Tony is principal analyst with the Bradley Strategy Group, providing analysis and insight on tech trends. He is a prolific writer on a range of technology topics, has authored a number of books, and is a frequent speaker at industry events. More by Tony Bradley
This is it: 2013 is the year that tablets surpass notebooks in sales and assume their rightful place atop the mobile computing gadget throne. Don’t start playing "Taps" for the notebooks just yet, though—they’re not really going anywhere.
NPD DisplaySearch released new data this week projecting that more tablets will ship in 2013 than notebook PCs. "Tablet PC shipments are expected to reach more than 240 million units worldwide in 2013, easily exceeding the 207 million notebook PCs that are projected to ship," said a DisplaySearch blog post.
Numbers are a funny thing, though. There are so many ways to look at them, and it's easy to lose the details in the big picture, or to lose the big picture by cherry-picking specific details. If you look more closely, you can see that tablets are, in fact, a threat to notebook PCs…but that's not the whole picture
Why tablets are not a threat to notebooks
Look closely at the last sentence. I didn’t say tablets will beat notebooks. I said cheap tablets will beat netbooks. That is really the crux of the data.
Overall, the data lumps cheap, economy netbooks in with real notebooks that provide the power of a full desktop PC on the go. It also mashes together bargain basement tablets with larger, more capable tablets that cost more.
Tony is principal analyst with the Bradley Strategy Group, providing analysis and insight on tech trends. He is a prolific writer on a range of technology topics, has authored a number of books, and is a frequent speaker at industry events. More by Tony Bradley
Happy Patch Tuesday! Microsoft is kicking off the year with seven new security bulletins. There are five rated as Important, and two rated as Critical—but one in particular that has security experts concerned.
Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle, stresses that MS13-002 will be a popular target for attackers and should be the top priority. “If you can’t do anything else right away, at least patch this one post haste. This critical XML bug affects every version of Windows in one way or another because XML is used by a wide range of operating system components.”
Attackers may quickly prey on flaws in XML in Windows.Read more »
Tony is principal analyst with the Bradley Strategy Group, providing analysis and insight on tech trends. He is a prolific writer on a range of technology topics, has authored a number of books, and is a frequent speaker at industry events. More by Tony Bradley
Today is the second Tuesday of January—which makes it the first Patch Tuesday of 2013. Adobe is addressing a few critical vulnerabilities in its software as well this Patch Tuesday.
Adobe issued two Security Bulletins. The first, APSB13-01, is for Adobe Flash. The bulletin states that versions of Adobe Flash Player for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Android are all impacted by a vulnerability that could cause a system crash, or allow an attacker to execute malicious code remotely.
Tony is principal analyst with the Bradley Strategy Group, providing analysis and insight on tech trends. He is a prolific writer on a range of technology topics, has authored a number of books, and is a frequent speaker at industry events. More by Tony Bradley
The Federal Trade Commission has spent the past year investigating allegations that Google abused its power as the dominant search engine to block smaller rivals and promote its own sites and services. On Friday, the FTC announced that it would not pursue the action any further, nor will it impose any penalties on Google—and that's cause for concern for smaller companies trying to compete against Google.
One of the primary focuses of the FTC investigation was Google’s Universal Search, a search option that prominently displays relevant Google products and services in response to related searches. The main question is whether Google altered its algorithm and doctored the results in any way to intentionally demote rival products and services, and unfairly eliminate competition. In the end, the FTC ruled that any changes Google might have made to its algorithms could be justified as innovations to improve the search experience for users, regardless of any adverse impact on individual competitors.
The FTC concluded a lengthy investigation against Google's alleged antitrust behavior.Read more »
Tony is principal analyst with the Bradley Strategy Group, providing analysis and insight on tech trends. He is a prolific writer on a range of technology topics, has authored a number of books, and is a frequent speaker at industry events. More by Tony Bradley
You don’t want a rootkit infection. Any malware compromise is bad, but rootkits—by their very nature—are especially nasty. The irony is that you might have a rootkit infection right now and not know it. That’s sort of the point of a rootkit.
Wikipedia defines it: “A rootkit is a stealthy type of software, often malicious, designed to hide the existence of certain processes or programs from normal methods of detection and enable continued privileged access to a computer.” The term rootkit actually derives from Unix—where the administrator-level system privileges are called “root”—combined with “kit,” which is commonly used to refer to a package of software tools. On a Windows PC it might make more sense to call it a “kernelkit” or “adminkit,” but the term “rootkit” has stuck.
Because a rootkit operates with elevated administrative privileges, it can do things that most software applications can’t do, functioning at a deeper level of the operating system than most security software is capable of scanning. A rootkit can hide files, processes, services, registry keys, hard disk sectors, and more so that the operating system itself, and other software running on the system don’t even realize they’re there.
Tony is principal analyst with the Bradley Strategy Group, providing analysis and insight on tech trends. He is a prolific writer on a range of technology topics, has authored a number of books, and is a frequent speaker at industry events. More by Tony Bradley
For some, a laptop bag is just a piece of luggage dedicated to safely transporting a portable PC or tablet from Point A to Point B. For business travelers, though, the laptop bag is more like a Swiss Army knife—an essential element filled with the gadgets and accessories you need.
1. Laptop power cord Panic. That is the feeling that hits you when you arrive at a destination and realize you forgot to pack the power cord for your laptop. Without it, you have mere hours of productivity before your laptop will die, and you’ll be dead in the water. If possible, you should have a spare power cord that is always in your laptop bag so you don’t run the risk of forgetting to bring one. If you can swap out the battery on your laptop, you might want to carry a spare battery as well.
2. Smartphone / tablet charger Along those same lines, you also don’t want to embark on a business trip without the adapter or cable you need to recharge your smartphone or tablet. Ideally, you should have a backup always stored in your laptop bag for the same reason cited above.
Tony is principal analyst with the Bradley Strategy Group, providing analysis and insight on tech trends. He is a prolific writer on a range of technology topics, has authored a number of books, and is a frequent speaker at industry events. More by Tony Bradley
It was a good year for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. According to the latest data from Net Apps, IE gained only slightly in December, but overall it reversed its fortunes from 2011 and recaptured a fair amount of lost market share in 2012.
First, let’s look back at the previous year. Internet Explorer started out 2011 with 58.35 percent of the browser market. By the end of 2011, though, Google’s Chrome browser had eaten a significant chunk of that market share (and a bit from Firefox as well), and Internet Explorer plummeted more than six percentage points to only 51.87 percent market share.
Internet Explorer regained market share in 2012 at the expense of rival browsers.Read more »
