One Startup That Focuses on Channel Development for IT Companies

By the year 2010, Clark Richter, the founder of Fossa LLC, had spent over 15 years in sales management and marketing roles at IT companies like Check Point Software, Citrix Systems and Websense.

He found it frustrating that there were very few reliable, comprehensive and updated information sources focusing on the IT channel partner market. Professionals like him had to depend on multiple tools and information databases coupled with extensive primary research to zero in on the right channel partner.

Traditional databases were out-dated, used out-dated classification systems and profiled companies incorporated years ago with perhaps different business models. The IT industry had transformed significantly over the past two decades but these databases hadn’t kept up with the changes in the industry. Sales intelligence tools at that point had good data on end users but there was a gap in the market for data specifically on channel companies (i.e. resellers, service providers, system integrators, etc.)

Although emerging vendors such as Rain King and DiscoverOrg did provide up-to-date and relevant contact lists and profiles for IT companies, their focus was on IT buyers at Fortune 2000 companies. On the other hand, broader databases like InsideView, NetProspex, and Jigsaw/Salesforce were crowd-sourced, with a lot of contacts but very few details.

The Birth of Fossa

So, to plug these gaps in the market and to make the life of sales and marketing professionals like him easier, Clark worked toward building a comprehensive and up-to-date database of IT channel companies with relevant terminology and vendor relationships.

After working on it for two years, he resigned from his job and launched Channel Navigator in February 2012. A demo is provided in the video below:

Clark founded Fossa LLC with an aim to save customers time and money in executing their channel strategy by providing up-to-date, relevant business profiles, and contacts for IT channel companies. Its database covers 25,000 companies, 80% of which have less than 20 employees.

A majority of its customers are channel sales and marketing organizations that subscribe to its database and online tools. Some of its customers are early stage companies that do not have a channel team yet but want the data. Companies selling SMB solutions, security, cloud services and solutions targeted at managed service providers are its top IT industry target segments.

Specialization in the channel and a smaller or niche target segment allows Fossa to provide superior quality data. Its databases are researched and updated manually after verifying the contacts and company information. Since it deals with only 25,000 companies rather than 40 million, is easier to verify and update the data and be more precise.

Participation in trade shows and Clark’s relationships in the channel helped in gaining initial traction. Currently, the company has close to 35 active customers, including Alcatel-Lucent, McAfee, Discoverorg, VAR Staffing, Shuttle and Meru Networks. It was on track to achieve revenue of $100,000 in 2013.

The IT channel space is constantly changing - vendor relationships, employee turnover and industry buzz words evolve constantly. Therefore exists a constant need for updated information that will enrich a company’s CRM and help make the sales process more efficient.

Research firm Gartner, in its latest IT spending outlook, projects worldwide IT spending to grow 3.1% from 2013 to reach $3.8 trillion in 2014. Companies like Fossa LLC can help IT vendors tap efficiently into this $3.8 trillion market.

Tuning In Photo via Shutterstock



Why Google Is Taking a $9.5 Billion Hit on Selling Motorola to Lenovo

Less than 2 years ago, Google caused a lot of puzzled looks when it bought Motorola, the mobile device hardware manufacturer. It didn’t seem like an obvious fit.

And the even more head-scratching news is that Google is now selling Motorola to Lenovo for almost $10 billion less than what it paid. Google purchased Motorola in 2012 for $12.5 billion and is now selling it for $2.91 billion.

But as you look closer, it may be a better deal for Google than it seems â€" and a good deal for Lenovo.

As part of the deal, Google will retain ownership of Motorola Mobility’s patent portfolio. Lenovo will be granted a license to these patents and other intellectual property still owned by Google after the sale.

Why It’s Good for Lenovo

Lenovo will get 2,000 patent assets and the Motorola Mobility brand and trademark portfolio, said Google and Lenovo in a joint statement.

The acquisition of Motorola Mobility expands Lenovo’s mobile profile. The company will now own the Motorola Moto G, Moto X, and Ultra DROID series of smartphones. Lenovo will also take control of Motorola’s “product roadmap” in the future.

By acquiring Motorola Mobility, Lenovo enters the North and Latin American smartphone markets wit a strong brand. Both companies claim Motorola Mobility is the third largest company in those markets already. Lenovo hopes Motorola will help the company establish itself in the Western European smartphone market too.

In a prepared statement, Lenovo chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing said:

“The acquisition of such an iconic brand, innovative product portfolio and incredibly talented global team will immediately make Lenovo a strong global competitor in smartphones.”

Why It’s Good for Google

For Google this means a boost in the number of phones using the company’s Android operating system on the market. Google CEO Larry Page says selling Motorola to Lenovo allows his company to focus on developing the Android mobile operating system. And as Quartz observes:

“It might seem like Google is taking a $10 billion bath on the sale of Motorola to Lenovo. But Motorola has already helped Google save what could amount to billions of dollars on its taxes, which softens the blow. And there’s another way to look at this: Google has created a competitor to Samsung that is headed by an ex-Googler (for now) that will now go to a company, Lenovo, that has proved itself quite capable of succeeding in the low-margin hardware business.”

Image: Wikipedia



10 Best WordPress Plugins for eCommerce

The WordPress platform makes it easy to set up an online store, either as your primary business or to complement your physical small business. In addition to thousands of templates, there is a massive library of plugins designed to simplify and automate your online sales.

Below are ten of the best WordPress plugins for eCommerce that you can use to enhance your website and create a smooth, hassle-free online shopping experience for your customers.

WP e-Commerce

A popular and long-standing plugin that was one of the first eCommerce options offered by WordPress, WP e-Commerce comes with a wide variety of functions and features. The fully-featured free download works great out of the box and comes with flexible coupon codes, discounts and free shipping options, cross-page promotion, a New Products widget single-page checkout, integration with popular e-commerce payment and third-party platforms and much more.

You can also purchase add-ons and upgrades to customize this plugin and add even more functionality, like extra payment gateways, slider carousels and additional shipping options.

WooCommerce

A fully functional free plugin with a vast library of premium upgrades available, WooCommerce is easy to use for both vendors and customers. Free features for this plugin include complex coupon campaigns, product and inventory management, order management, sales reports, a customer account area, control over shipping and tax charges and more.

Jigoshop

With detailed reporting, widgets and shortcodes, one-page checkout, inventory tracking, product imports/exports, related product displays and more, Jigoshop has everything you need to run an eCommerce store. It’s free, with a nice library of free extensions, and you can also purchase premium themes and extensions for added functionality.

eShop

More than half a million people have downloaded the free eShop plugin, an easy-to-install shopping cart that is fully compatible with WordPress and can create product pages from WordPress pages, posts or custom posts. Features include customer accounts, multiple options for products, selling downloadable content, sales data, sales tax, stock control, discount options and more.

Quick Shop

A super-simple, “fast and dirty” eCommerce plugin with a surprising level of functionality, Quick Shop comes with built-in support for PayPal and email, and uses WordPress sidebar widgets to continuously show shoppers what’s in their carts. With this plugin, you can add products instantly with a TinyMCE button, create drop-down lists with product options and more.

Cart66

This plugin offers a professional, paid version at $25 per month and a slimmer, free version called Cart66 Lite. Billing itself as the only WordPress eCommerce solution with PCI compliance built in, the Cart66 professional version includes everything you need to run a clean, richly featured WordPress store with no additional plugins or add-ons.

With the free version, you get basic eCommerce features that include promotions, tax and shipping charge control, order management, support for multiple currencies, customizable reports and more. You can use either version to sell products from any page or post on your WordPress site.

Shopp

This popular premium plugin works out of the box with any WordPress theme and comes packed with features. Shopp is built to work with WordPress and includes things like short codes, dashboard widgets for quick views of sales and product histories and theme widgets that let you easily drop products and elements into pages.

Additional features include standard eCommerce tools plus multiple product/variation images, multi-category inventory management, promotional tools, native and plugin support for a wide variety of payment gateways, email notifications, a shipping calculator and more.

Ecwid

A free, full-featured shopping cart, Ecwid is incredibly user-friendly and can be set up in five minutes or less. You can add this plugin to your WordPress site or your Facebook page, and even set it up for use on mobile devices - and the mirror function lets you manage the cart on many sites from one central dashboard.

In addition to free plans with all the standard eCommerce features, Ecwid offers premium plans starting at $15 a month that come with volume discounts, coupon codes, inventory management and more.

Easy Digital Downloads

If your eCommerce store sells digital content like eBooks, audio, video or images, Easy Digital Downloads is the best WordPress solution. It’s also the cheapest at the low price of free.

Features of this simple, powerful plugin include discount codes, sales reports, user purchase history, file download logs, a wide selection of payment gateways and more. There are also nearly 200 extensions to improve the functionality of your download storefront.

WPdeposit

Offering a unique alternative to traditional eCommerce plugins, WPdeposit lets you set up a credit system, similar to stock image marketplaces like Shutterstock and iStockPhoto. With WPdeposit, shoppers buy prepaid credits, which they can use to make purchases on your site.

The plugin supports multiple gateways, with the option to add your own. Widgets and shortcodes show users their balances on your site, and add-ons let users subscribe to or advertise on your site in exchange for credits.

eCommerce Photo via Shutterstock



F-Secure and Nokia join forces to fight mobile malware

The surge in mobile malware is driving F-Secure to pool resources with Nokia's software development division.

The steady rise of mobile malware - against the backdrop of the six-year-old hardware industry of smartphones and tablet computers - has led security vendor F-Secure and the software architecture division of Nokia to pool their respective resources.

The rise in mobile malware has been documented by Alcatel Lucent's Kindsight Security Labs research division, which reports that there were 11.6 million mobile devices worldwide infected by malware at any given point during the fourth quarter of last year. The report also notes that actual mobile device malware infections rose by a solid 20 per cent during 2013.

The link-up between F-Secure - whose security business drives the security services of many ISPs worldwide - and Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN) will help mobile handset and tablet vendors develop integrated anti-malware and security software for products.

Whilst smartphones and tablets now have a wide range of security software - as is the case with desktop machines - malware can still attack at the BIOS or firmware stages, and so compromise the platform before the machine's security software kicks in.

Both firms have not revealed their exact plans for the link-up, but some form of on-device firmware security - similar to that seen on Intel processors, seems likely.

Alcatel-Lucent's Kindsight report, meanwhile, documents the massive scale of mobile malware infections, noting that 60 per cent of all mobile infections originated from the Google Play Android app store last year.

Interestingly, the report also found that 40 per cent of Android infections were side-loaded from a connected host Windows laptop.

Kevin McNamee, Kindsight Security Labs' director said that criminals traditionally go after low hanging fruit.

“Not only is Android the largest smartphone market, unlike the iPhone and Blackberry, it allows apps to be loaded from third party sites. This provides cybercriminals with an un-policed mechanism to distribute their malware which can easily evade detection by device-based anti-virus," he said.

Kindsight's analysis says that 2013 was the year that saw mobile spyware turn infected smartphones and tablets into cyber-espionage devices. These infected devices, says the report, allow hackers to remotely track location, download contact lists and personal information, intercept and send messages, record conversation and take pictures.

Matt Graham, a technical consultant with Manchester-based Apadmi told SCMagazineUK.com that the linkup between F-Secure and Nokia's software arm - as well as the Alcatel-Lucent report - clearly indicates that Android users need to take care when installing apps and connecting their devices to a PC.

"A user is always in full control of which apps are installed on their phone and should be vigilant," he said, advising that users should only install apps from the official app store for their device, as well as examine the permissions an app is asking for, whilst installing the software.

In addition, Graham advises not connecting an Android device to a Windows PC with the device in development mode, nor should they connect their mobile to a public charging station.

Etay Maor, fraud prevention manager with IBM's Trusteer Web security operation, said that mobile malware authors are in a unique position where they do not need to reinvent the wheel in terms of attack patterns and techniques.

"While we have yet to witness a mobile equivalent to a PV Man-in-the-browser malware, cybercriminals are already adapting techniques that proved profitable from the world of online fraud," he said.

Michael Sutton, VP of security research with cloud security specialist Zscaler said though that mobile malware is still in its infancy in terms of sophistication and volume, when compared to their desktop equivalents.

"Part of that is driven by time, with PC malware having been around for decades, but a more important reason has to do to with the App Store ecosystem. The vast majority of mobile malware exists on the Android platform, due to it's more open nature.”



Serious RCE flaw discovered in Wiki architecture

A critical vulnerability has been discovered in the open source software architecture that drives Wikipedia and numerous other `Wiki' information services.

A critical vulnerability has been discovered in the open source software architecture that drives Wikipedia and numerous other `Wiki' information services, including Intellipedia - the US Intelligence Community Wiki systems - and internal systems used by Intel and Novell.

The potentially serious flaw lies in the MediaWiki project Web platform, which runs many thousands of public and private sector wiki-based systems, including the infamous Wikileaks service.

According to Check Point, whose research team discovered the issue, the vulnerability makes a Wiki system open to remote code execution (RCE), meaning an attacker can gain complete control of the vulnerable Web server.

News of the discovered has been welcomed by the security community, with Quocirca director and analyst Bob Tarzey telling SCMagazineUK.com that there are plenty of reasons why cyber criminals and hacktivists might want to undermine Wikipedia or other wiki-based platforms.

"Nation states might like to have had a crack at Wikileaks at its height too. This news reminds us of two things: firstly that any platform can be vulnerable, and secondly, that the security industry can keep ahead of the attackers and pre-empt possible attacks by discovering vulnerabilities like this," he said.

Check Point says it alerted the WikiMedia Foundation about the vulnerability as soon it was discovered, and after verification, the Foundation issued an update and patch to the software.

Dorit Dor, the firm's vice president of products, says that, if the vulnerability had not been uncovered, an attacker would have been able to control the Wikipedia.org web server or any other ‘wiki' site running on MediaWiki - and potentially serve up malware to site visitors.

“It only takes a single vulnerability on a widely adopted platform [like this] for a hacker to infiltrate and wreak widespread damage,” she said.

"We're pleased that the MediaWiki platform is now protected against attacks on this vulnerability, which would have posed great security risk for millions of daily ‘wiki' site users,” she added.

This is believed to be the only the third RCE vulnerability found in the MediaWiki platform since 2006, when parsing functions were added to the software platform.

Commenting on the security flaw, Professor John Walker, a Visiting Professor with the Nottingham-Trent University Faculty of Engineering, said that businesses are increasingly being driven to deliver the latest and greatest technologies to their customers.

"However, once again, we see the complex and advanced code in these systems falling to the world of hacking," he said, adding that the common trend - which hackers and cyber criminals exploit for gain - includes vulnerabilities, exposures, and unauthorised incursions into the heart of the systems involved.

Professor Walker - who is also CTO of IT security consultancy Integral Security Xssurance - added that, now that the patch has been issued, the underlying issue will soon be forgotten.

"Taken in isolation, there regular reports of insecurity issues may seem insignificant. But taken as a whole the implications are clear: it is time to change our approach to security.”



Microsoft Changes Name of SkyDrive to OneDrive

Microsoft has announced the name change of its cloud service from SkyDrive to OneDrive. Ryan Gavin, General Manager of Consumer Apps & Services, made the announcement recently on the new OneDrive Blog.

“Why OneDrive? We know that increasingly you will have many devices in your life, but you really want only one place for your most important stuff. One place for all of your photos and videos. One place for all of your documents. One place that is seamlessly connected across all the devices you use. You want OneDrive for everything in your life.”

Everybody knows though why it’s OneDrive. The company was forced to alter the name of its cloud storage service after a trademark case with UK television broadcaster BSkyB. Up until a few years ago, BSkyB was in the cloud storage business themselves, and they sued Microsoft over the SkyDrive name (in particular, the “sky” part of the name), claiming trademark infringement.

BSkyB won that case and Microsoft decided to rebrand the service, rather than go through lengthy legal appeals. A special arrangement with BSkyB involving Microsoft’s XBox One may have factored into their considerations too. UK owners of XBox One can access Sky’s channels via the game’s console, and there may be further tie-ins planned for the future.

It’s not clear whether there will be any significant service changes coming with the name change. Microsoft also hasn’t announced exactly when the name change will occur.

This isn’t the first time Microsoft has run afoul of trademark infringement challenges. Its Windows 8 system was originally called Metro, and had to be rebranded after a dispute by the German company Metro AG. And who knows? Maybe OneDrive will have to be changed again if anyone objects to the use of the word “one.” Gizmodo has made a list of possible companies who may object to Microsoft’s rebranding.

BSkyB has also not been afraid to defend its trademark before in another case. Back in 2012, Livescribe was forced to change the name of their Sky Wifi Smartpen after the broadcasting company complained.

Since OneDrive is not yet available, you can register your interest on the OneDrive webpage, and you will be notified when all systems are go. In the meantime, SkyDrive will continue to work as usual.



US DOJ to investigate Target data breach

The US Department of Justice launches investigation into Target breach. Could other retailers be hit by the same kind of attack?

The US Department of Justice has announced that it is actively investigating the Target Corporation data breach saga, two months after details on the attack first emerged.

US Attorney General Eric Holder revealed that his Justice Department is investigating the hack and said that it will look to find the perpetrators - as well as any individuals and groups -- who exploit that data via credit card fraud.

In a statement issued to the US Senate, Holder said: "While we generally do not discuss specific matters under investigation, I can confirm the department is investigating the breach involving the US retailer, Target."

Target has been drip-feeding details to the media of how the criminals attacked its system and the picture of how cyber criminals staged their attack is now coming into focus.

Independent security researcher Brian Krebs says that the attackers were helped by "a poorly secured feature built into a widely-used IT management software product that was running on the retailer's internal network," leveraging a Microsoft Windows share function and a software package from BMC Software in order to exfiltrate the data to their own computers.

The researcher says he has asked BMC Software, the company that produces Performance Assurance for Microsoft Servers, why its admin level privilege feature operates as it does, but has not yet had a reply. He also cites Dell Secureworks' Counter Threat Unit as investigating the security breach methodology along similar lines.

"According to a trusted source who uses mostly open-source data to keep tabs on the software and hardware used in various retail environments, BMC's software is in use at many major retail and grocery chains across the country, including Kroger, Safeway, Home Depot, Sam's Club and The Vons Companies, among many others," says the Krebs in his analysis.

Krebs remains ambivalent on the blame game in his report, but the underlying message suggests that any retailer using the company's IT management suite should now be checking the security and integrity of their EFTPOS systems and related system software.

As previously reported, Target - the second largest retailer in the US - was hit by a data breach late last year, with the company confirming on December 19 that up to 40 million sets of card credentials had been leaked.

Eight days later the retailer admitted that encrypted customer PIN codes were included in the credential data files, and on January 10 revealed that up to 70 million extra customer records - names, postal addresses, phone numbers and/or email addresses - had also been stolen.

Security experts now rate the breach as the second-largest in the world - just behind the Heartland Payment Systems attack of 2009, which involved 130 million sets of credit and debit card credentials.



Angry Birds website hacked after latest NSA revelations

Video game developer Rovio has confirmed that hackers defaced the website of Angry Birds, its popular smartphone game.

Following on from leaks revealing that the GCHQ obtained data from Angry Birds, Rovio confirmed that hackers defaced the video game's website on Wednesday. The website temporarily showed an image entitled ‘Spying Birds' and this included the NSA logo.

Rovio said that it did not “collaborate or collude” with any government spy agency.

“We do not collaborate, collude, or share data with spy agencies anywhere in the world,” said Rovio Entertainment CEO Mikael Hed in a statement. “As the alleged surveillance might be happening through third party advertising networks, the most important conversation to be had is how to ensure user privacy is protected while preventing the negative impact on the whole advertising industry and the countless mobile apps that rely on ad networks.”

“In order to protect our end users, we will, like all other companies using third party advertising networks, have to re-evaluate working with these networks if they are being used for spying purposes.”

It appears that cyber criminals carried out a DNS (Domain Name System) attack - where the website's name servers are swapped with another under the attackers' control -- and this is said to bear some resemblance to the Syrian Electronic Army's attacks on The New York Times last year.

However, the group itself has denied responsibility but says that it heard about the breach from an anonymous third-party.

"A friend hacked and defaced @Angrybirds website after reports confirms its spying on people,” the group posted on Twitter, adding a link to a saved image of the defaced website.

“The attack was by 'Anti-NSA' Hacker. He sent an email to our official email with the link of the hacked website."

This attack comes days after the New York Times, ProPublica and The Guardian posted copies of the latest documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden. In the documents, the former CIA contractor suggests that both the NSA and GCHQ have worked together since 2007 to devise ways to access information from smartphone and tablet apps.

A secret GCHQ report, also recently published, revealed that both agencies had engineered a way of harvesting user data if they installed Angry Birds on an Android device. This data apparently included the owner's age, sex, location and even information on when they were listening to music or making a call.

 “It is not a surprise to hear that the NSA gathers information from Angry Birds. The information provided by these apps has already proven lucrative to both advertisers and developers so it stands to reason that it is also valuable to intelligence agencies, Vicente Diaz, Senior Malware Analyst at Kaspersky Lab, told SCMagazineUK.com.

Edward Parsons, senior manager for information protection and business resilience at KPMG UK, hopes that these latest revelations prompt mobile users to improve their security.

“Smartphone applications offer a vast range of benefits to users and provide a platform for innovative service delivery. In the rush to market, security can come second, offering the opportunity for both nations and organised crime groups to collect sensitive information on smartphone users and their activities, as well as providing avenues to exploit vulnerabilities in app software and the smartphones which run it," he told SCMagazineUK.com. 

"A poorly configured smartphone may be the best espionage tool ever created with camera, microphone, GPS and Internet connection.

“Smartphone users need to exercise care in downloading and installing apps, including limiting the access they grant. Users can protect themselves by carefully considering the terms and conditions when purchasing apps, though this is easier said than done, the reality is that they are often complex and opaque, and frequently ignored as the latest and greatest app is installed in haste.”



Enter the Brother “Back to Business” Contest For $500 Prize

brother contest image 2014_2

There’s a contest going on at our sister site BizSugar.com that we’re excited to tell you about. Now you can showcase your creativity and promote your business all at the same time. And you’ll get a chance to win one of three great prizes.

Brother, manufacturers of printers and related business products, has a free Web tool that can help you use your creativity to design the perfect attention-grabbing, business and marketing materials for your company.

All it takes is Internet access and a bit of imagination. You’ll be printing up your new designs and turning the heads of customers.

Now, here’s the really exciting part!

We’d like you to try the Brother CreativeCenter â€" a totally free web-based design portal â€" to add some oomph to your business cards, calendars, posters, brochures and mailers. And we’re offering a whopper of an incentive.

Enter the Brother “Back to Business” Contest on BizSugar and not only create beautiful promotional material about your business and show it off to the world, but you’ll also have the chance to win one of three prize packages worth over $500 each.

Read the contest rules.

Then use the Brother CreativeCenter online tool to create a document, then load it to the BizSugar site using the contest entry form.

It’s that easy!

Winners will be chosen by the BizSugar Moderator team and staff.

We ran a similar contest last year around this time, so you can see the submissions from 2013 as well as this year’s content submissions.

Get started NOW!



Enter the Brother “Back to Business” Contest For $500 Prize

brother contest image 2014_2

There’s a contest going on at our sister site BizSugar.com that we’re excited to tell you about. Now you can showcase your creativity and promote your business all at the same time. And you’ll get a chance to win one of three great prizes.

Brother, manufacturers of printers and related business products, has a free Web tool that can help you use your creativity to design the perfect attention-grabbing, business and marketing materials for your company.

All it takes is Internet access and a bit of imagination. You’ll be printing up your new designs and turning the heads of customers.

Now, here’s the really exciting part!

We’d like you to try the Brother CreativeCenter â€" a totally free web-based design portal â€" to add some oomph to your business cards, calendars, posters, brochures and mailers. And we’re offering a whopper of an incentive.

Enter the Brother “Back to Business” Contest on BizSugar and not only create beautiful promotional material about your business and show it off to the world, but you’ll also have the chance to win one of three prize packages worth over $500 each.

Read the contest rules.

Then use the Brother CreativeCenter online tool to create a document, then load it to the BizSugar site using the contest entry form.

It’s that easy!

Winners will be chosen by the BizSugar Moderator team and staff.

We ran a similar contest last year around this time, so you can see the submissions from 2013 as well as this year’s content submissions.

Get started NOW!