eWeek articles from March 2004

eWeek archives from March 2004

Antitrust Is in the Eyes of the Beholder.
March 1, 2004... The nub of the Oracle-PeopleSoft fight is whether the market for back-office applications will shrink. That's a vitally important question, and it bears a closer look. Ironically, the Justice Department, in a 17-page civil antitrust...

IBM Widens Embrace of 64-Bit Linux.
March 1, 2004... IBM has been a champion of Linux for several years--extolling the virtues of the open-source operating system running on its xSeries systems, which use industry-standard 32-bit Intel Corp. processors. But the company lately has been ramping...

IBM's Server Chief Takes Charge.(International Business Machines)(Interview)
March 1, 2004... Not long ago, IBM's server business was a fragmented collection of fiefdoms, the disparate product lines running in parallel with one another. The result was a server business that was beginning to tank. But over the past few years, IBM has...

Moscone Madness.
March 1, 2004... "Obsequious is my middle name," Spence shouted to no one in particular, causing his eWEEK office mates to realize how fortunate they are that the rambunctious rumormonger routinely reports from the road. The Baron of Babble was reacting to an...

HP Adds to 64-Bit Computing Options.(Hewlett-Packard Co.)
March 1, 2004... The dramatic changes in the 64-bit computing landscape over the past few weeks have left users in the volume server space with something they had little of before last month: choice. Hewlett-Packard Co., of Palo Alto, Calif., added to that...

Managing Big E-Mail Attachments.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... A combined hardware and software offering from Accellion looks to enhance the management of electronic messaging systems by storing e-mail attachments of more than 1MB on caching appliances and giving recipients a link to the attachment rather...

Microsoft's Security Plan Gets Mixed Reviews.
March 1, 2004... Microsoft Corp.'s plan to add a slew of new security features and functionalities to Windows and other products is drawing a mix of public praise and criticism in the security community, even as many experts express private concerns about the...

Spam Tide May Be Turning.(Microsoft's Coordinated Spam Reduction Initiative)
March 1, 2004... Major announcements at the RSA Conference here last week--in addition to recent anti-spam technology advances--mark the beginning of the end of spam as we know it. At the conference, Microsoft Corp. introduced its CSRI (Coordinated Spam...

IBM Makes New Pitch for Partners.
March 1, 2004... IBM hopes to gain the trust of ISVs and clear a path for their embrace of its technologies through a troika of new application development and integration tools, vertical-specific offerings, and an expanded partner ecosystem. The company...

The Nuclear Weapon of Digital Rights Law.(Union Directive for the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Few examples of technology-related federal legislation have stirred up more controversy in recent years than the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and now the European Union is considering a similar, yet far more sweeping act--one that...

Latest Worm Infestation Puts Security Firms on Alert.
March 1, 2004... The rapid spreading of several variations on recent mass-mailing worms that were released to the Internet over the weekend has caused security companies to raise their alert status levels. Read "Virus Outbreak: More E-Mail Worms Are Set...

InterActiveCorp Embraces Enterprise Social Networking with Acquisition.(ZeroDegrees Inc)
March 1, 2004... In another sign of the growing interest in enterprise social networking, Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp on Monday acquired startup ZeroDegrees Inc. as it expands its scope of community-oriented Web sites. Six-month-old ZeroDegrees, of...

Virus Outbreak: More E-Mail Worms Are Set Loose.
March 1, 2004... Maybe it's the weirdness of having 29 days in February or some misplaced glee that spring is coming, but for whatever reason virus writers went on a rampage during the last week, unleashing more than a half-dozen new viruses. Since Friday,...

Study: Blogging Still Infrequent.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... NEW YORK (AP) _ Despite the potential of turning every Internet user into a publisher, relatively few have created Web journals called blogs and even fewer do so with regularly, a new study finds. Some bloggers indeed update their journals...

Intel Powers Up Xeon MP.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Intel Corp. on Tuesday will unveil an upgraded Gallatin chip, a Xeon MP for systems with four or more chips that will double the amount of Level 3 cache and boost the speed. The announcement will come at an event in New York with financial...

Microsoft's Presence Server Marches Toward a Mid-March Launch.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Microsoft Corp.'s presence server--MapPoint Location Server--is looking like it will launch finally at the DevCon show in San Francisco in March. MapPoint Location Server has undergone at least two name changes in the past year and a half....

SCO Reveals its First Linux Licensee.(The SCO Group Inc.)
March 1, 2004... For many months, officials of The SCO Group Inc. have asserted that companies were ready to sign its Linux intellectual-property license. SCO on Monday made public one of those names: a dedicated hosting firm. The company said...

Oracle Web Services Pull Together Disparate Information Sources.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... IHOP, the prince of pancakes, is using Oracle's Web services-based Customer Data Hub to pull together information from incompatible applications and to create a single recording system for customer data. Read the full story at...

IT Pros Sound Off on Offshoring.
March 1, 2004... One Indian DBA says you get more for your money when you shop India for IT. One U.S. IT pro says you get what you pay for, which, in his opinion, is shoddy code that lacks even standard indentation. These and more opinions on offshore...

Target to Halt Smart Card Implementation.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Target Corp. will phase out its smart-chip program, according to one of the retailer's suppliers. Catuity Inc., a provider of loyalty software, on Monday said that Target will phase out its smart card system over the next 12 months. Unlike...

TSI Now Syniverse Technologies.(Telecommunication Services Inc)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Telecommunication services company Telecommunication Services Inc. (TSI) is changing its name in order to show that it wants to be more than a telecommunication services company. On Monday, TSI announced that from here on in the company...

CA's Kumar Knocks Protectionism, Oracle Takeover.(Computer Associates International Inc.)
March 1, 2004... SAN FRANCISCO--Economic globalization and the overseas migration of service and information industry jobs is a fact of life, said Computer Associates CEO Sanjay Kumar to the Software 2004 conference here on Monday. The executive added that...

Web Conferencing Vendors Push into Video, CRM.(Salesforce.com Inc.)(Customer relationship management)
March 1, 2004... Web conferencing vendors are branching out with better integration of video into online meetings and links into customer relationship management applications. In separate announcements on Monday, Raindance Communications Inc. launched its...

EDS Admits SEC Probe Continuing.(Electronic Data Systems Corp)(Securities and Exchange Commission )
March 1, 2004... PLANO, Texas (AP)--Electronic Data Systems Corp. said Monday that the Securities and Exchange Commission has asked for information about the company's write-down of a multi-billion-dollar contract with the Navy. EDS, which runs computer...

Micron Acknowledges Price-Fixing Probe.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... BOISE, Idaho (AP)--Computer chip manufacturer Micron Technology Inc. has acknowledged its legal problems have expanded, saying the European Union has been investigating price-fixing among worldwide memory chipmakers. Boise-based Micron's...

Two Cell Phone Companies Going National.
March 1, 2004... NEW YORK (AP)--Say goodbye to one national cell phone company, and hello to two more. While the industry is hopeful that the buyout of AT&T Wireless by Cingular Wireless will ease competition by eliminating one national rival--and possibly...

Microsoft to Add Service Packs for Visual Studio, .Net Framework.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Microsoft is planning to "service" its 2002 and 2003 versions of the .Net Framework and Visual Studio tool suite in order to insure they will work properly with Windows XP Service Pack (SP) 2. But versions of the .Net Framework and Visual...

Hardened Laptops: A New Meaning of 'Extreme'.
March 1, 2004... Typically when we talk about extreme laptops we use "extreme" to mean high performance--resulting in laptops of eight pounds or more. However, ruggedized, or hardened laptops are another class of extreme machine. On Monday, laptop maker...

PNC Cashes in on Data Cleansing.
March 1, 2004... PNC Bank's information-systems team wasn't thinking about compliance with the Patriot Act when it started a cleanup of customer files in 2000. The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the federal legislation that quickly followed hadn't...

The Road Less Traveled: Merrill Lynch & Co.
March 1, 2004... Sept. 11 was the great divide. Decisions companies made about technology infrastructure, personnel, security, business resilience and supply-chain protection took on a much more urgent cast. At the same time, questions had to be answered about...

Calculating Returns: Put Time on Your Side.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Getting the best return on your technology project means understanding when to spend--and when to save--money. The way to see this is by calculating the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of your project. This calculation balances all savings and...

Mastering Negotiations.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... CIOs may be ace technologists and darn good numbers people too, but negotiating with vendors often isn't their kettle of fish. Vendors can be such tough and clever adversaries, what with their wily salesmen, well-practiced pitches, mind-numbing...

Small-Business Security.(Brief Article)
March 2, 2004... Security is a process, not a product. Security experts often referred to this mantra, of security technologist and author Bruce Schneier, while we worked on this story. Their point: No device is going to be the static, bedrock answer to the...

Spam War.(Brief Article)
March 2, 2004... Besides being the year of war, terrorism, corporate fraud, and blackouts, 2003 was also the year of spam. As more users found their legitimate e-mail vastly outnumbered by spam, spammers and antispam vendors played a constant Tom-and-Jerry...

Norton Internet Security 2004.(Product/Service Evaluation)
March 2, 2004... Spyware blocking, detection, and removal turn out to be weak components of the otherwise excellent Norton Internet Security 2004, which earned an Editors' Choice award in our recent roundup of Internet security suites (November 25). Like the...

Efforts on to Squelch China's Wireless Encryption Plans.(Brief Article)
March 2, 2004... Several U.S. government and industry bodies are behind an effort to stop a proposed Chinese proprietary wireless encryption standard. The scheme is incompatible with the Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) or Advanced Encryption Scheme (AES) schemes...

Report: Feds Should Stay Out of DRM Issues.(digital rights management (DRM) systems)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2004... The solution to digital piracy is new business models, not legal action and regulatory mandates, according to a new report by the Committee for Economic Development (CED). The group recommends experimentation with digital rights management...

New MCI SLA Promises Protection Against DoS Attacks.(Brief Article)
March 2, 2004... MCI/WorldCom this week unveiled a new service level agreement (SLA) to help IP services customers thwart and defend against Internet viruses and threats. The new SLA is focused on Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and it ensures that all MCI...

Yahoo Adopts New Fees to Explore Web.
March 2, 2004... SAN FRANCISCO (AP)--Internet giant Yahoo! Inc. is adopting a new system for indexing Web pages that will charge businesses to include more material currently unlisted in its online search engine, marking the first volley in a duel with its...

IBM's Palmisano to Partners: Future Is On Demand.
March 2, 2004... LAS VEGAS--IBM's oft-misunderstood on-demand strategy, though still evolving, lies at the heart of the company's message to customers, partners and suppliers. It was to IBM's partners that the company's leader attempted to shed light on the...

New IBM Partner Program Looks to Key Industries.
March 2, 2004... LAS VEGAS--IBM Tuesday will announce a new approach to seeking business partners in select industries. At the IBM PartnerWorld conference here, Buell Duncan, IBM's general manager of independent software vendor and developer relations,...

EV1Servers Pays License Fee to SCO.(SCO Group inc)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2004... EV1Servers CEO Robert Marsh says he realizes his company might be "vilified" for signing a licensing agreement with The SCO Group, becoming the first publicly identified company to have paid SCO to settle its disputed legal claims involving...

IBM Tools Up Partnerships at Vegas Show.(Partnerworld 2004 conference)
March 2, 2004... LAS VEGAS--IBM Corp. announced a host of new programs to bolster its relationships with its partners, including new e-hosting services, at this week's Partnerworld 2004 conference here. IBM launched new small- and medium-business (SMB)...

IBM, LogicLibrary Deal to Boost Partner Productivity.(International Business Machines Corp selected LogicLibrary's Logidex software component management system)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2004... LAS VEGAS--LogicLibrary Inc., a provider of software asset management tools, Tuesday announced that IBM has selected its Logidex software component management system as the catalog and search engine for locating partner solutions built on IBM's...

Intel Denies Report of Prescott Delay.(Brief Article)
March 2, 2004... An official for Intel Corp. denied a report Monday that said the company's 3.0GHz "Prescott" chip has been delayed until April. Taiwan IT daily Digitimes reported that Intel delayed shipments of the 3GHz Prescott chip from mid-March, due...

Chip Sales Fall Slightly In January.(Brief Article)
March 2, 2004... Semiconductor sales fell slightly in January, an industry trade group reported, although the chip industry reported a sharp jump in year-over-year growth. The Semiconductor Industry Association, the chip industry's trade group, said...

Beta 1 Tester Says Yukon Is Slower, Less Stable, But Better.(Brief Article)
March 2, 2004... Randy Dyess, founder of the Web site www.database-security.info and a tester of the Beta 1 version of Microsoft's Yukon version of the SQL Server database, says it's got a sleek interface, a welcome new focus on security and table partitioning...

Judge Picked in Oracle's Fight Against DoJ.(Brief Article)
March 2, 2004... Judge Vaughn Walker of U.S. District Court in San Francisco has been chosen to preside over the federal government's antitrust case against Oracle's hostile bid for PeopleSoft. Walker is a former antitrust attorney at Pillsbury, Madison and...

Oracle's Phillips Enters the Lion's Den.(Chuck Phillips)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2004... Oracle's Co-President Chuck Phillips took it on himself to address PeopleSoft-nee-J.D. Edwards customers at the Quest West conference in San Diego on Monday. Phillips told the group that the DoJ would have a tough time proving that the market...

Oracle Seeks Microsoft's Help in Fending Off DOJ.(United States. Department of Justice )
March 2, 2004... Oracle Corp. will indeed turn to Microsoft Corp. for help in fending off the U.S. Department of Justice as it attempts to acquire PeopleSoft Inc.--just as it will turn to others it has named as competitors in the enterprise resource planning...

Microsoft Readies Another Cut-Rate Windows Bundle.(Brief Article)
March 2, 2004... Right after dropping hints that it is readying new initiatives to combat the growth and popularity of open-source software overseas, Microsoft Corp. acknowledged Tuesday that it is offering a low-priced Windows bundle to Malaysian users. A...

Intel Launches Revved-Up Xeon MP.
March 2, 2004... End users should see a 15 percent to 25 percent performance increase when using systems powered by Intel Corp.'s upgraded Xeon MP processor, company officials said Tuesday. At a press conference in New York, Richard Dracott, general manager...

Former WorldCom CEO Indicted.(Bernard Ebbers and Scott Sullivan were charged with making false statements and misleading omissions )
March 2, 2004... Bernard Ebbers, former CEO of WorldCom Inc.-- now doing business as MCI-- was indicted today for conspiracy and securities fraud for his alleged role in inflating the value of the company's stock in light of its weakening financial condition....

Security Increased for Tuesday's E-Voting.(Brief Article)
March 2, 2004... SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP)--Advocates for electronic voting say paperless ballots save money and eliminate problems common to old systems. But the technology brings a new breed of security concerns, like software glitches or hackers that could make...

Canadian Companies Forge Wi-Fi Roaming Agreement.(Brief Article)
March 2, 2004... In an unprecedented move that may help Wi-Fi roaming become a reality, four Canadian wireless firms signed an "inter-carrier agreement" to use common standards for the interoperability of their public Wi-Fi networks. By simplifying access, the...

Microsoft Releases BizTalk Server 2004.
March 2, 2004... Initially expected at the end of 2003, BizTalk Server 2004 is living up to its name. It's available now, in the first quarter of 2004. Microsoft Corp announced Tuesday afternoon the latest version of its BizTalk integration platform with...

Wireless Snafus at Wireless Show.
March 2, 2004... Last year, the world's biggest mobile phone conference was, as usual, only marginally wireless-enabled. Well, you can sort of understand it. Twenty-five thousand nerds, all with at least three phones each, in a tiny community that normally...

Virus Writers Start Dissing Match with New Worms.
March 2, 2004... The virus onslaught continued late Tuesday as new versions of Bagle and MyDoom hit the Internet. The latest versions appeared to serve as digital graffiti, with the code delivering secret messages to the anonymous authors of other "competing"...

Sources: Eclipse Board Begins to Take Shape.
March 2, 2004... It's Super Tuesday and the results are in...the results of the Eclipse Foundation's election, that is. According to sources, the newly-independent Eclipse Foundation has elected members to some of its key positions who will help govern the...

Gateway to Cut Work Force by Over 2,000.(Brief Article)
March 2, 2004... NEW YORK (AP)--Gateway Inc. expects to cut more than 2,000 jobs in the next few months, according to Chief Financial Officer Roderick Sherwood. Sherwood told a presentation Monday at the Morgan Stanley Semiconductor & Systems Conference...

Combating Netsky.C, D, E Viruses.(Sopho's)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2004... When it rains it pours. Wednesday Feb 25th brought a new version of Netsky. Similar in operation to Netsky.B, but with a wider pool of message, subject line and attachment possibilities, W32/Netsky.C-mm jumped to a medium threat on Symantec,...

Review: Western Digital WD740 Raptor.(Brief Article)
March 2, 2004... When we reviewed the original WD360 Raptor 10,000RPM hard drive a while back, we lamented its relatively small capacity. Just shy of 37GB, the original Raptor lacked the mega-capacity that today's desktop PC users crave. In fact, most 36GB...

Windows Marketing 101.
March 2, 2004... From a marketing standpoint, Microsoft's worst nightmare, re: Windows XP, has come to pass. Just when the Redmond software giant looked like it might be building some momentum for Windows XP, word leaked of a possible interim release between XP...

Spy Stoppers.
March 2, 2004... Keith Dunlap had never even heard of Cool-search.net. But one day last December, as he opened the browser on his home PC, the site filled his display. The browser's Internet Options window showed his home page had been changed to the...

Yahoo Stakes Out Paid Search Path.
March 3, 2004... NEW YORK--Yahoo Inc., with it launch this week of a revamped program for Web sites to pay for inclusion in its search engine, is attempting to reap the rewards of its flurry of search acquisitions last year as it takes a different approach from...

Microsoft Pumps Up BizTalk.
March 3, 2004... With the third edition of its online application server, released Tuesday, Microsoft has substantially strengthened the business-to-business, e-business and data integration features of BizTalk Server 2004. But the package still has a long way...

SCO Reveals Linux User Target: AutoZone.(The SCO Group Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 3, 2004... The other shoe finally dropped in The SCO Group's threatened lawsuits against Linux users. Wednesday the Lindon, Utah, company filed suit against auto parts retailer AutoZone Inc. for "alleged violations of SCO's UNIX copyrights through its use...

SCO Sues AutoZone Over Linux Use.(The SCO Group Inc.)
March 3, 2004... The SCO Group Inc. announced on March 3 that it filed suit against AutoZone Inc. for allegedly violating SCO's Unix copyrights through its use of Linux. AutoZone is a Memphis, Tenn.-based auto parts chain that trades on NASDAQ and is a...

10th Variant of Bagle Worm Hits the Net.
March 3, 2004... Another day, another variant--or two--of Bagle. Late Tuesday evening, anti-virus researchers discovered the existence of Bagle.J, the tenth variant of the worm to hit the Internet. Officials at Network Associates Inc. have rated the worm as...

IBM to Pump $1B into SMB Programs.(small and medium sized businesses)
March 3, 2004... LAS VEGAS--IBM Corp. has pulled out all the stops to make it easier for independent software vendors (ISV) and business partners to work with the systems giant to take on Microsoft Corp., both in large, but more importantly, small and...

EU May Force Change in Microsoft Windows.
March 3, 2004... BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP)--Going beyond Microsoft Corp.'s settlement of U.S. antitrust charges, the European Union wants to force the software giant to offer computer makers a version of Windows without any multimedia program to give rival...

Utility to Offer High-Speed Internet.
March 3, 2004... CINCINNATI (AP)--A division of utility Cinergy Corp. plans to offer high-speed Internet service over its power lines, letting customers connect by simply plugging a computer modem into existing electrical outlets. The idea of broadband...

Opera-Based Smart Phones Headed to China.(Brief Article)
March 3, 2004... Opera Software ASA hopes the fat lady is singing for WAP. According to the Norwegian developer, its full-function Opera 7 browser for smart phones will be introduced into the potentially lucrative Chinese market by Kyocera. This signals a...

Primary Concerns.
March 3, 2004... The early returns are in and no voter fraud has been discovered in the wake of Maryland's first statewide use of touch-screen electronic voting machines, which took place during the Democratic primary on March 2. That's a good thing...right?...

SCO Goes After DaimlerChrysler.(The SCO Group Inc.)
March 3, 2004... Only hours after The SCO Group Inc. opened a lawsuit against AutoZone Inc. in a Nevada courtroom, SCO sued DaimlerChrysler AG in a Michigan state court for Unix contract violations and Linux copyright issues. Darl McBride, SCO's CEO said...

SCO Reports Q1 Loss.(quarter 1)
March 3, 2004... The SCO Group Inc. reported a first-quarter net loss of $2.25 million, or 16 cents per share, after paying preferred dividends, compared with a loss of $724,000, or 6 cents per share, a year ago. In addition, revenue for the quarter, ending...

Dell Plans 'Misquoted'; No Opteron Servers, Yet.(Brief Article)
March 3, 2004... Dell Computer Corp. has no plans to develop Opteron servers "today," contradicting a French report that Dell officials said misquoted founder Michael Dell. French IT publication o1net quoted Micahel Dell as saying, "Quant a savoir si...

Steve Gillmor's Blogosphere.(Brief Article)
March 3, 2004... I'm pleased to announce the first eWEEK blog is now live at http://blog.ziffdavis.com/gillmor. Although I've been posting pseudo-content via the content management system, this post represents the first micro-content unencumbered by CMS...

HP Advances DRM Plans.(Digital rights management)
March 3, 2004... Hewlett-Packard Co. took several steps forward in enforcing digital rights management on consumer devices Tuesday, licensing Intel Corp.'s DRM scheme and co-developing a similar technology with Royal Philips Electronics NV. In all, HP...

Paid Inclusion Under Fire at Search Engine Shindig.
March 3, 2004... NEW YORK--The debate over the fairness and relevancy of paid search spilled onto the stage at the Jupitermedia's Search Engine Strategies 2004 conference here on Wednesday. On one side: Google Inc., which objects to any commingling of paid...

Microsoft Committed to IM Interoperability, Asserts Exec.(instant messaging)
March 3, 2004... BOSTON--Microsoft Corp.'s instant messaging architect Paul Haverstock stated the case for messaging interoperability at the opening keynote address of the Instant Messaging Planet Spring 2004 Conference and Expo here Wednesday. Haverstock,...

Judge Orders IBM and SCO to Show Source.(The SCO Group Inc .)
March 3, 2004... After several weeks of waiting, the U.S. District Court in Utah on Wednesday ruled in the SCO-IBM case on The SCO Group Inc.'s motion to compel IBM to reveal its AIX code and IBM's motion to compel discovery of the Unix code SCO claims has been...

States Bent on Collecting Internet Taxes.
March 3, 2004... ALBANY, N.Y. (AP)--Remember all those gifts you bought online during the holidays? Now it's time to pay sales tax on them, at least so say the income tax forms of 20 states. The latest to outstretch that revenue-seeking hand are New York...

RFID: An Offer You Can't Refuse.(Radio Frequency Identification)
March 3, 2004... Justifying the purchase of new technology is usually a highly individual process: The acquiring company has the final say whether to adopt or not. That will not be the case with radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags. If you work with...