Tag Archive for Citirx

| June 20, 2011
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Tablet Notes

Tablet NotesiPad sold three million units in the first 80 days after its April 2010 release. Its current sales rate is about 4.5 million units per quarter, according to Bernstein Research. This sales rate is blowing past records. iPad is outselling iPhone and the DVD player, the most quickly adopted non-phone electronic product.

Apple iPad Will Fail in the Enterprise

Dell logothe Apple (AAPL) iPad would ultimately fail in the enterprise. That is what Andy Lark, Dell‘s (DELL) global head of marketing for large enterprises and public organizations told CIO Australia.

… longer term, open, capable and affordable will win, not closed, high price and proprietary [Apple has] done a really nice job, they’ve got a great product, but the challenge they’ve got is that already Android is outpacing them.

Apple is great if you’ve got a lot of money and live on an island. It’s not so great if you have to exist in a diverse, open, connected enterprise; simple things become quite complex.

Mr. Lark claimed Dell had taken an enterprise approach toward tablet PCs. This approach will ultimately give Dell an edge. Dell has a major stake in Microsoft Windows and the desktop PC market. “We’ve taken a very considered approach to tablets, given that the vast majority of our business isn’t in the consumer space,” he said.

The cost of Apple products was another deterrent to iPad deployments. Dell’s Lark claims that the economics on a fully loaded iPad did not add up. “An iPad with a keyboard, a mouse, and a case [means] you’ll be at $1500 or $1600; that’s double of what you’re paying,” he claimed. “That’s not feasible.”

Despite the company’s history with Microsoft, it had embraced both Windows Phone 7 and Android operating systems “…Our strategy is multi-OS,” Lark said. “We will do Windows 7 coupled with Android Honeycomb, and we’re really excited. We think that giving people that choice is very important.”

Outlook on the iPhone and iPad

Pst Mail an iPad appHelp has arrived for Apple (AAPL) iPhone and iPad owners who need access to their Microsoft (MSFT) Outlook e-mail. AppScout says users can check their email even when they don’t have an Internet connection.Pst Mail from Arrow Bit is an iPad app that provides offline access, potentially saving money on the user’s data plan. With the app, you can carry around a year’s worth of messages with you. Pst Mail can interact with the Mail app on your iPhone or iPad to reply to or forward messages. It can also open pst files created with any version of Microsoft Outlook.

AppScout says to find messages in large pst files, Pst Mail includes an advanced search feature. You can search by sender, recipient, subject text, message body, or even attachment name. You can also limit the search to a particular time frame. The developers offer a free lite version of the app in the iTunes Store, which has all the same features as the full version but is limited to the number of messages a user may open in each folder. The full version costs $9.99 in the iTunes app store.

GoToMyPC: iPad App

GoToMyPC Citrix (CTXS) has launched an Apple (AAPL) iPad version of GoToMyPC, a remote desktop application that lets you log in to your computer and control it on the go. Up until recently, you needed a PC to log in to a remote PC using the service. But the iPad app lets you do it anywhere you can get an internet connection on an iPad.

Mobilputing says GoToMyPC is hardly the first app of its type for the iPad. LogMein, TeamViewer, Parallels, and Splashtop all offer similar apps. But the GoToMyPC app has tight security features including 128-bit AES encryption, user authentication, and dual passwords, oriented for business.

Apple Sued Over Apps Giving Information to Advertisers

Apple is being sued over the collection and sharing of user data with outside companiesApple (AAPL) and Apple app developers have been sued over the collection and sharing of user data with outside companies (which I wrote about here). Two suits were filed in the Northern District of CA against the iPhone and iPad manufacturer. Apple is named in Lalo v. Apple, 10-5878.

Lalo seeks class action and claims that iPhones and iPads are encoded with identifying devices that allow advertising networks to track what applications users download, how frequently they’re used, and for how long. “Some apps are also selling additional information to ad networks, including users’ location, age, gender, income, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and political views,” reports Bloomberg’s BusinesWeek.

According to Wired the second suit, Freeman v. Apple seeks both monetary damages and a court order to stop the profiling by app makers being sued are Pandora and Dictionary.com, Toss It, Text4Plus, The Weather Channel, Talking Tom Cat, and Pimple Popper Lite.

Related articles

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| March 26, 2011
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iPad Notes

Researchers Outline iOS Attack to Access Stored Passwords in Six Minutes

Researchers Outline iOS Attack to Access Stored Passwords in Six MinutesFierceCIO reports that researchers from Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology say (PDF) they can break into an Apple (AAPL) iOS device (iPhone or iPad) to extract stored passwords in just six minutes. The attack requires physical access to the iOS device. Once boosted, large swaths of the iOS file system could be swiftly pried open by hackers.

Data that can be exploited include account passwords for MS Exchange ActiveSync, LDAP, VPN, and Wi-Fi. A successful attack starts with a jailbreak, followed by installing an SSH server to load a script to get access to the keychain entries which contain the passwords.

Based on this weakness, the author says that iOS needs work, “… a proper implementation of security using best practices could require a rewriting of key security components in Apple’s iOS.” He concludes that “… organizations deploying the iOS hardware at the moment might find it prudent to perform encryption at the app level instead of relying on the iPhone’s or iPad’s broken passphrase system.”

iPhone Password Hack Shows Flawed Security Model

iPhone Password Hack Shows Flawed Security ModelArs Technica has a different article on the latest iOS vulnerability. Ars argues that the attack isn’t entirely new, and is actually a product of Apple’s “DRM approach” to security. Forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski told Ars that similar exploits have been around since Apple introduced the iPhone 3G. According to Mr. Zdziarski,

The real problem is that Apple hasn’t yet fully implemented a truly secure environment for iOS. Apple has … been relying on their DRM know-how, and just erasing the label that says ‘DRM’ and calling it ‘security. The problem with this is that DRM only makes things a little more difficult for hackers.”

“Real security relies on the strength of the key, and the secrecy of the key,” Mr. Zdziarski continued. “And as long as the keys are all stored on the iPhone and don’t rely on a user password, they can easily be compromised.”

The Ars article says that while Apple has continually improved the iDevices information security, they all have the same flaws. Mr. Zdziarski told Ars he believes Apple is pushing to make iOS devices compliant with the FIPS 140-2 (PDF) security standards. However, he warns that. “… at the end of the day … Apple will need to abandon their DRM approach if they want true security, as opposed to just some fancy marketing strategies.”

VMware Unleashes Virtual Desktops for Apple iPad

VMware Unleashes Virtual Desktops for Apple iPadNetwork World is reporting that VMware (VMW) has released VMware View Client for iPad to the Apple App Store. “We’ve been working on it since the middle of last year,” says Pat Lee, director of end-user computing clients at VMware.

VMware said it had trouble making Windows work as a virtual desktop on the iPad. “Windows really isn’t touch-savvy,” Lee says. VMware tried to adapt the iPad experience to Windows. “We spent a lot of time building custom gestures to make sure it blends into the iOS experience,” Lee says.

VMware created a virtual trackpad that can appear on the screen. “We want it to be as logical as possible,” Lee says. VMware promised “instant-on” access to Windows desktops from the iPad, as well as support for Bluetooth keyboards. VMware is using  PCoIP to deliver the remote desktops and says the client will offer a secure connection to server-hosted desktops.  The View client for iPad will be free for existing users, who are charged either $150 or $250 per seat.

The VMware announcement comes after Citrix (CTXS)  released Receiver for iPad, and Parallels developed Parallel’s Mobile, an iPad desktop application.

Contracts HD for iPad: Give Contracts the Finger

Contracts HD for iPad: Give Contracts the FingerHat tip to AppScout for finding Contracts HD for iPad. They say that it is one of those apps that is breathing life into the existence and usefulness of the tablet device. Contracts HD is designed to allow any Apple (AAPL) iPad user to create, collaborate, sign, and email completed contracts using iPad’s dynamic touch-screen interface. The app also provides a database of contract templates for which anyone can add an addendum to all existing contracts, auto-fill appropriate fields within the contract with your exact information, and allows both parties to sign contracts safely and securely by using a fingertip.

Once the contract is signed, and all parties have received their PDF copies via email, you can save contracts to a secure archive for easy access later. Contracts HD also has a little brother app for iPhone that enables you to synchronize contracts between devices.  Contracts HD for iPad is $9.99 in the iTunes App Store ($4.99 for the iPhone version).

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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