How big is the Spam problem?

To start by showing my hand, I really dislike Spam. I could live without offers of pirate software, contact from someone pretending to be a young Russian woman, offers of all sorts of pills and potions and of course, the enhancements to my anatomy. 

My guess is that there must be a return on their effort - in other words enough people must click-through to make spam worthwhile.

On one level they are a nuisance, but if there are enough spam emails, they are clogging your Internet connection. So, are there enough? 

Here is real data from a Spam Filter here in Australia - you decide.

Total Emails received = 9.5 million

"Genuine" Emails = 2 million

Spam Emails = 7.5 million

This means more than 80% of the email arriving at this domain is spam. 

Having an absolute fix for spam is difficult, as it involves technical and legal remedies. That said,  I notice that Spam Filters are now doing a great job. For example, I have a Hotmail account and the Spam arriving in my inbox is zero. If more and more spam is blocked, then hopefully, the sources will diminish. 

Microsoft Results - the more things change.......

In my last post, I commented on the challenges that Microsoft are facing to their dominance in the desktop productivity space.

Well, at the moment those challenges are not making an impact - judging by Microsoft's recent results. Growth in Vista revenue, and great growth in Office revenue. While positive, this is only a 90-day period, so I will watch with interest over the coming quarters.

On another note, the investment by Microsoft in Facebook shows that they understand what is happening on the Web, and how to be part of it.

Have you seen Buzzword? What does it mean?

Collaboration has been an IT buzzword (pardon the pun) for at least a decade. If, like me, you struggle with those mark-up features in Microsoft Word, you will love Buzzword.

It is a word processing environment which allows online, live document collaboration. Have a look at www.virtub.com/ and let me know what you think.

The brilliance of online tools like Buzzword, brings into focus the future of personal productivity applications. We used to call them desktop applications, but that doesn’t quite work anymore.

When the world was DOS PCs and Apple IIe’s, the applications were VisiCalc, WordPerfect, and Lotus 1-2-3. I think that Microsoft overtook these applications and took a dominant position based on 3 changes
1. the paradigm shift to Windows 3.1
2. Lotus and WordPerfect slow to move to Windows – continued development of DOS version, and development focus on IBM’s OS/2
3. the packaging of applications into Office suites offering much better value

Looking at Buzzword made me realise that we may be going through a similar set of changes
1. the paradigm shift to the Internet for application delivery
2. Microsoft focussed on Vista while the developers of Buzzword, Google and many others, create different options
3. the availability of open-source offerings (Open Office, Lotus Symphony)

I suggest we will see a large change of user base, but not necessarily a large change in revenue base. Corporate customers will continue to buy Microsoft Office, and many users who will switch to open source or online applications, where those not paying for Microsoft Office anyway. Plus, Microsoft will have a significant play in the online application market.

However, the big wildcard is Government and Education. Government is a big user and could make big savings moving to Open Office, and if they want “brand backing”, Lotus Symphony.

In a school or college environment, with some much great software around for learning, I would be very tempted to put my budget in that direction, and save by taking Open Office or online applications.

Time will tell.

Symantec, Dancers and Hot Issues

I had the pleasure of attending the Symantec Vision Event in Sydney last week.

The event followed a familiar path. A loud Corporate video to open proceedings, followed by a troop of tap dancers. What tap dancers have to do with Symantec remains a mystery to me, so all ideas are welcome.

Then a senior sales exec presented corporate motherhood, while the audience waited for the real content to arrive. And arrive it did, with interesting keynote speakers from Symantec and a superb business keynote.

Glitz and glamour aside, my overall take-out was that Symantec has products that are at the heart of many of the big IT issues.

In 2006 The Council of Australian University Directors of IT (www.caudit.edu.au) developed a list of their Top 10 issues. They have updated the list for 2007 and it is

1. Staffing and Workforce Planning - Skills Shortage, Retention and Recruitment
2. Service Management - Support and Delivery: Availability, Capacity, Change Management
3. Project, Portfolio and Risk Management
4. Governance and IT Strategic Planning
5. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
6. Identity Management: Authentication, Authorisation, Access
7. Security
8. Information Management: Storage, Archiving, Records Management
9. Funding and Resourcing
10. Administrative Systems - ERP Upgrades and Enterprise Architecture

I think that Symantec has products in 5 or maybe 6 of these 10 categories.

I preach that any selection process should begin with a detailed understanding of the need, and then should include considerations of the other technology inter-relationships – both technical and commercial.

When that work is done, I am sure that in many cases, Symantec products will be worthy of consideration.

Taking Care of Business - 2

A week ago, I posted a question on Linkedin (www.linkedin.com), which asked

“What do you want from your IT Department? Are you getting it?”

I got only 8 answers in a week, which is low, particularly when compared with the 100+ answers to the question “If Vincent ran out, would you buy him some paint?”.

So, on a site with a massive number of professional members (quoted at 12 million), only 8 people had the interest in IT to answer. Of the answers, 7 of the 8 related to the IT Department as a service organisation, which goes to the topic of my Blog, posted a couple of weeks ago. Both of these facts should be slightly concerning to the IT community.

Of the answers, I thought the cleverest answer, (and it made me smile) was from Melodie Neal
“Do not ask me if I've tried rebooting to solve a problem: I tried all the routine stuff before I called you. Try to think outside your comfort zone: the answer to every technical problem does not come in a box with Microsoft's logo on it.
Warn me when you plan to disrupt services, and let that warning be at least 1 business day before the outage. I work to deadlines, and I can only manage my customer's expectations properly if I know what level of service I can expect from systems you run. 
If you know that something is on the fritz, such as the mail (again), try to let people know promptly.
Try to understand the business we are in, and what tasks we have to perform regularly. Ask a few staff to describe their working day. Spot the gaps where people are using their own equipment to make up the short falls in yours. Try and make the gaps smaller”

I received an answer that I thought summed it up, so I chose it as the Best Answer - from Stuart Ali
“Ability to make decisions based upon organisational need rather than constrained by purchasing policy, current process and budget. Isn't ICT about building capability? ... but isn’t that a mistake of most service providers... focusing on the here and now, believing they are just a "service provider"... then are struck down with bewilderment when a new competitor takes the market by storm!”

Web 2.0 – Hype, Reality and Security

I have been reading a lot lately on Web 2.0. There are numerous articles and commentaries that range from “Its hype” to
“It’s changing the world” to “Its YouTube”.

There is no doubt that today, millions of people put content on the Web using sites such as Myspace, Facebook and Linkedin. There are numerous Blog sites such as this one, and then aggregation services like Technorati and Feedburner.

The scale is astounding. If I read it correctly, there are close to 8 million Blogs on Technorati, and on Myspace it says that more than 700,000 Blogs have been updated today!

These sites are much more than hype – they are phenomenally successful at attracting users.

So is there a security implication if they are used in a business environment?

Security company Sophos seem to argue that there is. Sophos publish a Security threat update, and if you haven’t read it, I recommend it.

www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2007/07/securityrep.html

This Sophos report states that virus writers are placing malware on third-party web sites – and they suggest that about 80% of all web-based malware is being hosted on innocent, but compromised, sites.

Sadly, malicious code is also placed on the social networking sites. Sophos quote that in March 2007 the SpaceStalk spyware Trojan was discovered embedded in a QuickTime movie on a Myspace page.

So, how do you protect your users and resources from this malicious code? Do you block these sites?

I may be late to the party, but Acrobat 8 is great!

I don’t know about you, but I tend to stick with the software versions I have, unless I get compatibility issues or someone points me to a better option. That was the case with PDF creation until I was shown Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional.

If your response is “I knew about this months ago”, then forgive me, but products that exceed expectations are worth recommending.

I use PDF as a smaller, controllable file format when emailing documents. What I didn’t know was that the PDF creator I used (in my Printer Driver) actually makes documents larger, especially Powerpoint files. Also, the control (copying, printing etc.) was non-existent. Enter Acrobat.

The files are small, the security is great (and flexible), I can now combine various documents into a single PDF and, even when clients are using the free Acrobat Reader, they can make comments on the document without changing the original. This works on everything, including diagrams, pictures.

Last but not least, with Acrobat Professional I can create forms which other users can complete using the Acrobat Reader.

If you haven’t already, Acrobat Pro 8 is worth a look.