. The 'moderate' patch addresses a flaw in the Windows Search component which could allow for information disclosure. This latest patch beats Microsoft's previous record in December when it addressed 28 vulnerabilities.
Bing pings into action
Microsoft's attempts at making an impact on the search market are looking pretty good at the moment. Its recently launched Bing search engine has made a solid start. Just a day after its 2 June official launch Bing overtook Yahoo as the second most popular search site in the US and globally. According to traffic analysis firm StatCounter Bing accounted for 16.3 percent of the US market on 3 June, ahead of Yahoo's 10.2 percent. Globally, Bing clocked up a 5.6 percent share, slightly ahead of Yahoo's 5.1 percent slice of the market. In the US Google controls 71.5 percent of the search market, while worldwide it holds a massive 87.6 percent share. For the first week of operations (2-6 June) Bing saw its market share in the US jump to 11.1 percent, up from 9.1 percent a week prior, according to ComScore. Meanwhile, average daily penetration among searchers, a measure of how many people are being reached by the product, rose to 15.5 percent from 13.8 percent. Industry consensus is that Bing is performing better that any of Microsoft's other forays into the search market to date. Generally, following a launch a spike in traffic is to be expected, although, in Bing's case it looks like there is ongoing usage, which is promising for the software behemoth. "It remains to be seen if Bing falls away after the initial novelty and promotion but at first sight it looks like Microsoft is onto a winner," said Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 