Friday, January 09, 2009

China's Move To Keep More Money At Home May Hurt US Borrowers.

China's Move To Keep More Money At Home May Hurt US Borrowers.

The New York Times (1/7, A1, Bradsher) reports in a front page story, "China has bought more than $1 trillion of American debt, but as the global downturn has intensified, Beijing is starting to keep more of its money at home, a move that could have painful effects for American borrowers." In the last five years, China has "spent as much as one-seventh of its entire economic output buying foreign debt, mostly American. ... But now Beijing is seeking to pay for its own $600 billion stimulus -- just as tax revenue is falling sharply as the Chinese economy slows." One "danger is that investors will demand higher returns for holding Treasury securities, which will put pressure on the United States government to increase the interest rates those securities pay. As those interest rates increase, they will put pressure on the interest rates that other borrowers pay."

Audi Reports Sales Increase For 2008.

Audi Reports Sales Increase For 2008

The Wall Street Journal (1/9, B3, Rauwald) reports, "In a rare bright spot among automakers, Audi AG Thursday said sales rose 4.1 percent in 2008 and were up 17 percent in December, powered by its new Q5 small sport-utility vehicle and the new generation of its A4 series." The news about "the performance of Audi...comes at a time when automakers around the globe are slashing production as demand for new cars in major markets such as the US, Western Europe, and Japan remains woeful." The Journal notes, "Audi has been increasing sales in recent years by revamping core models like its best-selling A4 and the TT with sleek looks and better technology while also extending its model lineup to include sport-utility vehicles and sports cars like the R8." In 2008, "Audi narrowed the gap with its two larger German rivals, partly because it is relatively less exposed to the eroding US market."

"On the year, the company saw increased demand in Europe and Asia. But the effects of the global financial crisis were keenly felt in the United States where 2008 saw an overall 6.1 percent drop in sales on the year, including nearly 10 percent in December to only 7,712 vehicles," the AP (1/8) added. "Audi AG said Thursday it sold a record of more than 1 million vehicles globally in 2008."

AMR Research Study Finds Supply Chain Technology Market Will Grow 7% Annually to $9.2B in 2012

AMR Research Study Finds Supply Chain Technology Market Will Grow 7% Annually to $9.2B in 2012

AMR Research today released a study that estimates the supply chain management (SCM) applications market will grow 7% annually for the next five years, despite the gloomy economic conditions of 2008. Now a $6.5B market, AMR Research forecasts steady growth will bring the SCM applications market close to $9.2B in 2012.

Based on its analysis, AMR Research predicts there is a high likelihood the economic challenges of the coming years will offer much greater opportunity for supply chain technology adoption.

“The supply chain, and the technologies that support it, will play an important role in helping companies deal and thrive in an economy that is going to be quite unlike anything we’ve seen in the post-war era,” said John Fontanella, vice president of research at AMR Research.

The study named five major forces that will be at work in the economy and society in the foreseeable future, and how the supply chain and the technologies that support it will help companies in the next five years.

  • High inflation – Inflation will force supply chain managers to play an important role in protecting product and company margins through cost control and increased efficiencies in their operations.
  • Rising commodity prices – Pressure from higher commodity prices will bring supply more in line with demand and reduce inventory levels from raw materials to the finished product.
  • Threats to brand security – Counterfeiting, the gray market, and questionable quality standards will make brand protection a top priority. Companies will look to adopt risk mitigation and global trade technologies as well as analytics to monitor distribution channel buy-and-sell patterns.
  • Sustainability becomes a component of corporate decision making – Public sentiment will force substantive measures by industry to become more environmentally friendly. This will present opportunities to more directly connect product development efforts with supply chain management to minimize waste and material usage.
  • Cash is king – Capital spending will come under great scrutiny as companies preserve cash. Technologies that increase the velocity of cash collection, including B2B e-commerce, will become a critical component of future initiatives.

The report also found that SAP, Oracle, and Manhattan Associates were the three largest SCM vendors by revenue in 2007, with a market share of 13%, 10%, and 5% respectively.

For more information about this report, please visit www.amrresearch.com or call (617) 542-6600.

About AMR Research:

Bold Ideas. Compelling Research. Pragmatic Advice. AMR Research is the No. 1 research firm focused on the intersection of business processes with value chain and enterprise technologies. Founded in 1986, AMR Research provides subscription advisory services and peer networking opportunities to operations and IT executives in the consumer products, life sciences, manufacturing, and retail sectors. To learn more about our research and services, visit www.amrresearch.com.

AMR Research Finds Global Manufacturing Execution System (MES) Market Revenue Crossed $1B Marker in 2004

AMR Research Finds Global Manufacturing Execution System (MES) Market Revenue Crossed $1B Marker in 2004

AMR Research released a report today that found global Manufacturing Execution System (MES) market revenue reached an estimated $1.06B in 2004, a 50% increase since 2001. Compliance initiatives and ERP maturity are the two major drivers that have combined to create a perfect environment for MES market expansion.

“In 2001, the vast majority of the Fortune 1000 manufacturers AMR Research surveyed were in the throes of massive ERP rollouts,” said Alison Smith, senior research analyst at AMR Research. “As these draw to a close, manufacturers are realizing that their ability to effectively measure and manage the performance of their manufacturing assets hasn’t proportionately improved.”

AMR Research’s recent report identifies three main reasons for this imbalance:

  • Focus on application rationalization: In the rush to rationalize ERP systems to support standardizing business initiatives during the dot-com era, manufacturing, inventory management, and plant scheduling played second fiddle.
  • Lack of a real-time enterprise: ERP systems require production actuals to deliver the next level of benefit to an organization. In the absence of real-time manufacturing data, ERP will continue to drive business on a set of erroneous data.
  • Myth of lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): While lower TCO and the prospect of maintaining a single, omnipotent application have been seductive selling points at the corporate level, reality is settling in at the plant level. If ERP has to be heavily customized to support manufacturing, as is often the case, lower TCO goes out the window.

Since 2001, an increasing number of companies have begun to use MES to make the connection between enterprise systems and manufacturing. Industry specific examples of this include:

  • The A&D market for MES grew from an estimated $23M in 2001 to $57M in 2004 – an increase of nearly 150%.
  • MES revenue from sales into the food, beverage, and consumer products segment more than doubled from $30M in 2001 to $61M in 2004. The increase is due to the need to rapidly and consistently manage production across a high mix of brands and globally distributed manufacturing facilities.
  • Quality control and warranty cost recovery initiatives in the automotive industry caused MES revenue from sales into this segment to hit $52M in 2004, up from $21M in 2001.
  • The computer, electronics, and semiconductor market grew 39%, from $201M in 2001 to $280M in 2004.

The AMR Research report found that despite consolidation in the last five years, the MES market continues to support a myriad of best-of-breed vendors; no single vendor dominates the market. AMR Research predicts large automation vendors such as GE Fanuc, Invensys, Rockwell, and Siemens will increase their footprints in specific vertical segments.

Automation and “pure-play” vendors saw the largest growth over the past three years. Automation vendor revenue grew $208M (75%) from 2001 to 2004 while pure-play vendors grew $140M (114%).

AMR Research first coined the term Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) in November, 1990. The most recent report, “MES Market Rides Perfect Storm Through $1B Barrier,” provides detailed information on the market size, vendor coverage areas, and recommendations for users seeking to extend visibility into their production environments. For more information on the report, please contact AMR Research at 617-542-6600 or visit www.amrresearch.com.

About AMR Research:
AMR Research provides world class research and actionable advice for executives tasked with delivering enhanced business process performance and cost savings with the aid of technology. Five thousand leaders in the Global 1000 put their trust in AMR Research’s integrity, depth of industry expertise, and passion for customer service to support their most critical business initiatives, including supply chain transformation, new product introduction, customer profitability, compliance and governance, and IT benefit realization. More information is available at www.amrresearch.com.

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Der ideale IT-Mitarbeiter 2010

URL: http://www.manager-magazin.de/it/artikel/0,2828,599793,00.html
07. Januar 2009, 08:10 Uhr

Prognosen

Der ideale IT-Mitarbeiter 2010

Von Andrea König

Nerds waren gestern: Der IT-Experte der Zukunft soll vor Publikum sprechen können und betriebswirtschaftlich denken. Eine Gartner-Analystin, ein Berater und eine Professorin geben Ratschläge für die Jobausrichtung in der IT-Branche.

München - Schon 2010 könnte es so weit sein, dass die am heftigsten umworbenen ITler gar nicht diejenigen mit den besten Technikkenntnissen sind. Die Programmierer und Support-Mitarbeiter werden dann nämlich weg sein, weil ihre Jobs ausgelagert wurden. Was die IT-Abteilungen dann brauchen, sind Generalisten.

Souveränes Auftreten: Der ITler der Zukunft sollte Kontakte knüpfen und pflegen können
Zur Großbildansicht

Souveränes Auftreten: Der ITler der Zukunft sollte Kontakte knüpfen und pflegen können

© Corbis
Sie sollten sowohl die technische als auch die unternehmerische Seite verstehen. Menschen, die IT-Pläne entwerfen und gleichzeitig umsetzen können. Und zwar so, dass die Firma davon profitiert. Zudem sollen Arbeitnehmer innerhalb der Firma und mit Kunden Kontakte pflegen können. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommen eine Gartner-Analystin, ein Berater und eine Professorin bei einer Befragung des IT-Magazins Computerworld.com.

Dass der ITler der Zukunft diese Fähigkeiten mitbringen sollte, darin sind sich drei Forschungsgruppen einig. Aber aus welchem Grund braucht man bald nur noch Generalisten? Das liegt unter anderem an Veränderungen im Konsumentenverhalten, einem Anstieg von Firmenfusionen, Outsourcing, der Verbreitung mobiler Anwendungen und der Zunahme gespeicherter Daten.

Hinzu kommt: Viele der 2010 besonders gefragten Fähigkeiten erwirbt man abseits der IT. Dazu zählen beispielsweise gestalterisches Talent, exzellentes mathematisches Verständnis oder die Gabe zum Sprechen vor Publikum. Fähigkeiten, die IT-Mitarbeiter heute nicht automatisch mitbringen.

Vorreiter sind Unternehmen wie Google, Ebay und Yahoo, die längst Mathematik- und Finanzgurus rekrutieren. Die nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften in den USA hat Lebensbereiche identifiziert, in denen technische Fertigkeiten mit artistischen kombiniert werden. Ein Beispiel dafür ist das Computerspielen.

Gartner-Analystin Diane Morello beschreibt die ideale Belegschaft in ihrer Studie "IT Professional Outlook" als "nach außen fokussiertes und unternehmensorientiertes Kompetenzzentrum". Kollegen werden noch stärker als heute geografisch getrennt sein. Deshalb sollten sie lernen, im Team zu arbeiten. Auch mit Menschen, die sie vorher noch nicht kannten. Erfahrungen im Projektmanagement und in der Entwicklung neuer Applikationen werden 2010 unverzichtbar sein, glaubt Morello. Das gilt für Dienstleister ebenso wie für Softwareentwickler und IT-Unternehmen.

Managementfähigkeiten werden immer gefragter, weiß Morello. Bis 2010 übernehmen sechs von zehn IT-Fachkräften auch betriebswirtschaftliche Aufgaben. Gartner sagt außerdem voraus, dass in den kommenden zwei Jahren 10 bis 15 Prozent der IT-Fachkräfte ihren Job verlassen werden. Teils, weil ihre Aufgaben automatisiert werden oder weil sie an ihrer Tätigkeit das Interesse verlieren.

IT und BWL: "Die betriebswirtschaftliche Seite wird wichtiger als die technologische"
Zur Großbildansicht

IT und BWL: "Die betriebswirtschaftliche Seite wird wichtiger als die technologische"

© corbis
"Die Hot Jobs 2010 sind die Jobs, in denen Voraussetzungen geschaffen werden: Unternehmensarchitekten, System-Analysten und Projektmanager", sagt David Foote, Chef der IT-Beratung Foote Partners. "Wenn ich IT-Experte wäre, würde ich mich für einen dieser Jobs entscheiden. Viele können das allerdings gar nicht, weil sie solche Technokraten sind."

"Die betriebswirtschaftliche Seite wird wichtiger als die technologische", weiß Kate Kaiser, Professorin an der Marquette Universität in Milwaukee. 2005 führte sie mit 104 CIOs eine Studie durch und bestimmte, welche Fähigkeiten man für den Job braucht.

IT-Fachkräfte, die auch nach 2010 Erfolg haben werden, verfügen auch über betriebswirtschaftliche Kenntnisse. Falls nicht, werden auch sie Jobs finden - in Nischen.

Morello, Foote und Kaiser geben im Folgenden einige Tipps für die Jobausrichtung:

Unternehmensbereich

Durch Fusionen und Ankäufe werden Firmen immer größer. Aber es braucht mehr als technische Integration, wenn zwei Firmen erfolgreich fusionieren sollen. Während Firmen die technischen Aspekte beherrschen, sind sie "miserabel darin, Kulturen zusammenzuführen", sagt Foote. Zukünftige Schlüsselrollen sagt er Unternehmensarchitekten voraus, die in den Bereichen Technologie, Sicherheit und Daten tätig sind.

Firmen wie Microsoft und IBM rekrutieren schon jetzt Unternehmensarchitekten. "Sie sagen, dass sie untergehen, wenn ihre Architektur einen bestimmten Level nicht erreicht", so Foote.

Gartner fragte bei Hunderten von CIOs nach, wo sie die Wachstumsmärkte sehen. "Das Ergebnis war einstimmig: Prozess- und Beziehungsmanagement wurden am höchsten eingestuft", sagt Morello.

Dass die unternehmerische Seite als immer wichtiger eingestuft wird, liegt auch am Outsourcing. Wenn Firmen mit Drittanbietern zusammenarbeiten, müssen sie in Mitarbeiter investieren, die den Kontakt pflegen.

Technologie-Infrastruktur und Services

Die Gartner-Studie kam außerdem zu dem Ergebnis, dass die Fähigkeiten im Bereich Technologie-Infrastruktur und Services den stärksten Rückgang erleben werden. Jobs wie Programmierung werden häufig durch Automatisierung ersetzt oder ausgelagert. Anders fällt die Zukunftsprognose für System-Auditoren aus. Ihre Bedeutung wächst. "Compliance verschwindet nicht - sie wird wichtiger", weiß Foote.

Datensicherheit

Auch das Bewusstsein für Datensicherheit wird mit den aktuellen Datenmissbrauchsfällen stärker. IT-Sicherheit zählt laut Kaiser zu den zehn Fähigkeiten, die in den kommenden fünf Jahren hohe Bedeutung in Unternehmen erlangen werden.

Weltweit beschäftigen Firmen 1,4 Millionen IT-Sicherheitsspezialisten, ermittelte eine IDC-Studie Anfang des Jahres. Bis 2010 werde diese Zahl auf zwei Millionen steigen, sagen die Forscher voraus.

Archivierung

Hat ein Unternehmen eine firmenweite Server-Strategie, braucht es auch eine firmenweite Archivierungs-Strategie und die Fähigkeit, diese anzuwenden. "Storage-Administratoren sind schon jetzt sehr gefragt und teuer", sagt Foote.

Applikationsentwicklung

Applikationen werden bis 2010 ausgelagert. Interne Entwicklung wird es nach wie vor geben - nur völlig anders als heute. Sie werde kundenorientierter und biete strategische Vorteile, glaubt Foote.

Internet

In der Onlinebanking-Industrie wollen Firmen das Geld ihrer Kunden verwalten - vom Kredit bis zum Rentenkonto. Um auch 2010 noch erfolgreich zu sein, brauchen die Banken nutzerfreundliche Webseiten mit künstlicher Intelligenz, Data-Mining und ausreichenden Kapazitäten für Datenlagerung, so Foote.

"Schnelle Applikations-Entwicklung und rasches Programmieren sind sehr gut bezahlte Jobs. Aber sie setzen Flinkheit und Flexibilität voraus", sagt der IT-Experte.

Footes Mantra für die kommenden zehn Jahre: "Wenn Sie denken, dass jetzt schon Konkurrenz auf dem Markt herrscht, warten sie auf 2010. Ein globales Spielfeld, Innovationen und immer schnelle Technologien machen gefragte Fähigkeiten immer unverzichtbarer, wenn man konkurrenzfähig bleiben möchte."

Manufacturers Go Back to Basics in 2009

Manufacturers Go Back to Basics in 2009

Posted on Monday, January 05, 2009 5:02:11 PM

Businesses will need to optimize existing manufacturing assets while looking to alternative tools to boost their technology infrastructures.With few signs of an economic recovery on the immediate horizon, manufacturers will continue to do more with less in 2009, industry experts said today.

Technology budgets will not vanish, observers said, but moving forward the emphasis will not be on standard infrastructure upgrades, but instead on technologies that lower the cost of doing business.

With that in mind, industry experts are predicting that technology investments in 2009 will center on optimizing existing assets, right-sizing the supply chain, increasing sustainability efforts, and optimizing product lifecycle management and knowledge management.

The roadblocks have been well-documented. According to the Institute for Supply Management (ISM), the manufacturing sector failed to grow in December for the fifth consecutive month, and the overall economy contracted for the third consecutive month. In addition, new orders have contracted for 13 consecutive months and are at the lowest level on record, dating to January 1948. In addition, order backlogs have fallen to the lowest level since the ISM began its Backlog of Orders Index in January 1993. As a result, manufacturers are reducing inventories and shutting down capacity to offset the slower rate of activity, ISM reported last week.

A recent report from analyst firm Manufacturing Insights, titled, “Worldwide Manufacturing 2009 Top 10 Predictions,” offers a twist on the doomsday predictions. “The downturn represents an opportunity for manufacturing companies to recalibrate their operations,” the report states. “Channel partners can be rationalized, inventories reduced, production assets modernized, and, most importantly, supply and demand can be rebalanced in preparation for a recovery.”

For the past five years, manufacturers have earned a return on assets by outsourcing, selling off plants, and doing things that got assets off the books to lower cost and manage return on assets, Bob Parker, group vice president at Manufacturing Insights, told Managing Automation.

“What’s changing is, this is an economic situation created by a financial crisis, which means the days of lots of liquidity and plenty of capital available to invest are gone,” Parker said. “So there is an emphasis on technology that helps deliver higher performance from the fixed assets they already have.”

Parker predicted that manufacturers will delay major enterprise application deployments, an assertion that AMR Research supported with a recent forecast indicating low single-digit growth for the enterprise software market in 2009 as a result of cost containment initiatives at customer sites.

Indeed, an October 2008 Managing Automation Outlook poll found that in the United States, about 30% of respondents said they will increase their technology budgets anywhere from 5% to more than 10%, compared with about 55% the prior year saying so. The technology areas in which manufacturers plan to spend in 2009 include: wireless communications, manufacturing intelligence software, business intelligence applications, and, despite AMR’s prediction, even ERP.

Where infrastructure investments are needed, however, manufacturers will increasingly turn to cloud computing, software–as-a-service, open source, and Web 2.0 tools as alternatives to traditional client/server deployment, experts say.

While most of the technology in play in 2009 will aim to reduce the cost of doing business, some breakout areas of innovation will begin to surface in 2009, particularly in digital manufacturing, an area Manufacturing Insights calls “Operations Technology.”

By investing in PLM and digital manufacturing technology, and understanding how a production process can change, manufacturers will become agile enough to allow shared manufacturing capacity — that is, the ability to create another manufacturer’s product, Parker said.

“The idea of manufacturing as a competitive weapon, especially if you can think [beyond the notion of] ‘it’s my plant and the only products [made here] are my products,’ can be extremely valuable,” Parker said.

Going forward, “we see the investment in digital manufacturing as an overall product lifecycle investment that will be a sacred cow that survives the ax,” Parker said.Manufacturing technoloy, technology budgets, Manufacturing contractionBusinesses will need to optimize existing manufacturing assets while looking to alternative tools to boost their technology infrastructures.

Manufacturers Go Back to Basics in 2009

Manufacturers Go Back to Basics in 2009

Posted on Monday, January 05, 2009 5:02:11 PM

Businesses will need to optimize existing manufacturing assets while looking to alternative tools to boost their technology infrastructures.With few signs of an economic recovery on the immediate horizon, manufacturers will continue to do more with less in 2009, industry experts said today.

Technology budgets will not vanish, observers said, but moving forward the emphasis will not be on standard infrastructure upgrades, but instead on technologies that lower the cost of doing business.

With that in mind, industry experts are predicting that technology investments in 2009 will center on optimizing existing assets, right-sizing the supply chain, increasing sustainability efforts, and optimizing product lifecycle management and knowledge management.

The roadblocks have been well-documented. According to the Institute for Supply Management (ISM), the manufacturing sector failed to grow in December for the fifth consecutive month, and the overall economy contracted for the third consecutive month. In addition, new orders have contracted for 13 consecutive months and are at the lowest level on record, dating to January 1948. In addition, order backlogs have fallen to the lowest level since the ISM began its Backlog of Orders Index in January 1993. As a result, manufacturers are reducing inventories and shutting down capacity to offset the slower rate of activity, ISM reported last week.

A recent report from analyst firm Manufacturing Insights, titled, “Worldwide Manufacturing 2009 Top 10 Predictions,” offers a twist on the doomsday predictions. “The downturn represents an opportunity for manufacturing companies to recalibrate their operations,” the report states. “Channel partners can be rationalized, inventories reduced, production assets modernized, and, most importantly, supply and demand can be rebalanced in preparation for a recovery.”

For the past five years, manufacturers have earned a return on assets by outsourcing, selling off plants, and doing things that got assets off the books to lower cost and manage return on assets, Bob Parker, group vice president at Manufacturing Insights, told Managing Automation.

“What’s changing is, this is an economic situation created by a financial crisis, which means the days of lots of liquidity and plenty of capital available to invest are gone,” Parker said. “So there is an emphasis on technology that helps deliver higher performance from the fixed assets they already have.”

Parker predicted that manufacturers will delay major enterprise application deployments, an assertion that AMR Research supported with a recent forecast indicating low single-digit growth for the enterprise software market in 2009 as a result of cost containment initiatives at customer sites.

Indeed, an October 2008 Managing Automation Outlook poll found that in the United States, about 30% of respondents said they will increase their technology budgets anywhere from 5% to more than 10%, compared with about 55% the prior year saying so. The technology areas in which manufacturers plan to spend in 2009 include: wireless communications, manufacturing intelligence software, business intelligence applications, and, despite AMR’s prediction, even ERP.

Where infrastructure investments are needed, however, manufacturers will increasingly turn to cloud computing, software–as-a-service, open source, and Web 2.0 tools as alternatives to traditional client/server deployment, experts say.

While most of the technology in play in 2009 will aim to reduce the cost of doing business, some breakout areas of innovation will begin to surface in 2009, particularly in digital manufacturing, an area Manufacturing Insights calls “Operations Technology.”

By investing in PLM and digital manufacturing technology, and understanding how a production process can change, manufacturers will become agile enough to allow shared manufacturing capacity — that is, the ability to create another manufacturer’s product, Parker said.

“The idea of manufacturing as a competitive weapon, especially if you can think [beyond the notion of] ‘it’s my plant and the only products [made here] are my products,’ can be extremely valuable,” Parker said.

Going forward, “we see the investment in digital manufacturing as an overall product lifecycle investment that will be a sacred cow that survives the ax,” Parker said.Manufacturing technoloy, technology budgets, Manufacturing contractionBusinesses will need to optimize existing manufacturing assets while looking to alternative tools to boost their technology infrastructures.

December US Auto Sales Dip 36 Percent

December US Auto Sales Dip 36 Percent.

On the front page of its Marketplace section, the Wall Street Journal (1/6, B1, Terlep, Dolan) reports, "US auto sales tumbled again in December, capping one of the worst years for the industry in decades and solidifying the view that more turmoil lies ahead in 2009." According to Autodata Corp, "sales of cars and light trucks fell 36 percent to 896,124 vehicles. ... That is an improvement over both November and October," but "continuing the pattern of recent months, December's vehicle sales fell as cash-strapped Americans simply stayed away from dealerships or had difficulty securing auto loans. For many consumers, worries about losing their jobs and sinking home values trumped the year-end rebates and financing deals automakers rolled out in the last few weeks."

        The AP (1/6, Krisher) notes, "Huge rebates and zero-percent loans couldn't overcome economic uncertainty as US auto sales plunged 36 percent in December, capping a dismal year that saw sales free-fall by 2.9 million vehicles from 2007." The AP points out, "Every major manufacturer reported drops of more than 30 percent in December."

        Another AP (1/6, Fowler) article adds that Chrysler said on Monday "its December sales dropped 53 percent because of the recession and fewer fleet sales, while Toyota Motor Corp. reported a 37 percent slide and Honda Motor Co. said its sales tumbled 35 percent." Additionally, "Ford Motor Co.'s US sales fell 32 percent in December. General Motors Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. both posted 31 percent declines."

        Subaru Posts Increased US Sales For 2008. The AP (1/6) reports, "Subaru said Monday its US sales crept higher in 2008 on strong demand for Forester and Impreza models. The Japanese company is the only major automaker so far to post an increase in yearly sales," which "rose by 0.3 percent." But, because the "big increase in Forester sales failed to overcome declines in its remaining models," Subaru's sales in December "fell 7.7 percent" from the previous year. According to Subaru, "Forester sales surged 36.4 percent in 2008. The company's updated 2008 model-year Forester was named sport/utility of the year in December by Motor Trend magazine."

        GM Reports 2008 China Sales Up Six Percent. The AP (1/6) reports, "General Motors Corp. (GM) said Tuesday its 2008 sales in China rose 6 percent to 1.09 million vehicles, but growth slowed as the market suffered from an economic downturn." GM is targeting "China's booming auto market to drive global sales growth as North American demand slumps." The "automaker reported 19 percent sales growth in 2007 including joint ventures." Kevin Wale, president of GM China, said "a series of natural disasters and an increase in fuel prices earlier in the year exacerbated the impact of the global economic downturn in China."

A protocol that could make the Internet more secure is finally being implemented

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

A New Web of Trust

A protocol that could make the Internet more secure is finally being implemented.

By Erica Naone

--- from technologyreview.com

A core element of the Internet that helps millions of computer systems locate each other is finally getting a much-needed upgrade. The domain name system (DNS) works a lot like the Internet's phone book, translating the URLs that users type into a browser into the numerical addresses used to identify the servers that host the requested site.

Recently, this 30-year-old system has begun showing its age.

Last year, a team of high-profile security researchers raced to repair a critical flaw in DNS that made it possible to hijack legitimate communications, potentially directing unsuspecting Web surfers to malicious Web pages. The patch that the team came up with reduced the immediate danger but wasn't meant to be a permanent solution.

Credit: Technology Review

For a long-term fix, many experts are now looking toDNSSEC, a protocol that verifies DNS messages with digital signatures. The Public Interest Registry, which handles the .org domain, is implementing DNSSEC across all Web addresses ending with this suffix, and it plans to complete the first phase of the process early this year. The U.S. government has committed to turning on DNSSEC for .gov as well, and the newly formedDNSSEC Industry Coalition is pushing to get the protocol adopted even more widely.

This is something of a turnaround. In the 14 years since DNSSEC was first conceived, the protocol struggled to gain widespread adoption because it was seen to unnecessarily increase the complexity of implementing DNS. The key to the DNS flaw discovered last year is that the protocol was designed during a more trusting time and does not bother to authenticate information. Dan Kaminsky, director of penetration testing at IOActive, a security company based in Seattle, realized that, if an attacker could worm his way into a DNS communication, he could redirect Web traffic in almost any way. Features have been added to DNS to reduce the threat that messages will be hijacked, but DNSSEC adds real authentication to the system for the first time.

Alexa Raad, CEO of the Public Interest Registry, notes that someone had to be the first to implement the new protocol. Before now, she says, the organizations responsible for domain names weren't moving to integrate DNSSEC because they'd either be sending out credentials to servers that weren't listening for them, or they'd be listening for credentials that wouldn't be there. Raad says that the Public Interest Registry started integrating DNSSEC well before Kaminsky's flaw was announced, hoping to encourage adoption of the protocol by setting an example. The revelations of Kaminsky's flaw simply helped intensify the debate, she says. "For the past two years, a lot of the debate around DNSSEC centered around, 'Do we need it? Are there other technologies? How viable is it?' I think the debate has completely moved away from that. We all understand that DNS is in fact broken. The only solution for that is, in fact, DNSSEC. The debate is now, 'How do we deploy?'"

DNSSEC is about creating a "chain of trust," adds Ram Mohan, CTO of Afilias, which has been working to help the Public Interest Registry handle its deployment. There are many places where DNSSEC must be switched on in order for the chain of trust to flow unbroken from the user to a website. Once a top-level domain (such as .org or .com) implements DNSSEC, any website under that domain can choose to turn on DNSSEC as well, which is an important link in the chain. Since Internet service providers such as Comcast have started supporting DNSSEC, Mohan says, it's becoming possible for some website visits to fall largely under the protection of DNSSEC.

Paul Vixie, president of the Internet Systems Consortium, which maintains BIND, the software most commonly used to process DNS messages, expects the move toward DNSSEC to snowball. "With .gov and .org signed, there's finally a market for DNSSEC technology and services," he says. "Now that some others are implementing DNSSEC, many others will want to be in the business of providing DNSSEC solutions, and that will in turn make it possible for a lot of fence-sitters to finally climb down and join us."

Kaminsky himself was initially neutral on DNSSEC as a possible solution to the flaw that he discovered with DNS. He now sees DNSSEC as a good solution, but cautions that work still needs to be done to help it scale up. Most important, he says: other root domains, which are at the core of all DNS transactions, need to use DNSSEC. Although DNS was never designed to be at the heart of authentication on the Internet, "it is, and it's time we start treating it that way," Kaminsky adds.

Mohan says that he's hopeful that more domains will implement DNSSEC soon. "It's about damn time that DNS got more secure," he says. "The integrity of DNS traffic is starting to be questioned with the advent of phishing and botnets and stuff like that. Here is a concrete thing that can be done that is proven to eliminate a clear problem."