Red Hat's chairman honored
Matthew Szulik, chairman of Red Hat, Inc. was named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2008 overall national winner. He was also named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2008 national winner in the Technology category. Now in its 22nd year, the awards recognize leaders and visionaries who demonstrate innovation, financial success and personal commitment as they create and build world-class businesses.
Szulik was recognized for turning Red Hat from what some called a questionable idea into a billion-dollar business. In 1998, he joined Red Hat as president and CEO, challenged with making Linux technology a moneymaker when no one believed a company could find profits in free software. Szulik's strategy was to compete in the enterprise computing market by offering businesses an alternative to other operating systems.
Red Hat's business customers pay annual subscriptions for support and training. Its open-source model gives them the freedom to design software to meet their needs without locking them into using a particular proprietary software for upgrades. In just 10 years, Szulik has built Red Hat into the only profitable public open-source software company. Its unconventional and collaborative business model has made it the leading open-source Linux provider, with more than 80 percent of the business market.
Millennials are problematic
Millennials are causing havoc in the workplace. The Millennials, also called "Generation Y," or the "Net Generation," grew up in the 1990s and 2000s. The PC and mobile technologies have always been a part of their lives and they have their own ideas about how ICT should be used.
Millennial generation employees expect to use their own technology and mobile devices for work and are increasingly choosing their place of employment based on how accommodating companies are to their personal technology preferences, according to a survey done in the US by Accenture. In addition, more than half of Millennials are either unaware of their companies' information technology policies or are not inclined to follow them.
The Accenture survey found an increasing demand for high-tech devices to connect with colleagues, peers, friends and family, rather than face-to-face contact. The findings point to a disconnect between the technology that organizations provide their workers and how young workers actually want to use technology and collaborate in the workplace. The survey's key findings highlight specific workplace implications for today's employers that affect corporate IT.
• Millennials want to choose their technology: In nearly every category of workplace technology, more than twenty percent of the respondents stated that employer-provided technologies did not meet expectations. Many expect not only to use the computer of their choice, but also to access the technology applications of their choice once in the workforce.
• No need to seek corporate approval: When asked which technologies they currently use or access for work-related activities that are not supported by their employers, Millennials cited mobile phones, open source technology, instant messaging, online applications and social networking sites. Similarly, they regularly download non-standard technology from free public websites such as open source communities, "mashup" and "widget" providers.
• Lack of workplace education on corporate policy: Only forty percent of all respondents said that their employers have published detailed policies related to posting work or client information on public websites. Six percent said that whatever policy their company has published is too complex to understand, and disturbingly, six percent said they will post work or client information on public sites regardless of any policy, at least when communicating with colleagues.
No decline yet for Internet ads
According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) Internet advertising revenues reached almost $5.9 billion for the third quarter of 2008, representing an 11 percent increase over the same period in 2007. While double-digit annual growth continues, the quarter-to-quarter curve remains relatively flat compared to recent past performance. The Q3 2008 figures, published in the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report, are two percent higher than the Q2 2008 results. Set against strong economic headwinds in the US economy, Q3 ང's $5.9 billion represents nonetheless the second-highest quarter results ever. For the first nine months of 2008, revenues totaled $17.3 billion, up from $15.2 billion in the same period a year ago and surpassing the record set in the first nine months of 2007 by nearly 14 percent.
"The growth of interactive advertising that we've been experiencing over the past few years has stabilized due in large part to the difficult current economic climate," said Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the IAB. "Interactive advertising continues to be the most measurable and cost-effective way to reach consumers, and we see more and more marketers seeking to harness its power."
David Silverman, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, added that, "a weakening economy will continue to be a challenge to all forms of advertising-supported media. However, the Internet should be better poised to withstand the storm given its ability to combine performance-based advertising along with broad-based branding."
Laptops on the loose
Laptop theft is on the increase. While the issue seldom gets attention except during a high-profile robbery - such as the theft of a laptop from the McCain campaign in early October - the numbers are sobering. A study from Dell and the Ponemon Institute, "Airport Insecurity: The Case of Missing & Lost Laptops," (www.dell.com/downloads/global/services/dell_lost_laptop_study.pdf) reported that more than 12,000 laptops were lost or stolen at US airports every week. Airport security checkpoints account for forty percent of lost or missing laptops, and departure gates account for twenty-three percent - while only thirty-three percent of laptops at airport Lost and Found departments are reclaimed. That represents a potential nightmare for information security professionals and a clear bonanza for those on the wrong side of the law.
HP delivers a solid quarter
HP's preliminary results for the fourth fiscal quarter 2008 showed revenue of $33.6 billion, a year-over-year increase of 19 percent or 16 percent when adjusted for the effects of currency and slightly better than expectations. Excluding the impact of the EDS acquisition, HP revenue grew five percent year over year or two percent when adjusted for the effects of currency.
In providing its outlook for the first fiscal quarter and the full fiscal year 2009, the company has taken into consideration the current economic environment and the relative strength of the US dollar. Based on current currency exchange rates, HP now expects an unfavorable year-over-year currency impact on revenue of approximately five percentage points in the first quarter and roughly six to seven percentage points for the full year and this impact is reflected in its outlook.
For the first fiscal quarter of 2009, HP expects revenue of approximately $32.0 billion to $32.5 billion and for the full fiscal year 2009, HP expects revenue of approximately $127.5 billion to $130.0 billion. HP will continue its cost-cutting measures to bolster profits. It is shedding 24,600 jobs over the next three years, nearly eight percent of HP's 320,000-employee work force. Most of those cuts are coming from EDS. Two-thirds of HP's sales take place outside the US, but the ripple effects of the slowdown in the US economy are causing problems in other countries and HP is cutting costs and restructuring globally.
