Web Development Live

Announced that performance and availability views from F5 Networks, Inc. devices are now available in the NetQoS Performance Center. The integration provides real-time performance metrics in a single Web-based management console supporting multiple devices from F5, the global leader in Application Delivery Networking. In addition to ease of access and strengthened security, joint customers will benefit from the NetQoS Performance Center’s analysis and alerting capabilities to more quickly address network problems and improve application delivery across the network.

“F5 devices are a critical component of the application delivery infrastructure that network, operations, and infrastructure personnel must optimize to keep their businesses running smoothly,” said Jim Ritchings, vice president of business development at F5. “By integrating with F5, NetQoS can help simplify the increasingly complex challenge of monitoring network and application performance across an organization. For joint customers this means a single view into an unlimited number of F5 devices and detailed performance metrics delivered in real time through the NetQoS Performance Center.”

The NetQoS Performance Center delivers the most comprehensive performance visibility available for the F5(R) BIG-IP(R) Local Traffic Manager(TM) and BIG-IP Global Traffic Manager(TM) solutions. The combination enables IT professionals to better plan investments in new content delivery hardware, accurately size and configure new IT deployments, verify the impact investments have on application delivery, and solve performance issues in complex data center environments.

“Customers have been requesting that NetQoS integrate F5 statistics into the NetQoS Performance Center for a more comprehensive view of network and application performance across an organization,” said Gordon Daugherty, senior vice president of corporate development for NetQoS. “By incorporating the performance and availability metrics from F5 devices, the NetQoS Performance Center will help joint customers solve problems faster and make more informed decisions in infrastructure changes and capacity planning.”

Domains in Hong Kong, China and the Philippines have been named as the most potentially dangerous on the web.

A recent report by security firm McAfee found that the three nations had the highest percentage of malicious sites within their domain suffixes.

Researchers estimated that roughly 19 per cent of all sites ending with the .hk suffix posed some sort of security threat. Second place was China’s .cn with 11 per cent posing a security risk.

“Just like the real world, the virtual threats and risks are constantly changing,” said Jeff Green, senior vice president of product development at McAfee.

“As our research shows, sites that are safe today can be dangerous tomorrow. Surfing the web based on conventional wisdom is not enough to avoid risks.”

The .com domain, the most popular on the internet, was ninth riskiest overall, while .gov was the safest among the generic domains.

Finland’s .fi was ranked as the safest on the internet, with .05 per cent of sites posing a possible threat. Japan’s .jp and Norway’s .no rounded out the list of the three safest domains.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. Traditional wireline provider Embarq Corp. is offering a new cordless home phone that includes Internet-powered features it hopes will help it hold on to customers.The company, which lost 6.3 percent of its access lines in 2007 - ending the fiscal year with 6.47 million - expects to continue losing them at that rate or faster in 2008.Embarq began losing customers well before Sprint Nextel Corp. spun it off the local-phone division in 2006, but it remains the nation’s fourth-largest traditional telephone provider.The Embarq eGo, which the company began selling Tuesday, works like a regular landline phone but has a video screen and can hook into the customers’ high-speed Internet connection.Customers can use it to check weather and sports and general news culled from Internet sites, access an online local business directory and scroll visually through voice mail and lists of frequently called numbers.”We are attacking why would you ever want to use your wireless phone in your home,” said Dennis Huber, Embarq’s senior vice president of corporate strategy and development.Customers must have high-speed Internet to use eGo. The handset and a base station that connects to the Internet router cost $130. Extra handsets - the system can support up to five per household - are $50 each. Discounts will be available on eGo in Embarq’s retail stores.Overland Park-based Embarq hopes eGo will keep customers from abandoning their home phones in favor of cell phones or Internet-based telephone service.Huber said the eGo is aimed at providing customers some of the same content they can receive through their personal computers or cell phones - just quicker and cheaper.”We, over the past 100 years, have been great at selling people connectivity,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is add value to that connectivity.”Using the customer’s ZIP code, the eGo can provide local weather forecasts and list times of movies showing nearby or help users find the closest pizza parlor and immediately call it.Product developer David Rondeau said Embarq will continue developing services for the eGo, including eventually some premium offerings.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. Traditional wireline provider Embarq Corp. is offering a new cordless home phone that includes Internet-powered features it hopes will help it hold on to customers.The company, which lost 6.3 percent of its access lines in 2007 - ending the fiscal year with 6.47 million - expects to continue losing them at that rate or faster in 2008.Embarq began losing customers well before Sprint Nextel Corp. spun it off the local-phone division in 2006, but it remains the nation’s fourth-largest traditional telephone provider.The Embarq eGo, which the company began selling Tuesday, works like a regular landline phone but has a video screen and can hook into the customers’ high-speed Internet connection.Customers can use it to check weather and sports and general news culled from Internet sites, access an online local business directory and scroll visually through voice mail and lists of frequently called numbers.”We are attacking why would you ever want to use your wireless phone in your home,” said Dennis Huber, Embarq’s senior vice president of corporate strategy and development.Customers must have high-speed Internet to use eGo. The handset and a base station that connects to the Internet router cost $130. Extra handsets - the system can support up to five per household - are $50 each. Discounts will be available on eGo in Embarq’s retail stores.Overland Park-based Embarq hopes eGo will keep customers from abandoning their home phones in favor of cell phones or Internet-based telephone service.Huber said the eGo is aimed at providing customers some of the same content they can receive through their personal computers or cell phones - just quicker and cheaper.”We, over the past 100 years, have been great at selling people connectivity,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is add value to that connectivity.”Using the customer’s ZIP code, the eGo can provide local weather forecasts and list times of movies showing nearby or help users find the closest pizza parlor and immediately call it.Product developer David Rondeau said Embarq will continue developing services for the eGo, including eventually some premium offerings.

Satyam will leverage the capabilities of Pegasystems SmartBPM Suite to drive business agility, grow revenue, and improve productivity for its global customers. The CoE will develop unique frameworks and methodologies to implement BPM solutions featuring Pega, said the company in a statement. he new capabilities for capturing business requirements directly in the tool are revolutionary, and significantly increase the efficiency with which applications are delivered. These capabilities also reflect business objectives more accurately.

We are pleased to launch the Pega BPM CoE, and look forward to implementing these robust applications for our customers, , said Sriram Krishnan, senior vice president of Satyam Consulting and Enterprise Solutions Practice Satyam has had a global strategic partnership with Pega since 2003, and provides consulting and implementation services on SmartBPM, notably design and delivery of industry solutions for insurance, healthcare, banking, and financial services customers. In addition, establishment of the CoE is evidence of Satyam commitment to making Malaysia a software development hub. These efforts support Satyam Global Delivery Model 2.0 (GDM), an integral part of its strategy to provide a distributed delivery capability for global customers via an alternative, multi-country workforce.

Microsoft has tapped a former executive at Walt Disney to fill its CIO position, a move that shows the company continuing to fill top executive positions from outside the company.Tony Scott, 56, will start as CIO in February and report to Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner. Scott’s most recent experience was as senior vice president and CIO at The Walt Disney Co. He has also been chief technology officer at General Motors Corp. and vice president of operations at Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co.As CIO at Microsoft, Scott will oversee an IT staff that oversees security, infrastructure, messaging and business applications and supports Microsoft product groups, corporate business groups, and the global sales and marketing organization.”More than any other company, Microsoft knows how important it is to leverage IT for strategic business advantage, and I look forward to building on this success in my new role,” Scott said in a statement.Tony Scott replaces former chief information officer Stuart Scott, who was ousted several months ago for “violation of company policies.” Microsoft wouldn’t provide details about what policies were violated or how. The two men are not related, but Stuart Scott was also an outsider, joining Microsoft in 2003 from General Electric.In the past two weeks, Microsoft Business Division president Jeff Raikes, mergers and acquisitions chief Bruce Jaffe, and Windows development VP Rob Short have all disclosed plans to leave Microsoft.

Microsoft has tapped a former executive at Walt Disney to fill its CIO position, a move that shows the company continuing to fill top executive positions from outside the company.Tony Scott, 56, will start as CIO in February and report to Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner. Scott’s most recent experience was as senior vice president and CIO at The Walt Disney Co. He has also been chief technology officer at General Motors Corp. and vice president of operations at Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co.As CIO at Microsoft, Scott will oversee an IT staff that oversees security, infrastructure, messaging and business applications and supports Microsoft product groups, corporate business groups, and the global sales and marketing organization.”More than any other company, Microsoft knows how important it is to leverage IT for strategic business advantage, and I look forward to building on this success in my new role,” Scott said in a statement.Tony Scott replaces former chief information officer Stuart Scott, who was ousted several months ago for “violation of company policies.” Microsoft wouldn’t provide details about what policies were violated or how. The two men are not related, but Stuart Scott was also an outsider, joining Microsoft in 2003 from General Electric.In the past two weeks, Microsoft Business Division president Jeff Raikes, mergers and acquisitions chief Bruce Jaffe, and Windows development VP Rob Short have all disclosed plans to leave Microsoft.

Microsoft has tapped a former executive at Walt Disney to fill its CIO position, a move that shows the company continuing to fill top executive positions from outside the company.Tony Scott, 56, will start as CIO in February and report to Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner. Scott’s most recent experience was as senior vice president and CIO at The Walt Disney Co. He has also been chief technology officer at General Motors Corp. and vice president of operations at Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co.As CIO at Microsoft, Scott will oversee an IT staff that oversees security, infrastructure, messaging and business applications and supports Microsoft product groups, corporate business groups, and the global sales and marketing organization.”More than any other company, Microsoft knows how important it is to leverage IT for strategic business advantage, and I look forward to building on this success in my new role,” Scott said in a statement.Tony Scott replaces former chief information officer Stuart Scott, who was ousted several months ago for “violation of company policies.” Microsoft wouldn’t provide details about what policies were violated or how. The two men are not related, but Stuart Scott was also an outsider, joining Microsoft in 2003 from General Electric.In the past two weeks, Microsoft Business Division president Jeff Raikes, mergers and acquisitions chief Bruce Jaffe, and Windows development VP Rob Short have all disclosed plans to leave Microsoft.

Microsoft has tapped a former executive at Walt Disney to fill its CIO position, a move that shows the company continuing to fill top executive positions from outside the company.Tony Scott, 56, will start as CIO in February and report to Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner. Scott’s most recent experience was as senior vice president and CIO at The Walt Disney Co. He has also been chief technology officer at General Motors Corp. and vice president of operations at Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co.As CIO at Microsoft, Scott will oversee an IT staff that oversees security, infrastructure, messaging and business applications and supports Microsoft product groups, corporate business groups, and the global sales and marketing organization.”More than any other company, Microsoft knows how important it is to leverage IT for strategic business advantage, and I look forward to building on this success in my new role,” Scott said in a statement.Tony Scott replaces former chief information officer Stuart Scott, who was ousted several months ago for “violation of company policies.” Microsoft wouldn’t provide details about what policies were violated or how. The two men are not related, but Stuart Scott was also an outsider, joining Microsoft in 2003 from General Electric.In the past two weeks, Microsoft Business Division president Jeff Raikes, mergers and acquisitions chief Bruce Jaffe, and Windows development VP Rob Short have all disclosed plans to leave Microsoft.

Microsoft Corp. announced the departure of several executives Thursday, among them a Silicon Valley veteran recruited to help fix its unprofitable Web business and one in charge of marketing Windows Vista, and the promotion of more than a dozen others across the company.
The changes come just two weeks after Microsoft offered to buy Web portal and search competitor Yahoo Inc. for more than $40 billion, a move industry watchers broadly see as an admission that Microsoft’s own Web strategy had failed.
If the proposed Yahoo takeover is completed, Microsoft is expected to make more radical changes as it blends the two companies into a more formidable challenger to Google Inc., the dominant player in the lucrative Internet search and advertising markets.
Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said Thursday’s announcement is unrelated to the Yahoo negotiations.
Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of Microsoft’s online business group, will hand off his duties to three insiders: Satya Nadella, currently in charge of search and search advertising engineering; Bill Veghte, a Windows marketing executive; and Brian McAndrews, formerly the chief executive of online advertising group aQuantive, which Microsoft acquired last year.
Nadella and Veghte were promoted to senior vice president.
The top executive in Microsoft’s mobile phone software business, Pieter Knook, also is leaving Microsoft. He will lead a new division of cellular operator Vodafone Group PLC. Andy Lees, formerly of Microsoft’s server and tools division, was promoted to replace Knook.
No reason was given for Berkowitz’s departure. He joined Microsoft in 2006 after turning around Oakland, Calif.-based Ask.com, which, with related sites, was acquired by InterActiveCorp for $2.3 billion during his tenure as chief executive.
Brought in to help turn around Microsoft’s own Web business, Berkowitz was charged with expanding the audience on its disparate MSN and Windows Live sites _ making them more attractive to advertisers _ and forging new business relationships, such as the ad partnership announced last summer with social news site Digg.com.
“I don’t know if he was able to take control of the pieces he would have needed to take control of in order to really turn around the online business,” said Matt Rosoff, an analyst for the research group Directions on Microsoft.
Developing Microsoft’s Live Search and adCenter, both of which the company revamped to better compete with Google Inc. in search advertising, were Nadella’s parallel responsibility.
Microsoft’s acquisition of aQuantive brought it a large network of Web sites, but selling advertising across those sites stayed under McAndrews while Berkowitz’s team continued to sell ads on Microsoft-owned sites.
With Berkowitz’s departure, all advertising efforts will be consolidated under McAndrews. MSN head Joanne Bradford will report to Nadella.
Veghte will gain responsibility for strategy, sales and marketing for Windows, Windows Live, MSN and Search. Microsoft said Michael Sievert, who worked for Veghte and was responsible for marketing Windows Vista, is leaving to pursue new endeavors. Brad Brooks was promoted to replace him.
Microsoft said Berkowitz will stay through August to help with the transition.
“I wouldn’t read too much into this yet,” Rosoff said. “There will probably be further shake-ups as the integration with Yahoo happens.”
Microsoft promoted several other executives, among them Office leaders Chris Capossela, Kurt DelBene and Antoine Leblond.
The three currently report to Jeff Raikes, the top executive in its business software division. Microsoft recently said Raikes plans to retire in September, and will be replaced by an outsider, Stephen Elop, who most recently worked at Juniper Networks Inc.