eWeek articles from August 2004

eWeek archives from August 2004

Leading With IT: A NASCAR Case Study.
August 1, 2004... There is a small metal part in a race car engine--a pickup frame, to be precise--that supports a coil of wires in the distributor. If this part breaks and the wires come loose, the ignition fails, the engine stops and the race is lost. The...

SCO Readies New OpenServer Unix.
August 1, 2004... LAS VEGAS-- On Monday, The SCO Group Inc. will announce the release of the developer preview of Legend, the next major release of its flagship Unix operating system, SCO OpenServer, at is annual partner show, SCO Forum. This new version of...

Steve Jobs Issues Memo to Apple Staff From Hospital.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs, sent the following e-mail Sunday to Apple Computer Inc. employees: Team, I have some personal news that I need to share with you, and I wanted you to hear it directly from me. This weekend I underwent a...

Apple CEO Steve Jobs Undergoes Surgery to Remove Cancerous Tumor.(Chief Executive Officer)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP)--Steve Jobs, Apple Computer Inc.'s charismatic co-founder and chief executive, said Sunday he had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his pancreas. In an e-mail message to employees, he said he will be off to...

Computer Glitch Causes Air-Travel Delays.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... DALLAS-- A computer glitch grounded American Airlines and US Airways flights from coast to coast Sunday morning, causing delays that were expected to last all day. American had its planes back up after two hours, while US Airways flights were...

Terror Threat Level Is Raised For Key U.S. Financial Buildings.
August 1, 2004... NEW YORK (AP) The federal government warned today of possible terrorist attacks against "iconic" financial institutions in New York City, Washington and Newark, N.J., saying a confluence of intelligence over the weekend pointed to a car or...

Google Opens Site to Register Bidders.
August 1, 2004... SAN FRANCISCO-- Google Inc.'s highly anticipated IPO took a major step toward reaching the stock market late Friday when the online search engine leader opened the Web site where prospective investors must register to bid for the company's...

After Legislation, AT&T an Underdog.
August 1, 2004... NEW YORK-- AT&T Corp. bused 3,000 employees to Washington, D.C., in July 1995 to beg lawmakers to kill new telecom legislation designed to make their industry more competitive. Before they trooped into Congressional offices, CEO Robert Allen...

Sun to Demo Sun Ray Linux at LinuxWorld.
August 2, 2004... SAN FRANCISCO-- Sun Microsystems Inc. will demonstrate a new version of its SunRay thin-client computing technology for Linux at this week's LinuxWorld conference here. The company is also announcing the release of its C, C++ and Fortran...

Glitch in Chip Set Blights Intel's Nocona Rollout.
August 2, 2004... Server OEMs this week helped complete the second phase of Intel's 64-bit "Nocona" deployment, although the launch was marred by a bug that affected the supporting chip sets. Intel first launched the Nocona chip in June as a workstation...

Netline Groupware for Linux Goes Open Source.(Netline Internet Service GmbH)
August 2, 2004... Netline Internet Service GmbH, of Olpe, Germany, will announce at LinuxWorld this week that it is open-sourcing its Open-Xchange Server, the core technology behind its Linux-based groupware, collaboration and messaging application, under the...

Rackable Systems Increases Server Density.
August 2, 2004... Rackable Systems Inc., which builds high-density rack-optimized server systems through its unique back-to-back mounting design, is rolling out a new systems model that increases the density. The San Jose, Calif., company on Monday is...

Brunswick's WDI Aims to Ease SOA Integration.
August 2, 2004... Brunswick Corp., a company that makes bowling balls, boats and billiards, is also in the technology game. WDI, the development division of Brunswick New Technologies, on Monday announced the release of Redberri 6.0, middleware geared toward...

Open-Source Insurance Provider Finds Patent Risks in Linux.
August 2, 2004... SAN FRANCISCO--On Monday, OSRM, a provider of open-source consulting and risk mitigation insurance, announced that the group has found that there are 283 issued, but not yet court-validated, software patents that could conceivablly be used in...

Doing More by Coding Less.(LogicLibrary Logidex 3.5 (code manager))
August 2, 2004... If we don't make substantial gains in our practices of preserving, finding, and reusing code, we won't keep pace with the opportunities presented by continuing hardware improvement. More devices to do things, and more kinds of connection to...

Cox Announces $7.9 Billion Acquisition Plan.(Brief Article)
August 2, 2004... ATLANTA-- Cox Enterprises Inc. announced a $7.9 billion proposal Monday to buy all outstanding publicly held shares of Cox Communications Inc. in a bid to take the cable-television provider fully private. Atlanta-based Cox Communications is...

SAP Taps Former Siebel Exec for CRM Group.(Brief Article)
August 2, 2004... SAP AG announced Monday that it has hired former Siebel Systems Inc. executive Patrick Bakey to head up sales operations for its North American CRM business unit. Bakey, former vice president of federal sales at Siebel, was named senior...

Oracle's Rocha: Linux Kernel Ready to Rock Databases.(Interview)
August 2, 2004... Oracle executive vice president Mike Rocha will have a lot to brag about when he gets up to give his LinuxWorld keynote Tuesday in San Francisco. First, the database giant saw its Linux market share blossom in 2003, growing at a rate of 361...

Linux Makes Its Desktop Move at LinuxWorld.
August 2, 2004... SAN FRANCISCO--What can you expect from this edition of LinuxWorld? Well, not a suggestion from Sun Microsystems' Jonathan Schwartz, as some had anticipated, that Sun might buy Novell. But what you can expect is more details on upcoming Linux...

Unisys Brings Linux to High-End Systems.
August 2, 2004... Unisys Corp. is bringing Linux to its ES7000 line of Intel Corp.-based systems. At the LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco Monday, Unisys announced that it can now run Linux operating systems from Red Hat Inc. and Novell Inc.'s SuSE...

Sun, Novell to Merge?
August 2, 2004... Sun Microsystems Inc. is considering making an attempt to acquire Novell Inc., a move that would have enormous repercussions for competitor IBM. In an interview with eWEEK, Sun President and Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Schwartz...

Global CRM Market to Surpass $11 Billion by 2008.(Brief Article)
August 2, 2004... Siebel continues to dominate a CRM market that is expected to grow steadily toward the $11.4 billion revenue mark by 2008, according to a report by IDC. New statistics from IDC project that the worldwide CRM-applications market will reach...

Wireless Providers to Light Up New York.
August 2, 2004... Six wireless providers are set to begin installing equipment for cellar networks, Wi-Fi and Internet telephony in New York City street lamps, traffic lights and other prime real estate this summer under a plan expected to net the city more than...

Edify Redesigns Voice Platform.
August 2, 2004... With its announcement Monday of an upgrade to its voice platform, Edify is laying out a new architecture for enterprises deploying speech applications. The Santa Clara, Calif., company said it plans to unbundle the core voice application...

Microsoft Research Targets Trustworthy Computing.
August 2, 2004... Microsoft Research is ponying up $1 million in the form of a request for proposal (RFP) for the development of academic curricula focusing on Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing security initiatives. Microsoft Research (MSR) also is issuing...

Analysts: Sun President's Novell Talk 'Totally Crazy'.
August 2, 2004... Jonathan Schwartz, president and chief operating officer of Sun Microsystems, went on a one-man offensive this weekend against the company's main rival, IBM. But he may have gone a little too far out on his own by suggesting that Sun would...

Online Ticket Vendor Set to Scale with Oracle on Linux.
August 2, 2004... Online ticket vendor StubHub Inc. fits the description of a typical company that's running its Oracle database on Linux: It's cutting-edge, it doesn't want to be married to a single hardware vendor, and it expects to scale like mad. "Our...

Channels Pose Challenge for Data Management.
August 2, 2004... In its race with archrival Office Depot Inc., Staples Inc. is tackling a problem that retailers in many markets are facing: coordination of a variety of sales channels. "The big buzzword today is to have a customer-focused organization...

Steve Jobs' Illness Raises Succession Questions at Apple.
August 2, 2004... SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP)--Steve Jobs says he expects a full recovery from his cancer surgery, but news of his illness raised the question of how his companies, Apple Computer Inc. and Pixar Animation Studios, would fare without the executive--whom...

Business Ties Between SCO, HP Stay Strong.
August 2, 2004... LAS VEGAS--The SCO Group, which can count few large companies in the IT industry as its friend, continues to maintain a very strong working relationship with Hewlett-Packard Co. HP, along with Intel Corp. and some other, smaller companies,...

NYSE to Expand Electronic Trading.(New York Stock Exchange)
August 2, 2004... NEW YORK--The New York Stock Exchange will revamp its structure to allow for greater electronic trading in a hybrid market, one that also includes the specialists who have executed trades since the NYSE's inception. In a filing made Monday...

Lycos Sold to Korean Portal Company.(Daum Communications Corp.)(Lycos Inc.)(Brief Article)
August 2, 2004... A Korean Internet company is buying Lycos Inc. and its network of Web sites for $105 million. Terra Networks SA said on Monday that is it selling the U.S.-based portal operator to Daum Communications Corp., based in Seoul, South Korea,...

Spotting Phish and Phighting Back.
August 2, 2004... It was only a matter of time before the authors of phishing attacks became more clever. I've always been disappointed, in a perverse way, by the lack of creativity they have shown. But in a way it doesn't matter how clever they are since you...

Fujitsu and TDK to Ally on Hard Disk Drive Heads.(Fujitsu Ltd.)(TDK Corp.)(Brief Article)
August 2, 2004... Fujitsu Ltd. and TDK Corp. last week announced an agreement in the magnetic hard disk drive head business that would combine the Philippines drive assembly operations of both companies. The joint venture to build hard disk drive heads calls for...

Keep Your Office Safe.(Brief Article)
August 3, 2004... Although securing a single PC or small home network can be a complicated and often tedious task for the average user, securing a networked office--even a small one--is tougher. Modern modes of communication, especially e-mail and the Web,...

Keep Your PC Safe.(Brief Article)
August 3, 2004... No matter where you really live, when you connect your computer to the Internet, you're in the big city. So you outfit your PC with the virtual locks that PC Magazine has been recommending for years: antivirus protection, a software firewall, a...

Keep Your Friends Safe.(Brief Article)
August 3, 2004... If you've followed the steps outlined in this article, your computer is now a veritable Fort Knox. But yours isn't the only computer in the world. What can you do when a friend phones and says "You know, my computer's been acting kind of slow...

Keep Your Kids Safe.(Brief Article)
August 3, 2004... In September 2003, 53-year-old John Zuccarini was arrested at a Florida hotel and, after admitting to his crimes in a plea bargain, became the first person convicted under the national Truth in Domain Names Act. The crime: According to the...

Voicepulse.(Brief Article)(Advertisement)
August 3, 2004... Company: VoicePulse Inc., www.voicepulse.com Price: $14.99 direct for basic plan, $24.99 for unlimited Pros: Easy installation. Great basic features and voicemail options. Excellent call-filtering system. Cons: ...

Primer: Geospatial Analysis.
August 4, 2004... What is it? A way to determine where your customers live or work by correlating their street addresses with their physical location. It's done by adding data from mapping software or the Global Positioning System to the customer information you...

Mayo Clinic, IBM Partner for Better Care, Research.
August 10, 2004... The Mayo Clinic and IBM recently announced a broad collaboration to advance patient care and genomic research through a series of technology initiatives. Although the two institutions have been partners since 2001, this plan is intended to...

CMGI Circles Back to Supply Chain.
August 10, 2004... CMGI is returning from a role as an Internet incubator to its real roots as a supply chain provider, said George McMillan, the company's CEO and president. CMGI's new ModusLink business unit, being launched this month, combines the company's...

Quintum Upgrades Deliver Dual-Protocol VOIP Gateways.
August 10, 2004... Quintum Technologies Inc. offered upgrades to its entire Tenor line of VOIP gateways and Multipath switches to support both reigning VOIP signaling protocols: the waning but still dominant H.323, and the increasingly popular SIP (Session...

AIM Beta Fixes Security Hole.(Brief Article)
August 10, 2004... America Online Inc. has released a beta version of AOL Instant Messenger that fixes a critical security hole that could open users to remote attack. As previously reported, AOL had promised to fix the vulnerability in an upgraded version...

Integrated Device Could Ease RFID Processing.(Radio Frequency Identification)
August 10, 2004... A large French electrical equipment supplier on Tuesday introduced a way for suppliers to more seamlessly integrate RFID capabilities into existing equipment, which could lessen the supplier burden and possibly accelerate and broaden RFID...

Microsoft Uncovers Exchange Server 5.5 Vulnerability.(Brief Article)
August 10, 2004... A flaw in an old but still popular version of Microsoft Exchange Server could allow an attacker to execute code on other clients' systems, according to a security bulletin released Tuesday by Microsoft, along with a patch for the flaw. The...

New Bagle Opens Broad Attack.
August 10, 2004... What started as a dribble early on Monday became a fusillade of e-mail messages from countless senders, but all bearing Zip files containing the potentially malicious Bagle.AQmm (aka Bagle.AC) virus. While still only a medium alert on most...

Google to End IPO Registration Thursday.(Brief Article)
August 10, 2004... SAN FRANCISCO (AP)--Google Inc. will close the registration process for its IPO auction Thursday, setting the stage for the online search engine leader's hotly anticipated stock market debut. The Mountain View-based company posted a notice...

Mobilize Me!(work force mobility)(information access methods)
August 10, 2004... I got my first cell phone back in 1989--it was a Motorola "brick" that cost more than $1,000--and I've probably used a couple of dozen different models since. My first PDA arrived as soon as they were available, and I've probably gone through a...

Web Services Leaders Submit Key Messaging Spec.(web services addressing specifications)
August 10, 2004... A group of leading Web services proponents, including Microsoft and Sun Microsystems, on Tuesday announced the joint submission of a key Web services specification to a major standards body. BEA Systems Inc., IBM, Microsoft Corp., SAP AG...

What's Wrong With RFID?(Radio Frequency Identification)
August 10, 2004... Beaver Street Fisheries is the prototypical manual-labor shop. Tons of clams, lobster, alligator, octopus and other exotica, from coastal waters in over 50 countries--hard-won catches of hard-edged fishermen and hunters--roll in and out of the...

DataPower Granted Patent for XML Processing Technology.
August 10, 2004... DataPower Technology Inc. on Tuesday announced it has been granted a patent for its core XML processing and data interchange technology. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company said it filed for the patent in 1999 and the U.S. Patent and...

Microsoft Says Japan Battle Hurting Image.
August 10, 2004... TOKYO (AP)--The head of Microsoft Corp.'s Japan unit acknowledged Tuesday that the U.S. software giant's battle with Japanese anti-monopoly authorities over a controversial licensing clause has hurt its corporate image here. But Michael...

Graphics Workstation Uses Nocona Chip, Nvidia Tech.(Verari Systems Inc.)(Brief Article)
August 10, 2004... Verari Systems is putting Intel's Nocona chip and the latest graphics technology from Nvidia into a high-end workstation aimed at compute-intensive tasks. Verari Systems Inc. unveiled the two-way NemeSys X64 graphics workstation Tuesday at...

Cisco Reports Record Fiscal 4Q.
August 11, 2004... SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP)--Strong sales of networking equipment helped drive Cisco Systems Inc. to record profits in its fiscal fourth quarter, but the company expressed a degree of doubt about business in coming months, citing the recent slowdown...

CRM Survey: Will Old Problems Sink New Users?(Customer Relationship Management)(Brief Article)
August 11, 2004... Customer relationship management is becoming a commonplace technology. Soon, two-thirds of all U.S. companies will have deployed a CRM system, according to a recent CIO Insight survey of 341 IT executives. Lower prices, due in part to...

Vendor Group Forms to Promote E-Prescribing.
August 11, 2004... A new industry coalition hopes to accelerate adoption of electronic prescribing. The group, called CafeRx, plans to promote common standards and programs to reward e-prescribing physicians--without favoring one vendor's product over another's....

IBM Previews Future Collaboration Technologies.
August 11, 2004... CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--IBM on Wednesday unveiled several new collaboration technologies still in the developmental stage at its IBM Research center here that officials say could the way people work in the enterprise. The technologies, some of...

Startup Tackles Instant Messaging for Groups.(Five Across Inc., Adobe Ventures LP, Granite Ventures L.L.C.)
August 11, 2004... Instant messaging meets workgroup collaboration in a new enterprise IM service launched this week. In unveiling its InterComm service Monday, startup Five Across Inc. is betting that a set of innovative features such as workgroup-level...

Teen Pleads Guilty in Blaster Worm Attack.
August 11, 2004... SEATTLE--A Minnesota high school senior pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to unleashing a variant of the "Blaster" Internet worm, which crippled more than a million computers last summer. Jeffrey Lee Parson, 19, of Hopkins, Minn.,...

Why Can't We Get a Slimmer Windows XP?(analysis)
August 11, 2004... The world is switching to Linux, and Microsoft doesn't like it one little bit. If you live in the United States, you may yawn every time you hear about how the Linux desktop is coming along. Chances are you run Windows, and you find it...

A Few Bumps on the Road to Windows XP SP2.
August 11, 2004... Since Microsoft Corp. began its staged rollout of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) late last week, there have been a few bumps--but, at least so far, no major potholes--on the road to deployment. Microsoft has characterized SP2 as a...

Microsoft Readies Two More Cut-Rate Windows Bundles.
August 11, 2004... Microsoft is making good on its promise to find ways to sell more copies of Windows overseas. On Tuesday night, company officials reiterated Microsoft's previously stated commitments to offer cut-rate Windows bundles in Thailand, Malaysia...

Lawyers Weigh In on Linux Patent Threat.
August 11, 2004... Open Source Risk Management (OSRM), a provider of open-source consulting and risk mitigation insurance, announced last week that it has found that there are 283 issued, but not yet court-validated, software patents that could conceivably be...

Microsoft Expands Live Meeting Pricing Plans.
August 11, 2004... Microsoft Corp. has expanded the licensing options for its Office Live Meeting Web conferencing service, bringing it more in line with the way it prices other applications in the Office product group. The Redmond, Wash., software maker on...

Circuit City Prepares For Major IT Transformation.(Brief Article)
August 11, 2004... Circuit City Stores and IBM are launching a technology transformation of Circuit City's more than 600 stores, designed to update Circuit City's point-of-sale (POS) systems and other in-store technology. "This new technology initiative, a...

First Hybrid Self-Checkout Installed In Metro Group.(Brief Article)
August 11, 2004... Metro Group has installed an NCR self-checkout package that reads RFID tags as well as bar codes, in the newly opened METRO Group RFID Innovation Center. METRO Group has targeted November 2004 for the introduction of RFID into the...

Microsoft's Own CRM Incompatible with XP Service Pack 2.(Customer relationship management)(Brief Article)
August 11, 2004... While Microsoft has been urging consumers and businesses to down the security update offering, they draw the line at their own CRM package. Turns out there is a conflict between the two applications that shuts down certain features of the...

IBM Readies Software for Real-Time Reports.
August 11, 2004... IBM is readying a new software product, known internally as BAM (Business Activity Monitoring), for use in supply chain management, risk management and other areas where customers want to generate real-time reports from either single or...

Target To Launch Its RFID Program In Texas.(Brief Article)
August 11, 2004... Speaking to several hundred of its suppliers in Minneapolis, Target said it would begin RFID testing at one Texas distribution center and 10 stories in the Dallas-Forth Worth area. The half-day meeting, near Target's Minneapolis...

Biometric Technology Creeping Into Everyday Life.(fingerprint lockers introduced by Smarte Carte Inc. uses the biometry technology)
August 12, 2004... NEW YORK (AP)--Stuffing something in a public locker usually isn't a memorable experience. You drop a coin, take the key and move on. But at the Statue of Liberty, recently reopened after a two-year closure, stashing a package offers a glimpse...

Ex-Verizon Wireless Employee Charged with Fraud.(Brief Article)
August 12, 2004... SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP)--A former Verizon Wireless employee was indicted by a federal grand jury Thursday on charges he stole more than $20 million from the company's prepaid cellular telephone service. Timothy Charles Mattos, 32, of...

Market Gets Last Word on Microsoft Prices.
August 12, 2004... Microsoft is pushing ahead with its plan to sell a cut-rate version of Windows XP, but who's going to get it and what it's going to cost are not necessarily for Bill Gates and crew to decide. My eWEEK.com colleague Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols...

Upbeat IBM Says It Plans to Hire Nearly 19,000.(International Business Machines Corp.)(Brief Article)
August 12, 2004... ARMONK, N.Y. (AP)--IBM raised its estimate Thursday for the number of people it expects to hire in 2004 to 18,800, up from an earlier forecast of 15,000, citing strong growth in key business areas such as consulting, grid computing and Linux....

Servers, Storage Drive Big Gains for Dell.
August 12, 2004... Dell saw revenues and income jump sharply during its second fiscal quarter, fueled in large part by sales of its enterprise servers and storage devices. The Round Rock, Texas, company generated $11.7 billion in revenue during the quarter...

Defense Department Says "Yes" To RFID.(Radio Frequency Identification)(Brief Article)
August 12, 2004... The DoD has approved the mandating of RFID tags across the supply chain, with all contracts signed from 1 October to make the technology mandatory and for suppliers to have the technology in place by 1 January 2005 on case, pallet and item...

Put Your Finger on the Pulse.(survey of application performance of servers)
August 12, 2004... Software that measures application performance doesn't live up to the most spectacular vendor promises--and it's harder to set up than most people realize. But such tools can be the difference between a system slowdown and a show-stopping...

Industry Coalition Floats Proposal for 802.11n.
August 12, 2004... A second group is floating its technical proposal to replace Wi-Fi, in advance of a meeting next month to begin resolving the issue. The so-called WWiSE consortium-comprising Airgo Networks, Bermai, Broadcom, Conexant, STMicroelectronics...

Into the Future of Computer Graphics.(Siggraph, the computer graphics tradeshow celebrated)(Brief Article)
August 12, 2004... LOS ANGELES--The world's largest computer graphics tradeshow, Siggraph, celebrates its 31st year with over 25,000 international attendees from both industry and academia, and more than 230 vendors showing their wares at the Los Angeles...

DVD X Copy Software Resurfaces.(copying software for sale)(Brief Article)
August 12, 2004... A Taiwan-based site is offering to sell the DVD copying software once sold by defunct 321 Studios Inc., which was driven out of business last week. DVDXCopy2.com appears to have mirrored some of the content once found on the 321 Studios...

Sun on Track with Solaris-on-Power Plan.(Sun Microsystems Inc., International Business Machines Corp., contract)
August 12, 2004... Sun Microsystems Inc.'s plans for bringing its Solaris operating system to IBM's Power architecture appear to be moving along. Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's president and chief operating officer, first broached the idea of porting the company's...

An Open Letter to Virus Authors.(security of internet from viruses)
August 12, 2004... It's bad enough that the humans--if you can call them that--who create viruses and malware are trying to turn our desktops into instruments of their global evildoing. But do they also have to insult our intelligence? Here's a sample of the...

Should You Put Windows XP SP2 Deployment on Autopilot?(Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2)
August 12, 2004... I've seen reports of people who are shocked! Shocked to hear that there are applications and network configurations that fail to function under Windows XP Service Pack 2. After years of complaining about security problems in Windows,...

HP Shakes Up Management After Q3 Decline in Storage, Server Revenue.(Hewlett-Packard Co)
August 12, 2004... Hewlett-Packard Co. saw revenues grow in most business segments during its third fiscal quarter, but its enterprise servers and storage unit took a beating, prompting management changes in that group. HP, of Palo Alto, Calif., was scheduled...