Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/335510298?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Update: SAP reports strong revenue growth from HANA and cloud
SAP reported strong revenue growth in its HANA in-memory database and cloud businesses, but also saw revenue from software decline in the third quarter.
The company said Monday that its revenue in the quarter was up 2 percent year-on-year to €4 billion ($5.4 billion), according to IFRS (international financial reporting standards). Profit soared 23 percent to €762 million.
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Software revenue, however, fell 5 percent from the same quarter last year to €975 million, even as cloud subscriptions and support grew by a whopping 203 percent to €191 million. Support revenue grew by 4 percent to a little over €2 billion, while overall software and software-related service revenue grew 5 percent year-on-year to about €3.4 billion.
SAP said it is well on its way to reach €1 billion in HANA software revenue since market launch about two years ago. In the quarter, HANA software revenue was up 79 percent at actual currencies to €149 million, and over 2,100 customers. Competitor Oracle announced in September an upcoming in-memory option for its recently released 12c database.
IBM and Microsoft are also working on in-memory database products.
Those competitors' efforts are "too little, and a little bit late" to market, said SAP executive board member Vishal Sikka, who heads all product development, during a conference call Monday.
The business software company also said it had reached a run-rate of over €1 billion in annual cloud revenue, with about 33 million cloud users. Non-IFRS "deferred cloud subscription and support revenue" was €382 million at the end of the quarter, a year-over-year increase of 79 percent, the company said. Deferred cloud subscription and support revenue includes committed future cloud subscription and support revenue already paid by the customer for subsequent quarters of the year.
The business from cloud-based e-commerce vendor Ariba that SAP acquired last October is also doing well with the Web-based business trading community now connecting 1.2 million companies, SAP said.
In the Americas region, the company saw third quarter non-IFRS software and cloud subscription revenue grow 17 percent year-over-year at constant currencies, helped by software revenue growth in Latin America and strong non-IFRS cloud subscription and support revenue growth in North America.
The company's non-IFRS software and cloud subscription revenue in the Asia Pacific Japan region returned to growth with "solid single-digit growth" at constant currencies, backed by a strong performance in China. SAP's non-IFRS software and cloud subscription revenue in the region declined 7 percent in the second quarter.
The 2013 revenue and profit figures include the revenue and profits from Ariba, SuccessFactors and Hybris, a commerce technology company SAP acquired in August. The comparative numbers for 2012 do not include SuccessFactors, Ariba and Hybris for varying periods.
However, SAP is apparently giving up on Business ByDesign, its cloud-based ERP (enterprise resource planning) suite, as a major pillar of its cloud strategy.
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Tea Party & Big Business Want the Same Things
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Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2013/10/21/tea_party_amp_big_business_want_the_same_things_318321.htmlTags: Jim Leyland ufc Shannon Sharpe dexter alex rodriguez
Monday, October 21, 2013
Britain To Build New Nuclear Plant, Bucking European Trend
A worker walks inside the turbine hall of the Sizewell nuclear plant in eastern England in 2006. The U.K. government on Monday announced that French-owned EDF would build the first new British nuclear power station in 20 years.
Lefteris Pitarakis/AP
A worker walks inside the turbine hall of the Sizewell nuclear plant in eastern England in 2006. The U.K. government on Monday announced that French-owned EDF would build the first new British nuclear power station in 20 years.
Lefteris Pitarakis/AP
Britain has approved the construction of the country's first nuclear power station in 20 years.
NPR's Philip Reeves, reporting on the announcement for our Newscast unit, said the move goes counter to a European trend to phase out nuclear power in the aftermath of Japan's Fukushima disaster in 2011.
"Most of Britain's 16 nuclear reactors are coming to the end of their lives. Now the government's inked an agreement with a consortium led by the French company EDF Energy to build two new nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in southwest England. Two state-owned Chinese companies are expected to have a sizable stake. Anti-nuclear sentiment in Britain is low-key compared to some European nations: Germany's phasing out nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster. But this deal will be controversial. Attention is focusing on China's involvement — and the price. The consortium is footing the massive construction costs in return for a guaranteed fixed price for the electricity it produces — that's far higher than current rates."
But as the BBC notes the announcement isn't legally binding. EDF will make a final decision on the project in 2014. The project also needs European Commission clearance.
Still, the news prompted us to look at nuclear energy use across Europe and elsewhere. Here's what we found:
As has been the case for years, France relies on nuclear power for more than three-quarters of its energy needs. And nuclear power enjoys broad public support in the country — at least until the Fukushima disaster.
But France and now Britain are among the few European states that see nuclear power as playing a significant role in the future. Across much of Europe, it's a different story.
Existing plants are being phased out, including in Belgium and Germany.
Indeed, Germany's goals are far-reaching: It plans to close all nuclear power stations by 2022. The aim, as NPR's Eric Westervelt reported last year, is "to have solar, wind and other renewables account for nearly 40 percent of the energy for Europe's largest economy in a decade, and 80 percent by 2050."
But, there are growing doubts about that timeline, too, as Eric noted:
"The fact is, the post-Fukushima consensus in Germany has given way to growing concerns about rising energy costs. The debate is intensifying over just who will pay for the transition to renewable energy, how it will happen, how fast — and through whose backyards."
Further afield, Japan was a major proponent of nuclear power until the Fukushima disaster. Until 2011, about 30 percent of electricity in Japan came from nuclear sources. The plan was to increase the share to 40 percent by 2017. But last year, just 2.1 percent of Japan's electricity came from its nuclear plants.
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A First-Person Account of Debugging a Live Saturn V Rocket
We all have stories, as engineers, of fixing some crazy thing at the last minute right before the demo goes up. We have all encountered situations where we needed to fix something that was our fault and we needed to fix it now.
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Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/W3dCsXQtVSE/a-first-person-account-of-debugging-a-live-saturn-v-roc-1449074528Category: Prisoners Talk Like a Pirate Day Léon Foucault 9/11 Anastasia Ashley
Counterterrorism: Where are Obama's policy changes?
By Daphne Eviatar
It is now roughly five months since President Barack Obama announced a new direction for U.S. counterterrorism strategy.
"America is at a crossroads," Obama said at the National Defense University in May. "We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us."
The president proceeded to set out his post-war vision for the nation — the peace dividend earned for the last 12 years of a complicated, costly and at times tragically misguided counterterrorism policy. The president, as usual, gave a good speech. Where he's weak is on the follow-through, however.
Though five months isn't that long, when it comes to a war that involves killing and indefinitely detaining a vaguely defined enemy, time is of the essence. It's also critical to restoring U.S. credibility around the globe, particularly around the constitutional principles the president repeatedly emphasized.
Obama has taken a few steps in the right direction since May. As promised, he appointed an envoy at the State Department to focus on transferring Guantanamo detainees to their home countries, and just this month appointed someone in charge at the Pentagon as well. He's sent home two of the 86 prisoners already cleared for transfer.
The president also promised to curtail his use of drones to kill suspected terrorists outside the Afghan war zone. He acknowledged the need to end what's been interpreted as an indefinite authorization for the use of military force.
But a couple of appointments, two transfers and many more promises don't amount to real change. To be credible, Obama needs to do more. And there's plenty he can do right now.
1. "GTMO has become a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the rule of law," the president said in May. Transferring the remaining 84 detainees already cleared by government officials is a step Obama can take quickly to demonstrate he's committed to restoring America's reputation as a nation committed to the rule of law. Even with the transfer restrictions set by Congress, the president has sufficient authority to ensure that at least this group of prisoners leaves Guantanamo soon.
2. "My administration," Obama said, "has worked vigorously to establish a framework that governs our use of force against terrorists — insisting upon clear guidelines, oversight and accountability."
Despite releasing a "fact sheet" on his "policy guidance" on the use of force, the president still has not answered the "profound questions" he himself raised about the use of our new and rapidly-spreading drone technology. He's also provided no way to know whether he's fulfilling his promise to use it responsibly.
Meanwhile, the drone program has continued over the past five months — with a stepped-up campaign in Yemen over the summer, followed by a barrage of strikes in Pakistan. Yet we know no more today than we did in May about how many U.S. drones have struck; whom or how many they've killed; the legal justification; the number of civilians killed in the process, and the overall effect of this killing campaign.
In fact, we don't even know if this administration believes we are at war in Yemen or in Pakistan. Or if it's operating under a legal theory of self-defense. The distinction is critical to which rules we're following.
In his speech, the president went beyond Afghanistan. "We act," Obama said, "against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people, and when there are no other governments capable of effectively addressing the threat." He added, "before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured — the highest standard we can set."
This only begs the question. Were the dozens reportedly killed by U.S. drones in Yemen really posing an "imminent threat to the American people" that couldn't have been addressed by the government of Yemen? How many civilians were killed? We still don't know.
For the president's pledge to be viable, he must do more than promise. He should release all the legal memos his administration has written to explain the underlying legal justification for his targeted killing policy. He should start by systematically providing information about the number and nature of targets and civilians killed in each attack.
As for civilians, CIA director John Brennan testified at his Senate confirmation hearing that the United States "need to acknowledge publicly" mistaken killings "in the interest of transparency." He later said that the administration should "make public the overall numbers of civilian deaths resulting from U.S. strikes targeting al Qaeda."
As the president said in May, this "is critical because much of the criticism about drone strikes — both here at home and abroad — understandably centers on reports of civilian casualties."
Washington's claims that drones are precise and result in few civilian casualties needs to be supported with verifiable facts. That's crucial not only to Obama's credibility at home, but to reducing the risk of the drone program creating new enemies overseas.
3. "I believe we compromised our basic values," Obama said, "by using torture to interrogate our enemies, and detaining individuals in a way that ran counter to the rule of law."
Though the Justice Department declined to prosecute those who carried out acts of torture during the last administration, that's not the end of the story. For the president to restore the United States' credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, he must reckon with what happened in some manner.
The best and easiest way is for him to support a process by which the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence can release its study of the CIA's brutal interrogation tactics — a 6,000-page report the committee completed last year. By publicly acknowledging this dark chapter in U.S. history, Washington can begin to assure the world that we've learned from past mistakes and will not repeat them.
Only by acknowledging this ugly truth can we credibly demand that other countries do the same with their sordid pasts. It is simply not viable for Obama to tell the American people that we must "look forward, not backward" while telling Indonesians that they "cannot look forward without looking backward."
4. "We cannot use force everywhere that a radical ideology takes root; and in the absence of a strategy that reduces the wellspring of extremism, a perpetual war — through drones or Special Forces or troop deployments — will prove self-defeating, and alter our country in troubling ways."
In addition to pledging to address "the underlying grievances and conflicts that feed extremism" — admittedly a big task — Obama promised "to determine how we can continue to fight terrorism without keeping America on a perpetual wartime footing."
The withdrawal of combat troops from Afghanistan provides an opportunity to regain peacetime footing, and end our reliance on the Authorization for Use of Military Force — the domestic legal authority for the so-called war on terror. This is a promise the president should commit to now.
"In the years to come," Obama proposed in May, "not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States." Unless we're committed to a better strategy, "we may be drawn into more wars we don't need to fight," he said.
The president will still be able to use military force to protect against imminent threats to the United States. But five months ago he acknowledged that this war against "al Qaeda, the Taliban and their associated forces" must end — and that he wanted to steer U.S. counterterrorism policy toward a more peaceful and stable course.
Now is the time to make clear to the American people — and the world — exactly how that will happen.
As Obama said: "That's what our democracy demands."
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