eWeek articles from May 2003

eWeek archives from May 2003

Tools that Travel.(Garmin GPS V)
May 1, 2003... The last time I traveled to Europe, I felt like I had just stepped from the pages of Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad. I couldn't speak the language, hadn't a clue where I was, and couldn't even figure out how to call anyone back home. Needless to...

A Good Wireless Deal.(Good Technology-Dell partnership )
May 1, 2003... At a press conference this week, Good Technology announced a strategic partnership with Dell in an effort to bring more affordable wireless messaging products and services to the enterprise. I believe this alliance will spark lucrative...

IBM Beefs Up 'On Demand' Offerings.
May 1, 2003... IBM Corp. Thursday announced a set of software offerings to bolster the company's e-business on-demand strategy. Much of the new functionality will revolve around IBM's WebSphere application server, including the expansion of an agreement...

Enterprises, Bell Rivals Team Up for Lower Rates.
May 1, 2003... Large corporate telecom users teamed up with the providers that serve them to urge the government to address what they call excessive rates charged by Regional Bell Operating Companies for allowing businesses to connect directly to their...

Microsoft Updates Patch for Windows Flaw.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Microsoft Corp. has released an updated patch for a security vulnerability discovered in Windows NT 4.0 in December. The new update fixes a flaw in the original patch that installed the wrong binaries on multi-processor machines, causing them...

AT&T Offers BlackBerry Users Trade-In Deal.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... AT&T Wireless on Thursday announced a program designed to encourage BlackBerry handheld users on the Mobitex network to upgrade to newer models running on AT&T Wireless' GSM/GPRS (global system for mobile communications/ general packet radio...

PepsiCo: No Deposit, No Return.
May 1, 2003... A salty-snack maker in Texas pioneered the use of wireless communications on delivery routes. Among the copycats: Pepsico, Pepsi bottling companies and such Pepsi subsidiaries as Quaker Oats and Tropicana. So how come all these Pepsi units...

MPC Expands Beyond The Desktop.
May 2, 2003... LAS VEGAS--For MPC Computers LLC, the story line is rapidly becoming more than simply computers. Less than two years ago, the company--formerly MicronPC--was bleeding money. But it recently wrapped up its sixth consecutive profitable...

Storage Customers Get Advocacy Group.(Data Management Institute)
May 2, 2003... It's time for storage users to fight back against industry politics, according to analyst Jon Toigo. Toigo, author of the popular book "The Holy Grail of Data Storage Management" and two books on disaster recovery, next week will announce...

Security, Longhorn to Spotlight WinHEC.
May 2, 2003... Although Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference has typically focused on multimedia applications, security issues will likely steal the spotlight this year. WinHEC, which begins next Tuesday in New Orleans, has dedicated an...

ADIC to Debut New Tape Library.(Advanced Digital Information Corp Scaler 10K Dual Aisle)(Brief Article)
May 2, 2003... A new tape library from Advanced Digital Information Corp. will debut next week with high-availability features and will have iSCSI connections in the future, officials said Friday. The Scaler 10K Dual Aisle will ship in May for about...

HP Realigns Enterprise Group.
May 2, 2003... Hewlett-Packard Co. on Friday realigned their three hardware divisions into a single business unit in an attempt to grow share and profits in the server and storage markets, said Peter Blackmore, executive vice president of HP's Enterprise...

Tool Aims to Reduce IDS False Alarms.(SecurityProfiling Intelligent IDS)
May 2, 2003... As administrators and IT managers continue to look for ways to improve the signal-to-noise ratio in their IDS systems, a small Indiana company is unveiling a new product designed to reduce false positives and get fixes to vulnerable machines...

eBay Hires Former White House Exec.(Howard Schmidt )(Brief Article)
May 2, 2003... Former White House cyber-security adviser Howard Schmidt is set to become vice president of security at online auction giant eBay later this month, according to company officials in San Jose, Calif. Schmidt, 53, a former Microsoft security...

Keynote Extends Services to Online Banking, Retail.(Keynote Systems)
May 2, 2003... Keynote Systems Inc. on Monday will delve deeper into a more vertical focus in its online performance benchmarking services when it launches a pair of new transaction testing services aimed at online banking and retail. Keynote, at the...

Apps Automate Financial Compliance Routines.(business process management software)
May 2, 2003... As IT departments gear up to support their companies' efforts to comply with complex financial reporting rules laid out in the Sarbanes-Oxley law, a host of document management and business process management vendors are rolling out software to...

Intel "Springdale" Chipset to Launch May 21.
May 2, 2003... Intel is expected to launch its "Springdale" chipset line for mainstream PCs on May 21, sources said, backing it up with several new Pentium 4 processors which use the 800-MHz front-side bus. AMD, meanwhile, is also expected to announce a...

To Vegas and Beyond.(Column)
May 5, 2003... El Gato picked up his bags from the carousel at McCarran and braced himself for the dreaded cab corral. But--surprise! He had his pick of fare-starved cabbies, eager to shuttle him to his pseudoswanky digs at the Hard Rock Hotel, where the...

Windows Hardware, Driver Developers Gain Portal.
May 5, 2003... Microsoft Corp. this week is launching a Web portal for Windows hardware and driver developers aimed at bringing more consistency to PCs running the operating system. Windows Hardware and Driver Central is scheduled to be launched Monday...

ThinPC Turns PCs Into Thin Clients.(Brief Article)
May 5, 2003... Neoware Systems Inc. is rolling out software designed to enable enterprises to turn their PCs into thin client appliances. ThinPC, which Neoware is unveiling on Monday, gives enterprises the benefits of thin clients--from greater security...

No Risk, No Reward.(Industry Overview)
May 5, 2003... What happened to all the risk takers? I have spent most of my career either implementing corporate systems, or testing and writing about them for eWEEK and other publications. However, I took the last five years off and helped launch a...

This eWEEK: May 5, 2003.(Brief Article)(Column)
May 5, 2003... Congratulations, spammers. You've just superseded smokers as the most universally loathed social outcasts. Worse, you could soon be on the receiving end of more lawsuits than the tobacco companies. And if you're ever taken to court, you may...

Washington Bids to Can Spam.(Industry Overview)
May 5, 2003... The prospect of federal anti-spam regulation is no longer a question of "if" but rather "how much?" U.S. lawmakers who were once resistant to wading into Internet regulation are now expressing the need to act quickly before the problem of...

Industry Has Spam in the Cross Hairs.(Ipswitch's IMail 8.0)(Brief Article)
May 5, 2003... Software developers and companies that provide e-mail services are offering their own cures for the plague of spam. Ipswitch Inc. is joining the growing ranks of e-mail server software developers to add built-in spam defenses with the...

Linux 2.5 Kernel Developers Get Global View.(Brief Article)
May 5, 2003... Few Linux kernel developers have had the luxury of seeing the big picture of their efforts. Usually what's available are only specific pictures of problems in their component area. But officials of Open Source Development Lab Inc. have...

The Buzz: May 5, 2003.(Column)
May 5, 2003... Oracle Tool Would Manage Licenses Oracle is developing a tool to help customers self-manage licensing compliance, according to Jacqueline Woods, vice president of Global Pricing and Licensing Strategy. The purpose of the tool--which...

EMC Fills Its Partnership Gap.
May 5, 2003... EMC Corp. last week debuted hardware partnerships and upgraded software as part of the high-end storage hardware maker's efforts to expand into data life-cycle management. EMC, based in Hopkinton, Mass., entered the low end of the...

On-Demand Road Map.
May 5, 2003... Computer associates international inc. last week outlined its vision for on-demand computing and put products behind it. Unlike platform providers, with strategies centered on hardware, CA waited to be able to deliver functionality before...

Veritas CEO: Storage and More.(Gary Bloom)(Interview)(Company Profile)
May 5, 2003... Founded in 1989, Veritas Software Corp. has been steadily expanding its storage management software niche to encompass greater systems management functionality. Gary Bloom, chairman of the board, president and CEO of Veritas, joined the company...

What PC Buyers Want.(Industry Overview)
May 5, 2003... Quick, name the top PC vendors. Wrong. Try Formoza, Kraftway, Aquarius, R-Syle Computers and K Systems. They don't sound familiar? They would if you were shopping in Moscow. And the biggest vendor of all in Russia, according to IDC researcher...

Oracle Update in the Wings.
May 5, 2003... Database administrators committed to Oracle Corp.'s namesake database gathered last week at the International Oracle User Group conference in Orlando, Fla., and discussed the impending beta release of the company's next big database upgrade....

IT Work Force Stabilizing.(Brief Article)(Industry Overview)
May 5, 2003... The news is bad for people looking for tech jobs, but for users of IT services, a persistent lackluster need for new IT hires bodes well. A new study showing a four-year low in the demand for IT workers indicates that prices for IT services...

Touching All Bases.
May 5, 2003... While cell phone operating system developer Symbian Ltd. is courting corporate customers with new partnerships and applications, the company eschews the idea of phones that cater to the enterprise to the exclusion of the mass market. At...

Foundry Platform Goes Beyond Current Switching.(Brief Article)
May 5, 2003... Foundry Networks Inc. last week unveiled its next-generation terabit switching architecture along with the first two products that implement the high-performance hardware architecture. The foundation of the architecture is 10 Gigabit...

OASIS Unit to Promote Business Process Spec.(Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards)
May 5, 2003... The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards last week formally announced the formation of a technical committee to promote a standard for interoperable business processes and business process execution for Web...

ASI Revs DbEncrypt Tool.(DbEncrypt for SQL Server 2.1)(Brief Article)
May 5, 2003... Application Security Inc. is upgrading DbEncrypt for Microsoft Corp.'s SQL Server database to enable it to lock down databases faster and tighter. DbEncrypt for SQL Server 2.1, which will be unveiled this week, takes far fewer round trips...

IBM, Cisco to Extend Grids.(Brief Article)
May 5, 2003... IBM has enlisted help from networking vendor Cisco Systems Inc. to build out its grid computing vision. Cisco and several other companies last week joined with IBM to form a group that plans to encourage grid computing among businesses. ...

Cisco's IP Phone Runs on 802.11b.(Brief Article)
May 5, 2003... Cisco Systems last week introduced a phone designed to run on 802.11b-based wireless LANs. The Cisco Wireless IP Phone 7920 has a range of 500 to 1,000 feet from the access point, depending on the environment, said Cisco officials. The...

Pogo Combines Linux With Serial ATA.(Pogo Linux's Velocity-DX)(Brief Article)
May 5, 2003... A small server maker this week is rolling out a Linux-based Serial ATA workstation designed to combine with Intel's Xeon chips to give users greater hard drive speed and greater performance. Pogo Linux's Velocity-DX is the industry's first...

NetBotz Revs Security Tools.(WallBotz 500)(Brief Article)
May 5, 2003... NetBotz Corp., which pioneered the development of IP-based physical security appliances, this week will launch the next generation of its Sentry devices. The WallBotz 500, along with a new version of the vendor's management tool, was...

Steady as She Goes.
May 5, 2003... Matt Merrick was worried. In the fall of 2001, Merrick, executive vice president of IT at The Merrick Printing Company Inc., was deep into the process of standardizing his data center on NetServer systems from Hewlett-Packard Co. HP,...

Search Engine as OS.
May 5, 2003... If I asked you to name the internet's dominant operating system, you'd probably nominate Linux, Windows or possibly Solaris. My answer would be none of the above. Increasingly, our most value-adding interface layer is Google--and our industry's...

Partners for Integration.
May 5, 2003... BEA Systems Inc. and Siebel Systems Inc. last week announced an expansion of their partnership to jointly deliver integration solutions. BEA, of San Jose, Calif., and Siebel, of San Mateo, Calif., said they will support each other's...

CodeWeavers' Latest Release Is Music to Linux Users' Ears.(CodeWeavers' CrossOver Office 2.0)(Software Review)
May 5, 2003... As the de facto standard in desktop operating systems, Microsoft Windows is generally the platform of choice--often, to the exclusion of any others--for commercially developed applications and services. Although good open source...

Database Lets Systems Scale.(SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition )
May 5, 2003... A select group of enterprises running memory-hungry applications are welcoming the arrival late last month of a 64-bit database from Microsoft Corp. SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition (64-bit) runs on 64-bit versions of Windows Server...

Hyperion Updates Performance Scorecard.
May 5, 2003... LAS VEGAS--Hyperion Solutions Corp. introduced the latest version of its Performance Scorecard application at its Solutions user conference here Monday, offering tighter integration with dashboard applications. Hyperion also showcased its...

Business Objects Extends BI.
May 5, 2003... Business Objects S.A. solidified its claim to providing an end-to-end business intelligence platform with the introduction of its Enterprise 6 suite late last month. The suite features Web-based query, reporting and analysis tools; a BI...

Siemens ICN Takes the HiPath.(HiPath SIcurity Solutions)(Brief Article)
May 5, 2003... The Siemens AG subsidiary Siemens Information and Communication Networks Inc. last week outlined its plans to marry physical security and network/information security in a wide-ranging initiative. Siemens ICN, based in Boca Raton, Fla.,...

Cyber-Security Leadership.
May 5, 2003... In its national strategy to secure cyberspace, the federal government says it wants to show us how security should be done. Now, with a leadership crisis gripping the Bush administration's primary cyber-security unit, officials may have their...

Surviving Software Audits.
May 5, 2003... This may be difficult to believe, but being in full compliance with your software license agreements does not make a software audit any easier. In fact, your level of compliance has virtually no bearing on how easy or difficult the audit is. I...

Cisco Bridges IP-SAN Gap.(Cisco MDS 9216 Multilayer Fabric Switch )(Hardware Review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 5, 2003... Armed with its new MDS 9000 series of storage networking products, Cisco Systems Inc. is ready to fight its way into the Fibre Channel SAN market. Unlike products such as the Cisco SN 5428, which were designed for small storage area networks,...

What You Mean, Not What You Say.(Brief Article)
May 5, 2003... The voice recognition packages available today base their recognition process around a probabilistic table of word pairs and triples used to map spoken phonemes to written text. This knowledge of likely word relationships allows the...

Fujitsu Harnesses Athlon XP-M.(Fujitsu LifeBook S2000 Notebook)(Hardware Review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 5, 2003... Fujitsu PC Corp. is now shipping notebooks armed with the mobile Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Athlon XP-M processor. Based on eWEEK Labs' tests, we think these notebooks could give Intel Corp.'s Centrino-based systems a run for their money. ...

Needed: Voice for IT.(Industry Overview)
May 5, 2003... So you're mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. Who are you going to call? As an IT pro, there is no organization to which you can turn to represent your interests in Washington. That needs to change. We technology workers are a...

VMware Expands Virtual Horizons.(VMware Inc.'s Workstation 4.0 desktop virtual machine software )
May 5, 2003... VMware Inc.'s Workstation 4.0 desktop virtual machine software provides a solid platform on which to run multiple operating systems. In eWEEK Labs' tests, VMware Workstation 4.0 showed it would be a good choice in environments where the...

Palm Puts Itself Back on Track.
May 5, 2003... Palm Inc. has been the No. 1 player in the handheld device space for quite a while now, but during the last couple of years, its product releases have had eWEEK Labs wondering whether the company has put itself on a track toward eventual...

Veritas to Unveil Service Manager.
May 5, 2003... Responding to customer demands to administer storage more in the context of overall IT infrastructure, Veritas Software Corp. this week will announce Service Manager, a far-reaching new master console, which won't be complete until 2005. ...

Big Challenge for Big Storage.(Brief Article)
May 5, 2003... The big boys in storage management are targeting the assets of smaller companies to augment their product lines. Of course, the real winner won't be the company with the most acquisitions. Success will be determined by the speed and efficiency...

VPN Questions Answered.
May 5, 2003... A recent eSeminar showed that, while virtual private networks have been widely deployed, many questions about the technology remain, and many new questions are arising as the technology evolves. Following, eWEEK Labs answers some of the...

Visual Studio .Net 2003 Walk-Through.(Software Review)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 5, 2003... Application developers know that Microsoft never puts out a platform without offering a matching set of tools. What Visual Basic 1.0 did for the Windows GUI, last year's Visual Studio .Net did for network-based applications. That trend...

South Korean Group Sues Microsoft Over Slammer.
May 5, 2003... In a sign of users' increasing frustration with the security shortcomings of many software applications, a civic group in South Korea has made good on their threat to file a lawsuit against Microsoft Corp.'s Korean subsidiary, a Korean ISP and...

Novell Bets on Net Services.
May 5, 2003... Novell Inc. is wagering that it can hang onto its much-diminished installed base while attracting new users by offering enterprises a set of network services that's broad and well-integrated and keeps customer options open by embracing...

NetWare Suits Berkshire.
May 5, 2003... When Mike Giovaninni moves his company to a next-generation operating system later this year, he won't be migrating to the much-ballyhooed Windows Server 2003. He'll be moving to NetWare 6.5. Eight months into testing a beta of Novell...

A Blurred Benchmark.(AMD's Opteron microprocessor)
May 5, 2003... AMD's Opteron microprocessor is by far the most interesting thing to happen in the server chip world in the last two years. It put Intel into reaction mode, forcing the company to change how it would optimize 32-bit applications on the Itanium...

Readers Respond: Face Up to Outsourcing.(Letter to the Editor)
May 5, 2003... Thank you for bringing an open view to this environment. Having been on both sides of this equation, I think everyone needs to understand that they are giving up a lot in the long term to absorb risk and maybe save in the short term. Once gone,...

Survey: Java, C# Draws Visual Basic Developers.(Brief Article)
May 5, 2003... A new survey of developers shows that existing Visual Basic developers are moving to Microsoft's upgraded Visual Basic .Net as well as to Java and other language alternatives to build their applications going forward. A survey to be...

iTools Serves Up Apache in Mac OS X.(Brief Article)
May 5, 2003... For the most part, administrators of the open-source Apache Web server prefer that all server management be done through configuration files, which makes it more secure and less likely that something unwanted is running in the background. ...

Data Analysis Tool Works on the Fly.(Databeacon's Databeacon Collaboration Edition)(Brief Article)
May 5, 2003... Organizations that want to deploy data analysis and visualization tools to thousands or tens of thousands of users will find Databeacon's updated Databeacon server and analysis client (www.databeacon.com) easy to purchase and distribute. ...

Dell to Change Name.(to Dell Inc. upon shareholder's approval)(Brief Article)
May 5, 2003... Dell Computer Corp. long ago outgrew the college dorm room where founder Michael Dell started the mail-order PC business. Now the Round Rock, Texas., company says it has outgrown the name, as well. In a filing of its preliminary proxy...

Knoppix Squeezes Desktop Onto 1 CD.(Brief Article)
May 5, 2003... I've been spending time recently with Knoppix, a Debian-based Linux distribution that's stored on and boots from a single CD. Knoppix, which recently underwent a Version 3.2 release, includes the KDE 3.1.1 desktop environment, the OpenOffice...

Reader Response: This eWEEK.(Letter to the Editor)
May 5, 2003... Dear Stan, I just read your commentary in the May 5, 2003 edition of eWEEK. It's not obvious to me whether you were kidding or not, so I'm a little perturbed by your statement regarding spammers: "Should we care about defending the rights...

Oracle to Offer Single View Into Its OEM.
May 5, 2003... Oracle Corp.'s plan to offer a single-browser-based view in its Oracle Enterprise Manager is being greeted with glee by users, particularly in light of a major Oracle database vulnerability discovered last week. Andy Mendelsohn, Oracle's...

AmberPoint to Roll Out Web Services Tool.(AmberPoint Service Level Manager)
May 5, 2003... AmberPoint Inc. on Tuesday will bring another level of business maturity to Web services when it introduces its new AmberPoint Service Level Manager. The new tool, which works with both J2EE and .Net Web services platforms, provides three...

Xerox CEO Mulcahy: Serving the Office.
May 5, 2003... Copier and printer giant Xerox Corp. is working hard to evolve with the rolling economy through technology, products and people--and in that order. Two years ago the Stamford, Conn., company placed a big bet on color copying and printing and...

Update: Gates To Unify Windows Around Mouse Wheel.
May 5, 2003... Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates on Tuesday showed off a method to unify the Windows experience on several platforms, as part of making IT simpler and easier to use. In his keynote address here at the Windows...

Veritas' Vision of Utility Computing.
May 5, 2003... Veritas Software on Monday will stake a claim beyond storage management. Way beyond. At its annual user conference, the company will present its model for provisioning IT resources--along with a roadmap for the software that will accomplish the...

It Takes a System to Solve Long-Lasting Problems.(Preventsys)(Software Review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
May 5, 2003... Coming to market today after months of early-adopter testing, Preventsys 1.0 is a network auditing system whose specifications seem like an echo of eWEEK Labs' security process recommendations during the past several years. I hope to be...

Microsoft Virtual Server Eases Migrations.
May 6, 2003... Microsoft Corp. is giving customers a preview of the pre-beta code for its Virtual Server, which it acquired when it bought the virtual machine assets of Connectix Corp. in February. At that time Bill Veghte, a Microsoft corporate vice...

IBM Powers Up Unix Servers.
May 6, 2003... IBM, having upgraded its midrange eServer p650 system with the latest versions of the Power4+ microprocessor, is now turning its attention to other servers within its Unix line. The Armonk, N.Y., tech giant on Tuesday will announce that it...

AMD's Latest Athlon MP Could Be Its Last.(AMD Athlon MP 2800+)(Brief Article)
May 6, 2003... Advanced Micro Devices Inc. on Tuesday is releasing the latest of its Athlon MP processors, the 2800+, designed for one- and two-way servers and workstations. The 2800+, with increased Level 2 cache, could be the last of the Athlon MP...

Crusoe Finds Way Into Smart Displays.
May 6, 2003... Transmeta Corp. will announce Tuesday that Microsoft Corp. has qualified the Crusoe TM5800 processor for use in the "Mira" smart displays, which began shipping in February. Microsoft qualified the TM5800 at speeds of 800MHz up to 1GHz for...

Reader Response: 'Needed: Voice for IT'.(Letter to the Editor)
May 6, 2003... When I announced over the Internet I was forming the Programmers Guild in 1998 to do what you suggest, I expected 10,000 people to immediately sign up for the mailing list. It took over three years to get 1,000 to join us. I believe we are...

RIM, Palm Team Up.
May 6, 2003... PalmSource Inc. on Tuesday announced plans with Research in Motion Ltd. to run RIM's wireless e-mail software on the Palm operating system. Through RIM's BlackBerry Connect licensing program, Palm OS licensees will have access to RIM's...

Q-Link Targets Novice Java Developers.(Q-Link 5.0)
May 6, 2003... Q-Link Technologies Inc. Tuesday announced a new version of its application development platform that features component assembly and integration capabilities and enables new or less experienced Java developers to build enterprise Java 2...