Matthew Dorn

Microsoft Corp. may have ditched the three application limit on the Windows 7 Starter Edition, but other restrictions on the netbook-only version of the operating system will be an unwelcome surprise for many netbook buyers, according to a survey published Monday. Other higher-end features Windows 7 Starter lacks include the advanced Aero interface, multi-touch, Windows Media Center, and XP Mode virtualization. Sixty-one percent of consumers do not know that Windows 7 Starter lacks some features standard in any version of Windows XP, such as support for multiple monitors, DVD playback - even the ability to change the desktop image from the Microsoft logo, according to a survey by electronics shopping site,Retrevo.com. Informed of these missing features, 56% of the 1,100 randomly surveyed respondents (95% likely to fall within plus or minus 6.5% of the overall population results, says Retrevo) said that they would not be satisfied with Windows 7 Starter.

Microsoft may be counting on upselling users to to an $80 upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium. The problem, according to Retrevo, is that 23 out of 28 netbooks available today on Amazon.com are installed with Windows 7 Starter. That is done via the Anytime Upgrade program on Microsoft's e-commerce Web site. It could also boost demand for Linux netbooks, which are expected to grab nearly one-third of the booming worldwide market this year for netbooks. But it could also create ill will toward Microsoft, said Andrew Eisner, director of content for Retrevo. "I think most users will feel angry with having to pay the $80 for an upgrade to get those features," he said. Microsoft declined to comment specifically on Retrevo's survey.

Rather, it pointed to a statement it made back in February when it announced the six versions of Windows 7. "Small notebook PCs can run any version of Windows 7. For OEMs that build lower-cost small notebook PCs, Windows 7 Starter will now be available in developed markets," it said. "For the most enhanced, full-functioning Windows experience on small notebook PCs, however, consumers will want to go with Windows 7 Home Premium, which lets you get the most out of your digital media and easily connect with other PCs."

Dell's bid for outsourcer Perot Systems marks a significant move for the hardware vendor, but industry watchers say the pending acquisition won't do much to alter the current IT services market. The deal marks a very deliberate strategy from Dell to add IT services expertise to its mostly products business, industry watchers say. "Dell has been a bit more gradual embarking on its services strategy, but it has been very deliberate in determining who is the right player at the right time," says Dane Anderson, research vice president at Gartner. "Perot offers something that can be complementary to the Dell business and at the same time, it is very digestible and integrate-able." Slideshow: Recapping the hottest tech M&A deals of 2009 Perot, which is already a Dell partner and delivered a healthcare solution based on a Dell platform earlier this year, does business just shy of $3 billion, according to Anderson. Dell buying Perot Systems for $3.9 billion Dell Monday announced it would pay $3.9 billion to acquire existing partner and IT services provider Perot Systems. A deal would enable Dell to sell products into Perot accounts and vice versa.

For one, Dell needs to maintain its foothold in the small and midsize enterprise market and not yet attempt to become an "anywhere, anytime global services provider," Anderson says. "This deal increases Dell's footprint, but it doesn't give them a license to play anywhere. If the two companies can stay focused, analysts say, the opportunity for a successful integration is large. They have to be selective and disciplined about the markets the combined company addresses." That means Dell could excel in vertical markets such as healthcare and government, considering Perot's strong history in both areas. The acquisition will impact Dell and Perot and their customers, and it is interesting, but it's not game-changing for the industry." Others say the deal represents an aggressive move on Dell's part that impacts both the hardware and IT services market, and vendors such as HP and IBM specifically.  HP and IBM have long been able to couple their product offerings with professional services, and HP recently upped the ante by acquiring EDS. Dell being a pure-play hardware vendor with partnerships in software and services wasn't able to effectively compete with the market-leading services vendors. Industry watchers say with proper execution the acquisition could be the beginning of Dell expanding beyond being a product maker to becoming a provider of IT services, which would benefit both companies involved in the pending deal. "Perot Systems is a conglomerate of goods and services outside the scope of IT. This acquisition is a first step in Dell's long-held desire to provide more than just desktop solutions," says Steve Brasen, principal analyst with Enterprise Management Associates. "Leveraging Perot's broad market base, however, Dell will likely find direct marketing opportunities to expand its core IT business – particularly among government, financial and healthcare institutions." Dell is planning to keep the leadership team at Perot in place, which could bode well for the success of the acquisition, says Mark Mayo, partner and president of global resources management at TPI. But aside from the deal representing a trend toward consolidation in the IT services market, Mayo doesn't see the final acquisition as having a big impact on the competition or the market in general. "We expect to see more consolidation because it is a very competitive market and a surge of new players came into the market globally in the late 1990s and early 2000s," Mayo explains. "But this is not an industry-leading or industry-making event.

Now with Perot's services business, Dell is on track to better compete with the likes of Accenture, CSC, HP and IBM, analysts say. "Perot and Dell together are able to compete with HP and IBM, specifically, in ways that neither was able to before. Dell was on a losing path as a pure-play hardware vendor," says Andi Mann, vice president of research at Enterprise Management Associates. HP and IBM (and to a lesser extent Sun) have been able to offer a complete data center infrastructure - from facilities, through server and storage hardware, to software, and implementation and operational services – for some time. Acquiring an IT services arm will help Dell better compete and expand into new markets, but it won't be enough to enable it to fully compete head-on with the likes of HP and IBM, Mann adds. "If Dell really wants to compete on even footing with HP and IBM, it is going to need a software stack of its own. Do you Tweet?

It can continue to cede solution revenues to its partners for some time, and this buy will cause significant indigestion and inertia that will hold up any new acquisition, but eventually Dell must pick up a software stack," Mann says. Follow Denise Dubie on Twitter

Do you wish your iSight were more like the unblinking, ever-vigilant Eye of Sauron? RemoteSight can act as an integrated camera source for Ben Software's SecuritySpy, which aggregates video feeds from multiple cameras into a heads-up multi-video display. Then you might be interested in Ben Software's new RemoteSight, an application that turns an iSight camera into a CCTV-style security camera, accessible over a network via Web browser. RemoteSight captures both audio and video from the host Mac's iSight camera (or any attached video input device), and streams it out through an integrated Web server; video is accompanied by a live timestamp.

Any Web browser has the ability to connect to the Web server across an internal network, and Internet remote viewing should be possible if the nonstandard additional ports used by the Web server are opened on the router to allow this traffic. The Web server also provides an option to remotely view what is happening on the Mac's monitor as well. Administrative users can turn off monitoring feeds individually, and you can protect all connections to the Web server by username and password registration. RemoteSight costs $27, and a fully functional demo is available as well, so you can give it a try. RemoteSight runs as a faceless application, with no indication in the Dock that it is operating; however, a menu-bar item appears that cannot be easily removed, and (where available) the iSight LED light is turned on to indicate that the camera is in use. System requirements call for OS X 10.4.11 or later, 512GB of RAM (I'll assume that's a typo and you only need 512MB), and a video input device, such as a built-in iSight camera or external FireWire or USB camera.

Mozilla late Friday blocked the Microsoft-made software that had put Firefox users at risk from attack. The open-source company first used the blocker in 2007. Mozilla has used the tool only nine times, including Friday's blocking of the Microsoft add-on and plug-in. The two-part Microsoft component - an add-on dubbed ".NET Framework Assistant" and a plug-in named "Windows Presentation Foundation" - have been blocked by Mozilla as a precautionary measure, said Mike Shaver, the company's head of engineering. "Because of the difficulties some users have had entirely removing the add-on, and because of the severity of the risk it represents if not disabled, we contacted Microsoft today to indicate that we were looking to disable the extension and plug-in for all users via our blocklisting mechanism," Shaver said in an announcement posted Friday night to the company's security blog . Mozilla maintains an add-on/plug-in blocking list that automatically bars risky software from being used by Firefox.

In May 2008, for example, Mozilla added a Vietnamese language pack for Firefox to the blocking list when the pack was found to contain a worm. Last week, Microsoft's security team acknowledged that its software - which had been silently installed in Firefox as far back as February 2009 - contained a critical vulnerability that could be used by hackers to hijack Windows PCs. The same vulnerability also affected all versions of Internet Explorer (IE), including the newest version, IE8. Microsoft maintained that users who applied the patches it issued last week as part of a record-setting security update would protect Firefox users from attack. According to Shaver, Microsoft gave Mozilla the go-ahead to block the .Net Framework Assistant and the Windows Presentation Foundation. However, the MS09-054 bulletin, which provided details on the vulnerability, said nothing about Firefox. Mozilla, however, clearly felt that that was not enough, and took the unusual step of blocking the Microsoft add-on and plug-in. Later last Tuesday, Microsoft expanded on MS09-054 in a blog post by security engineers , and confirmed that Firefox was affected because of the add-on and plug-in.

Multiple Computerworld staffers have confirmed that Firefox is now blocking the Microsoft software. "These add-ons have a high risk of causing stability or security problems and have been blocked, but a restart is required to disable them completely," the Firefox warning message reads. Firefox users complained last February, and then again in May, when they found out that Microsoft had pushed the components to their browser as part of the .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1) update, which was delivered via Windows Update. The history of the .Net Framework Assistant and Windows Presentation Foundation software is tangled and contentious. Users were furious that the software was installed without their approval. Mozilla has been aggressively pursuing risky add-ons and plug-ins of late. To add salt to the wound, the components were impossible to uninstall without editing the Windows registry, a chore most users avoid because any misstep could cripple the PC. Later, Microsoft issued a follow-on update that made it possible to uninstall or disable the components without a registry edit.

Last month, it warned Firefox users running outdated versions of Adobe's Flash Player to upgrade, then last week added a more thorough plug-in checking service to its arsenal. A beta of Firefox 3.6 is set to launch Wednesday. The next edition of the browser, Firefox 3.6, will warn users when they visit a Web site that relies on one or more outdated plug-ins.

In the software business, quality is often left behind in the rush to be latest and greatest. ICSA Labs, a unit of Verizon Business, provides third-party testing and certification of security products. Security products are no exception, according to a study released Monday by ICSA Labs.

The company examined 20 years of its testing data to create the "ICSA Labs Product Assurance Report". The report indicates that nearly 80 percent of security products fail to perform as intended when first tested, and generally require two or more cycles of testing before achieving certification. Also see Broken Windows Revisited: Why Insecure Software and Security Products Hurt the Global Economy ICSA found the most common reason why a product fails during initial testing is that it doesn't adequately perform as intended. ICSA studied data from their seven certification programs; anti-virus, network firewall, Web application firewall, network IPS, IPSec VPN, SSL VPNs and custom testing, which are customized testing programs designed for specific clients. Across the seven product categories, core product functionality accounted for 78 percent of initial test failures. The failure of a product to completely and accurately log data was the second most common shortfall.

Examples include an anti-virus product failing to prevent infection and firewalls not filtering malicious traffic, ICSA noted in a release on the findings. Incomplete or inaccurate logging of who did what and when accounted for 58 percent of initial failures. According to the report, logging is a particular challenge for firewalls. The report findings suggest that logging is often considered a nuisance and is undervalued. Almost every network firewall (97 percent) or Web application firewall (80 percent) tested has experienced at least one logging problem. Security testing issues range from vulnerabilities that compromise the confidentiality or integrity of the system to random behavior that affects product availability.

Rounding out the top three, said ICSA, is the finding that 44 percent of security products had inherent security problems. Other issues identified in the study include poor product documentation and patching. ICSA officials said only 4 percent of the products tested in their labs pass their rigorous certification process in the first round.