In the interest of protecting children, a new iOS application called AppCertain has debuted a monitoring application aimed at parents. The app, whose goal is to alert parents about the nature of the applications their kids are downloading, involves the use of a “configuration profile” – special software Apple originally intended for enterprise use, not consumer-facing apps sold through its App Store marketplace.

But Apple reviewed the application – for longer than most, founder and CEO Spencer Whitman tells us – and subsequently approved it. For how long that will remain the case, however, is unknown.

“We think we are on a gray line with respect to Apple, but we don’t really know,” Whitman admits.

Configuration profiles, for those unfamiliar, were designed for the enterprise environment, allowing I.T. departments to manage the iPhones and iPads used by a company’s employees. They’re typically employed by Mobile Device Management solutions which use the software to configure, track and/or restrict a number of system-level settings like Wi-Fi, VPNs, app settings, permissions, and more.

But more recently, a handful of startups have started using these same profiles to work around Apple’s App Store’s restrictions in order to accomplish tasks which wouldn’t otherwise be possible. Apple is aware this is happening, and seems to be handling each app submission on a one-off basis for now.

We’ve seen mobile data compression utilities like Onavo and Snappli take advantage of the technology to intercept, re-route, and compress web data in order to save users’ bandwidth, for instance. Social search engine Wajam also uses a configuration profile to inject its own search results into Safari, though this is done outside of the Apple App Store.

Onavo is still live on the Apple App Store today, though Snappli has since disappeared. (We reached out to the company for details, but have yet to hear back. It’s possible that Apple simply didn’t care for the fact that Snappli had publicly shared data showing how iOS users were dumping the then newly-launched Apple Maps application.)

But frankly, it seems odd that Apple would knowingly ever let these types of applications into its consumer-facing app store in the first place, given the security risks they could pose. If used unscrupulously, a malicious configuration profile could remote control a user’s device, manipulate user activity, and hijack their sessions, or so explained security researchers at Skycure back in March.

AppCertain isn’t a malicious developer, though, and its intentions are not to control or restrict how an Apple device is used, which would then be stepping on top of Apple’s own, built-in Parental Control features. Instead, it only monitors app downloads and reports back to parents via email that an app was downloaded, explaining what the app does, as well as what sorts of permissions it requests, and more.

The idea is to alert parents about the apps their child uses, including whether or not they have educational value. It doesn’t prevent the child from actually downloading or installing apps.

The service, staffed by a number of Carnegie Mellon University alumni, first launched to the web in February after being incubated by seed and studio fund Birchmere Labs.

Whitman explained at the time that the company wanted to help busy parents, who often have a hard time keeping up with what their children are installing and using. It’s not only a problem that affects tech novices, he had said. Even savvy parents often forget or get too busy to keep a close eye on their children’s devices. And these devices, little mini-computers that they are, are not without risks.

Parental Controls Outside Of Apple’s Control

While AppCertain is trying to go the official, Apple-approved route with its creation, another company, a small German app consultancy called Mocava, is not. Its new Parental Control application is an over-the-air install only, knowing that Apple would never approve it for App Store download.

Mocava owner Vinh Phuc Dinh says that he created the app to address a situation he found himself in all the time. “I have many nephews, and would pass on my device for them to play,” he tells us. “Unfortunately, there is no easy way to restrict access on the iPhone and save the desired preferences. So we built it ourselves.”

What he means is that though Apple offers parental control features, it’s not the right solution for those who only need controls on occasion. With his Parental Control App, you can quickly turn on restrictions without having to reconfigure them from scratch them each time you hand your phone or iPad to a child. Even if Apple’s restrictions are turned off, the tool will remember your settings.

You can restrict certain default apps from being accessed or certain content from being viewed. You can disable in-app purchases, or specify that an App Store password is always required, and more. To get started, you configure your settings on the web, then download the profile the company provides.

The mere fact that this app and AppCertain even exist speaks to one of the problems with Apple’s strict control over its OS. Unlike on Android where apps like  KIDO’Z, Kytephone, Play Safe, Kid Mode and others allow parents more granular control and insight, Apple’s settings are cumbersome. If you turn on age restrictions, for example, the child can’t watch Netflix. You can disable the web browser, but not whitelist websites, and so on.

These devices are computers, and while parents may disagree on what level of involvement on their part is necessary, it’s fair to say that as with “real” computers, children – especially young children – shouldn’t be given free rein with no parental oversight. Too many parents think of iPads as toys, blindly typing in their password every time their kid begs for a new app. They, perhaps, put too much trust in Apple’s “family friendly” policies – just because apps are rated and ranked, pornography or gore-free, that doesn’t make everything appropriate for every child.

It will be interesting to see how far Apple allows these companies to push into this new territory, before it decides to crack down or otherwise change its policies.

AppCertain is available for download here on iPhone and iPad.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Dell shareholders Carl Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management have teamed up to propose an alternative offer to founder Michael Dell’s $24.4 billion leveraged buyout deal.

According to correspondence obtained by the Wall Street Journal, Icahn and Southeastern say they would give Dell shareholders the option to continue holding stock in the company and take an additional $12 a share in cash or stock.

Southeastern is Dell’s largest shareholder with a 8.5 percent stake. Icahn and Southeastern currently hold a combined 13 percent of Dell’s stock, while Michael Dell and his partners hold about 16 percent.

Carl Icahn has sought to overturn Michael Dell’s bid to take the company private since March. The activist investor, who owns a $1 billion stake in Dell, originally said he was open to a partnership with Blackstone Group after the private equity firm made its own separate bid for the PC maker. Blackstone Group backed away from its offers last month, however, citing Dell’s “deteriorating” business. Dell’s operating margins and sales have been hurt as demand for PCs drop.

Michael Dell and Silver Lake agreed in February to buy out shareholders at $13.65 a share. Icahn and Southeastern are among several major investors who say that Michael Dell and Silver Lake’s offer undervalues the company.

In the letter seen by WSJ, Icahn and Southeastern also brought up the possibility of replacing Michael Dell and other members of Dell’s board and management.

“You now have the opportunity to ameliorate the damage we believe you have caused to Dell and its shareholders by following the fair and reasonable path set forth in this letter,” wrote Icahn and Southeastern president G. Staley Cates.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

San Francisco-based Revel Systems is essentially the industry leader when it comes to iPad-based point-of-sale (POS) for restaurants, grocery and now retail, and today it’s adding additional security features that provide an added level of comfort for users and merchants. Revel 2.0 brings a new identity theft protection system to the POS, which shows an image of the credit card holder on the merchant’s screen whenever they use their credit card.

The new system goes above and beyond the requirements for PCI compliance that Revel already builds into its project, and adds to both chip-and-pin support, which is especially useful in a swipe card-based credit card economy like that found in the U.S. Many merchants already request photo ID when conducting credit card transactions, but having no photo on file to compare it to means the possibility for identity theft and fraud still exists.

With the new Revel system, users will have to sign up for an account on their own in order for their photo to show up when they make a transaction. Revel CTO and co-founder Chris Ciabarra explained in an interview that they’ll be prompted to do this every time they receive a receipt from a Revel-enabled merchant or business. The Revel account can be set up easily via Facebook integration, instantly providing access to a photo of a user without even requiring any uploads. Of course, the new security feature also points people towards Revel’s growing consumer network, which helps the company learn more about the people using its products.

“It helps the merchant so they don’t lose money, and it helps the card holder so they don’t lose their identity,” Ciabarra said, talking about the main benefits for Revel’s customers. The FTC found that 12.6 million Americans fell prey to ID theft in 2012, which actually isn’t a record – 13.9 million was the highest, back in 2009. But simple credit card fraud still accounts for around two-thirds in total. Adding preventative measures to Revel’s POS shows that the startup isn’t just looking to innovate in terms of software and hardware, but also in the way that transactions are handled and secured.

Revel 2.0 also adds a number of other features, including the MDM partnership with Moki Mobility that also boosts the overall system’s security measures, and allows for things like remote wipe and lock down of stolen units. There’s also delivery tracking, driver time logs, SumUp payments for UK and European merchants and more.

The iPad and tablet-based POS space is heating up, with a lot of smaller players like Koupah entering the fray, but Ciabarra is confident that updates like this one, as well as Revel’s head start and success expanding to new verticals like retail will help keep it ahead of the pack.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Facebook added 34 new positions to its careers page this week, including a number of openings on the engineering, account management and user operations teams.

The company is looking for a number of administrative assistants in different departments, including one to work directly for COO Sheryl Sandberg.

Facebook is also seeking to hire performance marketing strategists to “advise some of the industry’s largest performance marketers on how to use the power of social marketing for performance-based objectives.”

New listings added to Facebook’s careers page:

• Accessibility QA Specialist (Menlo Park)
• Software Engineer (Toronto – Vancouver)
• Partner Solutions Engineer (Singapore)
• Performance and Capacity Engineer (Menlo Park)
• Financial Operations (Menlo Park)
• Fixed Assets Accountant – Systems and Controls (Menlo Park)
• Administrative Assistant – Corporate Development (Menlo Park)
• Administrative Assistant, Ads Engineering (Menlo Park)
• Administrative Assistant, Mobile Partner Management (Menlo Park)
• Administrative Assistant, Platform Partnerships (Menlo Park)
• Administrative Assistant, Sales Planning & Operations (Menlo Park)
• Executive Assistant (Mumbai) (Mumbai)
• Associate Manager, Public Policy (New York – Washington – Menlo Park)
• Manager, Data Protection and Public Policy (London)
• Language Specialist, Arabic (Contract) (Menlo Park)
• Team Lead, User Operations (Menlo Park)
• Lead Developer, Salesforce (Menlo Park)
• Technical Recruiter (Contract) (Dublin)
• Data Center Construction Cost Manager (Menlo Park)
• Data Center Technical Operations Manager (Altoona)
• Performance Marketing Manager, Marketing Communications (Menlo Park)
• Performance Solutions (Direct Response) Strategist (Dublin)
• Performance Solutions (Direct Response) Strategist (London)
• Product Marketing Manager, Data & Audience Targeting (Menlo Park)
• Analyst, User Operations Intellectual Property (Menlo Park)
• Associate, User Operations Intellectual Property (Austin)
• Account Manager, Tech/Social Commerce (Menlo Park)
• Account Manager, Dutch (Dublin)
• Account Manager, French (Dublin – Paris)
• EMEA Sales Manager, Gaming (Dublin)
• Manager, Mid Market Sales, France (Dublin)
• Partner Manager, Preferred Marketing Developer, Spain. Italy, Portugal (Dublin)
• Client Partner Argentina (Buenos Aires)
• Performance (Direct Response) Sales Trainer (Menlo Park)

Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2013 NY, eBay’s CEO John Donahoe talked to Bloomberg’s chief content editor Norm Pearlstine about how the company screens its acquisitions and how he keeps founders from leaving after the acquisition. Since becoming eBay’s CEO, Donahoe said, the company has made about 20 acquisitions. Currently, fifteen of the founders that joined eBay and PayPal after their companies were acquired are still at eBay and most of them are in executive positions.

After the company acquired Zong in 2011, for example, Zong’s founder David Marcus became PayPal’s vice president for mobile. After essentially getting tested in that position, he became the President of PayPal last year. Similarly, when eBay acquired Hunch (also in 2011), its team of co-founders, including Chris Dixon, Tom Pinckney and Matt Gattis joined the company (with Dixon leaving after about a year). Today, this team is in charge of eBay’s homepage.

Donahoe believes that in order to keep founders from leaving, eBay needs to give them the opportunity to grow inside the company. Because of this, he is also most interested in acquiring companies where the management team believes that they can execute their vision inside eBay. “We are always looking for companies that have a strong vision,” Donahoe said. “And then we allow them to innovate at a higher level.” The kind of founders he likes, he said, are “founders come to us and say we founded our company to do x and would like to take it to the next level.”

In his view, this strategy has been a key ingredient to eBay’s and PayPal’s success. Acquisitions, in his view, drive innovation inside a large company like eBay and bringing in founders as executives – and giving them monetary incentives to stay as well, of course – is a key part of this strategy.

As for the details of these incentives, Donahoe noted that “most of the founders make money in the acquisition In some cases the acquisition price is tied to staying for a two-three year period. But yes – we provide incentives to stay. We provide good compensation, but at the end of the day, we need to create a culture where they can realize their visions.” He does, for example, regularly meet with founders to discuss the state of the company. These discussions have, for example, lead to the redesign of the eBay’s homepage. It’s that kind of impact, he believes, that keeps founders at eBay.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Finnish startup M-Files, a provider of a metadata-powered content management solution targeting the enterprise, has closed a €6 million (~$7.8m) series A round led by DFJ Esprit, with participation from Finnish Industry Investment. It says it will use the fresh injection of capital to fuel its growth plans in the U.S., and bolster sales and marketing via partner channels globally.

Described as shunning the outdated folder structure traditionally used by enterprise-wide document management systems, which is said to date back to the ’80s, M-Files’ solution is based on a metadata approach that cares less about where documents/content is stored — on-premise, in the cloud, or a hybrid of the two — and instead manages information based on what it is. One way to think of its approach, says the company, is the way a user’s iPhone doesn’t surface the device’s file structure but only the content and related metadata, where you’d expect to find it, such as music and the iTunes app (tracks, artists, genre etc.).

Or, as M-Files CEO Miika Mäkitalo says in a statement, “Think Enterprise Document Management 2.0, or the combined power of Dropbox AND Documentum but for enterprise-scale businesses.”

Okay then.

To the end user, files show up on their desktop just like any shared drive. Navigation is via the Windows Explorer UI, while Windows applications are supported using standard “File Open” or “Save” commands. M-Files also integrates with other enterprise systems such as CRM, ERP and Accounting systems, including Salesforce CRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM (online and on-premise), Dynamics GP, AX and NAV, and NetSuite.

Having expanded out of its home base of Tampere, Finland, M-Files already claims a number of enterprise customers in the U.S. such as AstraZeneca, SAS, Pandora, the United Nations, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Charles Schwab, Hecla Mining, and Hill+Knowlton.

Alongside today’s funding, the company is announcing that Jim Geary and Bob Suh, described as “proven technology leaders” (Accenture, Perot Systems, and Pedestal Software), and DFJ Esprit’s Mikko Suonenlahti, have joined M-Files’ Board of Directors.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

At the OpenStack Summit last week, Tuesday’s keynote opened with Dope’n’Stack E.N.T.E.R.P.R.I.S.E, a video that symbolizes the arrival of a new force of disruptors who see riches in building software and systems that will displace the legacy systems of old. It’s not a question anymore. OpenStack has the momentum to win, and it can thank this young group of developers and feisty systems gurus for making it happen.

Companies that have long controlled the enterprise software and systems market are now at a distinct disadvantage. Their proprietary, closed-stack integrations don’t play in the new open cloud world that emulates the success of Internet-scale companies, such as Amazon Web Services, Google and Facebook. And this group of technologists knows it, making it abundantly clear last week in Portland.

Cloudscaling CTO Randy Bias summed up OpenStack’s place in the market in a presentation this week, titled “The State of the Stack.” The presentation reviews the findings of a survey done with OpenStack users and relevant data about the overall community.

OpenStack is as much a stack as is Linux or Java. That points to a future where it has a chance to become a standard for building out cloud infrastructure. It has the attention of startups and large enterprise companies. Successes have come with customers such as Bloomberg, Comcast, Best Buy, CERN Laboratories and the NSA, all which have built core technology on OpenStack. It has served as a stack to try new technologies, such as the Ceph storage system and any number of new networking technologies.

What hypervisor OpenStack users deploy is one of the most telling signs of the shift and the adaptive role that older, more established companies have had to take on. According to an OpenStack survey, KVM has become the hypervisor of choice due to its open-management platform. It has no licensing fees and allows for free choice in how it is used. KVM is backed by Red Hat. Xen, it should be noted, became part of the Linux Foundation last week with the support of Amazon Web Services, which will have definite impacts on the market. Until this point, Citrix maintained a community edition of Xen, similar to the way Red Hat treats KVM. Other supporters include hardware and silicon vendors such as AMD, Calxeda, Cisco, Intel and Samsung. Companies that use Xen in software products such as Bromium and Citrix. And large scale users of Xen, such as Amazon, CA, Google and Verizon Terremark. AWS uses the Xen hypervisor.

This puts particular pressure on VMware, which now faces both KVM and Xen. In an email, Bias said VMware must open its core ESX hypervisor in order to remain relevant in today’s market:

Bottom line on VMware is that if they don’t open up their management of ESX to non-VMware players and OpenStack generally, they won’t be able to transition to true elastic cloud, will be stuck with only their existing workloads. They will become another Novell.

A VMware spokesperson would not comment when asked if the company would open ESX. Still, VMware can by no means be counted out, said Rishidot Research Founder Krishnan Subramanian.

VMware’s position is a bit rocky. In fact, every big enterprise who is using OpenStack on production environments said they moved from VMware and they went with OpenStack because they feel that whatever VMware offers on the cloud is not good enough for them. I still wouldn’t write off VMware. They understand that they are in a precarious position. They are preparing for such a future by going up the stack and getting ready for more heterogenous environments underneath. DynamicOps acquisition will play a role there.

That focus on heterogeneous stacks is exactly what VMware espouses. And they are supporting the customers who are moving to OpenStack environments. VMware is also one of the top 10 contributors to OpenStack.

Martin Cassado was a co-founder at Nicira, which sold to VMware last year for $1.26 billion. He wrote a blog post last week summing up VMware’s participation in OpenStack:

The rationale for VMware’s involvement in OpenStack is simple. The transformation to the software-defined data center will take many forms, and VMware understands that many customers will want to piece together different technologies based on their requirements using open frameworks. Nicira was quite successful with this model, and VMware is committed to supporting that trajectory not just with networking, but with compute and management as well.

Such A Thing As Too Brash?

I wonder, though, if the OpenStack community is sometimes too brash. They are no doubt brilliant technologists, but there is a point in the Dope’n’Stack video where the duo crosses the line from fun entertainment to questionably offensive.

OpenStack organizers showed an edited version of the video to the attendees gathered for the keynote. Organizers said they wanted to provide the audience a “G” rated version.

The reference to “doing more pilots than promiscuous flight attendants” caught the notice of at least one person at the conference.

@dopenstack – pilots line was too much – do better next time. You forgot there are women in IT? Adria Richards didn’t teach you anything?

— Ian Colle (@ircolle) April 16, 2013

The Dope’n’Stack team said they were not gender-specific in their remarks. It still did not go over well.

@dopenstack Heh, OK, I’ll revise my comment. Making a word play about “doing” anyone or anything is always and in every case in poor taste.

— Ian Colle (@ircolle) April 16, 2013

Dope’n’Stack E.N.T.E.R.P.R.I.S.E is a view into the OpenStack community. It’s fun, energetic and shows the ambition of this young organization. In just three years the community-driven effort has become one of the most powerful movements in IT. It stands to serve as the foundation for how organizations build out elastic stacks.

But there are still questions about maturity both in terms of its attitude and how it evolves as an organization. Says Subramanian: The future of cloud infrastructure platform market is OpenStack’s to lose. If they do it right, they could become the dominant platform but it is a very big “if.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

After adding former VMware CTO Steve Herrod as an investment partner, VC firm General Catalyst Partners is bringing more enterprise talent to the mix with the addition of Unica co-founder and former IBM executive, Yuchun Lee, as an Entrepreneur in Residence.

Prior to General Catalyst, Lee served as vice president and general manager of IBM’s Enterprise Marketing Management Group. He joined IBM in 2010 as part of its $480 million acquisition of Unica, a marketing software company that Lee helped co-found. Lee was the CEO of the company since its inception in 1992, helped guide Unica through an IPO in 2005 and ultimately to its acquisition by IBM in 2010.

At General Catalyst, Lee will be working with the firm’s growth equity team to identify and build technology
based companies with a focus on enterprise software and data analytics. He tells us that specifically, he’ll be working with software and SaaS enterprise applications with around $10-$15 million in revenue who are looking to scale the company to the next level.

General Catalyst, which raised $500 million for a new fund in 2011, has been boosting its bench of enterprise talent, which should equip it well for the boom in enterprise investing in 2013 and the coming years.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Asana, the high-profile productivity startup that’s trying to redesign the workplace around tasks (instead of email), is announcing a major update today, adding more powerful search functionality, bug tracking capabilities, and manager reporting.

Search is the biggest update in this launch, with the addition of full text search, structured search, and custom saveable search views. Co-founder Justin Rosenstein explains people spend a lot time finding information within an organization. But with the new search feature, Asana users should never face this problem again.

Essentially the default view in Asana to-date has been “Project View.” Now, with the launch of the advanced search functionality, Asana offers a “search view” of work. The new search views let you see the results of any search, from a simple keyword search to a rich structured search, in the Asana center pane. These views can be sorted by the task due date, creation time, or modification time. You can also navigate between tasks to see their details, or select multiple tasks to change them all at once. And you can save these views to create custom reports that update each time you switch to them.

Here’s how it works. For a simple full text search, you can type into the search box and choose “Search Tasks”. For a structured search, click the arrow at the right of the search box. You can then specify Assignee, Projects, Tags, Attachments, Completion Status, Due Dates and more. You can then narrow down to incomplete tasks, those with attachments, or the ones not assigned to you. Once you’ve created a search you want to use again, you can click the star next to the Search title to save it.

Additionally, Asana is debuting new manager reporting features to help managers keep track of their team and projects. You simply add your teammates to the “Assigned To” field, then filter by project or tag to drill down to the information you need. For example, Rosenstein says, a manager could pull up a comprehensive view of all the tasks their team is working on at the moment, their status and correspondence associated with these tasks.

Lastly, as Asana is fairly popular amongst the developer community, the startup is doubling down on bug tracking. Rosenstein says that Asana talked to a number of developers to determine what their needs are for bug tracking, and heard over and over that current bug tracking tools are not up to par.

So search has been updated to work well for bug tracking. For example, you can used the saved search function to allow the QA team watch for completed bugs that haven’t been QAed yet, or let the customer service team watching the bugs they opened to see as they become assigned and then completed.

Rosenstein says this update is a big step forward for Asana as a productivity application. “This is only the beginning of our plans,” he says. “Search is one of the core pillars of our product and we’re a company that is querying collective memory.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is dropping the price  of a Windows On-Demand EC2 instances up to 26%, another clear sign of the price wars in the cloud computing market. The news follows Google’s announcement earlier today that it is dropping instance prices by 4%.

AWS says the drop in price continues its tradition of  exploring ways to reduce its costs and drop its prices:

This reduction applies to the Standard (m1), Second-Generation Standard (m3), High-Memory (m2), and High-CPU (c1) instance families. All prices are effective from April 1, 2013. The size of the reduction varies by instance family and region. You can visit the AWS Windows page for more information about Windows pricing on AWS.

AWS has extended its support for AWS in the last month with support for SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups, a beta of the AWS Diagnostics for Microsoft Windows Server, and new drivers for our virtual instances that improve performance and increase the supported number of volumes.

Earlier today, Google opened Compute Engine to developers who subscribe to Google’s $400 per month Gold Support package. The package includes 24/7 phone support. Users can access Compute Engine without the need to talk to sales or an invitation.

Google and Microsoft have consistently been dropping prices over the past several months. In November, Google dropped storage prices by 20%.

For AWS, the price drops are consistent with its strategy. AWS believes it can use its scale, purchasing power and deeper efficiencies in the management of its infrastructure to continue dropping prices.

The market is diversifying and AWS sees a need to extend its dominance in the market. But with Google and new playeers in the mix, it’s unclear  how the strategy will pan out as competitors offer a more high-touch type of service.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch