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Category : Software News

HomeArchive by Category "Software News" (Page 7)
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Google stakes Pwnium hacking contest

by Soloiston 29 January 2013in Software News No comment

New cooperative approach with Pwn2Own has Google pitching researchers on hacking Chrome OS.

Google today announced it would again host its Pwnium hacking contest at a March security conference, but boosted the maximum amount it will pay to $3.14 million and changed the target to its browser-based operating system, Chrome OS.

Dubbed Pwnium 3, the challenge will pit researchers against its still-struggling-for-relevance Chrome OS, rewarding those who can hack the operating system with individual prizes of $110,000 and $150,000.

Google capped the total up for grabs at $3.14159 million, giving multiple researchers a chance at prize money. The “3.14159” comes from the first six digits of the value of .

Each hacker able to compromise Chrome OS or the browser that is its foundation — Chrome — from an exploit-serving website will receive $110,000 said Chris Evans, an engineer with the Chrome security team, in a Monday entry on the Chromium project’s blog.

Researchers who manage to accomplish what Evans called a “compromise with device persistence,” meaning that the hijack survives a reboot of the Chrome OS-powered notebook, will receive the larger award of $150,000.

“We believe these larger rewards reflect the additional challenge involved with tackling the security defenses of Chrome OS, compared to traditional operating systems,” said Evans.

Pwnium 3 will take place March 7 at CanSecWest, the Vancouver, British Columbia, security conference where Google will also partner with HP TippingPoint’s Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) bug bounty program to host Pwn2Own. That contest, with $560,000 in total cash prizes, will focus on Web browsers, including Chrome, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) and Mozilla’s Firefox, as well as plug-ins from Adobe and Oracle.

The contest cooperation at CanSecWest will be quite different this year than in 2012, when Pwn2Own and Pwnium were rivals. Google inaugurated Pwnium then after it withdrew its financial support from Pwn2Own after it and HP couldn’t agree on the rules — specifically, whether researchers would be required to divulge full exploits and hand over all the vulnerabilities they used to hack a browser.

“This year, we’ve teamed up with ZDI by working together on the Pwn2Own rules and by underwriting a portion of the winnings for all targets,” said Evans about the new understanding between Google and HP TippingPoint. “The new rules are designed to enable a contest that significantly improves Internet security for everyone. At the same time, the best researchers in the industry get to showcase their skills and take home some generous rewards.”

Both Pwn2Own and Pwnium will require winners to provide functional exploit code and details on all the vulnerabilities put into play.

Pwnium 3’s $3.14 million cap is more than three times the $1 million Google said it would pay if necessary in 2012, and more than 50% above the $2 million it staked at a second challenge that took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, last October.

But if past practice holds true again this year, Google won’t write checks totaling anywhere near $3 million. At the first Pwnium of March 2012, the search giant paid out $120,000 to two researchers for exploiting Chrome; the Malaysian edition’s single award was a $60,000 payoff to “Pinkie Pie,” one of the two hackers who took home the same amount seven months earlier.

Chrome OS has never been a contest target before, although Pwn2Own offered a Chrome OS notebook as one of four laptop prizes in 2011.

Although Chrome OS continues to struggle to gain share — metrics company Net Applications, one of the most-cited market scorekeepers, hasn’t even bothered to measure the operating system’s usage — but several major computer makers have recently gotten behind the open-source operating system. Earlier this month, Lenovo joined Acer and Samsung when it introduced a $429 ThinkPad laptop that’s scheduled to ship in February.

Acer’s C7 “Chromebook” — a term often applied to notebooks powered by Chrome OS — costs just $199, while Samsung’s line starts at $249.

Google has not yet posted the official rules for Pwnium 3, but they will probably appear on the Chromium Security page.

 

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Anonymous hits US government site

by Soloiston 28 January 2013in Software News No comment

Hack claimed the suicide of Aaron Swartz as its spark

Hackers working under the name of the Anonymous hacktivist collective hit a U.S. government website on Saturday, replacing its home page with a 1,340 word text detailing its frustrations with the way the American legal system works and a threat to release “secrets” gathered from U.S. government websites.

The website of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which establishes sentencing policies for the federal court system, was offline for much of Saturday as a result of the attack.

“This mornings cyber attack on the Commissions website www.ussc.gov brought it down temporarily, but the site now has been restored,” the commission said in a brief statement issued on Saturday evening.A “The Commissions publications, training materials, and federal sentencing statistics are again readily accessible to visitors to the site.”

The site and timing of the attack was not random, according to the message that replaced the home page before it was taken offline.

“Two weeks ago today, a line was crossed,” the message read. “Two weeks ago today, Aaron Swartz was killed. Killed because he faced an impossible choice. Killed because he was forced into playing a game he could not win — a twisted and distorted perversion of justice — a game where the only winning move was not to play.”

Swartz committed suicide in New York on Jan. 11, apparently over an upcoming trial on computer intrusion, wire fraud and data theft charges that carried a maximum penalty of 35 years in jail. The charges stem from allegations that Swartz stole millions of scholarly articles and documents from the JSTOR database with the intention of making them available online at no charge.

His suicide sparked outrage among the hacktivist community, much of which blamed the prosecution of the case and potential penalties he faced as directly contributing to his death.

“This website was chosen due to the symbolic nature of its purpose — the federal sentencing guidelines which enable prosecutors to cheat citizens of their constitutionally guaranteed right to a fair trial, by a jury of their peers — the federal sentencing guidelines which are in clear violation of the 8th amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishments,” the message on the hacked website read.

The message went on to say that the group had infiltrated numerous U.S. government websites and gathered material it judged would be embarrassing if released.

“We have enough fissile material for multiple warheads. Today we are launching the first of these. Operation Last Resort has begun…”

The message didn’t reveal the nature of the “secrets,” but the hackers made available on the site a multi-part encrypted file that was said to contain them. It’s impossible to determine what’s actually in the files, which were named for judges on the U.S. Supreme Court.

The message went on to demand a number of reforms to the U.S. legal system.

 

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Amazon text-to-speech company IVONA

by Soloiston 25 January 2013in Software News No comment

Amazon announced Thursday that it has acquired IVONA Software

A Polish company specializing in text-to-speech and voice recognition capabilities. The terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed.

IVONA’s technology is already used in Amazon products, most notably in its Kindle Fire tablets. The Kindle Fire’s accessibility options – including “voice guide,” which reads out the names of items or options selected by visually impaired users, and other text-to-speech features – rely on technology provided by IVONA.

According to Dave Limp, vice president of Amazon Kindle, closer integration with IVONA will be a big help to the company.

“IVONA’s exceptional text-to-speech technology leads the industry in natural voice quality, accuracy and ease of use,” he said in a statement. “The IVONA team shares our passion for innovation and customer obsession, and we look forward to building great products to deliver world-class voice solutions to customers around the world.”

Amazon did not divulge details on what those products might be, but speculation about a possible rival to Siri and Google Now broke out quickly after the announcement was made, even though IVONA’s technology is not focused on voice recognition. The statement also revived speculation about a possible Amazon phone, though that too seems to be based only on guesswork.

IVONA’s CEO and co-founder, Lukasz Osowski, expressed gratitude for Amazon’s backing.

“We are all thrilled that Amazon is supporting our growth so that we can continue to innovate and deliver exceptional voice and language support for our customers,” he said.

 

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DNA storage may soon be used

by Soloiston 25 January 2013in Software News One comment

All of the world’s information, about 1.8 zettabytes, could be stored in about four grams of DNA

Researchers have created a way to store data in the form of DNA, which can last for tens of thousands of years.

The encoding method makes it possible to store at least 100 million hours of high-definition video in about a cup of DNA, the researchers said in a paper published in the journal Nature this week.

The researchers, from UK-based EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), claimed to have stored encoded versions of an .mp3 of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, along with a .jpg photo of EMBL-EBI and several text files.

“We already know that DNA is a robust way to store information because we can extract it from wooly mammoth bones, which date back tens of thousands of years, and make sense of it,” Nick Goldman, co-author of the study at EMBL-EBI, said in a statement. “It’s also incredibly small, dense and does not need any power for storage, so shipping and keeping it is easy.”

Reading DNA is fairly straightforward, but writing it has been a major hurdle. There are two challenges: First, using current methods, it is only possible to manufacture DNA in short strings. Secondly, both writing and reading DNA are prone to errors, particularly when the same DNA letter is repeated.

Goldman and co-author Ewan Birney, associate director of EMBL-EBI, set out to create a code that overcomes both problems. The new method requires synthesizing DNA from the encoded information. EMBL-EBI worked with California-based Agilent Technologies, a maker of electronic and bio-analytical measurement instruments such as oscilloscopes and signal generators, to transmit the data and then encode it in DNA.

Agilent downloaded the files from the Web and then synthesized hundreds of thousands of pieces of DNA to represent the data. “The result looks like a tiny piece of dust,” said Emily Leproust of Agilent.

Agilent then mailed the sample to EMBL-EBI, where the researchers were able to sequence the DNA and decode the files without errors.

This is not the first time DNA has been shown to be an effective method of storing data. Last fall, researchers at Harvard University demonstrated the ability to store 70 billion copies of a book in HTML form in DNA binary code.

The researchers created the binary code through DNA markers to preserve the text of the book, Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves in DNA.

The difference between the two studies is that the EMBL-EBI was the first to present an error-correcting code that converts zeros and ones to As, Gs, Ts and Cs,” according to an institute spokeswoman.

Genetic data is encoded as a sequence of nucleotides recorded using the letters G, A, T, and C, which represent guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine.

“Because of the way the code is written, it overcomes the most common errors that occur when reading and writing DNA. The study is the first to demonstrate a method that works, and that can be scaled up,” she said. “The papers [from Harvard and EMBL-EBI] were submitted around the same time to two different journals, and the different groups weren’t aware that they were working on the same thing.”

The Harvard researchers stored 5.5 petabits, or 1 million gigabits, per cubic millimeter in the DNA storage medium. Because of the slow process for setting down the data, the researchers consider the DNA storage medium suitable only for data archive purposes — for now.

“The total world’s information, which is 1.8 zettabytes, [could be stored] in about four grams of DNA,” Sriram Kosuri, a senior scientist at Harvard’s Wyss Institute and senior author of the paper explaining the science, said at the time.

Researchers are pursuing methods of storing data in smaller and smaller packets because of the tremendous growth of data.

During the next eight years, the amount of digital data produced will exceed 40 zettabytes, which is the equivalent of 5,200GB of data for every man, woman and child on Earth, according to the latest Digital Universe study by research firm IDC.

The majority of data between now and 2020 will not be produced by humans but by machines as they talk to each other over data networks. That would include, for example, machine sensors and smart devices communicating with other devices.

“We’ve created a code that’s error tolerant using a molecular form we know will last in the right conditions for 10,000 years, or possibly longer,” Nick said. “As long as someone knows what the code is, you will be able to read it back if you have a machine that can read DNA.”

The researchers said the next step in development is to perfect the coding scheme and explore practical aspects, paving the way for a commercially viable DNA storage model.

 

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Sony launches thin and light Tablet Z

by Soloiston 22 January 2013in Software News No comment

For now, Sony is only detailing availability in Japan

Sony has expanded its portfolio of Android-based products with the Tablet Z, which is thinner and lighter than competing products from Apple and Google.

This year tablet shipments are expected to total more than 240 million units worldwide in 2013, exceeding the 207 million laptops that are projected to ship, according to NPD DisplaySearch, and Sony wants a piece of that market as it looks to integrate smartphones, tablets and TVs.

Tablet Z is announced just two weeks after Sony presented the Xperia Z smartphone at International CES, and just like that product the new tablet has a competitive specification.

It is powered by a quad-core 1.5GHz processor, has a 10.1-inch screen with a 1920-by-1200 pixel resolution and an 8-megapixel camera.

But what will help the product stand out is its thickness and weight. It is 6.9 millimeters thick, which compares to Apple’s latest iPad at 9.4 millimeters and Google’s and Samsung Electronics’ Nexus 10, which is 8.9 millimeters thick. At 495 grams, the Tablet Z is also lighter than the other two tablets, which weigh from 652 grams and 603 grams, respectively.

Networking options will include LTE, but Sony doesn’t detail what frequency bands it will work in. Just like many of Sony’s recent mobile devices there is support for NFC, as well.

The launch of the Xperia Z and Tablet Z marks the proper beginning of a new Sony, where both smartphones and tablets have been developed in-house, following the acquisition of Ericsson’s stake in Sony Ericsson, according to Ben Wood, director of research at CCS Insight.

“This product is interesting to me because its an essential component of Sony’s multiscreen strategy, and as a consumer electronics vendor Sony needs to have a coherent story across all screen sizes, phones, tablets and TVs,” Wood said.

Beyond availability in Japan, Sony isn’t revealing any other parts in the world where the product will go on sale, at least for now. The company is also mum on what the Tablet Z will cost.

 

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Obama takes forceful stand on climate & tech

by Soloiston 22 January 2013in Software News 2 comments

President cites issue of climate change investment during inaugural address

WASHINGTON — In his second inaugural address, President Barack Obama on Monday argued with certainty and forcefulness about the dangers of climate change and the role of technology in fighting it.

It wasn’t just a moral point for Obama, but a jobs issue as well. The president, sworn in to a second term officially yesterday – and ceremonially again today — argued that U.S. competitiveness is tightly linked with its national investments in renewable energy technology. “The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult,” said Obama. “But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it.”

Obama said that the U.S. “cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries – we must claim its promise. That is how we will maintain our economic vitality.”

The president led this call with blunt statement about the moral consequences of inaction. “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations,” he said.

Obama drew a clear link between climate change and recent powerful storms, droughts and Western fires in the U.S.

The Obama administration is, of course, being urged by a lot of people to take stronger action on climate change. But it is an area of especially strong interest in Silicon Valley, and people such as John Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Microsoft’s Bill Gates, have warned that the U.S. is putting itself at economic risk if it cedes the renewable energy sector to China.

There is a very strong affinity, as well as growing investment, by technology companies in energy-related activities. Some companies, such as Google, are making direct investments in alternative energy. Many others are investing in and building technologies used in the renewable sector. A major part of IBM’s Smarter Planet initiative, for instance, focuses on energy and environment resource management.

The U.N., in a report on global renewable energy investment, said that China continues to lead the U.S. in investments in this area. Obama, in a speech that made a number of references to technology and science, also spoke directly to a need to retain “bright young students and engineers” to ensure they are “are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country.”

Obama has argued previously for making it easier for foreign students, particularly those who earn an advanced degree from a U.S. university, to remain here after graduation.

There have been bipartisan bills introduced in the U.S. House and Senate to accomplish that, but all these efforts have been put aside pending action on a comprehensive immigration bill. These efforts typically call for near automatic awarding of permanent residency for science, technology, engineering and math advance degree grads once they get a job in these fields.

In other references to technology, Obama emphasized the importance of a national commitment to science and technology, especially at the national labs. “No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores,” said Obama.

U.S. investment in research and development is slowing, and China is on track to surpass the U.S. in science and technology spending in 10 years, according to a Global R&D Funding Forecast prepared by Battelle, a research and technology development organization. Obama has called for R&D spending that is roughly 3% of GDP; the U.S. is now forecast to spend about 2.6%.

“We must harness new ideas and technology to remake our government, revamp our tax code, reform our schools, and empower our citizens with the skills they need to work harder, learn more, and reach higher,” said Obama.

 

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Google sees one password ring to rule all

by Soloiston 21 January 2013in Software News No comment

Google researchers have proposed a USB key, or even a finger ring, to solve the problems with website passwords

Google thinks it might have found an answer to the vexing problem of forgotten or weak passwords: “physical” passwords, which might come in the form of a piece of jewelry such as a ring.

In a research paper, two of its engineers write that current strategies to prevent the hijacking of online accounts, including the two-step identity verification system, are insufficient, partly due to the constant threat of attacks that exploit new bugs.

Google highlights phishing, in which hackers dupe account holders into revealing sensitive information by making them sign into a fake account login page, as one of the biggest security threats of today.

“It’s time to give up on elaborate password rules and look for something better,” the authors say. The research paper, by Google’s Eric Grosse and Mayank Upadhyay, is to be published Jan. 28 in the publication IEEE Security & Privacy. It was first reported on by Wired earlier Friday.

At the core of Google’s proposal is an idea it says has been used by businesses but has found little success among consumers: an encrypted USB-like device that people would use to log into password-protected websites and online accounts.

Google says it is working on an internal pilot with an experimental USB device that users first register with multiple websites where they have accounts. A compliant browser would make two new APIs (application programming interfaces) available to the website to be passed down to the attached device.

“One of these APIs is called during the registration step, causing the hardware to generate a new public-private key pair and send the public key back to the website,” the paper explains. “The website calls the second API during authentication to deliver a challenge to the hardware and return the signed response.”

The method wouldn’t require any software to be installed, though users would need to be using a Web browser that’s compliant with the effort, Google said. The registration and authentication protocols would be open and free, and the device would connect with a computer’s USB without needing any special OS device drivers.

Basically, the Googlers envision a single device that people can slide into a USB slot and then use to log into any number of online accounts with a single mouse click.

Because carrying around another device may not prove popular among consumers, Google suggests the authentication device could be integrated into a smartphone or even a piece of jewelry. The device would be able to authorize a new computer for use with a single tap, even in situations in which the phone might be without cellular connectivity.

The technology aims to improve upon the company’s current, optional two-step verification system. With that system, when users want to log into a Google service from a new computer, they’re prompted to enter a code sent to their preregistered mobile phone, granting them access to the site.

The company says its experience with that system has been good, though it too can be abused by account hackers. After they steal a password and break into an account, they sometimes set up a two-factor authentication using their own phone number, “just to slow down account recovery by the true owner,” the Google engineers wrote.

Google admits its proposed USB key approach is “speculative” and that it will need to be accepted on a wide scale. But the firm said it is eager to test the device with other websites.

“User device registration with target websites should be simple and shouldn’t require a relationship with Google or any other third party,” the engineers write. “The registration and authentication protocols must be open and free for anyone to implement in a browser, device, or website.”

Google didn’t say if or when the experimental system might make it into use. “We’re focused on making authentication more secure, and yet easier to manage. We believe experiments like these can help make login systems better,” a spokesman said via email.

 

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Microsoft to raise Windows 8 upgrade prices

by Soloiston 21 January 2013in Software News 2 comments

When discount ends in less than two weeks, Windows 8 Pro upgrade jumps to $200

Microsoft on Friday announced Windows 8 upgrade price increases of as much as 400% that will take effect Feb. 1, when a three-month promotional discount ends.

The current $39.99 deal for a Windows 8 Pro upgrade expires in less than two weeks, on Jan. 31. At that point, higher prices similar or identical to those for Windows 7 will move into place, Microsoft spokesman Brandon LeBlanc confirmed Friday.

An upgrade from XP, Vista or Windows 7 to Windows 8 Pro will cost $199.99 starting Feb. 1, LeBlanc said, a five-fold increase. The Windows 8 Pro Pack, which upgrades a copy of Windows 8 — the edition installed on most consumer PCs — to the more capable Windows 8 Pro, will run $99.99, a 43% jump from the promotional price of $69.99.

Microsoft will also add a new SKU to the mix that upgrades XP, Vista or Windows 7 to Windows 8, not the Pro edition. The price: $119.99.

The Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro upgrade prices are identical to the suggested list prices for Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional upgrades, but the Pro Pack’s $99.99 is 11% higher than what Microsoft charged for the “Anytime Upgrade” from Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional.

The prices were not surprising, as numerous retailers had long cited the after-discount costs for Windows 8 Pro and Pro Pack. The only real news was the availability of a Windows 8 upgrade, something that Microsoft had previously declined to confirm.

LeBlanc also noted that download and boxed copy prices were the same, a pricing practice Microsoft has used before.

Although Microsoft was applauded last summer when it unveiled the $39.99 Windows 8 Pro upgrade, Friday’s final price tag revelations show that Microsoft has little interest in mimicking Apple. Last year, Apple sold OS X 10.8, aka Mountain Lion, for $19.99. In 2011, Apple charged $29.99 for Lion.

Last summer, when Microsoft revealed the Windows 8 Pro discount, Stephen Baker, an analyst with the NPD Group, pointed out that it wasn’t in the Redmond, Wash. company’s interest to dramatically drop the price. Microsoft’s goal, said Baker, was to sell new PCs, not get customers to upgrade old ones.

“It behooves Microsoft to get people to move to new hardware, so they’re not going to make an upgrade extraordinarily cheap,” Baker argued then. “This [upgrade cycle] is even more about hardware. Microsoft wants people to get off XP and into the new different types of hardware.”

While customers have until the end of the month to take advantage of the Windows 8 Pro and Pro Pack discounts, other deadlines have already come and gone: The Windows 8 previews expired Tuesday, Jan. 15. Since then, the free previews have automatically restarted every one or two hours, and on-screen messages have told users that they must upgrade to a paid license.

More information on Windows 8’s upgrade paths can be found on Microsoft’s website.

 

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Shylock home banking malware now spreads

by Soloiston 18 January 2013in Software News No comment

New component allows Shylock Trojan program to send messages and files through popular Skype VoIP software

The Shylock home banking malware has been updated with new functionality that allows it to spread automatically using the popular Skype Voice-over-IP (VoIP) and instant messaging client.

Shylock, named after a character from Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” is a Trojan program discovered in 2011 that steals online banking credentials and other financial information from infected computers.

According to security researchers from CSIS Security Group, a Denmark-based IT security firm, the malware’s new Skype-related functionality was added earlier this week in the form of a plug-in called “msg.gsm.”

The new plug-in allows the malware to send rogue messages and files through Skype and delete them from the application’s history, CSIS partner and security specialist Peter Kruse said Thursday in a blog post.

The plug-in also bypasses the warning and confirmation request that Skype displays when a third-party program tries to connect and interact with the application.

“Shylock is one of the most advanced Trojan-banker [malware] currently being used in attacks against home banking systems,” Kruse said. “The code is constantly being updated and new features are added regularly.”

The Shylock authors appear to target users from specific regions of the world. According to a map showing the distribution of Shylock infections that was published by CSIS, there’s a high concentration of victims in the U.K. However, there are also many Shylock-infected computers throughout mainland Europe and the U.S.

The use of Skype for distribution allows Shylock’s authors to maintain their geographic focus, Kruse said. Previous cases of malware spreading through MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, or other real-time chat programs, have resulted in local infection outbreaks because people have a tendency to stay connected with friends located in the same region, he said.

Last week, Microsoft announced that it plans to retire its Messenger service globally on March 15 and advised users to switch to Skype, a product the company has owned since 2011. The fact that Shylock’s authors decided to start using Skype as a distribution platform soon after this announcement might not be just a coincidence, Kruse said.

 

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Tucson weighs options for ERP software project Study

by Soloiston 18 January 2013in Software News 2 comments

Tucson school employees need to break bad working habits before project can continue

An Arizona school district is mulling over whether to continue working on a major software project, upgrade its legacy system or restart from scratch with a different product.

The Tucson Unified School District began working on the Lawson ERP (enterprise resource planning) software implementation in 2009, but ended up halting it last year after district officials realized that employees’ working habits needed ample improvement if the district was going to get substantial value out of the applications.

A report presented to the district’s governing board this week provides a lengthy analysis of the district’s underlying problems.

Lawson’s software is supposed to replace TUSD’s Oracle PeopleSoft system. TUSD is running a 10-year-old “over-modified” version of PeopleSoft and “much of the power of the application is going unused,” according to the report.

The discussion remained civil, although some officials asked pointed questions.

“Do we have the resources necessary to implement any system effectively?” said Superintendent John Pedicone. “Do we have the wherewithal and ability to implement even the best of systems?” Anything the school selects should be done so with the resources needed to implement in mind, he added.

That question will be top of mind as officials make their next steps, Awwad said.

Officials should also discuss whether to outsource the project to a third party rather than try to do an implementation themselves, he said.

TUSD’s next move may end up being dictated by the bottom line, as the district has projected a $17 million budget deficit for the 2013-2014 school year.

It wasn’t clear how much money the district has already spent on the project. News reports have pegged the cost at $10 million. A TUSD spokeswoman did not respond to a request for information on Thursday.

Overall, TUSD’s situation left one expert a bit befuddled.

“They’re doing the business process reengineering after the fact,” said Michael Krigsman, CEO of consulting firm Asuret and an expert on why IT projects fail. “That’s highly irregular. One wonders why they didn’t do this beforehand.”
“Department employees are more comfortable with paper, and therefore have done little to change the status quo with regard to how information travels throughout the District,” the report states. “Our estimate is that between 25% and 30% of TUSD’s administrative workload is wasted on the inefficiencies inherent in paper-based systems.”

In addition, “each process requires far too many approvals,” it adds. “Approvals that do not add value, serve to remove accountability from the employees executing the process, as well as adding days or even weeks to the lifecycle of a process. Many of these approvals are meaningless rubber stamps.”

Departments also don’t share information effectively with each other, and the ingrained use of paper-based processes leads to employees constantly reproducing the same work over and over again: “Rarely is work captured once, and then leveraged in the future.”

TUSD’s operations are also hampered by “shadow systems,” multiple tracking spreadsheets and databases that can’t be accessed in a centralized place.

On top of that, business users have “very little functional expertise” with PeopleSoft, forcing IT staff “into a functional role, hampering their ability to complete technical tasks,” the report adds.

TUSD hired an outside consultant to help it analyze and come up with recommendations for fixing the way district workers operate. “In total, the team produced 35 documents encompassing 46 high-priority business processes,” the report states.

These recommendations will now lead to a second project to determine how the school should proceed. “We can restart our Lawson implementation, using the information we have gathered,” the report states. “We can upgrade our PeopleSoft system, and implement the business process recommendations. Or we can procure an entirely new ERP software product and begin a new implementation.”

TUSD chief financial officer Yousef Awwad presented the report to the district’s governing board during a meeting this week.

 

 

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