January 2010 Archives

McAfee Inc. said it will provide Facebook's 350 million users with a free, six-month subscription to a jointly-developed, custom suite of its security software.

The solution includes McAfee's security software, a special scanning and repair tool and education materials that Facebook will make available to its users.

The agreement spans a one-year time period. After the initial six-month offer expires, Facebook users will be able to purchase the McAfee software at a special discount rate.

Facebook said that it will not profit from its agreement with McAfee. The company said that it is "applying all financial incentives from this partnership to the benefit of its users and will not be taking a share of any revenue from user subscriptions."

Facebook has set up a series of steps its users must follow should their account be compromised, including re-securing the account and learning some best security practices, the companies said.

Custom McAfee technology to clean a user's infected system is included in the process.

A majority of developers plan to move at least a portion of their IT resources to the public cloud this year, according to a recent study by Evans Data Corp., a Santa Cruz, CA-based researcher.

Data from the researcher's Cloud Development Survey conducted at the close of 2009 revealed that 87 percent of the 400 participating developers will move up to half of their IT resources to the public cloud within the next 12 months.

The results, which signal developers' belief and hesitation with the public cloud, show that the "hybrid cloud is set to dominate the coming IT landscape," the researcher said.

Janet Garvin, Evans chief executive, said that the hybrid cloud, which retains elements of public and private cloud environments, addresses security and government compliance issues that act as impediments to public cloud adoption.

"The hybrid cloud presents a very reasonable model, which is easy to assimilate and provides a gateway to cloud computing without the need to commit all resources or surrender all control and security to an outside vendor," Garvin said.

The survey also revealed that most developers (55 percent) prefer MySQL as the database for use in the public cloud, and that 64 percent expect their cloud applications to extend to mobile devices.

The survey examined a variety of issues surrounding cloud development, including time lines for public and private cloud adoption, obstacles and perceived benefits of cloud computing, collaborating and developing in the cloud, tools and architectures for cloud development, and virtualization in the private data center.

Distributor Ingram Micro Inc. said that increased demand for memory and mobile storage prompted it to expand its relationship with Transcend Information Inc., a Taipei, Taiwan-headquartered maker of IT storage and multimedia gear, to include the U.S. market.

Ingram's prior distribution agreement with Transcend has been confined to Latin America and a portion of Asia Pacific.

Under terms of the agreement for the U.S. market, Ingram will carry Transcend's entire product portfolio, including its memory modules, flash memory cards, USB flash drives, MP3 players, portable solid state drives, multimedia products and accessories.

Tom Hogan, senior director of Ingram's components division, called worldwide demand for memory and mobile storage "virtually limitless," and said that the distributor's expanded deal with Transcend presented a "great opportunity for retailers, e-tailers and channel partners to drive incremental sales and enhance their support services."

MJ Cho, Transcend vice president, said that the memory maker has a "great relationship with Ingram Micro in other regions worldwide" and is "eager to replicate this success in the U.S."

On its website, Transcend lists 14 distributors for the U.S. market, including Synnex. The company said it also sells through online retailers TigerDirect.com, PC Connection and Buy.com as well as consumer chains Staples, Target and Crutchfield. 

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Cisco Systems Inc. is dropping some hints that extensions to its Easy Lease end user financing program currently running in Europe might soon be headed for the U.S. market.

In an online video posted last week, Maryann von Seggern, Cisco Capital director of worldwide channels development, said that an Easy Lease promotion in Europe--in which the vendor doubled the size of the offer and expanded the coverage, while eliminating limitations--might be headed to the U.S. shortly.

In describing that offer, von Seggern said, "Cisco has doubled down on its investment. It is now available across all segments, all products, up to 250,000 Euros."

The offer to which von Seggern refers is Cisco's zero percent, 36-month financing deal running through July 2010 that requires a minimum purchase of 1,000 Euros and a combination of the vendor's gear adding up to 70 percent of the total solution, with its hardware accounting for 10 percent of the installation.

"The uptick on it has been significant. In fact, we're going to see in short order something coming from the U.S.," von Seggern said.

Outside the U.S., Cisco channel financing is available to one-tier channel partners only. Service providers are not eligible to participate in the program.

Brian Wiser, Ingram Micro senior vice president, sales and marketing, carried the Olympic torch at a relay event at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, held in mid-December. The Olympic torch is being transported in relay events some 45,000 kilometers across Canada, a 106-day journey that began in Victoria, BC on October 30, 2009, concluding on February 12, 2010 in Vancouver, BC., opening day of the 2010 Winter Olympics. Wiser, who was sponsored for the event by Acer, carried the Olympic Torch for about 300 meters, the equivalent of 328 yards or slightly less than one-fifth of a mile.