Links List 4.24.09

April 24th, 2009 by Julia Lim

iPhone apps aren’t just for games anymore… While playing Pong is fun, developers are seeing an opportunity for more sophisticated applications as the iPhone becomes increasingly prevalent in the enterprise. A number of application vendors and developers have started designing apps that IT administrators can use to access and “manage” their systems remotely.  As should be the goal of all IT admin tools – we hope these help the IT guys have more quality time out of the data center even if they still need to be connected 24/7/365.

Could trust (or lack of) be the main reason behind slow enterprise cloud adoption? A recent Deloitte/Ponemon Institute survey found that most businesses don’t fully understand cloud security.  82.6% of those surveyed say they haven’t implemented formal programs to assess how well providers comply with the privacy and data management provisions in service contracts.  The lack of any kind of assurance mechanism is a major roadblock for companies required to meet security and compliance mandates. 

Taking talent from the local (DC/VA/MD) gene pool again, President Obama appointed Aneesh P. Chopra as the country’s first chief technology officer. Chopra will join a small group of advisers who will work to enhance and modernize the delivery of government services. Earlier this year Chopra gave a keynote at State of the Net, which gives some insight on how he thinks. The president also named Jeffrey Zients from the private sector to be his chief performance officer, a very interesting new role that is yet to be fully defined. That position was initially offered to Nancy Killefer, who withdrew her name after she was questioned about paying her taxes.  Let’s hope Chopra has fewer skeletons in his closet than Obama’s CIO pick.

Earlier this week Oracle officially announced their acquisition of Sun during the MySQL User’s Conference.  The technology community’s response has been just shy of torches and pitchforks:

• ScienceLogic founders shared doubts about how this will adversely affect the MySQL community.
• The CIO at Case Western Reserve University says that the takeover is ‘a monster step backward for those of us that are committed to open source’.
• Steven Vaughan-Nichols, Computerworld’s Cyber Cynic, gives us the five biggest changes to expect, stating that this ‘may be the most moronic technology acquisition of the 21st century’.
• Michael Vizard sees the deal to be a lot more about gaining and maintaining control over key software standards than it is about selling servers.
• Steve Duplessie of Enterprise Strategy Group weighs the options of what Oracle can do with Sun but has trouble seeing Oracle’s interest in being a hardware company. He comes to the conclusion that the acquisition was ultimately about what Oracle really wants – ‘to completely screw with Bill Gates and Microsoft’.
• And lovely InfoWorld just put up a slide show on The Rise and Fall of Sun Microsystems. It can never be a good thing when you see your name prefaced by “The Rise and Fall of”. Check out the entertaining slides that cover almost 30 years at Sun.

What does Oracle’s purchase of Sun mean for MySQL users? Most are wary of the future with this entertaining comment at the show: “My friends assured me as I got off the plane that MySQL was dead.” Yikes.  

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