With tablet chip, Intel tries to lessen its dependency on PCs

With Intel unveiling a tablet processor this week, analysts say the chip maker may be on track to becoming less dependent on the struggling PC market.

Intel on Thursday took the wraps off a new processor code-named Clover Trail. The Atom Z2760 chip is set to launch when Microsoft ships Windows 8 toward the end of October.

The chip is designed to boost battery life and performance for Windows 8 tablets.

The unveiling of the new tablet chip is a big step for Intel, which has dominated the PC market but has yet to compete in the burgeoning tablet market where ARM chips dominate. Tablets have been taking a big chunk out of a PC sales and Intel needs to branch out into other lucrative -- and growing -- markets.

"Intel has so far missed out on the smartphone and tablet boom, and these devices are driving a massive amount of chip volume," said Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group. "Intel needs to have a piece of these high growth and high volume markets in order to remain the dominant player in the chips space over the long haul."

Olds isn't alone in his take on Intel's market position.

On Wednesday, the day before Intel unveiled its new tablet chip, Craig Ellis, an analyst with investment bank Caris & Co., issued a reassessment of Intel, lowering his earnings estimate and stock price target.

Ellis wrote that he made the reassessment because the growing interest in tablets is hurting the PC market and Intel more than he had expected.

Patrick Moorhead, an analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy, said he's not surprised that Intel would be reassessed despite coming out with a tablet chip this week. The company may be working a foot in the door in the tablet market, but it still has to compete with Apple's wildly popular iPad.

Since the iPad, which uses Apple's A5X processor, dominates the tablet market, a smaller percentage of the market remains for Intel's products.

However, by combining Intel's Atom Z2760 chip and Windows 8, more consumers may be lured toward a non-Apple tablet, Moorhead said.

"Clover Trail wasn't ever designed to compete head-on with Apple, but was focused more on a new and growing enterprise tablet market," he added. "With Intel's Clover Trail, enterprise IT would need to be crazy to start deploying iPads."

While it's important for Intel to branch out of the PC market, Moorhead noted that it's too early to declare the demise of laptops and desktops.

"It is vital for Intel to successfully branch out and be successful long term in tablets and phones," he said. "Let's not forget, though, that Intel controls a PC market that isn't going to evaporate overnight, and they power the cloud that drives all those mobile devices. Growth is currently being impacted by people buying a phone or tablet instead of a new PC, but until those devices can replace the PC, people still need them."

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin, on Google+ or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed. Her email address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.

See more by Sharon Gaudin on Computerworld.com.

Read more about processors in Computerworld's Processors Topic Center.

Start Recruiting IT Talent Now

Here's a paradox: Your need to hire great technologists is at an all-time high, but the talent pool is shrinking. Computer science enrollments are down, young people are not interested in IT, and "experienced mobile architect" is an oxymoron.

The traditional keys to the IT talent paradox--great recruiting and retention--will be ineffective as long as the tech products industry is booming. Why would a smart technologist work at your insurance firm when she can get a job at Google?

Now it's time for all good CIOs to come to the aid of their industries. Get out of your office and visit high schools and colleges. Tell young people about the joy of IT, its importance, and the money that comes with it. (Definitely don't forget about the money.)

Michael Gabriel, CIO of HBO, is doing his part. Working with parent company Time Warner, HBO has produced "IT is It!" a video that features young people extolling the excitement of a career in IT.

"Most young people have no idea what IT jobs are really like," says Gabriel. "There are TV shows about careers in law and medicine, but not about technology. Everyone thinks we fix PCs and that IT jobs are all offshore."

To change that perception, Gabriel approached the CIO Executive Council, which suggested producing the video. (Watch it at http://council.cio.com/youth.) The video is a way to attract young people to the IT industry, but it's also good for Time Warner.

"Young people know us for Time, HBO, CNN and Warner Bros. Now they will also know us as a technologically advanced company focused on distribution via mobile devices and Internet-connected TVs," Gabriel says.

So get out there and make a movie! Or do what Bill Blausey, CIO of Eaton, did--use the Time Warner video to further the efforts you already have underway. "We put the video on our RITE [Regional IT Engagement] website," he says. "We need to tell kids IT can be exciting in companies other than Oracle and Apple."

Blausey and other IT, business and higher-education leaders formed RITE at the urging of the Ohio Board of Regents to address concern about the IT talent crisis. The goal is to engage the local student population. "We approach our mission as we would any marketing initiative: We pick our targets, craft our message, and go after them."

RITE members also work with local colleges to conduct evening workshops that educate high-school students and their parents about IT. "We have a panel of CIOs and some cool technology around the room," Blausey says.

Keeping good tech talent local is an issue across the United States. "Students graduate from the University of Texas at Austin and move to Silicon Valley," says Eric Hungate, CIO of the Texas Association of School Boards. "But there are tons of jobs in Austin." To engage students, Hungate works with Campus2Careers, which helps companies build intern programs and manages InternInAustin, a city-sponsored event aimed at retaining and attracting talent to central Texas.

If there's nothing like InternInAustin in your region, you may have to be more innovative. "Reach out to your local chamber of commerce and see what they are doing to retain talent in your region," suggests Hungate. "Get together with local professional IT association chapters; collect a roster of CIOs and visit high schools, community colleges and universities," he says.

And once you have your first speaking gig, don't blow it. "When you speak to students, lead with jobs," he says. "Tell them right off the bat that they can make a lot of money. And I would push passion. I was IT director for Robert Mondavi when my passion was wine."

Martha Heller is the author of the upcoming book The CIO Paradox and she is president of Heller Search Associates, a CIO and senior IT executive recruiting firm. Follow her on Twitter: @marthaheller.

Read more about hiring in CIO's Hiring Drilldown.

OpenWorld 2012: What's in store

A wealth of software, hardware and "engineered systems" news is on tap

With each year, Oracle becomes a bigger company and in turn, so does its annual OpenWorld conference, which kicks off Sunday in San Francisco.

In fact, Oracle's long run of acquisitions, spanning from applications to middleware to hardware, has resulted in so many partner and customer constituencies that it's now co-locating a number of additional shows, including MySQL Connect and JavaOne, along with the main OpenWorld program.

Here's a look at what's scheduled for the week, as well as what sort of surprises Oracle may have in store.

Database 12c: Despite its forays into business applications and hardware, at its core Oracle remains a database company, and it will announce version 12c, with the c standing for "cloud," during OpenWorld.

CEO Larry Ellison already publicly revealed this fact recently and also described some of the release's new features, which include support for multitenancy and "pluggable" databases.

But the deep-dive into 12c probably won't come until Monday, when co-president Mark Hurd and database chief Andy Mendelsohn deliver a joint keynote.

While Oracle will no doubt make sure 12c's debut is nice and splashy, as with past versions most customers probably won't upgrade until 12c release 2, preferring to feel comfortable that the bugs have been worked out.

Engineered systems news: There seems to be little doubt that Oracle will announce a next-generation version of the Exadata database machine, the first and flagship member of its family of "engineered systems" combining software with servers, networking and storage.

Ellison has a keynote slated for Sunday which seems like the probable launch pad for an Exadata announcement, as well as other new engineered systems products.

With Oracle already having analytics-related machines in the market with Exadata and the Big Data appliance, as well as an application server box called Exalogic, its next step could be systems that add a layer of pre-integrated business applications.

Hard times for hardware: Oracle has de-emphasized commodity servers in favor of the engineered systems, which can really be looked at as delivery vehicles for lots of separately licensed Oracle software that draws lucrative annual maintenance revenue year after year.

Still, top-line hardware revenues have been in decline. And although the hardware systems business "was very profitable" in fiscal 2012, "the profitability of this business as we measure it did not grow from the prior fiscal year," Oracle said in a recently filed proxy statement. As a result, systems chief John Fowler didn't get a cash bonus, according to the proxy.

Last year, Oracle announced the SPARC SuperCluster T4-4 system. This year, it may feature a sequel to that high-profile release.

The status of Fusion Applications: It took Oracle a bit longer than hoped-for to bring its next-generation Fusion Applications to market, but the suite of ERP (enterprise resource planning), CRM (customer relationship management), HCM (human capital management) and other software finally became generally available last year.

But Oracle has a number of updates to provide with respect to Fusion, namely the rate of customer adoption and live projects, as well as a public subscription price list for deployments in its recently launched cloud service.

The "top level message" for Fusion Applications will be a "focus on customer adoption and their success," Oracle executive vice president of application development Steve Miranda said during a "Tweet chat" eventthis week on Twitter.

Miranda also acknowledged the lack of public pricing, which is common among SaaS vendors, but said Oracle's fees are "competitive."

MySQL Connect: Anyone looking for a concrete sense of where Oracle is headed with the development of its open-source MySQL database should attend a joint keynote scheduled for Saturday featuring Tomas Ulin, vice president of MySQL engineering, and Edward Screven, Oracle's chief corporate architect.

The talk will give showgoers a look at "Oracle's MySQL strategy, and the key latest developments including product releases, roadmap and community," according to the event's description.

While many MySQL users expressed fear over the database's future following Oracle's acquisition of previous owner Sun Microsystems, the presence of Screven, a longtime Oracle employee who reports directly to Ellison, could underscore the vendor's commitment to the platform.

Bottomless cups of Java: The JavaOne conference, which starts Sunday, will give attendees a look at where the open-source Java programming language is going from a number of perspectives.

A keynote covering Oracle's future strategy for Java, as well as a technical Java keynote, are scheduled for Sunday. Later in the week, a keynote covering Java community issues is on tap. This is all on top of some 400 planned sessions.

Oracle's Amazon Web Services?: Ellison also revealed during last week's earnings call that Oracle will announce a new IaaS (infrastructure as a service) offering at OpenWorld, but didn't mention many details.

The CEO may provide more information on Sunday, but it seems more likely that the nitty-gritty details will come on Wednesday during a keynote by Fowler and other executives.

One general question that may be answered is whether Oracle is interested in competing head-to-head with the likes of Amazon Web Services and Rackspace for all sorts of IaaS business, or mostly planning to offer the IaaS to existing customers who would ordinarily use those other services.

Overall, Oracle's entry into IaaS "is likely to mean one thing: lower prices for computing power from all of the big incumbents," Canaccord Genuity analyst Richard Davis said in a research note issued Friday.

This is good news for "disruptive technology startups" and SaaS (software as a service) vendors as well, according to Davis.

Bragging rights: San Franciscans are still reeling from the last big software event held at the Moscone Center, Salesforce.com's Dreamforce. That show reportedly drew 90,000 registered attendees, a figure helped by the fact there was no charge to attend keynotes as well as a number of musical events.

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff crowed that this year's Dreamforce was the industry's largest-ever "vendor-led" enterprise technology event.

Given that he and Ellison have a long-standing rivalry, it's not so surprising that Oracle is offering a special US$75 "Discover Pass" to OpenWorld, which provides entry to keynotes, the exhibition hall, the Oracle music festival and other aspects of the show, albeit none of the 2,000 sessions.

Oracle isn't promising that more than 90,000 people will show up in San Francisco for OpenWorld, but the vendor is still making some big claims.

Some 50,000 showgoers from 123 countries will attend in person, on top of a cool million tuning in online, and the show will have a $120 million economic impact on the Bay area, according to an official blog post.

Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris' email address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com

FCC moves forward on incentive spectrum auctions

The commission approves a proposal to auction some TV spectrum to mobile carriers

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission took the first step Friday toward groundbreaking auctions of television spectrum to mobile carriers faced with skyrocketing bandwidth demands from their customers.

The FCC approved a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that lays out proposed rules and asks for public comment on so-called incentive auctions, in which U.S. television stations would voluntarily give up their spectrum in exchange for proceeds from auctions of that spectrum. The NPRM is the first step in a long process at the FCC, with the agency projecting that auctions to mobile carriers would happen in 2014.

With the FCC moving forward on the world's first incentive auctions, "this is a big deal," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said. "The world is watching."

The auctions will involve a complicated three-step process, with television stations offering their spectrum in a reverse auction, the FCC reconfiguring the remaining TV spectrum to gain efficiency, and finally, the FCC auctioning the available spectrum to mobile carriers.

The incentive auctions will address a coming spectrum crunch and will help carriers provide better mobile service, with fewer dropped calls and fewer spinning pinwheels on mobile browsers, Genachowski said.

The auctions would also give the U.S. a "strategic bandwidth advantage," in a global race, he added. "Success will unleash waves of innovation that will go a long way toward determining who leads our global economy in the 21st century."

The commission's two Republican members raised a number of questions about the proposal, including whether it would leave too much spectrum unsold for unlicensed uses. The proposal would create a nationwide swath of unlicensed spectrum.

In addition, the proposal's cap on the amount of spectrum that one carrier can buy could result in the auction not raising the US$7 billion the U.S. Congress has targeted for a nationwide public safety network, said Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell.

McDowell urged the commission to be open to alternative ideas. "This being literally, as I've said before, the most complex spectrum auction in world history, I think we should keep all our options open," he said.

Genachowski and other commission Democrats defended the unlicensed spectrum plans. WiFi, television remote control devices and garage door openers all use unlicensed spectrum, said Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. "Good spectrum policy" has room both licensed and unlicensed spectrum, she said.

"This is a time to be embracing and extending WiFi-like uses of spectrum," Genachowski said. "Unlicensed spectrum has a powerful record of driving innovation, driving investment and economic growth."

Several companies and trade groups praised the FCC for its vote.

The vote is "a big step in the right direction," Mary Brown, director of government affairs for Cisco Systems, said in a statement. "The FCC invented the spectrum auction and perfected it. We have every confidence that the commission will do the same for incentive auctions."

The auction, along with an FCC proposal approved Friday to look at spectrum holding limit policy, will help carries meet "soaring consumer demand for mobile Internet services," Joan Marsh, AT&T's vice president for federal regulatory affairs, wrote in a blog post.

Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant's e-mail address is grant_gross@idg.com.

Google tweaks travel search site for tablets

Nearly half of tablet owners who perform travel searches end up buying their tickets on those devices, Google said

Google has updated its flight search engine to make it easier to use on tablets, as more and more people use those devices to book their travel, the company said in a blog post Friday.

Google now renders Flight Search for tablet users with a layout, features and format adapted to those devices, including a tool for finding low fares by scrolling through dates, Google said on Friday.

"With the touch of your finger, you can easily explore places to visit on the map and see prices updated in real-time for each destination," wrote Rani Manoharan, a Google user interface designer, in a blog post.

Google had previously adapted the site for iPhone and Android smartphones.

Google launched Flight Search in September last year, after acquiring air-travel flight-information software maker ITA Software for $700 million, a move prompted by the fast-growing number of travel-related queries on the company's search engine.

The deal raised antitrust concerns among Google competitors and in the travel industry because ITA Software customers included major airlines and online travel agencies. After a review, the U.S. government gave the deal the green light but with conditions, such as the requirement to develop and license travel software to competitors, as well as provide arbitration for complaints about fees from online travel sites.

Juan Carlos Perez covers enterprise communication/collaboration suites, operating systems, browsers and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Juan on Twitter at @JuanCPerezIDG.

Transcript of open letter from Apple CEO Tim Cook apologizing for Maps in iOS 6

Transcript of Apple CEO Tim Cook's letter to customers, sparked by Apple Maps flap (more on this here):

To our customers,

At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.

We launched Maps initially with the first version of iOS. As time progressed, we wanted to provide our customers with even better Maps including features such as turn-by-turn directions, voice integration, Flyover and vector-based maps. In order to do this, we had to create a new version of Maps from the ground up.

IOS 6: 16 Key Features

There are already more than 100 million iOS devices using the new Apple Maps, with more and more joining us every day. In just over a week, iOS users with the new Maps have already searched for nearly half a billion locations. The more our customers use our Maps the better it will get and we greatly appreciate all of the feedback we have received from you.

While we're improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an iconon your home screen to their web app.

Everything we do at Apple is aimed at making our products the best in the world. We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working non-stop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard.

Tim Cook Apple's CEO

Read more about anti-malware in Network World's Anti-malware section.

Leaked video shows Qwerty, touchscreen RIM BlackBerry 10s

Video posted about the time RIM announced second-quarter financial results also explains elaborate marketing plan for the smartphones 

A newly leaked video shows off two coming Research in Motion BlackBerry 10 smartphones, while also describing an elaborate marketing campaign designed to help launch the devices in the first quarter of 2013.

CrackBerry.com first posted the video on Thursday at about the same time that RIM posted its second quarter earnings, according to BGR.com.

BGR apparently grabbed the video before it was pulled from CrackBerry, and posted it on its site Friday.

The two BlackBerry 10 phones, shown side-by-side at one point in the 3:20-minute video, include a tall touchscreen device that is similar to the Dev Alpha devices being used by RIM developers to build applications.

The video also shows for the first time a Qwerty smartphone with a screen that is not as tall. The phone has a familiar-looking BlackBerry physical keyboard below a display that's a bit taller than the one used in RIM's current Bold 9900.

On the screen of the Qwerty device is a depiction of how BlackBerry Hub might work, with a document overlaid on an email.

BlackBerry Hub is designed to bring emails and notifications together easily in BlackBerry 10. RIM officials demonstrated Hub earlier this week at the BlackBerry Jam event in San Jose.

RIM disclosed at that event that its subscriber base has passed 80 million, up from 78 million in the first quarter of 2012. On Thursday, RIM reported a second quarter loss of $235 million, which beat expectations and led to a surge in the company's stock price.

During an earnings call yesterday, RIM officials and CEO Thorsten Heins said RIM projects another loss in the third quarter, and is likely to report deficits for several quarters to come.

Still, Heins said that the highly anticipated BlackBerry 10 will launch "on track" in the first quarter.

The video also describes an "In the Right Hands" marketing campaign involving celebrities and average BlackBerry users that use a BlackBerry 10 smartphone for one day apiece, adding content and then passing it on until the day the device is formally launched.

For example, the narrator says musician Lady Gaga could write and load on the phone a single music track on one day, followed by a short story from writer JK and Rowling could write a short story, and the recording of a movie by film director Ridley Scott.

RIM officials declined to comment on the video.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen, send e-mail to mhamblen@computerworld.comor subscribe to Matt's RSS feed .

Read more about smartphones in Computerworld's Smartphones Topic Center.

Android apps coming to an AMD-powered PC near you

A new partnership between virtual Android specialist BlueStacks and microchip maker AMD will see much of the Google Play store's stock of apps made available to Windows users running AMD hardware, the company announced Thursday.

MORE MOBILE: Three quick hits, misses for the iPhone 5

SCUTTLEBUTT: Hottest Android news and rumors for the week ending Sept. 28

Users wishing to run Android apps on their AMD-powered Windows PCs -- including those running Windows 8 -- will be able to use the free BlueStacks App Player program to do just that. AMD's AppZone store can also be used with BlueStacks' Cloud Connect system, letting users sync Android apps from their phones or tablets to an AMD device.

"By collaborating with BlueStacks, we are enabling software developers to more easily tap into the full capabilities of AMD's products, and providing millions of consumers with great experiences as they can now run Android apps on AMD-powered devices," Manju Hegde, corporate vice president of heterogeneousapplications and developer solutions, said in a statement.

Android apps run through the AppZone will take advantage of AMD's graphics acceleration technology -- either in the form of a discrete graphics card or the company's integrated accelerated processing units.

AMD is also working to convince OEMs to ship products with the AppZone pre-loaded, offering baked-in Android functionality to its devices.

BlueStacks first rolled out the App Player in 2011, and ported the functionality to OS X this July, giving Mac users the unusual option of running Android software on an Apple product. The company's Cloud Connect sync application has been downloaded more than 100,000 times from the Play store, and the new integration with AMD could see that number increase substantially.

Email Jon Gold at jgold@nww.com and follow him on Twitter at @NWWJonGold.

Read more about anti-malware in Network World's Anti-malware section.

How CX Helped AT&T Sell More iPhones and Otterboxes

When you walk in to a phone service provider store eager to buy a new smartphone after you accidentally dropped your iPhone in the toilet, you know it's going to be a long afternoon. Even if you already have the iPhone5 or an Android device like the Samsung Galaxy S3 in mind, you're still faced with decisions about different data plans, contract commitments and accessories.

When all of this is being thrown at you at check out, it all starts to seem a little confusing and was negatively impacting how customers viewed the stores. AT&T wanted to change the buying process and make it easier for customers to get in and out of any one of their 2,300 retail stores with the right product and plan in hand and none of the extra frustration.

Thaddeus Arroyo, CIO of AT&T, started by taking a look at customer behavior in the retail storesan endeavor that won the company a 2012 CIO 100 award. He set out to analyze the customer experience and learn why customers came in to the store and how many interactions it took to accomplish their goal. In order to achieve this, he needed his sales people to get closer to customers. "We drive toward improving efficiency for customers and employees," Arroyo says. "We focused more on 'how do we deliver that relational experience with customers and how do we get our reps from behind the counter'."

In order to do faster transactions and get happier customers, AT&T had to revamp their customer experience. Customer experience is the entire lifecycle of interactions between the customer and the company and the customer's perception of those actions.

Bruce Temkin, managing partner of the Temkin Group, a customer experience (CX) research and consulting company, says CIOs need to gather customer data from various channels, "Listen in on calls, read feedback from surveys, and learn how to integrate this into the development of IT," he says. He says the only way to figure out how to best serve your customers is to look at data that comes directly from them. "Every large company will need to be able to analyze the data to tell what the key trends are and what is making people happy or sad," he says.

So AT&T did just that. They looked at all the things a customer could do in their retail space in order to better educate the sales reps on how to interact with them. They watched videos of customers in stores to see the behavior they exhibit when they are waiting, how they interact with displays and how they act around sales people. "That allowed us to collect data in terms of where we could make [the retail experience] more interactive."

Arroyo also organized focus groups in order to talk to customers directly about what they liked and disliked about the store experience. "We developed a concept by having them interact and provide direct feedback about the ease of use and human factors behind the technology."

By collaborating with key business partners, such as AT&T's mobility retail operations group, Arroyo developed suite of solutions to simplify the retail experience on the customer side and the sales side. In general, he says, "Customers want apps and services on their device to be user friendly and suitable for them. This is what sparked the idea and the [technology] solutions yielded from making each step more achievable, scalable and efficient."

The process of gathering customer data gave Arroyo and the sales reps a clearer view of the customer experience so they could lay out a better process on how to get them the right product in the most efficient way. They designed it so when the customer walks into the store, they check in at the welcome center, which is a self-service kiosk where they register and identify what they've come to the store for that day. The customer is then matched with the sales rep that can best help them with their transaction.

"We leverage data on the customers to deliver a much more personalized experience," Arroyo says. "We know their needs and map them to the right skill set. We have a pretty good match rate and what other solutions we can offer [based on] knowing what they consume."

The sales rep uses a system called OPUS, or One Point of Universal Service to ring up the customer's purchases. The system resides on a mobile/tablet app so they can complete a transaction on the sales floor, as opposed to behind the counter. Once the transaction is completed, a text message survey is sent to the customer to see if they were satisfied with their experience.

"It's a behavior approach and as we look at that from a technology perspective, it's really oriented around, 'how do we facilitate [customers] to be successful,'" Arroyo says.

The sales reps' use of the tablet OPUS system is especially important because Arroyo says it creates a more personal experience without the counter being a barrier and shows the technology in use to the customer. "You stand next to the sales person and they pick up the customer from the point we last left them in the sales cycle," he says. According to AT&T, the use of tablets on the retail floor has led to a six percent increase in tablet sales. The company also says they have seen increased sales of accessories because transactions are taking place near the products instead of behind the counter.

The rollout began in 2009 and is now fully deployed. AT&T has seen their expected payback and "Satisfaction with the retail experience has improved across the board," Arroyo says. He says customers have certain expectations of their technology working well whenever and however they want and knew that had to extend to their customer service techniques as well. "You want it working before you leave [the store] and you don't want surprises. We look beyond financial and at the most important thing: the returns in the eyes of customers."

Lauren Brousell is editorial assistant for CIO magazine. She can be reached at lbrousell@cio.com. Follow her on Twitter @lbrousell.

Apple CEO apologizes for Maps, pledges improvements

Apple CEO Tim Cook admitted today that the company's controversial new Maps application on iOS "fell short" of Apple's commitment to the "best experience possible" for users.

"We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better," he said in a brief letter posted on Apple's website. 

MORE: 3 quick hits, misses for the iPhone 5

The new application, actually a platform, was introduced with iOS 6 and replaces the Google Maps platform and APIs that had been the basis of iOS map and navigation features. With the release of iOS last week, Maps quickly sparked a flood of criticism for being inaccurate and flakey. Worst of all, it quickly became the butt of jokes, sarcasm and parody.

"We launched Maps initially with the first version of iOS," Cook wrote. "As time progressed, we wanted to provide our customers with even better Maps including features such as turn-by-turn directions, voice integration, Flyover and vector-based maps. In order to do this, we had to create a new version of Maps from the ground up."

According to Cook, more than 100 million iOS devices are using the new Apple Maps, with nearly a half-billion location searches so far. "The more our customers use our Maps the better it will get and we greatly appreciate all of the feedback we have received from you," he wrote.

And in the meantime? "While we're improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app," Cook advises.

"We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working non-stop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard," he concluded.

Apple has been forming its location-based platform since 2009, investing hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire three startups with specific expertise, with an eye to advancing far beyond basic location searches.

The first, in 2009 for an undisclosed amount, was Placebase, with a system that lets developers add or overlay additional customizable data and features on top of existing map platforms, blending public and private data sets. A year later, in a still-unconfirmed deal, was Poly9, a Canadian startup that according to an Inc.com story "powered map-based apps and programmed interfaces (APIs) for companies such asMicrosoft, Apple, and MSNBC. It also powered the annual NORAD Santa Tracker."

The third and best known is Swedish-based C3 Technologies, acquired in August 2011 for $267 million. C3 uses camera-equipped planes and helicopters to create photo-realistic models of physical landscapes.

Location-based data is creating a host of emerging mobile apps and Web-based services. Nokia has made a comparable investment and is marketing its Nokia Maps as a key differentiator for its Lumiasmartphones, powered by Microsoft's Windows Phone mobile OS, which in Version 8.0 will have Nokia Maps fully integrated.

Cook's letter indicates that Apple is fully committed to independence from Google's location platform.

John Cox covers wireless networking and mobile computing for Network World Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnwcoxnwwEmail: john_cox@nww.com

Read more about anti-malware in Network World's Anti-malware section.

Pirate Bay founder's detention extended as tax hack investigation continues

Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg will remain in detention for at least two more weeks while Swedish prosecutors investigate his alleged involvement in the hacking of IT company Logica, a Swedish court ruled Friday.

Svartholm Warg was arrested in Cambodia on Aug. 30 and subsequently deported to Sweden. Swedish authorities arrested him on Sept. 11 on suspicion of hacking, although he has not been charged. On Sept. 14 a court ordered that he be detained for another two weeks.

This week Henrik Olin, the public prosecutor dealing with the case, asked the court to extend Svartholm Warg's detention.

"The court decided to prolong the detention for another two-week period," Olin said Friday on leaving the courtroom.

"The investigation is ongoing," he said, referring to the theft of sensitive tax records for people with protected identities from a government IT contractor, Logica.

"He is suspected of this breach of data security. The court ruled that there is a risk he could affect the evidence in the investigation, and that there is a risk he could be committing crimes again," he said.

When Svartholm Warg was arrested in Cambodia, many thought it was because of his role in creating the Pirate Bay. He and the other founders of the popular torrent-tracking site were found guilty of offenses relating to copyright infringement, fined and sentenced to prison. Svartholm Warg did not attend an appeal hearing, pleading illness, and moved to Cambodia, a country with which Sweden does not have an extradition treaty.

No charges have yet been made against him in the Logica case, Olin said.

"According to the Swedish system, when the preliminary investigation is finished, I as prosecutor will decide whether to prosecute him. [...] In the Swedish system it is quite usual for people to be detained on this legal ground, and it gives me the possibility to prevent him from having contact with other people."

Olin said it is unlikely that he will have completed his preliminary investigation within the next two weeks, and so expects to return to the court to ask for another extension to Svartholm Warg's detention.

Peter Sayer covers open source software, European intellectual property legislation and general technology breaking news for IDG News Service. Send comments and news tips to Peter at peter_sayer@idg.com.

Microsoft SkyDrive: Your ultimate starter's guide

It's become incredibly easy to compute while you commute. Our laptops, tablets and even smartphones offer productivity functions ranging from excellent to serviceable, and pervasive broadband (hello 4G!) gives us the connectivity speeds we need to quickly summon up documents and data from the cloud.

That's how it works in theory, at least. Efficiently accessing all of your personal data in the cloud is rarely quite as simple as it sounds.

Between Dropbox, Box.net, Microsoft SkyDrive, Apple iCloud, and other services, a plethora of cloud-based storage options compete to provide you access to your documents, photos, and other data from all your different devices. Although not quite as popular as Dropbox (which has been around for years) or iCloud (which has a big built-in user base), Microsoft's SkyDrive is poised to make a big splash when Windows 8 officially launches in October. The Windows 8 SkyDrive app is prominently displayed on the Windows Store, and Windows Phone 8 is expected to seamlessly integrate your SkyDrive account with your smartphone.

But you don't need to wait for Windows 8 to start taking advantage of SkyDrive, as SkyDrive apps are already available for just about every major computing platform, and if an app isn't available for your operating system of choice, files stored in your SkyDrive folders are still accessible via a Web browser. In this guide, we'll show you how to set up SkyDrive on your PC, how to access your SkyDrive account from different devices, and how to use a few tips and tricks to get the most from this free service.

How to get started with SkyDrive

With Windows 8 (whether Standard, Pro, Enterprise, or RT), a Windows 8-style version of SkyDrive is installed by default with the OS and is available on the Start screen as soon as you boot up your PC. If you prefer to stay in Desktop mode while using your Windows 8 PC, you'll need to install the stand-alone SkyDrive application. (Using SkyDrive on any platform that doesn't run Windows 8 also requires the installation of this stand-alone app.)

To install the SkyDrive application on a desktop PC, simply open the SkyDrive homepage in your browser of choice and click on the Get SkyDrive button. The installation process is pretty simple: If you're running Windows, you need to click the Download SkyDrive For Windows button and save the file to your system. If you're running Mac OS X, click on the Mac OS X link in the text at the top of the page and then click on the Download button on the subsequent page.

Once the download is complete, simply double-click on the downloaded file to launch the SkyDrive installer. Follow the on-screen prompts to complete the installation; when you're ready to configure your SkyDrive account, go ahead and launch the program. The first time you launch the SkyDrive app, you'll be asked to sign in to a Microsoft account. If you don't have one, you'll see a link to sign up for free; go ahead and set one up now, since you'll need it if you ever install Windows 8. Sign into SkyDrive, and a group of folders will be created on your system--any time a file is placed into one of these folders, it will automatically be synced to Microsoft's servers, provided an active Internet connection is available.

SkyDrive offers users 7GB of storage space for free; you just need to download the app and sign up for a Microsoft account. If you want (or need) more space, Microsoft offers different levels of additional storage for an annual fee. At this writing, 20GB of space is available for $10, 50GB for $25, and 100GB for $50, annually.

If you want to access data stored in your SkyDrive account on your tablet or smartphone, the free SkyDrive app is available for download in almost every platform's respective app store. SkyDrive is available in the iTunes store for iOS-based devices, in the Google Play Store for Android-based devices, and in the Windows Phone Marketplace for Windows Phones.

Touch the Sky(Drive) from any device

Now that you've set up a SkyDrive account, actually using the service is simple. If you're running Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8, your SkyDrive folder will appear in File Explorer; on Macintosh systems, they'll appear in the Finder. By default, inside the parent SkyDrive folder, the app creates three more folders--Documents, Pictures, and Public.

Anything placed into these folders will automatically be synched to Microsoft's servers when a connection to the Internet is available and the SkyDrive app is running (it runs automatically with the OS). When a file is dragged into one of these folders, the SkyDrive icon in the system tray will report the status of the synchronization process and report "SkyDrive -- Up to date" when the sync is complete. Once the sync is finished, the files are stored on Microsoft's servers and will be available to other devices.

Using SkyDrive on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets is equally simple. Once you have the app downloaded and installed, a SkyDrive icon will be available in your list of applications. Open the app, sign in, and your SkyDrive folders will be listed along with some details regarding their content.

Besides allowing you to access your SkyDrive folders, however, the SkyDrive mobile app also adds some neat sharing features based on the capabilities of your mobile device. For example, you can snap a photo or record a video from within the SkyDrive app and store it directly to your SkyDrive folder or send it to a shared SkyDrive folder so that your friends and family can see it no matter what device they're using.

If they don't have a device that has a Skydrive app, they can use a browser to view their SkyDrive storage. Accessing your SkyDrive folders from a Web browser doesn't require any local files to be installed, which saves you the hassle of setting up the app on a PC over which you don't have full control. Provided you're using a modern browser, navigate to http://skydrive.live.com/, sign in, and your SkyDrive folders will be accessible right from the browser window. Keep in mind that you're not only able to download files from your SkyDrive, but to upload files to it as well. Dragging a file (or files) from a PC into one of the SkyDrive folders in the browser window will automatically upload that file so it will be accessible from your other devices--a great way to quickly save photos and documents from a friend's or coworker's PC so you can look them over later at your leisure.

SkyDrive tips and tricks

Once you start using SkyDrive regularly across multiple devices, you'll quickly find a lot of neat things you can do with a remote storage service that ties directly into your operating system, your office software, and your mobile devices. Here are a few of our favorite tips and tricks for using SkyDrive to optimize your workflow; share your personal tips and tricks with our readers in the comments field below.

Sync any folder to your SkyDrive: Setting up folders on your PC that automatically sync with your SkyDrive account is pretty simple thanks to the stand-alone SkyDrive desktop app, but you do have to manually move all the files you want to keep in sync with your account into the SkyDrive folder on your PC. That's kind of a pain if you have all your photos or movies in a separate folder that is already syncing to other services (such as Carbonite's automated backup service, for example) and you don't want to break those links by moving your files into SkyDrive.

Thankfully, programmer Jan Hannemann has released a custom shell extension that you can install (at your own risk) to add a sync option to the context menu that pops up whenever you right-click in Windows. To get it, head over to his public SkyDrive folder and download either the 32-bit version or 64-bit version of SkyShellEx (according to whichever version of Windows you're using). Run the script, and you should see an option to "Sync to SkyDrive" whenever you right-click a folder in Windows Explorer.

Edit Word documents from your browser: SkyDrive is designed to let you edit any Word-compatible document right from your browser, and you can use this trick to open and edit documents on any PC that doesn't have Word installed. This trick could save you some money on a Microsoft Office purchase if you do most of your writing at work and only occasionally need to edit or proofread a document at home, but more important, it means you no longer have to worry about trying to open a document that a friend or coworker has attached to an email and finding out that the PC you're using doesn't have a copy of Word installed (this happens more often than you might think in the publishing industry).

Simply upload the document in question to your SkyDrive account, then log in to SkyDrive via a PC browser (you can try to open your account using the browser on your mobile device, but the mobile version of the SkyDrive website has significantly fewer features) and open the document in question. Select Edit in Word Web App from the Edit Documents menu, and you ought to be able to start wordsmithing right from the website.

Automatically archive Gmail attachments using SkyDrive: Now that Microsoft has made the SkyDrive API available to third-party developers, a number of your favorite apps and services are going to tie themselves into SkyDrive. One of our favorites is attachments.me, a free Google Chrome extension that makes it easy to download, upload, and send attachments back and forth between your Gmail account and various cloud storage services like Dropbox, Box.net, and now SkyDrive.

One of the cooler things you can do with attachments.me is to automatically archive any files attached to email in your Gmail inbox--a simple trick to help boost productivity and optimize your organization. To get started, download the attachments.me extension, and then log into your Gmail account using Chrome. A prompt should appear from attachments.me requesting access to your Gmail account; allow it to do so, then click on the small blue paperclip button that appears in the top-right corner of your Gmail inbox and select Automatic Filing Rules from the drop-down menu. From here you'll be able to customize rules about which attachments get sent to your SkyDrive folder based on such criteria as file type, who sent the email (or who you send the email to), and so forth.