eWeek articles from March 2006

eWeek archives from March 2006

Reuters Summit: EMC Sees More Deals Amid Overseas Push.(EMC Corp. (Hopkinton, Massachusetts))
March 1, 2006... NEW YORK (Reuters)--EMC Corp., the world's biggest data storage company, expects acquisitions in 2006 to exceed last year's $700 million as it expands in Eastern Europe and other emerging economies, Chief Financial Officer Bill Teuber said on...

Virtual Iron to Support Intel Virtualization Tech.(Virtual Iron Software )
March 1, 2006... Virtual Iron Software within the next three months will roll out a version of its data center virtualization software that will support Intel's chip-level virtualization technology. The Lowell, Mass.-based company will demo the software...

Google Shares Up After Tuesday's Drop.(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Shares of Google Inc. rose 1.5 percent before the opening bell on Wednesday after the Web search company late Tuesday said it sees plenty of room to improve on how it makes money selling advertising alongside its popular Web...

Global Handset Makers Locked in Merger Dance.
March 1, 2006... HONG KONG (Reuters)--Your new handset is certainly better and may be cheaper than your previous phone, but the choice of brands will reduce drastically in the coming years as smaller players exit the cut-throat market. High research and...

Microsoft Says Better Than Google Soon.
March 1, 2006... PARIS (Reuters)--Microsoft will introduce a search engine better than Google in six months in the United States and Britain followed by Europe, its European president said on Wednesday. "What we're saying is that in six months' time we'll...

ICANN Board Approves VeriSign Deal.(Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)
March 1, 2006... The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has agreed to a controversial litigation settlement with VeriSign, the operator of the Internet's .com registry, outlining the future operation of the registry pending approval by the U.S....

RSA Lands ETrade for Risk-Based Authentication.(RSA Security Inc.)
March 1, 2006... RSA Security on March 1 announced a new risk-based authentication product and said that ETrade Financial would use the program to secure log-ins for all its online brokerage customers. RSA Adaptive Authentication is a multi-tiered...

Gen 2 Spec Gets Major Acceptance.(rfid equipment standards)
March 1, 2006... DALLAS--At this week's RFID World conference here, there's no question that Generation 2, the UHF (ultra high frequency) air protocol for tags and readers, is garnering major acceptance. The specification, ratified by standards forming...

Gateway to Pay HP $47M to Settle Patent Suits.(Hewlett-Packard Co.)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Hewlett-Packard Co. and Gateway Inc. on Wednesday said they had settled all outstanding patent litigation, with Gateway paying HP a total of $47 million and revising 2005 results to reflect the deal. The settlement...

BEA Buys Fuego for $87.5 Million.(BEA Systems Inc.)
March 1, 2006... Continuing on its strategy of acquiring key technologies to build out its service-oriented architecture platform, BEA Systems Inc. on March 1 announced that it has acquired Fuego, a maker of business process management software, in a deal worth...

IBM Increases Midrange Storage Push.(International Business Machines Corp.)
March 1, 2006... IBM is refreshing its midrange storage line with the addition of a new 4G-bps Fibre Channel expansion unit for its DS4000 Series product, adding increased density and capacity for its disaster recovery-based box, and providing automated backup...

Hacker Outsmarts Kinko's ExpressPay Cards.
March 1, 2006... A security hole in a common technology used to manage prepaid store cards could let malicious hackers and other criminal groups bilk FedEx Kinko's stores, according to a recently published report. ExpressPay is a system developed by EnTrac...

Surveillance Data Finds a Home on Seagate Hard Drives.(Seagate Technology L.L.C.)
March 1, 2006... To help address the growing interest in heightened security and the corresponding move by organizations to record and store volumes of data onto video, Seagate Technology announced on March 1 its new SV35 Series hard drive product family. ...

Exchange Team Broadens Beta 1, Releases a CTP.(Microsoft Exchange 12.0)(community technology preview )
March 1, 2006... Microsoft has broadened the group of testers for the first beta of its upcoming Exchange 12 e-mail, calendaring and unified messaging server product, announcing March 1 that it had released a community technology preview build to its 200,000...

Oracle Can't Stifle Open-Source Databases.
March 1, 2006... Oracle is out to stop the open-source movement. Specifically Oracle, is out to kill MySQL. This seems to be the mindset of the unseen, Slashdot-posting, no doubt Birkenstock-wearing group of open-source zealots concerning Oracle's recent moves....

Why Windows Vista Will Suck.(Brief article)(Column)
March 1, 2006... Oh! My aching head. When I first saw ExtremeTech's article "Why Windows Vista Won't Suck," I thought: 'Ah-ha, sarcasm.' Nope. I was wrong. They really were saying that Vista is pretty good. Oh please. First, let me say,...

Analysts: BlackBerry Switch Will Cost Users.
March 1, 2006... If a federal judge orders an injunction that shuts down BlackBerry e-mail service in the United States, business customers have the option to switch to another wireless e-mail platform. But migrating to another platform won't come cheap,...

FoxPro Developers Prep for Microsoft 'Sedna'.(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Visual FoxPro developers, oft-overlooked by Microsoft, are about to get an infusion of new technologies aimed at making the FoxPro language interoperable with Windows Vista, Office 2007 and .Net. Microsoft quietly released a first CTP...

Activist Group Tilts at E-Mail Windmills.(opposition of Goodmail and America Online Inc. contract)
March 1, 2006... You'll find no better example of political demagoguery than the coalition formed to oppose Goodmail and AOL's use of Goodmail's services. The Web site announcing their positions is so overflowing with misinformation and presumption that...

Dell CEO Sees Revenue Growth Picking Up.(Kevin Rollins )
March 1, 2006... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Dell Inc., which last year disappointed investors with slower-than-forecast revenue growth, expects growth to pick up after the current quarter, Chief Executive Kevin Rollins said on Wednesday. Dell, the world's biggest...

Frank Nuovo to Leave as Nokia's Head of Design.
March 1, 2006... ESPOO, Finland (Reuters)--Nokia's head of design, Frank Nuovo, is to leave after more than 16 years of coming up with designs which helped the Finnish firm become the world's biggest mobile phone maker. Nuovo, 45, will hand over on April 1...

Verizon Introduces Remote IP Server Management.(Verizon Communications Inc.)
March 1, 2006... Verizon Communications launched a new IT infrastructure management service through which the firm is offering the ability to remotely direct customer's server operating systems using IP technology. Offered via the company's Verizon Business...

Mobile Phone Spam is Here to Stay.
March 1, 2006... HONG KONG (Reuters)--Fumi Ishii has changed her mobile phone e-mail address several times and once spent a month tracking down her tormentor, but the spam keeps coming. "I found the sender's contact information after a lot of research, and...

IBM Flourishes in India.(IBM India Ltd.)
March 1, 2006... BANGALORE, India--Don't look now, but one of the fastest growing IT vendors in India isn't even Indian. It's IBM, which is in the midst of a major growth spurt on the subcontinent. Back in 1992, IBM re-launched its India operations,...

Hynix Execs to Plead Guilty in U.S. Price-Fixing Case.(Hynix Semiconductor Inc.)
March 1, 2006... WASHINGTON (Reuters)--Four executives from South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor Inc., the second-largest maker of computer memory chips, agreed to plead guilty to price-fixing and serve jail time in the United States, the Justice Department said...

Phone, Media Firms See Mobile Ads Soon.
March 1, 2006... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Cellphone and media companies expect to see a sizable market for advertising on cellphones in coming years, with options including advertising-subsidized video services, top executives said on Wednesday. Viacom Inc.,...

Oracle Whips Google-like Search into Shape for Enterprises.(Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g)
March 1, 2006... Oracle is domesticating the powerful beast of Google-like search, unveiling a secure enterprise search engine that reaches into every nook and cranny but minds its p's and q's around business rules and sensitive data. Oracle Secure...

Apple Plugs Mac OS X Worm Hole.(Apple Computer Inc.)
March 1, 2006... With the security of its flagship Mac OS X operating system facing intense scrutiny, Apple Computer on March 1 released a software update with patches for more than a dozen security vulnerabilities. The first security update from Apple for...

RIM: Web Services Will Trump Mobile Browsers.(Research in Motion Ltd.)
March 1, 2006... When David Heit joined Research In Motion in 2000, the company's wireless e-mail system was only just becoming a favorite in executive circles and he was tasked with looking for the firm's next big thing. Six years later, RIM's BlackBerry...

InfraSpectrum: An interview with Mike Milinkovich.(Interview)(Brief article)
March 2, 2006... InfraSpectrum with Peter Coffee is eWEEK's full spectrum scan of developments in enterprise infrastructure, technology, practice and governance. In this week's podcast, vendors seeking to offer comprehensive RFID middleware platforms should...

Microsoft: EU Commission Held Back Antitrust Papers.
March 2, 2006... BRUSSELS--Microsoft argued on March 2 the European Commission has held back documents the software giant needs to defend itself against a possible antitrust fine of up to 2 million euros ($2.4 million) daily. The Commission, the executive...

Content Providers Make Bid for Net Neutrality.
March 2, 2006... Fears that large network operators are planning actions that will undermine the Internet's open architecture prompted a diverse coalition of content providers, applications companies and user advocates to turn to Congress on March 1 for help....

Report: Pricing, Not Multimedia, Drives Wireless Uptake.
March 2, 2006... While cool new applications such as mobile video and music on the handheld are drawing much of the attention from those people following maturation of the wireless communications market, new research contends that subscription pricing remains...

Will Google Shed Light on Data Center?
March 2, 2006... Google's never-ending search for new features has made its data center a star. The data center--and all the spending that goes with it--could take the stage at Google's analyst day March 2. Why? Google's future growth now means making...

U.S. Government Investigates Checkpoint-Sourcefire Deal.(Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.)
March 2, 2006... The U.S. federal government agency at the center of a political controversy over foreign management of U.S. ports is scrutinizing a deal by Israeli company Check Point Software Technologies to acquire Sourcefire. Check Point, of Redwood...

Disk Storage Systems Flying out the Door.
March 2, 2006... Brisk sales of enterprise external disk storage systems gave vendors a bullish quarter to close out the 2005 fiscal year. Revenues were pushed up by $708 million with a 17.9 percent growth from approximately one year ago to reach $4.7...

Google's Chip Search Leads to AMD.(Advanced Micro Devices Inc.)
March 2, 2006... Google has keyed in on Advanced Micro Devices' chips, a report said. The search giant has begun using AMD's Opteron processor in its Google servers due to the chip's energy efficiency, according to Mark Edelstone, a financial analyst with...

Analyst: Nortel CEO Cost-Cutting May Save $650M.(Nortel Networks Corp., Mike Zafirovski)(Brief article)
March 2, 2006... OTTAWA (Reuters)--A plan by Nortel Networks Corp.'s recently appointed chief executive to improve profit at the telecommunications equipment supplier could add up to savings of more than $650 million, an analyst said on Thursday. "None of...

GM, Toyota Extend Technology Partnership.(General Motors Corp.)(Brief article)
March 2, 2006... DETROIT (Reuters)--General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp., the world's two largest automakers, will end their partnership on fuel cell research but will extend the deal for other technology collaboration, GM said Thursday. The current...

RIM Co-CEO Says Keen to Solve NTP Patent Dispute.(Research in Motion Ltd., Mike Lazaridis )
March 2, 2006... TORONTO (Reuters)--Research In Motion Ltd. is still keen to resolve a bitter patent dispute with NTP Inc. and avoid an injunction that would shut its U.S. BlackBerry service, RIM President and co-Chief Executive Mike Lazaridis said on Thursday....

Will 'Origami' Breathe New Life into Mobile PCs?
March 2, 2006... Microsoft is preparing to unfold what it hopes will become a new type of computer: the "Lifestyle PC." The software giant intends to bring to market a new class of smaller and more versatile, battery-powered computers that offer users...

Software CTOs Lobby for More R&D Spending.(Chief technology officers)
March 2, 2006... The chief technology officers of 11 of the country's largest software companies were on Capitol Hill March 2 to let legislators and administration officials know what they're looking for out of Washington this year: More funding for research...

Yahoo Lowers Expectations for Original Content.
March 2, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)--Web media company Yahoo wants to lower expectations for how much original programming it will produce as part of its online information and entertainment offerings, the company said on Thursday. Yahoo will not do a...

Google Sells Capital Ideas at Analyst Day.
March 2, 2006... Capital expenses, China and the balance sheet were major issues Google executives discussed March 2 during its annual "analyst day" in Mountain View, Calif. Google CEO Eric Schmidt first told the gathering of financial analysts that...

Oracle, HP, Intel Join Forces to Push Itanium.(Hewlett-Packard Co)
March 2, 2006... Software giant Oracle will bring its E-Business Suite to Hewlett-Packard's Itanium-based Integrity servers, and is enhancing its licensing model for Integrity servers that are partitioned to run multiple workloads. The moves were announced...

Hunt Intensifies for Botnet Command & Controls.
March 2, 2006... Operating under the theory that if you kill the head, the body will follow, a group of high-profile security researchers is ramping up efforts to find and disable the command-and-control infrastructure that powers millions of zombie drone...

How Disruptive Will Office 2007 Adoption Be?
March 2, 2006... While Microsoft faces a host of challenges in maintaining its market share numbers and persuading customers to upgrade to its 2007 Office System suite of products when released in the second half of this year, its competitors face an equally...

AOL to Roll Out Free E-Mail to Nonprofits.(America Online Inc.)(Brief article)
March 3, 2006... NEW YORK (Reuters)--AOL, the Internet service provider unit of Time Warner Inc., on Friday said it will not charge legitimate not-for-profit organizations and advocacy groups to have their e-mails authenticated and delivered to consumers. ...

AOL to Add Paid Downloads to Free Service.(America Online Inc.)
March 3, 2006... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Time Warner Inc.'s AOL plans to sell programming on its Web site by the middle of this year, a top executive said, as it hastens to secure a place in the market for video-on-demand over the Internet. The...

Motorola Merges Enterprise, Networks Businesses.
March 3, 2006... Motorola on March 3 announced plans to reorganize some of its operations, combining its enterprise mobility business unit with its networks and government division. Under the terms of the plan, few details of which were made public, the...

Intel Faces Its Future at Forum.
March 3, 2006... Intel might have hoped its spring Developer Forum, which arrives next week, would be all about the chips. However, a March 3 first quarter profit warning by the company, which comes after it missed its fourth quarter 2004 earnings...

Is It Too Late to Save Net Neutrality?(Brief article)
March 3, 2006... Yeah, I was more than a little peeved when I wrote about the telephone companies' plans to charge higher rates for "preferred" traffic on the Net back at the beginning of February, and I'm still pretty miffed about the whole thing. The...

SGI Cuts Work Force in Attempt to Right the Ship.(Silicon Graphics Inc.)
March 3, 2006... Struggling Silicon Valley giant Silicon Graphics is cutting 12 percent of its work force as part of an overall restructuring plan designed to save the company $150 million by the end of the year. The Mountain View, Calif., company announced...

Highwall to Launch 'Anti-Virus System' for Wireless.(Highwall Enterprise 4.0)(Brief article)
March 3, 2006... Highwall Technologies on March 6 will launch a software package designed to prevent wireless LAN security breaches without a network overlay of hardware sensors. Highwall Enterprise 4.0 focuses on the end points in a network, detecting...

SiteAdvisor Finds Billions of Unsafe Web Visits.
March 3, 2006... An Internet security startup with roots at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) has slapped a red "X" warning label on approximately 5 percent of all Web traffic and warned that there are one billion monthly visits to Web pages that...

Better Linux Sales Aren't Enough to Halt Novell's Slide.
March 3, 2006... It was not the best of quarters for Linux vendor Novell Inc. When Novell announced its financial results for its first fiscal quarter, which ended Jan. 31, 2006, it reported revenue of $274 million, compared to revenue of $290 million for the...

Intel Links Up with Lockdown's NAC Enforcer.(Lockdown Networks, network access control software)
March 3, 2006... Chip maker Intel's investment arm is putting $3.1 million into Lockdown Networks, a maker of network access control software, and plans to form a strategic partnership with the company. Intel Capital plans to announce a strategic joint...

eBay Patent Case May Cast Big Shadow.(filed by MercExchange )
March 3, 2006... As IT administrators celebrate a settlement in the years-long patent dispute that threatened BlackBerry service in the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court is getting ready to evaluate a similar patent case involving auction giant eBay. ...

Palm Outlook Not as Rosy After BlackBerry Pact -Analysts.
March 3, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO--What's good for Research in Motion Ltd. may not be good for Palm Inc., which could end up selling fewer smart phones now that its rival has settled a dispute that threatened the future of its BlackBerry devices. Shares of...

RIM, NTP Settle Case: BlackBerry Service Is Safe.(Research in Motion Ltd.)
March 3, 2006... It's settled, and your BlackBerry is safe. BlackBerry maker Research In Motion and patent-holding company NTP on March 3 announced that both parties have entered into a settlement agreement and a license that will end the patent litigation...

Microsoft Revs Team System, Looks to Next Version.(Microsoft Team Foundation Server)
March 3, 2006... As the company has already indicated, Microsoft will be releasing the TFS (Team Foundation Server) module of its VSTS (Visual Studio 2005 Team System) later this month, but it is already looking ahead to the next version of Microsoft's ALM...

Microsoft Stakes Out String Bean's iSCSI Storage.(String Bean Software)
March 3, 2006... Microsoft breathed new life into its growing storage business on March 3, announcing the acquisition of WinTarget and iSCSI-based software technology assets from String Bean Software, and solidifying its push into information lifecycle...

Technology Complicates NSA Debate.(National Security Agency )
March 3, 2006... Do contemporary advances in technology entitle the president to ignore federal laws if he believes they might get in the government's way in time of war? That is the underlying question that lawmakers and legal scholars are grappling with...

Upgrade Your Version of Vista (Anytime).(Microsoft Windows Vista)
March 3, 2006... Microsoft testers are getting an early look at new functionality designed to allow users to upgrade to more powerful--and, presumably, more expensive--versions of Vista. Microsoft is testing a new Windows upgrade mechanism, known as...

Getting to Know Drupal.(Brief article)
March 3, 2006... You may recall that I've been working on revamping one of my Web sites with the open-source Drupal CMS (content management system). I'm finally done with the implementation and the design work and I'm well on my way into deployment, so I...

Intel Cuts Revenue Forecast.(Brief article)
March 3, 2006... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Intel Corp. cut its first-quarter revenue forecast on Friday, citing weaker-than-expected demand and a dip in market share, sending its stock down as much as 3 percent to a 17-month low. Stocks opened lower after the...

Borland's For-Sale Tools Place Well in IDE Competition.(Borland Software Corp.)
March 3, 2006... Despite being targeted for divestiture by their owner, Borland Software's development tools fared very well in a comparison of application development tools recently released by Evans Data. Borland's JBuilder Java IDE (integrated...

Finns to Test Mobile Phone Radiation on Human Skin.(Brief article)
March 3, 2006... HELSINKI (Reuters)--Finland's radiation watchdog is to study the effects of mobile phones on human proteins by direct tests on people's skin, to see if handset transmissions affect their health. A pilot study, to be conducted next week,...

AT&T Agrees to Buy BellSouth for $67B.
March 5, 2006... PHILADELPHIA/WASHINGTON (Reuters)--AT&T Inc. said on Sunday it would buy BellSouth Corp. for $67 billion to expand its reach into the southeastern United States and acquire the rest of Cingular Wireless it does not already own. Together,...

Sources: AT&T Near $65B Deal to Acquire BellSouth.
March 5, 2006... PHILADELPHIA/WASHINGTON (Reuters)--Telecommunications giant AT&T Inc. is close to an agreement to acquire BellSouth Corp. for about $65 billion, a deal that would recombine Ma Bell with four of the seven original Baby Bells, sources familiar...

AOL Opens AIM Code to Developers.(America Online Inc.)
March 6, 2006... After years of jealously guarding access to its AOL Instant Messenger network, America Online is openly flirting with third-party developers looking to connect to its AIM service. The Dulles, Va., company has launched Open AIM, a free...

NBC Universal to Buy iVillage for $600 Million.(Brief article)
March 6, 2006... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Media and entertainment conglomerate NBC Universal on Monday said it would acquire iVillage Inc., operator of a network of Web sites for women, for $600 million in a bid to bolster its Internet strategy. NBC Universal,...

New Tool Brings PHP to Visual Studio 2005.(developed by Jcx.Software )
March 6, 2006... Jcx.Software has announced the availability of VS.Php version 2.0, a PHP editor for Visual Studio 2005. The new version of VS.Php allows developers to build, edit and deploy open-source PHP applications using the familiar interface of the...

RIM's Payoff Spells Trouble for Enterprises.(Research in Motion Ltd.)
March 6, 2006... In the short run, business executives are breathing a little easier today because they know that their Research In Motion BlackBerry service is going to stay on. In the long run, enterprise customers are in for a world of hurt. When RIM...

Keynote Systems CEO Gupta Toasts Services.(Umang Gupta )(Interview)
March 6, 2006... Keynote Systems may not be a household name in the consumer world, but it has set itself apart as the leader in testing Web sites and applications for performance and usability. After coming back strong from the dot-bomb fallout several...

FedEx: ExpressPay Hack 'No Different Than Stealing'.(FedEx Kinko's Office and Print Services)
March 6, 2006... Days after a hardware security expert demonstrated jaw-dropping security holes in FedEx Kinko's ExpressPay cards, company officials said the company doesn't think the security holes pose a risk to customers. After initially denying that...

Chinese Hotmail User Charged with Subversion.(Li Yuanlong)
March 6, 2006... BEIJING, March 6 (Reuters)--A Chinese journalist has been charged with sending subversive Hotmail e-mails abroad under a pseudonym amid accusations Yahoo recently provided evidence that led to the imprisonment of two Chinese Internet writers....

FEC Moves Server Functions to Utility Model.(Federal Election Commission)(Brief article)
March 6, 2006... The Federal Election Commission, the public's window into campaign finance, is gradually shifting its IT infrastructure to a virtualized system of services managed remotely. In a five-year contract just signed with Savvis Federal Systems, the...

Amazon Under Fire on Books as Google Debate Rages.
March 6, 2006... LONDON (Reuters)--Amazon.com came under fire from Britain's book publishing and retailing industries on Monday even as the debate raged over a perceived threat presented by Google Inc. The chief executive of HarperCollins UK, said she...

Outsourcing Health IT: Should Doctors Cut the Cord?
March 6, 2006... In an era of rising costs and dwindling access to experts, IT is untethering doctors from patients' physical presence. Already, health care organizations are turning to distant practitioners to interpret radiographs and even to monitor...

EMC Pushes IP Storage with New Celerra Systems, EMC Smarts Software.
March 6, 2006... In a move designed to add more teeth to its IP storage system portfolio, EMC on March 6 debuted two new versions of its mid-tier Celerra product line. At the same time, via its Smarts business unit, the storage company launched what EMC...

EU Urged to Back Research on Computers in Devices.(Brief article)
March 6, 2006... BRUSSELS (Reuters)--The European Commission will propose that EU member states and industry invest 2.7 billion euros ($3.26 billion) to boost research into computers that control household and consumer items, the EU executive said on Monday....

AT&T Acquisition Doesn't Bode Well for SMBs.(acquired BellSouth Corp.)(small and medium businesses)
March 6, 2006... AT&T is framing its planned acquisition of BellSouth as a way to become more innovative, nimble and efficient, but not all business customers may see direct benefits from the changes. For companies in BellSouth's territory, the loss of one...

Another 'Saturday Night Live' Video Removed from YouTube.
March 6, 2006... The "Saturday Night Live" rap video sendoff starring "Star Wars" heroine Natalie Portman recently found its way onto video search engine YouTube before being taken down several hours later. The video, no longer available, was broadcast...