UK businesses braced for disruption while IT professionals give 2010 FIFA World Cup the red card

Service providers and employers are bracing themselves for potential network disruption and severe pressure on Internet connectivity as consumers and staff stream video to keep tabs on the sporting action this summer.

The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be the first to have each match streamed live, and also the first to offer high-definition coverage. With the majority of matches taking place during normal UK office hours, Ipswitch is warning that it could cost companies a significant amount of money.

“Users making use of video streaming services can put a considerable strain on companies' networks, resulting in bandwidth chokes and even outages, in addition to exposing them to security threats,” said Azmi Jafarey, CIO at Ipswitch.

To help businesses prepare, the company has developed a World Cup Network Traffic Calculator allowing IT managers to plot the likely impact on network resources. However, it is claimed that more than half of IT managers are more likely seeking to prevent staff from watching the tournament in the office.

A survey of 100 IT and networking professionals by Blue Coat Systems found that 54 percent want employees banned from watching World Cup matches at work. The survey also highlighted concerns that staff might be tempted to discuss the action with friends, family and colleagues via social networks.

“As a streamed football match consumes around 750MB of bandwidth – the equivalent of sending more than twelve editions of Tolstoy’s War & Peace – it’s important that IT and HR managers clearly communicate their corporate rules to employees,” said Nigel Hawthorn, VP EMEA Marketing at Blue Coat.

FIFA ready for deluge

Meanwhile, FIFA.com has announced its server farm in Slough is to house 75 super computers to support 70,000,000 page views per hour during the World Cup.

The world’s official football website expects to serve over 5.5 billion page views during the tournament, compared to the 4.2 billion recorded in 2006, and has also prepared two petabytes (2,000 gigabytes) of video streaming bandwidth [much to the delight of businesses no doubt].

FIFA said that particularly avid users are the millions of worldwide members of the free-to-join FIFA.com club, of which British fans represent the largest contingent in Europe.

Whether this contingent will be such avid users past the quarter finals remains to be seen.

Managing the rise in mobile data

Sony Ericsson believes that roaming mobile data usage is set to soar over the summer period due to social media use.

With many consumers opting for smartphones offering social networking functionality, the handset maker argues that the trend in mobile social networking is unlikely to stop as consumers head abroad [ash cloud permitting] for their summer breaks.

A ‘representative of Sony Ericsson’, said: “The advent of mobile social networking has heralded a revolution in how people consume and use the Internet. As such, we would expect that mobile data usage this summer will increase… However, consumers should be wary of the rates of these services, as it is likely that such usage could incur extra charges to their usual tariff.”

At the same time, Telcordia has urged CSPs (communications service providers) to ‘follow the traffic’ and re-evaluate their business models, pricing structure, and OSS (operating software systems) to capitalise on the growth in mobile data.

A survey of industry professionals across 75 countries by Telcordia found that CSPs intend to re-evaluate their billing solutions and re-adjust their business models to capitalise on the exploding rates of data traffic over the next year.

The survey results suggest that CSPs worldwide will rely on network management to control data traffic growth, which is increasing at a much faster rate than revenues, and creating profitability and customer experience challenges.

“All-you-can-eat data plans are not a sustainable business model, and policy-based bandwidth management and real-time charging provide CSPs and their subscribers with the necessary flexibility to try new services while keeping costs in line,” commented Pat McCarthy, VP, Service Delivery Solutions at Telcordia.

Er, just one more thing…

Just in case businesses needed a further reminder of the impending tournament, a World Cup Football Challenge intranet application has been launched by software developer Odyssey Interactive.

The application aims to increase overall intranet usage by allowing users to predict the outcome of matches, receive points based upon the accuracy of their predictions, and compete with other staff and departments via a league table.

“Since a large proportion of employees will be following the World Cup this summer it makes sense to take advantage of this to promote your intranet, inject a bit of fun and boost staff morale,” said Nigel Danson, MD, Odyssey Interactive.

The question is whether employees will have time to visit their intranet given the anticipated levels of social networking and video streaming.

Can coalition Government create ‘super-fast broadband Britain’?

The Conservatives and coalition partners the Liberal Democrats will help to get the UK online if they stick to the Conservatives’ pre-election plans to make the UK a European hub for hi-tech, digital and creative industries. But the spectre of the rural broadband challenge lingers.

According to Elfed Thomas, ceo at fibre optic infrastructure specialist, i3 Group, the Conservatives were the only party to deliver a ‘structured and believable’ strategy for super fast broadband, with pre-election plans to build a nationwide network by 2017.

However, Thomas warned that the rural broadband issue persists, and that it won't be solved without the aid of public spending. “Often, the figures to build a commercially-viable infrastructure just don’t stack up. I am in favour of their idea to use the BBC licence fee to fund connectivity in areas with limited access,” he said.

The question now is whether super-fast Broadband makes the cut [as it were], with the axe soon to be taken to the UK’s public finances.

According to the Office of National Statistics, the UK recorded a general government deficit of £159.2 billion in the calendar year 2009. This was equivalent to 11.4 percent of GDP. And at the end of December 2009, general government debt was £950.4 billion, or 68.1 percent of GDP.

The Maastricht Treaty’s ‘Excessive Deficit Procedure’ sets deficit and debt targets of 3 percent and 60 percent respectively for all EU countries.

Cloudy future for data

The amount of digital information created annually will grow by a factor of 44 between 2009 and 2020, as all major forms of media complete the journey from analogue to digital. The number of files, images, records and other digital information containers is also forecast to grow, by a factor of 67.

These are the findings of an EMC-sponsored study by IDC, which predicts that more than a third of all digital information created annually will either live in, or pass through the cloud by 2020. The market watcher expects cloud computing to stimulate more than $1 trillion in incremental business revenue by 2014.

“This year’s ‘Digital Universe’ study exposes many of the most pressing short- and longer-term strategic issues CIOs grapple with as they map out their IT strategies and investments,” commented Joe Tucci, chairman and ceo, EMC Corporation. “They’re quickly discovering that, to remain in the game, they need to do things differently, transforming traditional infrastructures into private cloud data centres that offer internal and external customers IT as a service.”

Clouds gather

IBM is one major player to have advanced its cloud credentials this week, with its acquisition of Cast Iron Systems, a provider of cloud integration software, appliances and services. Although financial terms were not disclosed, IBM said the acquisition gives it the ability to help businesses rapidly integrate cloud-based applications and on-premise systems.

“The integration challenges Cast Iron Systems is tackling are crucial to clients who are looking to adopt alternative delivery models to manage their businesses,” commented Craig Hayman, general manager, IBM WebSphere.

The IBM Software Group has acquired more than 55 companies since 2003, with its latest purchase advancing its ability to offer a ‘hybrid’ cloud model, whereby enterprises can blend data from on-premise applications with public and private cloud systems.

True hybrid hosting with easy server upgrades is the promise now being put forward by managed Web hosting provider, Liquid Web. The company’s ‘Storm Bare Metal’ is claimed to be ‘a revolutionary server technology’ that allows users to provision and manage private dedicated servers with cloud hosting features.

Users can deploy flexible hybrid hosting configurations that contain a mixture of ‘Storm Cloud Servers’ (cloud servers managed from within a Web browser) and Storm Bare Metal dedicated servers. The latter enable users to specify the exact processor, memory and hard drive configuration that is right for their project.

Er, just one more thing…

A thought-controlled software application known as ‘Jedi Mouse’ is being submitted as a patent application to the United States Patent and Trademark office. The software, which sells for $99.00 and requires the use of a wireless headset, allows users to navigate the computer, click and double click to open programs, compose email and send, ‘using the power of their mind’.

The neural processing technology is being developed by Jedi Mind, who claims it is on pace to create one new thought-controlled application per quarter. Jedi Mouse is aimed at typical PC users, associations for the disabled, clinics and non-profit organisations.

The company also said that it intends to patent all of its proprietary products to provide a stable of intellectual [sic] properties.

Mobile phone market recovery continues with almost 22 percent growth in Q1 2010 – fuelled by increased demand for smartphones and the global economic recovery.

According to IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped 294.9 million units in the first quarter of 2010 compared to 242.4 million units in the first quarter of 2009.

Growing demand for smartphones also saw Research In Motion (RIM) replace Motorola in the top 5 vendor rankings for the first time. The rankings are as follows:

1. Nokia
2. Samsung
3. LG Electronics
4. Research In Motion
5. Sony Ericsson

“The entrance of RIM into the top 5 underscores the sustained smartphone growth trend that is driving the global mobile phone market recovery,” commented Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst, IDC. “This is also the first time a vendor has dropped out of the top 5 since the second quarter of 2005…”

Is it me, or is there one vendor that the media continually fawn over missing from that top 5 ranking?

i’ve been ad

The big A could charge close to $1 million for ads on its mobile devices this year, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Dubbed ‘iAd’, Apple is reportedly looking to charge marketers up to $10 million to be part of an exclusive launch of its mobile-device advertising capability, which comprises a software system to offer ads in the applications available in the App Store. App developers will receive 60% of the revenue; Apple gets the other 40%. Ad executives say they currently pay between $100,000 and $200,000 for similar mobile deals.

Online ads surge

The latest quarterly earnings reports from Yahoo, Microsoft and Google [or ‘GYM’ as they are sometimes referred to] indicate that online and display advertising is surging again, says the Online Publishers Association (OPA).

Yahoo led the pack, with a profit that nearly tripled to $310 million – although gross revenues were fairly flat. Microsoft saw an increase of 19% in its online ad revenues, prompted by a boost in search-related ads on Bing. Google’s profits rose 37% to $1.96 billion, with revenues up 23%, although the company’s stock ‘dropped’ 4.6% - with analysts suggesting that its performance had not quite lived up to expectations.

Shopping for mobile

The mobile marketing and retail sector (comprising mobile advertising, coupons and smart posters) will exceed $8 billion by 2012 globally.

According to market watcher, Juniper Research, location-aware technologies will play a key part, with companies like Google and IBM seeking to exploit knowledge of a user’s location to enable retailers to offer in-store shoppers a rich set of capabilities such as personalised special offers. However, the company also warns that failure to use targeted, location-based advertising, particularly SMS advertising, may cause mobile users to regard such advertising as little better than spam.

Money for nothing

Zong, which lets Facebook users buy virtual goods via their mobile phones, is to receive $15 million in venture funding from Matrix Partners.

Business Week says that Matrix’ general partner Dana Stalder, a former executive at PayPal and eBay, will join Zong's board of directors, whilst Zong will use the cash to market its brand and seek new online markets, such as video and music. Funding terms, including what value investors are placing on the company, were not disclosed.

Eat my shorts

Yahoo! ceo, Carol Bartz, received a $47.2 million compensation package in 2009, her first year on the job.

The Associated Press reports that Bartz’s pay consisted mostly of stock incentives, the ultimate value of which will hinge on how much Yahoo’s market value rises under Bartz’s leadership.

Er, just one more thing…

Grammar police target Twitter – A small but vocal subculture has emerged on Twitter, comprising grammar and taste vigilantes who spend their time policing other people’s tweets.

According to The New York Times, the vigilantes build their own algorithms to sniff out Twitter messages that are distasteful to them – e.g. tweets with typos or flawed grammar, or written in ALLCAPS [yes, I hate that too] – and then send scolding notes to the offenders.

Provoking an irate reaction seems to be largely the point.