Amazon hiring 'top secret' IT staff as it fights for CIA work

Computerworld - The U.S. isn't doing a good job keeping secrets. Think Edward Snowden. But demand for trustworthy IT professionals is strong, especially if they want to work for Amazon Web Services.

Amazon has more than 100 job ads for people who can get a top secret clearance, which includes a U.S. government administered polygraph examination. It needs software developers, operations managers, and cloud support engineers, among others.

Amazon's hiring effort includes an invite-only recruiting event for systems, support engineers at its Herndon Va., facility on Sept. 24 and 25.

Amazon is challenging established IT vendors for U.S. government intelligence work, illustrated by an escalating fight to build a private cloud for the CIA.

Amazon was initially picked by the U.S. over IBM to build a cloud platform for the spy agency. IBM protested this award and prevailed in an administrative ruling. Amazon filed a 61-page complaint in federal court last month challenging the decision to re-bid this project.

For Amazon, this may be a fight about perception as it is about the bid's technical issues. In its government lawsuit, Amazon said it realized, before most other companies, how cloud computing "could fundamentally alter the path of computing" and this gave it "a multiple-year head start on late adapters."

Amazon describes IBM as "a traditional fixed IT infrastructure provider and late entrant to the cloud computing market."

Charles King, an analyst at Pund-IT, said he's "a bit uncomfortable with Amazon's positioning" in the lawsuit of cloud services "as something new that a vendor like IBM is somehow incapable of delivering."

Cloud computing "simply describes one approach to data center asset provisioning; one that has been around and been practiced by vendors including IBM for many years," said King. "This doesn't reflect on the relative merits of either company's bid for the CIA project but to consider one or the other as somehow inherently superior seems mistaken to me," he said.

The government was apparently willing to pay a premium for Amazon's cloud implementation. The amount of the bid by the vendors wasn't disclosed, but government evaluation of the bids put the prices at $148 million for Amazon versus $93 million for IBM.

Analysis of this dispute is difficult because the government has redacted parts of the information around it. But Bill Moran, an analyst at Ptak Noel & Associates, describes in a report, some of the problems the vendors faced.

The vendors were required to address hypothetical scenarios. In one instance, it involved the processing of 100 terabytes data. But scenario was ambiguous, and the vendors priced it different ways, making it impossible to compare prices, wrote Moran.

There were other issues with the bid as well, but overall the Ptak Noel report said that the CIA "did a poor job with a poorly worded" request for proposals.

Ptak Noel report goes further and argues that "CIA showed bias in favor of Amazon," but it faulted IBM as well, saying it needed to do a better in writing and presenting their proposal. IBM says it did not pay for the Ptak Noel report.

Ptak Noel also said that the CIA "too casually brush off Amazon's outages" in evaluating the proposals. IBM, citing Amazon's outages, said in a statement that "Amazon's definition of availability doesn't measure up to mission critical needs of the federal government." Amazon didn't comment.

This dispute aside, Amazon is clearly making inroads with the government, including at agencies including the National Institutes of Health, NASA, the State Department, and Agriculture.

Amazon's effort to get government cloud work includes being certified by the U.S. under its Federal Risk and Authorization Program, or FEDRAMP.

"Amazon can be a formidable competitor," said Ray Bjorklund, who heads market research firm BirchGrove Consulting, and points to their decision to file a lawsuit as supporting evidence.

However, Bjorklund said he wondered whether the dispute, as it goes on through the resolution process, will hobble the CIA in its effort to develop its cloud platform.

Patrick Thibodeau covers cloud computing and enterprise applications, outsourcing, government IT policies, data centers and IT workforce issues for Computerworld. Follow Patrick on Twitter at  @DCgov or subscribe to Patrick's RSS feed . His e-mail address is pthibodeau@computerworld.com.

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Clockwise Podcast 8: Amazon, Nokia, iPhone, and AT&T

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Amazon unveils new Kindle Paperwhite with fall ship dates

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Ka-ching! Amazon explains benefits from ebook price-fixing settlement

The direct results of the ebook price fixing scandal between Apple and the five major U.S. book publishers are one-step closer to turning into real money for millions of Amazon customers.

The online retailer recently began sending out e-mail notifications to Kindle ebook buyers telling them how much credit to expect as a result of the payout from the five major publishers.

“While we will not know the amount of your credit until the Court approves the settlements,” Amazon said in the e-mail. “It is estimated that it will range from $0.73 to $3.06 for every eligible Kindle book that you purchased.” An official posting on Amazon’s forum says the payout could be as high as $3.82 per ebook.

Previously, credits to Amazon customers were expected to be between $0.31 and $1.32 for every purchased e-book. The new settlement increase is the result of the final two of the big five publishers (MacMillan and Penguin Group) reaching a settlement with the Attorneys General of most U.S. States over the price-fixing suit.

But don’t expect to see credit rolling out to your account any time soon: The settlement still has to be approved by the court on December 6. If there are no appeals over the settlement and the court gives it a thumbs-up, then ebook credits will be free to roll out.

Credits to Amazon accounts will roll out automatically to eligible customers and can be used to purchase ebooks or physical print books. Anyone who would prefer to receive their credit as a check can also request it at a special Website set-up to handle the fallout of the case.

To be eligible to receive a credit on your Amazon account, you must have a U.S. billing address and purchased a Kindle ebook published by Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin, and/or Simon & Schuster between April 1, 2010 and May 21, 2012.

Amazon did not provide a time frame of when to expect account credit after the December court hearing. The company plans to send out a second notice to customers once credit is delivered.

In July, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote ruled that Apple and the five major publishers conspired to raise prices of e-books. Apple was the only defendant to go to trial, while all five publishing companies settled before the case went to court.

Although the judge ruled against Apple, the company plans to fight the ruling.

“Apple did not conspire to fix ebook pricing and we will continue to fight against these false accusations,” Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told our colleagues at Macworld after the ruling. “When we introduced the iBookstore in 2010, we gave customers more choice, injecting much needed innovation and competition into the market, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. We’ve done nothing wrong and we will appeal the judge’s decision.”

An earlier version of this story’s headline suggested that this payout is related to the Apple ebook ruling; it's been corrected to reflect that the credit issues from the settlement with the publishers.

Ian is an independent writer based in Tel Aviv, Israel. His current focus is on all things tech including mobile devices, desktop and laptop computers, software, social networks, Web apps, tech-related legislation and corporate tech news.
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Amazon Teams with Android Developers to Bring One-Click Shopping to Consumers

[This sponsored article was written by IDG Creative Lab, a partner of Qualcomm.]

The line between e-commerce and entertainment is blurring again: Amazon today is launching a system that lets developers sell physical products through third-party Android apps. To put it another way, consumers will be able to buy stuff from Amazon from within an app on their Android phone without taking the trouble to visit Amazon’s storefront.

Although it’s early days, Amazon’s developer partners already have a few apps ready to go. The BabyBump app, for example, has everything you’d expect from a pregnancy app, including a weekly journal, information about the pre- and post-natal process, and a social network. And of course, BabyBump will allow users to buy pregnancy- and baby-related products.

Amazon has made the development process as simple as possible for developers and has already signed up nearly two dozen. Using the Amazon API greatly simplifies the sales and development process; there’s just one vendor to deal with and one piece of code to deploy.

The system also lets sellers of physical merchandise bundle digital content alongside it at the point of sale. For example, if you buy a certain version of the board game Ticket to Ride, you’ll now be able to get the digital version of the game for free via an app which uses the API.

To use the system, customers will initiate a purchase within a third-party app, and a dialog box will pop up with product details and pricing. The familiar “1-Click” system lets the buyer complete the transaction. Developers who sell products through the new API will earn up to a six percent commission on sales, which is added to their earnings from distribution of the app.

The new APIs are platform agnostic and will work across all Android devices, including the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered smart phones. Because the system will be embedded into existing apps, users won’t need to download anything new (aside from updating their apps) in order to start seeing the Amazon sales offers.

For app developers looking for better ways to generate income from their apps, this could be dramatic and welcome news. In-app advertising has not been terribly successful at driving revenues for developers, which has left them with only two other revenue stream possibilities: Selling their app for cash up front (which is always difficult, especially for an untested brand), and selling in-app upgrades (which aren’t always an option for every type of app).

The ability to sell physical merchandise easily means that just about any developer will be able to add a new and much-needed revenue stream to their app. Now a cooking app can sell kitchen knives and artisanal olive oil. Or a travel app can sell offline guidebooks with just a couple of taps.

For consumers, the picture may be about to change just as dramatically. While users have become accustomed to the come-ons of advertising crawls and pop-ups, these could very well be replaced by promotional sales links instead. The endgame is the possibility that every product you see mentioned in an app could eventually become available to buy. Better watch where you tap.

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How Amazon (and you) might use its private Wi-Fi network

A report that Amazon has tested a wireless network actually sheds new light on plans by satellite communications company Globalstar to extend the Wi-Fi spectrum.

The extension, if approved by the FCC, would create a new, uncluttered, high-performance Wi-Fi channel in upper reaches of the 2.4-GHz band, a channel Globalstar apparently intends as the basis of a managed service with cellular-like quality and roaming.

Amazon's wireless testing was revealed last week in a Bloomberg news story, "Amazon Is Said to Have Tested a Wireless Network," by Olga Kharif and Danielle Kucera. The tests were run near Amazon's Lab126 research facilities in Cupertino, California, according to Bloomberg's sources. The lab designs Amazon's Kindle devices.

"The trial underlines how Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce company, is moving beyond being a Web destination and hardware maker and digging deeper into the underlying technology for how people connect to the Internet," according to the Bloomberg story. "That would let Amazon create a more comprehensive user experience, encompassing how consumers get online, what device they use to connect to the Web and what they do on the Internet."

But the tests suggest that Amazon doesn't intend or even want to be a traditional wireless network provider. Instead, the online retail giant seems to be exploring the potential of a branded, managed Wi-Fi service that mirrors the features of cellular service: seamless roaming, minimal interference, improved security, and consistent high performance.

The Bloomberg report notes that the test network used spectrum controlled by satellite communications company Globalstar, based in Milpitas, California. In November 2012, the company petitioned the FCC to allow it to use part of its satellite spectrum to offer terrestrial data services, an offering it dubbed Terrestrial Low Power Service.

TLPS adds a big chunk of new capacity: 22 MHz to the currently available 72 MHz of 2.4 GHz spectrum, according to Jarvinian Wireless Innovation Fund, a Cambridge, Mass., research and investment firm focused on spectrum issues. Jarvinian claims credit for the TLPS idea and the engineering work behind it, and has been working closely with Globalstar.TLPS would essentially add a fourth non-overlapping channel, dubbed Channel 14, to the upper reaches of the 2.4 GHz band used for unlicensed Wi-Fi transmissions. The channel actually would combine Globalstar's adjacent licensed spectrum with a small amount of unlicensed spectrum.

But because this fourth channel is actually licensed to Globalstar, the company plans to use it in something like a wholesale, managed wireless service that would offer greater range and performance than conventional public Wi-Fi hotspots, and be available to end users through carriers or through brands, such as Amazon, operating as virtual network operators.

The Bloomberg story does take note of these plans. "Globalstar is seeking regulatory approval to convert about 80 percent of its spectrum to terrestrial use....Globalstar met with FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn in June, and a decision on whether the company can convert the spectrum could come within months."

If given a green light, "Globalstar is considering leasing its spectrum, sharing service revenues with partners, and other business models, one of the people said. With wireless spectrum scarce, Globalstar's converted spectrum could be of interest to carriers and cable companies, seeking to offload ballooning mobile traffic, as well as to technology companies."

Earlier this year, then-FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski repeated his pledge to continue expanding spectrum in both licensed and unlicensed bands.

In June, Wi-Fi vendor Ruckus Wireless, in Mountain View, California, announced it had completed a round of tests with Globalstar. The trial combined unlicensed spectrum from the upper edge of the 2.4 GHz Industrial Scientific Medical (ISM) band and Globalstar's licensed Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) spectrum. Ruckus used its Smart Wi-Fi brand access points and controllers, targeted at carrier-based Wi-Fi services, and a selection of existing smartphones with built-in Wi-Fi radios that had been given and over-the-air firmware update to run on the new channel.

According to Ruckus, the test showed that the new spectrum could achieve up to five times the range and four times the capacity "over traditional Wi-Fi." Unfortunately, the Ruckus statement was not more specific about the meaning of "traditional Wi-Fi," which could refer to 802.11n or even 802.11g, or about "capacity." Capacity refers to the network's ability to handle larger numbers of users and greater amounts of traffic. [One discussion of Wi-Fi capacity is found in "Aerohive Design & Configuration Guide: High-density Wi-Fi," by Andrew von Nagy, an Aerohive employee.] The increased range is important especially if higher data rates are sustained over those longer distances.

In a June interview posted at EnterpriseNetworkingPlanet.com, Jarvinian Managing Director John Dooley was quoted as saying "Even in an indoor environment made difficult or unusable by spectral congestion, usable connections [in the Ruckus-Globalstar tests] were established at 3-5 times the distance of public WiFi." The tests also showed more uniform high speeds across longer ranges, according to that post.

The Ruckus statement also said the Globalstar test network did not interfere with nearby conventional Wi-Fi networks. That lack of interference is important. In filing its comments on Globalstar's FCC petition, the Consumer Electronics Association argued that "Globalstar's....proposal presents significant risk to unlicensed operations in the 2.4 GHz band and potentially threatens the economic value, consumer benefit, growth, and potential for innovation of those unlicensed operations." Other industry groups have also raised concerns. [See "Globalstar's plan for an extra Wi-Fi band draws fire."] 

But Amazon apparently sees potential in offering its customers, ever more untethered with smartphones and tablets, a premium Wi-Fi experience that's superior to what public Wi-Fi today can offer.

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Friday fun: Amazon highlights its most hilarious, ridonkulous product reviews

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