eWeek articles from June 2005

eWeek archives from June 2005

Pay for Performance Not Ready for Prime Time.
June 1, 2005... The premise of pay for performance is hard to disagree with: Doctors and institutions that provide better care should earn more money. This premise, however, is hampered by two facts: No one knows the best way to implement such a program, and...

Judge Allows Enron Broadband Trial to Continue.(Kevin Howard, Michael Krautz, case)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2005... HOUSTON (Reuters)--A federal judge on Wednesday allowed a majority of the case to continue against five former Enron Corp. Internet executives, ruling that prosecutors have done enough to prove their case at trial. U.S. District Judge...

Two Enterprises Share Linux Success Stories.(Red Hat Summit, KeyWest Bank)
June 1, 2005... NEW ORLEANS--In the past, IT managers looking to implement Linux-based servers faced significant barriers to adoption: misperceptions about open-source systems and a general lack of awareness. However, an increasing number of enterprise...

Siebel Needs to Fortify Growth, Not Employee Benefits.
June 1, 2005... It's hard to focus on building a business when you are constantly hearing rumors that your company's future as an independent concern may be measured in a few months or even weeks. That's the situation Siebel Systems, a producer of CRM...

Samsung Launches MIMO Notebook.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2005... Samsung said Wednesday that it will ship a line of notebooks containing MIMO antennas, the technology bridging today's Wi-Fi and tomorrow's 802.11n specification. The new X20 and X25 notebooks integrate Airgo Networks' MIMO technology--an...

Security Patch Watch: Apple, Nortel, Symantec.
June 1, 2005... Network security vendor Symantec has released a patch to fix a security flaw in its enterprise-facing Brightmail AntiSpam software. In a published advisory, Symantec Corp. warned that the flaw can be exploited by malicious hackers to bypass...

Cleveland to Unwire Building Inspectors.(Bureau of Construction Codes and Fire Safety, Accela Software)
June 1, 2005... Next month, in a move designed to reduce the time involved in issuing building permits and inspections from days to minutes, building inspectors in Cleveland will begin filing inspection reports wirelessly from the field. The project is...

IBM to Offer More Scalable X3 Server.
June 1, 2005... IBM is rolling out the latest server based on its X3 architecture, a system that can scale from four to 32 processors. The x460, announced Wednesday, is powered by Intel Corp.'s Xeon processors that can run both 32- and 64-bit applications....

Wi-Fi Misses Out on Red Carpet Walk.(Column)
June 1, 2005... CANNES, France--You'd think a man walking down the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival here, wearing his best tux, would have something more on his mind than Wi-Fi. Well, no. It's been only four months since I was whining about the lack of...

Microsoft Submits Antitrust Proposal to EU.
June 1, 2005... BRUSSELS (Reuters)-- Antitrust authorities are sifting through Microsoft Corp.'s final proposal to comply with a European Commission decision, which the software giant submitted near a midnight deadline, a Commission spokesman said on...

Yahoo, Cisco Team on E-Mail Authentication.
June 1, 2005... SAN JOSE, Calif.--Yahoo and Cisco have joined forces to promote a cryptographic approach for authenticating e-mail in the battle against fraud and spam. The two companies announced Wednesday that they are combining their two separate...

eBay to Buy Shopping.com.
June 1, 2005... SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)-- Online auctioneer eBay Inc. said on Wednesday it agreed to buy Shopping.com, which provides online comparison shopping and consumer reviews, for about $620 million in cash. The move by Ebay would strengthen its...

Netscape 8 May Give Green Light to Spyware Sites.
June 1, 2005... A new version of the Netscape Web browser is being criticized by spyware experts for failing to notify Web surfers when they're visiting Web sites that distribute the noxious monitoring programs. Netscape 8's Trust Rating System, which...

Microsoft Adds XML File Formats to Office 12.
June 2, 2005... Microsoft continues to slowly trickle out bits of information about its Office 12 suite. On Thursday the company will announce that it plans to make XML-based file formats the default in the version of Office due to ship in the latter half of...

Storage Digest: News from Sony, Exabyte, Broadcom, Iomega.
June 2, 2005... Both Sony Electronics and Exabyte announce powerful tape libraries focusing on capacity and speed, while new solutions from Iomega and Broadcom allow organizations to scale as more capacity and functionality are required. *Sony Introduces...

Can You See Me Now? More Video Chats Hit the Market.(Brief Article)
June 2, 2005... Feel upset when the new millennium rolled around with nary a video phone or flying car in sight? It seems the future has finally been realized as companies roll out video-based communications faster than the black market can sell Louis...

Relax, They're Just New Microsoft File Formats.(Microsoft Office 97)
June 2, 2005... There are three things in life that should be postponed for as long as possible. Two of these you are already familiar with: death and taxes. The third is less well-known but is also something we'd just as soon take a pass on, though it...

Microsoft to Roll Out Windows 2000 Update Rollup.
June 2, 2005... Microsoft Corp. plans to announce as early as next week that it is ready to ship a Windows 2000 Update Rollup, the final security patch for the 5-year-old operating system. The Update Rollup, which replaces Windows 2000 SP5 (Service Pack...

Red Hat CEO Talks Up 'Open-Source Revolution'.
June 2, 2005... NEW ORLEANS--Red Hat Inc. CEO Matthew Szulik opened the company's first annual trade show, Red Hat Summit, with a keynote speech that was light on news but heavy on preaching to the choir. In front of about 1,000 attendees, Red Hat's Szulik...

Sun Micro to Buy StorageTek for $4.1 Billion.
June 2, 2005... SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)-- Network computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc. said on Thursday it agreed to buy Storage Technology Corp. for $4.1 billion in cash, bolstering its presence in the fast-growing market for data storage. Santa Clara,...

Dell Adds to Optiplex Desktop Line.(Brief Article)
June 2, 2005... Dell Inc. on Thursday announced two new additions to its corporate Optiplex desktop line, the GX520 and the GX620. The GX620 ($579) will be the higher-end solution, targeted at investment protection. It will be available in four different...

EU's Hands May Be Tied in Microsoft Case.
June 2, 2005... European regulators may be powerless to give open-source competitors effective access to Microsoft's server protocols, despite antitrust rulings against the company and the EU's ability to impose massive new fines. The European Commission...

IBM Sees an On-Demand World.
June 2, 2005... NEW ORLEANS--There is an ever-increasing focus on innovation or, as IBM refers to it, on-demand computing. So said Irving Wladawsky-Berger, IBM's vice president of technical strategy and innovation, at the Red Hat Summit here on Thursday. ...

Intel's Napa Notebooks Gain Power from 'Yonah'.
June 2, 2005... Intel has a twofold plan to increase notebook performance. The chip maker, at a presentation to press and analysts on Thursday, disclosed several new details of "Yonah," the first dual-core version of its Pentium M, a company spokesperson...

Flood of E-Mail Makes Compliance a Tricky Business.(INBOX conference)
June 2, 2005... SAN JOSE, Calif.--The days when managing e-mail meant keeping a server up and running are long gone as enterprises increasingly must figure out how to comply with government regulations affecting messaging. Panelists at the INBOX...

CA Set to Wage Battle Against Oracle with Ingres.
June 2, 2005... Computer Associates International Inc. recently showered some hard-earned cash on the winners of its Ingres Million Dollar Challenge, the goal of which was to motivate developers to cook up migration toolkits from Oracle, SQL Server, DB2,...

Warmer Regulatory Climate May Bend SarbOx.(Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002)
June 2, 2005... Are CEOs going back to being heroes? Maybe. Just maybe. No one's ordering any shiny new armor or getting out the white stallions, but two events this week could mark the beginnings of a subtle shift in how politicians see government...

HP Considers Bringing Linux to NonStop Servers.
June 2, 2005... NEW ORLEANS--Hewlett-Packard is considering porting Linux to its NonStop fault-tolerant server line. During his Red Hat Summit keynote, Martin Fink, Hewlett-Packard Co.'s VP of Linux and NonStop, hinted broadly that HP might be bringing...

Sun Seeks Benefits of Bundling with StorageTek Buy.
June 2, 2005... While taking many by surprise, Sun Microsystems' purchase of StorageTek is largely believed to be a good move for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company. Sun has been struggling to compete in the storage world for some time--something the...

Experiment Launches to Share Health Data Across the Country.(national health information network)
June 2, 2005... If you're allergic to aspirin, avoid having a heart attack where doctors can't access your medical record. Clinicians are sure to prescribe the drug, which will do you more harm than good. The same principle applies for dozens of other...

XML in Office 12 Spells Third-Party Opportunity.
June 2, 2005... According to industry analysts and vendors, Microsoft's decision to make XML-based file formats part of Office 12 documents will likely present new opportunities, and a few challenges, for third-party application and software vendors hoping to...

SCO Narrows Its Losses in Second Quarter.
June 2, 2005... Although SCO continues to bleed red ink in its latest quarter, in large part because of its legal actions, its core Unix business actually has picked up. The SCO Group Inc. on Wednesday reported results for the second quarter of its fiscal...

Virtual Machine Fights a Real Security Problem.(Avinti Inc.'s email filtering software iSolation Server)
June 2, 2005... It's been rare in my reporting life that one minute I realize I have a problem and the next minute--literally, almost--the solution appears during an interview. Here's the setup: E-mail arrives with an attachment. Most attachments get...

Microsoft vs. Linux: Execs Talk Detente.
June 2, 2005... NEW ORLEANS--The often-hostile relations between Microsoft and the open-source community are thawing, and new dialogues appear to be opening between senior officials in both camps. In continuing its outreach to the most prominent members of...

Security Remains the Name of the E-Mail Game.(INBOX conference)
June 2, 2005... SAN JOSE, Calif.--Security will continue to dominate the e-mail management industry over the next year as enterprises face more sophisticated threats from increasingly organized groups of attackers, messaging executives predict. Speaking...

Pending Security Policy May Unkink Global Supply Chain.
June 2, 2005... Terrorism worries are adding new dimensions to the job of supply chain manager, according to Theo Fletcher, one of IBM's own supply chain managers. Fletcher has been working with the WCO (World Customs Organization) lately to help support...

Lawson to Acquire ERP Software Developer Intentia.
June 2, 2005... Lawson Software Inc. announced Thursday the acquisition of Swedish ERP software developer Intentia International AB in an all-stock transaction that amounts to about $480 million. The company also announced that its CEO, Jay Coughlan, will...

Citrix Joins Web-Acceleration Rush with NetScaler Deal.
June 2, 2005... Citrix showed its commitment to Web applications Thursday, announcing that it will acquire NetScaler, a producer of Internet application acceleration systems, for a total of $303 million in cash and stock. NetScaler Inc., with 200 employees, is...

Microsoft Moves Adroitly on Digital Imaging.(Brief Article)
June 2, 2005... You have to hand it to Microsoft. When it wants to, it certainly can make things happen. It can even make peace happen. Digital imaging has seen a format insurgency of late, with every camera supplier coining its own format. Nikon, Canon,...

Users Shy Away from the Cutting Edge in Software.(market research of software industry)(Brief Article)
June 2, 2005... Technology providers very often live in a dream world where it is enough to bring a new feature or program to the market to push the envelope of how professionals go about their work. In all fairness, there is some historical foundation for...

Red Hat Creates Fedora Foundation.
June 3, 2005... NEW ORLEANS--Red Hat Inc. has decided to hand over control of the open-source Fedora Project, creating the new Fedora Foundation to manage the project. Mark Webbink, the deputy general counsel at Red Hat, of Raleigh, N.C., will make the...

Experts Warn of Growing Trojan Threat.
June 3, 2005... Trojan horse programs were in the news again this week, as the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published news of a massive industrial espionage ring that used custom-designed Trojans to steal trade secrets and other sensitive information from...

AOL Opens Up Audio, Video Technology.(intellectual property of America Online Inc.)(Brief Article)
June 3, 2005... Despite helping to launch the Mozilla Foundation and releasing the code to its AOL Server software, America Online has never been synonymous with open source. But a number of new initiatives could change AOL's proprietary image, as the company...

L-3 to Buy Titan for About $2 Billion in Cash.(L-3 Communications Holdings Inc.)
June 3, 2005... NEW YORK (Reuters)--L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. on Friday said it would buy Titan Corp. for about $2 billion in cash, expanding its reach in defense-intelligence services. The deal is the latest by acquisition-hungry L-3, which has...

Mac Office 12 to Support XML File Formats.(extensible markup language)(Microsoft Corp's Mac Office 12.0)
June 3, 2005... Microsoft Corp. has confirmed that it will maintain file-level compatibility between its Windows and Mac office products after the introduction of new XML-based file formats in Office 12. In a posting on his blog, Rick Schaut, software...

DataMirror Helps Data Warehouses Get Info Flowing in Real Time.
June 3, 2005... DataMirror Corp. has rolled out a dynamic operational data store for data warehouses to help companies add new data sources, eliminate performance issues and enable real-time information flow. The Dynamic ODS platform is designed to help...

Microsoft Makes Its Open-Source Move.(negotiation with Open Source Initiative and Red Hat Inc.)
June 3, 2005... The signs were there. Microsoft had been making nice with open source for some time now. First, in late March, Ballmer and Red Hat's CEO Matthew Szulik met for more than an hour at a McCormick & Schmick's restaurant in New York at...

Porn Sites to Gain a Top-Level Domain.(information management of websites)
June 3, 2005... It's official--the Web soon will have its own red-light district. This week, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers approved a plan that will allow pornographic Web sites to use URLs that end with ".xxx." ICANN first...

Google's Long Memory Stirs Privacy Concerns.(information management)
June 3, 2005... WASHINGTON (Reuters)--When Google Inc.'s 19 million daily users look up a long-lost classmate, send e-mail or bounce around the Web more quickly with its new Web Accelerator, records of that activity don't go away. In an era of increased...

IBM Brings Supercomputing to the Enterprise Market.(David Turek of International Business Machines Corp.'s Deep Computing unit)(Interview)
June 3, 2005... Supercomputing has become an important business for IBM. In recent years, the Armonk, N.Y., company has opened up a series of Deep Computing centers, where customers can access IBM compute resources and pay only for what they use. In...

The First Thing We Do: Let's Offshore the Managers.
June 3, 2005... This is going to be reader-participation week at CIOInsight.com. We're asking your opinion on a revolutionary, if completely logical idea. The best "pro" and "con" answers will receive a prize (a copy of my new book, "Management by...

Microsoft Patch Management Suite Rolls at Last.
June 3, 2005... Microsoft is finally ready to ship its long-awaited enterprise security patch-management platform. The software giant is expected to announce on Monday that WSUS (Windows Server Update Services), formerly known as SUS (Software Update...

Triple-Barreled Trojan Attack Builds Botnets.(report)
June 3, 2005... Anti-virus researchers are sounding the alert for a massive, well-coordinated hacker attack using three different Trojans to hijack PCs and create botnets-for-hire. The three-pronged attack is being described as "unprecedented" because of...

Bluetooth Wireless Starts to Show Some Bite.
June 3, 2005... TAIPEI (Reuters)--After a decade of empty chatter, the short-range wireless technology known as Bluetooth is finally getting some bite. Many of the niche vendors at this year's Computex, the world's second largest computer show, were...

Community Debates Microsoft's Open-Source Agenda.(open source community)
June 3, 2005... Analysts and insiders--including Linus Torvalds--say they think that Microsoft's move to start a dialogue with the open-source community shows that the company is recognizing that open source has real, lasting value. After a series of...

Sun Purchases StorageTek.(Sun Microsystems Inc.)
June 3, 2005... Sun Microsystems Inc. is bulking up its storage portfolio to help customers brace for looming compliance, archival and data management woes by adding Storage Technology Corp.'s tape and backup technology to its systems management approach. ...

Gateway Goes for Business Gold.
June 3, 2005... Gateway is getting down to business. The Irvine, Calif., PC maker, which absorbed eMachines Inc. in 2004, is has been reshaping its notebook, server and desktop lines in an effort to boost sales to small and medium businesses as well as...

Gartner to Host Its First BPM Summit.(Gartner Group Inc., Business Process Management)
June 3, 2005... At its first Business Process Management Summit in Arlington, Va., June 6 and 7, IT research firm Gartner is taking a unique tack in educating attendees, mixing business analysts and IT professionals in the same bowl. "We found 85 percent...

IBM's Patent Model Spurs Innovation.
June 3, 2005... Some five months after IBM gave open-source developers unfettered access to 500 of its software patents, the Armonk, N.Y., company has turned its attention to the broader concept of harnessing that model to spark innovation, an effort already...

Next-Gen Servers to Take the Stage at Tech Ed 2005.
June 3, 2005... Microsoft's Tech Ed conference next week will be a showcase for a raft of new server products from the Redmond software giant that aren't quite soup yet. While Microsoft is set to reveal its specific RTM (release-to-manufacturing) target...

Tiny Aircraft Use Linux, Bluetooth for Computing.(Brief Article)
June 3, 2005... British researchers have built tiny aircraft that use Linux to perform parallel processing operations and can communicate with one another via Bluetooth. The aircraft are meant to fly together in a kind of flock or swarm and send data back...

Next Anti-Spyware Group Pushes for Standards.
June 3, 2005... A group of anti-spyware software makers and public-interest groups is forming a new coalition to define spyware, according to an executive at the Center for Democracy and Technology, which is running the coalition. The Anti-Spyware...

HP Tackles SOAs, Compliance.(Hewlett-Packard Co., service-oriented architectures)(new products)
June 3, 2005... Hewlett-Packard Co. at its HP Software Forum in Denver next week will address two hot topics with new offerings that provide compliance management and full life-cycle management for service-oriented architectures. HP's OpenView SOA Manager...

IBM Rational Backs Off on .Net Tools Support.(supremacy fight in the market)
June 3, 2005... IBM and Microsoft Corp.'s fight for development environment supremacy is heating up about as fast as the onset of summer, with both sides digging in for a showdown, although IBM appears willing to make a concession. At its IBM Rational...

Google to Webmasters: Tell Us What You've Got.(new service the Sitemaps Generator)
June 3, 2005... In an attempt to index more content, more quickly, Google has begun letting Web-site operators point the search engine's crawler at Web pages and tell it when content is updated. Google Inc. started the beta program, called Google Sitemaps,...

Apple Watchers Dubious But Abuzz Over Intel Rumor.
June 5, 2005... CNET News.com claims that Apple will announce a switch to Intel x86 processors on Monday at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference--a move that has been rumored for years yet never materialized. According to the report, the switch would...

What's Right About the PowerPC?(production management of Apple Computer Inc.)
June 5, 2005... If anything were guaranteed to set teeth gnashing in the executive suite at Apple Computer's headquarters, it was Intel's Thursday announcement of Yonah, the dual-core version of its Pentium Mobile processor line due next year for Windows...

Apple-Intel Chip Deal Outcry Keeps Growing.
June 5, 2005... New online reports that Apple Computer Inc. will cashier IBM PowerPC chips for Intel processors kicked up a whirlwind of contention on the Web this weekend. According to a story posted Friday night by News.com, Apple CEO Steve Jobs will...

Porting Mac OS X to Intel Will Be a Snap.(Brief Article)
June 5, 2005... In the hubbub over Apple's anticipated move from IBM to Intel chips, much has been said about how difficult the move would be. But really, how hard can it be to port Mac OS X to the Intel platform when its core operating system already runs on...

Apple to Switch to Intel Chips Starting in '06?(Apple Computer Inc. contract with Intel Corp.)
June 5, 2005... SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)--Apple Computer Inc. plans to announce on Monday that it will switch to using Intel Corp's microprocessors and phase out its current chip supplier, International Business Machines Corp., CNET News.com reported late on...

Telephony Battle: Open Vs. Proprietary.(comparative analysis of telecommunications software)
June 6, 2005... Silicon Valley is fast moving into the world of telephony, and it is dragging the contest between open and proprietary code along with it. Next week at Supercomm, the annual telephony conference and expo in Chicago, IT will show a higher...

Microsoft Nears Deal with EU Watchdog.(remedies of European Union. European Commission)
June 6, 2005... BRUSSELS (Reuters)--Microsoft moved a step closer to ending a long battle with the European Union's antitrust watchdog on Monday, winning praise for proposals to comply with demands for server interoperability. The U.S. software giant...

Network Equipment Makers Tout Flexibility, Reliability.(SUPERCOMM)
June 6, 2005... As service providers and enterprises continue the migration to IP networking, it is clear that services and applications will evolve rapidly. To give network operators the flexibility to handle applications that may still be unknown,...

Microsoft's Tech Ed Focus: Empowering the IT Worker.(conferences)
June 6, 2005... ORLANDO, Fla.--At the Microsoft Tech Ed 2005 conference here Monday morning, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer will kick off the show with a keynote highlighting how the company is responding to business and work force changes. And while...

Facing Up to Rising Expectations.(Neal Stephenson's works)
June 6, 2005... Early in the story of Neal Stephenson's 1995 novel The Diamond Age, a wealthy client is mildly peeved to learn that an interactive educational project that he has commissioned must be delivered partly in the form of a service, rather than a...

Cisco Launches DDoS Protection Service.
June 6, 2005... Cisco Systems Inc. used the Supercomm trade show in Chicago to announce a new service Monday to prevent distributed-denial-of-service attacks on customer networks. The new Cisco Distributed Denial of Service Protection Solution service...

Microsoft's EU Proposal a Blow to Open Source.(European Union's remedies)
June 6, 2005... Microsoft Corp.'s proposal to European Union regulators for resolving its outstanding antitrust issues does not provide key concessions requested by open-source software projects, European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said on Monday....

Ballmer Beats Drum for IT Workers.(speeches of Steve Ballmer at Tech Ed conference)
June 6, 2005... ORLANDO, Fla.--There has never been a more exciting time to be in information technology than right now, and the rate of innovation and impact that IT will have on the world over the next decade will be larger than its impact in the past 10...

FaceTime Buys Anti-Spyware Vendor.(XBlock Systems LLC)
June 6, 2005... FaceTime on Tuesday will announce its acquisition of XBlock Systems LLC, maker of the X Cleaner anti-spyware software for an undisclosed sum, the company told eWEEK magazine. FaceTime Communications Inc., of Foster City, Calif., plans to...

Source: E-Trade Sweetens Ameritrade Offer.
June 6, 2005... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Online brokerage E-Trade Financial Corp. has sweetened its bid for rival Ameritrade Holding Corp., a source close to the situation said on Monday, as E-Trade hopes to derail Ameritrade's separate merger talks with TD...

Citigroup Says UPS Loses Data.(United Parcel Service of America Inc.)(Brief Article)
June 6, 2005... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Citigroup Inc., the world's largest bank, on Monday said account and payment history data on 3.9 million of its customers were lost in transit by United Parcel Service Inc. The disappearance is the latest in a series of...

Experts: Storage Needs Security Too.(safety and security measures of computer storage device industry)
June 6, 2005... After several years of hearing about security breaches that have rocked the corporate world, storage vendors are just beginning to realize that preventing disaster means applying security measures to the storage infrastructure as well the rest...

Storage Digest: News from Plasmon, IBM, Bycast, Xilinx, Engenio.
June 6, 2005... Storage solutions designed for the medical arena take center stage, while both IBM and Xilinx announce 4G Fibre Channel solutions. *Archive Appliance Meets Medical PACS, HIS Needs Plasmon of Colorado Springs, Colo., has introduced the...

Apple Risks It with Intel.(Apple Computer Inc.'s production management)(Column)
June 6, 2005... Recently, I described rumors that Apple would switch from PowerPC to x86 microprocessors as "a bunch of bull." OK, I was wrong. I apologize to Don Clark and Nick Wingfield of the Wall Street Journal, David Utter of WebProNews, Paul Thurrott...