Data Sheet—Thursday, October 30, 2014

Good morning, Data Sheet readers! A prominent business advocacy group doesn’t want SEC disclosure guidance about data breaches to become mandatory. IBM and Twitter are rethinking enterprise customer analytics. Plus, Hewlett-Packard is talking up forthcoming 3D printers and a new “immersive” computing form factor.

“Going beyond the SEC’s 2011 guidance on cybersecurity could paint a target on registrants’ backs—including industry peers and supply chain partners—for no appreciable benefit to investors,” the group argues in a letter sent this week to SEC Chairman Mary Jo White and excerpted by The Wall Street Journal.

Right now, SEC guidelines suggest businesses inform investors about "material" risks, something left open to interpretation. Laws in 47 states and the District of Columbia currently require that affected individuals be notified about incidents, which means consumers are likely to squawk if big companies clam up. Given persistent threats and the number of big breaches this year—affecting the likes of J.P. Morgan Chase, Home Depot, and Target—the timing of this public relations campaign is hardly surprising.

CLOUD CHATTER

Another day, another acquisition. You can add Continuent—a 10-year-old maker of database clustering and replication technology—to the list of companies swallowed up by the EMC "federation" this week. It was officially bought out by VMware. Terms weren't disclosed, but the company raised $5.8 million in venture funding during its independent existence. Customers include AT&T, eBay, Experian, Marketo, and Zappos.

STATS & SPECS

Microsoft reinvigorates digital health initiative. Its $199 fitness band and Microsoft Health tracking service are clearly targeted at individual consumers. Like rivals Apple and Google, however, the company is wooing partners that can develop a wide range of mobile medical or healthcare applications. Bonus: its approach supports Apple iOS, Google Android, and Windows Phone. Re/code

Throwback Thursday. Miss your original BlackBerry, especially its security and physical QWERTY keyboard? You may be in luck. Barely one month after introducing its controversial, 4.5 inch-square-screen Passport (there were only 200,000 preorders), the company is appealing to past customers with a forthcoming product aptly dubbed BlackBerry Classic. Entrepreneur

Speed before security. One of the foremost considerations for corporate network designers is how to protect data. Yet, more than 30% of the 504 IT professionals recently surveyed by Intel Security's McAfee division admit to disabling certain defenses, including firewalls, for the sake of performance. ZDNet

STARTUPS & DISRUPTORS

More about that previously low-key Apple Pay competitor. Apple is typically closemouthed policy about product roadmaps. So many of the retailers that signed on exclusively to the competitive CurrentC mobile payments app from consortium MCX—including Rite Aid, CVS, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Gap—probably didn't know what they'd be missing. Now, they'll have to wait until next year to really dive into mobile payments. To compound matters, MCX is already doing damage control over a data security breach disclosed Wednesday. Wired

FAQ

Twitter, IBM deal marries social and enterprise analytics

Today's perspective comes from Tom Huddleston, Jr., a Fortune reporter in New York. The new relationship disclosed Wednesday builds on IBM's long-time business practice in social customer analytics, turning some insights that previously required custom development investments into software as a service. Want to go farther with industry-specific data? IBM's consultants would love to help.

IBM is making friends left and right.

Just a few months after teaming up with Apple, Big Blue revealed its latest partnership on Wednesday—one with Twitter to launch a new venture that will package Twitter data with IBM’s cloud-based analytics and business consulting services.

In a joint press release, IBM and Twitter said their partnership will provide a variety of cloud-based services, with data culled from Twitter users, to offer businesses a cultivated look at their customers’ behavior and opinions. IBM will also use the data analytics partnership to support its own consulting business, allowing the company to tailor those services to be specific to certain industries—from retail to finance.

In a blog post, Twitter vice president of data strategy Chris Moody wrote that the social media company often hears from companies looking to put Twitter data to use in their business plans and that Twitter’s “relationship with IBM will directly address this need by training tens of thousands of IBM Global Business Services consultants on the business applications for Twitter data, as well as the technical and organizational changes needed to effectively weave this important resource into day-to-day business operations.”

Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo said in a statement included in the companies’ announcement that the partnership “will change the way business decisions are made—from identifying emerging market opportunities to better engaging clients, partners and employees.”

Read the complete story on the new partnership.

ONE MORE THING

HP enters new dimension. The high-tech giant proclaims it will be the low-price leader with its forthcoming enterprise-class 3D printing technology. The catch: businesses won't actually be able to buy them until sometime in 2016. What's more, Hewlett-Packard hasn't officially named its price, giving market leader Stratasys plenty of time to counter. What you can buy right away is HP's "immersive" $1,899 Sprout, a desktop computer that combines a touch-enabled display, a projector, and 3D scanner. What doesn't come standard: a keyboard or a mouse. New York Times, Verge