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E.U. Accepts IBM Antitrust Concessions, Ends Probe

December 14, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The U.S. company had in September proposed to provide certain spare parts and technical information to other companies which maintain its mainframe hardware and software, under fair and reasonable terms.

The European Commission said it was satisfied that the concessions, which were revised after a market test and are valid for five years, were sufficient to address competition issues.

“I am pleased that we could find a swift solution with IBM to our competition concerns. Timely interventions are crucial in fast-moving technology markets,” EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement.

The Commission’s decision confirmed what two sources familiar with the matter had told Reuters last week.

IBM said it was glad the matter had been resolved.

“IBM welcomes this final resolution of the inquiry into certain IBM mainframe maintenance practices and is pleased that the Commission’s investigation of the IBM mainframe is now concluded,” the company said in a statement.

Many big firms, universities and governments use mainframe computers to store and process large quantities of data.

This is the second case involving IBM that the European Commission has wrapped up this year. The EU watchdog closed an investigation into IBM in August after three small rivals dropped complaints.

The Commission, which acts as competition regulator for the EU and can fine companies up to 10 percent of their global turnover, has imposed billion-euro fines against technology firms such as Microsoft and Intel for breaching EU rules.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Rex Merrifield and David Holmes)

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=c6ec76dbff0456fedf56ab3209ff0ac4

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Hacking in Netherlands Points to Weak Spot in Web Security

September 12, 2011 by Leave a Comment

BERLIN — In the Netherlands, the daily rhythm of a smooth running European society was disrupted after a computer hacker stole a series of files that guaranteed the legitimacy of major government Web sites, and in the process, exploited a weakness in the global Internet.

Consumers last week were advised to avoid online transactions with Dutch retailers, and, for a time, online banking. Passport applicants and those wishing to submit income tax returns scrambled to fire up dormant fax machines or lined up at local post offices.

In the placid capital city, The Hague, government computer administrators checked thousands of computer servers to determine the extent of the damage caused by the anonymous hacker, who in Web postings claims to be an Iranian saboteur motivated by geopolitical gain.

“This is the Dutch equivalent of Hurricane Irene,” said Calum MacLeod, the director in Europe for Venafi, a U.S. company whose software helps companies like Cisco manage the class of digital files called security certificates targeted by the hacker in the Netherlands.

Mr. MacLeod said the attack on the Dutch government’s preferred provider of security certificates, DigiNotar, a company in Beverwijk, near Amsterdam, exposed the fragility of the global system of digital authentication that undergirds the Internet.

“What happened at DigiNotar appears to be the result of poor internal controls and a determined hacker,” Mr. MacLeod, who lives in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, said. “But as this kind of event becomes commonplace, the whole Internet could be undermined.”

In the case of DigiNotar, which is owned by a company in Illinois, Vasco Data Security International, the hacker masqueraded as the legitimate owner of a range of Web addresses, not just of Dutch government sites but also of global companies like Google and Yahoo.

Remotely, apparently from a computer address in Russia, he compelled DigiNotar to generate digital seals of approval for those Web sites, so-called security certificates, that could be displayed in the address lines of Web browsers as vouchers of the sites’ authenticity.

The phony sites were then used in Iran to spy on as many as 300,000 people, according to a report by a security firm, Fox-IT, that was hired by the Dutch government. Google also detected the phony certificates circulating in Iran and advised its users last week to change their passwords and be alert for unfamiliar Web addresses.

But DigiNotar is just one of an estimated 650 companies and government entities that control the flow digital security certificates. The proliferation of issuers has amplified the risks of hacking break-ins, an expert said.

“The levels of internal security controls used by issuers varies enormously, and therein lies the problem,” said Peter Eckersley, a director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil liberties group in San Francisco that has studied the sector. “I suspect that it will be technologically challenging over the next few years to fix these problems.”

In 2010, the Electronic Frontier Foundation studied the security certificates residing on public Web servers to compile the first comprehensive inventory of certificate issuers called the SSL Observatory. The name refers to the Secure Socket Layer protocol language certificates use to guarantee the legitimacy of Web sites and addresses.

Currently, there are 1,500 certificate issuers, Mr. Eckersley said. The biggest are U.S. companies: VeriSign, a unit of Symantec in Mountain View, California; GoDaddy, based in Scottsdale, Arizona; Atlanta-based Equifax; and Comodo, a company in Jersey City, New Jersey. But the list also includes governments, like Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates, which used its vouching authority to help plant spyware in BlackBerrys during the recent Arab Spring uprising.

“If I were the chief security officer at a major company, I should be aware that there are about 50 countries where this technology could be used to eavesdrop on my employees,” Mr. Eckersley said.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/technology/hacking-in-netherlands-points-to-weak-spot-in-web-security.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

Dip in Mobile Shipments to Western Europe Causes Concern

August 21, 2011 by Leave a Comment

BERLIN — The euro zone crisis has mobile users hanging on to their phones a little longer.

With fewer consumers buying, the Continent’s big mobile retailers have been keeping inventories low, which has brought the first-ever quarterly decline in cellphone shipments in Western Europe, said Gartner, the research firm.

The downturn has not hit the United States, where business over the past few years has grown side by side with that in Europe. Worldwide, Gartner said, it expected shipments to grow 12 percent for the year, to a record 1.8 billion phones.

In Western Europe, International Data Corp. is forecasting the number of cellphones shipped will grow 6 percent in 2011 to almost 207 million units, with smartphone shipments expected to rise 44 percent to more than 103 million.

Nevertheless, the dip is causing consternation.

“There is caution around what’s been happening,” Anurag Gupta, the president in Europe of Brightpoint, a U.S. company that handles mobile phone supply, distribution and logistics for operators like Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom. “The euro zone nations are totally consumed with the debt situation. People have been cautious, whether it is the wireless carriers or the retailers, all the way down to the end user.”

The market in Europe for cellphones tightened in the second quarter, according to Gartner, with shipments falling 0.5 percent in Western Europe to 43.57 million from 43.77 million in the first quarter. Carolina Milanesi, a Gartner analyst in London, said sellers of mobile phones were using “channel management” to keep inventories lean and to reduce risk.

“In a normal situation, you might have 100 phones in the back room,” Ms. Milanesi said. “Now you have 50.”

She added that consumers were “fatigued” and holding back on upgrades.

Mr. Gupta, who is based in Barcelona, said mobile operators and other big retailers were keeping three to four weeks’ worth of inventory, whereas, 18 months ago, it was four to six weeks.

The European market is also being weighed down by the restructuring at its longtime market leader, Nokia. In the second quarter, Nokia fell to No. 2 in total shipments in Western Europe, behind Samsung, and to No. 5 in smartphones, where it had a 10.8 percent share, according to International Data Corp.

One year earlier, Nokia led the European smartphone segment with 39.5 percent. Now the Finnish company trails Samsung, Apple, HTC and Research In Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry, which have 22 percent, 21 percent, 14.3 percent and 13.9 percent, respectively, according to I.D.C.

Francisco Jeronimo, an I.D.C. analyst in London, said consumers were shying away from committing to Nokia’s phones using the Symbian operating system, which Nokia plans to phase out in favor of Windows Phone as part of an alliance with Microsoft announced in February.

Stephen Elop, the Nokia chief executive, said then that the company expected to sell 150 million Symbian phones during the transition to Windows. Mr. Jeronimo said he expected Nokia to sell only 100 million such units. Nokia began cutting prices on Symbian devices in the second quarter, Mr. Jeronimo said.

In North America, where Nokia has less than 5 percent market share, the mobile market is still growing, fueled mostly by the iPhone and phones with the Android operating system by Google. Smartphone shipments by Apple rose at an annual rate of 62 percent in the second quarter, according to I.D.C. At HTC, one of the leading makers of Android phones, shipments grew at an annual rate of 125 percent. Over all, shipments to North America rose 3.7 percent to 47.2 million in the second quarter, according to Gartner. Smartphone shipments rose 9.2 percent to 24.7 million, Gartner said.

“The situation at Nokia is affecting the broader market in Europe,” Mr. Jeronimo said.

Nokia said it planned to present its first Microsoft phones this year and ship significant volumes in 2012. The company released a statement saying that the Microsoft transition was progressing well, as were sales of its high-end N9 smartphone and N500 auto navigation device.

“Clearly we are going through a transition,” Nokia said in the statement. “We’ve been very transparent about the challenges we face and the strategy we are implementing to regain global smartphone leadership. The only real measure of progress is delivering truly great products that people around the world want to use.”

Mr. Jeronimo said it might take Nokia two to three years to climb back to being among the top three smartphone makers in Europe. But the European mobile market, with or without Nokia, will keep growing, said Rajeev Chand, an analyst in San Francisco at Rutberg, an investment bank. Smartphone penetration in the European Union is still only 31 percent, he said, so “smartphones still have a long way to go.”

Qualcomm, which makes processors and other components for mobile phones, said it expected the Western Europe market to grow 16 percent this year to 180 million Internet-enabled devices. In July, Qualcomm, based in San Diego, said that Eastern Europe markets remained strong, but “we continue to monitor Western Europe because of the ongoing economic challenges.”

In Europe, at least for a while, the market is likely to remain fluid, tied in part to Nokia as it seeks traction with Microsoft. Ms. Milanesi, the Gartner analyst, said the first Nokia Microsoft phones were likely to be solid devices, but not so different from what is already on the market.

“The new, first Nokia-Microsoft phone is unlikely to blow away the public because the company hasn’t had time to differentiate its line from the competition,” Ms. Milanesi said.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/technology/dip-in-mobile-shipments-to-western-europe-causes-concern.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,