E-Business
Cisco/NetApp Ranked High As Global Integrated Market Exceeds $1.3Bn

The worldwide integrated infrastructure & platforms market experienced an impressive 50.2% year-over-year factory value growth during the second calendar quarter of 2013 (2Q13), totaling $1.3 billion in system sales.
According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Integrated Infrastructure & Platform Tracker, the market generated 529.6 petabytes of new storage capacity shipments during the quarter, which was up 60.5% compared to the second quarter of 2012.
IDC defines integrated infrastructure and platforms as pre-integrated, vendor-certified systems containing server hardware, disk storage systems, networking equipment, and basic element/systems management software. Systems not sold with all four of these components are not counted within this tracker.
Specific to management software, IDC includes embedded or integrated management and control software optimized for the auto discovery, provisioning and pooling of physical and virtual compute, storage and networking resources shipped as part of the core, standard integrated system.
Eric Sheppard, Research Director, Storage of IDC said: “IT departments around the world are increasingly turning to integrated systems to improve utilization rates of their infrastructure, reduce time to deployment of new applications, ease infrastructure management burdens, and reduce the risk of downtime.
“The wide-ranging benefits associated with integrated systems are helping to drive interest in the technology and ultimately very high market value growth rates.”
Also speaking, Jed Scaramella, research director, Enterprise Servers, “Integrated systems adoption is rapidly moving from evaluation to mainstream use, with customers increasingly deploying Tier 1 applications.
“Progressive companies view integrated systems as a means to optimize their IT environments so IT services can be better leveraged by their business units to increase workforce productivity, drive revenue opportunities, and connect with their customers.”
Integrated platform systems are integrated systems that are sold with additional pre-integrated packaged software and customized system engineering optimized to enable such functions as application development software, databases, testing, and integration tools. Since early iterations of this IDC Tracker will focus only on the core infrastructure of these systems, software is excluded from market sizing.
Sales of Integrated Platform Systems generated $539.4 million in sales during the quarter, which represented 21.1% year-over-year growth and 59.0% of the total market value. Oracle was the largest supplier of Integrated Platform Systems with $305.9 million in sales, or 56.7% share of the market segment.
Integrated infrastructure systems are designed for general-purpose, distributed workloads that are likely to have differing performance profiles.
While integrated infrastructure is similar to integrated platforms in that it will leverage the same infrastructure building blocks, it is not optimized for a specific workload.
Integrated infrastructure sales were up 80.3% year over year during the second quarter on $775.7 million worth of sales (41.0% of the total market value).
The Cisco and NetApp partnership that brings the FlexPod systems to market (referred to as Cisco/NetApp in the above table) generated $203.1 million worth of Integrated Infrastructure sales during the quarter, representing a 26.2% share and the top ranking within this market segment.
E-Business
Microsoft Servers Hacked by Chinese Groups

Chinese “threat actors” have hacked Microsoft’s SharePoint document software servers and targeted the data of the businesses using it, the firm has said.
China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have “exploited vulnerabilities” in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service.
The US tech giant has released security updates in response and has advised all on-premises SharePoint server customers to install them.
“Investigations into other actors also using these exploits are still ongoing,” Microsoft said in a statement.
The firm said it had “high confidence” the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates.
It added that it would update its website blog with more information as its investigation continues.
Microsoft said it had observed attacks in which hackers had sent a request to a SharePoint server “enabling the theft of the key material by threat actors”.
Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told reporter, it was “aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies”.
Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target.
A number of adversaries who stole material encoded by cryptography were then able to regain ongoing access to the victims’ SharePoint data, he said.
“This was exploited in a very broad way, very opportunistically before a patch was made available. That’s why this is significant,” Carmakal said.
Carmakal said the “China-nexus actor” was deploying techniques similar to previous campaigns associated with Beijing.
Microsoft said Linen Typhoon had “focused on stealing intellectual property, primarily targeting organizations related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights” for 13 years.
It added that Violet Typhoon had been “dedicated to espionage”, primarily targeting former government and military staff, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, higher education, the media, the financial sector and the health sector in the US, Europe, and East Asia.
Meanwhile, Storm-2603 was “assessed with medium confidence to be a China-based threat actor”.
E-Business
NIMC Warns Nigerians of Fake NIN Website

National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has issued a public warning that it is not associated with NINcard.com.
According to the commission, the website has been circulating online to offer services for Nigerians seeking National Identification Number (NIN) services.
NIMC, in a post on its official X account on Wednesday, said, “NINcard.com is not in anyway affiliated to NIMC. Stay vigilant!”
The warning was accompanied by screenshots of fake payment receipts and OTP request pages from the website, both of which were boldly stamped “FAKE” by NIMC to alert the public.
E-Business
NITDA, API Partner Against Harmful Online Content

National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), in partnership with the Advocacy for Policy and Innovation (API), has convened a one-day workshop in Abuja to advance dialogue on the draft Online Harm Protection (OHP) Bill to confront harmful online content.
The bill, a rights-based, locally rooted, and multi-stakeholder initiative, is aimed at addressing the challenges of the digital age.
The event, which held yesterday, brought together government officials, civil society, academics, digital platforms, and legal experts to shape a policy framework designed to combat online ills such as cyberbullying, disinformation, hate speech, digital exploitation, and gender-based violence, while safeguarding democratic freedoms and digital inclusion.
In his keynote remarks, Kashifu Inuwa, director general, NITDA urged a paradigm shift in the way society engages with digital technologies.
“For almost two decades, we have viewed digital technology through a consumer lens. But these technologies are not just products and services. They are transforming how we live, work, and interact. They shape our politics, our society, and our democracy,” he said.
Warning against unaccountable digital power in the hands of private corporations, the DG likened the digital journey to the tale of Alice in Wonderland, where initial fascination with innovation has given way to deeper concerns about privacy, autonomy, and manipulation by big tech platforms.
“We thought we were using Google, but now we realise Google is using us. Social media, once a tool of expression, has become a tool of surveillance and influence,” Inuwa noted.
He, therefore, emphasised the urgency of developing a democratic and accountable framework. He explained that following the 2021 Twitter ban, NITDA facilitated dialogue between the government and platform operators, leading to a Code of Practice that stressed Nigeria’s sovereignty and legal standards.
According to him, the same process birthed the multi-stakeholder steering committee and the OHP White Paper in December 2024, laying the foundation for the current legislative push.
Earlier in her opening remarks, Victoria Manya, co-founder, API, observed the moral and civic necessity of the bill.
Her words: “The internet did not break society, it merely revealed its unfiltered version. Every day, Nigerians are exposed to harassment, disinformation, exploitation, and even algorithmic violence. The OHP Bill is not a war on the Internet. It is a peace offering to its users, a social contract for a digital future that is safe, inclusive, and democratic.
“We cannot answer the question of algorithmic power with unchecked state control. We must answer it with shared, rights-based governance. This bill must not be written for the people, but with them.”
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