IT/ Computer & Telecom Update

OCTOBER, 2009
IT/COMPUTER

SPECIAL SECTION
Los Angeles Times Engineering October 4

EDITORIAL FEATURES
• Computer – November editorial feature: Extreme-Scale Computing
• Computerworld – October 12 editorial features: Security Manager’s Journal,
Career Watch; October 19 editorial features: Spotlight: Security; Career
Watch; October 26 editorial features: Security Manager’s Journal, Career
Watch; November 2 editorial features: Technology Feature: Data Center;
Security Manager’s Journal, Career Watch
• Dr. Dobb’s Report – October 26 editorial feature: Cloud Computing
• Information Week – October 26 editorial feature: Green Issue – Interactive
PDF version of the magazine; November 2 editorial feature: When Worlds
Collide: Integrating Collaboration, Social Business Software, and Content
Management
• Network World – October 19 editorial feature: New Data Center: Security for
the Virtual Enterprise; October 26 editorial feature: Companies to Watch:
Open Source Software; November 2 editorial feature: Trend Watch: Mobility/
Smart Phones; November 9 editorial feature: Holiday Gift Guide, Special
Focus: VoIP
• PC Magazine – December editorial feature: Best Products of the Year

LAYOFFS
MEMC Electronic Materials, Inc.
O'Fallon, MO
Sherman, TX
MEMC Electronic Materials announced that it will stop making silicon wafers and
ingots at plants in O'Fallon, Mo., and Sherman, Texas, shifting production to other
facilities. The company, which is based in O'Fallon, makes silicon wafers and related
wafer inputs for the solar and semiconductor industries. The company expects to
close portions of the O'Fallon plant as part of a consolidation. The streamlining will
take place late this year and early 2011. MEMC said in a news release that 540
employees in Texas and Missouri will be affected by the move. "A small number" of
the displaced workers will be offered positions elsewhere in the company. MEMC
officials did not respond to a request asking how many local jobs will be lost. In
February 2008, the firm laid off 90 workers.
Approximate Affected Workforce: 501-1000 St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Dell, Inc.
Round Rock, TX
Twin Falls, ID
Dell Computer Inc., the world's second-largest computer maker, is closing its Twin
Falls customer support call center by January, eliminating 500 jobs that remained at
the facility since layoffs began in 2007. The center had opened eight years ago after
millions of dollars in enticements from local and state government.
Approximate Affected Workforce: 101-500 The Associated Press State & Local Wire

TRENDS
National Broadband Could Cost $350 Billion
An FCC task force said costs are far higher than available funding,
but the plan would produce major economic and social benefits.

By W. David Gardner, Information Week, September 30, 2009

The total cost of developing a universal broadband plan for the United States could
run as high as $350 billion, but the plan would produce major economic and social
benefits ranging from improving healthcare and education to helping people with
disabilities and improving public safety programs, according to a report prepared by
an FCC task force.

The huge price tag dwarfs the $7.2 billion earmarked in President Obama's economic
stimulus program. The task force estimated universal broadband deployment costs
would range between $20 billion and $350 billion. The highest figure calls for
providing service at 100 Mbps or faster.

The report, prepared to help FCC commissioners develop a national broadband plan
for Congress, was prepared after information and suggestions were acquired from
about 230 witnesses who presented evidence and opinion at 26 hearings and
workshops. In addition to laying the groundwork for the February report to Congress,
the report discussed the present state of broadband in the United States.

"Actual broadband speeds lag advertised speeds by at least 50% and possibly more
during the busy hours," according to the report. "Peak usage hours, typically 7 p.m.
to 10 p.m., create network congestion and speed degradation. About 1% of users
drive 20% of traffic, while 20% of users drive up to 80% of traffic."

While the definition of broadband can vary greatly, the task force was clear on the
issue of spectrum -- much more of the wireless commodity will be needed,
particularly as smartphone sales overtake sales of standard phones by 2011. The
task force said it is assessing the nation's long-term spectrum needs.

In spite of the high cost of bringing universal high-speed broadband to all regions of
the country, the task force noted that broadband can offer solutions to some of the
country's major challenges. It suggested that broadband would spur telemedicine
and improve electronic healthcare records while the energy environment would be
helped by broadband-assisted smart grids, smart homes, and smart transportation.

In addition, high-speed broadband will benefit the delivery of government services

and lead to more transparency in public policy. Also, education will be assisted by
digital textbooks and online learning, and disabled people will be helped by
specialized hardware and software. Universal broadband, the task force indicated,
should also be developed for use by public safety agencies. Presently, the task force
said, public safety entities have access only to commercial broadband services.
 Personalized Health Project Integrates E-Medical Data, DNA
The Coriell Personalized Medicine Collaboration platform will be used to develop
treatments tailored to patients' genetic and other health-related profile.

By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee, Information Week, September 30, 2009

Medical research takes a lot of time. Clinical trials and the unfolding of outcomes, like
whether a sick patient is cured of an ailment and suffers no reoccurrence months or
years later, can take decades. But the collection, sharing, and analysis of data
involved with medical research should get much easier.

The seeds for significant advancements are being planted now with the push to
digitize medical records and other clinical information. In the years to come, there
will be undoubtedly many more -- and much richer sources -- of electronic patient
data to help medical research efforts.

Digitized records about populations of patients -- like those suffering from chronic
illnesses such as asthma, degenerative disease like Alzheimer's, and potentially
terminal illnesses like cancer -- could aid doctors and researchers in more quickly
identifying the best candidates for clinical trials, and help uncover patterns and new
insights based on information that in the past might've been forever buried in paper
records.

Of course, privacy concerns of patients are legit. No one wants unauthorized snoops
digging into personal health information. But even the collection of aggregate, de-
indentified data from e-medical records -- with the consent of patients -- will help
researchers in the years to come.

Some of the most powerful discoveries will undoubtedly come from analyzing data
from patients' e-medical record, plus their genomic information. Personalized
medicine promises to use that data analysis to better match patients with the most
effective treatments based on individuals' genetic profiles, medical histories, and
their other health issues.

Such research is underway in places like Coriell Institute for Medical Research, a
non-profit, biomedical research institution and a leading biobank resource for human
cells and DNA, which is working on a national genomics project with Ohio State
University Medical Center, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Cooper University Hospital,
Virtua Health, and Helix Health.

The Coriell Personalized Medicine Collaboration will create a secure Web-based

technology environment for about 100,000 patients who are being recruited by the
project partners to provide DNA samples and other medical information.

The goal of the project is to better understand how patients' personal genomic
information, along with other information contained in e-medical records, can be
used to make better decisions about an individual's healthcare. Researchers and
healthcare providers will use the platform for developing new medical and
therapeutic treatments tailored to patients' genetic and other health-related data.
"CPMC is pioneering the integration of genotypic information and risk reporting into
the e-health record," explained Margaret Keller, associate professor, Coriell Institute
for Medical Research in Camden, N.J.

"The goal is to supplement clinical-based patient data that exists in the EHR, with
genetic information," Keller said in an e-mail interview with InformationWeek. Much
of this integration will come with the usage of the health industry's HL7 data
exchange standard, she said. The genetic information from participating patients will
come from DNA samples they'll provide.

"Patients will have their sputum DNA extracted and analyzed at Coriell," said Dr. Clay
Marsh, director of the Center for Personalized Health Care at Ohio State University,
which is looking to enroll within the next three months 1,000 to 2,000 study
participants for the project.

"Each patient participating will have their own secure portal access site to their own
information," he said in an e-mail interview with InformationWeek.

"The patients will be able to see their own information, as will their physicians, if
they give us consent to include their doctors. Otherwise, they will have access
without their physicians," he said. Ohio State University officials and researchers are
working with Coriell to clarify the details on how EMR data will be moved to Coriell
for the project, he said.

"We will protect the identity of all subjects, and with our institutional review board
approval, would need clear, informed consent from each individual before moving
any EMR data from OSU to Coriell," he said. "In this way, the participants will be in
control of the flow and protection of their EMR data related to the study."

For the project, risk reporting algorithms that are developed by the CPMC geneticists
are transformed and imported into a genetic variant database, explained Keller.

"This database contains relative risk values for each single nucleotide polymorphism
(SNP) that is on the risk report as well as data from existing federated databases,"
she said.

A SNP is a change or variation in a DNA sequence.

"In some people, these changes vary from the population at large and segregates to
a group of people that have disease or risk of disease at a higher frequency than
people without disease or without risk," explained Marsh.

"The DNA chips we are using will identify these specific changes, of which a highly
specific group will appear on the Web portal that the subjects have access," he said.

"By using standard Web-based technologies, such as XML and SOAP, the main data
repository is annotated and supplemented with external data sources, furthering the
value of the knowledge repository," said Keller.
Data storage for the CPMC project is being handled by a Hewlett-Packard EVA8100
storage array network, which offers a flexible, open, standards-based storage
infrastructure enabling an adaptive infrastructure, she said.

"We are committed to creating the future of medicine to improve people's lives
through personalized medicine," Marsh said in a statement. "Partnerships like this
one will allow us and our community to experience the future of medicine today."

TELECOM

EDITORIAL FEATURES
• RCR Wireless News – October 19 editorial features: Best Companies to Work
for Special Report; Wireless Networks; Mobile Enterprise – Finance; Mobile
Devices; LBS; November 9 editorial features: Wireless Movers & Shakers
Special Report; Wireless Networks; Semiconductors; Mobile Applications
Development; Mobile Content
• Electronic Design – November 5 editorial features: Displays; Green
Engineering; Digital; Motor Control Point & Counterpoint; November 16
editorial features: Robotics; ESD & Transient Protection; Test; Mobile TV;
December 1 editorial features: Best Electronic Design
• Microwaves & RF – November issue editorial features: Microwave Software;
Broadband Technologies; Cables & Connectors; Mining Substrate Material
• Telecommunications – November editorial feature: Ethernet Adoption
• Telephony – December editorial feature: Managed Services; Marketing the
Quad Play; Location-Based Services
• Wireless Design & Development – November editorial features: Mobile
WiMAX; Automotive Electronics; Timing Devices; RF Components; Electronic
Miniaturization; Wireless Sensor Network
• Wireless Week – November editorial features: Customer Care; Tiered
Services; OSS

LAYOFFS

No Layoffs at this time

TRENDS
Improve Employee Collaboration with Open Source Solutions
By Linux, Wireless Week, September 30, 2009

Red Hat announced that Ministerio de Vivienda, Peru's Ministry of Housing,

Construction and Sanitation, has implemented Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the
operating platform for its new open source communications solution, Zimbra
Collaboration Suite.
“We needed a quick-to-deploy and easy-to-manage solution. We assessed several
proposals from various vendors, among them, SUSE Linux and Microsoft Windows-
based solutions, but we chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Zimbra Collaboration Suite
and Alfresco, for the solutions' cost savings, simplified administration, reliability and
quick implementation," said Jaime Honores Coronado, managing director of the
General Department of Statistics and Information Systems, Ministerio de Vivienda.

The Ministry of Housing, Construction and Sanitation's goal is to promote and

improve the development of housing, water and sanitation services throughout Peru
by facilitating access to adequate housing and basic services, facilitating the
management, growth, preservation, maintenance and protection of population
centers.

The Ministry's aging and limited e-mail communications platform was based on SUSE
Enterprise Linux with Postfix and Horde for Web customers. Users also relied on
different versions of Microsoft Outlook to check their email, resulting in challenges
due to the platform age and configuration. The platform also caused the need to add
an exclusive server allocated to this service. The Ministry’s main problem consisted
of the lack of scalability and security, and limited flexibility in management and
constrained the user interface.

The Ministry made the decision to evaluate solutions to replace its expensive
proprietary software for a Web-based e-mail solution with integrated email, calendar
and messaging. The Ministry worked with the IT consulting firm Software Libre
Andino, a Red Hat and Zimbra partner in Peru, for the evaluation process of
replacing its outdated systems. During the evaluation, the Ministry weighed Microsoft
Exchange against Zimbra Collaboration Suite, and determined that Zimbra would
account for an estimated 30 percent savings compared with Microsoft Outlook.

The Ministry selected Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Zimbra Collaboration Suite and
began the migration of each account, installation, configuration, start-up and
technical and end-user training to the new open source platform.

With Zimbra Collaboration Suite, Red Hat Enterprise Linux serves as the primary
development and deployment platform for the open source email platform. Zimbra
Collaboration Suite integrates email, contacts, shared calendar, voice over IP (VoIP)
and online document authoring into a single application with a rich browser-based
interface. It is also compatible with all standard email clients and integrates easily
with third-party applications.
Although the Ministry's technical staff had minimal experience with a Web-based e-
mail technology, Red Hat Consulting experts facilitated a faster implementation and
provided the technical staff with the knowledge and tools to effectively manage the
new platform.

"The high level of know-how and expertise of Red Hat’s consultants, coupled with
Red Hat’s local presence, were decisive in making the decision to secure consulting
rather than performing these tasks internally. Red Hat, through partner Software
Libre Andino, contributed to service deployment, technical and end-user training and
the migration of old e-mail accounts, allowing our team to quickly become experts,"
said Coronado.

The Zimbra Collaboration Suite e-mail platform based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux
immediately improved the productivity and coordination of the Ministry’s employees
by enhancing collaboration and sharing of work agendas.

CIO, CTO & Developer Resources

“We have achieved a larger physical distribution of our users who are now capable of
accessing their e-mail accounts wherever they are. Our investment project
coordinators can perform Web queries of their local e-mail, manage their work
agendas and refer to the document management system, all in one single platform,"
said Coronado.

"The Zimbra and Red Hat solution provides a cost-effective platform that allows for
greater efficiency and a unified email and collaboration platform," said Coronado.
"And we also benefited from significant cost savings with Red Hat Enterprise Linux."

Review: 10 Ways to Save on Calling Costs

By Peter Svensson, Wireless Week, September 30, 2009

The cost of making phone calls has been dropping rapidly in the last few years. If
you want take full advantage of that, you'll need to try some new things, because
the phone companies aren't going to thrust savings on you. Here are 10 tips on how
to cut the cost of your phone service.

Several services let you use your home broadband line to make and receive calls.
Some of them are aimed at replacing your landline outright, while others are
designed as complements.
Vonage is the most widely advertised replacement for the home phone line, and the
price is more attractive than before. It just squeezed free calls to more than 60
countries into its standard $25-per-month plan, which already included free domestic
calling.

Vonage sends you an adapter that connects to your broadband line and your old
phone. The setup requires that you know where your broadband modem is and how
to connect something to it. Vonage gives you a new phone number, or allows you
to move over your old number to the service.

But if you're not a big overseas caller, there are cheaper alternatives, and in my
testing, long-running problems with audio quality and reliability persist, particularly
for international calls.

Ooma sells a device that's similar to Vonage's adapter, but once you've plunked
down $250 for it, domestic calls are free. International calls are billed at low per-
minute rates. Ooma's audio quality and reliability are much better than Vonage's,
but slightly below that of a regular phone line. Like Vonage, Ooma will let you use
your old phone number (for a $40 transfer fee). The adapter works as an
answering machine too, and you can access your voice mail through a Web browser
as well.

There's a new model of the Ooma device coming soon that can act as the base
station for cordless phones. The price hasn't been announced. The company has
hinted that buyers of the new model may need to pay low yearly fees to cover
telecom taxes.

MagicJack is an up-and-comer, selling a device that plugs into a computer to

provide unlimited domestic calls for one year for $40. After that, every year of
service costs $20. International calls are billed at low per-minute rates. In our
tests, it worked, but not very well — call quality was barely acceptable.

The MagicJack device has a phone number and can receive calls, but you can't
move your own number to it. The computer needs to be on for the MagicJack to
receive calls, so using it as your primary phone line could be a false economy:
Leaving your computer on all the time for a year could cost you $300 in electricity.

Skype is best known for free computer-to-computer voice and video chatting, but
you can make and receive phone calls using this software as well. Outgoing calls
are billed per minute or through monthly unlimited-calling plans. A phone number
that can receive incoming calls costs $60 per year. You can't use your old number
as your Skype number, and you can't call 911. You can't use your old phone either,
but you can buy special Skype phones if you don't want to use a headset and
microphone. Overall, Skype isn't much of a replacement for regular phone service,
but could be a complement.

T-Mobile USA sells a $40 "AtHome" Internet router or adapter to which you can
connect a home phone. Unlimited domestic calls are then $10 per month. You can
move your old number to the service. The catch? You have to be a T-Mobile
wireless subscriber, paying at least $40 per month on a single plan, or $50 per
month on a family plan. Also, international rates are high for this sort of service.
First, you need to fork over $5 per month just to make international calls, and then
you pay rates like 4 cents per minute to Canada, which other providers let you call
for free.

Prepaid cell phones are marketed mainly to people with poor credit, but many
households could save money by going prepaid instead of signing up for long-term
contracts. The main limitation of prepaid service is that it's difficult to get feature-
packed "smart" phones.

Tracfone is the biggest provider of prepaid phone service in the U.S. It sells bare-
bones phones cheaply, and calls cost between 15 cents and 30 cents per minute. If
you use your phone for only a few short calls a day, this is a good deal — Tracfone
subscribers pay an average of $10 per month. Prepaid service can also be a good
thing to give your kids, since they can't run up huge bills. Warning: If you give your
landline phone number or e-mail address to Tracfone during the registration
process, it will pester you with frequent "special offers."

T-Mobile is another big prepaid carrier, and with good reason: its "Pay As You Go"
service can cost as little as 10 cents per minute, with none of the daily usage fees
other major carriers impose on their prepaid plans. In addition, it's usually possible
to use prepaid service on T-Mobile phones whose contracts have expired.

For heavy callers, prepaid unlimited plans costing less than $50 per month are
available from MetroPCS Communications Inc., Leap Wireless International Inc.
(under the Cricket brand) and Sprint Nextel Corp. (under the Boost brand). We
tried a MetroPCS phone in New York and didn't have any problems. It worked just
like one from a more expensive carrier, including the Web access. The upfront cost
 of that device — a touch-screen-equipped Samsung Finesse — is $349. An
equivalent phone would cost $50 or $100 when you sign a contract with a major
carrier. But you'd come out ahead in less than a year by saving $30 per month on
the prepaid service. You also could get a MetroPCS phone for as little as $69.

Caveat: MetroPCS and Cricket have limited calling areas compared to the major
carriers. If you go outside major cities, you'll pay roaming fees.

If you don't want to switch to prepaid, there are still ways of cutting cell phone
calling costs, at least for international calls. These services work a bit like calling
cards, but are more convenient and won't shortchange you like many calling cards
do.

Google Voice lets you call internationally at per-minute rates that are much lower
than the carriers' prices, and text-message for free. It's designed to be used with a
Web browser, but you can use it from your phone too. If you have a BlackBerry or
Android phone, you can download an application. If you have a non-"smart" phone,
you can call a Google number, then key in the number you want to call, just as if you
were using a calling card.

Rebtel provides cheap international calls, much like Google Voice, but is easier to use
with phones that don't have Web browsers. For each international number you like to
call, it gives you a local number you can place in your contact list. When you call that
number, Rebtel automatically connects you to the overseas number.