eWeek articles from June 2004

eWeek archives from June 2004

ServerWorks Joins Opteron Camp.
June 1, 2004... Broadcom's ServerWorks division said Monday that the company is designing chipsets for Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron microprocessor, an important endorsement for AMD's design. To date, Broadcom Corp.'s ServerWorks has focused exclusively...

AMD Updates Athlon 64 Line with New Socket.
June 1, 2004... Advanced Micro Devices Inc. on Tuesday released the first 64-bit Athlon processors to use its "Socket 939" interface. Offering gains in HyperTransport performance, the updated chip comes with a new chipset and a substantial price delta over...

Sony Dumps Clie: Winners and Losers.
June 1, 2004... So Sony's bagging the popular Clie line in the United States. At first glance, it seems like a terrible setback for Sony's small computer plans, and equally bad for PalmSource. But a closer look reveals that Sony's not getting out of the...

Sony Halts U.S. Clie Production.
June 1, 2004... In a prepared statement released on Tuesday, Sony announced it will halt production of all Clies in the U.S. for the remainder of this year. The company says it is taking this time to reevaluate the PDA market. "Sony continues to view...

Computex Vendors Push IP Telephony with VOIP Gateways.
June 1, 2004... TAIPEI, Taiwan--The networking companies at the Computex show here are not touting IP phones extensively this year, but IP telephony is getting a bit of attention. In the IP phone's place are FXO VOIP gateways, both wired and wireless,...

Sun, Fujitsu to Merge SPARC Development Efforts.
June 1, 2004... Sun Microsystems Inc. and Fujitsu Ltd. will jointly develop and market a line of SPARC/Solaris systems that will hit the market by the middle of 2006. The new product line--called Advanced Product Line, or APL--will eventually replace...

War Driving Misses Part of WLAN Security Picture.
June 1, 2004... On a slow news day, you can always go "war driving." That's what Mike Outmesguine did in an 800-mile drive down the California coastline in an Associated Press story this week. About 40 percent of the networks he detected from the laptop on the...

Hacking Sparks Need for Complex Passwords.
June 1, 2004... As more Web sites demand passwords, scammers are getting more clever about stealing them. Hence the need for such "passwords-plus" systems. To access her bank account online, Marie Jubran opens a Web browser and types in her Swedish...

Analysts: Sony's Clie Pullback Jibes with Forecasts.
June 1, 2004... Industry analysts said they weren't surprised by Sony's announcement Tuesday that it will halt production of all Clie handhelds in the United States for the rest of this year, citing increasing competition that traditional handheld devices face...

SCO, BayStar Bury the Hatchet.
June 1, 2004... In a surprise announcement, The SCO Group Inc. on Tuesday announced that it has entered into an agreement with BayStar Capital II LP to settle their financial squabbles. The move appears to give a green light to SCO's continuing battle for Unix...

CA Stirs up MySQL's World.
June 1, 2004... Imagine you're a little open-source database company from Sweden named MySQL. Things are going pretty good for you. Instead of competing directly with the RDBMS overlords, any of whom could squash you like a bug in terms of product features or...

Symantec Chief Makes $14 Million.
June 1, 2004... Symantec Chairman and Chief Executive John Thompson gained more than $14 million from exercising options and selling shares this month. The executive sold the shares as part of automatic sales plans, according to Securities and Exchange...

Federal Agency Faulted for Weak Security.
June 1, 2004... Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) suffers from network security holes that make it vulnerable to saboteurs, according to a report by the General Accounting Office. The GAO said access control lists on the FDIC's network could be...

Intel, AMD Roll Out New Chips for Desktops and Notebooks.
June 1, 2004... Rival chip makers Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. are both rolling out new processors aimed at the desktop and notebook space. Intel on Tuesday expanded its line of mobile processors, including the second generation of its...

Opera CEO: Browser Ready for Its Next Act.
June 1, 2004... For browser maker Opera Software ASA, 2004 has been a busy year. The Norwegian company went public on the Oslo Stock Exchange, synced up its Web browsers with its Version 7.50 release and made more inroads onto mobile devices. Click here...

When Good Microsoft Stories Go Bad.
June 1, 2004... Not once, but twice in one week did reporters take Microsoft tidbits and run amok with them. First was the by-now well-publicized gaffe that led to a number of reports claiming Microsoft was about to deliver a $50 iPod killer. If you read...

The Moral Superiority of Software as a Service.
June 1, 2004... Customers sign up, may or may not pay a customization or setup fee, and then pay for the software on a monthly, quarterly or yearly basis--much as they pay for any other business service. Pricing is often variable based on how much service...

Sun Updates Jave Enterprise, Desktop Systems.
June 1, 2004... Sun Microsystems Inc. will make a number of product announcements at its quarterly Network Computing Webcast in California and its SunNetwork Conference 2004 in Shanghai this week--not the least of these being the second version of its Java...

Microsoft Announces New CRM Feature Pack.
June 1, 2004... One week after Microsoft announced the Microsoft Office Integration Bridge Framework, promising better integration between Office and other applications, particularly Microsoft CRM, the company on Tuesday announced an update to MS CRM designed...

Immunix Revamps to Secure Linux.
June 1, 2004... Debating the relative levels of security in Linux and Windows is a favorite parlor game among open-source advocates, software executives and security experts. Each side bolsters its argument with numbers showing that there are more...

ZoneAlarm Security Suite 5.
June 1, 2004... Company: Zone Labs Inc., www.zonelabs.com Price: $69.95 direct (includes one year of updates, support, and service); $24.95 a year thereafter. Pros: Enhances existing firewall, outbound program control, e-mail, and...

Motorola, Avis Debut Mobile Phone Direction Service.
June 1, 2004... Simply input your location information into the Avis Assist handset, or call an Avis Advisor with your desired destination address. The server uses GPS location from the phone as the starting address, calculates the route and downloads it. The...

SOYO Aerielink Wireless Flash Combo.
June 1, 2004... If your key ring is becoming cluttered with USB devices--say, a different flash drive for every feature--consider a multifunction device. The SOYO Aerielink Wireless Flash Combo (model AWUA1211) is an 802.11b wireless network adapter combined...

Feature-Rich Flash Drive Roundup.
June 1, 2004... You asked. We listened. Readers clamored for additional flash drive reviews, and since there seems to be no end to the innovation from manufacturers, we present our second roundup of flash drives that do more than just store files. In our first...

Utility Computing: Back to the Future.
June 1, 2004... Promise The ROI for the utility computing model is a no-brainer. But not even the vendors pushing the concept think it's ready for prime time. IBM Corp. calls it "on demand computing." Hewlett-Packard Co. says that it goes hand in...

IBM to Pit Its App Lifecycle Management Software Against Microsoft's 'Burton'.
June 2, 2004... IBM will use its worldwide developer conference next month to show how its application lifecycle management software stacks up against Microsoft Corp.'s recently announced Visual Studio 2005 Team System, a new version of the Microsoft tool set...

Microsoft Speeds BI with Two New Accelerators.
June 2, 2004... Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday announced two new business intelligence accelerators geared toward easing access to data and speeding scorecard creation. The first, Microsoft Office Business Scorecards Accelerator, is a Web-based application...

WiMax Is Coming, and It's Going to Be Big.
June 2, 2004... WiMax, an evolving standard for point-to-multipoint wireless networking, is poised to do for the last mile of broadband what Wi-Fi has done for the last 100 feet of networking. Unlike other wireless technology standards, WiMax (Worldwide...

Google Overhauls Enterprise Search Box.
June 2, 2004... Google Inc. has overhauled its enterprise search appliance by doubling its size and increasing its capacity and query performance. The Mountain View, Calif., search company on Wednesday released its first major update of the Google Search...

Storage Company Touts NAS Offerings at Computex.
June 2, 2004... Taipei, TAIWAN--During a discussion at the Computex show here, Xtore Extreme Storage General Manager Dennis Lin said that the company's network-attached storage products have far outsold its direct-attached storage and storage area network...

Equant Slashes Off-Net Calling Rates, Boosts Integration.
June 2, 2004... Four years into its IP telecom offering, Equant, an IP VPN data networking subsidiary of France Telecom, is lowering its off-net international calling rates and expanding the range of IP PBXs with which it can integrate. Customer sites...

Microsoft IMF Cans Spam at the Server.
June 2, 2004... The best thing about Microsoft's new Intelligent Message Filtering add-on for Exchange Server isn't that it's free--it's that it really works. Of course, having the ultimate "nice price" makes choosing IMF almost a no-brainer. I have been...

Tecom Eyes SMBs with 'Convergence' Phone System.
June 2, 2004... TAIPEI, Taiwan--In the world of the telephone PBX, not much has changed over the past few years, with the exception of the occasional IP PBX offerings, until the Computex 2004 show here. Tecom Co. Ltd., a Taiwan-based OEM/ODM networking and...

Linux Drivers for Intel's Centrino Due This Year.
June 2, 2004... Linux drivers for Intel's mobile Centrino chipset are due in the second half of 2004, Intel officials said Wednesday. Intel Corp. posted the version 0.1 "pre-beta" Linux driver code for its 802.11b/g Wi-Fi on SourceForge last Friday,...

Microsoft to Publicly Preview New DRM Technology.
June 2, 2004... Microsoft Corp. is set to offer for download on Wednesday a "public preview" beta release of its Windows Media Player 10 technology. The biggest enhancement will be the new DRM (digital-rights-management) technology, code-named "Janus," that...

Court: Lindows Free to Sell Its OS in Benelux.
June 2, 2004... Lindows' fortunes in its trademark battle with Microsoft took a new turn May 27 in Europe, when the Amsterdam District Court denied Microsoft's request for an injunction to keep Lindows from selling its products in the region. The Dutch...

Readers Weigh in on Tablet PC's Future.
June 2, 2004... My latest Microsoft Watch column, "Trouble in Tablet Land?" created a lot of trouble of its own. While few readers disagreed that Microsoft needs to improve its Tablet marketing, more than a few erroneously deduced that we had pronounced the...

AltiGen Releases AltiWare 5.0 for IP PBX.
June 2, 2004... AltiGen Communications, an early and dominant name in PC-based PBX alternatives, has announced version 5 of AltiWare, the underlying software that runs its AltiServ IP PBX. Fremont, Calif.-based AltiGen Communications Inc. caught onto the...

Is Anti-Spam Microsoft's Next Target Industry?
June 2, 2004... At the risk of seeming ungrateful, I have to wonder whether Microsoft's free anti-spam add-on for Exchange servers is really such a good deal. Sure, it is for me, right now, but isn't this the sort of "good deal" that got Microsoft into...

Give Yahoo a Break on This Adware Controversy.
June 2, 2004... Spyware is definitely evil stuff. Most of the people who write it should be in jail. And lucky for us, there are lots of great products, some of them free, for finding spyware that may have made its way onto your system. "Adware" is...

Sun Working Out Open-Source Solaris Details.
June 3, 2004... Sun Microsystems Inc. this week formally committed itself to releasing Solaris operating system code as open source, but no final decisions have been made on the specific details. Sources close to the company, however, said Sun executives...

Microsoft Appeal of EU Antitrust Decision Expected.
June 3, 2004... BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP)--Microsoft Corp. is expected to file its promised appeal of the European Union's landmark antitrust decision next week, sources close to the case said Wednesday. The U.S. software giant plans to ask the European Court...

McCaw Launches Broadband Wireless Service.
June 3, 2004... Wireless industry pioneer Craig McCaw this week launched a new company aimed at providing fixed wireless service nationwide. Clearwire Inc. will provide non-line-of-sight broadband wireless service that will compete directly against cable...

What the World Needs Now: An Intel-Based, Linux-Powered Mac?
June 3, 2004... I hate to be late to the party, but the recent discussion between Jim Louderback and Rob Enderle about Apple makes some good points and misses others. To read their views, click here [link omitted]. For example, arguing over whether...

HP Rolls Out Enterprise Printers.
June 3, 2004... As part of its push to propel the color imaging and printing market, Hewlett-Packard Co. on Wednesday introduced two new lines of laser color printers aimed at businesses. For small and midsize businesses, the Palo Alto, Calif., company...

Linux Still Needs Drivers.
June 3, 2004... I think of myself as a Linux expert. I was a Unix administrator before Linux existed, and these days I run Linux on four servers and four desktops in my home office. I also know my way around hardware, and I'm something of a network maven....

Network Associates Tackles Anti-Virus Limitations.
June 3, 2004... Since its inception, the one big drawback to anti-virus software has been its reactive nature. Until a vendor sees at least one copy of a new virus, it doesn't know what to look for and therefore can't build a new signature to stop the new...

Local Silicon Designers Getting into Wi-Fi Gear.
June 3, 2004... I sure hope Bill Carney likes the weather in Taiwan. No, he's not here in Taipei with me. Not far as I know, anyway. But he gets my congratulations: The Wi-Fi Alliance couldn't easily have picked a better new chairman--if it had to lose...

Microsoft to Close Solomon Product Headquarters.
June 3, 2004... On Thursday, Microsoft Corp. notified 177 employees working out of its Findlay, Ohio, offices that the company had decided to close its facilities there. Findlay is home primarily to Microsoft Business Solutions' Solomon team, but also...

Sun's Long Road to Open-Source Solaris.
June 3, 2004... Sun Microsystems Inc.'s announcement on Wednesday that it will open-source the Solaris operating system is the latest push in an effort that began over four years ago. Sun President and Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Schwartz confirmed...

Oracle, Apple Plug 10g on Mac OS X.
June 3, 2004... Executives at Oracle and Apple are taking to the highway in a series of international road shows to introduce Oracle Database 10g on Mac OS X Server, which is Apple's Unix-based server operating system. When Apple Computer Inc. announced...

Oracle, DOJ Lay Out Strategies in Trial Briefs.
June 3, 2004... As Oracle and the U.S. Department of Justice prepare to face off in a San Francisco federal courtroom Monday, each side is honing its strategy. Earlier this week, Oracle Corp., of Redwood Shores, Calif., and the Department of Justice (DOJ)...

'Toxic Dust' on Computers Tied to Disease.
June 3, 2004... SAN FRANCISCO--"Toxic dust" found on computer processors and monitors contains chemicals linked to reproductive and neurological disorders, according to a new study by several environmental groups. The survey, released Thursday by Silicon...

T-Mobile to Provide Wi-Fi at Hyatt Hotels.
June 3, 2004... CHICAGO--High-speed wireless Internet access is coming to nearly all of Hyatt Corp.'s 200-plus hotels and resorts by 2005, under a deal announced Thursday by Hyatt Hotels & Resorts and T-Mobile USA Inc. The technology, known as Wi-Fi,...

Seagate to Eliminate 2,900 Jobs.
June 3, 2004... SAN JOSE, Calif.--Seagate Technology will reduce its work force by 7 percent, or about 2,900 jobs, as the maker of computer hard drives struggles to cut costs as prices fall in the competitive industry. The company, which is incorporated in...

As E-Mail Hassles Pile Up, RSS Is the Elephant in the Room.
June 3, 2004... According to a Gartner statistic cited at this week's INBOX conference in San Jose, Calif., 75 percent of all knowledge assets exist in e-mail. E-mail is a corporate asset, goes the logic. And a corporate liability, too, as Microsoft...

Sun, Microsoft Take Different Tacks on File Systems.
June 3, 2004... Both Microsoft Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. recently offered more information on file system technologies that will underlie their next-generation operating systems. To small surprise, the Dynamic File System and WinFS take different tacks...

Intel Says It's on Track with Revenue.
June 3, 2004... The second quarter is unfolding pretty much as Intel expected. Speaking to analysts during a midquarter financial update Thursday, Andy Bryant, Intel Corp.'s chief financial officer, said the giant chipmaker expects revenue to come in...

Microsoft Reorganizes to Bolster SMB Strategy.
June 3, 2004... Microsoft Corp. on Thursday announce a fairly significant organizational change to its business software groups. Execs said the moves were made in order to better focus the company on its small and mid-sized business applications strategy and...

Transmeta Unveils Smaller Efficeon Chip.
June 3, 2004... Transmeta is coming out with a new version of its Efficeon processor later this summer that--at 48 percent smaller than the current chip--is targeted at smaller form factors, embedded devices and thin, light notebooks. Transmeta Corp....

Financial Penalties Seen as Key to Slamming Spam.
June 3, 2004... SAN JOSE, Calif.--Fighting spam takes more than filtering, authenticating or passing new laws. It requires hitting spammers where it hurts--in their pocketbooks, panelists said during an e-mail conference here Thursday. Speaking at the...

Visual FoxPro 'Europa' Lives.
June 4, 2004... Microsoft on Thursday posted for download a public beta of the next version of its Visual FoxPro development tool. The public beta of Visual FoxPro 9.0, code-named "Europa," is available on the Microsoft.com download site. The new...

Kumar Leaves CA.
June 4, 2004... Just weeks after stepping down as the company's CEO, Sanjay Kumar announced Friday that he is leaving Computer Associates International Inc. altogether. In a statement announcing the resignation, Kumar said that he felt that CA could not...

Oracle to Suck up to Microsoft in Court.
June 4, 2004... Oracle will do something completely out of character when it meets the Justice Department in court next week to defend its hostile takeover of PeopleSoft. Namely, it will paint Microsoft as a champion of competition and a welcome competitor in...

Clearwire to Offer Voice, Data Over Wireless Broadband.
June 4, 2004... Cellular phone industry pioneer Craig McCaw announced this week that he and other telecom veterans are launching a new fixed wireless broadband venture called Clearwire that will offer voice-over-IP services as well as data access. ...

VoIP: The Right Call.
June 4, 2004... After years of hype and unfulfilled promises, IP telephony-- also known as Voice over IP (VoIP)--has finally evolved as a true option for small and medium-size businesses. The technology of sending voice packets over data pipes has been refined...

Microsoft's Charney Talks Up Security.
June 4, 2004... Some people have tried to position security efforts as potentially beneficial to the bottom line, but Microsoft Chief Security Officer Scott Charney this week admitted he was cynical. "Security is a cost center. If there were no attacks, no...

GAO: Government Agencies Need Help With Patch Management.
June 4, 2004... A new General Accounting Office report recommends centralized patch management services to help protect government systems against software vulnerabilities. The GAO study of 24 executive branch agencies found that although they are building...

Quicker Embrace of GSM Would Help Stateside Wi-Fi.
June 4, 2004... We seem to need pager alerts these days to keep up with competition in the Wi-Fi hot-spot space. Yesterday, just a week after Wayport announced a retail partnering program that challenged T-Mobile USA's dominance among retail hot spots,...

Microsoft Nabs Patent on Double-Clicking.
June 4, 2004... Microsoft has been granted a U.S. patent on using short, long or double clicks on the same button to launch different applications--though only on "limited resource computing devices" such as PDAs or mobile phones. Now, U.S. companies that...

Oracle-Linked Industry Group Says DOJ Misses Mark in Case.
June 4, 2004... As it heads to court next week to try to stop Oracle's hostile takeover of PeopleSoft, the U.S. Department of Justice lacks a "basic understanding" of what's happening in the market for HRM and FMS software, an industry lobbying group charged...

Oracle, DOJ in Courtroom Countdown.
June 4, 2004... Almost a year to the day after Oracle Corp. made its hostile bid to acquire rival PeopleSoft Inc. and consolidate the second- and third-largest enterprise application companies, the saga is moving into what likely will be its final stage. ...

LCD Screens Go After High-Performance Applications.
June 4, 2004... Disclaimer: Hewlett-Packard Co. is a client of the Enderle Group. Up until recently, large LCD screens were mostly for multimedia applications, and they had more to do with consumers watching TV than they did with actually doing real work....

Microsoft's Charm Offensive: From 'Big Brother' to 'Big Buddy'?
June 4, 2004... What more could Microsoft ask for? It has market share, cash reserves and brand recognition that most competitors could only dream of. But one prize still eludes the Redmond software giant: better customer-satisfaction ratings. To tighten...

Preview: Windows Media Player Version 10.
June 4, 2004... p>Here are the highlights. Microsoft has moved major function buttons from the left toolbar to the top. With the menu bar not showing, the shape of the interface is now square and more pleasing to the eye, though it can get top-heavy on...

Salesforce.com Says CEO Interview Delayed IPO.
June 4, 2004... Hosted CRM service provider Salesforce.com acknowledged in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Friday that it is in a "cooling off" period after a possible violation of the SEC-mandated quiet period before the company's planned IPO. ...

Mitel Networks Showcases Intelligent Integration.
June 4, 2004... I met Mitel Networks officials at a West Side hotel in New York last year to see demonstrations of the company's new 3300 Integrated Communications Platform (ICP), Your Assistant desktop application, collaboration software and IP phone sets....

Kumar Pays Price for CA's Dismal Integrity.
June 4, 2004... Another big shoe dropped in the continuing investigation of accounting irregularities at Computer Associates when former CEO Sanjay Kumar disclosed June 4 that he is leaving the company. It's another indication that more weighty shoes are...

Intel, IBM Make Workstation Push with Linux Laptop.
June 7, 2004... Disclaimer: Intel, AMD, Dell, Microsoft and HP are all clients of mine. For years, true workstation users--folks tied at the hip to Unix--really didn't have an acceptable mobile solution. They had the option of buying huge, luggable...

Customers Question Microsoft's ERP Intentions.
June 7, 2004... Following reports that Microsoft delivered a sworn statement to the Department of Justice (DOJ) earlier this year claiming it had no intentions to enter the enterprise ERP market for at least two years, some company watchers were skeptical. But...

Dell, NEC Extend Itanium-Powered Server Lines.
June 7, 2004... Dell and NEC Solutions are extending their server lines with new and upcoming systems powered by Intel's 64-bit Itanium 2 processors. Dell Inc., of Round Rock, Texas, on Monday rolled out the PowerEdge 7250, a four-way system targeting an...

EU Confident Microsoft Appeal of Landmark Antitrust Decision Will Fail.
June 7, 2004... BRUSSELS, Belgium--The European Union's antitrust chief expressed confidence Monday that his landmark decision against Microsoft Corp. would withstand a court challenge due this week, even as his U.S. counterpart renewed criticism of the order....

Microsoft, SAP Discussed Potential Merger.
June 7, 2004... It's not just about Oracle Corp. and PeopleSoft Inc. anymore. During Oracle's trial with the U.S Department of Justice to defend its hostile, $7.7 billion takeover bid for PeopleSoft, Oracle is expected to disclose merger talks between...

IronMail Upgrade Helps Block Spam.
June 7, 2004... CipherTrust Inc. on Monday plans to announce the latest version of its IronMail secure e-mail appliance, which will include the company's own "reputation service" to help stop spam and other unwanted messages from reaching end users' mailboxes....