eWeek articles from February 2001

eWeek archives from February 2001

Working together over the Web.(News Briefs)
February 5, 2001... Innovations in collaboration software packages have taken some of the tedium out of project management, as Technical Analyst Shammi Gill explains in his comparative review. All three collaboration wares in this review package can also shorten...

Maximizing those critical resources.(News Briefs)
February 5, 2001... Now that the gravity-defying Old and New economies are showing signs of returning to earth-a little more rapidly than many companies would like-fine-tuning your network is more important than ever. Below, Senior Analyst Cameron Sturdevant...

Strength in groups - New tools take some of the labor out of collaboration.(Software Review)(Evaluation)
February 5, 2001... Web-based collaboration tools that address the specific needs of far- flung project teams are starting to hit the market. eWeek Labs' tests of three showed that these products can streamline setup, ease communications and shorten the life cycle...

NetSleuth adept at mapping, device discovery.(Software Review)(Evaluation)
February 5, 2001... Gensym Corp.'s newly minted NetSleuth network discovery and monitoring tool will tempt IT managers with its detailed port-level network mapping, expanded device-discovery skills and refined integration with Hewlett-Packard Co.'s OpenView...

It's 5 o'clock, and it's much too crowded.(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)(Column)
February 5, 2001... Scientists have been studying road traffic patterns for years, yielding absolutely no discernible results. Now, according to the San Francisco Chronicle (in an article you can find at www.eWEEK.com/links), scientists are working on a "unified"...

Macromedia can play with the big kids.
February 5, 2001... A merger that took place recently will have a big impact on a large number of people who build, design and maintain Web sites-the acquisition of Allaire by Macromedia. n At first, the deal seemed like it had to be backward. Surely Allaire, the...

W. Quinn shows what's in store for smaller networks.(Software Review)(Evaluation)
February 5, 2001... Spacemaxx Storage Resource Management software extends the reach of W. Quinn Associates Inc.'s storage management products beyond servers to desktops, NAS devices and storage area networks. Considering the staggering growth of storage usage...

Pings&Packets - Searching the industry for technical connections and returning analysis in byte-size packages.
February 5, 2001... Technology trips up drivers I'm a big fan of Hertz's NeverLost GPS-based navigational system (more info about it is at eWEEK. com/links), as I'm so often in strange cities trying to drive to places I've never been before. It's accurate, it...

Spectrum sale leads to controversy - FCC rules changes fail to help bidders with limited financial resources.(Government Activity)
February 5, 2001... Bidding for the largest radio spectrum auction in U.S. history ended last week with the final net revenues totaling more than $16.8 billion. But despite the windfall, many small companies felt shut out of the process because of a loose...

Gateway moves to stem wounds - But high inventory and weak consumer demand dog faltering PC maker.
February 5, 2001... After Gateway Inc. founder Ted Waitt took over his faltering company last week, he moved swiftly to appoint a new management team and outline his vision for returning the PC maker to profitability. But that vision is going to have to be...

Tool will smooth Linux development - Borland's long-awaited Kylix may boost the operating system's appeal in the corporate arena.(Product Announcement)
February 5, 2001... Developers say they will have an easier time building Linux applications once Borland Software Corp. releases the long-awaited Kylix visual programming tool by the end of this month. Closely modeled after Borland's Delphi tool for Windows,...

E-procurement app takes to airwaves.
February 5, 2001... Wireless-equipped traders and brokers step aside- e-procurement managers may be joining you on the airwaves. Elcom International Inc. last week announced that its e-procurement software has gone wireless. Running on Windows CE and Palm...

Plugging gaps in power use - IT taps new data tools to cope with deregulation.
February 5, 2001... New planning, measurement and analysis software is giving the electric utilities industry a beacon of hope for dealing with energy deregulation. New products from Lodestar Corp., Ener metrix and Henwood Energy Services Inc. are providing...

Portal links buyers, sellers - Verity's e-commerce site lets merchants personalize information to customers' purchasing needs.(Product Announcement)
February 5, 2001... Portal software provider Verity Inc. wants to help merchants connect with their online customers more efficiently by better enabling them to find the products they need. Verity introduced last week K2 Catalog, an e-commerce portal that...

Disney's Go.com site goes no more.
February 5, 2001... January was not kind to online news sites and portals, beginning and ending with layoffs and closures. The latest casualty was The Walt Disney Co.'s long-struggling Internet portal, Go.com. Last week, the parent company shut down the...

Technology boosts Web site for blind.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 5, 2001... Approximately 10 million Americans can't send e-mail, browse the Web or shop online because of blindness. But an updated federal accessibility law that takes effect this month and an applications services company may soon change all that. ...

Enterprise Linux: Where's the beef?(Industry Trend or Event)
February 5, 2001... Oracle, Intel and IBM may be expending a lot of money and resources to lift Linux into enterprise IT shops, but any large commitments from customers remain a well-kept secret. Or they don't exist. n Take IBM, for example. President and Chief...

Fingerprinting may aid voters.
February 5, 2001... Among the many issues swirling around the latest presidential election were questions about the absentee voting of military personnel from Florida. Global services company Electronic Data Systems and a security enterprise, Identix, went to...

Stock fund for those laid off.(Company Operations)
February 5, 2001... Amazon.com didn't want its laid-off employees to go away mad. CEO Jeff Bezos last week announced that the e-tail giant was laying off 1,300 employees-about 15 percent of its work force-as it struggles for profitability. But the company...

Name list to be destroyed.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 5, 2001... A federal bankruptcy court judge has OK'd the destruction of e-tailer Toysmart.com's customer list, which has been at the center of a highly publicized debate over privacy and the Internet. Toysmart, as part of its liquidation after filing...

Media.net integrates to one-stop shop - Deal with Marconi should speed the startup's application time to market.
February 5, 2001... Entertainment industry startup Media.net this week will redefine the term one-stop shop when it officially launches its MyMedia portal application for digital video collaboration. The El Segundo, Calif., company is racing its high-speed,...

Microsoft, Onyx link for CRM push - Vendors will target large enterprises in vertical industries, commencing with financial services.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 5, 2001... Microsoft Corp. has signed a partner to tackle the CRM software market for large financial services companies. Passing up market leader Siebel Systems Inc., which counts financial services as its largest vertical, Microsoft chose Onyx Software...

Software automates security tasks.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 5, 2001... Hoping to cash in on the trend toward managed security services, startup OneSecure Inc. this week will launch what it is calling the industry's first security management platform. The service grew out of the Denver-based company's belief...

Linux developments perplex the Puss.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 5, 2001... What could Microsoft executives have been up to last week as they lurked in the hallways of the Javits Center in New York during the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, pondered the Katt. "Just a few short years ago, they wouldn't have been caught...

The meaning of Openhack III.
February 5, 2001... We've wrapped up our Openhack III competition, and no one busted in, so what did we learn? These competitions, where we issue an open challenge to the hackers of the world to find a way to break into a Web site, draw a huge amount of interest,...

Putting cell phones on hold - Handset manufacturers, seeing slowing sales, are cutting back on the rollout of new products.
February 5, 2001... As cell phone manufacturers absorb the body blows of sluggish sales, evaporating profit margins and a nonexistent upgrade trend by consumers, the fallout will be clear: fewer new products announced, shipments of planned smart phones delayed and...

Sun to unwrap Web services game plan.
February 5, 2001... Sun Microsystems Inc. will become the last of the behemoths to roll out a Web services road map this week when it unveils its Smart Services strategy for building the new type of application. Sources familiar with the com pany's plans say...

Carriers pinning hopes on IP - Amid falling revenues, products packaged with VOIP could loom large.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 5, 2001... It is an axiom in the transportation business that when a bus line is losing riders, supervisors should resist the urge to cut routes and retire vehicles, and instead add more stops and perhaps some lights and benches. A similar philosophy is...

IP creeps up on Fibre Channel in storage.
February 5, 2001... While it administrators wait for Fibre Channel standards to be developed, Internet Protocol is rapidly gaining ground as an alternative storage interface. One reason is that administrators are beginning to get the tools to make storage...

eWeek excellence awards - eWeek taps finalists for e-biz honors.(Company Business and Marketing)(Editorial)
February 5, 2001... The building blocks of e-business emerge and evolve too quickly to wait for any physical gathering to put them on view. To highlight e-business builders' options in Web time, eWeek Labs staff and eWeek Corporate Partner advisers have convened...

InfiniBand products come to life.
February 5, 2001... The development of a new data transfer technology designed to eliminate potential bottlenecks at ever-expanding data centers will take a major step forward this week when startup Mellanox Technologies Inc. ships its InfiniBridge silicon...

Openhack III undefeated.(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)
February 5, 2001... Shortly after 3 a.m. EST last Thursday, eWeek's third Openhack interactive security test finished its 17-day run with all prizes remaining unclaimed. This is eWeek Labs' first Openhack test in three tries that hasn't been penetrated...

Microsoft grapples with Linux threat - OS' popularity puts pressure on company to loosen its grip on Windows.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 5, 2001... Microsoft Corp., under siege by the growing popularity of Linux, is feeling increasing pressure to broaden its Windows platform base and in some minor ways is beginning to relent. Many corporate customers-angered by the Redmond, Wash.,...

Intel halts iCat hosted program.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 5, 2001... Icat, a service unit of intel's online Services division, ceased its hosted e-commerce functions for small busi nesses last week, com pany officials said. The Seattle-based Online Services bought iCat two years ago but now plans to draw on...

Ariba buys Agile for $2.55 billion.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 5, 2001... E-commerce platform provider Ariba will extend its collaboration offerings with its $2.55 billion acquisition of Agile Software announced last week. Agile's software gives Ariba a tool for direct goods e-procurement. Ariba's strength has been...

Terra Lycos CEO Davis steps down.(Company Operations)(Brief Article)
February 5, 2001... Bob Davis last week stepped down as CEO of Terra Lycos, part of a high- level management shake-up at the company that was created three months ago with the merger of Terra Networks, a Spanish Internet service provider, and the portal Lycos....

Bush eyes tech woes - Online security problems prompt call for export council.(Industry Trend or Event)
February 5, 2001... As the communications industry weighed security problems early last week at the annual ComNet conference here, just a few blocks away advisers on President Bush's transition team were weighing the creation of a technology export council to...

DNS proves to be weak link in Internet chain.(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)
February 5, 2001... A series of high-profile events over the last few weeks has highlighted the fact that the DNS that is so critical to the Internet's operation is also one of its weakest links. Though many of the specific problems have only recently come to...

A lose-lose agreement.
February 5, 2001... The final chapter in the contentious court battle between Sun and Microsoft has a familiar and sorry ring to it: both sides claiming victory while enterprise developers are left to sift through the debris. n Late last month, the two technology...

New CPUs: Want vs. need.(Technology Information)
February 5, 2001... Reader says trick to bigger return on hardware upgrades is knowing who really needs them. CPU evolution I read with interest stan gibson's column about vanity driving upgrades (Just Managing, "Don't take your eyes off the basics,"...

Big leaps, not baby steps.
February 5, 2001... I'm suspicious of incremental strategies. they remind me of the visionary man-ape in "2001: A Space Odyssey," whose plan for reaching the moon began with finding a taller tree to climb. n What looks like the first, easiest step toward a goal...

A new career in IT? Maybe not.
February 5, 2001... I've often told people that if i ever had an "American Beauty" moment- that is, a midlife crisis like the kind Kevin Spacey had in his Oscar- winning movie, in which he ditches his dead-end job for one flipping burgers-I think I know what I'd...

Workplace access expected to double.(Industry Trend or Event)(Brief Article)
February 5, 2001... The number of employees with high-speed Internet access in the workplace is expected to more than double, from 24 million last year to 55 million by 2005, according to a report published last month by Jupiter Media Metrix Inc.'s Jupiter...

Residential access boomed in 2000.(Industry Trend or Event)(Brief Article)
February 5, 2001... At home just as at work, u.s. households last year got plugged into high-speed Internet access at truly broadbandlike rates: According to a report recently published by The Strategis Group Inc., of Washington, the number of homes with such...

Syndicate or die - E-businesses see new revenue from selling content.
February 5, 2001... It may be the winter of dot-com discontent, but you wouldn't know it from Salary.com Inc. Since last May, the year-old site has more than quadrupled its unique visitor count to 586,000 per month, vaulting Salary.com to No. 6 on Jupiter Media...

Privacy policies tighten up - Getting a jump on complying with new regulations.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 5, 2001... With new federal privacy regulations coming on faster than a bad head cold, officials at WellMed Inc. late last year asked legal advisers for a prognosis: Would the health care education Web site be subject to the new HIPAA privacy...

Stop using the boogeyman to sell security.
February 5, 2001... The boogeyman may be a childish cliche, but security professionals use him all the time in their attempts to convince corporate management to buy into whatever project they're advocating. The security industry has for years been in the business...

Product culls Web content.(Brief Article)
February 5, 2001... New software from Active Navigation Inc. promises to help businesses analyze Web content to identify the most important concepts, index the content and create links without HTML coding. Portal Maximizer 2, released last week by the San...

PeopleStreet's LiveCard in beta.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 5, 2001... Peoplestreet Inc. has launched a beta of its LiveCard online service, a contact management tool that allows users to create and exchange self- updating electronic business cards. LiveCard users can automatically notify personal and...

App speeds portal work.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 5, 2001... Onepage Inc., a provider of applications for aggregating Web content and data, has announced a content building application for enterprise portal software. OnePage Content Aggregator for Corporate Portals accelerates the content development...

CommerceRoute to unwrap appliance series.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 5, 2001... New kid on the block Plug and play is moving into the software integration sphere. CommerceRoute Inc. this week will introduce a family of appliances the company says will enable IT managers to integrate application data among internal...

Tacit updates expertise tool.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 5, 2001... Tacit Knowledge Systems Inc. is giving businesses a new way to track down expertise within the enterprise. The Palo Alto, Calif., company's KnowledgeMail Version 2.0 analyzes documents and e-mail to create private profiles of people within...

Managing project explosions - EPM helps spinoff tame whirlwind of new work.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 5, 2001... Life used to be so simple. Back when the telecommunications company now known as NeuStar Inc. was a business unit of Lockheed Martin Corp., it had a limited roster of responsibilities, including assigning area codes, central office codes and...

Health care group asks U.S. to reopen HIPAA.(Government Activity)
February 12, 2001... As confusion mounts for agencies and businesses required to comply with the security and privacy provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a key health care industry group is asking the federal government to revisit...

Free service not so free, Furball finds.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 12, 2001... The puss was perplexed as he wove through the lengthy online service agreement at Juno.com. According to the agreement, the company's "free" Internet service may have "costs" the user doesn't expect. In the obligations section of the...

Last word on dot-com flops.(Industry Trend or Event)(Column)
February 12, 2001... This is my last column that will mention failed dot-com companies. The rise of dot-coms was a topic trumpeted mercilessly by venture capitalists, stock analysts, forecasters and, yes, the press. All that backslapping led to a gigantic run-up in...

Bolstering the supply chain - Some software and service providers are finding new ways to jump B2B data integration hurdles.(Product Announcement)
February 12, 2001... Developers of business-to-business software have made big promises about how their products will improve the efficiency of customers' supply chains. But many of the companies that bought into B2B for big returns have been left to count only...

Intel pulls the plug on McKinley preview.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 12, 2001... Intel Corp.'s failure last week to go through with a scheduled presentation of a new 64-bit processor fueled speculation that the chip may endure delays. Aside from the withdrawal at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference here,...

Andersen tackles management services - Monthly subscription offering aimed at easing network monitoring; taps Entuity's Eye of the Storm.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 12, 2001... Arthur Andersen LLP last week quietly kicked off an MSP offering designed to let customers offload network monitoring and management responsibilities. The new monthly subscription service, based on Entuity Inc.'s Eye of the Storm network...

Sprint sets enterprise sights overseas.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 12, 2001... As the U.S. economy slows, and growth in residential long distance voice service diminishes, Sprint Corp. is searching far and wide for high-end customers, expecting to find them in the business capitals of Asia and Europe. For corporate...

Congress tackles Internet taxation.(Government Activity)(Brief Article)
February 12, 2001... Congress last week introduced bipartisan, bicameral legislation to permanently ban Internet access taxes and extend until 2006 the moratorium on "multiple and discriminatory" Internet taxes. Additional provisions in the Senate version would...

SEC investigating Lucent accounting.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 12, 2001... The federal government reportedly is investigating Lucent Technologies for possible improper accounting practices. The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into whether Lucent improperly booked $679 million in revenues in the...

Wireless LAN holes - WEP protocol hacked, solution nowhere in sight.(Technology Information)
February 12, 2001... The integrity of wireless LANs is under attack with the revelation of several holes in the WLAN security protocol. As a result, IT managers and security experts are scrambling to find a solution. Last week, three researchers-two from the...

Developers are wary of Web services.(Industry Trend or Event)(Brief Article)
February 12, 2001... As companies ranging from Sun Microsystems Inc. to Oracle Corp. jockey to lay claim as leader of the Web services arena, developers say significant obstacles must be cleared before the use of such services is widespread. Sun last week...

Microsoft fights resistance to XP.(Product Information)
February 12, 2001... Of the myriad challenges Microsoft Corp. will face over the next few months, none will be as pressing as persuading Windows and Office users to upgrade to the company's XP versions. The Redmond, Wash., software company will preview the...

Citrix forges alliances for thin strategy.
February 12, 2001... Citrix systems Inc., at once the champion and primary dependent of the still-unproven hosted applications concept, is advancing with major changes to its flagship product and a number of manufacturing deals with third- party hardware makers....

Small-business portals think big.(Industry Trend or Event)
February 12, 2001... In the first few years, the biggest challenge for any small business is simply to survive. The same can be said about the rapidly proliferating number of online portals that are competing to serve small businesses. There's little doubt...

Vertigo tool aimed at Palm OS developers.(Product Announcement)
February 12, 2001... Although debate rages on, longstanding problems with the development of hosted applications for Palm OS-based handhelds could be solved by an Extensible Markup Language middleware tool kit under development by Citrix Systems Inc. The...

Startups focus on dynamic content - FineGround, NetGratus tools work with existing caching technology to speed delivery of Web pages.(Product Announcement)
February 12, 2001... Two new companies set to launch this week will roll out products that speed the delivery of dynamic content Upstart FineGround Networks Inc.'s Condenser software, deployed between the content server and the firewall, eliminates redundant...

Taking bCentral for a walk - STR finds Microsoft's small-business portal for pet products is useful but lacks some features.(Product Information)
February 12, 2001... When STR Enterprises Inc. decided, about a year ago, to put its pet supply business online, it didn't go fishing for some hotshot e- commerce executive to run the show. Instead, the company of 100-plus employees, in Panama City, Fla., gave the...

Helping utilities keep tabs on meters - MuNet, Metering Technology and Coactive showcase energy monitoring products at DistribuTech.(Product Announcement)
February 12, 2001... New computer technology from several developers will let electric utilities gather information from remote locations more easily. MuNet Inc., Metering Technology Corp. and Coactive Networks last week presented products at the DistribuTech...

Software tracks performance.(Product Announcement)
February 12, 2001... Concord Communications Inc. took aim at problems plaguing service providers trying to roll out and scale DSL and IPVPN services with a new service provider version of its eHealth performance monitoring and reporting software. The eHealth...

Software aimed at purchasing.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 12, 2001... As companies see revenues begin to flatten, the demand for increased efficiencies will continue to grow. New software from Frictionless Commerce Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., will help companies save money in purchasing. Announced last...

Faster, Cheaper Services Eyed.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 12, 2001... Catena Networks launches architecture Aiding DSL rollouts Catena Networks Inc. launched a network access architecture designed to accelerate mass deployment of DSL services, making them available faster and less expensively. As costs fall...

What's up? Secure nets.(Product Information)(Brief Article)
February 12, 2001... Increasingly, managing networks means keeping them tamper-resistant as well. At right, Senior Analyst Cameron Sturdevant reviews WhatsUp Gold 6.0, which does both. Sturdevant says Ipswitch's updated network manager has long been a good...

Expanding data for mobile users.(Brief Article)(Evaluation)
February 12, 2001... Senior analyst Jason Brooks reviews FileMaker Mobile, an add-on for the company's FileMaker Pro 5 v3 database application that lets businesses make data more readily available to employees with Palm-based handheld devices. Although it...

As good as gold - Utility makes mapping midsize networks simpler.(Evaluation)
February 12, 2001... In version 6.0 of its whatsup Gold network mapping and discovery tool, Ipswitch Inc. has refined the security features of the software's Web- based maps and has significantly improved log message handling and complex map displays, making the...

F5 load balancer farms power on the Web.(Evaluation)
February 12, 2001... F5 Networks Inc.'s big-ip ha controller load balancer makes Web farms of heterogeneous commodity servers a viable alternative to expensive big-iron servers and hard-to-manage clusters. However, budget-minded companies must figure in a...

Wireless ads are an unnecessary evil.(Industry Trend or Event)
February 12, 2001... Oh, that wacky wireless world. wireless carriers can't figure out the right way to put ads on the wireless network without angering their customers. They should stop trying. n Last month, advertisers, carriers and service providers met to see...

Filemaker add-on totes data - Mobile version works with Palm devices, Windows PCs, Macs; requires FileMaker Pro 5 Version 3.(Evaluation)
February 12, 2001... Filemaker Inc.'s Filemaker Mobile, an add-on for that company's popular database application, enables businesses to extend the availability of their data smoothly to employees with Palm OS-based handheld devices. However, although...

Those rolling blackouts give us pause.(Product Information)
February 12, 2001... Until the recent energy crisis in california, no one really paid much attention to how much power was being used to keep racks full of Wintel servers running in server farms and data centers. We were more interested in packing as many...

Pings&Packets - Searching the industry for technical connections and returning analysis in byte-size packages.(News Briefs)
February 12, 2001... Loose lips sink sites Eweek labs' just-completed Openhack III test was a great exercise in low-level security hacking, but don't forget that good security is also about issues technology can't resolve. As a case in point, here is my...

Making a clearer case in data storage - Progress reported in industry's bid for commercial holographic storage.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 12, 2001... Sonia R. Lelii Holographic storage-the ability to store data three dimensionally for high-density capacity and speed-still has light-years to go before it is an off-the-shelf product. The technology, which promises to store billions of...

Heading off hack attacks - WatchGuard and Entercept provide IT with different approaches to shielding network servers.(Product Announcement)
February 12, 2001... While many security products such as intrusion detection and anti-virus technology concentrate on identifying and alerting administrators to attacks after they've taken place, several companies are beginning to focus on preventing the...