Microsoft disavows 1B-or-bust goal for Windows 10

Microsoft today acknowledged that it would not make its self-imposed goal of putting Windows 10 on 1 billion devices by mid-2018. "We're pleased with our progress to date, but due to the focusing of our phone hardware business, it will take longer than FY18 for us to reach our goal of 1 billion monthly active devices," a Microsoft spokesman said in an emailed statement. "In the year ahead, we are excited about usage growth coming from commercial deployments and new devices - and increasing customer delight with Windows." Microsoft's fiscal year 2018 -- the "FY18" mentioned in the firm's statement -- ends June 1, 2018. Ed Bott of ZDNet first reported on Microsoft's admission.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

If Microsoft can’t install Windows 10 on your PC, it’ll give you a new one

As July 29 gets closer and the free Windows 10 upgrade offer reaches its final days, Microsoft is pulling out all the stops in order to convince users to upgrade. It’s even willing to give you a new laptop. As spotted by Neowin, Microsoft retail stores are offering to install Windows 10 on any compatible machine for free. If the store’s technicians don’t complete the upgrade by the end of that business day, they’ll give you a free 15-inch Dell Inspiron notebook.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The H-1B positions of Clinton and Trump

With the political conventions set for the next two weeks, now is the time to offer a summary of where Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton stand on tech's top issue, immigration. Silicon Valley fears Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president. A letter released Thursday and signed by about 150 technologists, inventors and entrepreneurs, said Trump would be a disaster for innovation. Much of their criticism was directed at his proposed immigration policies. Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, is far more aligned with Silicon Valley on immigration.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AT&T likes ‘white-box’ networks and hopes you will, too

AT&T’s march toward standard “white-box” network gear will come to enterprises this week with the introduction of a standard x86 server that can take the place of four specialized network devices. AT&T is aggressively pursuing SDN and NFV (network functions virtualization), a pair of technologies that are expected to change the face of networking over the next several years. The carrier is on track to have nearly one-third of its own infrastructure virtualized this year. More important for enterprises, it’s offering customers a way to do the same thing at their own locations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AT&T likes ‘white-box’ networks and hopes you will, too

AT&T’s march toward standard “white-box” network gear will come to enterprises this week with the introduction of a standard x86 server that can take the place of four specialized network devices. AT&T is aggressively pursuing SDN and NFV (network functions virtualization), a pair of technologies that are expected to change the face of networking over the next several years. The carrier is on track to have nearly one-third of its own infrastructure virtualized this year. More important for enterprises, it’s offering customers a way to do the same thing at their own locations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AT&T likes ‘white-box’ networks and hopes you will, too

AT&T’s march toward standard “white-box” network gear will come to enterprises this week with the introduction of a standard x86 server that can take the place of four specialized network devices. AT&T is aggressively pursuing SDN and NFV (network functions virtualization), a pair of technologies that are expected to change the face of networking over the next several years. The carrier is on track to have nearly one-third of its own infrastructure virtualized this year. More important for enterprises, it’s offering customers a way to do the same thing at their own locations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Essential Azure automation tricks for Windows admins

Any organization making use of the cloud will want to leverage the power of infrastructure automation. This holds true whether you’re tapping Amazon Web Serices, Microsoft Azure, or any other cloud service. Automating repetitively executed tasks will save considerable labor and reduce human error.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Tech leaders challenged daily to sort through a crush of new security apps

A tech leader's day can be unpredictable, but Ginny Davis, CIO at entertainment services company Technicolor, can rely on one thing: She's guaranteed to get an email from a new security provider urging her to check out its latest and greatest technology. Davis says she values "the evolution in the fight against hackers" and considers the many new options a positive trend, "but it's mind-numbing how quickly [the security landscape] is changing." Bob Lamendola, general manager of infrastructure services at IT services provider Mindshift, agrees. "The number of security-related products and services coming at you is almost frightening. The [security] marketplace is evolving at a frantic rate, making a complex situation even more complex to navigate."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

15 free Modern Windows apps for IT pros

There are countless free app lists out there for traditional Windows applications and mobile OSs, but not as many for the newer Modern Windows apps. Most of these apps are still very basic in their functionality, but nevertheless there are some that are quite useful, even for network and IT professionals.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

New products of the week 7.18.16

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Built.io FlowKey features: Built.io Flow makes building enterprise integrations easier. The Activity Builder allows organizations to instantly add new services to their integration library. The Data Mapper enables data transformation between heterogeneous systems. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New products of the week 7.18.16

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Built.io FlowKey features: Built.io Flow makes building enterprise integrations easier. The Activity Builder allows organizations to instantly add new services to their integration library. The Data Mapper enables data transformation between heterogeneous systems. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Flaw in vBulletin add-on leads to Ubuntu Forums database breach

Ubuntu support forums users should be on the lookout for dodgy emails after the website's database of 2 million email addresses was stolen.Canonical announced the security breach on Friday after being notified that someone was claiming to have a copy of the UbuntuForums.org database. An investigation revealed that an attacker did get access to the website's user records through a vulnerability.The exploited SQL injection flaw was located in the Forum Runner add-on for vBulletin, commercial web forum software that powers over 100,000 community websites on the Internet and is especially popular with companies. The vulnerability was known, but the Canonical IS team had failed to apply the patch for it in a timely manner.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Flaw in vBulletin add-on leads to Ubuntu Forums database breach

Ubuntu support forums users should be on the lookout for dodgy emails after the website's database of 2 million email addresses was stolen.Canonical announced the security breach on Friday after being notified that someone was claiming to have a copy of the UbuntuForums.org database. An investigation revealed that an attacker did get access to the website's user records through a vulnerability.The exploited SQL injection flaw was located in the Forum Runner add-on for vBulletin, commercial web forum software that powers over 100,000 community websites on the Internet and is especially popular with companies. The vulnerability was known, but the Canonical IS team had failed to apply the patch for it in a timely manner.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NFV Platforms with MirageOS Unikernels

Wassim Haddad is at Ericsson Silicon Valley where he currently works on distributed cloud infrastructure. Heikki Mahkonen and Ravi Manghirmalani work at Ericsson Research at Silicon Valley in the advanced Networking and Transport labs. The Ericsson team has a diverse background in different NFV, SDN and Cloud related R&D projects.

The push towards NFV

The Network Function Virtualization (NFV) paradigm breaks away from traditional “monolithic” approaches, which normally build network functions by tightly coupling application code to the underlying hardware. Decoupling these components offers a new approach to designing and deploying network services. One that brings a high degree of flexibility in terms of separating their lifecycle management and enabling much more efficient scaling. Moreover, the move away from specialized hardware coupled with a “virtualize everything” trend is fuelling operators and service providers’ expectations of significant cost reductions. This is undoubtedly a strong motivation behind NFV adoption.

Current NFV market trends point towards two key technologies: Cloud Orchestration (e.g., OpenStack) to provision and manage workflows, and Software Defined Networking (SDN) to enable dynamic connectivity between different workflows as well as network slicing. In parallel, there is also a strong desire to migrate from virtual machines towards microservice enablers, Continue reading

SoftBank said to acquire ARM for about $32 billion

Japan’s SoftBank is set to acquire UK chip design company, ARM, to cash in on growing demand for processors and other technologies for the internet of things and mobile markets, according to news reports.Softbank is paying  up to US$32 billion for the chip design company that licenses its designs to a large number of chip suppliers to smartphone makers and to the emerging IoT market, according to the reports.SoftBank has invested in a number of media and technology companies, including Internet retailer Snapdeal in India and ride-hailing app company Didi Chuxing in China. It also acquired Sprint Nextel in 2013.But the acquisition of ARM would place the company in a market where it would be an upstream supplier to some of the biggest names in the tech industry as licensees of ARM’s designs like Qualcomm gear up to supply chips to the the connected devices market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SoftBank will acquire ARM for $32 billion

Japan’s SoftBank will acquire UK chip design company, ARM Holdings, to cash in on growing demand for processors and other technologies for the internet of things and mobile markets.SoftBank is paying £24.3 billion (US$32 billion) in cash for the chip company that licenses its designs to a large number of chip suppliers to smartphone makers and to the emerging IoT market.The Japanese company will retain ARM's headquarters in Cambridge and plans to double the number of employees in the U.K. over the next five years, when it will also increase the company's headcount outside the U.K.ARM, with 4,064 employees,  will be an independent business within SoftBank, which will pay for the acquisition from existing cash resources and a loan facility.  SoftBank said it intends to retain the current ARM organization including the existing senior management team, brand, and partnership-based business model and culture.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here