Microsoft exploits uproar over Firefox 4's retirement to beat IE drum

Company exec pleads IE's case to enterprise in open letter to IBMer

Computerworld - A Microsoft executive late Thursday used the furor over Mozilla's decision to curtail support for Firefox 4 to plead the case for Internet Explorer in the enterprise.



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"I think I speak for everyone on the IE team when I say we'd like the opportunity to win back your business," said Ari Bixhorn, director of IE at Microsoft, in a post on his personal blog. "We've got a great solution for corporate customers with both IE8 and IE9, and believe we could help you address the challenges you're currently facing."

Bixhorn addressed his open letter to John Walicki, the manager of workplace and mobility in the office of IBM's CIO. Earlier Thursday, Walicki and others had voiced their displeasure with Mozilla's decision to retire Firefox 4 from security support when it launched the new Firefox 5 this week.

In a comment appended to a blog maintained by Michael Kaply, a consultant who specializes in customizing Firefox, Walicki called Mozilla's decision to end security support for Firefox 4 a "kick in the stomach."

More: Browser Topic Center
Walicki said his company has 500,000 corporate users on Firefox -- a year ago IBM set the open-source browser as the default on all new PCs assigned to workers -- and complained that IBM had just completed testing Firefox 4 and was planning to roll it out later this year as a replacement for Firefox 3.6.

"I'm now in the terrible position of choosing to deploy a Firefox 4 release with potentially unpatched vulnerabilities, reset the test cycle for thousands of internal apps to validate Firefox 5 or stay on a patched Firefox 3.6.x," Walicki wrote.

Bixhorn was quick to exploit the opportunity.

"Although I'm in no position to question a competitor's approach to customer engagement and support, I did want to take the opportunity to clarify the Internet Explorer team's commitment to, and support for, our corporate customers," said Bixhorn, who then spelled out Microsoft's position.

"Enterprises have always been, and will always be, an important focus of ours," Bixhorn said.

He also reminded Walicki of Microsoft's long-standing policy to support each edition of IE "as long as the latest version of Windows that it runs on is supported."

That means, Bixhorn continued, Microsoft will support IE9, which launched a week before Firefox 4, through January 2020.

Mozilla pulled the support plug on Firefox 4 three months after its late March debut.

Asa Dotzler, director of Firefox, has made it clear he doesn't consider enterprise users worth supporting.

In several comments added to a follow-up post by Kaply, Dotzler did not mince words.

"Enterprise has never been (and I'll argue, shouldn't be) a focus of ours," Dotzler said. "I can't imagine why we'd focus at all on the kinds of environments you care so much about."

Later Thursday, Dotzler essentially said it was a return-on-investment decision.

"Years ago, we didn't have the resources [to solve the enterprise support problem]. Today, I argue, we shouldn't care even if we do have the resources because of the cost benefit trade," Dotzler said. "A minute spent making a corporate user happy can better be spent making many regular users happy. I'd much rather Mozilla spend its limited resources looking out for the billions of users that don't have enterprise support systems already taking care of them."

Near day's end, he was even more blunt: "I'm basically saying that I don't care about making Firefox enterprise-friendly," Dotzler said.

Some commenters weren't sure how to take his comments.

"Sorry Asa ... I seriously do not know if this is a joke or if you honestly think that the world loves FF [Firefox] that much," said a commenter identified only as "Eric."

But Bixhorn seemed certain that Mozilla's message was coming through loud and clear.

"And John [Walicki], as you point out, Mozilla's recent decision to accelerate the pace of their releases further accentuates the problem of only supporting the latest version of Firefox," said Bixhorn.

"Let me know if you'd like to discuss this further," he concluded, and published his email address.

Microsoft plans 22 patches for Windows, Office next week

Sole critical bulletin will fix flaws only in Vista and Windows 7
Computerworld - Microsoft today said it will issue four security updates next week, only one of which is pegged as critical, to patch 22 vulnerabilities in Windows and Visio 2003.

Three of the four updates will address vulnerabilities in Windows, while the fourth will tackle problems in Microsoft Visio 2003, which was last patched in February.


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The three updates that apply to Windows Vista will all patch bugs in Service Pack 1 (SP1), the edition set to head into retirement. Office XP, which will also be dropped from security support, has received its last fix: None of next week's four bulletins will affect that 10-year-old application suite.

And for the second month in a row, Microsoft's security updates likely won't lead the news.

"Last month more of the concerns were about the hacks of Sony Pictures and other sites," said Storms. "And it looks like other stories will take the cake this month."

Apple, for instance, faces a pair of "zero-day" vulnerabilities -- unpatched bugs that are already being exploited -- in the iOS mobile operating system that powers the iPhone and iPad.

"The focus for this month is not necessarily OSes and applications, but the constant stream of vulnerabilities being discovered in the mobile devices connected to our corporate networks," said Paul Henry, security and forensic analyst at Lumension, in an email today. "Microsoft does not have exclusivity when it comes to issuing patches."

Microsoft's security updates will be released at approximately 1 p.m. ET on July 12.

As Twitter turns 5, it delivers 350B 'tweets' per day

IDG News Service - Twitter launched its microblogging service five years ago today and the company is marking the occasion by doling out some impressive usage stats.

About 600,000 people sign up for a Twitter account every day, but it took Twitter almost a year-and-a-half to attract its first 600,000 members, the company said on Friday in its official Twitter feed.

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In its first day, users sent 224 "tweets," which is the number the current user base sends every tenth of a second.

Meanwhile, the company's engineering team disclosed on its own feed that users send 350 billion "tweets" every day.

Last week, Twitter said that it had recently topped 1 million registered applications for its platform built by 750,000 external developers.

The usage metrics released by Twitter contrast with the ones that Google CEO Larry Page provided about the company's new Google+ social networking site on Thursday.

Speaking during his company's second-quarter earnings call, Page said that, although Google+ is still in a limited trial phase and available only by invitation, about 10 million people have signed up for the site. They share about 1 billion items every day.

"Delivering 350 billion Tweets a day is a terribly fun engineering challenge. But, it doesn't capture how passionate our users are," the post by Twitter's Engineering team reads.

Looking back, Twitter has improved tremendously its site stability, availability and performance, which early on were notoriously uneven, making the service vulnerable to frequent outages, slowdowns and glitches.

Today, Twitter's "Fail Whale" graphic, which became a mainstream symbol for things gone wrong, is seen much less often, and the company has moved on to other challenges, such as building a sustainable revenue stream based primarily on online ads.

Twitter is also facing discontent from some longtime developers who created applications that provided complementary functionality for the site, only to find that in the past 18 months or so, Twitter has decided to build those features natively into its service.

What's not in doubt is that it is the undisputed, preferred microblogging tool of public figures, companies and private individuals for posting short text messages online and sharing links.

It has even played an important and controversial part in political uprisings, in particular in countries with totalitarian regimes where pro-democracy activists have found Twitter to be an effective yet stealthy communications tool.

Although it caters to the consumer market, its microblogging concept has been adapted by a growing number of enterprise software vendors who now provide Twitter-like services for workplace collaboration and communication.

As it celebrates its fifth birthday, Twitter also finds itself without several of its most public representatives, including co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams, who have recently moved on to other ventures.

Microsoft's future: Windows everywhere or Windows nowhere?

Two very different rumors have been making the rounds in the wake of a recent speech at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC 2011). One rumor has Microsoft putting Windows code on every device possible, from smartphones to tablets, PCs, TVs, and beyond. Another has Microsoft biting the bullet and giving up the Windows name entirely. Which is more likely to happen?



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The speculation was set off when Microsoft Windows Phone President Andy Lees gaver a speech and said that Microsoft planned to have a "unified ecosystem" for all devices. Here's what Lees said:

One of the key important things here, though, is the change that's yet to happen, but it's about to happen, and that is the bringing together of these devices into a unified ecosystem, because at the core of the device itself it's possible to be common across phones, PCs, and TVs, and even other things, because the price drops dramatically. Then it will be a single ecosystem. We won't have an ecosystem for PCs, and an ecosystem for phones, one for tablets. They'll all come together. And just look at the opportunity here.

The key question is what"unified ecosystem" means. It's a nebulous, vague phrase that means many different things to many different people. Mary Jo Foley reports that rumors have been circulating for quite some time that Microsoft hoped that it would soon make its "Windows Everywhere" mantra a reality. Lees' statement backed up those who thought it would be coming soon.

But a blogger at the thisismynext site has heard rumors that say Microsoft will eventually abandon the Windows name:

Our sources also tell us that Microsoft is seriously considering ditching the "Windows" brand name...The idea is to rebrand this new super-OS with something that better fits with Redmond's vision of the future.

I'd bet that Microsoft will never give up Windows, and the company is more likely to actually put a variant of Windows code on every device, rather than abandoning Windows' name or Windows code. After all, at WPC 2011, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had this to say in his keynote:

Windows is the backbone product of Microsoft. Windows PCs, Windows Phones, Windows slates. Windows Windows Windows Windows Windows.

Don't expect Microsoft to abandon Windows soon -- or ever. It's the horse the company rode to success, and even though the horse may be getting tired, Microsoft plans to keep riding it.

10 Secrets for Searching for a Job During a Recession

Focusing your efforts on jobs in growing industries and demonstrating how your work has generated revenue are just two simple ways to distinguish yourself from the rest of the job seekers competing for positions in a down economy.

Most of the job search engines, career sites and economists agree that the top industries for 2008 include

* Computers/IT

* Energy

* Health care

* Federal government

* Legal (attorneys)

* Aerospace manufacturing

* International business

* Security (physical and systems)

* Education

* Environmental

* Science/R&D

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Experts from the executive placement industry recommend selecting two or three industries along with the region(s) where you are willing to live, and then selecting the top ten firms you'll target based on your industry and location criteria. Focusing your attention on a shortlist of prospective employers (as opposed to following up on every job ad you see) will make your research more manageable and will make it easier for you to identify the key decision-makers inside those companies with whom you need to connect.

It's important to be realistic about the industries and firms you're choosing. In my own job search, I initially attempted to change industries from financial services to defense. But after four months of disappointing results, I learned how difficult it is to overcome the new security clearance requirements enacted after 9/11—especially in today's economic climate. That lost time sapped my finances and a bit of my confidence. Luckily, I was able to recharge and rebuild my plan over the holidays. My new plan included evaluating the types of firms and business environments I enjoy working in beyond just top-ranked corporations. I also significantly reduced the time I spent searching for positions outside of my immediate region, since my relocation costs have repeatedly been cited by prospective employers as cause for dropping me from consideration over the past few months.

Within the IT profession, the areas of specialization in highest demand today include
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* CIO Job Search: A Real Life Chronicle
* Searching the Hidden Job Market for Opportunities
* Four Glaring Signs Your Job Search Is Not Working and 19 Ways to Improve It
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* IT management

* IT consulting

* Wired telecom

* ISPs and Web search portals

* Internet publishing and broadcasting

* Lead application developers and Web design professionals

* Data warehousing, data modelers and business intelligence analysts

* Senior administrators (DBA, network, security)

The highest paid individuals in these specializations are those who have earned industry certifications and possess in-depth technical and managerial experience, according to reCareered's Rosenberg. So a useful tactic in finding a new job is to expand your subject matter expertise in those key technologies, which can include earning an industry-rated certification or master's degree. If you lack technical certifications or advanced degrees, you can still impress cost-conscious employers by presenting yourself as a lower cost, increasing-value team player. Demonstrating your commitment to your industry and specialization with ongoing, self-directed (read, self-paid) training towards key certifications impresses employers.
4. Consider different business environments.

There are many more job opportunities than most people realize. In addition to the large national firms that the Dow Jones and Fortune magazine track, there are numerous other business environments to consider, such as startups, spin-offs and fast growing midsize companies. These organizations may be hiring more staff than traditional Fortune 500 companies. Also consider nonprofits and the public sector. In a down economy, some of the largest job growth comes from federal, state and local governments.

David P. Winston, a principal with Heidrick & Struggles, advises executives not to discount startups. "Many candidates have shied away from venture-backed firms as too volatile, but they fail to consider the potential career benefits of such a firm," he says. "Venture-backed companies can serve as a stepping stone, an opportunity to learn (or expand) a key skill, or to explore a career interest," he says.

What's more, the impression of startups' volatility is more stereotype, born of the dotcom-bust, than reality, according to leaders in that industry. In fact, venture capital insiders don't see the industry pulling back in this recession the way they did during the dotcom bust. Tim Tonella, CEO of MatchStar Venture Search, says that venture-funded firms in their second and third round of funding in particular are generally very good opportunities for executives with experience in business growth and risk management. After all, startups and venture-funded companies often require experienced leadership to take them to the next level.

Each of these business environments—startups, midsize firms and the public sector—require a unique mindset and attitude. For example, smaller, entrepreneurial firms call for flexible individuals who can change their priorities on a dime and who operate effectively in environments without a lot of process. Some people thrive on the energy of a startup and the chance to wear multiple hats, while others are frustrated by what they perceive as an unfocused or chaotic environment. Job seekers need to decide which environment is right for them and then convince prospective employers in interviews that their personality and work habits are a good fit for the business environment and culture, says Winston.

Being open to new environments requires self-examination. Consider what you've liked and disliked about the corporate cultures you've worked in. Also, ask yourself the standard interview questions: What is your ideal job? Describe your best (and worst) bosses. What do you look for in a new employer? Your answers to these questions will help you determine which environment is best for you.

Microsoft Hyper-V Now Supports Linux-Based CentOS

Microsoft has added support for another Linux server distribution with its Hyper-V virtualization software, its latest move to compete better with virtualization market leader VMware.

IDG News Service — Microsoft (MSFT) has added support for another Linux server distribution with its Hyper-V virtualization software, its latest move to compete better with virtualization market leader VMware (VMW).

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Customers can now run the CentOS flavor of Linux as a guest operating system in supported Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V environments, Sandy Gupta, general manager for marketing in Microsoft's Open Solutions Group, was due to announce at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco Monday.

Microsoft already supports Hyper-V environments that include Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Suse Linux Enterprise Server. It added CentOS because it's a popular distribution for hosting providers, a market Microsoft hopes to do well in.

The support is effective immediately, Gupta wrote in a blog post.

"This development enables our hosting partners to consolidate their mixed Windows + Linux infrastructure on Windows Server Hyper-V; reducing cost and complexity, while betting on an enterprise class virtualization platform," Gupta wrote.

Once contemptuous of open source, Microsoft has become more pragmatic about Linux in recent years. The company has realized it must interoperate with Linux and other OSes if it wants to do well in data centers, which are typically mixed environments.

"We've found that the Microsoft-only IT shop -- even in the smallest organizations -- is becoming a thing of the past," said Dan Olds, principal analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group. "It's important for Microsoft to recognize this fact of life and extend support to various Linux operating systems if they want Hyper-V to come out on top in the virtualization wars."

At the same time, Microsoft continues to assert that Linux and other open-source software products violate various patents that it holds.

Cisco layoffs expected soon

Analyst says up to 5,000 positions could be cut early in company's fiscal 2012

Cisco could be just weeks away from laying off as many as 5,000 people, an analyst wrote in a bulletin this week. The layoff would be one of the largest in Cisco's history and represent 7% of its workforce, notes All Things Digital.




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In 2001, Cisco cut 8,000 employees when its headcount was 44,000, according to this post in Barron's.

The impending layoffs would also help the company reduce expenses by $1 billion, a stated goal of Cisco's in the last quarterly conference call. Some of that reduction will come from an early retirement program instituted earlier this year and expected to conclude very soon.

The workforce reduction would coincide with the beginning of Cisco's fiscal 2012 year. Brian Marshall, an analyst at Gleacher & Co., states that 1,000 could come from the early retirement program with an additional 4,000 coming from layoffs.

The workforce reduction would be the third significant step Cisco's taken to streamline operations after several consecutive quarters of financial results that disappointed the company, and Wall Street. First, Cisco dumped its Flip videocam operations and realigned its consumer business; and then Cisco restructured its management and further streamlined sales and product development.

Marshall expects the latest round of cuts to be completed in September. He also says Cisco must formally lower its growth targets from 12% - 17% to a more realistic 10% - 11%. Cisco's been growing pretty consistently at an average 11% over the past five calendar years, Marshall notes in the All Things Digital post.

In the Barron's post, Marshall is quoted as saying:

"I think at the end of the day, we need to come to the fact that there is a pretty big disconnect between Cisco's revenue performance and their headcount. Look at the past eight quarters. They've raised their headcount by 10,000 employees, but their revenue hasn't really gone up all that much."

According to Barron's, Marshall says the most important indicator to him is that in the last four quarters, revenue growth was flat, while headcount rose 4%, or 3,000 employees. This is "an unsustainable trend," he argues.

And in this post from BusinessWeek, Marshall says Cisco should consider a "transformative merger" to become more competitive in enterprise computing. Citing the Gleacher & Co. report, BusinessWeek states:

Offering The A-To-Z Of Enterprise Solutions On One Platform

IT’s all about usability and security!

Even a year after the iPhone was launched, cell phone manufacturers are still trying to knock Apple’s ubergizmo off its perch as the leading touchscreen cell phone in the world.




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It has been raining touchscreen phones ever since Apple’s iPhone found favour with the masses in 2007. Unfortunately, most initial devices seemed to be little more than token attempts, with manufacturers focusing on the ‘touch’ aspect, rather than attempting to match Apple’s innovative interface. HTC’s Touch did make an attempt to come out with a finger-friendly ‘skin’ on top of its Windows 6 interface, but even that paled in comparison to the intuitive, easy-to-use interface offered by the iPhone. However, that trend seemed to change towards the end of 2008 with a number of manufacturers finally coming up with innovative product ideas. Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X1 threw in a QWERTY keypad along with an interesting panel interface, while Samsung came out with a widget-driven interface for its TouchWiz and Omnia devices. HTC, in the meantime, put a spin on the TouchFlo interface that it had used in the original Touch, upgrading it to TouchFlo 3D and using it with the Touch Diamond and Touch Pro.

The dawn of 2009 has seen three major touchscreen devices hit the Indian market at almost the same time – Nokia’s long awaited 5800 Xpress Music (also known as the Tube), the BlackBerry Storm, and the HTC Touch HD. Finally, the device that many people call the Godphone, gets some worthy competition.

A matter of interface

With both BlackBerry and Nokia releasing their first touchscreen phones since the launch of the iPhone (Nokia had tried its luck with touchscreens earlier while BlackBerry had stayed away from a touch interface), users have suddenly seen two entirely new interfaces. Of the two, the Storm is by far the better version. The device comes with a ‘clickable’ screen – you can compress it slightly to get a ‘mouse click-like’ sensation. That may not sound like much but it definitely makes selecting programs and applications a far easier task, although typing gets a bit tougher. Interestingly, there is no stylus with the Storm, making it, like the iPhone, a purely finger-driven device. Now, that is something that many of us who hate twiddling with small styluses, will welcome.

Nokia’s 5800 Xpress Music, on the other hand, seems to be a bit of a work-in-progress. It too has haptic feedback (you get a slight physical sensation when you press the touchscreen to select an item) but alas, its new operating system, Symbian Series 60 (fifth edition) seems a bit buggy and if the truth be told, does not look as sleek as the Storm. In fact, many feel that the device itself is a bit of an eyesore when compared with the Storm and the HD. That said, with a price tag in the vicinity of Rs 20,000, the 5800 is easily one of the touchscreen phones from a major player that offers the best value for money. The Storm is a tad more pricey at around Rs 28,000, but those who love BlackBerry’s mail service (who doesn’t!) won’t mind coughing up the amount.

Perhaps the most powerful of the three is HTC’s Touch HD. Although it retains the TouchFlo interface that was used in the Touch Diamond launched last year, the HD’s massive 3.8-inch (9.65 cm) touchscreen (the largest among the touchscreen phones in India) makes it a treat to use. The big screen also makes the HD a much better device for viewing and editing files. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this is the best Windows Mobile device I have ever used–sleek in appearance and packed with all the specs one would ever need. The problem is that all this does not come cheap – at more than Rs 40,000, the Touch HD is one for those with really deep pockets.

The problem is that while all three interfaces do represent a step forward, none of them are as easy to use as the iPhone. If pushed, I would go with HTC’c TouchFlo being the best as the big screen makes it so finger-friendly. In terms of innovation, BlackBerry certainly seems to have the edge, although some people might be alarmed at using a screen that wobbles a bit!

How to get your Mac ready for Lion

Here's how to get your Mac ready for the imminent release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

As an aside, although you can use any traditional input device with Lion, Lion's new systemwide gesture support makes a trackpad very, very useful. If you've got a desktop Mac without a trackpad, you should consider splurging on Apple's Magic Trackpad. I personally prefer a mouse or large trackball for everyday "mousing," but I've added a Magic Trackpad to my setup just to take advantage of Lion's gesture-based features. Apple's Magic Mouse also supports many of Lion's gestures if you don't want both a trackpad and a mouse.



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Pre-install tasks
Although Apple portrays the process of upgrading to Lion as a simple "download and install," those of us who've been around the block a few times know that a major OS update is never that simple. Perform these tasks before the upgrade and your chances of a pain-free experience will increase substantially.

Make sure your Mac's startup drive is in good health. To do so, open Disk Utility (in /Applications/Utilities), select your startup disk, click the First Aid tab, and then click Verify. If Disk Utility finds problems, you'll need to boot from a different volume to perform the actual repairs using the Repair Disk button. If you've got access to either your Snow Leopard Install DVD or the Mac OS X install DVD or thumb drive that shipped with your Mac, you can use that. Alternatively, once Lion is released, you can create a bootable Lion installer volume (just copy the Lion installer onto a bootable DVD, hard disk, or thumb drive) and boot from it, as the installer includes Disk Utility. If you're feeling especially cautious, you can also opt to run Apple Hardware Test.

Back up your Mac, and test that backup. Let me say that again: Back up your Mac, and test that backup, before installing Lion. (See our article on Mac backup plans for more info on backing up your Mac.) I personally recommend creating a bootable-clone backup -- I use SuperDuper for the task, although a Time Machine backup will do as well. To test a clone or other bootable backup, use the Startup Disk system preference to boot from the backup drive. To test a Time Machine or other non-bootable backup, try restoring several files to make sure the process works.

Run Software Update. To to be sure you're running both the latest version of Mac OS X -- version 10.6.8, for example, included fixes specifically for the Mac App Store in preparation for Lion's release -- and the latest versions of any other Apple software that might be affected by Lion, you should run Software Update (from the Apple menu). You should also check for updated firmware for your particular Mac model.

Disable FileVault. If you're using FileVault, Mac OS X's built-in account-encryption feature, on any of your Mac's accounts, I recommend disabling FileVault before upgrading to Lion. Why? For one thing, Lion uses a different (and allegedly new-and-much-improved) approach to encryption, and although Apple says you can keep using the Snow Leopard implementation for previously encrypted user accounts, Lion's approach is likely the better way to go. Plus, I prefer to not test Murphy's Law by risking any incompatibilities between the two versions of FileVault. Similarly, if you're using third-party disk encryption, you should probably disable that before installing Lion.

How to get Microsoft to pay you to adopt Office 365

Microsoft pays $250,000 to seal the University of Nebraska's purchase of Office 365 -- and there's more where that came from

A recent revelation by the University of Nebraska IT department that the university would receive $250,000 from Microsoft for rolling out Office 365 has much of the blogosphere tittering about incentives and motivations.

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Here's what the university said in a post about email migration:

In its analysis, the campus CIO review team found that both Google and Microsoft offered a superior Web-based interface and enhanced capabilities ... Ultimately, Microsoft was able to provide a more competitive pricing structure than Google ... Microsoft is providing $250,000 in business incentive funds to help us migrate from Lotus Notes to Office 365. That funding will pay for some consulting and licenses to convert a large percentage of our users from Lotus Notes to Office 365. We will also use that funding to pay for a Microsoft Premier Support agreement covering email and Microsoft Office applications for the entire university.

[ Is Office 365 a good buy without Microsoft's money reducing the cost? Check out InfoWorld's hands-on comparison of Office 365 and Googla Apps. ]

Many members of the press -- and many of Microsoft's customers -- apparently don't realize that Microsoft sales teams have copious amounts of business incentive funds (BIFs) at their disposal. The fact that the university received BIFs is hardly unusual, although discussing the amount of the grant in an open blog post must've raised more than a few hackles.

Here's what you and your company need to know about BIFs.

First, BIFs for customers are never in cash. Usually BIFs take the form of credits against product purchases from Microsoft or vouchers that can be used to hire third-party consultants or buy hardware from those consultants.

Second, BIFs don't always go to the customer. In my experience anyway, BIFs more commonly go to the consultants -- the Microsoft partners -- that line up a sale, seal it, and provide migration, training, and troubleshooting. Yes, the consultant you hire may be getting additional compensation from Microsoft for the work they're ostensibly doing for you. That shouldn't surprise you.

Third, BIFs are used to fund outside research projects. For example, Microsoft used BIF funds to work on cross-platform technology with Hanu Software. Citrix and Microsoft formed V-Alliance with BIF funds to work on desktop virtualization.

Finally, Microsoft sometimes uses BIFs to move old merchandise. They aren't just deal sweeteners or partner prods.

To see how that works, take a look at the TechNet post earlier this year from Andy McNulty, Microsoft's partner territory manager for the midwest U.S. McNulty describes how customers who signed up for BPOS -- the precursor to Office 365 -- qualified for 50 percent off of their first annual subscription fee, up to a maximum of $1,500. The offer was timed to coincide with BPOS officially falling to its last legs, while Office 365 was in the news. These customer BIFs aren't in cash; they're used for Microsoft partner consulting fees (vouchers), follow-on licenses, or hardware purchases from the partner.

The BIFs weren't just for customers. Microsoft partners -- consultants your company might hire -- could earn extra incentives for landing new customers or helping them with post-sale migration and deployment. And the partners get cash on the barrelhead.

Microsoft BIFs aren't new. They've been around for many years. Four years ago a Microsoft BIF manager posted this come-on, spurring Microsoft partners to close their sales: "Is your sale stalled? We have business incentive funds (BIF) available to help move sales along, which include Exchange, Office, and/or SharePoint."

While the exact amount of available BIF funds is a closely guarded secret, this LinkedIn post by a programmer who apparently worked on developing Microsoft's internal BIF reporting software, hints that the amounts are substantial: "Microsoft BIF 6.0 ($500+ million) is designed to drive revenue. BIF is a bucket of funds to support project expenses. It gives a cut short for lengthy approval process to get project fund. The fund is managed by profit centers and profit center head."

When I compared Office 365 with Google Apps in the InfoWorld review and looked at the price differences, I didn't take into account the possibility of BIFs. If you're comparing the two, ask your Microsoft rep for a big BIF. Now that Microsoft has established a precedent with a $250,000 BIF for the University of Nebraska, you certainly have more bargaining room.

It doesn't hurt to ask.

How to live with malware infections

Get used to it: Malware can't be completely blocked or eliminated. But you can manage your PCs, mobile devices, and networks to function despite being infected

Malware survival tip No. 4: Be sensible about using consumer devices in the workplace
If you believe in allowing lots of data access for everyone and from every conceivable type of device, it might be time to rethink your data management and access strategy. Limit network access via mobile devices to those users who really need this access, and put in place controls so that those who can get in to the network can only reach certain parts of it.



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Personal portable devices such as tablets, laptops, and Wi-Fi-equipped smartphones are becoming ever more popular in the workplace, and users will want to be connected to the corporate network.

But using diligence when granting access -- considering that these devices might be sources of malware -- makes sense. "What we've noticed is that once devices reach a certain threshold of consumer acceptance, malware appears for those platforms," says SUNY Old Westbury's Seybold. "Witness [recent] iPhone and Android attacks."

According to the Ponemon study, the rise of mobile and remote workers, PC vulnerabilities, and the introduction of third-party applications onto the network are the greatest areas of endpoint security risk today. This is a shift from last year's survey, when endpoint security concerns were mainly focused on removable media and data center risks.

Even without the "bring your own device" and "use your own apps" trends to consider how to manage, IT could reduce the ability of malware to spread by rethinking how many apps it deploys for users. "In looking at our line staff, there is no reason they need all the tools loaded on all the systems," says Redwood Credit Union's Hildesheim.

A report released in April 2011 by PandaLabs, Panda Security's antimalware laboratory, showed that the first three months of the year have seen "particularly intense virus activity," including a major attack against Android smartphones and intensive use of Facebook to distribute malware.

The beginning of March saw the largest ever attack on Android to date, the PandaLabs report stated. The assault was launched from malicious applications on Android Market, the official Google app store for the mobile OS. In just four days, these Trojan applications racked up more than 50,000 downloads: "The Trojan in this case was highly sophisticated, not only stealing personal information from cellphones, but also downloading and installing other apps without the user's knowledge."

Malware survival tip No. 5: Build a solid security foundation to protect the organization, rather than to protect devices
Sure, you need antimalware software on PCs and other devices to help prevent infections. But to create an environment where your company can continue to function without malware-related problems even with the existence of malware on some systems, you have to deploy a secure system architecture rather than a security architecture for a system, says USC's Neuman.

"You need to determine issues such as placement of data with an understanding of the application and the risks of compromise of the data, rather than just bolting security solutions onto an existing system," Neuman says. "Good architecture will define multiple protection domains, with successive layers of protection deployed, and fewer users legitimately able to access data as it becomes more and more sensitive."

Along these lines, processor manufacturer Intel has embarked on an ambitious multiyear effort to redesign its information security architecture, which the company hopes will allow it to better keep up with the rapid evolution of malware.

"We believe that compromise is inevitable, and in order to manage the risk, we need to improve survivability and increase our flexibility," says Malcolm Harkins, vice president of the IT group and chief information security officer at Intel.

The redesign is based on four pillars:

* A "dynamic trust calculation" that adjusts users privileges as their level of risk changes
* A segmentation of the IT environment into multiple "trust zones"
* A rebalancing of prevention, detection, and response controls
* A clear recognition that users and data must be treated as security perimeters and be protected as such

Living with infection is a fact of life
Malware is pervasive and is getting increasingly sophisticated. For many organizations, living with viruses, worms, and other types of malware is becoming a fact of life. In a sense, computer technology is catching up to the reality that biological systems have long had to manage.

As Intel's Harkins says, "I always assume that there is some level of compromise, [and] organizations who think they are malware-free -- or ever will be -- are not adequately understanding the true nature of information risk."

That doesn't mean your systems and applications can't continue to function well and support the business. By taking the right steps, your organization can operate a generally healthy IT environment despite malware intrusions.