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Test your knowledge: Network World's 2014 tech news quiz
Think you keep up with tech news? Take Network World's quiz on the major events that dominated the tech world in 2014. Read More
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SolidWorks talks about what's next in 3D design
Time to market is a key driver in many industries, and 3D design tools have helped tremendously by giving developers a better feel for what they are building. But that was only the start. For an update on this fast changing field, Network World Editor in Chief John Dix caught up with Aaron Kelly, VP of User Experience & Product Portfolio Management at SolidWorks, a division of Dassault Systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story) Read More
Riverbed goes private in $3.6 billion deal
Riverbed Technology is the latest major tech company to bow out of public trading, announcing a $3.6 billion takeover by private equity firm Thoma Bravo on Monday. The price is the highest ever paid by Thoma Bravo, and works out to $21 for each share of Riverbed currently in circulation. The deal should close in early 2015, pending regulatory and shareholder approval. With those in hand, Riverbed would join a growing list of high-profile tech companies in going private, including Dell, BMC and Blue Coat.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
12 most eye-popping VC tech deals of 2014
While the three largest venture capital deals of the year in the technology industry went to consumer-focused startups, most of the other top investments went to companies building products that could reshape the enterprise IT landscape. Final numbers for the amount of venture capital money poured into startups in 2014 have not yet been tallied, but already experts say 2014 is going to blow away such investments in at least each of the last five years. Through September, $33 billion had already been invested in the technology industry in 2014, which means investments made nine months into the year had already eclipsed the $30 billion in total handed out in 2013.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
T-Mobile mystery news slated for Tuesday morning
T-Mobile T-Mobile CEO John Legere will cozy up to Yahoo Tech's David Pogue during what the carrier is calling its Un-carrier 8.0 event on Tuesday -- a mystery webcast that promises to include some news and knowing Legere, probably some colorful language.The no-contract wireless carrier invites those interested in checking out the webcast to click here for the 10:0am EST event.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Apple-IBM partnership off to 'impressive' start
Apple and IBM last week kicked off their five-month-old partnership with an "impressive" 10-pack of focused mobile business apps catering to sectors ranging from financial to law enforcement."The three that I've seen were pretty impressive," said Van Baker, an analyst at Gartner. "They're very complex, with some drawing from three, four or more separate data sources."+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD First look at IBM and Apple's new enterprise apps for iOS +Apple and IBM, partners from 1991 through 2005 -- they had a falling out a decade ago when Apple switched its Macs to Intel processors -- rejoined forces in July to meld Apple's iPhone and iPad with IBM's big data and analytics capabilities.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Internet tax moratorium extended in US gov't spending package
A one-year extension to a U.S moratorium on Internet access taxes was buried in a US$1.1 trillion government spending bill passed by the Senate on Saturday.The Internet Tax Freedom Act, which also prohibits states from enacting Internet-specific taxes like email or bandwidth taxes, passed the House of Representatives in July, meaning Senate action over the weekend was the last step before heading to President Barack Obama for his signature.This will be the fourth extension of the tax moratorium, first passed in 1998. The ban on states and local governments passing access and other Internet-specific taxes expired in November.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Microsoft mellows, embraces Windows leaks
Microsoft didn't seem bothered about another leak of Windows 10."How could we be upset about lots of people wanting to try our new stuff?" tweeted Gabe Aul, the engineering general manager for Microsoft's operating system group in a reply to a comment applauding his company's "refreshing" attitude about leaks. "We'd prefer you stick to official builds though."Aul was referring to a new version of Windows 10, designated "Build 9901," that leaked to file-sharing websites over the weekend.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 10 (FREE!) Microsoft tools to make admins happier His commentary was in contrast to positions Microsoft has taken previously, when it has, if not hampered the distribution of leaks, then at least been more forceful in urging users not to run unofficial builds, claiming that they were often infected with malware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
ICANN: data breaches not due to new top-level domains
An ICANN spokesman dismissed accusations that the recent growth in the number of generic top-level domains has caused data breaches, on Thursday.There are now more than 700 top-level domains such as .meme, .guru and .blog. The number of TLDs has exploded only recently -- between 1985 and 2012, the number of TLDs grew slowly, from five to 22. And ICAAN -- the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers -- plans to allow more such domains in the future.According to critics, the recent growth has been a windfall for cyber criminals, a charge that the ICANN has disputed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Apple, Amazon, Cisco, HP, eBay, AT&T & Verizon join Microsoft in cloud-privacy fight
Microsoft's general counsel Brad Smith called today a milestone in Microsoft's "litigation concerning the U.S. Government's attempt to use a search warrant to compel Microsoft to obtain and turn over email of a customer stored in Ireland." That's because even Microsoft's competitors such as Apple have become the company's allies in this legal fight.In fact, Smith said, "Today's ten briefs are signed by 28 leading technology and media companies, 35 leading computer scientists, and 23 trade associations and advocacy organizations that together represent millions of members on both sides of the Atlantic." Amazon, Apple, Cisco, HP, AT&T and Verizon are but a few tech companies listed (pdf) as supporting Microsoft.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Avaya and Google Collaborate on Contact Center
Avaya recently announced it is working with Google on innovative contact center solutions for businesses. The collaboration combines Avaya's expertise in customer engagement technologies with Google's expertise in Web applications and Chromebooks.The initial project provides new contact center agents with simple set-up in any location so businesses can better manage peak or seasonal demands, support business continuity, and enable mobile and remote agent access. Customer service agents will be able connect to the Avaya contact center agent desktop via Chromebooks through a WebRTC-enabled interface-- eliminating the need to download software for individual agent endpoints.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Arista makes a platform play with EOS+
I think it's fair to say Arista has been one of the fastest-growing network product companies over the past few years. However, it appears the company wants to be more than a manufacturer of high-performance networking devices and is trying to make the shift to a platform company.Last week, Arista announced EOS+, a set of building blocks that turn the company's operating system, EOS, into a platform for SDNs at cloud scale or, as Arista calls it, the "software-driven cloud network." The platform strategy capitalizes on the fact that EOS is a highly programmable operating system.There are four main components to the EOS+ platform: Software development kit. I actually thought Arista had an SDK for EOS already, but apparently much of the development to this point has been done ad hoc. A formal SDK brings structure to the efforts of Arista to date. By using the SDK, companies can build their own applications that use network information. Examples of this would be event monitoring, congestion, or link failure mediation and security services. The SDK also provides access to SysDB, a database that contains all state, variable, and other information for network processes. I've talked to some Arista customers that look at the SysDB database as the single best feature of EOS. Virtual EOS (vEOS). As the name suggests, this is a virtualized version of the EOS operating system. I wouldn't imagine that this will get used for production use cases, but I do think network managers can use vEOS to become familiar with some of the advanced features of EOS, test third-party tools, try new configurations, and do testing without having to purchase hardware. With the proper processes, vEOS could be used to test and certify every deployment and subsequent network change. EOS-based applications. This should be an obvious component of the EOS+ platform since the goal of any platform is to enable applications. A number of third-party vendors already interoperate with EOS, such as Aruba, Puppet, VMware and F5. However, now other custom applications can be part of the Arista ecosystem. At launch, Arista included a Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) server to enable dynamic and automated network configuration. Another example is a network telemetry application built with a partner, Splunk. Consulting services. The Arista consulting services certainly aren't designed to compete with IBM Global Services or even something like Cisco Consulting Services. However, Arista does have about a dozen consultants to help customers develop customized solutions that leverage EOS+. The "low-hanging fruit" for the consulting business would be building out cloud-scale networks, integration of Arista technology with third parties, or network automation. The release of EOS+ is important to the future growth of Arista as it opens the door for the company to sell into the DevOps groups as well as NetOps. Arista's ideal target customer for EOS+ is one that has already brought the DevOps and NetOps teams together. Over time, it seems the shift from NetOps to DevOps is inevitable as the industry moves from a hardware-dominated one to software. The lessons and practices Arista will learn now with the release of the EOS+ platform should pay big dividends in the future as the transition happens.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Cisco becomes a Big Data analytics provider with 'mist' computing
Last week, Cisco celebrated its 30th anniversary. Over the years Cisco has made many big bets to reach the dominant position it is in today. As part of the celebration, Cisco held its first ever Global Editor Conference, using the event to lay out the organization's vision for the next big bet, and that's becoming a big data analytics provider.If this bet pays off, it could be huge for Cisco. CEO John Chambers has reiterated over and over that Cisco has a goal of becoming the industry's No. 1 IT solution provider, and becoming an analytics provider is certainly another step toward achieving this goal. On Thursday, I dialed into an analyst session on this topic and, as expected, there was a fair amount of skepticism as to why any enterprise would buy analytics from Cisco.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Was 2014 the beginning of the end for Samsung?
Predictions are a hazardous business, and I freely admit that, like other journalists and market watchers, I get them wrong all too often. So I feel totally justified in claiming success when I am able to get things right.You hit 'em high, I'll hit 'em lowBack in January 2014, I wrote a Network World post following Samsung's Q4 earnings report asking "Have we just seen peak Samsung?" The post said Samsung's efforts to differentiate its Android phones via proprietary software weren't working, and that the company would consequently get hammered by both Apple on the high end and its low-cost Android competitors like Lenovo and Huawei on the low end.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
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