Author: Dan Gendro

Both Microsoft and American Express are fighting to acquire equity in the company.

A number of technology news reports that were recently published have suggested that insiders who are close to this issue claim that American Express Co. and Microsoft are both showing interest in purchasing an equity stake in Foursquare Labs Inc.

If these reports are true, then it suggests that the two giants would rather invest in the company than work jointly on it.

Foursquare is a tremendously popular form of mobile check-in platform. At the same time that this technology news was being released, it was also in negotiations with venture capitalists in possession of convertible debt with regards to transforming their current “holdings into equity”. The discussions that are underway are also indicating that the prospective investors have become more bold about the potential of Foursquare, following the results that it has been achieving through its latest approach to advertising that gives brands the ability to target users at the time that they have checked into a specific location.

This technology news is clearly highly appealing to Microsoft and American Express, that each have their own plans for it.

From the side of Microsoft, the acquisition of Foursquare would provide the giant with the opportunity to develop a larger role in both mobile commerce as well as in the social media scene. On the other hand, it is believed that American Express is primarily interested in the check-in platform so that it will be able to boost its competitive edge with its credit card rivals through the use of enhanced marketing an improved loyalty programs that are furthered by the influence of social media.

Steven Rosenblatt, the chief revenue officer for Foursquare, released a technology news statement, recently, which said that “I think we’ve proven our business model.” He also went on to add that “Our business model is very clear and it’s working, doing what we thought it would do, if not more. It’s all well ahead of what we anticipated.” If the rumors are true about Microsoft and American Express, then clearly Rosenblatt is right.

The majority of companies have not fully implemented a policy for the use of wireless devices.

According to the results of a study that have recently been released, only 14 percent of companies have put a fully developed mobile security policy into place for their computer networks.

At the same time, the number of threats and incidents within that environment are rapidly rising.

Furthermore, the study also discovered that the majority of the companies that do not have mobile security policies in place also have no intention of limiting the use of personal smartphones and tablets for work-related purposes. The research in question was the Global Corporate IT Security Risks 2013 study From B2B International, which was conducted among businesses worldwide, this spring, in collaboration with Kaspersky Lab.

B2B International’s statement about the mobile security study was that many companies had experienced data leaks.

It revealed that among the respondents of the survey by B2B International, 6 percent of the companies had experienced a mobile security data leakage of confidential information at least once within the previous 12 months. Though this may represent an increase of only 1 percent over the figures from 2012, the attacks on smartphones and tablets led to a larger number of critical data leaks than any of employee fraud (at 4 percent), phishing attacks (at 5 percent) or corporate espionage (at 3 percent).

According to the release regarding the study’s results, “The reason is obvious; more mobile devices – smartphones and tablets – are being used at work on a daily basis. These devices are also often owned by the employees themselves, and so are used for personal as well as business purposes.”

It also pointed out that while the ability to add both corporate and personal data (such as apps and contact lists) on a single device is highly convenient, it also means that there is a considerably higher mobile security risk to the business. Almost 65 percent of the participants in the survey admitted that they allowed their workers to bring their own devices (also known as bring your own device – BYOD – where workers use their own personal smartphones and tablets for work purposes). This is clearly a growing threat to corporate IT infrastructure security when the fact that no protection policies have been put in place.