IBM Internet Security Systems: “Apple is trailing Microsoft in security patch responsiveness – in fact, after inspecting their graphs, Apple appears to be trending entirely in the wrong direction; more vulnerabilities, longer patching times, more 0-days, etc. – not the sort of thing we expect from a well known software vendor.While I think that there are quite a few reasons why this is probably so, I’d be inclined to say that Apple’s biggest problem appears to be that they treat every new vulnerability as a potential PR disaster rather than an opportunity to visibly reinforce their work in securing their customers.”
The only way to improve your security posture is to acknowledge that you’re vulnerable and to continue to work on identifying and remediating security vulnerabilities. Apple doesn’t understand this yet- hopefully they’ll get it soon.
Jeff Jarvis: “[N]ewspapers will not — not — recover what they have lost. They lose doubly in a downturn: advertisers spend less because they have less and then they realize they can keep spending less. It’s a reverse plateau.”
The article that Jeff references is interesting. The newspaper industry still claims that there is a rising tide as newspapers develop stronger web properties. That would be nice if it were true, but the problem that most of them face is that they don’t have the original news, editorial content and other elements of value that will sustain them online. As newspapers go out of business, of course the New York Times and Wall Street Journal are safe (at least for now). Their original content has value and their online properties are strong. They’ll continue to live on in some form. And maybe the smalltown newspaper like the one I grew up with will somehow find a way as local interests drive the aggregation of their content under larger umbrellas. Maybe. But most newspapers are dead in the water.
This is very good news on the Windows Live team’s data portability efforts from CNet. A quote: “Microsoft’s Web-app division announced Tuesday that it has partnered with five social networks–LinkedIn, Tagged, Hi5, Bebo, and yes, Facebook–on a new project to facilitate address book portability. The partner social networks have agreed to use the Windows Live Contacts API so that members can import Windows Live contacts to their respective sites.”
I can’t wait to see how this works with Facebook and LinkedIn. This should definitely make my ability to stay connected to friends and colleagues much easier over time.
According to Tom Krazit over at CNet, Windows Mobile phones may soon include Flash Lite. This is partly a headline since Microsoft is investing in a competing technology with Silverlight, but I think it is also major news since Apple continues to disparage Flash as a platform for the iPhone. Given the ubiquitous nature of Flash on the internet, it seems a little funny that Windows Mobile phones may support it but Apple phones won’t.
Related to the Apple/Adobe issues, a recent article from Electronista claims that Flash is already running on iPhones but isn’t being officially released/supported due to political issues between Apple and Adobe. Ah, the joys of technology company partnerships and business strategy conflicts. As a end user of mobile technologies, I would definitely like Flash support on any device that supports web browsing to make sure the greatest compatibility with existing web sites. I would guess that Microsoft, Apple and Adobe all understand that desire and are trying to find ways to make it work best for consumers.
Michael Scherotter interviewed Ice Cube at SXSW for Channel 9. Check it out.
