Online Photo Business Develops Into Big War

The picture is changing fast for Internet photo-sharing sites.

Friday June 29, 7:00 pm ET

Pete Barlas, Yahoo Finance

Sites that were virtually unknown a year ago are growing quickly as more consumers go online to share and develop photos. That's prompting bigger players such as News Corp. and Google to acquire promising startups.

Traffic to Wal-Mart Stores' Photo Center, which had little online presence a year ago, is up over 700% -- far and away the most growth of any online photo site. Meanwhile, rivals Slide.com and Google's Picasa Web Albums follow with year-over-year jumps of more than 500%, says market tracker comScore Media Metrix.

Online photo-sharing sites are benefiting from a confluence of factors, especially changing consumer habits, says Jonathan Weitz, principal of IBB Consulting.

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Yahoo in mobile Internet service deal with 6 Asian carriers

The Jakarta Post

SINGAPORE (AP): Yahoo Inc. said Wednesday six mobile carriers in Asia will use Yahoo's Web-based search service as the default engine on their mobile portals.

The operators are Globe Telecom Inc. in the Philippines, Idea Cellular Ltd. in India, LG Telecom in Korea, Maxis Communications Bhd. in Malaysia, PT Telekomunikasi Selular in Indonesia and Taiwan Mobile in Taiwan.

The operators have about 100 million subscribers combined, Yahoo said during a press briefing at a telecommunications conference in Singapore.

The Sunnyvale, Calif., Internet giant said the service will provide tailored and instant answers to any searches performed by cell phone users.

"These strategic partnerships demonstrate our commitment to invest in this (mobile) space and be the leader ... in Asia," said David Ko, vice president and general manager for a Yahoo division.

Ko declined to provide the financial terms of the deals reached with the six carriers. He said the company is in talks with operators in other regions for possible partnerships.

Yahoo has been losing ground to Google Inc. on the World Wide Web, an issue that some analysts say led to the resignation of Terry Semel as chief executive earlier this week. Co-founder Jerry Yang replaced Semel as chief executive.

Free web marketing prompts Unilever rethink

By Carlos Grande in Cannes

Yahoo Finance

The increasing benefit to Unilever brands of free marketing on the web is leading the Anglo-Dutch households goods group to change how it measures and evaluates one of the UK's biggest advertising budgets.

The owner of brands such as Dove, Lynx and Persil, is introducing new ways to track how its campaigns spread on the web – often with little or no paid for media advertising – as people post clips on homepages and blogs.

It has also mandated teams which control the group's expenditure on the web and other digital media to treat digital budgets as part of overall marketing, rather than simply as paid-for media investment.

Again, this reflects that money in digital campaigns often goes into production rather than distribution – the reverse of traditional media where buying television airtime, for instance, typically costs more than making a commercial.

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How I did it: fixing a broken team – a CIO's tale

Positive feedback can go a long way

Gary Flood, Computing Business 21 Jun 2007

Many years ago, I inherited a team of developers and network specialists. With confused reporting lines, conflicting priorities, muddled production and development targets, the team had ended up being seen as a hopeless pit of binary wasters.

The staff were fundamentally decent and caring – apart from one obviously alcoholic manager who tried to hit me one day. They cared about what they did, but felt that the rest of the company had it in for them.

They worked in an environment that was cramped, messy and depressing. It was clear from the broken desks, chairs, cables and run-down ceilings that IT had to suffer for its penance.

I talked to all the team and especially the more visionary team leaders. They were full of ideas on how to improve their productivity and how they wanted to improve the software and infrastructure.

The problem was nobody had asked them before.

Many were classic geeky oddballs – two were brilliant and disruptive and fought almost physically with one another – the simple answer would have been to sack them.

However, they were working on an important project – together. I placed them in separate areas of the building and they got on like best friends, using instant messenger and meeting only when I could referee.

Result: one great postscript and pagination project that is still in use today, 12 years later.

The IT team had to know that I believed in them and was a leader who would perish with them – our success was welded together – and it worked. We even received a call from Microsoft and duly trotted to Redmond for bagels and a chat – we thought they would invest, they thought we had re-written Microsoft SQL 2.5.

Traditionally, when times are bad, as managers and in life we revert to parent-child-type dialogues, such as: ‘Your behaviour is unacceptable, your homework is poor and you will fail your exams.’ This does not even work with my kids, never mind with adults.

So, do not beat up your employees. Your team are adults. Listen to their issues, let them understand your goals and keep reminding them they are professionals. Then they will live up to that name and not the derogatory ones they are used to.

Paul Broome is referring to a previous engagement at an unnamed company. He is now chief technology officer at 192.com.

IBM extends IT package to small businesses

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Responding to the need for affordable communications technology, PT IBM Indonesia is reaching out to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through a new version of its Express IT package.

Launched Thursday by the local unit of IBM Corporation, the fifth edition of Express offers a wide range of both software, hardware and related services at affordable prices to SMEs.

With component prices ranging from US$1,000 to $15,000, the new scheme will also offer investment-optimization and data-backup features, according to IBM Indonesia country manager Achirul Djamal.

Achirul added that Express was intended to answer the needs of SMEs for accessible technology at relatively affordable prices so as to enable them to compete with their larger competitors.

"The domestic IT market for SMEs currently stands at around US$1.6 billion, up 18 percent from last year. We hope Express will be able to capture around 20 percent of this market," said Achirul.

Currently, IBM Indonesia services around 2,500 SME clients in various industries, Achirul said.

First launched in 2002, Express, which is distributed by around 45 suppliers, accounts for more than 20 percent of IBM Indonesia's revenues.

Express was developed as part of a 10-year-old IBM Corporation worldwide business plan to tap the SME market.

Microsoft provides IT access to farmers

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

PT Microsoft Indonesia, the local unit of U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp., will provide online services and IT training to 64,800 farmers in 15 provinces over the next two years.

As part of the plan, Microsoft donated US$937,700 to the ASEAN Foundation and Formasi Indonesia, a local NGO, on Tuesday to fund the establishment of 100 community-learning centers (CTC) by the end of September.

"According to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), farmers account for 45 million people. If we can provide them with access to IT, the positive effects on the whole community will be significant," said Microsoft president director Tony Chen.

The CTCs are expected to not only facilitate the provision of training to the 64,800 targeted farmers, but also to provide Internet access to 220,000 people, and introduce IT to three million rural dwellers.

Fifty-eight of the new CTCs will be built in six provinces in Java, including Jakarta, Banten and West Java, while 42 others will be established in nine provinces outside Java, including North Sumatra, Lampung and Bali.

Chen said the effects would include an increase in farmers' incomes and a decrease in unemployment and migration to the big cities.

"By being given access to IT and being taught how to use it, farmers will be able to develop their businesses, better market their products, expand their markets and obtain all sorts of agricultural information."

The 100 new CTCs come on top of the 30 CTCs that Microsoft has already established in 12 provinces since 2003. By the end of last year, it had donated $1.6 million in cash and software worth $3 million under its "IT-for-Farmers" scheme.

"Young farmers showed great enthusiasm about technology during the previous program," Chen said.

Besides teaming up with the ASEAN Foundation and Formasi, a networking organization concerned with the interests of farmers and small enterprises, Microsoft has also been working with the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB), which helped design the IT-for-Farmers program.

The IT penetration rate in Indonesia, according to Chen, is very low. There are currently only six million PCs for Indonesia's 240 million people, meaning that the penetration rate is only 2.4 percent. Internet penetration is somewhat better at close to 10 percent.

DOJ Pushes Microsoft to Produce Vista SP1 in '07

It's unusual, but confirmation of the availability of Windows Vista's first service pack came not from Microsoft Corp., but from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Gregg Keizer, Computerworld

PC World, Wednesday, June 20, 2007 11:00 AM PDT

It's unusual, but confirmation of the availability of Windows Vista's first service pack came Tuesday not from Microsoft Corp., but from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Tucked into the government's 27-page joint status settlement report released late Tuesday was evidence that Microsoft will put the beta of Vista SP1 into users' hands before the end of the year. The report also confirmed Windows XP SP3, but did not specify beta or final release dates, although it said some code would be finalized this summer.

Microsoft has been loath to talk about either service pack, but has been particularly mum about Windows Vista SP1, a widely-anticipated bug update that some enterprise users are waiting on before deploying the new operating system.

As recently as April, when Intel Corp.'s CEO Paul Otellini hinted that Vista SP1 would likely release in October or November, Microsoft refused to confirm any schedule. "We will continue to take customer feedback from programs like the TAP [Technology Adoption Program], and will ultimately determine an official delivery date as the service pack is nearer to completion," a company spokeswoman said at the time.

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IBM Survey: CIO Role Is Changing; CEOs Need to Further Align IT and Business to Drive Innovation and Growth

(WebWire) 6/19/2007 8:20:39 PM

According to a global study just unveiled by IBM (NYSE: IBM), the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) is evolving beyond just technology and computing support to strategy creation and business transformation. According to the IBM CIO Leadership Forum Survey, 84 percent of CIOs believe that technology is significantly or profoundly transforming their industries, yet only 16 percent feel their companies are taking full advantage of IT’s potential. IBM found that the state of business and technology points to the need for change in how technology is integrated into the core business.

Research also indicates the relationships required between the CIO and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), to ensure that the IT organization continues to drive business innovation and growth. According to IBM’s 2006 Global CEO Study extensive integrators were growing revenue 5 percent faster than their competitors. CEOs who extensively integrated business and technology reported greater customer satisfaction, speed and flexibility than their less integrated peers.

The IBM CIO Leadership Forum Study(1) was conducted with more than 170 CIOs from leading companies around the world and highlights the increasingly strategic role that technology and the CIO play in generating innovation and growth for their companies.

Additionally, according to comprehensive research conducted among Chief Executive Officers -- the IBM Global CEO Study(2) of 750 CEOs -- most companies face a gap in their integration of business and technology, impeding customer satisfaction, speed and flexibility. Nearly 80 percent of the CEOs interviewed rated business and technology integration of great importance, however only 45 percent felt that the two were integrated to a large extent in their enterprise. Interestingly, "extensive integrators" reported revenue increases three times as often as companies that were less integrated; with that group growing revenue 5 percent faster than their competitors.

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Google aims to go carbon-neutral by year-end

The Web search giant plans to cut or offset all of its greenhouse emissions by the end of 2007 by investing in efficiency, renewable energy and carbon offsets.

CNNMoney.com

June 19 2007: 7:00 PM EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Google aims to voluntarily cut or offset all of its greenhouse emissions by the end of the year, the Web search leader said Tuesday.

Google is one of a number of companies - including News Corp. and Yahoo! - that are attempting to cut emissions of gases scientists link to global warming.

To make the cuts, Google is investing in energy efficiency, renewable energy like solar and will purchase carbon offsets for emissions it cannot reduce directly, the company said.

Google, Intel in 'green' initiative

"On their own, carbon offsets are not capable of creating the kinds of fundamental changes to our energy infrastructure that will be necessary to stabilize global greenhouse gas emissions to safe levels," Google said on its Web site.

"But we believe that offsets can offer real, measurable and additional emissions reductions that allow us to take full responsibility for our footprint today."

European companies can invest in carbon offsets through a Kyoto Protocol U.N. program that allows rich countries to invest in clean projects in developing nations. The United States did not ratify the Kyoto pact, but some U.S. companies have begun to offset emissions on a voluntary, unregulated basis.

Google said it would invest in projects like capturing and burning methane, a greenhouse gas with about 20 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide, from animal waste at Mexican and Brazilian farms.

"Our funding makes it possible for anaerobic digesters to be installed, which capture and flare the bio gas produced while simultaneously improving local air quality and reducing land and water contamination," Google said.

Shopping to stop global warming?

Separately, Google is planning to spend $600 million to build a data center in western Iowa that will receive power from a MidAmerican Energy plant fired by coal, the fuel that emits the most carbon dioxide. A Google spokesman told Reuters all emissions from its Iowa project were accounted for in its carbon neutral plan.

Nonprofit emissions advisers, The Climate Group, said they will partner with Google to support its offset plans.

Google last week launched a program with semiconductor-maker Intel to introduce more energy-efficient personal computers and server systems.

News Corp. pledged in May to become carbon-neutral by 2010.

UGM starts CIO postgraduate program

The Jakarta Post

Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta started its Chief Information Officer postgraduate program this year with an inaugural lecture on June 4.

The program offers classes and training to improve the competency of people working in the communications and information field.

This program is designed by UGM's information technology postgraduate program (MTI). Each student will follow classes for 16 months focusing on strategy and management of information technology.

The school perceives communication and information technology as the application of technology with a sociocultural approach. Consequently, students will also take nontechnical subjects such as law, economics and management.