Microsoft tunes Windows Azure cloud for developers

Microsoft continues to position its Windows Azure cloud platform as a place for software developers, adding services on Thursday for mobile and Web development.

At its Build 2013 developer conference in San Francisco, the company announced general availability of Windows Azure Mobile Services, for creating mobile back-end application capabilities, and Windows Azure Web Sites, for building and managing "business-grade" Web applications. Mobile Services offers native SDKs for Windows Store, Windows Phone, Google Android, Apple iOS, HTML5, and REST APIs, while Web Sites supports such languages and frameworks as ASP.Net, PHP, Node.js, and Python. Web Sites also offers such features as load balancing and source control.

The natural symmetry between the cloud and developers was noted by Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president in the Microsoft Developer and Tools Business: "Certainly, one of our constituents in terms of customers that use it is certainly developers." Microsoft has focused on tooling and APIs for Azure with developers in mind. The company also is forging close ties between its Visual Studio IDE and Azure, Guthrie acknowledged. Visual Studio 2013, offered in a preview form on Thursday, offers stronger capablities for deployment right to Azure, including debugging and code editing.

Build also featured a preview of application access enhancements for Windows Azure Active Directory, providing single sign-on to cloud applications. In addition, Microsoft previewed Azure's Auto Scale capability for scaling applications. "It's a really great feature that allows you to dynamically scale up or scale down your apps and services when you're hosted in the cloud," Guthrie said.

Microsoft's cloud accommodations for developers are akin to what Google has been doing on its own Google App Engine platform. Google provides for building and hosting Web applications on App Engine, with access to multiple services, scalability, and backing for different programming languages. Thursday's moves in the cloud application space follow up another Microsoft move onto Google turf, as the company expanded its Bing search platform, which could rival what Google is doing with its own vaunted search technology.

This story, "Microsoft tunes Windows Azure cloud for developers," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.

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Mixed messages, contradictory claims trip up Gartner, Cisco, and Apple

Credit: Hemera Technologies

Reversals of fortune were on the menu this week in the tech industry, starting off with a Gartner analyst who predicted Apple OSes were set to overtake Microsoft. According to Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner, Microsoft's lead in sales of products running Windows -- Windows devices handily outnumbered those running Mac OS and iOS last year -- would evaporate by 2015.

But not so fast -- Gartner soon recanted, saying the prediction was based partly on incorrect data. Milanesi now says Microsoft will regain momentum, rebound with a new category of ultramobile devices, and pull away from Apple again.

Is anyone really paying attention? After all, the consistent part of Gartner's prediction is that Android will continue to dominate the market, beating the combined sales of Apple and Microsoft products this year.

Then again, the analyst firm has a history of backtracking. Recall, if you will, the glaring about-face by a Gartner analyst who denied calling Windows 8 "bad" and subsequently pulled the offending line from his blog post, saying, "my overall opinion on Windows 8 is actually really good." More recently, Gartner had to futz with its labels when PC shipment numbers didn't quite match its claims, but it wasn't alone in that regard -- IDC had to revise its predictions too.

At least Gartner's slipups won't likely require U.N. intervention, which may yet be in the cards with news this week that Cisco's sales in China are vulnerable after state-run media said the company poses a security threat and urged a shift toward domestic suppliers. Talk about role reversal: Not so long ago, Chinese network company Huawei was hounded out of the U.S. market by security concerns. In order to clear U.S. regulatory oversight for its purchase of Sprint, Softbank reportedly agreed to remove equipment made by Huawei from Sprint and Clearwire.

The U.S. government also recently passed a law -- aimed in large part at Huawei -- that tightened scrutiny of information technology purchases from companies with links to the Chinese government. China slammed the legislation, saying it would "damage the mutual trust between the two nations," not to mention what it could do to Cisco's bottom line.

In light of this political posturing, other dubious assertions seem almost quaint. For example, Macworld UK this month trumpeted the fact that Apple's iPhone sales have "rocketed in India," quadrupling in that crucial, growing market. So what's the deal with IDC reporting this week that Apple's devices fell out of the top five in India during the first quarter of 2013? Seems contradictory -- someone's about to eat crow, right? Not so: Android handsets actually hold a staggering 90 percent market share in India, so Apple's sales could indeed quadruple -- and barely make a dent.

Tune in next week for another episode of "As the World -- and Tech Fortune -- Turns."

This article, "Mixed messages, contradictory claims trip up Gartner, Cisco, and Apple," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.

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Cisco fixes serious vulnerabilities in email, Web, and content security appliances

Cisco Systems released security patches for its email, Web, and content security appliances in order to address vulnerabilities that could allow attackers to execute commands on the underlying OS or disrupt critical processes.

The vulnerabilities affect different versions of the Cisco IronPort AsyncOS operating system that's used in the Cisco Content Security Management Appliance, the Cisco Email Security Appliance and the Cisco Web Security Appliance.

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Releases 7.1 and prior, 7.3, 7.5 and 7.6 of the software in the Cisco Email Security Appliance are affected by three vulnerabilities, one that allows remote attackers to inject and execute commands with elevated privileges through the Web interface and two that could be used to crash the management graphical user interface (GUI) or the IronPort Spam Quarantine service and cause other critical processes to become unresponsive.

Exploiting the command injection vulnerability requires authentication via the Web interface with at least a low privilege account, but the denial-of-service vulnerabilities can be exploited remotely without authentication.

Users of the 7.1 branch should upgrade to version 7.1.5-016 or later, users of the 7.3 branch should upgrade to version 8.0.0-671 and users of the 7.5 and 7.6 branches should upgrade to 7.6.3-019 or later, Cisco said in a security advisory published Wednesday. Releases in the 8.0 branch are not affected.

Branches 7.2 and prior, 7.7, 7.8, 7.9 and 8.0 of the Cisco Content Security Management Appliance software are affected by the same command injection and denial-of-service vulnerabilities as the Cisco Email Security Appliance software.

All of the vulnerabilities are patched in versions 7.9.1-102 and 8.0.0-404, Cisco said in a separate advisory. Users of 7.2 and prior, 7.7 and 7.8 branches are advised to upgrade to version 7.9.1-102 or later of the software. The 8.1 versions are not affected.

Releases 7.1 and prior, 7.5 and 7.7 of the Cisco Web Security Appliance software are vulnerable to two authenticated command injection vulnerabilities and one management GUI denial-of-service vulnerability. Some of the vulnerabilities are the same as those affecting the Cisco Email Security Appliance software.

The software releases that include fixes for all three Cisco Email Security Appliance vulnerabilities are 7.5.1-201 and 7.7.0-602. Users of the 7.1 and prior versions are advised to upgrade to 7.5.1-201 or later.

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Update: BlackBerry suffers $84M loss on disappointing Q1 smartphone sales

BlackBerry shipped 6.8 million smartphones and recorded a $84 million loss during the three months to June 1, as it struggles to turn around its fortunes.

The first quarter of BlackBerry's fiscal year served as a referendum on how consumers and business users have received the new BlackBerry 10 smartphones. The company's quarterly earnings, released Friday, noted that 2.7 million phones running the new OS were sold, a figure that disappointed analysts.

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Shipments of 7.7 million phones would have been an "OK" result, according to IDC research director Francisco Jeronimo. The soft sales lead analysts to question the future of BlackBerry 10 and the company during a conference call on the results.

BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins offered various themes on the same reply as a defense: "BlackBerry 10 is still in the early stages on its transition. In fact, we are only five months in to what is the launch of an entirely new mobile computing platform," he said.

The BlackBerry Z10 is now available in 147 countries, while the QWERTY-equipped Q10 is on sale in 96 countries, with 50 being added during BlackBerry's fiscal second quarter. The cheaper Q5, which also has a physical keyboard, premiered in Dubai last week. It will be distributed more widely during the second quarter, according to Heins. More products are on the way, but the company will not have more than six new devices in the market at any time, he said.

Marina Koytcheva, an analyst at CCS Insight, isn't surprised by BlackBerry's continued struggles, but agreed with Heins' assessment.

"It remains too early to tell whether the new BlackBerry 10 platform can emerge as a credible alternative to Android or iOS with shipments of the long-awaited Q10 device and recently announced Q5 only just starting in many markets. We need to wait a couple more quarters before writing off BlackBerry's chances," she said via email.

The company may be working on new products, but a BlackBerry 10 upgrade for its PlayBook tablet is not one of them.

"Our teams have spent a great deal of time and energy looking at solutions that could move the BlackBerry 10 experience to PlayBook. But unfortunately I am not satisfied with the level of performance and user experience, and I made the difficult decision to stop these efforts," Heins said.

BlackBerry reported revenue of $3.1 billion, up 9 percent from the same period a year earlier. Net loss from continuing operations for the quarter was $84 million, compared to a net loss of $510 million a year earlier.

BlackBerry's OSes had a 2.9 percent market share during the first three months of the calendar year, compared to 6.4 percent during the same period in 2012. To grow sales, BlackBerry has to do a couple of things. "It needs strong campaigns to drive awareness of the new platform and user experience; new devices at lower price points, and to refocus on the enterprise segment where they still have a chance. The consumer segment is lost and the only chance is on the enterprise segment, particularly the large enterprises," Jeronimo said.

The smartphone market remains highly competitive, making it difficult to estimate units, revenue and levels of profitability, according to BlackBerry.

Send news tips and comments to mikael_ricknas@idg.com.

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Microsoft releases disk images for Windows 8.1 beta upgrades

Microsoft yesterday released its Windows 8.1 beta as a disk image, making it more convenient to upgrade multiple devices within an organization or enterprise.

Windows 8.1 Preview launched Wednesday, but was initially only available from Microsoft's app market, the Windows Store. Each Windows 8 or Windows RT PC or tablet had to individually download the massive upgrade from the store.

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By downloading a disk image, then burning it to DVD or storing it on a USB flash drive, users can upgrade machines or devices faster or when they are offline.

The .iso files range in size from 2.7GB to 3.9GB, depending on the language and whether the upgrade is 32- or 64-bit. Microsoft has made disk images available in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish.

Once downloaded, the .iso file must be converted into bootable media -- typically either a DVD or a flash drive -- to upgrade Windows 8, Windows RT, Windows 7, Vista or even the 12-year-old Windows XP.

In a note accompanying the .iso download links, Microsoft warned users that they would not be able to uninstall the beta if they upgraded using a disk image. The company has posted other information about upgrading in a brief FAQ on Windows 8.1 installation.

Links to the .iso files can be found at the bottom of this page on Microsoft's website.

This article, Microsoft releases disk images for Windows 8.1 beta upgrades, was originally published at Computerworld.com.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer, on Google+, or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed. His e-mail address is gkeizer@computerworld.com. See more articles by Gregg Keizer. See more by Gregg Keizer on Computerworld.com.

Read more about windows in Computerworld's Windows Topic Center.

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T-Mobile to buy US wireless 4G spectrum for $308 million

T-Mobile said Friday that it has signed an agreement to buy 10MHz of Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) wireless spectrum from U.S. Cellular for $308 million in cash.

The spectrum is meant to improve and expand T-Mobile's existing 4G LTE network coverage in the Mississippi Valley region, the company said in a news release.

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The spectrum covers 32 million people in 29 markets -- notably in St. Louis, Nashville, Kansas City, Memphis, Lexington, Little Rock-North Little Rock, Birmingham, New Orleans, and Louisville, T-Mobile said.

The deal expands the network to allow for a broader roll-out of 4G LTE, which gives customers a fast, reliable 4G connection, and spurs competition, T-Mobile said.

Securing AWS spectrum is a rare opportunity that will be put to use by both T-Mobile and MetroPCS users, T-Mobile said. The agreement with U.S. Cellular still has to be approved by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice, it added.

The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year, T-Mobile said.

T-Mobile completed the merger with MetroPCS in May and said earlier in June that the migration of MetroPCS customers onto its network for 4G HSPA+ and LTE is ahead of schedule. The migration frees up spectrum for deployment of the new network, which provides faster data speeds for customers with HSPA+ and LTE compatible devices, T-Mobile said at the time.

Loek is Amsterdam Correspondent and covers online privacy, intellectual property, open-source and online payment issues for the IDG News Service. Follow him on Twitter at @loekessers or email tips and comments to loek_essers@idg.com.

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Facebook's Android app snags your mobile number the moment you launch it

If you've ever simply launched the Facebook app on your Android smartphone, Facebook may have collected your phone number, according to an alert from Symantec. This marks the second time in two weeks that a security company has cited the social networking site for grabbing and storing contact info from people who may not even have Facebook accounts.

"The first time you launch the Facebook application, even before logging in, your phone number will be sent over the Internet to Facebook servers. You do not need to provide your phone number, log in, initiate a specific action, or even need a Facebook account for this to happen," according to Symantec's official blog.

Hundreds of millions of devices have installed the Facebook application, according to Symantec, and some devices come pre-installed with it; thus, a significant portion of Android devices are likely affected.

The news isn't going to help Facebook's reputation for being less-than-vigilant with its vast hoard of valuable user (and non-user) data. Security company Packet Storm revealed last week that for a year, Facebook was leaking potentially private contact information collected from users who uploaded their contact lists to the site. Packet Storm later criticized Facebook for understating the scope of the leak and for failing to alert nonusers who may have been affected.

Facebook has acknowledged the issue with the Android app said it would fix it in the next release. The company claims that it neither used nor processed the phone numbers and has deleted them all from its servers. The company also said it has fixed the aforementioned "data leak" issue. But it's probably time for Facebook to revisit its data privacy policies, such as which data it collects and saves, or face user backlash.

This revelation also casts yet another shadow on the Google Play app store, which has garnered a reputation for housing insecure mobile wares. Notably, according to Symantec, Facebook for Android isn't the only mobile app in the Google Play that's leaking user data. The company says the new version of its Norton Mobile Security software is capable of pinpointing which apps exhibit similarly risky behavior.

This story, "Facebook's Android app snags your mobile number the moment you launch it," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.

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