General Dynamics Information Technology, a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE:GD), has added Email as a Service (EaaS) to its U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) IT Schedule 70 Contract. General Dynamics can provide Federal agencies with cloud-based email services that deliver greater effectiveness, flexibility and lower total cost of ownership.

“Email as a Service enhances email functionality for government agencies and supports the movement to cloud-based applications for flexibility and mobility without changing how users interact with their email,” said Woody Hall, chief information officer for General Dynamics Information Technology. “General Dynamics’ solution provides agencies with the ability to rapidly provision a shared environment, as well as build out and foster communication capabilities without interrupting the user experience.”

For its new EaaS offering, General Dynamics partnered with several key IT industry vendors to develop a streamlined email system that can be tailored to unique requirements, allowing agencies to achieve their mission objectives more effectively. The EaaS solution leverages a network of highly available data centers. These redundant sites are all located within the United States, and provide high level service availability.

In addition to providing the core email functionality, General Dynamics’ solution includes archiving and eDiscovery, records management and office automation tools. The EaaS solution also integrates email with other agency systems and applications to allow users to view, collaborate and exchange information from external systems such as procurement, enterprise monitoring and time tracking – extending the functionality of email and providing immediate access to mission-critical information from a single view.

The GSA IT schedule is an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity, multiple-award acquisition vehicle that provides Federal agencies direct access to IT products and services from industry partners. General Dynamics has added Email as a Service in category 132-52, Electronic Commerce and Subscription Services category. With this addition General Dynamics now provides five key offerings available through the Schedule 70 contract:

• Email as a Service
• Office Automation (Virtual Office)
• Electronic Records Management
• Migration Services
• Integration Services

Each of these solutions can be provided in a government community, private cloud, secret enclave or public cloud environment.

Adding Email as a Service to the IT Schedule 70 builds on General Dynamics’ cloud offerings to government customers. General Dynamics was selected as one of 12 awardees by the GSA for the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Blanket Purchase Agreement in October 2010.

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With its newly unveiled Windows Store, Microsoft is aiming for a market long dominated by Apple, and coveted by other rivals such as Google. The long-anticipated online storefront, integrated into Windows 8, will give consumers and business users access to a wide variety of apps and games.

For third-party developers, the chance to port their apps onto Microsoft’s next operating system could prove a lucrative relationship—so long as those apps prove popular. Apps that pass $25,000 in revenue will earn their developers 80 percent of every dollar generated; for those that never pass that revenue mark, Microsoft will pay out 70 percent, a
ratio that has become something of the industry standard.

By baking an app storefront into Windows 8, and giving developers a larger slice of the revenue pie for successful products, Microsoft has fired a significant shot across the bow of Apple and its App Store franchise.

Originally launched in 2008 as a platform for iOS, the App Store model proved successful enough for Apple to port it onto Mac OS X “Lion.” Other companies followed suit with their own mobile-app storefronts, although only the Android Marketplace has managed to achieve a similar scale in terms of app offerings.

In the battle against Apple’s App Store, Microsoft is likely banking on Windows 8 attracting a broad audience of both consumers and business users, which in turn would generate a significant market for everything from games to enterprise applications. Businesses are a key audience for Microsoft products, and thus a target of the company’s earliest communications regarding its new storefront.

“Enterprise developers have been asking about their path to market with Metro style apps,” Ted Dworkin, partner program manager for the Windows Store, wrote in a Dec. 6 posting on the new Windows Store blog. “And, in turn, IT administrators have been asking about deployment and management scenarios, such as compliance and security.”

Microsoft’s way of fulfilling those enterprise needs, apparently, centers on giving businesses direct control over app deployment. “Enterprises can choose to limit access to
the Windows Store catalog by their employees, or allow access but restrict certain apps,” he wrote. “In addition, enterprises can choose to deploy Metro style apps directly to PCs, without going through the Store infrastructure.”

Microsoft is also giving developers controls over in-app advertising, and highlighting how the app certification will be “predictable.” The latter is another swipe at Apple, whose app-approval process has attracted criticism from some developers as too opaque. Windows 8 beta will arrive in February 2012, with the final release later that year. Unlike previous versions of the operating system with their desktop-style interface, the upcoming operating system’s start screen centers on a set of colorful, touchable tiles linked to applications—the better to port it onto tablets and other touch-centric form-factors.

That focus on tablets will necessarily place Windows 8 in direct competition with not only Apple’s iPad, but the host of Google Android tablets on the market. Against those opponents, a robust app store is a necessity—something that Microsoft is intent on building now.

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The threat of cyberattacks on the U.S. power grid  should be dealt with by a single federal agency, not the welter of groups now  charged with the electric system’s security, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported on Monday.

While acknowledging there is no absolute insurance  against such attacks, the MIT researchers said a single U.S. agency would be  better able to address the problem than the disparate federal, state and local  entities responsible for various aspects of safeguarding the power grid.

In a report on the future of the U.S. electric grid,  through 2030, the team recommended that the federal agency should work with  industry and have the appropriate regulatory authority to enhance cybersecurity preparedness, response and  recovery.

To cope with an expected increase in renewable  sources such as wind and solar power, where energy is often generated far from  the densely populated areas where it is used, the panel recommended granting  more authority to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to site transmission facilities that cross state  lines.

Other recommendations include:

- Utilities with advanced metering technology should  start the transition to customer prices that reflect the time-varying costs of  supplying power, to improve the grid’s efficiency and make rates lower.

- The electric power industry should fund research  and development in computational tools for bulk power systems, methods for  wide-area transmission planning, procedures for responding to cyberattacks and  models of consumer response to real-time pricing.

- To improve decision-making, more detailed data  about the bulk power system, results from “smart grid” demonstration projects  and other measures of utility cost and performance should be compiled and  shared.

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Cisco today announced their inaugural Global Cloud Index report, providing statistics and forecasts on both the current and future use of the cloud.

While Cisco has been predicting for years the growth of the network by way of their Visual Networking Index, the Cloud Index takes a look at traffic both inside and outside of the data center. Among the key forecasts from the new Cloud report is that overall data center IP traffic will grow between 2010 and 2015 at a compound annual growth rate of 33 percent. Overall traffic will grow from 1.1 Zettabytes in 2010 to 4.8 Zettabytes in 2015.

“The interesting part about the 4.8 Zettabyte figure is that it is higher than what we forecast in the Visual Networking Index for the network itself and this caught us by surprise,” Doug Webster, Sr. Director of SP Marketing at Cisco told InternetNews.com. “The vast majority of traffic is staying within the data center itself.”

Webster noted that approximately 76 percent of traffic stays within the data center as virtual machines migrate from one server to another. Data center to data center traffic is also on the rise, accounting for as much as 17 percent of total traffic.

Cisco analyst Shruti Jain added that many people don’t realize how much supplementary data is generated for different types of transactions. For example, Jain told InternetNews.com that if you send a 1 MB email to four people, you’d expect to have used 5 MB of data. As it turns out according to Cisco’s findings, that transaction can generate as much as 30 MB of data due to all the storage, replication and backup that goes on.

Looking specifically at cloud traffic, according to Cisco, the cloud represents only 11 percent of data center traffic today. That number will grow to 34 percent by 2015. Overall cloud traffic is set to increase as well, growing from 130 Exabytes today to 1.6 Zettabytes in 2015.

In terms of defining the cloud, Cisco is using the NIST definition of cloud, which isn’t just about virtualization, but also includes the idea of elastic services that are billed on a usage basis.

“We’re aligning with a broader view than just saying that anything that is virtualized is cloud,” Jain said. “We’re not equating cloud to virtualization and we’re making sure we include things like usage based pricing.”

From a workload perspective, only 21 percent of workloads were cloud based in 2010. Cisco expects that number to grow to 51 percent by 2014. While cloud will represent the majority of workloads in 2014, it will not represent the majority of data center traffic.

“That is due to more efficiency on the cloud side,” Jain said. “Also there is the fact that some workloads are less traffic intensive to begin with.”

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If you’ve been weighing buying a new Mac or iPad but are holding out for one of Apple’s rare discounts, Black Friday is your chance. As it’s done in recent years, Apple is holding a “one-day shopping event” for the day after Thanksgiving. A page on Apple’s site invites Black Friday shoppers to visit its online store; it’s not clear whether the same deals will be offered at the company’s retail stores as well.

Apple’s promotional copy touts “iPad, iPod and Mac gifts.” Conspicuously absent is any mention of deals on the new iPhone 4S, which starts at $199 (with two-year wireless-carrier contract) and will probably not be discounted.  In typically cryptic fashion, the company isn’t offering specifics on its seasonal markdowns. But the blog 9to5Mac published what it claims are some leaked details: Modest discounts of $101 on Macs, $41-$61 on iPads (depending on storage capacity) and $21-$41 on iPods.

Those would be in line with the Black Friday deals Apple offered last year, although the company only marked its iPads down by $41. 9to5Mac also says some accessories, such as iPad covers, will be discounted Friday. There was no mention of any deals on iPhones.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment Wednesday on the report or on potential discounts.  Even at a briefly discounted price of $458, the cheapest iPad has new
competition this holiday season from smaller, less expensive tablets like  Amazon’s Kindle Fire ($199) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet ($249).  BlackBerry also has slashed the price of its 7-inch PlayBook tablet from $499 to about $200, depending on the retailer.

Some observers also had expected Black Friday to mark the debut of Apple’s huge new retail store inside New York City’s iconic Grand Central Station. But
according to tech-news blog Mashable, a CNN.com content partner, construction workers at the site don’t expect the store to open until December.

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Expert tip: choosing “password” as your online password is not a good idea. In fact, unless you’re hoping to be an easy target for hackers, it’s the worst password you can possibly choose.

“Password” ranks first on password management application provider SplashData’s annual list of worst internet passwords, which are ordered by how common they are. (“Passw0rd,” with a numeral zero, isn’t much smarter, ranking 18th on the list.)

The list is somewhat predictable: Sequences of adjacent numbers or letters on the keyboard, such as “qwerty” and “123456,” and popular names, such as “michael,” are all common choices. Other common choices, such as “monkey” and “shadow,” are harder to explain.

As some websites have begun to require passwords to include both numbers and letters, it makes sense varied choices, such as “abc123″ and “trustno1,” are popular choices.

SplashData created the rankings based on millions of stolen passwords posted online by hackers. Here is the complete list:

1. password
2. 123456
3. 12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123
6. monkey
7. 1234567
8. letmein
9. trustno1
10. dragon
11. baseball
12. 111111
13. iloveyou
14. master
15. sunshine
16. ashley
17. bailey
18. passw0rd
19. shadow
20. 123123
21. 654321
22. superman
23. qazwsx
24. michael
25. football

SplashData CEO Morgan Slain urges businesses and consumers using any password on the list to change them immediately.

“Hackers can easily break into many accounts just by repeatedly trying common passwords,” Slain says. “Even though people are encouraged to select secure, strong passwords, many people continue to choose weak, easy-to-guess ones, placing themselves at risk from fraud and identity theft.”

The company provided some tips for choosing secure passwords in a statement:

• Vary different types of characters in your passwords; include numbers, letters and special characters when possible.
• Choose passwords of eight characters or more. Separate short words with spaces or underscores.
• Don’t use the same password and username combination for multiple websites. Use an online password manager to keep track of your different accounts.

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Developers around the world believe IBM Watson’s sophisticated analytics capabilities will transform industries that are managing massive amounts of data, according to the 2011 IBM Tech Trends Report released today. Survey respondents selected education and healthcare as the areas that could benefit the most, with financial services, life sciences and government also ranking near the top.

The 2011 Tech Trends Report surveyed more than 4,000 Information Technology (IT) professionals from 93 countries and 25 industries who provided their views on future IT trends. The results also show a growing need for technical skills in the areas of business analytics, social business, mobile computing, open source technologies and cloud computing. Read the report at: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/techtrendsreport, share your opinions at #TechTrends and see what IBM experts are saying about the findings at: www.youtube.com/IBMEcosystem

According to the report, business analytics software is the most widely used technology of those surveyed. In fact, business analytics software is being incorporated in almost every business process within organizations. Forty-two percent of respondents believe that business analytics will continue to be in demand for software development. The report also outlines the growing importance of open source platforms such as Apache Hadoop and Linux for business analytics software developers.

The report provides IT and business professionals a roadmap of the technologies and skills that will be in greatest demand in the coming years. Key findings in the 2011 IBM Tech Trends Report include:

• Eighty-seven percent of respondents believe open source and open standard technologies will play a key role in the future of application development.
• During the next two years more than 75 percent of organizations will engage in cloud computing.
• Fifty-one percent of respondents cited the adoption of cloud technologies as part of their mobile strategy.
• Regional cultural differences impact social business adoption. India is strongly embracing social business with a 57 percent adoption rate, followed by the US with a 45 percent adoption rate and China with a 44 percent adoption rate. Russia shows the strongest resistance with a 19 percent adoption rate.

“The results are clear. Mobile computing, cloud computing, social business and business analytics have gone beyond niche status and are now part of any modern organization’s core IT focus,” said Jim Corgel, general manager ISV and Developer Relations, IBM. “IT professionals who can develop the skills needed to work across these technologies will be ready to meet growing business demand in the coming years.”

IBM developerWorks, the company’s online community for IT professionals is the industry’s largest and most visited global site for them to gain technology skills. More than eight million IT professionals have visited the community to gain no-cost access to software tools and code, IT standards and best practices across various industries. Visitors also tap skills training in open technologies, business analytics, cloud computing and mobile computing, among others. In addition, IBM Business Partners and entrepreneurs can access advanced training and resources at IBM’s network of 40 Innovation Centers around the world to further build their skills.

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Google has a secret laboratory, unknown even to most of the company’s employees, where it develops projects that sound like something taken from a sci-fi movie, the New York Timesreports.

At the lab, located somewhere in the Bay Area, Google’s brightest engineers are working on some hundred projects, including smart refrigerators and dinner plates, robots that fetch the groceries and elevators that can take you to outer space.

An unnamed Google engineer says that the lab is run mysteriously, in two different office buildings — one for logistics and the other for robotics projects.

The scientists working in the lab include hires from Microsoft, Nokia, Stanford, M.I.T., Carnegie Mellon and New York University. Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin is reportedly “deeply involved” with the project, and he and co-founder Larry Page have come up with a list of ideas for the lab.

It is reportedly headed by robotics and artificial intelligence expert Sebastian Thrun from Stanford, best known for his work on the world’s first driverless car. Andrew Ng, a Stanford professor and an esteemed A.I. expert, also works at the lab.

A Google spokeswoman would not confirm the existence of the lab, but she did say that Google likes to invest in speculative projects. Google’s 20% rule, which lets engineers spend one-fifth of their work time on personal projects, is one example of that, but a secret lab takes this idea a step further and makes you wonder which of these technologies will graduate to be full-fledged Google projects.

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The Department of Justice has indicted seven people for allegedly hijackingmillions of computers, manipulating traffic on popular websites, and generating more than $14 million in fraudulent advertising revenue.

The defendants — six Estonians and one Russian — allegedly hijacked more than 4 million computers using malware that rerouted Internet traffic to websites where they would get a cut of the ad revenue. Infected computers with users looking for popular websites such as Netflix, Amazon, and iTunes were rerouted to webpages that featured the defendants’ ads.

This case is supposedly the “first of its kind,” according to US Attorney Preet Bharara, because the suspects set up their own “rogue servers” in order to perform the rerouting. Using their rogue servers, the defendants were allegedly able to substitute legitimate Internet ads with their own ads, thereby generating millions in advertising revenue.

According to BusinessWeek, the indictment cited a case in which an American Express ad on the Wall Street Journal’s home page was replaced — instantly, once users clicked on it — with an ad for “Fashion Girl LA.”

About 500,000 of the infected computers were located in the United States, Bharara said in a news conference in New York. The alleged scheme, which ran from 2007 to 2011, was first discovered at NASA, where 130 computers were infected.

The defendants are being charged with 27 counts of wire fraud, conspiracy, money laundering, and computer-related crimes. The most serious charges, wire fraud and money laundering, carry a maximum punishment of 30 years in prison.

The six Estonian defendants — Vladimir Tsastsin, Timur Gerassimenko, Dmitri Jegorow, Valeri Aleksejev, Konstantin Poltev, and Anton Ivanov — were arrested Tuesday, but the Russian suspect, Audrey Taame, remains at large.

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UPDATE 8:39 A.M. PST: Adobe confirmed it will cease Flash development on mobile devices in a press release published Wednesday morning.

In an abrupt about-face in its mobile software strategy, Adobe will soon cease developing its Flash Player plug-in for mobile browsers, according to an e-mail sent to Adobe partners on Tuesday evening.

And with that e-mail flash, Adobe has signaled that it knows, as Steve Jobs predicted, the end of the Flash era on the web is coming soon.

The e-mail, obtained and first reported on by ZDNet, says that Adobe will no longer continue to “adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations,” instead focusing on alternative application packaging programs and the HTML5 protocol.

“Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores,” the quoted e-mail says.

In the past, Adobe has released software tools for mobile developers that create a single platform programmers can use to make applications that work across three major mobile platforms: Android, iOS and the BlackBerry OS. While it’s seemingly easier than learning all of the native languages for each operating system, some developers have claimed a loss in app performance when coding in a non-native language that then gets translated into other languages.

The move indicates a massive backpedaling on Adobe’s part, a company who championed its Flash platform in the face of years of naysaying about its use on mobile devices. Despite Flash’s near ubiquity across desktop PCs, many in the greater computing industry, including, famously, Apple Computer, have denounced the platform as fundamentally unstable on mobile browsers, and an intense battery drain. In effect, Flash’s drawbacks outweigh the benefits on mobile devices.

Flash became a dominant desktop platform by allowing developers to code interactive games, create animated advertisements and deliver video to any browser that had the plugin installed, without having to take into account the particulars of any given browser. However, with the development of Javascript, CSS, and HTML5, which has native support for video, many web developers are turning away from Flash, which can be a resource hog even on the most advanced browsers.

Apple made its biggest waves in the case against Flash in April of last year, when Steve Jobs penned a 1,500-word screed against the controversial platform, describing it as a technology of the past. Jobs and Apple disliked the platform so intensely, it has since been barred from use on all iOS devices.

Despite attempts to breathe life into Flash on other mobile devices — namely, Android and BlackBerry OS — Adobe has failed to deliver a consistently stable version of the platform on a smartphone or tablet. In WIRED’s testing of the BlackBerry PlayBook in April, Flash use caused the browser to crash on a consistent basis. And when Flash was supposed to come to tablets with Motorola’s Xoom, Adobe was only able to provide an highly unstable Beta version of Flash to ship with the flagship Android device.

“Adobe has lost so much credibility with the community that I’m hoping they are bought by someone else that can bring some stability and eventually some credibility back to the Flash Platform,” wrote software developer Dan Florio in a blog post on Wednesday morning.

The drastic reversal in Adobe’s mobile plans comes in the wake of the company cutting 750 jobs on Tuesday, a move prompted by what Adobe labeled “corporate restructuring.”

An Adobe representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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