Reuters Market Eye – Stocks in Oracle Financial Services Software Ltd(ORCL.NS) gain 8 percent after a higher-than-expected response to its share sale squeezes out short positions in the futures market, dealers say.

Oracle, majority owned by Oracle Corp (ORCL.O), attracted demand of nearly four times its share sale of 4.4 million shares, according to exchange data, surprising investors who had shorted the stock for arbitrage in anticipation of tepid demand.

Oracle’s May futures saw a reduction of 150,000 shares, or 16.5 percent of the outstanding total, as of 11.10 a.m., indicating covering of short positions.

Source:http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/05/23/oracle-surges-strong-share-sale-squeezes-idINDEE94M03C20130523

Microsoft has released a new SkyDrive Pro client that offers users of Office 365 and SharePoint the chance to store files locally. The application is the heir to the My Site feature from previous incarnations of Office 365.

SkyDrive Pro has most of the the same functions as the consumer version of the service, which is one of many store ‘n’ synch clones that see the contents of a designated desktop folder shunted cloudwards and, from there, made available on any other device running the client software.

The key difference with the Pro version is that data resides in Office 365, a designated secure storage cloud or SharePoint 2013.

As Microsoft puts it, The new SkyDrive Pro client means “users of SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online in Office 365 sync their personal SkyDrive Pro and any SharePoint 2013 or Office 365 team site document libraries to their local machine for access to important content on and offline.”

Microsoft’s a little hazy with its description of the software’s security features, promising it is possible to control access to share documents stored in SkyDrive Pro so they can be shared with select colleagues or external partners, provided they can log in to either your own server or Office 365. It’s also possible to send external users a link that allows them to view, but not work on, documents.

That may not be enough to calm those who worry about local storage offering a chance for unintended or unwelcome distribution of documents. It will, however, give security companies a chance to warn, yet again, about the potential perils of the cloud.

Source:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/23/skydrive_pro/

APPLE has asked a US federal judge to add Samsung’s new flagship Galaxy smartphone to the list of devices targeted in a patent lawsuit involving Siri personal assistant software.

The motion to amend the lawsuit to include the Galaxy S4 will be on the agenda of a June 25 hearing before US District Court Judge Paul Grewal in California.

“Apple’s infringement theories regarding the S4 are identical to Apple’s infringement theories against the already accused products,” lawyer Mark Lyon said in a motion filed on Tuesday on behalf of Apple.

The five patents at issue in the case include two associated with Siri voice-commanded personal assistant in iPhones.

The filing maintained that the patents were infringed by voice-search capabilities in Android software used to power the Samsung smartphones.

Other patents relate to the user interface and manipulating data, according to the filing.

The case is one of many legal battles between California-based Apple and South Korea’s Samsung and the trial is not expected to begin until early next year.

In March, a judge overseeing a separate patent case in Silicon Valley cut $US450 million ($A466.76 million) from a $US1 billion award to be paid by Samsung in a landmark patent lawsuit from Apple, saying a jury had wrongly calculated the damages.

US District Judge Lucy Koh affirmed the remainder of the award, amounting to $598.9 million.

Apple had accused its rival of massive and willful copying of its designs and technology for smartphones and tablets.

Samsung’s latest flagship Galaxy smartphone went on sale globally in April, and it dethroned its California-based rival to become the world’s top smartphone maker.

On Thursday it said global sales of the Galaxy had already topped 10 million units, less than a month after the launch. Its predecessor, the S3, had taken 50 days to pass the same threshold.

Source:http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/apple-wants-patent-case-to-include-galaxy/story-fn3dxix6-1226649342526

UK-based international energy services company Wood Group has acquired Intetech, a software and engineering consultancy services provider for well integrity and corrosion management to the global oil and gas industry.

Intetech’s proprietary software called iWIT provides customers with real time active management of oil and gas wells, which is important for complex wells, such as ultra deepwater, high pressure/high temperature, or with highly corrosive well products.

Wood Group Kenny chief executive Steve Wayman said the acquisition of Intetech is a strategic step for the group.

“It strengthens our business critical software portfolio and fits ideally alongside our highly differentiated consultancy services teams,” Wayman added.

“We are seeing a growing client demand for well integrity and corrosion management technology especially in deepwater where wells are costly and challenging and in shale environments where numerous wells have to be drilled and operated efficiently.

“Intetech will be joining the Wood Group Integrity Management (“WGIM”) area of the business and will be re-named Wood Group Intetech.”

Source:http://explorationanddevelopment.energy-business-review.com/news/wood-group-acquires-integrity-software-company-intetech-230513

There may be no software concept as heavily promoted as the cloud, but some developers are doing their best to make sure it lives up to the hype. Enter Adobe, the dominant maker of digital design tools. Earlier this month the company announced that it would no longer build and sell its Creative Suite software in a box, but instead as a cloud-based subscription service. Users will be able to run the software offline, but cloud integration will enable access to valuable features. Every subscriber will get software updates as soon as they’re available. No more waiting for new versions. No more wasteful packaging and optical media. And the switch should cut down on piracy.

The snag is that it will no longer be possible to buy a perpetual license. It has always been common for users to pay for software once and then avoid the next few versions, saving money and sacrificing new features that may not be useful for them. This will no longer be possible with respect to Adobe. For businesses, this is no big problem. But for penny-pinched freelancers and nonprofits, paying a monthly subscription fee for years on end may be financially painful.

Other developers, such as Microsoft, are moving in this same subscription-based direction. In the long term, this shift is probably unavoidable. But consumers have good reason to be wary — and to consider the free and low-cost alternatives to propriety software that kind-hearted programmers have been producing for decades.

Source:http://www.bostonglobe.com/editorials/2013/05/23/adobe-bold-new-approach-software-holds-perils-for-freelancers/LTFCwqE7odqIkrJmUkdLqO/story.html

Nokia Siemens Networks launches new software applications for the Liquid Radio WCDMA Software Suite to help mobile broadband manage the smartphone boom and substantially reduce the network signaling overload. Smartphone users will gain faster services and longer battery life, while operators will be able to serve more subscribers on existing hardware and enjoy lower operational and capital costs.

With smartphones now outselling feature phones and dominating mobile traffic, the amount of signaling is growing at the same time, in particular because of ‘always-on’ background applications. Nokia Siemens Networks is launching new Liquid Radio Software Suite applications to help meet capacity demand and address the signaling challenge in 3G networks. Each of these applications can be implemented with a simple software upgrade to existing networks. Together, they turn ordinary networks into learning networks that adapt to current conditions and enable a tenfold reduction in signaling load between radio and core networks.

Fast Dormancy Profiling is a new Nokia Siemens Networks technology that identifies the legacy smartphones connecting to the network and eliminates the unnecessary signaling they often create. This application significantly reduces the air interface load on the Radio Network Controller (RNC).

With Fast Cell PCH Switching, also a Nokia Siemens Networks technology, the network learns how specific smartphones are using the network services and shortcuts the signaling process for rapid call set-up, faster response from mobile broadband services and reduced signaling.

High Speed Cell FACH enables networks to support more smartphones and provide faster services for subscribers using lower data volumes. It also significantly decreases signaling load between the RNC, base station and smartphone.

By dramatically reducing signaling load, these applications free up network capacity for smartphone services. Benefits for smartphone users include faster services, less energy consumption and longer battery life.

“When people use smartphones, they stay connected to mobile broadband networks for longer periods of time and use a wider variety of services,” said Thorsten Robrecht, VP portfolio management at Nokia Siemens Networks. “As data traffic grows, there is a huge rise in signaling between smartphones and core networks to keep services active. Coping with this signaling is critical to maintain network services and deliver an outstanding smartphone experience for mobile broadband customers.

Source:http://www.lightreading.com/diameter-routing-signaling/nsn-unveils-liquid-radio-3g-software-suite/240155338

The Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF), in an effort to prevent identity theft and fraud, is using LexisNexis Risk Solutions to authenticate people applying online for public assistance. The software can dig through years of records on an individual to build a profile and quiz them on their history to verify their identity.

The LexisNexis technology has been integrated into the state’s Automated Community Connection to Economic Self Sufficiency (ACCESS) program to help DCF officials confirm that applicants are who they say they are before processing their benefit applications, officials said in a release.

“By verifying and authenticating the identity of the customer before processing their application, we know whether the person seeking benefits is truly the individual applying for them,” Suzanne Vitale, deputy secretary for Florida DCF, said in a statement. “We expect this new approach to fighting fraud will save taxpayer dollars, expedite application processing and make certain that only those who need benefits receive them.”

LexisNexis online identity verification and authentication services can filter through volumes of data and records stored in public and business databases to find identities and historical information associated those individuals, in some cases as far back as 30 years or more, Clint Fuhrman, national director of government health care programs for LexisNexis Risk Solutions, told GCN.

LexisNexis’ Instant Authenticate technology creates a unique profile of a person using data capture and identity resolution. The technology then verifies a person’s identity based on customer-supplied information. The authentication technology includes a decision engine that lets organizations set up quizzes for online applicants. For instance, a question might be, “What county did you live in in 2006?” Fuhrman noted.

Instant Authenticate has a question library that can be expanded to include categories such as relative, educational and government identifier questions. Organizations can give certain questions more weight than others, rather than having each question carry the same weight in the final scoring process, according to LexisNexis.

LexisNexis processes requests of current DCF ACCESS Florida customers to verify and authenticate the identities of individuals seeking benefits from its Food Assistance, Temporary Cash Assistance and Medicaid programs. If a customer’s identity cannot be verified and authenticated using the LexisNexis technology, DCF will further investigate.

Economic and budget realities have turned the spotlight on fraud, waste and abuse across federal, state and local government organizations, and agencies are employing new technologies that can detect collusive relationships and combat some of the more sophisticated fraud schemes.

Georgia is using the LexisNexis Tax Refund Investigative Solution to mitigate identity fraud.The state’s tax officials use identity-based filters, which screen tax refund requests against billions of LexisNexis identity records collected from public databases and commercial sources.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services is using social network and predictive analytics from SAS Analytics to identify potential fraud and prevent improper assistance payments. The Data Mining Solution for Child Care Welfare Fraud Detection, based on the SAS Fraud Framework for Government and SAS data mining techniques, debuted in May 2011. Using the software, DPSS investigators detected two conspiring groups and mapped a network of participants and providers to display their relationships.

Source:http://gcn.com/Articles/2013/05/22/Software-quizzes-applicants-before-doling-out-benefits.aspx?Page=1

As compared to a decade ago, organizations have a number of deployment options for their technology investments. No deployment trend has garnered more attention in recent years than the advent and soaring popularity of cloud computing. The cloud offers organizations a degree of scalability, cost efficiency and “pay-as-you-go-pricing” desired in today’s tenuous economic climate.

Traditionally, e-discovery software has been deployed in an organization’s infrastructure behind the firewall. As with other enterprise-class software, organizations are now demanding additional deployment models to meet their specific requirements. In fact, some have adopted a “cloud-first” strategy, meaning that much of the organization’s electronically stored information (ESI) is being stored in the cloud.

However, because e-discovery—and the technologies that support it— is subject to sensitive legal risks and technical complexities, selecting the optimal deployment model is not always as straightforward as might first appear.

Following are five key criteria knowledge workers, in conjunction with IT and legal, should consider in deciding which e-discovery software deployment method is right for their organization:

1. E-Discovery Process(es) that Need to be Supported
The legal requirements surrounding e-discovery are generally well understood. From a technical standpoint, however, e-discovery is a complex, multi-faceted endeavor involving a bevy of variables. For this reason, deciding whether to deploy e-discovery software in the cloud depends largely on the organization’s overall cloud strategy and the e-discovery process(es) that need to be supported. The Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) defines nine distinct processes, starting with information management, identification and preservation and progressing through collection, processing, analysis, review, production and presentation (in court).

In order to determine what’s right for the organization, the knowledge workers from legal and IT need undertake a formal assessment. Some of the questions that need to be answered include:

a. What is the organization’s litigation volume or regulatory requirements?

b. How is the legal team currently managing the e-discovery process?

c. What areas of the process represent the greatest opportunity for cost and/or risk savings?

d. What type of systems, such as IT, HR or existing e-discovery tools, need to be integrated?

e. What IT resources are available to support legal?

f. Are there global implications that need to be considered?

g. Where does the budget lie for making the investment – IT or legal?

2. Security & Privacy Requirements
Since information management and identification are mostly internal processes, organizations maintain a lot of deployment flexibility. When moving to the preservation and collection phases of e-discovery, security, spoliation and other IT risks emerge. For example, collection requires the transfer of ESI from the native data source to the e-discovery system’s ESI storage repository. Doing so in the cloud, where ESI transverses on public networks, adds additional security considerations.

While security standards for cloud-based systems have advanced greatly in recent years, organizations naturally cede some control of the corporate data when storing ESI outside the network. These concerns can be mitigated by using tier-one hosting providers that have implemented strong security controls and have subjected their services to thorough auditing. Additionally, secure protocols and/or data encryption can mitigate the information security risk.

In the context of e-discovery, collecting and preserving ESI outside the United States can be a more daunting hurdle due to data privacy laws. Some countries, including those in the European Union, have strict privacy laws that restrict data from leaving the country. In these circumstances, it is critical to take into account where the cloud servers hosting the organization’s ESI are physically located and what protocols are in place should that ESI be needed in response to a legal action or e-discovery request.

3. Integration Requirements
E-Discovery systems don’t exist in a vacuum. Effective management inside a global organization often requires the integration of existing IT systems, such as single sign-on, HR and asset management applications, as well as data sources with the e-discovery software. The process of deciding on a deployment method should involve a full assessment of the organization’s existing IT infrastructure and whether there are any specific requirements that may be compromised. For organizations that have embraced the cloud, many of their data sources are already in the cloud, so collecting with cloud-based software isn’t a big new step.

4. Licensing and Budget Model
E-Discovery software deployed behind the firewall is typically acquired as a perpetual license and is normally considered a capital purchase. While this may be the preferred approach due to alignment with an organization’s IT strategy, capital purchases almost always require detailed financial justification that must be presented to and approved by a capital budgeting committee. A cloud deployment offers organizations significantly more flexibility, which is important as many organizations encounter immediate e-discovery needs and can ill afford to wait out a lengthy acquisition process. In a hosted model, legal has the option of diverting existing expense budgets for third-party providers for investing in their e-discovery solution.

5. Software Administration
Any decision regarding a large-scale technology investment must take into account ongoing maintenance and management requirements. Organizations have varying levels of IT resources available to implement and manage new applications. IT must always balance the requirement to meet the needs of lines of business, such as legal, while minimizing operational costs, preserving data security and working within the constraint of available staff resources. Organizations with more limited IT resources often prefer to leverage the vendor’s expertise to host and manage software in the cloud.

Conclusion
The cloud has revolutionized the way we think about data storage and software delivery, and we are only scratching the surface of its ultimate capabilities. E-Discovery software has been thrust into the cloud as well, a trend that only figures to intensify. Choosing the right e-discovery software deployment method is an important decision. By addressing the key criteria detailed in this article, organizations will be better equipped to assess their needs and achieve a successful software deployment.

Source:http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/Editorial/ViewPoints/Key-Considerations-for-Deploying-E-Discovery-Software-in-the-Cloud-89670.aspx

A few days ago, tech giant Microsoft made news by saying packaged software will soon be a thing of the past. Just how soon? According to spokesperson Clint Patterson, “within a decade, we think everyone will choose to subscribe” to Microsoft Office 365, the online version of the company’s flagship office productivity suite.

Microsoft’s comments came on the heels of Adobe System’s recent announcement that it is moving its popular Creative Suite entirely online. The software, a mainstay of graphic designers, video editors, and web developers, will now only be available by subscription in Adobe’s web-based “Creative Cloud.”

Microsoft is taking things more slowly than Adobe–the company Bill Gates built will still offer its software on disk for the foreseeable future–but the writing is on the wall: CD-ROMs will soon join floppies as museum pieces. Big deal, you might say, technology comes and goes. That’s true, but moving software to the cloud means big changes, especially for small businesses.

Cloud-based business applications, also called Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), are leveling the playing field for small companies worldwide. Instead of buying servers and other infrastructure, and hiring an IT team to run it, small business owners can simply subscribe to powerful apps that can help them save time and lower costs on everything from accounting, to customer service, to marketing, and beyond.

It may seem strange or even a little scary to use the cloud to do something you’ve always done on your trusty desktop. However, if you’re a small business owner, there’s a good chance you’re already using at least one cloud-based application. A recent Microsoft study found that up to 65 percent of SMBs already use cloud-based email or will soon, while almost half use web-based backup solutions.

Despite the excitement–or perhaps because of it–it can be difficult to find cloud applications that meet your needs. There are hundreds, if not thousands of apps to choose from, and no one wants to waste money on sub par products, even if they are based in the cloud. Here are three tips to help you find the best web-based software for your company.

Apps are not one size fits all. Even though cloud-based apps can pack a lot of punch, small businesses may not need all of the functionalities that many big-name apps offer. Instead of trying to find one app to meet all of your business needs, identify your exact pain points and find software to address them. Multi-function applications–for example, invoicing software that also handles accounting and sales forecasting–can be complicated and expensive. Consider a less-costly app that solves your main problem: invoicing.
Educate your employees and contractors. Cloud applications are well-known for their simplicity, but that doesn’t mean that your employees and partners can figure out how to use them on their own, or understand what purpose they serve. When you select an app, make sure you take time to demo the software to your staff and any contractors you may work with. If your new accounting app isn’t compatible with QuickBooks, that’s a problem, but it’s an even bigger problem if your CPA has no idea how to use it.
Choosing apps isn’t a popularity contest. Just because an app is popular doesn’t mean it’s a good fit for your business. Spend some time researching your options before you buy. If the app seems difficult to set up or requires complicated integrations, find out what kind of assistance the vendor provides. If it’s a choice between two similar apps at a similar price point, go with the one that offers better customer support. That way, you’ll have greater peace of mind that any technology issues that crop up won’t affect your business and won’t harm your bottom line.

With these tips in mind, you’ll be more prepared to start ditching the disks and join the small business software revolution.

Source:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-saks/the-small-business-softwa_b_3313444.html

Mformation® Software Technologies Inc., the leading global provider of mobility management solutions, today announced the appointment of Kevin A. Wood as President and CEO to lead the company through its next stage of growth. Kevin succeeds Todd DeLaughter, who will remain a strategic advisor to the company.

“We want to thank Todd DeLaughter, who led Mformation for the last four years, and who will continue to be involved in the company’s expansion in his role as a strategic advisor and Clearlake executive council member.”
“We are very excited to have Kevin as the CEO of Mformation. We believe Kevin’s combination of operating skill, mobile technology experience, and market knowledge make him a fantastic choice to lead Mformation as it capitalizes on the rapid expansion of the enterprise managed mobility market,” said Behdad Eghbali, founding partner of Clearlake Capital Partners, which owns Mformation. “We want to thank Todd DeLaughter, who led Mformation for the last four years, and who will continue to be involved in the company’s expansion in his role as a strategic advisor and Clearlake executive council member.”

“I am excited by the opportunity to lead Mformation,” said Wood. “We have amazing assets, tremendous talent, and an unmatched legacy of innovation and execution. I look forward to executing on Mformation’s compelling vision for delivering the next generation of solutions for managing mobility. With Clearlake’s backing, and the growing market demand for more robust mobility management solutions that can scale to handle millions of mobile endpoints, Mformation has a superb opportunity to seize market share. We will work to retain and expand the company’s installed base of premiere customers, and to ensure that all of our customers continue to get strategic value from Mformation’s solutions for managing the mobile experience.”

“Mformation is an outstanding company with extremely driven, world-class, talented employees, and it has been an honor to serve as the company’s CEO,” said DeLaughter. “I am proud of what we have accomplished together, and am excited about working with Kevin and Clearlake to take the company into its next phase of innovation and growth.”

Kevin brings more than 20 years of executive leadership to Mformation. He was previously President and CEO of Airwide Solutions, a leader in mobile data, messaging, security and content solutions, where he led the company to dramatic growth, profitability and market leadership, and ultimately a successful exit. Prior to Airwide Solutions, Kevin was President, Americas for Comverse Network Systems. During his tenure at Comverse and its predecessor company Boston Technology, he was part of the management team that grew Comverse from the first few million dollars to over $1.2 billion in revenues, establishing it as a global leader in the communications enhanced services market. Most recently, Kevin was the founder and CEO of Cambria Technology Group, an advisory firm working with private equity firms focusing on mobile-enabled services, including enterprise mobility, mobile security, mobile applications and M2M services.

Source:http://www.pehub.com/209129/mformation-software-technologies-names-new-presidentceo/

Daniele Casal has worked as a software engineer since 2002 and in the recent years has developed a strong interest in Cloud Computing. He attended courses and certification programmes and carried out comprehensive research on the subject. With Cloud Computing for Programmers, he intends to share the results of his study with other IT workers who want to know how their jobs will be impacted by the advent of the Cloud.

Software developers must always keep an eye on the latest trends to remain competitive in ever-shifting job markets. Technology and tools are constantly evolving as well as the way programmers work.

Daniele Casal’s e-book on Cloud Computing for Programmers is an overview of the concepts of Cloud Computing from a programmer’s point of view. Here are some of the main points the book will address, grouped by area:
Brief history and definition of Cloud Computing, no-frills description of the most popular cloud delivery models: IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service), Paas (Platform-as-a-Service), SaaS (Software-as-a-service), Cloud deployment models (Public, Private, Community and Hybrid) and characteristics of a cloud service

Differences between “on premise” and “cloud-based” software development. New tools the Cloud offers in order to streamline the software development cycle like cloud-based IDEs (Integrated Development Environments), Version Control/Source Code Management, Continuous Integration, Bug Tracking, Analytics, Databases, Testing, Collaboration and more. New programming languages, libraries and frameworks that are emerging to address the complexity the Cloud comes with (big data, multi-tenancy, parallelism, multi-core distributed architectures, asynchronous inter-system communication)
Cloud Computing and mobile app development

Soap and Restful Web Services, the two main types of APIs that developers should become familiar with in order to implement interoperability between cloud-based systems and the new form of NoSql storage that has the potential to subvert the old relational model (RDBMS)

The challenges of programming for the Cloud and the new jobs and roles that are gaining momentum in the IT space with the rise of Cloud Computing
The purpose of this is not to stand as an all-inclusive guide to cloud computing, rather to point out some key areas of focus in order to remain competitive and marketable, as a software developer, in the Cloud age.

Source:http://www.seattlepi.com/business/press-releases/article/Cloud-Computing-Explained-to-Software-Developers-4539341.php

Not long after going to work for GE Healthcare, Kevin Koch was playing around with a magnetic resonance scanner when an idea came to him that might solve a vexing problem in imaging:

The technology produces poor images near metal implants, such as those used for artificial hips and knees, now in millions of people.

Koch, a Delafield native who earned a doctorate in physics from Yale University, realized that taking multiple images and reconstructing them in a new way might result in a better final image.

On Wednesday, more than five years after Koch’s initial idea, GE Healthcare introduced software that could help doctors use MRIs to diagnose complications from joint replacements and other implanted devices.

The software — announced at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York — was designed to meet a growing need as more people get hip and knee replacements, often at younger ages, and the devices eventually must be replaced.

“This is going to be a major issue within the general population,” said Bryan Mock, global product marketing manager for magnetic resonance at GE Healthcare.

More than 1 million hip and knee replacements are performed each year in the United States, and almost 3 million are performed globally. Over time, many of those implants will wear out, resulting in debris that can cause bone to liquefy, damage nearby soft tissue and lead to other side effects.

Yet the metal in the implants approved for use in MRIs distorts the images. Doctors instead have had to rely on X-rays, biopsies, blood tests and, at times, exploratory surgery when diagnosing problems with an artificial joint or other implants.

“They have had relatively few options in the past,” Koch said.

Koch — whose doctorate was on magnetic field distortions in MRI — had been hired to work on the problem.

GE Healthcare’s MRI business is based in Waukesha, and Koch became interested in imaging after a summer internship at the company.

He soon realized that overcoming the magnetic distortion caused by metal implants would require a new approach.

That came to him in the fall of 2007 while playing with a scanner. He collected a series of images, changing the parameters slightly each time, from the area surrounding an implant and then went back to his desk and reassembled them.

“I kind of looked at them and said ‘Wow,’” Koch recalled.

He took the idea to another physicist at GE Healthcare, one not easily impressed, who instantly recognized its potential.

“That’s great,” the colleague said. “We’ve got to play that out.”

The challenge was developing software to improve the images.

“That took years,” Koch said.

GE Healthcare collaborated with Hospital for Special Surgery and Stanford University in developing the software.

Hollis Potter, a radiologist at Hospital for Special Surgery, tested early versions of the software and helped the scientists understand what a doctor needs to see to make a diagnosis.

“We always knew there was something there,” Koch said, “and just had to keep hammering it.”

Robert Prost, an associate professor of radiology and biophysics at the Medical College of Wisconsin, called the software a significant improvement.

“It is a novel approach,” Prost said, “and I think it is the right solution to a problem that has given us real trouble for quite a while.”

A study by Hospital for Special Surgery published Wednesday found that magnetic resonance imaging was able to detect inflammation in patients not in pain, potentially helping to identify patients whose implants may need to be replaced before the surrounding tissue sustains additional damage.

“There definitely is a need out there,” Mock said.

The software — which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in December — could generate additional growth for GE Healthcare’s MRI business.

That business has slowed in the United States in recent years but remains strong in emerging markets.

“This has the potential to be a very large and growing business for us,” Mock said.

It also could give GE Healthcare an advantage over its main competitors — Siemens AG and Royal Philips Electronics NV — in the $5 billion global market for magnetic resonance imaging.

“This is one of the carrots that we have that the competition doesn’t,” Mock said.

Those companies are working on similar software. But GE Healthcare expects that improvements in its software will produce even better images in coming years.

“We definitely have a jump,” Mock said. “How long a jump is anybody’s guess.”

Source:http://www.jsonline.com/business/ge-unveils-software-that-solves-mri-blind-spot-problem-b9915962z1-208584651.html

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on Wednesday directed the Pentagon to seek new healthcare management software that would better integrate military health care records with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel talks to President Obama. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

The inability of the Department of Defense and the VA to develop a single, integrated electronic health record has been the source of much frustration on Capitol Hill. In February, the departments announced they were abandoning efforts to create a single system.

A bipartisan group of House representatives sent a letter Wednesday to President Obama urging him to intervene and “end the back and forth” between the two departments. “Select a system, pick a path, and move forward,” said the letter, signed by committee chairman Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), ranking Democrat Michael Michaud of Maine, and 18 other members of the committee.

The Defense Department said it is seeking new software via competitive bid from the private sector that will improve continuity of care as military members transition into civilian life.
“Our service members and veterans, and their families, expect and deserve a seamless system to administer the benefits they have earned,” Hagel said in a statement.

Michaud expressed disappointment at Hagel’s announcement, which he said amounted to a continued retreat from a single system.

“It appears to back an interoperable approach over an integrated one,” he said. “An integrated electronic health record is something that Congress mandated years ago and has already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on.”
Undersecretary of Defense Frank Kendall, who led a review of the health care records system, told reporters Wednesday that the departments expect to create a seamless transfer system by the end of the year.

Hagel and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki were to meet with members of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday afternoon to update them on efforts to eliminate the VA claims backlog.
The House letter sent to the White House noted that many claims are “dramatically delayed” by the length of time it takes the Department of Defense to provide the VA with health care records, and asked for Obama’s “personal commitment” to improve cooperation.

Members of the committee also announced Wednesday that they have completed a legislative package of 10 bills they say will boost the VA’s efforts to end the claims backlog.
One of the bills requires the Defense Department to provide certified, complete and electronic records to VA within 21 days.

“The backlog of claims at the VA is a stain on the conscience of our country—and it is our responsibility to promote innovation and to empower the VA to reduce and eliminate the backlog once and for all,” House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said at a press conference where she and others urged passage of the package.

Source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/05/22/hagel-directs-pentagon-to-seek-new-software-for-health-records/

Four of the top five vendors of software for managing IT operations lost ground last year, while a pursuing group of companies expanded significantly faster than the $17bn market.

Instead of buying expensive tools from the big suppliers, many companies are turning to low-cost commoditised alternatives, often available at a tenth of the price, according to Gartner.

The analyst firm says that change is behind a two or three percent decline in most product segments, apart from workload and IT process automation, which are still maintaining strong double-digit growth.

Two of the leading providers in the sector, IBM and BMC, did show modest year-on-year growth in 2012 of 0.8 percent and 0.9 percent respectively, but CA and HP declined 0.6 percent and 4.3 percent, according to Gartner.

A group of the fastest-growing companies, made up of ServiceNow, SolarWinds, Splunk and VMware, can muster growth rates ranging from 84.4 percent for ServiceNow to 45.5 percent for SolarWinds.

Fastest-growing IT operations management vendors in 2012 by share worldwide, 2011-12. Source: Gartner

The only company among the five market leaders, which together account for 55 percent or $9.9bn of the market, to show substantial growth is Microsoft, with a figure of 16.1 percent year on year.

Gartner believes that virtualisation and cloud technologies are helping push growth in the sector, particularly in configuration, availability and performance management.

Along with the growth in workload and IT process automation tools, spending is also up on software for automating private cloud services. The other factor contributing to growth in the sector, according to Gartner, is the development IT service desk tools through the addition of features for mobility, reporting, collaboration, analytics and visualisation.

North America, western Europe and the developed Asia-Pacific regions buy most operations tools but the highest growth for the software is found in Latin America and the emerging Asia-Pacific.

Source:http://www.zdnet.com/it-ops-software-ca-and-hp-lose-ground-while-vmware-gains-7000015719/

Yesterday, Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One. Putting aside the insanity of the console’s name (Xbox 1 -> Xbox 360 -> Xbox One), we now have a fairly good idea of the software and hardware inside the Xbox One. In true console-maker style, Microsoft hasn’t told us everything, and is certainly being very coy about some parts of the new console, but we know enough that we can infer a lot of the missing details.

The Xbox One’s hardware specs

While Microsoft said very little during the unveiling itself, the information we do have seems to confirm that the Xbox One is powered by an 8-core x86 AMD CPU, and a GPU that’s very similar to the Radeon 7790. There’s 8GB of DDR3 RAM (shared between the CPU and GPU), 32MB of very fast SRAM on the graphics die, and a total of 200GB of memory bandwidth (more on that later). There’s also some new silicon in Kinect 2.0, which will come with the Xbox One as standard, which we’ve covered in a separate story. Rounding out the hardware, there’s a Blu-ray drive, 500GB hard drive, 802.11n WiFi (with WiFi Direct), HDMI in and out, Gigabit Ethernet (yay!), and USB 3.0. There’ll be three 802.11n radios, so that the console can connect to your gamepads (WiFi Direct), mobile devices, and home network without added latency.

Xbox One hardware diagram. Note the ports on the back.
So far, so good — but, when you take a closer look, it’s clear that there’s still a lot of unanswered questions. Before the unveil yesterday, it was widely believed that the Xbox One’s SoC would feature eight AMD Jaguar cores — just like the PS4. The problem is, Jaguar (and its accompanying GCN GPUs) are 28nm parts — and yet, according to some journalists who got an exclusive peek at the Xbox One, Microsoft says the SoC is based on a 40nm process. It’s entirely possible that AMD somehow backported its 28nm parts to 40nm, but owing to the significant differences between the processes this would’ve been a very costly and time consuming task. It’s worth noting that we don’t have confirmation that the PS4 uses a 28nm chip, either.

When it comes to the memory bandwidth, the Xbox One has 68GB/sec of main memory (8GB DDR3) bandwidth, 102GB/sec of bandwidth to the embedded SRAM, with the last 30GB/sec probably between the CPU and GPU, or perhaps between the CPU and peripherals (gamepads, Kinect, cable TV). The PS4, on the other hand, will just have 176GB/sec of main memory (8GB GDDR5) bandwidth. The real-world difference will probably be negligible — though I would say that the PS4 probably has the edge, as developers don’t need to pay special heed to the Xbox One’s fast-but-small SRAM.

For a more detailed breakdown of the Xbox One’s hardware, we’ll probably have to wait until the console has been released and reverse engineered by enterprising hackers and crackers. More information might be released at E3, too.

The Xbox One’s software: Three operating systems in one

Perhaps for the first time in console history, the Xbox One unveil, and the Q&A panels that followed, focused more on the software than the hardware. According to Microsoft, the Xbox One runs three different operating systems. There’s a core operating system that’s based on Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisor technology, which boots up when you turn the console on. This hypervisor then boots up two further operating systems: Xbox OS, which runs the games, and an OS that’s based on Windows 8, which runs the apps (Skype, TV, etc.)

The Xbox OS and Windows-based OS run side-by-side, on hardware that’s virtualized by the hypervisor. Both OSes are permanently switched on and constantly rendering their video output, to enable instant switching/snapping between games and apps/TV. The Xbox OS is rebooted whenever you load a game, but the Windows-based OS is persistent until you turn the console off. It isn’t clear how the hardware resources are split between the two virtualized OSes, but hopefully the Xbox OS (games) gets most of the RAM and GPU time.

This is a very interesting and potentially very powerful setup. I actually speculated about the Xbox One running Windows 8 way back in July 2011. At the time, I theorized that Microsoft would develop a single OS (Windows 8 ) and interface (Metro) that unifies every form factor, from desktop, to tablet, to smartphone, to console. While I was only half right, it’s clear from the various demos, photos, and videos that the Xbox One will look and feel like a Windows 8 device. The grid-like Metro design language is there, snapping is there, the fonts are the same. While we’ll probably have to wait until the Build developer conference to find out more, it is also very likely that apps developed for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 will run on the Xbox One with minimal modification.

With the switch from a PowerPC CPU in the Xbox 360 to x86 in the Xbox One, it might also simplify the development and porting of games between Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and Xbox One. We have almost no details on the Xbox One’s gaming OS, but it’s possible that it’s also been rejigged to share more of the Windows 8 kernel.

In short, the unification between all form factors is virtually complete. In theory, this is very exciting for Microsoft, consumers, and developers. In practice, Microsoft now needs to get off its ass and shift a ton of devices so that consumers and developers can actually take advantage of this utopian unified interface and ecosystem.

Source:http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/156467-xbox-one-hardware-and-software-specs-detailed-and-analyzed

There’s a lot of flash and glamor in consumer technology, in venture capital, in cutting-edge software.

But there’s a lot of money in comparatively staid, straightforward business planning tools.

Miles from the hustle and bustle of Portland’s Pearl District startup scene, a Tigard company called Axiom EPM has quietly built one of Oregon’s fastest-growing young businesses with software that looks a lot like a basic spreadsheet.

Its product doesn’t have the sex appeal of trendy mobile apps, but over the past four years Axiom has steadily amassed a large customer base in the health care and banking industries.

Axiom is now pushing 100 employees and forecasts sales growth this year of at least 50 percent, bringing revenue above $20 million.

As it grows, Axiom is working to build an image beyond that of a sleepy suburban software business, and project itself as one of the more vibrant tech companies emerging in the metro area’s startup renaissance.

“We’re not trying to be the most hip and the most funky,” said chief executive Michael Choi, sporting an uber-nerdy cell phone holster on his hip. “But we want to be at least a little hip, and a little funky.”

Axiom began when another business software company, SRC Software, sold to a larger company, Business Objects, in 2005, which was then sold to European software giant SAP. Axiom founders Jason Guppy and Todd McCoy, who had worked for SRC, found the bigger corporate environment unsatisfying.
So a year later they started their own consulting business (originally called Axiom Group) to help customers they felt weren’t well served big existing planning tools from SAP, IBM and others. In 2009 they began producing their own software.

Axiom’s tools help managers and executives map out budgets and capital spending, offering a middle ground between jury-rigged Excel spreadsheets and expensive, standardized planning tools for large companies.

That’s what appealed to Bare Escentuals, a San Francisco cosmetics company, according to inventory manager Keith Schnell. As the company grew, he said, the spreadsheets it used to track orders and supplies grew unwieldy. But the business wasn’t large enough to invest in a big-ticket inventory system.

“We’ve grown, but we have not grown headcount in my department,” he said. “So I needed a way to absorb the additional work.”

Axiom bridged the gap with a familiar, spreadsheet-style interface tailored for business planning.

“We use it to do analytics, looking at historical information to then make informed forecasts for the future,” Schnell said. “The general look of it is like Excel, but there’s a lot more to it.”

By focusing on just a few markets (health care provides 52 percent of Axiom’s business; banking is 27 percent), the company can tailor its software and service to suit the needs of specific types of clients.

Axiom built its business without venture capital, drawing on its consulting business and revenue to fund growth.

It’s an unusual choice among ambitious startups, but it’s not unique. Portland’s Jama Software, whose software aids in product design, grew to $9 million in revenue last year without venture backing.

In Axiom’s case, the decision not to pursue venture capital reflected the company’s business plan. Investors might have pressed the company to grow rapidly; Axiom is trying to differentiate its products by narrowly targeting specific types of customers, and building tools uniquely suited for them.

That’s what separates Axiom from larger competitors, Choi said. And the company doesn’t want a big investor looking over its shoulder, he said, demanding faster growth beyond its core markets.

Axiom is shopping for larger quarters, having outgrown its current offices in the Lincoln Tower. But while contemplating a move downtown, Axiom surveyed its employees and found a deep divide over the possibility of moving into the city.

To a large degree, Choi said, employees simply didn’t want to pay for parking. But it also reflects Axiom’s culture as a company with a buttoned-down clientele, eschewing venture dollars and the excitement of the startup scene in favor of sustainable growth.

Source:http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2013/05/axiom_epm_shows_software_start.html

German business software company SAP said it wants to hire programmers with autism, the BBC reports.

Autism is a neural development disorder characterized by repetitive and restricted behavior. It also affects the person’s social and communication skills.

However, people with autism also often score high on IQ tests, and SAP thinks they have special skills which can help drive the company’s innovation.

Pointint out that innovaction comes “from the edges,” SAP exec Luisa Delgado said that “only by employing people who think differently and spark innovation will SAP be prepared to handle the challenges of the 21st century.”

SAP, who is working on this initiative with Danish social organisation Specialisterne, has already hired six people with autism in its Bangalore office in India. By 2020, SAP plans for 1 percent of its 65,000-strong workforce to be people with autism.

What do you think of SAP’s initiative? Should other companies take this approach as well? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Source:http://mashable.com/2013/05/22/sap-autis/

A decade or so ago, EMC was clearly a hardware company — selling enterprise storage appliances with its proprietary kit inside.

Today the company is less attached to shifting boxes it designed itself and is moving towards making software that runs on off-the-shelf components.

At EMC World 2013 it was all about the software, with the firm repeatedly reiterating its goal to virtualise and automate the datacentre regardless of the underlying CPUs, networking and storage — even if that storage comes from a traditional EMC competitor such as NetApp.

In theory the firm’s software defined-storage platform ViPR, announced at the conference, embodies this work with anything attitude — with its not-yet fully-realised ambitions to create virtual storage pools using a mix of EMC, third party and commodity storage.

Does that mean that EMC on the path to becoming a software company?

Revenue growth in EMC’s software-focused divisions — its Information Intelligence Group (IIG), VMware and RSA — outstripped other areas of its business in the first quarter of this year. VMware reported year-on-year growth of 12.8 percent, RSA 12.5 percent and IIG 7.1 percent — compared to 3.3 percent in its information storage division.

Software is also the primary focus of EMC’s R&D, and has been for a long time, CEO Joe Tucci said at this year’s EMC World. According to Tucci, EMC has fewer than 500 hardware engineers in its 12,000-strong engineering division.

“Our goal has always to been to use as much standard, commercial, off-the-shelf hardware as we can,” he said. “Years ago [we were] making many ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits), today we’re making one ASIC.”

EMC appliances are increasingly based on off-the-shelf hardware. The next version of its flagship Symmetrix storage range will be built using 100 percent industry standard components, according to EMC’s president of enterprise storage, Brian Gallagher.

EMC president and COO David Goulden said that with virtualisation playing such a central role in all EMC’s product roadmap, increasingly the software became the product.

“We will increasingly expose all our functionality through software and sell it to customers as virtual machines,” he said, citing EMC’s decision to sell the RecoverPoint appliance as a virtual edition as just one example of this shift.

“But I don’t foresee a day when we don’t have that with a hardware alternative because when customers buy a storage array generally most want a single storage vendor to support that.”

Where customers can choose between deploying EMC software on their own hardware or buying an EMC appliance, Goulden said customers would still frequently picked the appliance. He cited the object-based cloud storage platform Atmos, and said users more often chose to run it on the EMC-branded Hulk appliance rather than on a virtual machine on their own hardware.

“I do think as we open things up and give people a choice of going both ways, they may still want to come back to us for the hardware engineering, integration and our support system,” he said.

Even if those customers did not choose to return to EMC, Goulden said the company had got the software and the margins were increasingly in the software.

There is another reason that EMC wants to move beyond selling its own boxes — it gives the company a foothold in what it is expecting will be a fast-growing new market built around big data applications. The amount of data flowing through these applications will mean they will typically run on lower cost commodity servers and storage rather than the more expensive vendor-branded appliances sold by the likes of EMC. An example is Facebook’s petabyte-scale Hadoop cluster.

EMC is hoping to earn revenue from companies building “data lakes” to support these applications using its ViPR virtual storage platform, which EMC says will be able to manage commodity storage as part of virtual storage pools.

“There is still going to be a lot of growth in these object application data lakes, so if we can participate in these environments and the customer only buys software from us that’s great, that’s incremental to what we do today,” Goulden said.

Clive Longbottom, service director with analyst house Quocirca, said EMC was creating an ecosystem of enterprise storage management products that guaranteed revenue as margins on storage hardware declined.

Source:http://www.zdnet.com/emc-why-its-becoming-all-about-the-software-7000015724/

HubSpot, a Cambridge, Mass.-based company that’s rapidly grown from 300 employees to 500 employees is looking for more software engineers and designers.
So it’s offering an irresistible carrot to the world: Anyone who refers a friend who lands the job will be paid a whopping $30,000 finder’s fee.

This triples the referral bonus HubSpot had in place before which was $10,000.

“Referral bonuses are not relegated to HubSpot employees; anyone can participate,” says HubSpot’s Hannah Fleishman in a blog post.

Obviously, some rules apply. For instance, you can’t recommend yourself. And the bonus is limited to software developers and designers, not just any old job. The offer expires in six months. And the person who is referred for the job and gets it has to stay for at least 120 days.

HubSpot probably won’t have a problem getting folks to apply. The company, which makes marketing software, is known as a great place to work that takes its culture seriously. Its perks range from tuition reimbursement to playing musical desks every quarter.

An MIT professor has even been shadowing the company for seven months to write a case study about the culture there, marketing fellow Dan Lyons tells us.

Source:http://www.businessinsider.com/hubspot-will-pay-30000-to-anyone-who-refers-a-software-developer-2013-5

While she maintained much of the optimistic rhetoric during the quarterly conference call on Wednesday, Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman didn’t mince words when it came to admitting HP needs to continue working harder.

Pointing towards recent news surrounding Project Moonshot and converged infrastructures, Whitman remarked these will form the “backbone of tomorrow’s cloud.”

See also: HP’s Whitman reiterates ‘multi-year journey’ amid Q2 revenue miss

But for the moment, she described that the problem is balancing the “power of the past” with the “power of the future” for every enterprise unit from servers to storage.

According to HP’s second quarter earnings report, its enterprise services (application and business services along with IT outsourcing) revenue declined by eight percent annually while the enterprise group overall was down by 10 percent.

The latter department covers networking, business critical systems, technology services, storage, and industry standard servers revenue.

In regards to these figures, HP’s chief financial officer Cathie Lesjak admitted that the quarter was “not what we expected it to be.”

But the converged infrastructures unit was a bright spot and was up 48 percent up year-over-year.

Whitman described the converged infrastructure market as “highly competitive” with many other tech stalwarts competing for share.

“For me, this all comes down to our willingness to win, and we are committed to winning,” Whitman declared.

Without specifying more details nor a roadmap, Whitman noted that HP leaders are working on “revamping business models” to give its sales teams more tools and agility to adjust pricing.

Whitman hinted we’ll hear more about these particular efforts later this year.

Source:http://www.zdnet.com/hp-ceo-says-where-enterprise-software-storage-units-need-to-work-harder-7000015767/