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On Monday, I read a preliminary report that New York state may be the first government to move forward with this type of policy. Apparently, New York will use the Common Weakness Enumeration/SANS Institute list of the Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors as a baseline for software security. Under the proposal, vendors selling software to New York state must document how their software developers design and test code in order to prevent problems.

Kudos to the Empire State for taking the lead on this critical issue. Given the recent news at Heartland Payment Systems and Monster, New York’s action is timely and a sign of things to come.

Earlier this month, I predicted that large companies may soon adopt policies mandating that technology vendors adhere to best practices for security in product design and development.

I also suggested that government agencies may be on the cutting edge of adopting these types of policies.

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Gartner’s Magic Quadrants, much like any report from a mature, established analyst firm, greatly understates the current and near-future impact of disruptive technologies. The market research firm’s role is to appeal to the fat part of the bell curve, and this is where it missteps.

Younger workers have grown up with computers and, by and large, the Internet. They’ve never been “unconnected.” Therefore, their expectations for how software systems should behave are vastly different from those of an older worker who has grown into computers and software during the course of his career.

Of course, open-source business intelligence (like many other software categories in which open source is fast-growing) is having an enormous impact in both large and small customer environments. And, more importantly, the simplicity and innovation being delivered by the modern open-source code bases are allowing business intelligence to reach new customers and audiences largely forsaken by the established, proprietary vendors. This modern approach provides a critical appeal to the shifting workforce demographics in most of the large economies.

Software vendors designing products that work according to the new Web principles will fare far better with this younger generation of workers. Those that do not will become less relevant.

This is a guest post by Jaspersoft CEO Brian Gentile. The views expressed are his own.

Contributed by Jaspersoft CEO Brian Gentile. The views expressed are his own. (But if you like them, I’ll take credit. :-))

Gartner receives a lot of criticism about these reports, especially from open-source vendors, but my views are mixed. I believe that this new report on business intelligence contains solid insight on what has transpired in the sector during the past year and about enterprise priorities for the coming year. This report is not helpful, though, in truly understanding the likely course of the next 12 months.

While Gartner’s report mentions the consumerization of information, it does nothing to illustrate the full impact this trend is already having on the software industry and the ensuing disruption open-source software will present. At best, this makes the Magic Quadrant a lagging indicator and at worst, inaccurate.

The facts are clear: the evolving workforce and its expectations for software, which will drastically transform software development and usage–especially in the enterprise software market–is under way. As the aging workforce in the largest economies continues to retire (in the United States, it’s the baby boomer generation), and more young workers enter and climb higher, we’ll see a widening “expectation gap” between the anticipated behavior of enterprise applications and their actual behavior.

Read more about Gentile’s positions on open source and business intelligence at his blog: The Open Book on BI.

Because its criteria for inclusion on the business intelligence-focused Magic Quadrant chart focuses on the vendor achieving a minimum revenue threshold, not market penetration or customer adoption, the effect of open-source products is hugely understated.

I know it’s the dead of winter when Gartner releases its report “Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms.” Since its release in mid-January, I’ve had some time to talk to a variety of colleagues and to think about its accuracy, and wanted to share some of my conclusions.

More than ever, software will be transformed this year, and open-source adoption will remain aggressive, even in the current tough economy. Simply put, enterprise information systems will require a simpler, more consumer-oriented approach to appeal to the younger generation of up-and-coming workers, a concept Gartner and I refer to as “the consumerization of information.”

Salesforce.com showed Wednesday that cloud computing can produce serious money–but also that it’s not immune from the current unpleasant economic climate.

“The numbers for the fourth quarter clearly demonstrate increasing adoption of the force.com platform,” Chief Executive Marc Benioff said in the conference call.

Salesforce.com has been branching out, though, offering its Force.com system to let companies build their own custom Web-based applications or third-party programmers offer their own extensions to those customers. And in December, the company launched Force.com Sites to house customer’s Web sites.

Salesforce.com's mascot advocates cloud computing over in-house software.

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff

Salesforce.com’s core service lets customers track and analyze customers activity; its online approach also features alliances with some other high-profile Internet sites, including Amazon Web Services, Google Apps, and Facebook.

“We’ve slightly lowered the guidance range. There’s increasing uncertainty out there,” Chief Financial Officer Graham Smith said on the company’s conference call.

In after-hours trading, Salesforce.com’s stock rose $1.50, or 5 percent, to $29.60.

In the fourth quarter, Salesforce.com’s technology overall completed more than 12 billion transactions, the company said. The total of more than 1,500 Force.com Sites received more than 15 million page views in the quarter, and there are 166 applications available in the Force.com AppExchange.

(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET News)

The company competes chiefly with Oracle’s Siebel software for customer relationship management, which typically is run on massive computers a company runs on its own.

In November, the company had forecast $1.35 billion to $1.36 billion, and analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect on average $1.325 billion for the year.

(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET News)

For its fiscal 2009, which ended January 31, the San Francisco-based company reported revenue of $1.08 billion, a 44 percent increase. But for fiscal 2010, it lowered its forecast to a range of $1.3 billion to $1.33 billion.

For the company’s fourth quarter, Salesforce.com reported net income of $13.8 million, or 11 cents per share, on revenue of $290 million. That compared with $7.4 million net income and $217 million revenue for the year-earlier quarter, and it was better than the 7 cents per share on $285 million in revenue analysts expected.

The U.S. can replace one-third of its annual gasoline use with ethanol by 2030, concludes a joint study released Wednesday by Sandia National Laboratories and General Motors.

Proponents of cellulosic ethanol argue that because the fuel is produced from agricultural byproducts, it has no impact on the food supply or land use.

The joint study sees cellulosic ethanol as a viable alternative for reducing oil dependence while protecting food crops.

“For each billion ethanol-equivalent gallons of fuel produced and combusted in the US, the combined climate-change and health costs are $469 million for gasoline, $472-952 million for corn ethanol depending on biorefinery heat source (natural gas, corn stover, or coal) and technology, but only $123-208 million for cellulosic ethanol depending on feedstock (prairie biomass, Miscanthus, corn stover, or switchgrass),” the University of Minnesota report said.

Corn-based ethanol has been blamed by some for higher food prices and shortages because food producers are at times forced to compete with energy companies for the grain. Some also argue that the growing demand for such crops is also responsible for indirect land-use change, the destruction of rain forests and wetlands to make room for more farmland.

The inference here is that the biofuel may not be competitive if gasoline prices fall while the cost of making the biofuel does not.

Of the 90 billion gallons of ethanol that need to be produced in 2030 to meet that goal, the study says, 75 billion gallons could come from cellulosic ethanol.

Using cellulosic ethanol–or ethanol produced from forestry or agricultural waste–is considered a way to prevent the displacement of crops that feed humans.

(Credit:
Sandia / Randy Wong)

The Sandia-General Motors report follows a University of Minnesota study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Something else to consider: General Motors is an investor in the cellulosic-ethanol company Mascoma.

That study found that cellulosic ethanol could help reduce air pollution in more ways than previously thought. The research group found that cellulosic ethanol not only emits less greenhouse gas than gasoline than was previously known, but also emits fewer fine particles into the air. The researchers also came up with a formula quantifying the long-term health and environmental costs from the fuel production and use of three types of fuel.

Cellulosic ethanol could be competitive in price without the need for incentives when oil is at $90 per barrel, according to the study. That cost analysis includes factors such as land and water use, transportation of feedstocks, construction of plants, and the energy used to produce cellulosic ethanol.

Regarding Netbooks, Gladden described the product category as a “complementary” business, and said that market response for its new Inspiron Mini products as been positive. So far, he said, Netbooks haven’t affected the demand for any of its other products.

A year ago, Dell earned $766 million, or 34 cents per share, on $15.65 billion in sales.

Profits were down 5 percent from the same quarter a year ago, though earnings per share improved 9 percent. Revenue was down 3 percent.

Dell has been battling to get its costs under control as part of a broad turnaround plan. The company will continue to look at ways to get the costs of its products down, including reviewing its supply chain and manufacturing process.

Updated at 1:37 p.m. PT with comments from earnings call.

He did say that the company would make plans on the expectation of tightening IT budgets in the next year.

Some bright spots for Dell included its global consumer business, which saw a 10 percent improvement in profits and shipments that rose by one-third.

On a separate call later Thursday with investors, chief executive Michael Dell said that including 3G capability in its Netbooks has been well-received and that the company is working on signing up more wireless carriers to carry the Mini Inspiron. So far the company has partnered with European carrier Vodafone.

Dell shares rose 5 percent to $10.30 in after-hours trading.

"We expect the short term to stay challenging," says Dell CFO Brian Gladden.

Looking to the future, Gladden said Dell continues to see a slowing in demand “almost all” of its businesses. “We expect the short term to stay challenging,” he said, but refused to provide any additional commentary on what Dell expects for the fourth quarter or for next year.

(Credit:
Dell)

Dell was also able to reduce its costs further than expected. The company previously said it had met its goal of reducing employee headcount by 8,900–Gladden said Dell actually cut 10,800 positions.

Dell on Thursday reported third-quarter profit of $727 million, or 37 cents per share, and revenue of $15.16 billion.

The company said delaying or canceling any planned products was not part of its cost-cutting measures. Earlier there had been reports Dell had delayed the debut of a music player product until after the holiday season.

Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden said on a call with reporters Thursday that the company is “pleased” with its performance during the quarter, “especially against the backdrop of the global economic environment.”

Most analysts had been anticipating earnings of 32 cents per share and $16.3 billion in sales.

The steep sell-off seems to be partly a reaction to comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who issued a warning Tuesday that the economic malaise could very well continue through the next year.

At the end of the trading day, the Dow closed down 508.39 points at 9,447.11, marking its fourth-consecutive day of losses and a second day where the Dow ended below the 10,000 mark.

In the tech sector, Microsoft closed down 5.98 percent to $23.42 a share; Cisco Systems was down 7.14 percent to $19 a share; Apple was down 8.9 percent to $89.41 a share; and Network Appliance took the largest hit with a 12.2 percent decline to $12.95 a share.

Meanwhile, the CNET Tech Index, like the broader markets, fell more than 5 percent. The CNET Tech Index fell 72.43 points to 1,204.24, or 5.67 percent.

And the tech-heavy Nasdaq performed just as poorly, falling 108.08 points to end the session at 1,754.88. The S&P 500 also took a beating, ending the day down 60.66 points to 996.23.

After a whiplash session on the markets a day earlier, investors were treated to another harrowing ride Tuesday, with the Dow Jones industrial average plunging more than 500 points.

The Army followed up with a complete line of videos and slick multimedia touting the involvement and input from recently returned combat veterans. Videos with titles like “A Soldier’s Perspective of FCS Systems” and “Soldiers on FCS” feature guileless noncommissioned officers and other uniformed personnel barking the virtues of multibillion-dollar geegaws on which some in Congress and in the military have yet to be sold. (PDF)

The FCS comprises 14 weapons systems, including a whole new line of armaments, UAVs, and manned and unmanned ultralight vehicles that will allow soldiers to be able to see and hit the enemy first. It also includes a layered, interconnected system of computers, software, radios, and sensors, which will replace the current cacophony of systems all using different software. A “full-spectrum dominant modular” force, in Army parlance.

The tests, conducted at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, simulated combat operations in which vehicles interfaced with FCS command software developed by Boeing and Science Applications International.

During the test, soldiers were monitored to see how they interacted with the equipment, especially the FCS Warfighter Machine Interface display panels, designed to provide a common operating picture of the battle space. (PDF)

“Through participation in these exercises and their relevant combat experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, the soldiers provided invaluable recommendations on everything from FCS vehicle ergonomics to how we display and move information within the battle command network,” said Rick Greenwell, a Boeing test director.

However, it’s an endeavor of “unprecedented complexity,” the Government Accounting Office has warned. The estimated cost is $161 billion, with steadily declining expectations. (The number of systems has gone from 18 to 14.) (PDF)

(Credit:
U.S. Army)

In one video, an officer relates a story of the “tall, bearded man” in Afghanistan, possibly the one “we were looking for,” who got away for want of FCS gear. (Videos)

In what’s portrayed as a new approach, the U.S. Army is including soldiers in the early stages of equipment development, and in the case of the Future Weapons Systems, it’s having them pitch it as well.

Feedback will lead to the next phase, network and hardware build-out. Madison Avenue production-quality endorsements from men and women who’ve risked it all for God and country may keep funding on track.

Last January, defense contractors employed nearly 400 computers, dozens of vehicle mockups, and more than 100 soldiers and engineers in a preliminary test of the Future Combat Systems (FCS), a technological enterprise billed as the “cornerstone of Army modernization.”

Including actual soldiers this early in the development loop is a new approach, an Army statement boasts.

As a result of the back door, “anybody can run commands on the affected system,” said Jamz Yaneza, a senior threat analyst and researcher at Trend Micro.

Cybercriminals are exploiting a critical hole in Internet Explorer 7 that was patched a week ago by Microsoft, security firm Trend Micro warned on Tuesday.

This graphic shows how the new IE7 exploit code works to install a backdoor on an unpatched computer.

The malicious code, which Trend Micro named “XML_DLOADR.A,” is hidden in a Word document. On unpatched systems, when the file is opened an ActiveX object automatically accesses a Web site to open a backdoor that installs a .DLL (dynamic link library) file that can steal information, according to a Trend Micro blog entry. The code sends stolen data to another Web address via port 443, Trend Micro said.

Microsoft released a security patch for the vulnerability, and others, a week ago. The vulnerability arises from the browser’s improper handling of errors when attempting to access deleted objects.

“It looks like a proof of concept or targeted attack,” Yaneza said. The exploit is similar to politically motivated attacks that were seen before the Olympics last year in which PDF files and Word documents contained exploit code and automatically connected computers to malicious Web sites, he said.

It appears that the site directed to is in China and there is Chinese terminology in the code, according to Yaneza. That and the fact that the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising is approaching, on March 10, suggests that this attack could be politically motivated as well, he said.

(Credit:
Trend Micro)

“People need to speed up how they patch their OSes, or turn on auto update in Windows,” Yaneza said.