Tuesday, July 31, 2012

D'oh! Mitt Romney Press Secretary to reporters: ‘Kiss my ass, shove it’


Gorka: "Show some respect"
NYT: "We haven't had another chance to ask a question..."
Gorka: "Kiss my ass. This is a Holy site for the Polish people. Show some respect."
Immediately after Gorka's verbal quarrel, the traveling press aide reportedly told Politico's Jonathan Martin to "shove it."

More:

Monday, July 30, 2012

Oh. I see. The GOP requires absolute strict adherence too their wacko ideas.


When should we expect to see the
new 'whites only' water fountains?

Conservatives work to cull moderate Republicans

thumbnailTOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - Frustrated by their inability to achieve some policy goals, conservatives in Republican states are turning against moderate members of their own party, trying to drive them out of state legislatures to clear the way for reshaping government across a wide swath of mid-America controlled by the GOP. Political groups are helping finance the efforts by supporting primary election c...

Read Full Story.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales- Bloomberg

 These seems like some pretty unAmerican behavior. Why can they just buy their way out of consequences?

"How much lawless behavior are we going to tolerate from any one company?" asks David Uhlmann, who oversaw the prosecution of the Koch refinery division when he was chief of the environmental crimes unit at the U.S. Department of Justice. "Corporate cultures reflect the priorities of the corporation and its senior officials."

More:
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-02/koch-brothers-flout-law-getting-richer-with-secret-iran-sales.html

Friday, July 27, 2012

Darpa Funds Hack Machine You'd Never Notice | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com




PwnieExpress' all-new Power Pwn. All Images: PwnieExpress

If you saw this bad boy under your desk, would you say anything?

It may look like a surge protector, but it's really a remote access machine that corporations can use to test security and log into branch offices. Called the Power Pwn, it's a stealthier version of the little box that can hack your network we wrote about last March.


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OS X Mountain Lion Dictation is sweet! Give it a try



Dictation

Dictation is a pretty great, welcome feature in Mountain Lion. Basically, if an app can accept text input via the keyboard it can accept input via Dictation. To start dictating, just press the function (fn) key twice. When you're done dictating, you can click the "done" button or press the function (fn) key twice again. OS X will take a moment and then provide you with the transcribed text. In addition to just offering words, you can say things like "period" or "comma" for punctuation and "new line" to make a new line.

Everything You Need to Know About OS X Mountain Lion in Five Minutes


http://lifehacker.com/5928792/everything-you-need-to-know-about-os-x-mountain-lion-in-five-minutes


Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Romney and Bain Didn't Become Successful "On Their Own" Either!

 I'd been trying to figure out just what bugged me so much when Mitt Romney said these words about "free stuff": "If you're looking for free stuff, if you're looking for free stuff you don't have to pay for, vote for the other guy. That's what he's all about, OK? That's not what I'm about."

It wasn't just the apparent pander to his conservative crowd... something else was bugging me. And then I saw the clip below from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart this week, and it hit me.

It's that Romney is taking advantage of the government's "free stuff," too, and has been profiting from it handsomely for a long, long time -- even as he rails about the "free stuff" that the government provides other people.

Let's just take one example -- GST Steel. Here is a little Kansas City, Missouri steel company Bain Capital bought for $75 million, but put only $8 million of its own money into the deal. They borrowed the rest. Within a year, Romney and Bain put GST Steel further into debt, borrowing another $125 million. Some of that money was put to good use, modernizing the factory. But $36 million of the borrowed money was paid to Mitt Romney and Bain in the form of a dividend. Do you get that?

Less than a year after loading the company up with debt, Romney and Bain gave themselves bonuses four times bigger than the $8 million they had put into the deal. And guess what the tax rate they had to pay on that unearned income was? A lot less than yours. You guessed it: 15 percent. Thank you for all that extra "free stuff" from the U.S. Government's tax code.

Bain also asked Kansas City for a $3 million tax break. The Bain executives were taking home $36 million in borrowed funds and were asking Kansas City to forfeit $3 million in public money for police officers, roads and schools? More free stuff!

Then, when GST Steel filed for bankruptcy and laid off 750 people, we learned that Bain had consciously underfunded its pension obligations to those employees. The company simply decided not to meet its legal responsibilities. The end result: the federal government's pension benefit guarantee corporation was stuck with a $44 million bill.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-m-granholm/romney-and-bain-got-milli_b_1683775.html

Monday, July 23, 2012

Romney's twisted road on abortion - The Last Word


Will Saletan of Slate.com wrote an exhaustive piece on the path Mitt Romney took while determining his stand on Abortion. Saletan chronicles how it began in 1963 with the death of a woman who was close to the Romney family, from an illegal abortion which he mentioned in a debate with Senator Ted Kennedy. Saletan also found that Romney commissioned a poll in 1986 before running for election which found that a pro-life candidate could not win a statewide election in Massachusetts. The poll came before Romney took a position, though Saletan does not say Romney took the position based solely on the poll.

More:

AP IMPACT: Gas line safety valves resisted



Gas line safety valves resisted

thumbnailThe bulldozer was clearing land outside a day care center in Hapeville, Ga., when it broke open a buried 1-inch pipeline. The escaping gas ignited into a fireball that killed nine people, including seven children settling down for their afternoon naps. That was 1968. Since then, there have been at least 270 similar accidents across the country that could have been prevented or made less dangerous ...

"There were lives lost that did not need to be lost," said Robert Hall, deputy director of the National Transportation Safety Board, which is responsible for investigating pipeline accidents.

The NTSB recommended the valves 16 times, but only in 2009, under pressure from Congress, was a rule approved - to make the devices mandatory only on lines leading to new, single-family homes. Now, regulators are considering expanding that to new or replaced pipelines serving millions of multifamily homes and commercial buildings. And the utilities are objecting.


Read Full Story



New iPad 4G Data Plans: AT&T vs. Verizon |



In addition to more reasonable plans, Verizon offers the option to use your iPad as a hotspot, to share its 4G connection with up to five additional devices, for no additional charge. AT&T doesn't offer a hotspot option at this time.

Aside from price, another important factor to take into consideration is coverage and speed. Take a look at PCMag's Fastest Mobile Networks feature to find out which wireless carrier has the fastest data network where you live. AT&T and Verizon both offer blazing fast 4G LTE speeds, though Verizon provides far more coverage than AT&T's fledgling network. On the other hand, if you still aren't covered by 4G, AT&T generally offers faster 3G than Verizon.


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Saturday, July 21, 2012

Corporation that Paid Nothing in Taxes for Four Years Tells Congress it Pays Too Much in Taxes


Over a four years period from 2008 to 2011, Corning Inc. was one of 26 companies that managed to avoid paying any American income taxes, even though it earned nearly $3 billion during that time. In fact, according to Citizens For Tax Justice, the company received a $4 million refund from 2008 to 2010. That didn't stop Susan Ford, a senior executive at the company, from telling the House Ways and Means Committee this week that America's high corporate tax rate was putting her company at a disadvantage:

More:

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Who Is The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower? Would You Believe It's Barack Obama? | Forbes

 It's enough to make even the most ardent Obama cynic scratch his head in confusion.

Amidst all the cries of Barack Obama being the most prolific big government spender the nation has ever suffered, Marketwatch is reporting that our president has actually been tighter with a buck than any United States president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Who knew?

Check out the chart –


>Who knew?

WHO KNEW?  I KNEW!   Of course, I listen to real news, and look at the actual numbers...

More:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/05/24/who-is-the-smallest-government-spender-since-eisenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/

Sunday, July 15, 2012

HIT Security Hinges on Mobile Device Management


One of the biggest technology trends hitting healthcare this year, mobile computing, poses one of the biggest security threats to healthcare that will last for many years to come.

Just last week, my first magazine feature story forHealthLeaders explored the surge in Bring-Your-Own-Device  behavior in healthcare. As I researched the story, I became aware of efforts to improve mobile security being led by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.

James Brady, PhD, is chair of HIMSS's mobile security workgroup. Brady's day job is chief information security officer and director of technical services at Hawaii Health Systems Corporation in Honolulu. HHSC operates 1,275 licensed beds across five islands in the state of Hawaii, so Brady certainly has a vested interest in getting mobile security right.

The group is most concerned with getting it right on tablets, smartphones, and laptops. That's not to say that security on other medical devices isn't ofgrowing importance. It's just not the focus of the HIMSS group for now, and certainly there are efforts underway elsewhere in industry for those other devices.

More:

The truth speaks well of Kaine




It is still early summer and already Virginia airwaves are blanketed with false, negative campaign advertising against Tim Kaine, Democratic nominee to replace U.S.Sen. Jim Webb.

The attacks come from Americans for Prosperity, funded by the wealthy Koch brothers, which recently sponsored a road show through Virginia spreading falsehoods such as saying that as governor, Kaine left office with a budget deficit. This is, of course, false. As Virginians know, our constitution requires a balanced budget, unlike the federal system, so Kaine never signed a budget with a deficit.

In fact, The Associated Press reported, Kaine "never finished a fiscal year with insufficient funds."

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Saturday, July 14, 2012

BYOD: Businesses must be clear on data privacy



Businesses looking to implement a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) program must be aware that the parameters of what they can and cannot do with a mobile device management (MDM) platform are governed by local data privacy legislation, which inconveniently varies from market to market.

No business should look to deploy a BYOD policy until they understand the implications of monitoring an employee-owned device, the requirement to obtain consent from the employee, and the risk it poses if this consent is not achieved either at the point of MDM solution deployment or at the point of a data loss event. 



More:

Research in Motion to Pay $147.2 Million to Settle Patent Suit



Not a good week for the BlackBerry maker as RIM must pay out $147.2 million in a patent suit and deny claims of developer flight.

Beleaguered BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) got some more bad news this weekend as a Northern California court ruled the company was guilty of patent infringement for the remote management system of its wireless devices. RIM was sued in 2008 by Mformation Technologies, a mobile device management software solutions specialist. The judge ordered RIM must pay an $8 royalty for each BlackBerry device connected to RIM's Enterprise Server software, which amounts to $147.2 million, Reuters reported.


More:

Friday, July 13, 2012

Commoners - Rootstrikers



A New York City donor a few cars back, who also would not give her name, said Romney needed to do a better job connecting. "I don't think the common person is getting it," she said from the passenger seat of a Range Rover stamped with East Hampton beach permits.

Commoners — really?

"We've got the message," she added. "But my college kid, the baby sitters, the nails ladies — everybody who's got the right to vote — they don't understand what's going on. I just think if you're lower income — one, you're not as educated, two, they don't understand how it works, they don't understand how the systems work, they don't understand the impact."

More:

Advice to IT Departments: Miss the MDM Train at Your Own Risk



The survey found that more attention is being paid to mobility. The number of IT workers dedicated to MDM services per 1,000 employees has risen and is expected to continue to do so. The number of smartphones in use is rising as well. This is driving a parallel growth in MDM:

Among organizations that have not yet deployed an MDM solution, 32 percent said they would deploy one in 2013 and additional 24 percent plan to deploy one in 2014. The potential for loss of intellectual property was the leading factor for deploying an MDM solution, cited by 34 percent of respondents. Thirty-one percent of organizations switching to a new MDM platform, said they would likely select a cloud-based solution, and 55 percent of those respondents said they would choose a private cloud solution for security reasons.

More:

Thursday, July 12, 2012

So I pay for Windows 8, then I pay to use it remotely, *Unless* I am using a remote windows box?

 Then I pay AGAIN to use it remotely, UNLESS am using a remote windows tablet or phone?

<sarcasm>Yeah, that seems about right</sarcasm>

Ballmer On Windows 8 VDI License For iPads: 'We Are In A Battle'

What is clear is that in Microsoft's view, organizations using iPads and Android tablets to access Windows through VDI are getting productivity benefits without paying for them. The CDL is Microsoft's way of closing this loophole.

In the interview earlier this week, Ballmer suggested that customers that purchase Windows 8 tablets will see a cost advantage from not having to also buy the CDL.
More:
http://www.crn.com/news/virtualization/240003555/ballmer-on-windows-8-vdi-license-for-ipads-we-are-in-a-battle.htm

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

For nurses, Smartphones at work are the norm



Smartphones aren't just popular with docs, they're becoming a staple for nurses on the job, too. And the apps they're using are moving far beyond references and data-management tools, according to an article in the Online Journal of Nursing Informatics.

In 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that 72 percent of physicians use smartphones. Nurses aren't far behind, with 71 percent using smartphones on the job, according to a recent survey conducted by Wolters Kluwer Health, which is launching its Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Nursing 2013 Drug Handbook mobile app, MobiHealth News reports.

More:

Security Policy and Management of Mobile Devices: A SANS Survey



BETHESDA, Md., July 10, 2012  

How are organizations managing risk and compliance around their mobile/employee owned devices? Help SANS Institute find out by taking the SANS Survey on Security Policy and Management of Mobile Devices. To take the survey, follow this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WVKGVLG

This survey on policy and management follows a first SANS mobility security overview survey. Released in March 2012, that first survey drew more than 650 respondents from all levels of IT and audit across multinational and midsized organizations.

"In that survey, 60% said their organizations allowed employees to bring their own devices, while only 9 percent felt they were fully aware of the devices accessing corporate resources," says Deb Radcliff, executive editor of the SANS Analyst Program. "This indicates a huge gap between policies and actual management of the new risks presented by mobility."


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Tuesday, July 10, 2012

6 Keys To A Flexible MDM Strategy | InformationWeek - OPINION



Significant technological advances by any of the players in the mobile ecosystem can change your mobile strategy considerably. Your responsibility is to lay out an agile strategy while remaining mindful of ongoing upheaval. With this in mind, Forrester recommends that IT professionals in both infrastructure and operations (I&O) and security and risk (S&R) roles work together toward the following goals:


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I'm pretty sure the response from Apple is: "Bring it on, monkeyboy"



Exclusive: Microsoft's Ballmer Throws Down Gauntlet Against Apple

Declaring that Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) and its partners had in the past "ceded some of the boundary between hardware and software innovation" to Apple (NSDQ:AAPL), Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told CRN in an exclusive interview Monday that the company's Surface tablet marks a new era in which the computer software giant will leave no "stone unturned" in its innovation battle against Apple.

"We are trying to make absolutely clear we are not going to leave any space uncovered to Apple," said an exuberant Ballmer in a 30-minute interview after addressing some 16,000 partners at the company's annual Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto. "We are not. No space uncovered that is Apple's.

More:
http://www.crn.com/news/mobility/240003421/exclusive-microsofts-ballmer-throws-down-gauntlet-against-apple.htm

Monday, July 9, 2012

CenterBeam, Inc News: Lack of device management could lead to BYOD issues

 Companies should likely be using mobile device management when trying to implement a "bring your own device" program, but a recent report by AOTMP Research finds that there may need to be more awareness of mobile management to prevent security issues from a BYOD program.

While 72 percent of companies manage work-related applications on corporate devices, only 38 percent manage work-related applications one employee devices. This needs to rise up unless companies want persistent security threats as employees use their mobile devices for work purposes. The survey also said 15 percent of companies don't manage work-related apps on any device.

"As businesses grapple with the question of allowing employee-owned wireless devices they must also address their mobile application management practices," noted Tim Lybrook, CEO of AOTMP. "The market is clearly lacking in defined practices and standards in this area today."

The report also finds that 54 percent of enterprises know the number of mobile application licenses they own and which are in use. These companies should all take new measures in mobile policies and find a good mobile device management program that will work to keep the company safe.

More:
http://www.centerbeam.com/news/news_categories/Lack-of-device-management-could-lead-to-BYOD-issues--CBOID100520056/View.aspx

BlackBerry Balance Technology Separates Personal from Business Information



BlackBerry® Balance™ technology enables BlackBerry smartphones and tablets to be used for business and personal purposes without compromise.

  • Boost job satisfaction by supporting employee-owned smartphones
  • Offer greater BlackBerry smartphone choice flexibility to your workforce while retaining full control over business data security
  • Allow use of personal apps while restricting copy-and-paste functionality to prevent business information from being shared
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Sunday, July 8, 2012

Democrats want Romney to explain offshore accounts



This says it all...


"I think he's a plain talking guy," Peter Cohen said, referring to Romney. Cohen, the former Shearson Lehman Brothers chief who now heads his own investment banking firm, made the comment as he chewed a cigar in his black Range Rover outside a Romney fundraiser expected to generate $3 million.

Democrats want Romney to explain offshore accounts

thumbnailSOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) - Mitt Romney privately raised millions of dollars from New York's elite on Sunday, as Democrats launched coordinated attacks against the likely Republican presidential nominee, intensifying calls for him to explain offshore bank accounts and release several years of tax returns. The line of attack, dismissed by the Romney campaign as an "unfounded character assault," follow...

Read Full Story.



Saturday, July 7, 2012

Midsize Insider: Firefox OS Could Seriously Complicate Mobile Device Management



With BlackBerry falling by the wayside and Windows 8 looking more and more like just a tablet solution for companies with very specific needs, the mobile device landscape for mid-market businesses was just settling down, only to have Mozilla come in and try to mess everything up again. The Firefox mobile operating system certainly has an uphill climb ahead of it, but should it prove successful, it could add another wrinkle in an already confusing space.

Mozilla Firefox wordmark

The New Firefox Smartphone

Mozilla has been working on a mobile operating system for a while now, but only recently gave it the name Firefox OS to help tie the OS in people's minds with its popular browser offering. As noted at ComputerWorld, the Firefox smartphones will be built by two companies in China and released sometime early next year in Brazil. The phones will then be launched in other emerging markets, in hopes of making the devices a success overseas before trying to crack the tight nut that is the U.S. smartphone market.

Mozilla also announced that it has received the backing of a number of wireless provider heavyweights, like Sprint, Deutsche Telecom, Smart, Telefonica, Telecom Italia, and Telenor, as noted in this Asia One article. The backing of wireless providers is a major step forward, and while it doesn't guarantee anything, it at least proves that these devices will get a chance.

More:

BYOD is a user-driven movement, not a secure mobile device strategy



Regardless if you call it the consumerization of IT or the bring your own device (BYOD) movement, the trend of people using their own mobile devices to access corporate resources is unstoppable. Some users (guests) simply want to check their social networks, while others (employees) want to connect to their organizations' sales applications and other business apps while on the road. Many organizations have tried to fight the tide, but it's a losing battle.

Let's be honest -- users are controlling the ITsecurity agenda, like it or not. They love their devices and the apps on them, and they want to use them at work. Clearly, vendors and enterprises alike have recognized this is more than a fad and are fueling the secondary driving force behind BYOD: the potential to make and/or save money by capitalizing on the movement.


More:

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Mobile devices will turn IT security 'stateless', says Forrester analysis - ComputerworldUK



The IT security model that has admins tending mobile devices such as laptops and smartphones using fixed security firewall and gateway infrastructure is obsolete and should be replaced by a new 'stateless' approach, a Forrester report has suggested.

According to Prepare For Anywhere, Anytime, Any-Device Engagement With A Stateless Mobile Architecture, the stateful model made sense when computers sat in defined locations and could be managed using conventional network infrastructure, but mobility has changed the game.

This 'stateful' approach is management-heavy, expensive and inconvenient, propped up by quick fixes such as inefficient mobile VPNs, the report said. Worse, a growing band of devices – the BYOD dimension - were sneaking past management altogether, creating holes in the security posture of organisations.


More:

Is there a Mobile Device Management Bubble? | MSPmentor

 Is there an MDM (mobile device management) bubble? Currently I get a lot of questions about what our mobile device management (MDM) strategy is, and to be frank I'm not 100 percent sure myself. There is an enormous amount of hype in the MSP industry at the moment and I fear it has more to do with generating excitement than generating revenues. After a number of difficult years in the industry, the emergence of a new class of devices to manage is big news and there is no shortage of acronyms and hockey sticks doing the rounds. I am just not sure we should be buying into it.

More:
http://www.mspmentor.net/2012/07/03/is-there-a-mobile-device-management-bubble/

Businesses slow to adopt mobile device management software: Telsyte - Windows Phone 7, mobile device management (MDM), iPhone, Google Android, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), Apple - CIO



Most Australian enterprises do not manage apps and data on their smartphones and tablets using mobile device management software, according to the Telsyte Australian Workforce Mobility Study 2012.

The analyst firm estimated that only 10 per cent of enterprises use dedicated mobile device management (MDM) software. Telsyte this year surveyed 250 Australian enterprise CIOs and IT managers.

While BlackBerry and Nokia Symbian devices have been managed in the past, the same is not true for the iPhone and devices running Android and Windows Phone 7, Telsyte analyst Rodney Gedda said.

"Implementing MDM to manage the device will allow businesses to maintain control of their data whether the smartphone is owned by the company or the individual," Gedda said in a statement. "This is particularly relevant as more people bring their own device to the workplace."

On bring your own device (BYOD), Gedda said 52 per cent of businesses surveyed "are still purchasing mobile handsets and services for people to use for work, with the remainder allowing BYOD. This has allowed more consumer-oriented devices like the iPhone and Android-based devices to garner a greater share of the business smartphone market."


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Microsoft Surface Tablets: Mobile Device Management Ready? | MSPmentor



When Microsoft unveiled two Surface tabletstoday, the launches begged the mobile device management (MDM) question. CIOs want well-managed fleets of mobile devices. And Microsoft (armed with Surface tablets, Ultrabooks, Windows Intune and Microsoft System Center) could make a lot of noise in the market going forward.

For managed services providers (MSPs), Microsoft continues to represent opportunities and challenges. Demand for managed services tied to Exchange Server, SharePoint Server and Lync Server continues to grow, MSPmentor believes.

But in the mobile world, a growing number of MSPs have been introducing MDM solutions for Apple iOS (iPad, iPhone) and Google Android smartphones and tablets. Also, MSP and VAR peer groups such as HTG have been training — or at least educating — members on Apple platforms.

More:

http://www.mspmentor.net/2012/06/18/microsoft-surface-tablets-mobile-device-management-ready/

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Raspberry Pwn: A pentesting release for the Raspberry Pi | Pwnie Express



 Pwnie Express is happy to announce the initial release of Raspberry Pwn! Security enthusiasts can now easily turn their Raspberry Pi into a full-featured security penetration testing and auditing platform! This fully open-source release includes the following testing tools:

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Employees work extra hours on mobile email, calls - Computerworld



A new survey of 1,000 U.S. workers found that people spend an average of seven extra hours a week -- almost another full day of work -- answering calls and email on a mobile device outside of regular working hours.

That means some people are spending nearly 30 hours more a month, or 360 extra hours a year, on calls and emails, according to the poll commissioned by Good Technology, a mobile device management software maker.

More:

Sunday, July 1, 2012

New Lightspeed Mobile Device Management Made Exclusively for K12

 With a number of unique features, the Lightspeed Mobile Device Management is designed specifically for schools and their mobile device programs. The solution includes:
•User-friendly interface with multiples levels of administration - ensuring neither IT staff nor classroom teachers are overburdened with management and everyone has the visibility and control they need
•Hierarchical controls, giving districts the ability to set policies at the district, school, classroom, and device level
•Centralized management of device inventory, reporting, updates, and installs - simplifying the day-to-day tasks of the IT staff
•Remote configuration and device wiping to make certain the safety of the network and student are never compromised
•Integration with the Apple Volume Purchasing Plan
•Application deployment and device lockdown - able to be managed by both teachers and IT through My Big Campus
•All on an easy to use interface made specifically for K12

http://www.virtual-strategy.com/2012/06/25/new-lightspeed-mobile-device-management-made-exclusively-k12