Vint Cerf is considered a father of the internet, but that doesn't mean there aren't things he would do differently if given a fresh chance to create it all over again."If I could have justified it, putting in a 128-bit address space would have been nice so we wouldn't have to go through this painful, 20-year process of going from IPv4 to IPv6," Cerf told an audience of journalists Thursday during a press conference at the Heidelberg Laureate Forum in Germany.IPv4, the first publicly used version of the Internet Protocol, included an addressing system that used 32-bit numerical identifiers. It soon became apparent that it would lead to an exhaustion of addresses, however, spurring the creation of IPv6 as a replacement. Roughly a year ago, North America officially ran out of new addresses based on IPv4. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
SAP has made no secret of the fact that its bets for the future rest largely on its Hana in-memory computing platform. But broad adoption is a critical part of making those bets pay off.Aiming to make Hana more accessible to companies of all shapes and sizes, the enterprise software giant on Monday unveiled a downloadable "express" edition that developers can use for free.The new express edition of SAP Hana can be used free of charge on a laptop or PC to develop, test and deploy production applications that use up to 32 GB of memory; users who need more memory can upgrade for a fee. Either way, the software delivers database, application and advanced analytics services, allowing developers to build applications that use Hana's transactional and analytical processing against a single copy of data, whether structured or unstructured.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If there was any doubt that AI has officially arrived in the world of enterprise software, Salesforce just put it to rest. The CRM giant on Sunday announced Einstein, a set of artificial intelligence capabilities it says will help users of its platform serve their customers better.AI's potential to augment human capabilities has already been proven in multiple areas, but tapping it for a specific business purpose isn't always straightforward. "AI is out of reach for the vast majority of companies because it's really hard," John Ball, general manager for Salesforce Einstein, said in a press conference last week.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Memory management can be challenge enough on traditional data sets, but when big data enters the picture, things can slow way, way down. A new programming language announced by MIT this week aims to remedy that problem, and so far it's been found to deliver fourfold speed boosts on common algorithms.The principle of locality is what governs memory management in most computer chips today, meaning that if a program needs a chunk of data stored at some memory location, it's generally assumed to need the neighboring chunks as well. In big data, however, that's not always the case. Instead, programs often must act on just a few data items scattered across huge data sets.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Numerous Slack contenders have already thrown their hats into the enterprise-messaging ring, but Flock is hoping to win with hard numbers. According to Flock, not only does its software load 2.5 times faster than Slack on both desktop and mobile, but it also helps teams achieve productivity gains of at least 30 percent.Originally launched in India roughly two years ago, the company announced its expansion into the U.S. market on Wednesday and revealed a customer list that includes big-name brands such as Whirlpool, Ricoh, Victorinox and Tim Horton’s.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft's upcoming Dynamics 365 cloud software promises a one-stop shop for ERP and CRM, but its modular convenience could come at a considerable cost, with strong incentives to sign up for bundle pricing.So suggests a blog post published Monday but since taken down by Microsoft partner Encore Business Solutions. The blog post outlined how pricing and licensing will work for the new enterprise software. (A cached version of the post is still online.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but a new imaging system from MIT can see right through the cover and read the book while it's still closed.That's thanks primarily to terahertz radiation, the band of electromagnetic radiation between microwaves and infrared light, and the tiny gaps of air between the pages of any closed book.Terahertz radiation can distinguish between ink and blank paper in a way that X-rays can’t, and it also offers much better depth resolution than ultrasound does. The prototype new system developed by researchers from MIT and Georgia Tech uses a standard terahertz camera to emit ultrashort bursts of radiation and then measure how long it takes for that radiation to be reflected back. An algorithm then gauges the distance to each of the book's individual pages.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Engaging customers is an ongoing challenge for companies large and small, but Salesforce has been working to make it easier. On Thursday, the CRM giant took its efforts a big step further with the launch of Lightning Bolt, a new product designed to jump-start the process of building customer communities, portals, and websites.Last year, Salesforce introduced Lightning Templates for Community Cloud, enabling companies to create customized communities for their customers, partners, and employees. Lightning Bolt takes the template concept up another notch.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Hewlett Packard Enterprise will spin off and merge what it considers its non-core software assets with U.K.-based enterprise software firm Micro Focus in a deal worth $8.8 billion, the company said Wednesday.Included in the bundle being offloaded are HPE’s businesses focusing on application delivery management, big data, enterprise security, information management and governance, and IT operations management. Combined with Micro Focus, which acquired Attachmate in 2014 and owns Linux company SUSE, it will create one of the world’s largest pure-play software companies, HPE said, with a combined sales force of about 4,000 people.Among the terms of the deal are a $2.5 billion cash payment to HPE and 50.1 percent ownership of the new combined company by HPE shareholders. HPE declined to specify what the staffing impact would be. The combined company will be led by Kevin Loosemore, executive chairman of Micro Focus, and the deal is expected to close by the second half of HPE's fiscal year 2017.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Hewlett Packard Enterprise will spin off and merge what it considers its non-core software assets with U.K.-based enterprise software firm Micro Focus in a deal worth $8.8 billion, the company said Wednesday.Included in the bundle being offloaded are HPE’s businesses focusing on application delivery management, big data, enterprise security, information management and governance, and IT operations management. Combined with Micro Focus, which acquired Attachmate in 2014 and owns Linux company SUSE, it will create one of the world’s largest pure-play software companies, HPE said, with a combined sales force of about 4,000 people.Among the terms of the deal are a $2.5 billion cash payment to HPE and 50.1 percent ownership of the new combined company by HPE shareholders. HPE declined to specify what the staffing impact would be. The combined company will be led by Kevin Loosemore, executive chairman of Micro Focus, and the deal is expected to close by the second half of HPE's fiscal year 2017.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As quantum computers inch closer to reality, experts are sweating over their potential to render many of today's cybersecurity technologies useless. Earlier this year the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology issued a call for help on the matter, and this week the Global Risk Institute added its voice to the mix.Because of quantum computing, there's a one-in-seven chance that fundamental public-key cryptography tools used today will be broken by 2026, warned Michele Mosca, co-founder of the University of Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing and special advisor on cybersecurity to the Global Risk Institute. By 2031, that chance jumps to 50 percent, Mosca wrote in a report published Monday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As quantum computers inch closer to reality, experts are sweating over their potential to render many of today's cybersecurity technologies useless. Earlier this year the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology issued a call for help on the matter, and this week the Global Risk Institute added its voice to the mix.Because of quantum computing, there's a one-in-seven chance that fundamental public-key cryptography tools used today will be broken by 2026, warned Michele Mosca, co-founder of the University of Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing and special advisor on cybersecurity to the Global Risk Institute. By 2031, that chance jumps to 50 percent, Mosca wrote in a report published Monday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Big data has been a big buzzword for more than a few years already, and it's got some solid numbers to back that up, including US$46 billion in 2016 revenues for vendors of related products and services. But the big data era is still just beginning to dawn, with the real growth yet to come.So suggests a new report from SNS Research, which predicts that by the end of 2020, companies will spend more than $72 billion on big data hardware, software, and professional services. While revenue is currently dominated by hardware sales and professional services, that promises to change: By the end of 2020, software revenue will exceed hardware investments by more than $7 billion, the researcher predicts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The European Commission's decision to force Apple to pay Ireland billions of dollars in back taxes is "total political crap" and a reflection of anti-U.S. sentiment, company CEO Tim Cook told the Irish Independent in an interview published Thursday."No one did anything wrong here," Cook said. "Ireland is being picked on, and this is unacceptable."The EC ruled on Tuesday that Ireland gave Apple illegal tax benefits by not collecting €13 billion (US$14.5 billion) in taxes owed to it over a 10-year period. It was the culmination of a two-year investigation into the company's tax affairs that found Apple's effective tax rate on profit reported in Ireland was just €500 per million euros in profit, falling to €50 per million in 2014.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Linux users come in many shapes and sizes, but those in the business world typically steer clear of the bleeding edge. That's why the OpenSUSE project recently switched to a two-pronged development approach, with one version focused on constant updates and another on enterprise-grade stability. On Wednesday, the latter took a big step forward.The first beta version of OpenSUSE Leap 42.2 is now available, giving enterprises and other stability-minded users the chance to check it out and get a taste of what's coming in the final release, which is due Nov. 16. This is the first key update to the Leap software since OpenSUSE adopted its dual-path approach late last year with OpenSUSE 42.1.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
SAP has already placed big bets on Hana, and now it's adding more with a new data warehouse tailored specifically for the in-memory computing platform.
Launched on Wednesday, SAP BW/4Hana promises to minimize data movement and duplication by enabling data to be analyzed wherever it resides, whether within or outside the enterprise. It can also integrate live streaming and time-series sensor data collected from internet of things (IoT) environments.
Back in 2014, SAP added Hana support to its longstanding Business Warehouse data warehousing software, but BW/4Hana goes a big step further. Like S4/Hana, the enterprise suite SAP released last year, the new data warehouse is optimized for Hana, and will not run on any other platform.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Making a career change is never easy, but few things are more motivating than the prospect of a good salary and a dearth of competition. That's a fair summary of the data science world today, as at least one well-publicized study has made clear, so why not investigate a little further?There's been a flurry of free resources popping up online to help those who are intrigued learn more. Here's a small sampling for each step of the way.1. Understand what it is
Microsoft's website might not automatically spring to mind as a likely place to look, but sure enough, a few months ago the software giant published a really nice series of five short videos entitled "Data Science for Beginners." Each video focuses on a specific aspect, such as "The 5 questions data science answers" and "Is your data ready for data science?"To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Hewlett Packard Enterprise has made no secret of its desire to push further into big data, and on Tuesday it announced two key new offerings: HPE Haven OnDemand Combinations, an extension of the "machine learning as a service" platform it released earlier this year, and Vertica 8, a major new update to its analytics software.Launched in March, HPE's Haven OnDemand cloud platform offers machine learning APIs (application programming interfaces) and services designed to help developers and businesses build data-rich applications. The platform now has 70 artificial intelligence APIs and more than 18,000 users, and HPE is extending it to make development easier.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Digital transformation may promise critical benefits for the companies undertaking it, but it's also delivering a major boost to IT spending around the world.That's according to market researcher IDC, which on Monday released new data indicating that global spending on IT products and services will grow from nearly $2.4 trillion in 2016 to more than $2.7 trillion in 2020. A big part of that growth, it says, will come from companies investing in cloud, mobility, and big data technologies as part of their digital transformation efforts. Such efforts are now particularly prominent in financial services and manufacturing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Big data is best known for its volume, variety, and velocity -- collectively referred to as the "3 Vs" -- and all three of those traits make security an elusive goal. Targeting companies grappling with that challenge, the Cloud Security Alliance on Friday released a new report offering 100 best practices.As its name would suggest, the CSA focuses on promoting the use of security best practices within the cloud computing world; corporate members include VMware, Microsoft, AWS, and Red Hat. In an earlier report, the CSA broke down big data security risks into a set of the top 10 major challenges. Now, for each of those, it presents 10 best practices designed to help enterprises keep their information safe.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Katherine Noyes