Yeah, I don't think this is any more of a risk of "lockdown" than Apple having an App Store at all. Apple is distributing applications and, in effect, endorsing the applications it distributed. It sounds like mostly they're just asking developers to give them an idea of what security issues the application might have.
Yeah, I agree that Siri is impressive, but I basically never use it. It's usually just as easy and less intrusive to use the GUI instead of talking to your phone. However, I can think of two good potential uses for Siri.
The first is hands-free operation (in a car). I don't drive, but I imagine that it's pretty useful to be able to press a button and say, "Text my wife and tell her I'm stuck in traffic, I won't be home for a half hour."
The other nice possibility would be something like a smart-home virtual butler. It'd be great to be able to sit back on your couch and in your best Jean-Luc Picard voice, say, "Computer, please dim the lights by 25%, start playing Star Trek on the TV. Oh, and tea, Earl Grey, hot."
At least on a basic level, I get the Linux filesystem, but I do think it's a little silly. Things are pretty fragmented, sometimes arbitrarily, and the names don't make any particular sense. Like storing settings in a folder called "etc"?
I know the conventions have been around for a long time, but I think at a certain level it makes sense to start fresh and come up with a new standard that actually makes sense, and not just stick with old conventions because they're hard to change. Surely they can come up with a directory structure that satisfies technical needs while still making sense to novices and end-users. Unfortunately, it's going to be nearly impossible to get consistent adoption by various unix/linux vendors of any new conventions you come up with.
Yeah, I'm really not sure how this made it all the way to being distributed. When you run the app for the first time, it immediately gives you an error message. How was this not caught?
That's pretty much what I was going to point out. This happens all the time: someone makes some money doing something, a mass of people get the idea that they've discovered a sure-fire way to make a fortune, lots of people try to get into the market, and in the end only a few really succeed. That's the formula for events like the tech bubble, and the housing bubble. What's funny is that the article headline says "It's More Casino Than Gold Mine". Well IIRC the gold rush was about the same deal: lots of hype, a few people got rich, and the rest broke even or lost money.
It's possible to make a lot of money selling iPhone apps, but that doesn't mean that creating a crappy puzzle game guarantees you millions of dollars. Creating a prosperous and sustainable income requires a good idea, hard work, smart marketing, and luck. Always, not just in the App Store.
In fairness, Zunes aren't really bad. They're pretty good, but they're just not as good as iPods. The interface design is pretty attractive and clever, and in fact has basically lead to the UI being used for the Windows phone OS and Windows 8.
I don't think the DRM came from RIAA requirements. The truth is, Microsoft had an agenda. They developed WMA, WMV, and associated DRM specifically so that they could dominate media distribution. They would have made a fortune in licensing fees as well as creating a strong vendor lock-in.
The iPod was the only thing that really prevented Microsoft from controlling all of your audio/video entertainment.
Nobody will mistake it for an iPhone; but it's dirt cheap by comparison.
Dirt cheap in comparison to "free" (with a 2 year contract)? But sorry, I know that really wasn't your point.
Naively, I just can't shake the sense that having a legacy money tree to shake would be a good thing; but empirically it seems to be a dead-hand-of-the-past sort of affair, weighing on your future decision making...
Yeah, the real problem is that "having a legacy money tree" ends up being a bit of a curse. In order to move on to something better, you often have to murder your money tree, which is hard to do. It's not just difficult from the standpoint of bringing yourself to take a huge risk, but knowing how to time it, and how to market it. Cut off your money tree too early, or execute it badly, and you only alienate your existing customers.
But then there's another problem: when you kill your money tree, do you actually have something else to move on *to*? So what's Blackberry's move here? Right now, due to IT investment in BES, they have a certain amount of institutional inertia that's keeping them afloat, but we're talking about killing that. If they're overhauling it and starting over, what fantastic features will they be offering to compete with Android/iPhone head-to-head?
I've worked in a bunch of IT departments, including big enterprise departments, and dealt with a number of BES servers. I don't think I've ever seen BES used to do anything that ActiveSync doesn't currently do.
Maybe you could cite a security policy that BES allows that ActiveSync doesn't? But please provide one that IT departments actually use and care about. The vague "BES provides better control of security" doesn't really explain anything for me.
Ok, so maybe you can tell me what common "fine grained control" is actually used by IT departments that BES provides and ActiveSync doesn't. (hint: if you have to look this up, it probably doesn't count.)
As an IT guy, I'd hate this feature. Users would set this on all kinds of files because they thought they were doing something clever, and then it would be my problem to figure out how to recover them.
We live in a country where we aren't willing to repair broken infrastructure (eg crumbling bridges) during a steep recession because half the population thinks that amounts to "socialism", and you're getting angry at the president for refusing to take a controversial stance on marijuana?
I'm not saying that the ban on marijuana isn't a serious issue, but I'm suggesting it's just a bridge too far. If the administration publicly admitted that there might be something to the idea of legalization, the next several months consist in waging a PR war to prevent people from thinking he's a pot-head.
...one of the first questions is how one is supposed to remotely administer, control, and if needed, wipe the phones. I'd love nothing more than to use an iPhone, but what am I going to do, install iTunes on every corporate PC? Have each user individually sign up for a 'find my iphone' account? No. With with an OSX Server (running on Apple's official server hardware - a Mac Mini), iPhone control leaves a lot to be desired.
You don't need iTunes to set up an iPhone anymore. You can administer and control (to some extent), and wipe the phone using ActiveSync. If you're using BES, I assume you have an Exchange server? Well then, you're all set.
You keep posting this slideshow all over this discussion, but I'm not sure what you think the slideshow says. It's light on details, gives very little explanation, and does not compare RIM's security model with those employed by other providers. Could you explain what you're hoping to explain with this slideshow?
Sorry, but that just doesn't do it for me. Traffic back to the server is encrypted... well great. Encryption on mail servers is pretty standard these days. Lost/stolen phones are still a security risk if they're not locked and the remote-wipe situation is about the same as other phones. You can even set up a normal VPN connection on iOS or Android if you need to.
Yes, you can set a lot of detailed security policies, which most IT departments don't bother to mess with anyway, and ActiveSync provides security policies too.
So I'd still like to know: What specific security features do Blackberries offer, that customers actually make use of, that other phones do not? If anything, the fact that traffic is going through RIM's servers is a security liability.
Though I'm not really that pleased with the administration right now, I do respect their intent here. I think that they're essentially just experimenting with ways to use the Internet to improve communication and create dialogue. That doesn't mean that every petition will result in action by the President to do exactly what the petition asks, but the dialogue itself is something.
I especially think it's worth cutting them some slack because we're still in the early days of these things. The general public hasn't really been using the Internet for 2 whole decades yet, and this is the first administration to make genuine efforts to make use of the Internet for these sorts of things. Some of the first attempts will be clumsy.
And when you look at their page describing what this site is about, this is the only thing they're offering: "If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response."
I mean, really, did you expect that the President is going to make a huge policy shift against major corporate interests because of a petition with 14k signatures?
If you really want to be secure, keep an encrypted file with a list of all your passwords and account information. Put the password (or decryption key) in a safe deposit box, and leave instructions in your will on how to access the relevant information.
Personally, I've found that the biggest issue with all the "metadata" systems that try to improve on the basic file/folder system is that they don't transfer anywhere
The real problem there is that filesystems and transfer protocols don't have a standard for metadata. The metadata that can be stored in ZFS vs. NTFS vs. HFS+ aren't quite the same, and transferring a file via FTP isn't really going to maintain any of it. Of course, the real problem there isn't technological so much as economic/political. No one has the leverage to push a standard even if a good standard were available to be pushed.
Frankly, I think this is why RIM is doomed. Their centralized setup is a bad design given the current context of Internet/mobile technology. They can't keep it. But then, they also can't move away from it because it's kind of what's keeping them in business. The people who are sticking with them are sticking with them because of their setup, but then the group of people sticking with them will probably continue to shrink until they hit a certain threshold, and then employees, investors, and customers will flee like rats off of a sinking ship.
There's no android or iphone device close to the level of security that is offered in a blackberry; if data security (including personal communications) is paramount to your enterprise there's really no other choice.
Care to explain what security is offered by Blackberries that is not by any other technology? I'm only being a little snotty here, because if there's an answer I'd really like to know. However, I've heard from lots of people tout the security of Blackberries without being able to offer a real explanation of the security benefits, and even when they can talk about a benefit, it's some minor security feature that no one uses.
That, if anything, showed that their target market was for people who needed really good phone and email device with extra high security, if required. Their centralised model (outages aside) ensures the highest quality for both of these requirements
How so? What about having all of your email passing through the servers of a 3rd party make it "extra high security"? Email passing between Android phones and iPhones using ActiveSync or IMAP/SMTP+SSL are already encrypted during transfer.
Additionally, they are, slowly but surely, becoming secure enough to be seriously considered for the workplace.
I think you're a little behind in the news. They're beyond "being considered" and they're being used in workplaces. Even enterprise IT departments are supporting them in many cases, but I've dealt with a few small/medium businesses that have been exclusively iPhone for a year or more.
Outages happen; bad market strategy shouldn't.
Outages happen, but there's absolutely no reason to introduce an additional point of failure that can create worldwide outages. ActiveSync works perfectly well for what most businesses use smartphones for, and if the Exchange server and the phone are both working, and you have a connection between them, messages go through. Why put a 3rd party server in the middle, especially if you're going to accept that the server will have outages?
Opps, it's not Global Warming, it should be called Climate Change, since warming can be actually cooling
Well it *is* "global warming". The earth is getting, on average, warmer. The destabilization of climate caused by this may lead to colder weather on a particular day, or even generally colder temperatures in a particular place, but it's still global warming.
Did I say "starving"? I just re-read my post, and I don't think I did. On the other hand, if you think that there aren't malnourished children in this country, you're ignorant.
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Yeah, I don't think this is any more of a risk of "lockdown" than Apple having an App Store at all. Apple is distributing applications and, in effect, endorsing the applications it distributed. It sounds like mostly they're just asking developers to give them an idea of what security issues the application might have.
For most users, who will never figure out how to enable non-market apps
That's only if companies like Adobe and Microsoft start selling their apps in the App Store.
Yeah, I agree that Siri is impressive, but I basically never use it. It's usually just as easy and less intrusive to use the GUI instead of talking to your phone. However, I can think of two good potential uses for Siri.
The first is hands-free operation (in a car). I don't drive, but I imagine that it's pretty useful to be able to press a button and say, "Text my wife and tell her I'm stuck in traffic, I won't be home for a half hour."
The other nice possibility would be something like a smart-home virtual butler. It'd be great to be able to sit back on your couch and in your best Jean-Luc Picard voice, say, "Computer, please dim the lights by 25%, start playing Star Trek on the TV. Oh, and tea, Earl Grey, hot."
At least on a basic level, I get the Linux filesystem, but I do think it's a little silly. Things are pretty fragmented, sometimes arbitrarily, and the names don't make any particular sense. Like storing settings in a folder called "etc"?
I know the conventions have been around for a long time, but I think at a certain level it makes sense to start fresh and come up with a new standard that actually makes sense, and not just stick with old conventions because they're hard to change. Surely they can come up with a directory structure that satisfies technical needs while still making sense to novices and end-users. Unfortunately, it's going to be nearly impossible to get consistent adoption by various unix/linux vendors of any new conventions you come up with.
Yeah, I'm really not sure how this made it all the way to being distributed. When you run the app for the first time, it immediately gives you an error message. How was this not caught?
That's pretty much what I was going to point out. This happens all the time: someone makes some money doing something, a mass of people get the idea that they've discovered a sure-fire way to make a fortune, lots of people try to get into the market, and in the end only a few really succeed. That's the formula for events like the tech bubble, and the housing bubble. What's funny is that the article headline says "It's More Casino Than Gold Mine". Well IIRC the gold rush was about the same deal: lots of hype, a few people got rich, and the rest broke even or lost money.
It's possible to make a lot of money selling iPhone apps, but that doesn't mean that creating a crappy puzzle game guarantees you millions of dollars. Creating a prosperous and sustainable income requires a good idea, hard work, smart marketing, and luck. Always, not just in the App Store.
The Zune was about his only misstep
In fairness, Zunes aren't really bad. They're pretty good, but they're just not as good as iPods. The interface design is pretty attractive and clever, and in fact has basically lead to the UI being used for the Windows phone OS and Windows 8.
I don't think the DRM came from RIAA requirements. The truth is, Microsoft had an agenda. They developed WMA, WMV, and associated DRM specifically so that they could dominate media distribution. They would have made a fortune in licensing fees as well as creating a strong vendor lock-in.
The iPod was the only thing that really prevented Microsoft from controlling all of your audio/video entertainment.
Nobody will mistake it for an iPhone; but it's dirt cheap by comparison.
Dirt cheap in comparison to "free" (with a 2 year contract)? But sorry, I know that really wasn't your point.
Naively, I just can't shake the sense that having a legacy money tree to shake would be a good thing; but empirically it seems to be a dead-hand-of-the-past sort of affair, weighing on your future decision making...
Yeah, the real problem is that "having a legacy money tree" ends up being a bit of a curse. In order to move on to something better, you often have to murder your money tree, which is hard to do. It's not just difficult from the standpoint of bringing yourself to take a huge risk, but knowing how to time it, and how to market it. Cut off your money tree too early, or execute it badly, and you only alienate your existing customers.
But then there's another problem: when you kill your money tree, do you actually have something else to move on *to*? So what's Blackberry's move here? Right now, due to IT investment in BES, they have a certain amount of institutional inertia that's keeping them afloat, but we're talking about killing that. If they're overhauling it and starting over, what fantastic features will they be offering to compete with Android/iPhone head-to-head?
I've worked in a bunch of IT departments, including big enterprise departments, and dealt with a number of BES servers. I don't think I've ever seen BES used to do anything that ActiveSync doesn't currently do.
Maybe you could cite a security policy that BES allows that ActiveSync doesn't? But please provide one that IT departments actually use and care about. The vague "BES provides better control of security" doesn't really explain anything for me.
Ok, so maybe you can tell me what common "fine grained control" is actually used by IT departments that BES provides and ActiveSync doesn't. (hint: if you have to look this up, it probably doesn't count.)
As an IT guy, I'd hate this feature. Users would set this on all kinds of files because they thought they were doing something clever, and then it would be my problem to figure out how to recover them.
We live in a country where we aren't willing to repair broken infrastructure (eg crumbling bridges) during a steep recession because half the population thinks that amounts to "socialism", and you're getting angry at the president for refusing to take a controversial stance on marijuana?
I'm not saying that the ban on marijuana isn't a serious issue, but I'm suggesting it's just a bridge too far. If the administration publicly admitted that there might be something to the idea of legalization, the next several months consist in waging a PR war to prevent people from thinking he's a pot-head.
...one of the first questions is how one is supposed to remotely administer, control, and if needed, wipe the phones. I'd love nothing more than to use an iPhone, but what am I going to do, install iTunes on every corporate PC? Have each user individually sign up for a 'find my iphone' account? No. With with an OSX Server (running on Apple's official server hardware - a Mac Mini), iPhone control leaves a lot to be desired.
You don't need iTunes to set up an iPhone anymore. You can administer and control (to some extent), and wipe the phone using ActiveSync. If you're using BES, I assume you have an Exchange server? Well then, you're all set.
You keep posting this slideshow all over this discussion, but I'm not sure what you think the slideshow says. It's light on details, gives very little explanation, and does not compare RIM's security model with those employed by other providers. Could you explain what you're hoping to explain with this slideshow?
Sorry, but that just doesn't do it for me. Traffic back to the server is encrypted... well great. Encryption on mail servers is pretty standard these days. Lost/stolen phones are still a security risk if they're not locked and the remote-wipe situation is about the same as other phones. You can even set up a normal VPN connection on iOS or Android if you need to.
Yes, you can set a lot of detailed security policies, which most IT departments don't bother to mess with anyway, and ActiveSync provides security policies too.
So I'd still like to know: What specific security features do Blackberries offer, that customers actually make use of, that other phones do not? If anything, the fact that traffic is going through RIM's servers is a security liability.
Though I'm not really that pleased with the administration right now, I do respect their intent here. I think that they're essentially just experimenting with ways to use the Internet to improve communication and create dialogue. That doesn't mean that every petition will result in action by the President to do exactly what the petition asks, but the dialogue itself is something.
I especially think it's worth cutting them some slack because we're still in the early days of these things. The general public hasn't really been using the Internet for 2 whole decades yet, and this is the first administration to make genuine efforts to make use of the Internet for these sorts of things. Some of the first attempts will be clumsy.
And when you look at their page describing what this site is about, this is the only thing they're offering: "If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response."
I mean, really, did you expect that the President is going to make a huge policy shift against major corporate interests because of a petition with 14k signatures?
If you really want to be secure, keep an encrypted file with a list of all your passwords and account information. Put the password (or decryption key) in a safe deposit box, and leave instructions in your will on how to access the relevant information.
Personally, I've found that the biggest issue with all the "metadata" systems that try to improve on the basic file/folder system is that they don't transfer anywhere
The real problem there is that filesystems and transfer protocols don't have a standard for metadata. The metadata that can be stored in ZFS vs. NTFS vs. HFS+ aren't quite the same, and transferring a file via FTP isn't really going to maintain any of it. Of course, the real problem there isn't technological so much as economic/political. No one has the leverage to push a standard even if a good standard were available to be pushed.
Frankly, I think this is why RIM is doomed. Their centralized setup is a bad design given the current context of Internet/mobile technology. They can't keep it. But then, they also can't move away from it because it's kind of what's keeping them in business. The people who are sticking with them are sticking with them because of their setup, but then the group of people sticking with them will probably continue to shrink until they hit a certain threshold, and then employees, investors, and customers will flee like rats off of a sinking ship.
There's no android or iphone device close to the level of security that is offered in a blackberry; if data security (including personal communications) is paramount to your enterprise there's really no other choice.
Care to explain what security is offered by Blackberries that is not by any other technology? I'm only being a little snotty here, because if there's an answer I'd really like to know. However, I've heard from lots of people tout the security of Blackberries without being able to offer a real explanation of the security benefits, and even when they can talk about a benefit, it's some minor security feature that no one uses.
That, if anything, showed that their target market was for people who needed really good phone and email device with extra high security, if required. Their centralised model (outages aside) ensures the highest quality for both of these requirements
How so? What about having all of your email passing through the servers of a 3rd party make it "extra high security"? Email passing between Android phones and iPhones using ActiveSync or IMAP/SMTP+SSL are already encrypted during transfer.
Additionally, they are, slowly but surely, becoming secure enough to be seriously considered for the workplace.
I think you're a little behind in the news. They're beyond "being considered" and they're being used in workplaces. Even enterprise IT departments are supporting them in many cases, but I've dealt with a few small/medium businesses that have been exclusively iPhone for a year or more.
Outages happen; bad market strategy shouldn't.
Outages happen, but there's absolutely no reason to introduce an additional point of failure that can create worldwide outages. ActiveSync works perfectly well for what most businesses use smartphones for, and if the Exchange server and the phone are both working, and you have a connection between them, messages go through. Why put a 3rd party server in the middle, especially if you're going to accept that the server will have outages?
Opps, it's not Global Warming, it should be called Climate Change, since warming can be actually cooling
Well it *is* "global warming". The earth is getting, on average, warmer. The destabilization of climate caused by this may lead to colder weather on a particular day, or even generally colder temperatures in a particular place, but it's still global warming.
The only thing left to argue about is how much do we contribute...
Nope, there are 3 fronts here:
It's like playing whack-a-mole.
Did I say "starving"? I just re-read my post, and I don't think I did. On the other hand, if you think that there aren't malnourished children in this country, you're ignorant.