Plus: NSF awards grant to UC Berkeley for cybersecurity center; Cisco warned of a potential Internet attack using a common management protocol; Cisco also bought Topspin; AOL launches enterprise AIM federation program; and, wi-fi now available at the North Pole.
• IBM late last week knocked Wall Street for a loop by announcing first-quarter earnings significantly short of analysts’ expectations, in a report that came two business days ahead of schedule. IBM said its first-quarter earnings were 85 cents per share, below the 90 cents per share analysts forecast. Net income was $1.4 billion, on revenue of $22.9 billion, both up 3% from last year’s first quarter. Analysts were expecting revenue of $23.6 billion. “After a strong start, we had difficulty closing transactions in the final weeks of the quarter, especially in countries with soft economic conditions, as well as with short-term Global Services signings,” IBM CEO Sam Palmisano said in a written statement. IBM’s Global Services revenue for the quarter, which ended March 31, came in at $11.7 billion, up 6% from last year. Hardware was essentially flat, at $6.7 billion, while software grew 2%, to $3.5 billion.
• The National Science Foundation, the federal agency that funds science and technology research, last week announced a multimillion-dollar grant to the University of California, Berkeley, to establish a “cybersecurity Science and Technology Center.” The center is intended to lead development of technologies to counter cyberattacks and better protect organizations against intrusions and fraud. The facility, expected to receive about $15 million over five years, also will research ways to ensure data trustworthiness through encryption.
• Cisco last week warned that a common management protocol used on the Internet could be used to launch denial-of-service attacks against Cisco routers and other IP-based gear. The security advisory warns of potential attacks based on Internet Control Message Protocol, which could make an IOS-based device inaccessible. The Cisco advisory is based on a bulletin posted by the U.K.-based National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre, which references a document published on the IETF’s Web site describing how ICMP can be used to launch DoS attacks against TCP traffic in general. ICMP is a protocol used with TCP/IP to alert devices of network outages and report diagnostic information to peer devices on an IP network. Cisco has released software fixes for the vulnerability.
• Cisco last week said it has agreed to buy server network equipment provider Topspin Communications for $250 million in cash and options. Topspin, in Mountain View, Calif., sells programmable server switches used in systems from vendors including Dell, HP, IBM and Sun. Buying Topspin adds to Cisco’s portfolio a line of InfiniBand switches, which Cisco previously lacked. Five-year-old Topspin has a staff of 135 in Mountain View and Bangalore, India. Cisco, in San Jose, plans to add Topspin to its Data Center, Switching and Wireless Technology Group, headed by Luca Cafiero. With more customers building server architectures incorporating blades, grid computing and clustered applications, Cisco needs to deliver technology such as Topspin’s server fabric switches and virtualization software, Cafiero said in a written statement.
• AOL is launching a program to make its AIM and ICQ instant-messaging services interoperable with enterprise IM systems from other vendors. Through the Enterprise Federation Partner program, AOL says it wants to make it possible for users of various enterprise IM systems to add AIM and ICQ users to their IM contact lists and vice versa, and let them exchange messages. Along with the launch of the EFP program, AOL is announcing four partners whose enterprise IM systems will interoperate with AIM and ICQ: Antepo, Jabber, Omnipod and Parlano. Notably absent from the program so far is IBM, whose Lotus Sametime is a major enterprise IM system, which several years ago interoperated with AIM but not anymore. Until now, the most common way to link AIM with enterprise IM systems has been through third-party gateway software work-arounds, which can be complicated to implement and sometimes yield unreliable performance.
• Two employees at Intel Russia have erected what could be the world’s most northerly Wi-Fi hot spot – about 81 miles from the North Pole. The hot spot was built in the Arctic Region at the Barneo Ice Camp, a tent complex used by scientists, researchers and rescue crews during the month of April, when ice conditions are safe. Despite the challenges, the employees installed an 802.11b/g access point at the camp’s headquarters, and then established a wireless LAN using four laptops with Intel’s Centrino mobile technology, the company says. Another computer was placed outdoors and connected to a satellite phone to provide the network with Internet. The hot spot could be accessed by anyone at the camp who had a mobile or pocket PC.
