Sophos concludes fiscal year 2008/2009, with 27 percent revenue growth

Sophos, a leading provider of IT solutions for Security and Data Protection ', was completed in fiscal year 2008/2009, at 31 March 2009 ended, its strong growth to continue: The revenue from product licenses and services increased over the previous year by 27 percent to 270.9 million U.S. Dollar. In fiscal year 2007/2008 were those at 213.9 million U.S. Dollar. Sophos simultaneously achieved in fiscal year 2008/2009 had a turnover of 215.2 million U.S. Dollar and thereby also an increase of 27 percent over the previous year. The Unlevered free cash flow in fiscal year 2008/2009 amounted to a total of 39.8 million U.S. Dollar.
Steve Munford, CEO at Sophos: 'Despite the difficult economic situation in the last fiscal year, Sophos's revenue and sales by 27 percent. This growth reflects the increasing customer demand for integrated and easy to manage IT security solutions again, as it offers Sophos. The takeover of Utimaco was an important milestone in the past fiscal year and for Sophos in the rapidly growing market for Data Protection further impetus. "
In the past fiscal year, Sophos at 21 Time in a row, its sales increase. Contributed to the positive development especially the expansion of its product portfolio and the expansion of the company and the expansion of business activities in the North American market. Sophos has in the past fiscal year a total of 19,000 new customers win, 3,800 of them in North America. More than half of all new customers switched from competitors Symantec and McAfee to Sophos. Recent studies have revealed that almost one third of all new customers of Sophos with the support of its former suppliers were unhappy, and this is a crucial criterion for this was to work for Sophos to decide.

Tags: News,Anti Virus,Free,Free Download,Virus,Computer Virus

Intel Announces Streamlined Linux for Netbooks

n an effort to counter the growing dominance of Microsoft's Windows OS in netbooks, Intel on Tuesday announced a beta version of a Linux OS it has developed for low-cost laptops and mobile devices.

The chip company on Tuesday announced a beta of Moblin 2.0, a stripped-down distribution of Linux optimized for smaller screens on netbooks and mobile Internet devices (MIDs). Intel has fine-tuned Moblin for netbooks based on Atom chips with a simple user interface and improved power-saving features.

Most netbooks today ship with Intel's Atom chip but run the Windows XP operating system, which Microsoft ships for low-cost laptops. But Intel wants to ensure that every "ounce" of technology -- including Moblin -- put into Atom is optimized for size and power consumption, said Doug Fisher, vice president and general manager of the software and services group at Intel, during a conference call on Tuesday.

List of Anti-Virus Software Compatible with Windows 7

Within a few hours of Windows 7 being released my inbox started filling up with readers asking what Anti-Virus software they should install in Windows 7. Since this seems like such an important topic, I decided to make a list of packages that work.

If this is your first time here, you should check out our review of the Windows 7 Beta.

Note: as a general rule, software that works on Windows Vista should work just fine on Windows 7, with the exception of software that installs low-level system components like an Anti-Virus, firewalls, or similar. These packages often are designed to only run on specific versions of Windows.

Windows AntiVirus Detection

When you first install Windows 7, you'll get a popup balloon message telling you that you need to find an antivirus program online… notice the wrench on the balloons that will let you turn them off easily.

Sun deal poses challenges for Oracle

Oracle Corp., which announced plans last month to acquire Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion, should benefit from the merger but will face significant marketing challenges in communicating the combined brand, industry analysts say.
In announcing the deal April 20, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison emphasized the strength of the end-to-end solution that Oracle will now be able to offer its customers as a result of the acquisition.
“Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system—applications to disk—where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves,” he said. “Our customers benefit as their systems integration costs go down while system performance, reliability and security go up.”
Under the terms of the deal, software company Oracle is acquiring the entire Sun portfolio, which includes hardware, software and services.
Most notably in the software category, Oracle will pick up Sun's Java open source software development platform, its Solaris operating system and MySQL, its open source database software. It will also own Sun's hardware business, which comprises servers, storage devices, desktop workstations and peripherals.
“The first big thing is the cachet, or lack of cachet, that Oracle has had in open source,” said Ray Wong, VP-principal analyst at Forrester Research. “They now have the crown jewels of open source with Java and MySQL.”
Another big advantage of the merger, Wong said, is the end-to-end solution Oracle will be able to deliver. “It used to be just application and database software,” he said. “Now they are trying to make the case that they can deliver hardware, software, middleware and database software all in one-stop shopping, which will help their customers reduce costs.”
Wong added: “The challenge is to figure out the perception of Oracle being in the hardware business. What does it mean, and can they successfully convince people to buy the whole stack from them?”
He noted that Oracle has already been successful in managing and marketing other acquisitions. For example, in 2005 it acquired CRM software company Siebel Systems, and last year it bought enterprise software company BEA Systems.
Jean Bozman, VP-research for IDC's enterprise platforms group, said one of the greatest assets Oracle will get is Sun's installed base of customers and the service contracts and upsell opportunities that go along with that.
“They have at least 1.6 million servers [installed worldwide] and also storage and service contracts,” she said, noting that about 40% of Sun's revenue now comes from services. “From a holistic view, they have a large installed base, the opportunity for new offerings and things like upselling.”
For example, Bozman said that although MySQL is a database product, it does not necessarily compete with Oracle database products. “Oracle has always been about cross platforms and running on as many platforms as possible,” she said. “It may be that the MySQL offering, which is widely used, could bring additional business for other Oracle products.”
Bozman said one of the biggest challenges for Oracle will be integrating Sun into its operations and ensuring that it runs a profitable business.
Bozman also noted that because of the downturn, spending on big IT projects is being cut or deferred but, as conditions improve, IT investment should pick up. That will benefit Oracle in the long run.
Other industry experts, however, were not as bullish on the deal.
Jim Gregory, CEO of brand strategy firm CoreBrand, noted that Sun had a brand score of only 16 on a scale from 1 to 100 in CoreBrand's 2008 Brand Power report, while Oracle had a brand score of 30. “In terms of what they are buying, it is not a heavyweight brand,” Gregory said.
“It seems like it made a lot more sense for IBM [Corp.] to make the acquisition. That seemed like a much better fit,” he said, noting that IBM had a brand score of 76.
In April, IBM made a bid to buy Sun for an estimated $7 billion but was outbid by Oracle, according to people familiar with the talks.
Gregory said one of the immediate challenges for Oracle is to communicate its strategy for the acquisition and what it means to its customers.
“What they will need to do is tell a story very quickly,” he said. “Otherwise, Oracle's image might be hurt. They have to communicate clearly why they made this acquisition, why it fits as a company and what they intend to do with it. They have a short window of opportunity.”

Broadband Britain: who'll pay?

For American readers this is probably a bit of an ordinary day - you go about your business and there's every chance that when you wake up tomorrow things will be much the same as they were when you woke up today. In the UK that's not the case. In the UK the chancellor of the exchequer (the head of our Treasury department, or its equivalent) has been delivering his annual budget speech.
Not all of the changes are IT-specific of course, but one caught my eye. He's promised that by 2012 there will be ubiquitous fast broadband in the UK.
OK, we can take it as read that what counted for fast broadband ten years ago pretty much already is in the UK, and what counts as fast by 2012 won't count as any great shakes a decade later. This sort of pickiness aside, I do wonder who's going to pay for all this.

It's worth noting that many of our phone lines over here are years old. Granted they're not quite Victorian but neither are they as shiny or adaptable as many of their counterparts in America. And yet apparently we're going to upgrade the lot over the next three years.
This is of course going to cost money. Although our higher taxes are going up, I can't see how they're going to end up paying for even half of this. Contrary to what several wise voices in the press will tell you, nobody's certain exactly how long this recession is going to last. We've been overinflating the world economy for quite some time and are now paying the price. America and the UK are among those countries which have put a lot of resource into addressing the shortfall, propping banks and industries up. It's not been pretty and it'll need paying back.
And here we are talking about spending more on an infrastructure which, although not the whizziest or shiniest in the world, actually does the job for which it was designed pretty well.

I can't see how this is going to be affordable. I'll look forward to being proven wrong. I hope.

Original Page

Computer virus strikes U

A computer virus is the cause of headaches and heartburn at the University of Utah.

The Conficker virus, which can slow down your computer and steal personal information, click on the U. the network later this week. So far the virus has primarily health care, including the university, three hospitals, the schools of Medicine, the College of Nursing, College of Pharmacy and the College of Health, said Chris Nelson, spokeswoman for Health Sciences at the U.


Nelson said patient data and medical records have not been compromised.

"That's secured in a much deeper way because of the implications," he said.

Nelson said the problem is mainly confined to personal computers. The virus does not affect Macs.

He said university staff first noticed the virus was in the system Thursday after Internet access and e-mail slowed. In response, the university shut down Internet access within the health sciences units at 10 a.m. on Friday. Internet access continued for the rest of campus, said Mindy Tueller, of the U.'s Office of Information Technology.

Nelson said the virus has been contained but is not yet out of the system. He said Friday that he expected university staff to work through the weekend to fix it.

He also said patient care will not be affected as doctors will be able to access the Internet when needed. Mainly, he said, it has just been an inconvenience, especially for faculty members trying to meet grant deadlines.

Though the virus has mainly stayed within health sciences, Tueller said all faculty and students should take steps to make sure they're protected.

"It can do a lot of bad things," Tueller said. "Every university member should be concerned about this if they're using Windows-based devices."

Brigham Young University has had only isolated incidents of the virus, said Brent Harker. BYU director of Web communications. Utah State University and Salt Lake Community College have also been largely unaffected, officials at those schools said.

Virus hits DPS computer system

 AUSTIN, Texas — A virus has hit the Texas Department of Public Safety computer system but a spokeswoman said at no time was citizen safety compromised.

DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange said in a statement that the virus that hit Wednesday affected internal communications and some external services such as the issuance of Texas drivers' licenses.

The DPS police enforcement communications network was not affected.

Mange said officials were working to restore services.

Dear netbook, thank you for Windows 7

When a new market of small-factor computers became very popular last year, Microsoft wasn't feeling too hot. Linux and Windows XP were being used, and the consumers buying these PCs were not able to take advantage of all the hard work that had gone into Vista. It didn't matter that with Vista SP1, the operating system was running better than its XP on higher-end machines. New computers don't necessarily mean better, faster, stronger anymore. Netbooks mean smaller, cheaper, lighter, and many consumers are quite happy to use XP, the operating system they had gotten used to during Vista's unusually long development. Microsoft simply did not foresee this new trend occurring when it was working on Vista; the demand for the inexpensive netbooks began to skyrocket even before the economic downturn.

Windows 7 further takes advantages of the improvements in Vista, adds a few features here and there, and also focuses a ton on performance. For the first time ever, Microsoft has promised it would aim to keep the same hardware requirements of a future operating system the same as its predecessor. Hardware leaps will still continue, but Windows 7 is already outperforming XP and Vista on current hardware.

If it wasn't for the netbook, that would have never happened; Microsoft is very much aware that it's not going to make much money offering XP on netbooks forever. So it's really no surprise that when Microsoft announced the Windows 7 editions last month, it promised that all editions would run on netbooks. To achieve this goal, the company has been tweaking like no tomorrow. It's never bothered doing that with a new Windows release, at least not to the extent that it is doing with Windows 7.

Vista SP2 is almost ready for prime time, and while the second service pack improves performance yet again, most people really just want Windows 7, whether that's for checking e-mail on their netbook, or for gaming on the latest hardware. If you plan on adopting Windows 7, you have the netbook to be thankful for, because Vista's successor would be a very different beast if Microsoft had less motivation to pursue performance.

3 Alternatives (Maybe 4) To Yahoo! Briefcase

Yahoo! announced this week plans to shut down its free online storage service, Briefcase. Users have until March 30th to find a replacement service before their files become inaccessible. There are loads of free online options to choose from, but here are three of my favorites:




IDrive -- This service gives you 2 GB of storage for free, with the option to buy more if you need it. Aside from the generous storage, I like IDrives customizable sync scheduler an manual delete protection that keeps you from accidentally dumping important files. IDrive works on a Mac and Windows, but unfortunately not Linux.




fileQube -- If you're looking for a free service with advanced features, fileQube might fit the bill. It comes with 2 BG of storage, but also offers RSS sharing and the ability to instantly share files with others via direct download. I also like the tagging and shared Web folder options that make file organation and collaboration dead simple.




Box.net -- Since becoming integrated with LinkedIn, Box.net has become one of the most well-known online storage services around. Although the free plan allows for only 1 GB of storage, the paid plans offer much more. With Box.net, you can arrange collaboration folders, share files publicly, and even put a widget on your Web site so visitors can download documents and files.




If none of these options look good, you can always wait for GDrive, Google's much-anticipated foray into online storage. Although details are still sketchy, some people are reporting a file in Google Pack with a description that reads. "GDrive provides reliable storage for all of your files, including photos, music and documents. ... GDrive allows you to access your files from anywhere, anytime, and from any device -- be it from your desktop, Web browser, or cellular phone."




Of course, Google is staying characteristically quiet on the issue, so you'll have to draw your own conclusions about when and if GDrive will eventually surface.

Yet Another Way Twitter Minds Everyone's Business

arly this morning, people using the Google search engine got a strange surprise. Nearly every result for every search was marked with the alert message, "This site may harm your computer." If you clicked on a search result, instead of being directed to a Web site, you were automatically taken to a Google page informing you to proceed with caution, lest you infect your computer with malware.




As it turned out, a simple and easily corrected human error led to the site-wide mishap. The explanation from Google's official blog reads, "Google flags search results with the message 'This site may harm your computer' if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously. We do this to protect our users against visiting sites that could harm their computers. We maintain a list of such sites through both manual and automated methods. We work with a non-profit called StopBadware.org to come up with criteria for maintaining this list, and to provide simple processes for webmasters to remove their site from the list.




"We periodically update that list and released one such update to the site this morning. Unfortunately (and here's the human error), the URL of '/' was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and '/' expands to all URLs."




The problem was detected and corrected in less than an hour, and posed no real threat to searching, surfing, or individual Web sites. I happened to be searching the Internet via Google when the issue started and I noticed something really interesting.




The Twitter Factor.




Yet again, the Twitterverse knew of a major Internet malfunction before, well, just about everyone else. The phenomenon is nothing new, of course. Twitter subscribers often become aware of news events before even the mainstream media. -- the recent massacre in India and the airplane landing in New York City's Hudson river, just to name a few.




The takeaway message here is that any business that doubts the importance of at the very least monitoring -- if not participating in -- Twitter is doing themselves a grave disservice. A brief service interruption on the Web site of a mom and pop store in Poughkeepsie is likely to go completely unnoticed on Twitter, but larger issues won't. If you rely on traffic to your Web site, learning of major service outages or other large-scale Internet incidents quickly can give you an edge over your competitors.




If you have an online presence of any sort, keeping yourself in the loop via Twitter is one of the best moves you can make. Today's issue at Google gave a glimpse of just how fast news travels in the Twittersphere -- something savvy business owners will take to heart.

Google blacklists entire Internet: so what really happened?

Well that was, err, interesting. For the best part of an hour this morning (Saturday 31st Jan) Google search effectively broke. In fact, it blacklisted the entire Internet so that any search just returned a screen warning users that whatever site they had searched for "may harm your computer" and advised to try another which only popped up the same message in some insane Evil Internet Empire loop.




So what really happened then Google? Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products & User Experience at Google, explains:




"Very simply, human error" she admits, continuing "Google flags search results with the message "This site may harm your computer" if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously. We do this to protect our users against visiting sites that could harm their computers. We maintain a list of such sites through both manual and automated methods. We work with a non-profit called StopBadware.org to come up with criteria for maintaining this list, and to provide simple processes for webmasters to remove their site from the list. We periodically update that list and released one such update to the site this morning. Unfortunately (and here's the human error), the URL of '/' was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and '/' expands to all URLs. Fortunately, our on-call site reliability team found the problem quickly and reverted the file. Since we push these updates in a staggered and rolling fashion, the errors began appearing between 6:27 a.m. and 6:40 a.m. and began disappearing between 7:10 and 7:25 a.m., so the duration of the problem for any particular user was approximately 40 minutes."




Meanwhile, Maxim Weinstein from StopBadware.org says that the original Google statement "erroneously states that Google gets its list of URLs from us. This is not accurate. Google generates its own list of badware URLs, and no data that we generate is supposed to affect the warnings in Google's search listings." This was indeed corrected to "reflect that StopBadware does not provide Google's badware data" according to Weinstein, who adds "The mistake in Google's initial statement, indicating that we supply them with badware data, is a common misperception. We appreciate their follow up efforts in clarifying the relationship on their blog and with the media. Despite today's glitch, we continue to support Google's effort to pro actively warn users of badware sites, and our experience is that they are committed to doing so as accurately and as fairly as possible."




Back at Google HQ, the official word is that it will "carefully investigate this incident and put more robust file checks in place to prevent it from happening again." I should chuffing well think so!!!

Google on the Rise; Merrill's Boy King

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