eWeek articles from January 2003

eWeek archives from January 2003

Kerio Enhances Its E-Mail Server.(Kerio Technologies Kerio MailServer 5.5 )(Brief Article)
January 3, 2003... Kerio Technologies Inc. on Thursday launched the latest release of its e-mail server software, Kerio MailServer 5.5 with support for contact management and Microsoft Corp. Active Directory integration chief among the new features. Kerio...

Easing the Move to IP Networks.(Empirix PacketSphere 2.1 Storage Testing Platform)(Brief Article)
January 3, 2003... Storage administrators considering a move to IP networks will get a helping hand this year from Empirix Inc., with the company's new PacketSphere 2.1 Storage Testing Platform. PacketSphere's purpose is to simulate IP networks before...

Tape: Bloodied but not Beaten.(tape drives)(Column)
January 3, 2003... Is there a more interesting way to start out the New Year than ramping up for a tape drive test-drive? I can think of a couple dozen other things I could do with my lab time, but the fact of the matter is tape is still an important...

Holiday E-Commerce Up 40 Percent.(BizRate.com report)(Brief Article)
January 3, 2003... The nation's economic woes had little impact on the holiday shopping season on the Internet, as online retailers enjoyed a 40 percent sales boost from the same period a year ago, according to data released late Thursday by BizRate.com. Los...

Yaha Worm Wreaks Confusion.
January 3, 2003... A lack of consensus on the way that new viruses are named led to confusion among anti-virus companies this week and may have resulted in some users being unsure whether they were protected against the latest variant of the Yaha worm. ...

IT Salaries Recovering, Survey Says.(by Janco Associates)(Industry Overview)
January 3, 2003... The IT job market may finally have bottomed out, according to salary trend research recently released by Janco Associates, Inc., a Park City, Utah, consulting company. According to the Janco survey of 204 large companies, total...

Making the Web More Accessible.(the World Wide Web Consortium issues the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines )
January 5, 2003... The end of the year, which typically signals slowdown in the technology industry, instead saw a flurry of activity in the Web applications and Web services standards space. Closing out the year, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) last...

The Blue Horizon.(IBM)
January 6, 2003... As IBM prepares to embark on the second year of the Sam Palmisano era, it looks like the time for a clear, compelling vision may finally have arrived. After a flat year in 2002, IBM needs something. Although it can count its blessings--the...

Seeking Server Advantage.(William Zeitler, senior vice president, group executive, of IBM Server Group)(Interview)
January 6, 2003... William Zeitler, a 33-year IBM veteran, is senior vice president, group executive, of IBM Server Group, which includes the Armonk, N.Y., company's flagship mainframe, Unix and Intel Corp.-based products as well as storage. Zeitler's task: to...

New Security Rules to Raise Windows.(Prescriptive Architectural Guidance)
January 6, 2003... One year after embarking on an ambitious plan to improve the security of its products, Microsoft Corp. is moving into the second phase of its Trustworthy Computing initiative and crafting several new projects to help secure applications all the...

GPS Services in Works for Cell Phones.(Televigation TeleNav GPS for Nextel)
January 6, 2003... Nextel Communications Inc. is working with a GPS company to bring driving directions and tracking services to its mobile phones. Location-based service company Televigation Inc. this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas will...

Transmeta Goes Inside.(Crusoe SE microprocessor)
January 6, 2003... Semiconductor upstart Transmeta Corp., known for its Crusoe line of low-power, low-heat processors, is expanding its product stable with a suite of chips for x86-compatible embedded applications. To help the move, the company is lining up an...

Microsoft Boosts Focus on XML-Based Services.
January 6, 2003... Microsoft Corp. is seeking to make XML-based Web services easier to develop with the delivery of several new tools and, ultimately, a new XML-based language optimized to handle data rather than objects. The Redmond, Wash., company last...

PreCache Unveils NetInjector Platform.
January 6, 2003... PreCache Inc. announced Friday a NetInjector software platform that fits into the network middleware category and is geared toward helping companies offer computing capabilities to a variety of techno gadgets--from cell phones and hand-helds to...

SCO Linux 4 Is Rough Around the Edges but Shows Promise.(Software Review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 6, 2003... As much as Linux is pitted against Windows in the popular imagination, Linux has enjoyed perhaps more success supplanting Unix in the enterprise. The SCO Group's SCO Linux 4 (brand-new, despite its enumeration) can provide companies with an...

Snap Preps NAS/SAN Combo.(Snap Appliance)
January 6, 2003... Complexity and high prices have long combined to keep midsize companies from adopting NAS and SAN technologies. But Snap Appliance Inc., the recent spinoff of Quantum Corp., hopes to change that. Snap is planning to launch two hardware...

Jury Out on Java Ruling.
January 6, 2003... It experts were as split over the possible impact of Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java victory in federal court as were Sun and Microsoft Corp. Sun received a preliminary injunction from U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz, in Baltimore, who...

Small-Firm ERP Suite Ready for Mac OS X.(PowerEasy ERP)
January 6, 2003... Software developer startup PowerEasy Corp. is readying an ERP suite for the Macintosh operating system. PowerEasy ERP 1.0 on Mac OS X, which will be introduced at Macworld Expo in San Francisco this week, provides enterprise resource...

Microsoft Ships Second Titanium Beta.
January 6, 2003... Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of Titanium Beta 2 and officially named the next-generation e-mail server as Exchange Server 2003. The full release of Exchange Server 2003 and the Outlook 11 client that it works in tandem...

ATG Restructures, Cuts Work Force by 20 Percent.(Art Technology Group)(Brief Article)
January 6, 2003... Art Technology Group Inc., in a move to reach profitability, announced a corporate restructuring Monday that will reduce its work force by 20 percent. The Cambridge, Mass., developer of e-commerce, content management and online customer...

IGS Lands $5B Contract.(IBM Global Services, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.)(Brief Article)
January 6, 2003... In what is traditionally a quiet period between major holidays, IBM Global Services last week announced a whopper of an outsourcing contract with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. valued at more than $5 billion. The seven-year contract is "the...

.Net Products, From Server to Titanium, Due This Year.
January 6, 2003... Microsoft Corp. plans an all-out product blitz this year, providing little respite to enterprises and consumers weary of relatively rapid software upgrade cycles and buggy code. Officials from the Redmond, Wash., company said recently that...

4D, FMS Development Tools Aid Mac OS X, Access Shops.(4D 4th Dimension 2003, FMS Total Access Startup)
January 6, 2003... New tools from 4D Inc. and FMS Inc., respectively, will aid developers who use Apple Computer Inc.'s Mac OS X and Microsoft Corp.'s Access extensively. 4D this week at Macworld Expo in San Francisco will unveil 4th Dimension 2003 for Mac...

The Buzz: January 6, 2003.(Brief Article)
January 6, 2003... Manhattan Buys Logistics Apps Manhattan associates is beefing up its supply chain execution tools with assets of Logistics.com that it acquired from Internet Capital Group last week for about $20 million. Logistics.com makes logistics...

Road to Open Source.(Rhode Island)
January 6, 2003... Whether it's determining what constitutes a milk quality grade or finding out when you can dig for clams in Narragansett Bay, the citizens of Rhode Island are some of the first in the nation who can find their government-issued dictates on...

Inquisite Simplifies Web Survey Creation for Nontechnical Users.(Inquisite 5.0)
January 6, 2003... Quick, efficient customer feedback is more important than ever, and with Inquisite's updated Web survey software, it's easier than ever, users say. Inquisite, a division of Catapult Systems Inc., in Austin, Texas, will launch this month...

Beating Feds to the Punch.
January 6, 2003... In most security circles, the federal government does not exactly enjoy what one would call a stellar reputation. Years of missteps and wrongheaded attempts to rein in innovation, not to mention leaky security in its own networks, has done...

Specs Upgrade Safety of Web Services.(WS-Security )
January 6, 2003... A group of Web services heavyweights has announced a new set of security and policy specifications based on the Web Services-Security road map developed last April to help enterprises share information securely. The first in the set of...

Sun Opens Grid Integration Code.(Grid Engine Portal)
January 6, 2003... Sun Microsystems Inc. is giving its grid portal technology to the open-source community. The Santa Clara, Calif., company has been beta testing its Grid Engine Portal portlet technology, which integrates Sun ONE (Open Net Environment) Grid...

IBM Caches Up.(WebSphere Application Server 5.0)(Software Review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 6, 2003... IBM's WebSphere Application Server 5.0 provides close to the latest in Java technologies, along with Web services, performance and manageability improvements that make the server attractive as a key enterprise infrastructure component. ...

Gateway Names New Head of Operations.(Joe Formichelli)
January 6, 2003... Gateway Inc., the hard-hit PC maker that has tried various strategies to stem the tide of poor quarterly financial reports, is starting the new year with a new executive vice president of operations. Joe Formichelli, a 30-year industry...

Software Business Driving on Demand.(IBM)
January 6, 2003... How important is software to IBM? Consider that in 2001, while software accounted for about 15 percent of the company's revenue, it was responsible for about one-third of the vendor's gross profits. But even that does not describe the...

Hardware Is Still Part of the Mix.(IBM)
January 6, 2003... It's an inescapable fact: hardware is no longer the unquestioned core of IBM's business. And yet, IBM executives say, under new Chairman Sam Palmisano, the company will not only remain in the hardware business but will also continue to invest...

Global Services Plays Pivotal Role.(IBM Global Services)
January 6, 2003... After a recent speech at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, in Cambridge, Mass., in which he recounted his decision in the early '90s to change IBM "from a manufacturer to an integrator," outgoing Chairman Lou Gerstner was asked...

S1 System Automates Order Processing.(S1 Trade Finance Purchase Order Processing System)(Brief Article)
January 6, 2003... Financial service software provider S1 Corp. announced Monday a new system to help financial institutions automate their order processing. The S1 Trade Finance Purchase Order Processing System--or POPS--is jointly developed with Bank of...

Linux Looms for Microsoft.(Meta Group report)
January 6, 2003... Microsoft Corp. must learn to cooperate with Linux and open-source developers to ensure better interoperability, rather than porting its products to Linux, enterprise users say. Their comments follow the release of a Client Advisory from...

Carriers Work to Plug Loopholes.
January 6, 2003... Wireless carriers are backpedaling on unlimited service offerings as smart customers figure out how to patch their phones to their laptops to take undue advantage of the all-you-can-eat data deals. To get customers turned on to its...

Morphing MicronPC.(Interview)
January 6, 2003... MicronPC LLC's announcement in mid-December to change its name to MPC Computers by June is the latest step in the company's long journey back to its roots as a bona fide PC maker. After parent company Micron Electronics Inc. divested itself of...

The To-Do List for This Year.
January 6, 2003... Those of us who use to-do lists to prioritize business tasks know there is no better way to stay focused on what's important and keep moving ahead. As you sit down to your desk to begin this year, here are the items you should put on your...

Focus Shifts to Simpler and Cheaper App Servers.(Industry Overview)
January 6, 2003... The Web application server market--plump with a history of high-margin Internet deals--is retrenching to focus on a quicker return on the dollar and lower life-cycle operating costs. One immediate change is a huge drop in purchase prices....

Where are the App Server Benchmarks?
January 6, 2003... Standard benchmarks are one important way customers make buying decisions, and the J2EE market is an ideal level playing field for this effort. After all, where features are comparable, we need ways to discover what the best implementations...

Sun Application Server Reborn.
January 6, 2003... At this time of year, thoughts turn to ringing out the old and ringing in the new. That's definitely the case for Sun Microsystems Inc., which tossed the code of its Application Server 6.5 and based the new Sun ONE Application Server 7.0 on the...

Users Shrug Off Sun's Move to WebLogic.
January 6, 2003... Sun Microsystems Inc. is adamant that its decision to bundle BEA Systems Inc.'s BEA WebLogic application server with Solaris 9 in no way signals a lack of commitment to its Sun ONE Application Server. Some analysts and IT managers seem to...

Iomega Boosts NAS Capacity.(Hardware Review)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 6, 2003... Iomega's latest P415 series, released late last year, has the highest-capacity NAS devices Iomega offers. I tested the $6,000 Windows-powered P415m, which comes with 720GB of storage in a 1U (1.75-inch) rack-mount form factor with four...

Microsoft Offers Security Guide.(Brief Article)
January 6, 2003... Microsoft has published a 20-page white paper that details how the company secured its portion of eWeek's OpenHack 4 test. The paper describes how encryption keys were stored securely, Internet Information Services configuration and...

IBM Bids a Vague Adieu to OS/2.(Brief Article)
January 6, 2003... It's time to say goodbye. As of March 12, IBM will cease to offer the OS/2 Operating System. The tea leaves have been there to read since the middle of last year, when IBM's "OS/2 Strategy for 2002" document contained a key piece of advice...

Fearless Predictions for the New Year.
January 6, 2003... It's been years since I've written a predictions column, and looking back at my efforts, I can see why I stopped. Unfortunately, this is my one chance this year to look into my clouded crystal ball. So, here are my predictions, more or less...

Can Palmisano's Plan Keep IBM in the Lead?
January 6, 2003... As Jeff Moad writes in this week's cover story on IBM's strategy (Page 25), the real challenge for the company is to maintain technology leadership while navigating its migration up the business-process-consulting food chain. In our special...

Macromedia Lives Up to Its (Old) Billing.(Macromedia Contribute)(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 6, 2003... Several years ago, Macromedia Inc. representatives came to what was then PC Week Labs to pitch a product called Dreamweaver, which they said would make it easy for anyone to create Web content without having to learn HTML. Over the years, that...

Director Keeps Its Place at Top.(Macromedia Inc.'s venerable Director )
January 6, 2003... Although much of the focus has switched to Java, Flash and other newer technologies, Macromedia Inc.'s venerable Director is still one of the top platforms for developing interactive multimedia applications. eWeek Labs found its latest...

Santa Spat Reveals Important Points.(NASA and NORAD)
January 6, 2003... NASA and NORAD, the space folks and the air defense folks, respectively, pretended (I think) to have a bit of a turf war during Christmas week. After years of issuing an annual press release concerning its tracking of Santa's 'round-the-world...

L1s Slip Past H-1B Curbs.
January 6, 2003... Dec. 20 was supposed to be Michael Emmons' D-Day, the day he was to lose his contractor position. It would have been, had Emmons not quit his post at Siemens AG's Siemens Information and Communication Networks division, in Lake Mary, Fla.,...

Covering IBM --Both of Them.(Brief Article)
January 6, 2003... In reporting this week's cover story, Jeff Moad and I spent several weeks interviewing IBM execs, customers and analysts. This digging unearthed two IBMs. There is the IBM that has "gotten it" with regard to open systems, multivendor...

Micro Musings 0n High-Tech Executives.(CFO Mike Luetkemeyer in charge )(Column)
January 6, 2003... For Micromuse, last month's Friday the 13th may have indeed seemed to be an unlucky day as the company announced that its chairman and CEO, Greg Brown, will step down to take a job at Motorola as president and CEO of its Commercial, Government...

Exchange Titanium Beta 2 Shows Small Changes Can Be a Good Thing.(Microsoft Exchange Titanium Beta 2)
January 6, 2003... Microsoft Exchange Titanium Beta 2, the first public beta release of Microsoft Corp.'s enterprise messaging platform, shows incremental improvements over Exchange 2000. Unlike its predecessor, Exchange 2000, which necessitated sweeping...

Merrill Lynch Inks Deal With VMware.
January 6, 2003... Merrill Lynch & Co., a leading Wall Street brokerage and financial management company in New York, is deploying "virtual machine" software from VMware Inc. throughout its production environments and on more than 27,000 desktops. Merrill...

Flaw Found in Ethernet Device Drivers.(IEEE's Ethernet standard)
January 6, 2003... Security researchers have discovered a serious vulnerability that may be present in many Ethernet device drivers that is causing the devices to broadcast sensitive information over networks. According to the IEEE's Ethernet standard,...

Intel Promotes Vice Presidents.(Brief Article)
January 6, 2003... Intel Corp. on Monday promoted three vice presidents and elected four others. The board of directors for the Santa Clara, Calif., chip maker promoted Robert Baker, Patrick Gelsinger and Patricia Murray from corporate vice president to...

Sun Wins One Against Microsoft--And Why That's a Bad Thing.(Editorial)
January 6, 2003... U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz handed Sun a win, Microsoft a setback, and all of us something new (or old) to talk about when he recently granted Sun the preliminary injunction it had sought in its private antitrust lawsuit against...

Applications Developers Get New Tool.(Shunra Software's Shunra/Status)
January 6, 2003... Little-known software testing provider Shunra Software Ltd. later this month will introduce a tool for applications developers intended to help them understand how their applications will work across real-world WANs before they are deployed....

Speaking of Supercomputing.(Industry Overview)
January 6, 2003... It's been argued that the leading edge of processor power has gotten too far ahead of the usability curve of enterprise software; that tomorrow's most powerful machines will therefore be greeted with indifference, rather than being hailed as...

SGI Scales Up Linux Servers.(SGI Altix 3300 and SGI Altix 3700)
January 7, 2003... SGI wants to combine the flexibility of standards-based environments with the performance of supercomputing. The Mountain View, Calif., company--formerly known as Silicon Graphics Inc.--on Tuesday is rolling out the SGI Altix 3000 family of...

Tool Tests DB2 Security.(Application Security's AppDetective for IBM DB2)
January 7, 2003... Application Security Inc. on Monday rolled out an IBM DB2 version of its AppDetective application security vulnerability scanner. The scanning and penetration-testing software performs network-based penetration tests and security audits....

IBM to Outsource Server Manufacturing.(eServer xSeries systems and IntelliStation workstations)
January 7, 2003... IBM, which a year ago this month announced it was outsourcing the manufacturing of its desktop PCs in a bid to reduce costs, said on Tuesday it is going to do the same thing with the bulk of its eServer xSeries systems and IntelliStation...

IBM to Resell New Cisco Switches.(Brief Article)
January 7, 2003... IBM will be the first storage maker to resell Cisco Systems Inc.'s new storage switches, officials said today. Later this quarter, IBM will resell but not co-brand Cisco's MDS 9509 224-port director and MDS 9216 16-port Fibre Channel...

ColdFusion Moves to J2EE.(Macromedia's application development software)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2003... Macromedia Inc. Tuesday announced the availability of its ColdFusion MX for J2EE Application Servers product line as well as new support for the Mac OS X platform. The San Francisco company delivered versions of ColdFusion MX for BEA...

Apple Unveils New Laptops, Mac Browser.
January 7, 2003... SAN FRANCISCO--After promising "two Macworlds' worth of stuff," Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs kicked off this week's Macworld Expo/San Francisco Tuesday by introducing 17- and 12-inch versions of its professional PowerBook portable, a new...

Mir3 to Enhance Notification Technology.(INlogicPRO)
January 7, 2003... Mir3 Inc., which last month launched INlogicNOW, a free version of its two-way notification service, this quarter will introduce a fuller-featured version for the enterprise. INlogicPRO enables corporate managers to keep in touch with...

Microsoft Security: What's Next?(a talk with Scott Charney, chief security strategist)(Interview)
January 7, 2003... Scott Charney has been on the hot seat ever since he joined Microsoft Corp. last year as the software giant's chief security strategist. He arrived in Redmond, Wash., four months after Bill Gates sent out his famous memo outlining the company's...

Macworld Crowds Hail New PowerBooks.
January 7, 2003... SAN FRANCISCO--The enthusiastic reception afforded Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs' Macworld Expo surprise keynote announcement of dramatic new PowerBook portables echoed across the show floor at Moscone Center here. Mac enthusiasts of every...

dbaDirect Portal Gets New Interface.
January 7, 2003... dbaDirect Inc. has put a new, interactive, graphical interface on its clientDirect Portal, a hosted Web-based user information portal that provides customers with a view of their database environment. clientDirect features a homepage that...

BMC Releases New Management Consoles.(Patrol 7.0)
January 7, 2003... BMC Software Inc. Tuesday announced it has delivered the remaining components of its Patrol 7 modular architecture for enterprise management with the release of a new Windows-based and Web-based console interface and distribution server. ...

Metrowerks Offers $99 Tools for Mac OS X.(CodeWarrior Development Studio, Mac OS X Edition)(Brief Article)
January 7, 2003... Metrowerks Corp. Tuesday announced a new low-priced version of its application development tools for the Mac OS X platform. At the MacWorld Expo show in San Francisco, Metrowerks announced its CodeWarrior Development Studio, Mac OS X...

Duo Brings Salesforce.com CRM to PDAs.(Brief Article)
January 8, 2003... Hosted CRM service provider Salesforce.com Inc. and mobile enterprise software developer AvantGo Inc. announced a partnership Tuesday to bring disconnected access to Salesforce.com applications from PDA devices. The companies will jointly...

Intel Names New Mobile Technology Centrino.(Brief Article)
January 8, 2003... Intel Corp. is naming its new family of mobile computing technology Centrino. Included in the Centrino group will be the Santa Clara, Calif., company's next-generation mobile processor, code-named Banias, as well as related chip sets and...

HP Unwraps Pair of Presario Notebooks.(Compaq Presario 2100 and 2500 )(Brief Article)
January 8, 2003... Hewlett Packard Co. on Wednesday introduced two new notebook PCs, the Compaq Presario 2100 and 2500 series. The 2100 series PC is 1.5 inches thick and weighs as little as 6.7 pounds, depending on configuration. It can include a screen size...

Gateway Issues Fourth-Quarter Warning.(Brief Article)
January 8, 2003... PC maker Gateway Inc. announced this week that it will post an even greater fourth-quarter loss than previously expected, due in large part to disappointing holiday sales. Officials with the Poway, Calif., company, which previously had...

Viva Steve Jobs!(Apple Computer Inc.)
January 8, 2003... SAN FRANCISCO--I have a shameful confession to make: Don't tell my wife, but I have a crush on Steve Jobs. I'd like to think my history in the Mac community has immunized me from the aura surrounding Apple Computer's charismatic CEO: I...

Tool Kit Combines Grid Technology, Web Services.
January 8, 2003... The next generation of the open-source tool kit for grid technology, which will bring support for Web services, will be released in an alpha version next week. The alpha version of Globus Toolkit 3.0 (GT3) is slated for release Jan. 13 at...

IBM, AMD Team on Chip Technologies.
January 8, 2003... IBM and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. will jointly develop chip technologies, the two companies announced Wednesday. The new processes will be aimed at improving chip performance and reducing power consumption, a key concern as more and more...

WPA Should Wipe Out Some WEP Worries.
January 8, 2003... The beginning of the new year brings much-needed new security technology for the Wireless LAN industry. New products and software enhancements using WPA (WiFi Protected Access) will be announced this quarter, which will address the security...

Avril Lavigne Virus Hits the Web.(Brief Article)
January 8, 2003... It's been a big week for teen pop singer Avril Lavigne; first she garnered five Grammy nominations and now she has a virus named after her. A new worm--going by various names, including Avril, Lirva and Naith--is infecting machines in the...

IT Resists Mandatory Cyber-Security.
January 8, 2003... As the Bush Administration prepares to release the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, the IT industry continues to resist efforts to include technology mandates or regulations. Not all members of the nation's critical infrastructure...

Migrating Unstructured Data to XML.(Brief Article)
January 8, 2003... CambridgeDocs, which facilitates XML-based content integration, announced Wednesday a new tool for migrating unstructured content from legacy sources. The xDoc Converter migrates unstructured data from the likes of Microsoft Word, HTML and...