http://www.ecommercetimes.com E-Commerce Times: the E-Business and Technology Super Site en-us Copyright 2009 2010-07-31T13:18:57-07:00 ECT News Network ECT News Network E-Commerce Times: the E-Business and Technology Super Site hourly 1 2010-07-31T13:18:57-07:00 http://www.ecommercetimes.com/images/rss/ect_100x36.jpg http://www.ecommercetimes.com http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/70531.html Coming to you from The Open Group's Enterprise Architecture Practitioners Conference in Boston, we've assembled a panel this week to delve into the advancing role and powerful potential for enterprise architecture. The economy's grip on IT budgets and the fast-changing sourcing models like cloud computing are pointing to a reckoning for EA. Dana Gardner 2010-07-31T05:00:00-07:00 SOA Coming to you from The Open Group's Enterprise Architecture Practitioners Conference in Boston, we've assembled a panel this week to delve into the advancing role and powerful potential for enterprise architecture. The economy's grip on IT budgets and the fast-changing sourcing models like cloud computing are pointing to a reckoning for EA -- of now defining a vast new promise for IT business alignment improvement or, conversely, a potentially costly lost opportunity. ]]> 2010-07-31T05:00:00-07:00 2010-07-30T15:18:34-07:00 http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/70523.html Microsoft's tablet project is a top priority for the company, CEO Steve Baller told financial analysts at a presentation Thursday. However, he remained coy on the details. Redmond is working with several OEM partners, and the new tablet will run Windows, Ballmer said. Several vendors, including Toshiba and Archos, already offer tablets running Windows CE or Windows 7. Richard Adhikari 2010-07-30T11:29:45-07:00 Business Microsoft's tablet project is a top priority for the company, CEO Steve Baller told financial analysts at a presentation Thursday. However, he remained coy on the details. Redmond is working with several OEM partners, and the new tablet will run Windows, Ballmer said. Several vendors, including Toshiba and Archos, already offer tablets running Windows CE or Windows 7. Microsoft also launched a Windows XP tablet some years ago. However, so far, Microsoft's own efforts haven't been very successful. Will Microsoft finally grab the brass ring now? ]]> 2010-07-30T11:29:45-07:00 2010-07-30T11:33:50-07:00 http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/70525.html YouTube uploaders who wish to follow 60s pop-art icon Andy Warhol's advice and grasp their 15 minutes of fame now can do so fully. YouTube has raised the maximum length limit on submissions from 10 to 15 minutes, announced Product Manager Joshua Siegel on the company blog. While an additional five minutes may seem trivial to some, it represents an increase of 50 percent in video length, which is significant. Kimberly Hill 2010-07-30T10:53:12-07:00 Multimedia YouTube uploaders who wish to follow 60s pop-art icon Andy Warhol's advice and grasp their 15 minutes of fame now can do so fully. YouTube has raised the maximum length limit on submissions from 10 to 15 minutes, announced Product Manager Joshua Siegel on the company blog. While an additional five minutes may seem trivial to some, it represents an increase of 50 percent in video length, which is significant. The change was made possible by improvements to the video service's Content ID system, which allows rights owners to determine if users are uploading their content without permission. ]]> 2010-07-30T10:53:12-07:00 2010-07-30T10:53:59-07:00 http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/70516.html When many individuals attempted to watch the recent World Cup games online, depending on where they were located and from which website they tried to view them, they may have found the following statement on their screen: "The requested video cannot be displayed in your region" rather than the game itself. That pop-up message was due to "geo-blocking" or "geo-fencing." Daisy Yu 2010-07-30T05:00:00-07:00 Law When many individuals attempted to watch the recent World Cup games online, depending on where they were located and from which website they tried to view them, they may have found the following statement on their screen: "The requested video cannot be displayed in your region" rather than the game itself. That pop-up message was due to "geo-blocking" or "geo-fencing," a practice that allows only the people within a specific geographical region to view online content such as video streams. It's managed by identifying where an individual is currently located based on the IP address. ]]> 2010-07-30T05:00:00-07:00 2010-07-29T15:49:04-07:00 http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/70518.html Personal data about millions of Android users could be sent to a mysterious Chinese website thanks to a set of wallpaper apps in the Android Market. That's according to mobile security firm Lookout, which discovered the questionable apps as part of its new App Genome Project. Katherine Noyes 2010-07-30T05:00:00-07:00 Mobile Personal data about millions of Android users could be sent to a mysterious Chinese website thanks to a set of wallpaper apps in the Android Market. That's according to mobile security firm Lookout, which discovered the questionable apps as part of its new App Genome Project, an effort to identify security threats in the wild and provide insight into how applications are tapping into personal data and accessing other phone resources. The apps include branded wallpapers from "Star Wars" and "My Little Pony." ]]> 2010-07-30T05:00:00-07:00 2010-07-30T12:32:17-07:00 http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/70517.html As companies continue their search for the elusive "360-degree view" of their prospective clients, harvesting all the scattered information from social networks and other content providers about these prospects can potentially be beneficial for the purposes of deploying more finely targeted sales and marketing campaigns. Peter Ostrow 2010-07-30T05:00:00-07:00 CRM As companies continue their search for the elusive "360-degree view" of their prospective clients, harvesting all the scattered information from social networks and other content providers about these prospects can potentially be beneficial for the purposes of deploying more finely targeted sales and marketing campaigns. In fact, recent Aberdeen research published in December, 2009 -- "Inside Sales Enablement: "Let Them Drink Coffee!" -- found that users of sales intelligence achieve 56 percent better lead conversion rates than non-users. ]]> 2010-07-30T05:00:00-07:00 2010-07-29T16:37:30-07:00 http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/70515.html It's likely not illegal, and it may not even be improper, but the fact that security consultant Ron Bowes gathered and aggregated the information from about 100 million Facebook profiles has created quite a stir. Bowes created his data torrent to aid the development of a password-cracking-protection tool, he has said. Kimberly Hill 2010-07-29T14:45:33-07:00 Privacy It's likely not illegal, and it may not even be improper, but the fact that security consultant Ron Bowes gathered and aggregated the information from about 100 million Facebook profiles has created quite a stir. Bowes created his data torrent to aid the development of a password-cracking-protection tool, he has said. To do that, he needed the names of many thousands of individuals and the user names they likely would have on an account. However, Bowes has also made the compiled data file publicly available, and it has been replicated on many sites across the Internet. ]]> 2010-07-29T14:45:33-07:00 2010-07-29T18:01:27-07:00 http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/70513.html At face value, Motorola turned in respectable second quarter earnings: It posted revenue of $5.414 billion, which, although down slightly from the $5.497 billion realized the same period a year earlier, nonetheless beat analyst expectations of approximately $5.19 billion. The company also posted mobile smartphone shipments of 2.7 million units in Q2, up from 2.3 million in the first quarter. Here, doubts begin to set in. Erika Morphy 2010-07-29T11:37:27-07:00 Wall Street At face value, Motorola turned in respectable second quarter earnings: It posted revenue of $5.414 billion, which, although down slightly from the $5.497 billion realized the same period a year earlier, nonetheless beat analyst expectations of approximately $5.19 billion. The company also posted mobile smartphone shipments of 2.7 million units in Q2, up from 2.3 million in the first quarter. Here, though, doubts begin to set in about Motorola's performance: Some analysts were expecting shipments of 3.1 million to 3.2 million. One firm, Reuters, had predicted 2.7 million -- which Motorola delivered. ]]> 2010-07-29T11:37:27-07:00 2010-07-29T11:38:07-07:00 http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/70509.html AT&T Mobility and Apple iPhone have been successful together, but every coin has two sides. The other side has been a wireless data logjam. Could that problem finally be getting under control? AT&T has been working very hard to do just that, said Ralph de la Vega, AT&T mobility and consumer markets president and CEO, at last week's Fortune Brainstorm Tech Conference in Aspen, Colo. Jeff Kagan 2010-07-29T05:00:00-07:00 Wireless AT&T Mobility and Apple iPhone have been successful together, but every coin has two sides. The other side has been a wireless data logjam. Could that problem finally be getting under control? AT&T has been working very hard to do just that, said Ralph de la Vega, AT&T mobility and consumer markets president and CEO, at last week's Fortune Brainstorm Tech Conference in Aspen, Colo. Improved connectivity should already be evident. If that is true, millions of AT&T smartphone customers should be very happy starting about now. ]]> 2010-07-29T05:00:00-07:00 2010-07-29T06:43:56-07:00 http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/70510.html There's no denying that everyone needs a little love from time to time, but for those of us in the FOSS community, that need can be particularly acute. After all, rarely a week goes by without some affront from those we had hoped were our friends. Case in point? Dell. Imagine our surprise, then -- nay, outright joy! -- when none other than Neelie Kroes lavished a heaping helping of love upon the FOSS community. Katherine Noyes 2010-07-29T05:00:00-07:00 Community There's no denying that everyone needs a little love from time to time, but for those of us in the FOSS community, that need can be particularly acute. After all, rarely a week goes by without some affront from those we had hoped were our friends. Case in point? Dell. First, it was the disappearing love letter. Then, it was the "helpful" Windows vs. Ubuntu comparison guide. The latest? None other than outright rejection. Imagine our surprise, then -- nay, outright joy! -- when none other than Neelie Kroes lavished a heaping helping of love upon the FOSS community. ]]> 2010-07-29T05:00:00-07:00 2010-07-29T09:09:20-07:00 http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/70511.html CRM is a complex thing. It involves understanding your customers and your own business -- two difficult things to fully grasp under any circumstances -- and then using technology to convert that understanding into a positive impact on your business. Customers, and to a lesser extent your business, are always changing. Christopher J. Bucholtz 2010-07-29T05:00:00-07:00 Strategy CRM is a complex thing. It involves understanding your customers and your own business -- two difficult things to fully grasp under any circumstances -- and then using technology to convert that understanding into a positive impact on your business. Customers, and to a lesser extent your business, are always changing, which makes the juggling of people, processes and technology an ongoing and always complex exercise. When you sell through the channel, that complexity increases exponentially. ]]> 2010-07-29T05:00:00-07:00 2010-07-28T17:13:56-07:00 http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/70503.html The pressure on major Web site operators and online advertisers to do a better job of protecting consumers' privacy continues to mount. On Tuesday, Senator John Kerry, D-Mass., said he plans to introduce legislation that would "give people more control over how their personal information is collected and distributed online." Sidney Hill 2010-07-28T09:42:20-07:00 Privacy The pressure on major Web site operators and online advertisers to do a better job of protecting consumers' privacy continues to mount. On Tuesday, Senator John Kerry, D-Mass., said he plans to introduce legislation that would "give people more control over how their personal information is collected and distributed online." Kerry's announcement coincided with a hearing in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on the issue of consumer online privacy. Kerry is chairman of the Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet. ]]> 2010-07-28T09:42:20-07:00 2010-07-28T10:32:30-07:00