Microsoft's Windows-and-devices group again records lower revenue

But declines in the 'More Personal Computing' division were less than the previous quarter, with Windows revenue down 8%

Microsoft yesterday again reported a decline in revenue for the group responsible for Windows, the Surface line of 2-in-1s and notebooks, and smartphones, in 2015's fourth quarter. Microsoft sold just 4.5 million Lumia smartphones, or 57% fewer, than in the same quarter the year before, and revenue from phones overall plummeted by $1.2 billion, a decline of 53%.With those sales numbers -- Apple, in contrast, sold 5.7 million iPhones each week during its December quarter -- Microsoft's business is on the edge of, if not ending, then on an abyss of apathy.

From the article, we can see the project of Lumia smartphone is failed. it caused revenue from phones overall plummeted by $1.2 billion, a decline of 53%. The reason that may cause the failure is unclear business needs and project objects and inadequate user involvement.  Lumia did not clear the need of customers and market so it is hard to compete with Apple. To make project successful, the project manager should fully understand the business need and users request.

After reading the article, I understood that it is necessary to satisfy users request and company's business need to make project successful. When managing a project, we should communicate with users and make system user friendly.

Citation: 
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3028072/windows-pcs/microsofts-windows-and-devices-group-again-records-lower-revenue.html

Banking on security innovation to beat the hackers

The most advanced banks take a pro-active approach to cyber-security.

In the article, " Banking on security innovation to beat the hackers", cybercriminals and the most advanced banks take a pro-active approach to cyber-security.   Banks are being asked to be more open, digital, and customer-focused through the advance of newer technologies like mobile payments, biometrics and wearable devices. This was accompanied by increasingly serious hacker problem. To solve the problem, a project is created. It asks banks think like hackers: conduct external penetration testing against themselves, mine the dark web for their own information leakage, apply data classification products to prevent data loss (DLP).

The aim is to make it too costly for a criminal gang to steal our money. Any criminal gang looks at risk, investment and profit and if that doesn’t match up, they will go elsewhere. There are numerous ways of ‘kicking out’ the hackers. Most forward-thinking banks are now considering honeypots and dummy data sources.

In the lecture, we learned project planning and project management. The first activity of core process identify problem and and obtain approval. In the article, the problem that bank faced is cybercriminals and security problems. The second activity of SDLC core process is plan and monitor. The project plans to test internal applications, perimeter defense and staff against phishing attacks. If banks get penetrated, the project can ensure banks detect hackers, and isolate or kick them out as soon as they are in.

After reading this article, I learned how bank security works and how important IT is. MIS is responsible for company’s information security and clients’ interest.

Citation:
http://www.cio.com/article/3002038/data-protection/banking-on-security-innovation-to-beat-the-hackers.html

User Error Compromises Many Encrypted Communication Apps

Apps that aim to let you talk securely may be made less secure by users who screw up the authentication process.

In the article, "User Error Compromises Many Encrypted Communication Apps", Apps often ask users to verity checksum or short authentication string to make sure the information hasn’t been breached by an intruder. However, this process has been proved insecure by the researchers from University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Researchers mimicked a cryptophone app and have 128 participants attend the test. Participants listened to a random two- or four-word checksum and determined if it matched the words researchers give. The researchers found that study participants frequently accepted calls even if they heard the wrong sequence of words, and often denied calls when the sequence was spoken correctly. Beyond that, researchers say that using a four-word checksum instead of a two-word checksum seemed to decrease security, even though a longer checksum should increase security exponentially.

In the lecture, we learned reasons that may cause project failure: poor IT management and poor IT procedures, inadequate executive support for projects, and inadequate user involvement. The apps, which include RedPhone and Signal, have this authentication problem. These apps' authentication process makes users confused and reduce users' interest. For these reasons, the failure of authentication may cause failure of project.

According to this article, we can know that authentication processed by people is insecure and may affected by subjective thought. when managing a system, authentication and password are needed to be set. Obviously, the authentication process should be totally controlled by computer and system. users and system administrators should not be involved in. The system management should also have a standard procedure. If administrator need change the authentication, he should follow the procedure. Only in this way, the authentication of system can works because computers makes no mistake.

Citation:
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/544516/user-error-compromises-many-encrypted-communication-apps/

Hands-on with LG’s roll-up flexible screen

Technology has become fundamental to societal and corporate growth. Human activity, and arguable human existence, is hinged on technological developments. The article by Dave Lee indicates the benefits and defects of technology in the TV field growth. He mentions that LG has worked with the flexible roll-up screen. The characteristic for this screen is that it can be rolled up or scrunched around, but it displays with full HD. They already made 18in screens, but their aim is 55in and beyond. With this screen, people can roll it up when they don’t need it. However, even LG has no idea about how much it would actually cost when it will be sold at all. Unfortunately, when the dead pixels damage, there will be a tiny empty square on the screen. This kind of screen just can be rolled, but not folded flat.  See the video for how it works at the link below.

This huge project is an innovation in technology. As we discussed in class, project management needs project cost management knowledge. They need to know how much this project will cost in the whole process. However, the LG team isn’t able to find out how much it would cost. The LG Company’s primary goal is to make a roll-up screen. Actually they didn’t calculate how many customers will buy this screen, and how much will it cost or expenditure. They need to make sure that this screen can work efficiently the same as the normal TV.

Although this roll-up screen is a newly technology, it may develop quickly. MIS students have to know the trend of IT development. MIS professionals should focus on calculating how to avoid producing inferior products. As a result, IT students must be open-minded about the future.

Citation:
Lee, D. (n.d.). CES 2016: Hands-on with LG's roll-up flexible screen - BBC News. Retrieved January 29, 2016, from http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35230043

For DevOps Success, Embrace Culture Change

For success in a DevOps environment, tech companies must provide their employees with a safe environment, easy access to knowledge, and freedom. Discussion and idea sharing should be encouraged. Once these are fulfilled, a company will reap the benefits that DevOps promises. Maybe. Written in a tweet from Ian Head, Research Director at Gartner, he estimates that "by 2018, 90% of I&O organizations attempting to use DevOps without specifically addressing their cultural foundations will fail.". A focus on the technical aspects of the software development methodology rather than the cultural aspects is where the challenge begins.

In order to over come these challenges, author Chris Cancialosi provides some cultural considerations for DevOps. These items include creating a space for employees to meet and discuss freely, providing support to leaders, as they are often the last position that is considered in need of support, actively engaging stakeholders, acknowledging that mistakes will happen, but to use them as a learning exercise, and understanding the difference between skepticism and cynicism. "It takes time and shared experience for a new DevOps culture to embed itself." Once the cynics are gone and the skeptics have started to see that a DevOps environment can yield benefits, that is when the culture begins to embed itself.

DevOps is a fundamentally different way of working that requires careful consideration to cultural and human dynamics. It cannot be solely implemented with tools, it requires attention to cultural aspects along side the infrastructure components. If done properly, however, this form of collaboration among teams will empower members with a sense of purpose and aligned leadership.

As an MIS student searching for job opportunities, it is key to understand what companies are engaged in DevOps, or other software development methodologies. It is important to know if a DevOps environment is the right fit, or if another methodology is better. Of course, no one can fully understand a companies culture until they are immersed but by educating oneself about the different methodologies, an easier more knowledgeable decision can be made.

Citation:
Cancialosi, Chris. "For DevOps Success, Embrace Culture Change." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 25 Jan. 2016. Web. 30 Jan. 2016. http://www.forbes.com/sites/chriscancialosi/2016/01/25/for-devops-success-embrace-culture-change/#789aeff9382f. 

Operational Effects From Effective Data Management And Communication

Inter-connectivity between business organizations is becoming a requirement with the advancement of technologies and its effects on business efficiency. Different areas of each business tend to work in their own respect with their own systems. This in turn means that there is miscommunication and latency throughout these companies through just waiting for information to update. A perfect example of this is the social security office and the department of motor vehicles. At least forty-eight hours is necessary for information to be exchanged between these two organizations which function with the same data. This data is used their own software packages which are used to minimize operational costs.

It is easy in this big data world to purchase software to process all of the information. However, from an operational standpoint this approach could have unforeseen negative externalities. Pre-made templates and proprietary formats are just some of the ways software automation can get in the way of a business.

It is important for businesses to consider the operational costs of their choices in the future. Data warehousing and distributed data fabric are coming to be essential pieces to running a business which effectively communicates its data throughout the entire company. As MIS professionals it is necessary to take these concerns into consideration when working with our perspective companies. If implemented properly, it could take more time for the initial startup of the project but would be most effective for long term deployment.

http://www.sapient.com/content/dam/sapient/sapientglobalmarkets/pdf/FactSheets/IBOR_WP_final.pdf

http://www.cio.com/article/2391872/project-management/12-common-project-management-mistakes--and-how-to-avoid-them.html

Europe's biggest Kickstarter has gone bust after raising $3.6 million

Kickstarter is a famous global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. Project creators can gather money from public and choose a deadline and a minimum funding goal. It works so well for creators around the world who have coolest idea and letting other people support them and get some return from those cool projects. Unfortunately, bad news just happened two months ago as Zano drone project fail to deliver their product. Zano drone is an ultra-portable, personal aerial photography and HD video platform that fit in a user's hand and beamed straight images back to their smartphone. After it was introduced on Kickstarter, it soon became Europe's biggest Kickstarter campaign that raised more than 3.6 million dollars. However, project backers were very disappointed with the outcome of the Zano project since the build quality is very low. The Drone which the company delivered had poor battery life, low picture quality and lack of other features. With no surprise, this is not the first time that a project in Kickstarter completely failed.

One of the basic reasons for Kickstarter project’s failure is lack of project management. Many creators admit that they need basic project management skill and most of the time they failed to manage the resources they had, such as money and time. On the other hand,

Kickstarter dose not require creators to post their project plan like work breakdown structure etc. As a result, after they received enough money form backers, they just start their project right away without any thoughtful planning and management. At the end, creators may fail to meet their main objective and cause dissatisfaction from their backers.

As MIS students, we will deal with different projects all the time. To have a clear goal and time management is essential. IT projects often involve many resources and have time limitation, with a well planned work process structure is the best way to begin the project as project management is the foundation of success.

Citations:

http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/19/9759834/zano-drone-bankrupt-liquidation-kickstarter

https://medium.com/triggertrap-playbook/how-a-half-million-dollar-kickstarter-project-can-crash-and-burn-5482d7d33ee1#.rnwqng8ki