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Koobface Gang That Spread Worm on Facebook Operates in the Open

January 17, 2012 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

The men live comfortable lives in St. Petersburg — and have frolicked on luxury vacations in places like Monte Carlo, Bali and, earlier this month, Turkey, according to photographs posted on social network sites — even though their identities have been known for years to Facebook, computer security investigators and law enforcement officials.

One member of the group, which is popularly known as the Koobface gang, has regularly broadcast the coordinates of its offices by checking in on Foursquare, a location-based social network, and posting the news to Twitter. Photographs on Foursquare also show other suspected members of the group working on Macs in a loftlike room that looks like offices used by tech start-ups in cities around the world.

Beginning in July 2008, the Koobface gang aimed at Web users with invitations to watch a funny or sexy video. Those curious enough to click the link got a message to update their computer’s Flash software, which begins the download of the Koobface malware. Victims’ computers are drafted into a “botnet,” or network of infected PCs, and are sent official-looking advertisements of fake antivirus software and their Web searches are also hijacked and the clicks delivered to unscrupulous marketers. The group made money from people who bought the bogus software and from unsuspecting advertisers.

The security software firm Kaspersky Labs has estimated the network includes 400,000 to 800,000 PCs worldwide at its height in 2010. Victims are often unaware their machines have been compromised.

The Koobface gang’s freedom underscores how hard it is to apprehend international computer criminals, even when identities are known. These groups tend to operate in countries where they can work unmolested by the local authorities, and where cooperation with United States and European law enforcement agencies is poor. Meanwhile, Western law enforcement is awash in computer crime and lacks the resources and skilled manpower to tackle it effectively, especially when evidence putting individuals’ fingers on keyboards must be collected abroad.

On Tuesday, Facebook plans to announce that it will begin sharing information about the group and how to fight them with security researchers and other Internet companies. It believes public namings can make it harder for such groups to operate and send a message to the criminal underground.

None of the men have been charged with a crime and no law enforcement agencies have confirmed they are under investigation.

The group investigators have identified has adopted the tongue-in-cheek name, Ali Baba 4: Anton Korotchenko, who uses the online nickname “KrotReal”; Stanislav Avdeyko, known as “leDed”; Svyatoslav E. Polichuck, who goes by “PsViat” and “PsycoMan”; Roman P. Koturbach, who uses the online moniker “PoMuc”; and Alexander Koltysehv, or “Floppy.” )

Efforts to contact members of the group for comment have been unsuccessful.

Weeks after early versions of the Koobface worm began appearing on Facebook, investigators inside the company were able to trace the attacks to those responsible. “We’ve had a picture of one of the guys in a scuba mask on our wall since 2008,” said Ryan McGeehan, manager of investigations and incident response at Facebook.

Since then, Facebook and several independent security researchers have provided law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with information and evidence. Most notably, Jan Droemer, a 32-year-old independent researcher in Germany, has provided important information and leads, including a password-free view inside Koobface’s command-and-control system, known as the “Mothership.” Mr. Droemer spent nights and weekends for four months in late 2009 and early 2010 unmasking the gang members using only information available publicly on the Internet.

The F.B.I. declined to comment.

That computer crime pays is fueling a boom that is leaving few Internet users and businesses unscathed. The toll on consumers alone is estimated at $114 billion annually worldwide, according to a September 2011 study by the security software maker Symantec.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=e8727e2dfd54dafa347871c1acf8aa88

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: facebook, local authorities, luxury vacations

Workstation: For Multitaskers, 2012 May Be a Year of Revenge

December 31, 2011 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

DEVICE BACKLASH As workers add more electronic devices, Web sites, software programs and apps to their arsenals, there is a point at which efficiency and satisfaction suffer. More devices can lead to more multitasking, which, though viewed by many as a virtue, has been shown to interfere with concentration.

More devices also harbor more vortexes of distraction, like Facebook, shopping sites and cute animal videos. Maintaining focus may well be one of the biggest daily challenges that workers will face this year, now that smartphones and tablets have become ubiquitous.

More workers will probably revolt against the idea that they must be “on” all the time, recognizing that both their work and personal lives will improve if they create stricter boundaries. Sometimes this expectation is self-imposed; at other times, it’s part of the corporate culture. Look for more companies to address the issue directly. Last month, for example, Volkswagen agreed with labor representatives in Germany to limit work-related e-mails on BlackBerrys during off-hours.

THE TRAINING ADVANTAGE More technology necessitates more training. During the recession, too many workers learned new technology imperfectly, on the fly, or not at all. Fortunately, corporate spending on training rose in 2011 over the previous year, according to a report in Training magazine.

The pace at which new technology emerges and becomes paramount is quickening as never before. Last year, HTML 5 for the Web was the hottest skill that a job seeker could have; now it’s a knowledge of apps, said Alison Doyle, a job search specialist for About.com, which is owned by The New York Times Company.

Both the employed and the unemployed cannot be complacent about their skills, and must be assertive about keeping up with the latest computer languages and applications, she said.

THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENT WORKER Both by necessity and choice, more workers are deciding to go it alone as consultants, contractors, freelancers and other independent operators. Look for that trend to intensify this year.

Thanks to technology, it’s easier than ever for “people to find projects and projects to find people,” and they aren’t restricted by geography, said Gene Zaino, president and chief executive of MBO Partners, which deals with issues surrounding independent consultants.

That’s great for people who seek flexibility and autonomy. But working alone can be lonely, and a lack of structure can slow productivity. That’s why the phenomenon of co-working — where independent workers in a range of fields gather in one room to conduct business and drink lots of coffee or tea — is likely to spread.

Of course, not everyone chooses to be independent. Many people have been forced into becoming contractors as more companies with limited budgets hire on a project basis, Mr. Zaino said. Often, these workers’ pay is lower than it would be if they were full-time employees, and benefits are nonexistent.

Now enter the federal government, which doesn’t like how these fuzzy arrangements affect tax collection. Expect a big government push to classify contract workers as employees, Mr. Zaino said.

THE UNEMPLOYMENT DIVIDE The overall unemployment rate is 8.6 percent, but break down the number by educational attainment and the picture looks different. Those with college degrees are the lucky ones: the jobless rate for them is 4.4 percent. That compares with 8.8 percent for those with only a high school diploma and 13.2 percent for those with no diploma at all.

Consider, too, that less than 30 percent of the United States population age 25 or older has a bachelor’s degree or higher. Large groups of Americans will continue to be unemployed or underemployed unless more training and educational opportunities become available.

Another disadvantaged group is the long-term unemployed, who are having trouble rejoining the work force as employers show a preference for hiring people who currently hold jobs or have been laid off only recently.

More than 30 percent of jobless Americans have been unemployed for a year or more, according to federal data. Congress will continue to wrestle with their plight, and their benefits, this year. Without help, this group risks falling so far behind that it can’t catch up.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=8886bd218a5161abe70083580cd58c05

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: alison doyle, arsenals, facebook

Bucks: Cash Mobs Promote Spending (and Socializing) Locally

December 19, 2011 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

Eric MillerCash mob participants in Kent, Ohio.

Updated at 11:04 a.m. / To reflect that another cash mob was held last week in Cleveland.

Looking for a way to spend your dollars locally during the holiday season? Want to go out for a drink and a snack afterwards? A “cash mob” may be just the ticket.

The concept is simple: Organizers select a local business and urge people via Twitter or Facebook to shop there at a certain time. Cash mobs began popping up in recent months in Buffalo and Cleveland, and they are spreading to other locales too. (An organizer in Canada is promoting “Twelve Days of Cash Mobs.”)

As with many social-media inspired phenomena, it’s not entirely clear who came up with the initial idea, but it seems to be catching on. At the urging of a local blogger, shoppers staged a cash mob at a Buffalo wine store last summer. More recently, cash mobs have descended on a bookstore in Cleveland, and on a seller of locally made jewelry and art in San Diego, Calif.

Andrew Samtoy, 32, a full-time lawyer and part-time cash mob impresario in Cleveland, said the aimed is to support local businesses while reclaiming the fun and spontaneity of flash mobs. (Flash mobs began as a lighthearted way for people to gather together to sing and dance in public, but morphed into something destructive as the notion was adopted by thugs and troublemakers.)

“We want to support local businesses that employ people and build wealth in the community,” Mr. Samtoy said in a telephone interview.

A cash mob targeted a Cleveland bookstore in November, and another Cleveland event was held last week. A highlight of a cash mob — at least, in the Cleveland version — is gathering afterwards at local watering hole to tip a mug and get to know fellow mobbers. The nearby city of Kent, Ohio, has been cash-mobbing, too.

On a blog about cash mobs, Mr. Samtoy and his compatriots suggest choosing a business that is supportive of the local community, and not identifying the store too far ahead of time to create an element of surprise. “In my opinion, life has become far too ordered,” he said. (Typically, a meeting place is announced a week ahead of time, and the identity of the store is revealed when everyone gathers.) The spending goal should be no more than $20 a person, although people can of course spend more if they choose. And organizers should give the store owners a heads up, so they aren’t overwhelmed.

Mr. Samtoy added that he wasn’t opposed to big business, but that small businesses deserve support so they can grow.

Do you think a cash mob is an effective way to spend your dollars locally?

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=c02e4612761f1f755500d3fbb3c5524f

Filed Under: Your Money Tagged With: facebook, impresario, wine store

Stocks & Bonds: Commodities Companies Help Lift Market

December 17, 2011 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

Stock indexes were mixed on Friday as gains among commodity producers helped overcome debt-crisis concerns prompted by Fitch Ratings’ warning that it might cut ratings of European nations.

Halliburton and Chevron paced the gains among energy companies. Banking shares in the Standard Poor’s 500-stock index rose 1.2 percent as a group, trimming an earlier rally. Research in Motion fell 11 percent after the company delayed the release of a new generation of BlackBerry devices. Zynga, the largest maker of games for Facebook, declined 5 percent in its first day of trading.

“We’re seeing a market in which there’s very little long-term investor interest,” said David Kelly, chief market strategist for J. P. Morgan Funds in New York. “Europe is still dodging all the major decisions it needs to make in order to fix the problem and I think that the disappointment in that is still dogging the markets right now.”

The S. P. 500 rose 0.3 percent to 1,219.66, after jumping as much as 1.3 percent earlier. The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 2.42 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 11,866.39. The Nasdaq composite index rose 14.32 points, to 2,555.33.

The S. P. 500 lost 2.8 percent this week. It slumped Dec. 13 after the Federal Reserve refrained from taking new actions to bolster growth, saying the American economy was maintaining its expansion even as the global economy slowed.

The Treasury’s 10-year note rose 17/32, to 101 11/32. The yield fell to 1.85 percent, from 1.91 percent late Thursday.

Stocks trimmed an early rally after Fitch Ratings lowered France’s rating outlook to negative and put the grades of Belgium, Spain, Slovenia, Italy, Ireland and Cyprus on review for a downgrade, citing Europe’s failure to find a “comprehensive solution” to the debt crisis. It also said all investment-grade countries in the euro region rated below AAA were subject to a review, which Fitch expects to complete by the end of January.

Moody’s Investors Service said on Dec. 12 that it would review the ratings of all European Union countries after a summit meeting of leaders last week did little to ease pressure on the governments in Europe. S. P. placed the ratings of 15 nations, including France and Germany, on review for possible downgrade on Dec. 5.

Energy and raw material companies advanced among groups in the S. P. 500. Chevron added 1.2 percent to $100.86. Halliburton jumped 1.6 percent to $31.76.

Banks climbed, as Wells Fargo jumped 1.4 percent to $25.98 and JPMorgan Chase rose 0.4 percent to $31.89. Bank of America lost 1.14 percent to $5.20.

Friday was the expiration of futures and options contracts on indexes and individual stocks, an event known as quadruple witching, which occurs once every three months.

Adobe Systems, the largest maker of graphic-design software, rose the most in the S. P. 500 after saying first-quarter sales forecast beat some estimates, lifted by demand for tools that design Web pages and create online video. The stock advanced 6.6 percent to $28.20.

Research in Motion dropped 11 percent to $13.44 after saying a new generation of BlackBerrys designed to fuel a comeback would not be out until the latter part of 2012. The smartphone maker, which originally planned to release the new devices in the first quarter of next year, also gave sales and profit forecasts that missed analysts’ estimates.

Cablevision Systems, the cable television provider, tumbled 8.5 percent to $12.75. Its chief operating officer, Tom Rutledge, will step down this month for undisclosed reasons. Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, called it a “staggering loss” for the company.

The Consumer Price Index last month was unchanged, after a 0.1 percent decline the previous month, a report from the Labor Department showed. That supported the Federal Reserve’s view that inflation remains in check.

The November figure compares with a 0.1 percent increase forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 82 economists.

So-called core prices, which exclude food and energy costs, rose 0.2 percent, more than forecast, reflecting higher medical care and clothing costs.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/17/business/daily-stock-market-activity.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: facebook, fitch ratings, research in motion

Your Life on Facebook, in Total Recall

December 16, 2011 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

But on Thursday, Facebook started rolling out a revamped profile feature called Timeline that makes a user’s entire history of photos, links and other things shared on Facebook accessible with a single click. This may be the first moment that many of Facebook’s 800 million members realize just how many digital bread crumbs they have been leaving on the site — and on the Web in general.

For better or worse, the new format is likely to bring back a lot of old memories. But it could also make it harder to shed past identities — something people growing up with Facebook might struggle with as they move from high school to college and from there to the working world.

“There’s no act too small to record on your permanent record,” said Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor at Harvard who studies how the Internet affects society. “All of the mouse droppings that appear as we migrate around the Web will be saved.”

The old Facebook profile page shows the most recent items users have posted, along with things like photos of them posted by others. But Timeline creates a scrapbooklike montage, assembling photos, links and updates for each month and year since they signed up for Facebook.

When Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and chief executive of Facebook, introduced Timeline in September at a developer conference, he described it as a way to get a more comprehensive portrait of someone than by simply reading updates or looking at a profile picture: “We think it’s an important next step to help tell the story of your life.”

Facebook said in a blog post that users could either wait to receive a notification about Timeline on their pages or go to facebook.com/about/timeline to activate it immediately. Eventually all profiles will be switched to the new look, though the company is not saying when. And there will be no switching back.

Some adept users have been able to reach Timeline for weeks using a workaround meant for developers. They said that while the design might be attractive, it was unnerving to realize just how much information they had been feeding into Facebook.

“We’ve all been dropping status updates and photos into a void,” said Ben Werdmuller, the chief technology officer at Latakoo, a video service. “We knew we were sharing this much, of course, but it’s weird to realize they’ve been keeping this information and can serve it up for anyone to see.”

Mr. Werdmuller, who lives in Berkeley, Calif., said the experience of browsing through his social history on Facebook, complete with pictures of old flames, was emotionally evocative — not unlike unearthing an old yearbook or a shoebox filled with photographs and letters.

But while those items would probably live only on a dusty shelf in a closet, these boxes of memories are freely available online for anyone with access to your Facebook page to view.

“It’s unsettling to see the past presented as clearly as the present,” Mr. Werdmuller said. “It’s your life in context, all in one place.”

Several hundred Facebook users shared their initial reactions to Timeline on the company’s blog post. While many appeared to be the kind of denouncements that are generated by any tweak to Facebook’s site, a large percentage welcomed the changes.

“A treat for profile stalkers,” wrote a Facebook user named Mudit Goyal. Another, Joshua Bamberg, said, “If Facebook didn’t change stuff every couple months, we would still be using MySpace.”

And Tatsat Banerjee wrote: “Now our Facebook profile is almost equivalent to a personal Web site. Make no mistake, this is the best update Facebook has ever done till now.”

Analysts say Timeline is a significant evolutionary shift for Facebook. For starters, linking Facebook more closely to memories could make it harder for people to abandon the service for rivals.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=4ef45f465e36a235a3128873cc55465a

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: facebook, mouse droppings, old memories

DealBook: Yahoo Board Leans Toward Selling Minority Stake

December 1, 2011 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

Paul Sakuma/Associated PressJerry Yang, Yahoo’s co-founder.

8:51 p.m. | Updated

Yahoo’s directors are leaning toward selling a minority stake in itself to an investor group instead of selling the company outright, following a meeting of the company’s board on Wednesday, according to people briefed on the matter

But that decision could alienate shareholders and leave the troubled Web pioneer vulnerable to potential takeover bids, including one that may come from its Asian partners, the Alibaba Group of China and Softbank of Japan.

This week, Yahoo received multiple proposals for a minority investment of roughly 20 percent from TPG Capital and an investor group led by Silver Lake. The bids were close in value, with Silver Lake offering about $16.60 a share and TPG about $1 a share more, two people briefed on the matter said.

Beyond price, Yahoo’s board is also assessing the proposals, based on the composition of the investor groups and how the firms will be able to bolster Yahoo’s product and financial strategies.

The Silver Lake group, which includes Microsoft, has been working with Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm led by Netscape’s co-founder, Marc Andreessen.

The proposal includes a plan to pay out shareholders and dispose of Yahoo’s Asian holdings, as well as installing a new chief executive and revamping its board. The Silver Lake group is requesting three director seats, including one for Mr. Andreessen. Another Andreessen Horowitz partner, Jeff Jordan, is expected to assist Yahoo’s management team.

Meanwhile, TPG has held discussions with Greylock Partners, another venture capital firm, about a possible alignment, two people said. TPG is hoping to draw on the expertise of Reid Hoffman, one of Greylock’s partners and the founder of the professional social network LinkedIn, as well as an early investor in Facebook and Zynga, these people said. They asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about confidential discussions.

Both investor groups are betting that bringing on a respected Silicon Valley veteran would help energize Yahoo’s beleaguered troops and craft a compelling strategic vision for the company.

Though Yahoo seems to be making progress towards a deal, the process has also exposed how fractured the company’s board is, people close to Yahoo said. According to these people, board members have disagreed on the company’s strategic vision; which investor group should lead a minority investment, if the company chooses that path; and what role Yahoo’s founder and former chief executive, Jerry Yang, should play in a transaction.

Some on Yahoo’s board have favored TPG’s bid and encouraged the buyout firm to find a partner like Greylock, as a counter to Silver Lake’s close relationship with Andreessen Horowitz, one person close to the company said.

Yahoo and the investment firms declined to comment.

Yahoo will also have to contend with a possible takeover bid led by other private equity firms, Alibaba and Softbank. The Asian companies have been in talks with the Blackstone Group and Bain Capital, as well as other buyout firms, about together forming a bid for all of Yahoo, according to people briefed on those talks.

Such a bid would likely value Yahoo higher than either offer from Silver Lake or TPG. Some members of the potential Blackstone-Bain group are contemplating a bid that could value Yahoo at more than $20 a share, one of these people said.

But discussions appear to be continuing on whether to make a takeover bid. “Alibaba Group has not made a decision to be part of a whole company bid for Yahoo,” John Spelich, a spokesman for the company, said in a statement.

Taking over Yahoo would allow Alibaba and Softbank to reclaim Yahoo’s minority stakes in their businesses, while giving private equity firms control of the remaining American operations. Yahoo currently owns about a 40 percent stake in Alibaba and a 35 percent stake in Yahoo Japan, which is controlled by Softbank.

Last month, Alibaba and Softbank presented Yahoo with a complex proposal to buy out its stakes in the two companies. The legally complicated plan — bearing the clumsy designation of a “tax-free double-cash-rich split” — would essentially involve spinning off the stakes to Alibaba and Softbank without incurring a big tax bill. Since then, however, Yahoo has not had substantive talks with the two companies, one of the people briefed on the talks said.

While Alibaba and Softbank would prefer to enter friendly talks with Yahoo over buying back its holdings, the two see an unsolicited takeover bid as a last-ditch option.

Other parties have also expressed interest in participating in some sort of investment, including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Hellman Friedman, Providence Equity Partners and THL Partners.

If Yahoo pursues a private equity-backed minority investment, the company would likely take on debt to finance a stock buyback. The winning investor group’s shares would then be aligned with the roughly 10 percent stake that is held by Yahoo’s co-founders, Mr. Yang and David Filo, effectively giving the group majority control.

However, that structure also gives Mr. Yang outsized influence over a large voting block, a point of concern for some on Yahoo’s board, two people said.

The minority-stake proposals have drawn the ire of several prominent shareholders, who are worried that such a transaction would diminish the value of common stockholders and their voting power. One vocal critic, Daniel S. Loeb, the hedge fund manager of Third Point who owns a 5 percent stake, has called for the dismissal of Mr. Yang as a director and has urged the board to pursue a full sales process.

Bloomberg News and AllThingsD, a technology news site, reported earlier on the pricing of the Silver Lake and TPG proposals.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=85bcdb1c9938f31410bf826211479ab9

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: asian partners, facebook, takeover bids

I.H.T. Special Report: Net Worth: With Apps, Wealth Management Goes Mobile

November 23, 2011 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

That tendency, apparently, goes double for private banking clients, who investment managers say demand more information than the average investor and are embracing smartphone use at a fast clip.

And yet, for a variety of reasons, wealth managers have been slow to embrace mobile applications for their clients. The reasons cited include concerns about security and a general impression that private banking clients did not want that kind of relationship with their bankers.

That is all changing. The PricewaterhouseCoopers Asia Pacific Private Banking Survey 2011 found that 35 percent of private bankers expected to interact more with their clients through social media in the next two years, and that nearly 50 percent of private banks expected to use mobile technologies over the same period.

“I think banks will have to go that way,” said Nick Pollard, chief executive of RBS Coutts Asia. The venerable British private bank is using YouTube, Twitter and Facebook to reach out to its clients; a smartphone app is in the works.

“It’s less about today’s clients and more about tomorrow’s clients,” he said. “Whether we like it or not, this generation and certainly the next one has no boundaries when it comes to accessing information.”

JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch and UBS are part of a small group of banks that have released smartphone applications to their wealth management customers. The use of the application is often restricted regionally; the JPMorgan and Merrill apps are available only to clients based in the United States, and UBS’s is available only to Swiss clients.

“Private banks have been trailing behind retail banks with this type of offering for consumers, and even when they do offer an app, those have pretty poor functionality,” said Steffen Binder, managing director of MyPrivateBanking, an independent research firm based in Switzerland.

This year, Merrill Lynch introduced mobile applications for Apple and BlackBerry devices for clients of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management and the online discount brokerage service Merrill Edge. The apps allow clients to view their portfolio holdings and account activity; transfer money between linked Merrill Lynch brokerage and Bank of America banking accounts; and trade stocks, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and options in approved accounts. Clients can also track market news and headlines, and gain access to the bank’s latest research reports.

Buoyed by clients’ positive feedback, the bank now plans to release Android versions in December.

The bank is evaluating how the new technologies “can create value for advisers and the firm while at the same time having prudent supervisory and compliance oversight,” said Paul Fox, head of Merrill Lynch Online Platforms. The bank is now running a limited pilot program with LinkedIn to allow clients to communicate with the bank.

The adoption rate of J.P. Morgan’s iPad and iPhone apps has been rapid, said Stephen Clifford, a managing director at J.P. Morgan Private Bank in New York, responsible for the client experience. The bank made the apps available this year to its high-net-worth and ultrahigh-net-worth U.S. clients — those whose assets are $5 million to $25 million.

“The rate of adoption of our mobile apps has been even faster than the take-up rate of our Internet site when we first rolled that out,” Mr. Clifford said. The bank plans to eventually make the mobile apps available to its clients based outside the United States.

The J.P. Morgan apps let clients view their account balances, transactions and investment positions. They can transfer funds, send wire transfers and pay bills using the application, but they have to go through their client managers to give orders on their investment positions.

Mark Jansen, a financial services partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers Singapore, said private banks had been slow to roll out mobile device technology under the belief that their high-net-worth clients might not be interested. Now, however, many players have recognized the increasing client demand for new communication channels and are addressing it, he added.

“I think you will see over the next 6 to 12 months a number of platforms and applications being launched by private banks to facilitate clients’ interaction with the institution,” Mr. Jansen said. He added that banks would use these platforms to offer services to clients from various wealth segments, including retail.

Mr. Binder, of MyPrivateBanking, said there were still a number of “deficits” in the present generation of banking apps, citing a lack of brokerage and trading features, too little informational content as banks are proving hesitant to open their research libraries to app users, and little integration with social media.

Apps also should have better communication facilities, Mr. Binder said. “There should be a direct link to send messages to your personal adviser or even a possibility to get a call-back or chat with him or her,” he said.

Security features are often basic for apps, making the app potentially risky, while privacy policies are not always transparent. “Both make users uncomfortable, especially clients of private banks,” Mr. Binder said.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=96150c59b9b09efa8f29f73a21cca69e

Filed Under: Your Money Tagged With: facebook, mobile applications, private banking

Google Enters Microsoft Office’s Turf with Mixed Results

November 21, 2011 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

He has installed Google Apps for Businesses, which provides word processing, spreadsheets, e-mail and calendar software, for 400 people and said he planned to “convert” 900 more.

Because Google Apps performs many of the same functions as Office, but through a Web browser instead of local software, it is cheaper to own and operate than Microsoft’s desktop software, he said. An additional 1,400 people will be giving up their Microsoft e-mail, documents and spreadsheets for Google in December.

Mr. O’Brien said he was also seeing a difference in behavior. Many people can look at and work on the same content together, and access their memos and calendars from lots of different Web-connected devices. So people are starting to work together by sharing documents that are stored in the cloud. Even at this early stage, he said, “it started to change us.”

What’s happening at Journal Communications is one small win for Google and its cloud computing challenge to Microsoft’s lucrative Office division, maker of Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. But more than 4 1/2 years after Google Apps for business made its debut, the question remains how much of a dent Google is making in Microsoft’s business.

Microsoft says Google’s efforts are hardly noticeable. But Google executives say that more and bigger companies are signing up for the cloud service.

Possibly more important to Google is the way that Apps helps Google build social networks inside business. If successful, it would be a threat to Microsoft’s biggest division and would create another inroad in its struggle with Facebook to dominate users’ online lives.

“Businesses are inherently about people and relationships,” said David Girouard, who runs Google’s Apps business. Predictable things, like figuring out the supplies needed for manufacture, were “not the minimum to play,” he said. “You need to have a social system, where a guy can introduce an idea about a new supplier, and he gets input from a lot of people quickly.”

Though Mr. Girouard said that 5,000 businesses a day signed up with Google Apps, few big companies have done so, most likely because some people do not entirely trust a cloud-based service, they like Microsoft or do not want to force employees to learn a new system. So Google does the next best thing and is focusing primarily on smaller businesses. Google maximizes the appeal of documents, calendars and spreadsheets at a cost of $50 a person a year. Many companies say that is 50 percent to 80 percent cheaper than Office. Google has the deep pockets to go slow since its search-related businesses bring in over $30 billion.

But Microsoft has deep pockets too. Its Office division revenue alone is $5.6 billion.

Most corporate software is sold through big consulting firms, like I.B.M. or Accenture, but Google has yet to use a partner. “They have approached other companies, but others think it’s not in their best interest,” said David M. Smith, an analyst with Gartner. He estimates Google gets just $150 million a year from Apps, and that it is not enough to cover costs. Google says it does make a profit.

Instead, it uses the business in “asymmetric warfare” with Microsoft. “Google spends $1 to make Microsoft spend $10 defending itself, because Microsoft went after Google on search,” Mr. Smith said.

Microsoft is dismissive of the situation.

“We sell a copy of Office 2010 every second — over 100 million so far,” said Tom Rizzo, a senior director in the Office division. “Nine out of 10 customers who use Google keep Office on their desktop.”

Microsoft started its own online documents business in June, at a price of $2 to $27 a month for each employee using the service. Mr. Rizzo, a 10-year Microsoft employee, would not say how sales were, but said, “I think this has the potential to be the fastest-growing product I’ve ever been a part of.”

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=cdedba407ad8882e268d9a8b8f298f15

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: facebook, memos, microsoft word

Some Consumers Object to Sales on Thanksgiving

November 11, 2011 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

She still loves a good deal — last year she spent a couple of thousand dollars on markdowns that day, the Friday after Thanksgiving — but Ms. Nyberg says that she does not want retailers to ruin the holiday for her or their own employees.

Ms. Nyberg is drawing the line now that major chains like Target, Macy’s, Best Buy and Kohl’s say they will open for the first time at midnight on Thanksgiving, and Wal-Mart will go even further, with a 10 p.m. Thanksgiving start for deals on some merchandise.

Retailers, eager to be the first to draw customers on one of the biggest shopping days of the year, are pulling the equivalent of the Republican primary shuffle by opening earlier and earlier than competitors.

Last year, a few stores, including Toys “R” Us, pushed into Thanksgiving.

But judging from the negative reaction among dedicated Friday after Thanksgiving shoppers on blogs, Twitter and Facebook, the wave of midnight openings this year has crossed a line.

Part of the objection is inconvenience. To be at or near the front of the line, shoppers say they will now have to leave home hours earlier — in the middle of the turkey dinner for some. But the wider objections reflect sentiments like those of the Occupy Wall Street movement, including a growing attention to the rights of workers and a wariness of decisions by big business.

Either way, many in the shop-till-you-drop crowd have had enough with Black Friday creep.

“I just don’t think that’s good business, in a sense, to make your employees come in on one of the biggest holidays of the year and cut their family time short,” said Ms. Nyberg, 31, a saleswoman in Villa Rica, Ga., for a molecular biology company. “With the economy the way it is, no one’s going to say, ‘I’m not going to do that, I’m going to quit or get fired over it.’ ”

One retail executive sounded sad about the decision to open earlier. Brian Dunn, the chief executive of Best Buy, said that the midnight opening “became an operating imperative for us” after competitors moved their openings back. “I feel terrible,” he said.

A handful of retailers are holding out, like J. C. Penney, which will open at its usual 4 a.m. on Friday. “We wanted to give our associates Thanksgiving Day to spend with their families,” said Bill Gentner, senior vice president for marketing.

Still, some of the big retailers making the switch said that the response from workers and customers had been positive.

“There are many associates who would prefer to work this time as they appreciate the flexibility it affords their schedules for the holiday weekend,” Holly Thomas, a Macy’s spokeswoman, wrote in an e-mail. A Target spokesman, Antoine LaFromboise, said that employees will get holiday pay for Thanksgiving work, and “we’ve heard from our guests that they are excited.”

But even with increased pay, some retail workers said in interviews that the holiday hours were a raw deal.

Anthony Hardwick, 29, who works at a Target store in Omaha, said he would have to leave Thanksgiving dinner with his fiancée’s family so he could sleep before starting a shift around 11 p.m. on Thanksgiving, followed on Friday by a shift at his other job, at OfficeMax.

Mr. Hardwick says he is glad to have a job, and does not mind the early hours on Friday, but “cutting into our holidays is just a step too far.”

He added, “Even though it’s a desperate time doesn’t mean that we should trade all the ground that our fathers and our grandfathers, everyone that came before us, fought really hard for.”

He has created an online petition urging Target to open at 5 a.m. Friday instead, which had attracted a handful of signatures as of Thursday.

The concern among customers about retail workers recalls an earlier era, when consumer advocates encouraged people to consider the impact of their shopping on sales clerks, said Lawrence B. Glickman, the chairman of the history department at the University of South Carolina.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=97d607ed28d6f48ca26d5195aaeb43e0

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: facebook, molecular biology, twitter

Sales on Thanksgiving Anger Some Consumers Some Consumers Object to Sales on Thanksgiving