In the past year, regulators and privacy advocates have taken potshots at Microsoft over its data collection policies. Today, Microsoft announced some new privacy-related initiatives, including a significant change to the way Windows 10 collects telemetry data.
To address criticism from regulators and public policy groups, Microsoft is making some changes in its privacy practices.
Of all the body blows Microsoft has absorbed in the past 18 months over Windows 10, the criticisms of its privacy policies have to sting the most.
Last summer, the French National Data Protection Commission (CNIL) issued a formal notice against Microsoft, ordering that the company "stop collecting excessive data and tracking browsing by users without their consent."
The CNIL found Microsoft's collection of diagnostic information (so-called telemetry) acceptable but said that the default settings for Windows 10 go too far. The complaint singled out Microsoft's practice of collecting information about app usage as "excessive."
A month later, the Electronic Freedom Foundation took aim at Windows 10 with a signed editorial criticizing the company for "disregarding user choice" and sending "an unprecedented amount of usage data back to Microsoft...." As I noted at the time, EFF was especially critical of Microsoft's telemetry collection policies.
After months of explaining and defending its policies, publicly and in meetings with regulators, the company today announced that it's making a series of privacy-related moves. Terry Myerson, who runs the Windows and Devices Group, made the announcement in a blog post:
Many of you have asked for more control over your data, a greater understanding of how data is collected, and the benefits this brings for a more personalized experience. Based on your feedback, we are launching two new experiences to help ensure you are in control of your privacy.
First, today we're launching a new web-based privacy dashboard so you can see and control your activity data from Microsoft including location, search, browsing and Cortana Notebook data across multiple Microsoft services. Second, we're introducing in Windows 10 a new privacy set up experience, simplifying Diagnostic data levels and further reducing the data collected at the Basic level.
The changes to Windows 10 will roll out initially in an upcoming Windows Insider preview build, perhaps as soon as this week, and will reach the general public with the release of the Windows 10 Creators Update this spring.
I haven't seen these features in operation yet. The descriptions in the remainder of this post are based on what Microsoft says it plans to deliver. The broad outlines shouldn't change, but you can expect the user experience to evolve before the final release, based on feedback from Windows Insider Program participants and third parties.
Unlike its predecessors, the Creators Update will not arrive silently in the background. Instead, Microsoft plans to notify Windows 10 users that the update is available and allow them to schedule its installation. As part of the process of scheduling that upgrade, users will have the opportunity to make "explicit choices" about privacy settings in five categories.
This is the new privacy settings setup experience that will arrive soon in a Windows Insider preview build, according to Myerson:
via Microsoft
This setup screen replaces the Express Settings in current Windows 10 public releases, which requires multiple extra steps to adjust default settings in a clean installation and offers no control over privacy options during upgrades. (To make matters worse, some users have reported that Windows 10 upgrades occasionally reset custom privacy options to their default settings after an upgrade.)
The new interface for setting privacy options also includes an explanation of what happens if you turn any of those settings off or, in the case of the Diagnostics setting, adjust it from Full to Basic.
via Microsoft
All of those settings, along with more granular controls (such as setting location permissions on a per-app basis) will also be available after installation, under the Privacy heading in Settings.
The changes to telemetry settings start with the renaming of the category itself, from Diagnostic and Usage Data to just Diagnostics.
In all public releases of Windows 10 so far, non-Enterprise editions allow users and administrators to choose one of three levels to control telemetry collection: Full, Enhanced, and Basic. The changes in the Creators Update will eliminate the Enhanced level and also reduce the amount of information collected when you slide that switch to Basic.
(In Enterprise settings, administrators will continue to have an additional Security option, which eliminates virtually all telemetry collection but requires the deployment of an alternative update mechanism.)
In an interview, Microsoft Corporate Vice President Michael Fortin told me that the Enhanced level was "confusing," and "only a relatively modest number of Windows 10 users were choosing it." Most people either leave the default setting at Full or signal their preference for privacy by switching to the lowest available telemetry option, Basic, he noted.
Effective with this spring's Windows 10 feature update, telemetry information collected at the Basic level will no longer include information about app installation or usage. Instead, Myerson says, information collected at that level will focus strictly on security and reliability, with basic error reporting. That change should assuage some of the concerns of the CNIL and other regulators as well as privacy critics like the EFF.
The new Windows 10 settings are available in all installations, regardless of what type os account the user has signed in with.
The privacy dashboard is a separate feature, designed to give users of Microsoft services the opportunity to see and edit information that is collected and stored in the cloud when they are signed in with a Microsoft account.
According to Myerson, the new privacy dashboard (which will be available at https://account.microsoft.com/privacy will allow Microsoft customers, regardless of hardware platform or operating system, to review and clear data such as browsing history, search history, location activity, and Cortana's Notebook. (Note that this data is associated with a Microsoft account and is not saved in the cloud when the user browses without signing in.)
via MicrosoftBecause this dashboard is web-based, it's likely to evolve significantly over time. In an interview, Myerson told me he expects his team to iterate on that user experience in response to feedback. "What we're learning," he said, "is that people don't always understand why something is being collected and what are the implications of clearing it out. We will continuously be improving."
On paper, Redmond can make a strong case that it has an economic incentive to protect its users' privacy. As I noted last summer, privacy should be a competitive advantage for Microsoft, especially when comparing its policies and practices to those of Google, whose entire business is built on collecting data from its users and turning it into advertising profiles.
Most of Microsoft's revenue comes from selling software licenses, cloud services, and hardware. A significant share of that business is with enterprise customers and government agencies that have a profound interest in privacy and security. Indeed, Microsoft has earned generally high marks for its handling of security and privacy issues in cloud services such as Office 365 and Microsoft Azure.
Where things get somewhat murkier is with products and services aimed at consumers and small businesses. Without transparency over exactly what information is collected and how it's used, the company remains vulnerable to accusations that it's spying on customers.
As Google and Facebook have proven, the most effective way to monetize personal information is through online advertising. Microsoft once had dreams of being an advertising powerhouse, which occasionally led to struggles between product designers and ad sellers.
But the company abandoned that strategic goal five years ago when it wrote off the acquisition of aQuantive and scaled back its advertising ambitions after five years of struggling. Today, the company's advertising business is healthy but relatively small and mostly intended to monetize strategic assets such as its Bing and Cortana search tools.
In Microsoft's most recent quarter, search advertising and other forms of online ads accounted for only about 5 percent of total revenue. Contrast that with Google, which earns roughly 90 percent of its revenue from advertising and depends on collecting massive amounts of data to power the ads that pay for Google Search, Gmail, and other free products
Without Microsoft's investments in those technologies, Google's dominance in search would arguably be a monopoly.
Still, even that small-by-Redmond-standards online search advertising business brought in about $1.4 billion in revenue in its recent quarter, up 40 percent over the previous year. Microsoft's ad business might be tiny compared to its rivals, but it's big enough for regulators and privacy advocates to worry about whether the company's data collection is being driven by its ad business.
Myerson tells me that they've shared details about its data collection practices with large enterprise customers and regulators. "That dialog is taking place in every country where we do business," he said. "We believe users have a right to privacy and users should have control over their data."
For consumers and small businesses, the new privacy dashboard offers more control over online data, but you'll have to take Microsoft assurances on faith when it comes to telemetry.
I asked Myerson whether Microsoft would consider contracting with an outside group, such as the EFF, to audit its data collection policies and offer an independent report.
"That's an interesting idea," he replied. "But various countries are going farther than hiring an audit firm. They're passing laws. We're making sure we're fully compliant with laws that affect Windows users."
At the International CES mega show in Las Vegas, virtual reality hardware makers moved the needle on both consumption and creation devices for formats like VR and 360-degree video. Specifically in the area of 360 video creation technology, we saw some impressive cameras at CES.
Insta360 Pro debuted an 8K camera that can also shoot 4K video at 100 frames per second. Slow mo, high res VR, anyone? The Insta360 also employs new H.265 encoding, which can deliver better video quality at the same bitrate versus H.264 compression. The camera is priced at $3,000, which is steep, but much more competitive than the $60,000 Nokia Ozo.
Ricoh added to its lineup of cameras with the Theta R, which can livestream in 2K resolution at 30 frames per second for up to 24 hours.
At $800 the Vuze Camera will finally begin to ship in March. Its compact size and price point will be good for brands and businesses that want to dip their toes into new content
VR and 360 content can be a powerful tool for companies. For example, Delta used a 360 image to show off its new Delta Premium offering. It drove 2,700 shares and 16,000 engagements. Click on the post below to see it in 360.
The hardware for VR and 360 video is one piece, but the technical and production component is equally as important. When it comes to producing 360 video, remember:
Resolution matters. Here's how you need to think of 360 video. Imagine standing inside of a globe and looking straight ahead. You're only consuming about a quarter of what is happening all around you. If the camera produces video at full HD, then what you're seeing is below standard definition (SD). The higher the native resolution, the higher the fidelity of the 360 experience. That's why cameras that produce in 2K, 4K, and 8K will be so important.
Editing content requires new templates. When you edit 360 video, you edit the equirectangular format of it, which is analogous to the Mercator projection of a globe. That means the size and placement of text will be very important. If you put text at the top of the screen, then it will wrap around the "north pole" when it becomes 360. Experiment with text size and placement and then save it as a template to return to for future projects.
Don't obsess over VR headsets for delivery. Both Facebook and YouTube support 360-degree video and a variety of online video platforms do as well. The equirectangular video is simply injected with a bit of code that allows the video player to interpret the video as 360-degree content. We know that VR headsets are poised to grow and cheaper options will democratize them, but in the meantime, you have options available through Facebook, YouTube, and enterprise OVPs
Did any of the CES announcements entice you to explore VR and 360-degree video?
Google's acquisition brings on board tech to tackle distortion and echo on video calls and conferences, so you can hear who you're talking to.
Google has bought Limes Audio, which makes tech to battle noise, distortion and echoes on video calls.
Photo by Nicole Cozma/CNET
Google has bought Limes Audio, a company with technology to improve sound quality in video calls, to improve its conferencing products like Hangouts, according to a blog post Thursday.
The tech giant said audio quality -- "so that you can hear the person you're talking to, and they can hear you" -- is critical as more businesses adopt its videoconferencing services like Chromebox for Meetings and Hangouts.
Limes Audio's technology removes noise, distortion and echoes, which should help with problems like conference rooms' acoustics and poor internet connections, the company said.
Google has been energetic about video chat lately. With products like Hangouts and Chromebox already in place, it launched another rival to Microsoft's Skype and Apple's FaceTime last year. Called Duo, the app allows one-to-one video calling and has quirky features like Knock Knock, which offers a video preview of who's calling you.
4G-powered wireless internet service promised for later this year.
Lost your car? Soon your smartwatch will be able to help you to find it.
Image: Ford
Motor giant Ford is adding a built-in Wi-Fi hotspot to some of its models, beginning later this year.
The in-car Wi-Fi hotspot will use AT&T's 4G LTE network for connectivity and can support up to 10 devices at a time. When the vehicle is parked, the Wi-Fi is accessible from up to 50 feet away because of an external antenna, which improves the signal strength.
SYNC Connect Wi-Fi hotspot users can monitor data usage, signal strength and connected devices, plus block certain devices and change settings on the SYNC 3 touch screen. They can also use FordPass to view Wi-Fi data usage and link to AT&T's account management portal.
New car buyers of vehicles with the Wi-Fi hotspot -- which will go on sale in the autumn -- will get a trial subscription of three months or 3GB, whichever comes first, after which users will need an AT&T data plan.
Ford also noted: "Don't drive while distracted. Use voice-operated systems when possible, and don't use handheld devices while driving."
Companies like Ford are trying to take advantage of the increasing computing power embedded into vehicles to create new revenue streams, in a bid to diversify their business and move away from reliance on simply selling new vehicles.
The new service was announced at the CES show, where Ford also said its cars will be able to send messages to wearers of Samsung Gear S2 and S3 smartwatches via the new Gear Auto Link app, due in the spring.
After parking, drivers will receive a prompt on their smartwatch asking if they want to log the parking spot, which is picked up from the vehicle's GPS. For vehicles inside a parking garage, the driver can type the level, column and other location indicators into the watch, so that on their return to the vehicle, drivers can receive directions to navigate back to the parking spot using the watch.
Drivers can also use their smartwatch to stay alert by using the Gear to set chimes and voice alerts at three-, five-, 10-, 15- or 20-minute intervals while on the road. Ford said future versions of the app will vibrate the watch as an added way to help keep the driver alert.
The company also announced that it is building Amazon's Alexa voice-controlled digital assistant into some car models.
Kingston's new DataTraveler Ultimate GT comes in 1TB and 2TB configurations.
Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate GT
Kingston
Imagine being able to carry a whopping 70 hours of 4K video in your pocket. Kingston makes this a reality.
The new DataTraveler Ultimate GT -- the GT stands for Generation Terabyte -- is the world's highest capacity USB flash drive, and comes in 1TB and 2TB offerings for those who want to transport large amounts of data with them without relying on hard drives or cloud storage.
On top of the high storage capacity, the new drive is USB 3.1 Gen 1 compatible, which means excellent read/write performance.
Kingston's DataTraveler Ultimate GT offers superior quality in a high-end design as it is made of a robust zinc-alloy metal casing for shock resistance. I own a number of the previous-generation Kingston DataTraveler flash drives and can attest to how robust and reliable they are.
"At Kingston, we push the limits of what's possible," said Jean Wong, Flash business manager. "With the DataTraveler Ultimate GT, we empower users to increase their data storage mobility in a highly manageable form factor. This is a terrific follow up to our 1TB drive released in 2013 and by doubling the capacity, users can store and carry even larger amounts of data easily."
The Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate GT will ship in February 2017, but there's no word yet as to pricing (you'll probably need to be sitting down when you see it).
Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate GT specifications:
Capacities: 1TB, 2TB
Speed: USB 3.1 Gen. 1
Dimensions: 72mm x 26.94mm x 21mm
Operating Temperature: -25°C to 60°C
Storage Temperature: -40°C to 85°C
Warranty: 5-year warranty with free technical support
Compatible with: Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7 (SP1), Mac OS 10.9.x and above, Linux v.2.6.x and above, Chrome OS
If 2016 wasn't tumultuous enough for you - the world's largest storage company sold itself to Dell - you ain't seen nothin' yet. The pace of change in the storage industry is accelerating - and that's good for us.
The pace of storage change continues to accelerate, and its impact on us continues to grow. Digital storage is central to a digital civilization, and as we grow more digital, we grow more dependent on improvements in storage. Here's what to expect in 2017.
AI
AI will make stored data - and therefore storage- more valuable. When you can take - as we can today - a grainy surveillance video or a blurred face and read a license plate number of determine someone's identity using AI, the value of stored data rises, for good or ill.
As the AI revolution gathers force, expect that researchers will discover even more ways to use machine intelligence to generate value from stored data. In our democracy, I hope, citizens will have some say in the ways AI is used by intelligence agencies and corporations.
NVRAM
We'll see the first NVRAM (non-volatile RAM) in notebooks. This is the year that we'll see the first mainstream NVRAM products from Intel and, I hope, others. Intel's NVRAM SSDs won't be a thousand times faster, but they will be faster, more durable, and, yes, more expensive than NAND flash based SSDs.
But more importantly, we'll see the first notebooks with NVRAM used in conjunction with standard RAM to expand main memory, or, as the industry puts it, as storage class memory (SCM). This is an old idea - remember IBM's System 38? - given new relevance by NVRAM's speed, cost, and density. It's the higher density that will pave the way for servers and notebooks with hundreds of gigabytes and even terabytes of main memory.
ACTIVE ARCHIVES
Active archives will continue to gain performance and popularity in enterprise IT, as CIOs find they're much cheaper and faster than cloud services. IaaS vendor ClearSky Data has already demonstrated that with smart caching, object storage can be as fast as NAS boxes. The greater data integrity, lower OpEx, and simpler operation of object storage systems then seal the deal.
NAS won't go away, as the setup costs for object storage remain higher, but the withering of RAID-based NAS will begin in 2017.
CLOUD
Cloud services will get much more competitive as Microsoft, Google, and IBM continue to work their unique advantages to chip away at Amazon's early lead. Amazon's early dominance of IaaS suggested a continuing lead over all comers, but unlike IBM in the 1960s, Amazon Web Services faces a trio of large, profitable, and uniquely advantaged competitors. Google's brainpower, Microsoft's desktop and research footprint, and IBM's enterprise stronghold are advantages that AWS's early lead won't be able to overcome.
That's good news for the rest of us, as cloud services continue to grow and improve. Weep not for AWS, as the market is growing fast enough for all of them to prosper - for now.
SUPER FAST PCIE/NVME
PCIe/NVMe SSDs will be almost universal on pro notebooks be year end. Apple's new PCIe/NVMe MacBook Pros may have their troubles, but storage performance isn't one of them, and the rest of the industry is jumping on the bandwagon.
With read and write performance well over 2 gigabytes per second, PCIe/NVMe storage leaves SATA SSDs in the dust. That, in turn, boosts the notebook's virtual memory system, giving you a much snappier tool.
THE STORAGE BITS TAKE
Sadly, 2017 won't be wonderful for everyone in the industry. I'm expecting more layoffs from storage companies that have slow to adapt to the accelerating changes in technology and competition.
But for those of us who rely upon and/or manage storage, big improvements keep coming. Now, if the rest of the world could improve as well. . . .
Courteous comments welcome, of course. Happy New Year!
The company's flagship notebooks will also feature Intel's latest Kaby Lake processors, support for Microsoft's Precision TouchPad drivers, and even a silver color option.
Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 370
Lenovo has jumped the gun on CES by releasing info on its latest ThinkPad updates a few days before the annual electronics trade show. While the PC manufacturer isn't adding anything as radical as the Yoga Book's Create Pad hybrid input device, its flagship laptops will receive some of the latest computing technology as well as some other improvements.
Select ThinkPads will be the first computers to include Intel's Optane storage technology, which is reportedly several times faster than current SSD tech. The bad news? These laptops will only have 16GB versions of the Optane drives, so they will be used in tandem with traditional hard drives. They will also appear later in 2017 than new non-Optane ThinkPads as the drives are finalized.
Lenovo is further leaning on Intel for its processors, shipping new ThinkPads with the latest Core processors. the seventh-generation "Kaby Lake" CPUs. It's also continuing the trend of PC makers jumping on the USB-C bandwagon as well as supporting Thunderbolt 3 connectivity. The brand-new ThinkPad T470 and T570 will be equipped with Windows Hello cameras that can perform facial recognition to supplement their fingerprint readers. (See a rundown of all the new models at our sister site CNET.)
The ThinkPad's touchpad gets an update via software thanks to new support for Microsoft's Precision TouchPad drivers, which should provide finer control over inputting touchpad gestures. Microsoft will also be supplying Windows 10 Signature Edition for 2017 ThinkPads; given Lenovo's recent woes with installing flawed bloatware on its systems, this "clean" version of Windows 10 should give potential buyers a little more peace of mind.
The most noticeable change to the new ThinkPads will appear on the surface. In addition to its iconic black chassis, select Lenovo business laptops will finally be available in a silver finish. A nod to younger buyers who might not like the staid black ThinkPads of yore (and their overworked parents)?
Internally called the 'Q Project', Samsung achieved higher color volume, wider view angle, and deeper blacks for their QLED TVs by applying metal coating to the quantum dot nanocrystals, company insiders say.
Samsung Electronics' 2017 premium QLED TV line-up, which will debut at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), has applied 'metal coating' to improve the integrity of the quantum dot (QD) materials, company insiders say, allowing colour in a wider range to be accurately represented at higher brightness level or better than those reached in OLED TVs.
Internally called the "Q Project," the business set a target resolution for 2017 and tested out the quantum dot materials in various ways.
The breakthrough was made by "metal coating" process, where metal is coated around the nanocrystals to form a shield to make them more stable and circular, and the same size, they said. Having the crystals circular and in the size is crucial to increasing colour accuracy. Insiders declined to comment on the metal used as it is a trade secret.
The TVs also accurately express High Dynamic Range (HDR) at peak brightness of 1500 nit, they said. There will be no trade-off between colour and brightness. Increasing the brightness tends to kill the colour volume, and vice-versa. The new models achieve a wide colour volume -- it covers all of DCI-P3 standard colour space -- even at 1500 nit, the company said. Compared to conventional WRGB displays' 67 percent, using quantum dot allowed Samsung to achieve 104 percent colour space of the standard, they added.
The TVs will be branded QLED, while the SUHD used for 2015 and 2016 models will be dropped. The new brand represents the quantum dot's importance, functions and advantage over rival technologies better, they said.
Samsung, the world's largest TV maker, introduced QD LCD as a premium line-up at CES 2015 and branded it as SUHD TV. Its compatriot and runner-up LG Electronics has been using OLED for its premium line-up of TVs. Sony is also planning to launch OLED TVs, using LG Display's panels.
Using QD materials has advantages over OLEDs: they are cheaper to make; QD process can be added to existing Liquid Crystal Display production lights; they have a longer lifespan; and they do not suffer "burn-in". While more accurately representing black, OLED's main problem has been high costs and long playing time resulting in images burnt in on to the screen.
OLED has the diode emitting light without the need for a backlight. Because of the name QLED, there was some speculation on whether Samsung had succeeded in making the crystals emit light in a similar fashion to OLEDs.
Samsung confirmed in a call with ZDNet that the quantum dots will not be self-emitting light. The new TVs, like its predecessors, likely have a QD film layer atop a LCD with LED as the backlight.
Company insiders said other TV manufacturers were showing strong interest in quantum dot and preparing TV models that use the technology. It expects, before and after CES, that more companies will join the "quantum dot camp". Samsung is willing to cooperate with these firms, they said, suggesting supplying quantum dot materials.
Chinese firms TCL and Hisense, the third and fourth largest TV vendors respectively, are also pushing to make quantum dot TVs.
Samsung is betting hard on quantum dot technology. It acquired QD Vision in November for $70 million.
Cadmium, which is hazardous to humans, was previously considered essential to make quantum dot nanocrystals, but the South Korean tech giant succeeded in making the crystals without them.
It is applying them on monitors as well, and will also unveil curved monitors that use the technology at CES.
Cloud computing is a hot tech trend, but not without potential pitfalls for the unwary. Here are a few to consider.
Moving to the cloud is not as easy as some vendors promise.
Research suggests the cloud will account for almost half of all enterprise IT spending by 2026. Yet while interest in the cloud keeps increasing, some pockets of resistance remain. What are the key issues that matter to CIOs who are considering a move on-demand and how can they make the most of the cloud?
1. Be the cloud broker for the business
Matt Peers, CIO at Linklaters, says the bringing together of systems and services is still a concern for IT leaders considering a move to the cloud. "I think there's a temptation to draw on the services of many different providers but that can create a huge integration challenge," he says.
Peers says effective CIOs will create a balance, drawing on enough cloud providers to take advantage of the competitive tension, while at the same time avoiding the risk of having too many partners to manage. "You don't want to be forever chopping and changing between services," he says.
This need for cloud control could lead to a new trend, where expert providers help mop-up the management concerns associated to on-demand provision. Moves in this direction are being made. A number of major consultancies and IT providers already tout their expertise in regards to cloud ecosystem management. Yet Peers issues a word of caution to CIOs.
"I see that as the IT leader's role," he says. "It's up to me and my team to act as the broker for these in-house and cloud provided services. We work with the people in the business and help them decide the best place from which to source the solution to our IT challenges."
Linklaters is using the cloud, for example, across time recording, email filing, and internet and firm-wide security. These developments lead Peers to suggest on-demand can be a crucial tool for CIOs.
"The cloud providers have - in the last 18 months-or-so - realised that security is very important," he says. "These investments by providers mean we now feel comfortable using these services in certain circumstances. And I see us using more and more on-demand services as the comfort increases."
2. Think carefully about performance, cost and vendor lock-in
Rentalcars.com CIO Graham Benson says he sees a range of issues that business leaders should be wary about when it comes to using the cloud in the current environment. The first issue covers performance. Applications need to be optimised to run in the cloud and that can present challenges.
Executives, says Benson, should not assume applications automatically port from a fixed legacy environment to an on-demand platform. "You could get a performance hit," he says. "A lot of applications work fine on standalone servers. But the applications can suffer when you try and move them to the cloud."
Benson says there are reports that it can be painful to migrate fixed web servers to a cloud platform. He advises CIOs to proceed with caution. "Road test and performance manage your applications," says Benson. "Make no assumptions. In short, don't just believe the marketing hype and test the cloud yourself."
The second issue concerns the movement of data. "Never, ever migrate your crown jewels to the cloud," he says. "Examples might include payment systems and customer databases."
Benson's stance is in opposition to an increasing number of experts, who believe external cloud providers are often the specialists in security. "Lots of cloud providers will argue with me about this stance," he says. "But scaling back-end databases on-demand doesn't work very well and no CIO should be giving up the security of crucial information to a third party."
Another key concern when using the cloud, says Benson, is cost. He says the cloud works "really, really well" on a pay-as-you-go basis. However, CIOs must be aware that on-demand IT can get expensive when users want to store and use terabytes and terabytes of data every day.
"Small-scale transactional stuff is perfect for the cloud," says Benson. "When you start having huge databases on-demand, you start having to store information on multiple, distributed systems - and that can be difficult and costly to manage."
Finally, Benson offers a watchword to other CIOs in regards to vendor lock-in. "Be careful not to be seduced by too much proprietary technology," he says. "Nothing comes for free. Cloud providers offer give you great generic tools as part of the package but you need to be aware of being locked into the technology. Once you're locked in, it's very difficult to migrate away."
3. Remember the limitations and build a strong case
Toby Clarke, interim head of IT at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, says cloud is, quite simply, just another IT procurement option. "For everything we do now, we consider the cloud," he says.
Clarke says that, for most organisations, the relationship with the cloud is just going to get bigger and better. However, there will always be important limitations. Moorfields, for example, is not a heavy user of the cloud.
CIOs, he says, must analyse the use of on-demand within the current business context. The hospital has already invested a lot of money in its internal storage array: a move to the cloud would mean the organisation needs to pay for two forms of storage - its existing array and on-demand infrastructure.
"Cost isn't relinquished when you move to the cloud for months or even years," he says. "That's not a strong business case to take to the board for supporting a move to on-demand IT. There's no cost justification for the cloud if you already have the infrastructure and you're simply creating an additional outgoing."
In addition, the focus on operational expenditure is not right for every CIO. Some executives actually prefer to have fixed costs.
"You might work for an organisation that only has capital in its budget for a particular year," he says. "Cloud, if it simply helps bring down operational costs, doesn't fit with that funding model. But the cloud has definitely become another platform from which to deliver a technology service in some form or another."
One year after a powerhouse group of technology executives and venture capital icons met to form the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, the group, led by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, has launched a US$1 billion investment fund to support clean energy startups around the world.
The Breakthrough Energy Fund, chaired by Gates, is designed to jumpstart an entire new generation of entrepreneurs developing radical new approaches to providing reliable and low-cost energy, with zero carbon emissions as the end goal.
Institutional partners, including the University of California, will help generate research ideas. Strategic partners, including Southern Co. and others, will help the group with regulatory issues, and figure out which companies have the most promise.
In addition to Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Breakthrough Energy Coalition's board members include John Arnold, co-chair of the Laura and John Arnold Foundation; John Doerr, chair of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers; and Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures.
Star Power
Other leading members include Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba Group; Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries; Hasso Plattner, cofounder of SAP; Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon; and Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently joined the investor group, bringing the membership to 21, Gates said. "Breakthrough technologies ... have the potential to be one of the best investment opportunities of the 21st century," Doerr said earlier this week, in a conference call with reporters. The fund will invest in a wide variety of companies -- storage, transportation, agricultural, electrical generation and industrial, among others. The fund will offer a range of financing, from seed capital to early stage investment and capitalization. The fund will take advantage of a lot of lessons learned about financing clean energy companies, and apply those lessons to the new venture, Doerr said. The fund will emphasize taking a "long, patient view" toward investment, in order to give companies enough time to properly develop, Khosla said during the conference call. The fund will be able to handle seven-, eight- and nine-figure investments, Arnold added, and it will focus on revolutionary versus evolutionary investments -- that is, those designed to push aggressively toward significant emission reductions.
"While there might be long-term business gains, I personally believe that this is part of [Gates'] philanthropic work to improve overall human conditions, particularly for the next generation," observed Farah Saeed, principal consultant at Frost & Sullivan.
"Also, there is the attraction of using technology to resolve existing issues around improving affordability and vast availability of clean energy," .
DoE Support
U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz hailed the launch of the new fund as a breakthrough that will help push the U.S. into greater standing in the clean energy field, and he warned against the dangers of rolling back this progress.
"Because of the United States' longstanding commitment to technology innovation, we have a head start on developing next generation clean-energy technologies," Moniz said. "However, if the United States chooses to back away from a redoubled commitment to innovation, it will be American entrepreneurs, manufacturers and workers who will be put at competitive disadvantage in developing breakthrough technologies and creating jobs."
