Internet TV could boom in the next few years, study says

Internet-enabled TV sets could see wider adoption in the next few years as viewers get comfortable with the idea of running widgets on TV screens, according to a study released by Ernst & Young on Thursday. TV widgets are designed to pull selective content from the Internet to complement TV watching. Widgets - or mini-applications - are already being used in devices like mobile phones and computers to run light applications, and those applications could reach TV sets, the analyst firm said in the study.

For example, users can view weather information on TV or buy products advertised on TV from online stores. Web-connected TV shipments could total less than 500,000 in 2009, but top 6 million by 2013, E&Y said in the study, citing statistics from Parks Associates. Many consumers consider it an "appealing" idea to mesh TV with information from the Internet, according to the study. Widgets could also be the glue that brings together Internet and TV content. Many Web sites and technology companies are developing an ecosystem to bring content from the Internet and TV together. Broadcast TV is already competing with the Web for viewership, and widgets could facilitate content searches through both mediums, giving more entertainment options to viewers.

Myspace.com, for example, has developed a widget that blends TV with its social-networking offerings. Users don't need to rely on a browser to access MySpace content. TV watchers could exchange e-mail messages or browse photos on MySpace by activating a widget at the bottom of the TV screen. TVs and chips, for instance, are also being developed to build Web-enabled TVs. Sony, Samsung and LG have said select flat-panel high-definition TV models would be able to run widgets or download movies from online entertainment services like Netflix. Intel is also working with companies like CBS and Cinemanow to bring widgets to TVs. Web-enabled TV has struggled over the past 15 years since Time Warner Cable launched the iTV service in Orlando, E&Y said. Intel last week announced the CE4100 media processor, which enables the use of Internet and multimedia applications on TVs, Intel said.

Ever since, it has seen many iterations, with companies like AOL, BSkyB, RespondTV, Hewlett-Packard and Apple trying to bring the Internet to TV through devices like set-top boxes or adapters. Widgets for TV use also need to be adopted by television programming and cable operators. The success of widgets depends on applications that users will want to have on their TVs. For example, one-click access to on-demand content from online movie stores is well-suited for widgets. The operators will look to monetize widgets by developing an ad sales model around it, which could face some challenges, the study found. Conflicting advertising could also appear on a TV screen and widget at the same time, which could affect ad sales models.

For example, viewers could migrate their attention from TV shows to widgets, which could affect the ratings of a program.

Cisco results top estimates

Cisco Systems on Wednesday posted first-quarter results that far exceeded Wall Street's expectations, though revenue and profits were down from a year earlier. Likewise, earnings per share for the quarter came in $0.05 better than expected, at $0.36. The non-GAAP figure excludes expenses, charges and other one-time items. Revenue for the quarter ended Oct. 24, the first of Cisco's fiscal year, was US$9.0 billion, compared to the $8.74 billion expected by financial analysts, according to a poll by Thomson Reuters. Sales in the quarter were down 12.7 percent from a year earlier.

On a sequential basis, revenue was up 6 percent from the fourth quarter, while earnings per share were up 16 percent. "Our Q1 results continued to reflect strong sequential growth trends that meet or exceed expectations during normal economic times," Cisco CEO John Chambers said in a statement. "We view the improving economic outlook, combined with solid execution on our growth strategy, as creating unparalleled opportunity to drive more value into the core of the network. The non-GAAP earnings per share were also down, by 14.3 percent. Simply said, we believe that key market transitions across collaboration, virtualization and video will drive productivity and growth in network loads for the next decade, and are evolving even faster than expected. "A new model of productivity based on collaboration is clearly emerging, and we believe this may be the most profound opportunity for businesses in our 25 years as a company," Chambers added. Cisco's board had previously authorized up to $62 billion in stock repurchases. Cisco also said its board of directors authorized up to $10 billion in additional repurchases of its common stock.

There is no fixed termination date for the repurchase program. The remaining authorized amount for stock repurchases under this program, including the additional authorization, is approximately $13.1 billion.

Obama warns against turning away 'the best and the brightest'

At the White House jobs summit held yesterday, President Barack Obama warned against closing the door on foreign students, calling them one of the country's "greatest competitive advantages." Some, he said, could even create the next Intel Corp. in the U.S. Obama didn't mention the H-1B visa or cite any of the pending visa legislation in Congress in his remarks, but by referring to foreign students as the "best and the brightest," he used a phrase widely used by supporters to defend and opponents to deride the H-1B visa program. That's not America's strength," Obama said. "Our strength has always been in saying 'yes' to the rest of the world, inviting ideas and different cultures and commerce. Obama opened up on the need to admit foreign students in response to a fairly broad query from a summit participant about the need to ease visa regulations for cultural and academic use. "I think it is important for us not to get into a bunker mentality. We have not seen the same kinds of openness, I think, over the last several years that I'd like to see," he added, according to a White House transcript of the remarks.

Suddenly you've got a whole new generation of folks who are creating Intel or other extraordinary businesses." Obama added, "If those students start seeing a closed door, then we are losing what is one of our greatest competitive advantages." Over the last two months, H-1B visa demand has been swelling again after lagging for several months . If recent demand continues to grow, the legal cap of 85,000 visas for fiscal 2010 will be reached in a matter of weeks, if not sooner. Addressing the issue of foreign students specifically, Obama said, that, "one of the great things about this country is we get the best and the brightest talent to study here, and once they study here they start enjoying the intellectual freedom and the entrepreneurship, they decide to stay, and they start new businesses. H-1B visa demand typically tracks the economy, and Friday's jobs report showing a loss of only 11,000 U.S. jobs in November, compared to 741,000 in January, may well explain why the pace of visa petitions has picked up. The increase in demand for H-1B visas may also be signaling renewed interest in offshore outsourcing by U.S. firms, which could lead to domestic job cuts. The White House called the November jobs numbers a "dramatic improvement" over recent months. Moreover, companies that have already cut U.S. workers may turn to overseas labor to help meet increasing demand, which in turn could increase demand for the visas by offshore firms.

A survey of 80 financial services firms conducted by NelsonHall, an outsourcing advisory company, found that that 37% of enterprises expect to increase their use of offshore outsourcers over the next year, after a relatively flat year. At the same time, offshore outsourcing appears poised to pick up. Andy Efstathiou, director of the banking sourcing program at NelsonHall, said financial services companies need to increase their ability to meet transaction volumes while cutting costs. But these integrations also provide an opportunity to restructure processes so that some can be delivered remotely, added Efstathiou. Bank mergers are increasing opportunities as well for financial firms to increase offshore work, at least temporarily, to integrate the businesses.

Microsoft technology reduces network redundancy

Researchers at Microsoft Research India have developed a compression and redundancy elimination technology that can operate as a host service in enterprise systems without the use of accelerator devices over a WAN. The project is called Coconet for Content Compression in Networks. Microsoft researchers estimated that about 75 percent of the bandwidth saved using redundancy elimination devices on a WAN comes from removing redundant byte-strings from within each client's traffic, Ramachandran Ramjee, project leader of Coconet, said in a telephone interview on Monday. The researchers monitored access links at 11 corporate enterprise locations for several days, as well as the access link of the University of Wisconsin, which had some of its students collaborate on the project. This kind of redundancy, described by the Microsoft researchers as intra-user redundancy, consists, for example, of the same user getting different versions of the same files from a server, or going to the same Web sites repeatedly to get an update, Ramjee said.

Many large companies, having branch offices across the world, are consolidating their IT resources in a few locations to save on administrative costs, Ramjee said. "Instead of putting servers in each branch office they are consolidating in a few data centers in a few locations," he said. This pattern presented the opportunity to move the redundancy elimination function to software running on end hosts on the network, reducing the need for deployment of expensive accelerator devices, or other redundancy elimination "middle-boxes" on the WAN, according to Ramjee. A result of this move is that what used to be traffic on the LAN from a user's PC to a server in the branch office has now become relatively expensive WAN traffic, according to Ramjee. The software developed by Microsoft Research India has been designed to be asymmetric so that the processing is done at the server, Ramjee said. The move for consolidation has increased demand for products like WAN accelerator devices, which among other things also reduce redundancy in network traffic, he added.

It does not conflict with encryption on the network, because the removal of a redundancy at the server end is done before encryption, he added. This ensures that the technology can also be used when the client is a resource-constrained device like a smartphone, Ramjee said. The software runs on general purpose servers and requires a typical cache size of about 10MB on the server for each client, and another 10MB at the client end. The host service can identify and suppress redundancy as small as 32 bytes in the packets, according to Ramjee. The technology developed by Microsoft Research India does not, however, address "inter-user" redundancy which arises when many users request the same data.

If any bytes are found to match between a data request and previous data transmitted, the server indicates that the data is already on the client and redirects to it, he said. Besides WAN accelerator boxes there are other technologies that handle that, including the BranchCache feature in Windows 7, Ramjee said. Ramjee also claimed lower latency for the Microsoft Research technology, as it can work around the limitation that TCP breaks down packets before sending them.

Desktop virtualization cheat sheet

Server virtualization is well on its way in corporate data centers and desktop virtualization is following fast behind. Here's a roundup of our most recent desktop virtualization/virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) coverage: ARTICLES FAQ: Desktop virtualization There's huge interest in desktop virtualization technology, due to its promises of improved security, manageability and flexibility. The pace of desktop virtualization deployment is only expected to speed up now that Windows 7 is on the scene and client-hosted virtual desktop offerings are emerging.

Here are some details on how the technology works and why it might be a fit for your company. While that is partly true, companies need to be aware of how the two technologies differ, industry experts caution. Weighing the pros/cons of desktop virtualization Successful server virtualization deployments lead many IT managers to believe desktop virtualization would provide the same benefits. Windows 7 and Desktop Virtualization: The New Tools It seems as if every vendor is putting out new products or touting old products designed to help make Windows 7 a good platform, or to cement justification for desktop virtualization projects. Sales may take off, but the desktop PC may not have much to do with it. Window 7 may spur virtual desktops, on and off the iPhone Predictions from analysts and virtualization vendors that desktop virtualization will take off during 2010 may be off the mark.

Three caveats for desktop virtualization  Before moving to any flavor of desktop virtualization, consider these issues: the network; management; security. Virtual desktops ripe for deployment, hindered by cost Desktop virtualization, with its promises of improved security, manageability and flexibility, may be on the verge of huge adoption, some experts are predicting. Disaster Can Inspire Quick Move to Desktop Virtualization A major disaster led the University of Texas Medical Branch-a sprawling campus of hospital and office buildings in Galveston plus a spray of clinics and smaller facilities all over Texas-to shift virtual desktops from a fringe technology to its main platform. But as with many new technologies, there is a catch. Companies choose VDI to fit existing infrastructure Enterprises are choosing desktop virtualization offerings from Symantec Corp., VMware Inc., Citrix Systems Inc., Microsoft Corp. according to the vendor's area of strength - and how it fits with the infrastructure they already have, according to one Canadian analyst.

ROI is one of the main selling points, but desktop virtualization requires significant upfront costs and it can easily take three or four years to realize financial rewards. VMware bolsters desktop virtualization product VMware's View desktop virtualization offering boasts new remote desktop protocol Citrix desktop virtualization push: any device, any location Citrix says its latest desktop virtualization software will give users access to high-definition desktops from any location and from just about any device, including PCs, Macs, thin clients, laptops, netbooks and smartphones. Here's a baker's dozen.   OPINION/BLOGS A Guide to Microsoft's Dizzying Array of Desktop Virtualization Offerings Microsoft offers no fewer than five desktop virtualization technologies - depending on how you define the term. Desktop virtualization start-up Wanova emerges from stealth mode A desktop virtualization start-up called Wanova emerged from stealth mode having secured $13 million in funding to build technology for managing and protecting mobile and remote desktops.   SLIDESHOWS Best desktop virtualization software VMware, Microsoft, Parallels and Oracle/Sun offer products that allow end users to run multiple operating systems on a single client machine. 13 Desktop Virtualization Tools Virtualization stalwarts and start-ups alike are aiming for the desktop. The impact of VDI Some challenges associated with implementing a virtualized desktop infrastructure Liquefying IT Though centrally executing and managing desktop images offers many benefits to both IT and end-users, the potential impact on the network and other underlying data center infrastructure should not be overlooked.   AUDIO/VIDEO Desktop virtualization key to reduced power consumption By moving to a virtualized desktop client, IT shops can ditch power-hungry 300 watt desktops in favor of juice-sipping 75w thin clients.

Also see: 100G Ethernet Cheat Sheet That switch has a number of backend benefits as well, says Nemertes' Andreas Antonopoulos, who sees big things for desktop virtualization in 2009   Desktop Virtualization Cheat Sheet compiled via Network World and its sister publications.