eWeek articles from February 2003

eWeek archives from February 2003

Partner Offerings Abound at Lotusphere.(HP StorageWorks Rapid Restore for Lotus Domino, PistolStar's Facet for Sametime and QuickPlace, Winchester Business Systems' ComPac GxP)
February 1, 2003... Plenty of news came from IBM Corp.'s Lotus Software division and IBM itself at the Lotusphere users conference this week in Orlando. But Lotus partners also rallied around the messaging platform with add-ons to the platform and applications...

USi to Launch Managed Payroll Service.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Usinternetworking Inc. on Monday will launch a new managed service around payroll and payroll tax processing, an offering which grew out of its just-completed merger with Interpath Communications Inc. USi will make the case that it has...

Offshore Outsourcing: Should You be Worried Yet?
February 1, 2003... Nowadays, IT professionals who are not angry about offshore outsourcing of IT work are likely a) still employed and b) not scared enough about the imminent loss of their jobs. Judging by data presented at a conference on business process...

Borland Catches .Net.
February 3, 2003... Borland Software Corp.'s deal to license Microsoft Corp.'s .Net Framework Software Development Kit, announced last week, underscores Microsoft's efforts to further distribute its development technology in its battle with Java. In fact,...

IBM Cements Ties With Lotus.
February 3, 2003... IBM's previously stated strategy to bring its Lotus Software division into closer step with the rest of its Software Group took shape at last week's Lotusphere user conference in Orlando, Fla. Several products announced at the show brought...

IBM Looks Beyond J2EE.
February 3, 2003... IBM Corp. says the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) is not enough to support its on-demand computing strategy, so the company's looking to implement a services-oriented architecture through its WebSphere application server. Scott Hebner,...

Security App Modeled After Immune System.(Sana Security's Primary Response network security software)(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... The security industry has always looked to the field of medicine for metaphors and ways of thinking about network protection. Now, Sana Security Inc., a San Mateo, Calif., start-up, is extending that relationship to another level with the...

Cyber Attacks Decline; Vulnerabilities Surge.
February 3, 2003... The number of attacks on Internet-connected machines decreased over the past six months while the number of software vulnerabilities continued to skyrocket, according to a new report. In the last half of 2002, the number of attacks per week...

Ericsson Posts Loss for Fourth Quarter.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson on Monday reported a significant loss for the fourth quarter of 2002 and warned that the market for mobile systems may decline by 10 percent in 2003, but officials still said the company plans to make a profit before...

SuSE Linux Adds Support for Itanium 2 Processors.
February 3, 2003... The battle for corporate customers is heating up among Linux distributors, with SuSE Linux AG announcing this week that its Linux Enterprise Server 8.0 product is now available for Intel Corp.'s Itanium 2 processors. Company officials are...

CA Packs 'Value' Into DB2 Tools.(Computer Associates International's CA Value Pack for DB2 )
February 3, 2003... Computer Associates International Inc. is consolidating a line of database utilities and bundling it for free with an upgrade to its Unicenter Database Management for DB2 for z/OS and OS/390. CA Value Pack for DB2, which is being announced...

The Buzz: February 3, 2003.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... Security Czar Plans to Retire Richard Clarke, the president's top information security adviser, plans to retire within the next month, leaving a power vacuum at the top of the government's security structure at a crucial point in the...

EMC Rolls Out Symmetrix 6.0.(Direct Matrix)
February 3, 2003... NEW YORK CITY--EMC Corp. announced the long-awaited Symmetrix 6.0 high-end storage Monday, called DMX, featuring new any-to-any data paths between its front-end, cache, and back-end connections. Direct Matrix, an upgrade from the current...

eBay Launches Business Marketplace.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... One of the world's best-known consumer e-commerce Web sites, eBay Inc., last week launched a business-to-business site. The San Jose, Calif., company introduced its eBay Business marketplace, which gathers all its business-related listings...

HP Moves Intelligence, Control to Network Edge.
February 3, 2003... Hewlett-Packard Co. last week launched a network planning and design architecture with which it seeks to rewrite the rules of campus network design. While campus LANs today are designed with all or most of the network intelligence in the...

NGS Software to Cease All Future Work With CERT.(Next Generation Security Software )
February 3, 2003... A prominent security vendor that is well-known for finding dangerous vulnerabilities in software said last week that it will no longer work with the CERT Coordination Center after becoming disillusioned with the organization's policy of giving...

System Boosts WLAN Security.(ReefEdge Inc.'s Connect System 3.1 )
February 3, 2003... ReefEdge Inc.'s Connect System 3.1 is a comprehensive WLAN security package that addresses 802.11 vulnerabilities with virtual private network technology. ReefEdge Connect System, similar in architecture to systems from SMC Networks Inc....

Sun ONE Has ID Management Advantage.
February 3, 2003... Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Sun ONE Identity Server 6.0 is the first commercial product to include support for the new Liberty Alliance specification for ID management, meaning that the server may have a leg up on the competition when it comes to...

B2B Survivor Speaks Out.(Global Exchange Services' President, CEO Harvey Seegers)(Interview)
February 3, 2003... When General Electric Co. last fall announced plans to sell its Global Exchange Services business to technology buyout fund Francisco Partners for $800 million in cash and notes, pundits said it marked the official collapse of the hype-inflated...

Supreme Court Rules in Favor of NextWave.
February 3, 2003... After a lengthy and contentious legal battle, the Federal Communications Commission lost its bid to repossess spectrum licenses assigned to NextWave Telecom Inc. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that bankruptcy law protects the bankrupt...

Vixel Enhances SAN Reliability in SOC 320 Chip.
February 3, 2003... Storage component maker Vixel Corp. announced a new version of its InSpeed SOC switch-on-a-chip product last week, promising lower prices and better SAN reliability for customers of midrange storage arrays. The device is a...

Ethernet Gearing Up.(ARC Advisory Group report)
February 3, 2003... If there's one place in the enterprise where Ethernet has failed to gain ubiquity, it's on the factory floor. But that is changing rapidly, according to a study released last week. ARC Advisory Group Inc. found in its study, "Ethernet at...

Speedy Response.(demand chain management software)
February 3, 2003... A relatively new class of software is being targeted at manufacturers that want to use their business-to-business Web sites to go beyond simply attracting customers and proactively serve them. Demand chain management software from companies...

IBM Bolsters Grid Computing Line.
February 3, 2003... IBM, seeking to push grid computing beyond its scientific and technical roots and into the mainstream of commercial business enterprises, last week announced its grid computing vision and 10 new solutions for five key markets. Grid...

Under Expanded Alliance, Siebel's UAN to Run on IBM's WebSphere.
February 3, 2003... IBM and Siebel Systems Inc. last week announced that Siebel will standardize its UAN application integration initiative on IBM's WebSphere middleware. Siebel, of San Mateo, Calif., also committed to natively support Java 2 Enterprise...

HP Retains Its Global Server Sales Crown.
February 3, 2003... Hewlett-Packard Co., fresh from reports that it regained the spot as the top PC seller last year, retained its position as the No. 1 seller of servers globally, according to preliminary numbers released late last month by Gartner Dataquest. ...

IBM's ThinkPad R40 Supports Multiple WLAN Technologies.
February 3, 2003... IBM last week introduced a ThinkPad notebook that takes advantage of multiple WLAN technologies. The ThinkPad R40 comes in several versions, one of which is the first IBM notebook to integrate 802.11b and 802.11a wireless LAN technology....

Punch Upgrades Net-Based File-Sharing Service.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... Punch Networks Corp. this week will begin shipping Version 4.0 of WebGroups, an Internet-based file-sharing and collaboration service. The upgrade extends the service's file collaboration capabilities by adding a new access option for...

WAN Device Aimed at Small Offices.(Peribit Networks' SR-20 sequence reducer)
February 3, 2003... Peribit Networks Inc. late last month launched a low-end option in its line of WAN bandwidth-saving devices and added a centralized configuration and management tool for the devices. The startup, which applied DNA research techniques to...

Sybase, BearingPoint Unite in Software, Services Alliance.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... Sybase Inc. is teaming with BearingPoint Inc. to provide new integration software for customer relationship management and health care industry compliance. The alliance, announced last week, leverages Sybase's infrastructure and...

Business Objects, NetIQ Target Analytics.(Business Objects' Dashboard Manager, NetIQ's WebTrends Reporting Series 6.0)
February 3, 2003... New offerings from business objects S.A. and NetIQ Corp. will give enterprises a more complete picture of business data, both companies said. Business Objects last week announced Dashboard Manager, a product for developing and...

Brain-Dump Site Owner Sentenced to Prison Time.(Keppel, Robert)
February 3, 2003... A federal court on Friday sentenced former brain-dump site owner Robert Keppel to 12 months and one day in prison, as well as ordering him to pay $500,000 in restitution to Microsoft Corp. Keppel, owner of the defunct brain dump sites...

Integration Bargain.(Harvard Business School Cyberposium)(Industry Overview)
February 3, 2003... Web services, until now a technological concept looking for a business application, may have found one: integration. At the Harvard Business School Cyberposium here last month, leading vendors and a key customer organization said the primary...

Linux Report: The Year in Review.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... By 2007, we said one year ago, "No one will be fired for recommending Linux." Shortening our own timeline by four years, we suggest that an IT buyer might already be fired today for failing to consider Linux. That's a small step but one of Neil...

Wireless LAN Lockdown.(Industry Overview)
February 3, 2003... The drastic drop in the cost of WLAN (wireless LAN) gear, along with the great extent to which 802.11b networking is now being built into notebook and handheld computers, virtually guarantees that wireless networking will secure a spot on your...

Logitech Camera Faces the Facts.(Hardware Review)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 3, 2003... Logitech cameras with digital zoom have gained the ability to track human faces and keep them centered on the screen, a trick usually reserved for much more expensive cameras. You can see the results of some of my tests with these cameras...

BEA Homes In on Departmental Computing.(BEA WebLogic Express, BEA WebLogic Server Workgroup Edition)
February 3, 2003... BEA Systems Inc. on Tuesday will announce two new versions of its application server to focus on the departmental computing market. Frazier Miller, BEA's director of product strategy, said the company is releasing a set of products as well...

Standards Will Fill Holes in WEP Authentication and Encryption.
February 3, 2003... The security built into Wi-Fi is better than no security at all--but not by much. Standards bodies are at work, though, on a framework that will free IT managers from some of the heavy lifting they have to do to get WLANs up to enterprise code....

Microsoft Moves on Ruling in Sun Case.
February 3, 2003... Microsoft Corp. has started to comply with last month's preliminary injunction ordering it to include Sun Microsystems' latest Java Runtime Environment (JRE) in certain current and future versions of Windows XP and Internet Explorer. On...

Hospital Cures WLAN Insecurity.
February 3, 2003... After a decade of receiving accolades for their cutting-edge use of information technologies, IT managers at St. Vincent's Hospital, in Birmingham, Ala., weren't about to let concerns over Wi-Fi (802.11b) security dampen their ambitious plans...

Clearswift Offers Anti-Spam Updates.(SpamActive)(Software Review)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 3, 2003... SpamActive, Clearswift's latest salvo in the anti-spam campaign, worked as expected in filtering unsolicited e-mail at our server and should help Clearswift catch up to anti-spam service provider Brightmail. Users of Clearswift's...

Movie Maker 2: Beyond Home Use.(free video creation software in Microsoft Windows XP)(Software Review)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 3, 2003... Movie Maker 2, the free video creation software now included with Windows XP, is a big step up from the original version. Movie Maker 2 made it easy for us to take video, still images and audio and create professional-looking (or in my case,...

Building Apps on Liberty Spec.(Software Review)(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... That Sun Open Net Environment, or Sun ONE, identity server supports the Liberty Alliance specification for unique ID handling probably doesn't do much good if one doesn't know how to use the Liberty Alliance. Fortunately, there is a simple way...

Top 10 Web App Vulnerabilities.
February 3, 2003... The Open Web Application Security Project, a collaborative security education site, has released a list of the top 10 vulnerabilities in Web applications. The list, at www.owasp.org, is clearly written and full of real problems--with a variety...

Opera Stands at the Head of Browser Class.(Opera Software's Opera 7.0)(Software Review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 3, 2003... Whether Opera is now the best browser available is mainly a matter of personal preference. When it comes to features and capability, the new Opera 7 clearly deserves to stand at the top, right next to Mozilla. Opera Software ASA has long...

Apple Takes on PowerPoint.(Apple Computer's Keynote presentation graphics software)(Software Review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 3, 2003... Users of Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh systems may treasure their Start Menu-less desktops, but they've still had to turn to Microsoft Corp. for productivity software. Apple's trying to change that, at least in part, with the release last...

LANDesk 6.62 a Top-Notch Tool.(from LANDesk Software)(Software Review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 3, 2003... LANDesk 6.62 is among the first desktop management systems to be agnostic about operating system image source files, using its own or competitors' images to prepare PCs for deployment. This is the first edition of the suite released by...

Storage Unit Delivers High Performance.(Texas Memory Systems' RamSan-220)(Hardware Review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 3, 2003... Texas Memory Systems Inc.'s RamSan-220 solid-state unit provides a powerful storage punch for IT managers in performance-sensitive environments. Although the price of storage systems in general has come down (on a price-to-capacity ratio),...

Lessons From IBM $5B Deal, SQL Worm.
February 3, 2003... Outsourcing is a great idea--if you use it to improve your company's technology use rather than for simple slash-and-cut accounting. When J.P. Morgan Chase and IBM announced a $5 billion outsourcing deal, we were interested in the story behind...

Lotus, AOL Working on IM Client Integration.
February 3, 2003... IBM's Lotus Software division and America Online Inc. announced Monday an agreement to conduct pilot testing of more extensive interoperability between the companies' respective instant messaging clients. Lotus's Sametime IM client and...

Billions, Billions of Linux Bucks Served?
February 3, 2003... It's next to impossible to disprove or prove anything ibm says. the company keeps its numbers way too private to make any sense to ordinary people or most financial analysts. It just feels contrived that IBM is claiming revenue of $1 billion on...

Tying Up Loose Ends.(Column)
February 3, 2003... Since I spent two columns bemoaning the absence of "Knight Rider" from the small screen, first in criticism of broadcast TV's use of free spectrum, and second while questioning the approach of content owners toward file sharing, I feel...

Copyright Is Only a 'Right' for a Reason.(Editorial)(Column)
February 3, 2003... When legislators make foolish laws, or courts enforce laws foolishly, they teach people to justify doing whatever they want. In particular, when teen-agers spend their formative years acquiring contempt for laws that are made by the ignorant at...

Katt Scratches the Acquisition Fever.(Column)
February 3, 2003... With the holiday shopping season far behind and the avalanche of bills now straining the average consumer's wallet, the rumor mill is churning furiously with tales of potential acquisitions in the tech industry. Spencer heard BMC may be...

TI Unveils New Wireless Chips.(OMAP1610, 1611 and 1612 chipsets)(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... Texas Instruments Inc. on Monday announced plans for several new chipsets designed to run applications on wireless phones and PDAs as much as eight times faster than current processors, while greatly reducing standby current. The chipsets...

Think Globally, But Act Locally.(SQL slammer worm)(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... With the effects of the SQL slammer worm still being felt last week and details of its origin still being unearthed, the fact that some of the code seems to have originated with the Honker Union of China raises questions of international...

Proxim Enters Wireless Switch Business.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... Wireless LAN equipment maker Proxim Corp. on Monday announced its entry into the wireless switch business. The Sunnyvale, Calif., company later this year will start shipping Maestro, a platform that centralizes the intelligence of a...

NYCE Taps Stratus' ftServer Platform.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... Electronic payment company NYCE Corp., citing increasing membership and demand for real-time information, is migrating its InfoManager workstation application from Hewlett-Packard Co.'s ProLiant servers to Stratus Technologies Inc.'s ftServer...

Microsoft Warns SEC of Open-Source Threat.
February 3, 2003... Microsoft Corp. may in the future be forced to lower its software prices as a result of the growth of open source, the company cautioned in its latest filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In its latest 10-Q quarterly filing,...

Former NIPC Director Joins CSC.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... Ronald Dick, the former director of the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center, joined Computer Sciences Corp. Monday, eliminating himself from consideration for the top security job at the Department of Homeland Security. Dick...

BI Vendors Flourish Despite Downturn.(MicroStrategy Inc., Actuate Corp., Business Objects SA, Crystal Decisions )
February 3, 2003... Business intelligence software vendors have weathered the economic slowdown better than most of the software industry as evidenced by the latest round of earnings news in the space. MicroStrategy Inc., Actuate Corp., Business Objects SA and...

Tools, Trials and Tailoring Enhance Open-Source Options.(Letter to the Editor)(Editorial)
February 3, 2003... It's especially pointless to argue about a glass being half empty, or half full, if the man behind the bar is still pouring. That's my message to those who wrote to ask about the jarring juxtaposition of last week's letter, which praised the...

Cyber-Security Plan Counts on Private Sector's Input.(National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace )
February 4, 2003... The forthcoming final version of the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace will call for a comprehensive cybersecurity response system that will depend heavily on contributions from the private sector. The system, as described in the most...

Wily Gets $15 Million in Venture Backing.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2003... Java-based application management provider Wily Technology Inc. Monday announced a new $15 million round of venture backing, building on its sales momentum. Officials at the Burlingame, Calif., company claimed that its sales tripled last...

Microsoft Won't Ship Java--Yet.
February 4, 2003... Microsoft Corp. will not have to include Sun Microsystems Inc.'s latest Java Runtime Environment (JRE) in Windows and Internet Explorer until the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reviewed the case. The U.S. Appeals Court on Monday...

AMD Releases Enhanced Server Chip.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2003... Advanced Micro Devices Inc. on Tuesday rolled out its most powerful high-end server and workstation chip to date, the Athlon MP 2600+. The chip, aimed at such environments as high-performance computing sites and research institutions, comes...

J2EE to Support WS-I's Basic Profile.
February 4, 2003... Sun Microsystems Inc. Tuesday announced that Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Version 1.4 will support the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) organization's Basic Profile specification. Ralph Galantine, Sun's group manager for Java Web...

Oracle Sets Up Supplier Advisory Board.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2003... Oracle Corp. on Tuesday announced the formation of its Supplier Advisory Board, a body created to help improve supplier relationship management processes in line with evolving business requirements. Oracle, of Redwood Shores, Calif., is...

iRise Tool Eases Web App Development.(iRise's Application Simulator)
February 4, 2003... iRise Inc. Tuesday announced its Application Simulator, a tool that brings simulation to the process of creating Web applications--enabling even non-technical users to define, test and collaborate with technical users in developing...

Sun to Debut 12-Way Unix Server.(Sun Microsystems' Sun Fire 1280)(Brief Article)
February 4, 2003... Sun Microsystems Inc. is planning to roll out a 12-processor Unix server, the Sun Fire v1280, powered by the company's 64-bit 900MHz UltraSparc III chip. The mid-range server, which would come in four- to 12-way configurations, could debut...

Apple Refreshes Its iMac Line.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2003... A week after enhancing specs and lowering prices on its professional Power Mac G4 desktop systems, Apple Computer Inc. on Tuesday continued tuning up its current Mac lines with new features and pricing for its consumer desktops. The...

Comdex Producer Faces Competition.(Key 3Media Group challenged by Jupitermedia )
February 4, 2003... Spending on information technology may be down, but competition to lure exhibitors and IT managers to IT trade shows is way up. Jupitermedia Corp. and renowned conventioneer Sheldon Adelson each have plans to launch new trade shows that...

Cisco Beats Earnings Expectations.(second fiscal quarter of 2003)
February 4, 2003... Cisco Systems Inc. Tuesday reported mixed results for its second fiscal quarter of 2003, which ended Jan. 25. The San Jose, Calif., networking behemoth beat Wall Street earnings expectations by a penny, reporting 14 cents a share in...

DataMirror Relaunches Software for iSeries.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2003... A Toronto-based company this week relaunched its high-availability software for small and mid-sized businesses using IBM's eServer iSeries systems. DataMirror's Simple HA (high availability) for $60K program includes the company's iCluster...

IBM Releases Xperanto Beta.
February 4, 2003... IBM Tuesday rolled out a beta version of the first product to come out of its years-long Xperanto data integration research project. Consisting of two products, the DB2 Information Integrator and the DB2 Information Integrator for Content,...

Feds Push for Secure Systems.
February 4, 2003... As part of its effort to encourage the development and use of more secure software, the federal government is quietly moving toward buying such programs in an expedited way, outside of the normal procurement process. Software vendors say...

UBL Set to Shake Up Electronic Commerce.(Jon Bosak on Universal Business Language)(Interview)
February 4, 2003... Since the advent of electronic commerce, standards bodies have been in search of a lingua franca for business communication. Unfortunately, early efforts such as EDI (electronic data interchange) had a high barrier to entry in terms of cost and...

Dell, HP Workstations to Boast New Xeon Chip.(Brief Article)
February 5, 2003... Dell Computer Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. have both begun advertising workstations featuring Intel Corp.'s yet-to-be-released 3.06GHz Xeon chip. Dell, of Round Rock, Texas, is offering on its Web site its dual-processor Precision 450 and...

Retirement in Sight for SAP's Plattner.
February 5, 2003... Hasso Plattner, SAP AG's co-chairman and CEO, will announce his retirement in the next year or two, according to a spokeswoman for the company. Known as SAP's 'technology guru,' Plattner co-founded the company 31 years ago. It is...

Groove, Ipswitch Debut New Collaboration Offerings.
February 5, 2003... Groove Networks Inc. and Ipswitch Inc. are both announcing new products in different areas of the collaboration space this week. Groove will announce Wednesday the latest version of its flagship workgroup collaboration platform and a new...

Consolidate This.(EMC's Symmetrix DMX Series)
February 5, 2003... Is bigger still better? If you listen to vendors, the answer is a resounding yes, but bigger boxes means bigger margins for them, so it's difficult to take what they say at face value. This week, the "big" news in the server and storage...

NGS Researchers to Continue Sharing Code.(Next Generation Security Software Ltd. )
February 5, 2003... The brief crisis of conscience that led researchers at Next Generation Security Software Ltd. to reconsider whether to release exploit code with their vulnerability reports has passed. David Litchfield, the company's co-founder, on...

Microsoft Asks Court to Dismiss Sendo Suit.(Brief Article)
February 5, 2003... Software giant Microsoft Corp. this week requested that a federal court dismiss a lawsuit by British startup Sendo Ltd. that claimed Microsoft purposefully undermined the small cell phone company. Filing a response to the U.S. District...

Windows Server 2003 Gets a Few Tweaks.(from Microsoft )
February 5, 2003... Microsoft Corp., trying to make up for the disappointing uptake of Windows Server 2000 and that software's headache-inducing Active Directory installation process, is expected to announce today tweaks to technology, programs and services for...