eWeek articles from September 2002

eWeek archives from September 2002

Collaboration Made Flexible.(Macromedia Inc.'s Flash Communication Server MX )
September 2, 2002... Macromedia Inc.'s Flash Communication Server MX brings powerful, flexible collaboration capabilities to the popular format for media-rich Web applications, making it attractive to businesses that have had a hard time finding a collaboration...

The Buzz: September 2, 2002.
September 2, 2002... Survey: Spam Costs Add Up Dealing with the spam that floods workers' e-mail in-boxes can cost companies lots of money. That's from an internal study conducted by Activis. The managed security services company surveyed employees in its...

Real Time Plays Lead in Tomorrow's Enterprise.
September 2, 2002... Ready for the real-time enterprise? Where real-time operations were once the province of nuclear power plants and mission-critical manufacturing processes, the real-time concept has been sneaking into the vocabulary of the "next big thing"...

Netscape Not An Option.(Netscape 7.0)(Product Announcement)
September 2, 2002... With the release of Netscape 7.0, Netscape Communications Corp. and its parent, America Online Inc., have finally completed the transformation of the browser from a powerful and highly customizable Web and e-mail client to an intrusive...

SAP and IBM Ready Integration Modules.(SAP Cross Applications and IBM's Collaborations modules)(Product Announcement)
September 2, 2002... IBM and SAP AG are extending their respective efforts to link heterogeneous applications with new integration offerings. IBM this month will announce two WebSphere Business Integration software components, called Collaborations, that link...

Security Overhaul to Postpone SQL Server.(Microsoft Yukon DBMS)
September 2, 2002... Built-in security development is at the heart of a delay of a major Microsoft Corp. database upgrade. An upgrade to SQL Server, code-named Yukon, will be delayed from late this year to early next year, said company officials here last...

Ironing Out Supply Chain Wrinkles.(SupplyWorks Max 3.0 and WorldChain 3.0)(Product Announcement)
September 2, 2002... Updated supply chain management software from SupplyWorks Inc. and WorldChain Inc. promise to let production professionals better manage inventories through collaboration with supplier partners. SupplyWorks this week will release Version...

Intel's Banias Chip: Substance and Style?
September 2, 2002... The most interesting part of Intel's recent mobile day in San Francisco had nothing to do with processing power and performance and everything to do with the fact that Intel shared the stage in part with Ideo, a design company. My first...

Siebel, SAP CRM Updates Map Business Processes.(MySAP CRM 3.1)(Product Announcement)
September 2, 2002... Companies that have found CRM implementations frustrating and costly may get some relief from Siebel Systems Inc. and SAP AG upgrades that promise new business process mapping capabilities. Version 7.5 of Siebel's namesake customer...

Bush to U.S. Colleges: Send in the CIOs.
September 2, 2002... The Bush administration is expected to call on U.S. colleges and universities to put people and processes in place to further help the government collect and share data. The plan, which is part of a draft of the National Strategy to Secure...

Peoplesoft Targets Homeland Security.(PeopleSoft Patriot Act Student and Exchange Visitor Information System Solution and PeopleSoft Guardian Solution)(Product Announcement)
September 2, 2002... Peoplesoft Inc. has introduced software modules aimed at helping higher- education and public-sector organizations protect homeland security. The PeopleSoft PASS SEVIS (Patriot Act Student and Exchange Visitor Information System Solution)...

NetLedger Delivers Accounting Package for Oracle's SBS.
September 2, 2002... The software company that powers Oracle Corp.is Small Business Suite is enhancing the bundle with new accounting applications. NetLedger Inc. last week rolled out its Advanced Accounting package, hosted accounting software geared toward...

Opsware Touts Enhancements.
September 2, 2002... Opsware Inc., now that it has shed its Loudcloud Inc. name with the closing of its deal with Electronic Data Systems Corp., is moving forward with a set of enhancements and add-ons to its data center automation software. Last week, after...

New Connections Will Pack More Into Bios.
September 2, 2002... A standards-setting body is adding internal system and system/server connections to the computer BIOS protocol, which could mean new system capabilities and lower costs for users. T13, the committee that designs interface standards for ATA...

Microsoft Previews Kit for Building Web Services.
September 2, 2002... Microsoft Corp. last week took a step to advance Web services capabilities in announcing the availability of its WSDK technical preview. Web Services Development Kit provides tools developers need to build advanced Web services...

NetApp Eyes SAN Arena.(Network Appliance Inc.)
September 2, 2002... Daniel Warmenhoven, CEO of Network Appliance Inc., of Sunnyvale, Calif., took charge of the company in 1994 and has led NetApp to a prominent role in NAS products. Now NetApp is poised to embark on a new strategy that includes SAN products as...

Carriers Join on Local Network Proposal.(BellSouth Corp. and Time Warner Telecom Inc.)
September 2, 2002... BellSouth Corp. and Time Warner Telecom Inc. went to the government last week with a joint proposal to resolve a long-standing industry dispute over access to the local telephone network. The compromise, if approved, would further differentiate...

Skilled Labor: A Key IT Resource.
September 2, 2002... One of the first advocates of a U.S. Labor Day holiday was AFL co-founder Peter McGuire, who wanted to honor those "who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold." The U.S. and international economies have given us...

Storage Technology Bolsters Cache, Capacity of Virtual Array.(Storage Technology V2X Shared Virtual Array)
September 2, 2002... Storage Technology Corp. this month is shipping a major upgrade to its core V960 Shared Virtual Array product. The upgrade, the V2X Shared Virtual Array, boasts higher disk usage rates than the V960, plus RAID 6 and Fibre Channel drives,...

Portal, Alliance Lighten HR Load.(Plumtree Portal for Employee Services, PeopleSoft and Sun Microsystems licensing agreement)(Product Announcement)
September 2, 2002... Enterprises looking to improve employee communications and human resources processes will get a boost from new software from Plumtree Software Inc. and a partnership between PeopleSoft Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc. Plumtree last week...

Spectrum Auction Should Please Both Camps.
September 2, 2002... The Federal Communications Commission last week began auctioning a chunk of spectrum in the lower-700MHz range, while keeping its plan to auction the rest of the 700MHz spectrum in January. The abbreviated auction is a compromise authorized...

SG800 Inspects Port 80 Web Traffic.(from Blue Coat Systems (formerly CacheFlow))(Evaluation)
September 2, 2002... It seems like every company is becoming a security firm these days, and CacheFlow Inc. (now Blue Coat Systems Inc.) is no exception. Blue Coat celebrated its new incarnation by releasing the Security Gateway 800, a gussied-up caching tool that...

eRoom, PlaceWare Forge Sharper Collaboration Tools.(eRoom.net 6.0)(Product Announcement)
September 2, 2002... Collaboration software and service providers have come out with new versions of their offerings to meet customers' diverse needs. Digital work space software developer eRoom Technology Inc. last week made available Version 6.0 of its...

Feeling the Heat.(computer makers)
September 2, 2002... Computer makers are beginning to feel the heat, quite literally, as faster- and hotter-running microprocessors and compact computer designs are pushing the limits of what fan-based cooling systems can handle. Within three to five years,...

GeekSpeak: September 2, 2002.(11th Usenix Security Symposium)
September 2, 2002... Usenix security has latest in security research. The 11th Usenix Security Symposium, held early last month in San Francisco, provided insights into future commercial security work. The conference is largely an academic one, with refereed...

Save-N-Sync Harmonizes Data.(Peer Software's Save-N-Sync 2.0)(Brief Article)(Evaluation)
September 2, 2002... Synchronizing files between systems or network folders is something all of us must do, but syncing today has changed little from its early days. Fortunately, a small company called Peer Software has found a way to do the job better. Using...

Legal Threat Looms Over Spammers.(Habeas Sender Warranted Email service)
September 2, 2002... eWeek Labs' recent special report on spam examined a number of ways to at least slow the flood of spam, including blacklists and filtering software. A new service from Habeas offers another way: haiku. What? You're wondering how a...

Axis 70 NDS Is One-Trick Device.(xis Communications Axis 70 Network Document Server)(Brief Article)(Evaluation)
September 2, 2002... Axis Communications' $499 Axis 70 Network Document Server resembles a low-end version of a multifunction peripheral, but it has essentially one function: Connected to a scanner, it converts paper documents into electronic format and distributes...

Oracle: One-Stop App Server Shop.(Oracle9i Application Server 9.0.2 (a.k.a Oracle9i Application Server Release 2))(Evaluation)
September 2, 2002... Oracle Corp. takes an all-in-one approach with its Oracle9i Application Server Release 2, which provides lots of extra trimmings for more complex Web application development. Organizations developing custom portals or building document...

Changes Ahead for JSP Developers.(JavaServer Pages 2.0)
September 2, 2002... The next version of the JSP Web page scripting language is undergoing major changes for its 2.0 release. The proposed final specification for JavaServer Pages 2.0 was published Aug. 16 (see www.eweek.com/links). Before Version 2.0 can be...

EMC Hones Clariion Line With CX600.(Evaluation)
September 2, 2002... EMC Corp.'s new Clariion CX600 storage system brings 2G-bps Fibre Channel performance to midtier and high-end networks. Compared with the Clariion we tested about two years ago, the FC4500, the Clariion CX600 has benefited from the...

Management Key to Storage.
September 2, 2002... Big and fast may be two of the biggest requirements when choosing a storage system, but another key consideration is manageability. Manageability is inherently harder to quantify than capacity or throughput, and it will get harder as...

CPUs: Competition Improves the Breed.
September 2, 2002... In this post-Arthur Andersen era, it was ironic to see an auditor's signature over the benchmark figures in AMD's Athlon XP 2600+ processor announcement last month. This makes them more believable? Moreover, those audited numbers offer no...

Benchmarks Challenged.(Intel and AMD's microprocessors)
September 2, 2002... So now CEOs have to sign off on their companies' financial statements--on pain of imprisonment. I wish industry marketers were held to the same standard. The latest "benchmarketing" flap concerns Intel and AMD. According to AMD, BAPCo, a...

Hunting Down Prairie Dogs and Other Tips.
September 2, 2002... Spencer heard that StorageTek, which makes tape and disk array products, recently paid exterminators about $5,000 to wipe out more than 4,000 prairie dogs that were ravaging its 450-acre campus in Louisville, Colo. Employees who use the...

HP Releases Entry-Level Unix Servers.(HP Unix 2405, 5405 and 7405)(Product Announcement)
September 3, 2002... Hewlett-Packard Co. today will announce three new entry-level models of its HP Unix servers, priced up to 40 percent below the cost of earlier comparable systems. The HP Unix 2405, 5405 and 7405 feature the computer maker's 64-bit 650MHz...

Microsoft Bolsters Passport Security.
September 3, 2002... Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday will announce a set of changes designed to improve the security and privacy of its Passport online authentication service. The company will include all of the changes in version 2.5 of the Passport service, due...

Readers Sound Off on New Power Macs.(Power Mac G4 )(Evaluation)
September 3, 2002... My recent call for reader responses to Apple Computer's latest generation of Power Mac G4 towers had two paradoxical effects: While the wealth of articulate opinion (both pro and con) proved manifestly worthy of a column, its sheer volume left...

Intel Cuts Chip Prices.
September 3, 2002... As expected, Intel Corp. over the weekend slashed prices on its processors up to 52 percent in a bid to spur demand and reduce inventories of unsold chips that climbed as sales fell short of projections this summer. The discounting came...

Supply Chain Software Companies Merge.
September 3, 2002... Two supply chain software makers, SynQuest Inc. and Viewlocity Inc., announced today a definitive agreement to merge operations. SynQuest provides supply chain planning software, while Viewlocity offers supply chain event management...

Launch Date Set for XP Service Pack.(Windows XP Service Pack 1 )(Product Announcement)
September 3, 2002... Microsoft Corp. this weekend released Windows XP Service Pack 1 to manufacturing, but said the pack will be available for the general public via download or CD on Monday, September 9. The service pack, which has been in beta since June,...

Cisco Warns of Flaws in VPN 3000 Series.
September 3, 2002... Cisco Systems Inc. on Tuesday released a bulletin detailing more than a dozen security vulnerabilities in its popular 3000 series of VPN concentrators. The effects of the vulnerabilities range from denials of service to password disclosure...

Solaris on Intel Debate Rages On.
September 3, 2002... The brouhaha between Sun Microsystems Inc. and the Solaris on Intel user community took another turn this week. A half-page advertisement in Tuesday's San Jose Mercury News, titled "Shame on you, Scott," is the latest salvo in the battle...

BEA Taking Developer Push on the Road.(BEA Systems Inc.)
September 3, 2002... BEA Systems Inc. on Tuesday announced its BEA dev2dev Days tour, a global educational tour through which the company will target developers in the enterprise integration and Web services spaces. The dev2dev Days tour will kick off in Boston...

Novell Cuts Software Prices.
September 3, 2002... Novell Inc. announced Tuesday a new pricing plan across its software product lines that will reduce license fees for customers who make the software available as Web services to their customers. The new pricing plan creates two new...

Flaw or Not, Microsoft to Patch Services Problem.
September 4, 2002... Microsoft Corp. is working on patches for several services within Windows that run with inappropriately high privileges, making the operating system vulnerable to a sophisticated attack that could lead to a complete compromise of the machine....

H-1B Applications Fall.
September 4, 2002... With the economic slowdown continuing&#151particularly in technology industries&#151employers apparently slashed their use of the controversial H-1B visa program late last year and through the first half of 2002, according to new figures...

Growth Fund Makes Bid for Plumtree.(Sutter Opportunity Fund 2)
September 4, 2002... Sutter Opportunity Fund 2 LLC, an affiliate of investment banking firm Sutter Capital Management LLC, has made a bid to acquire corporate portal software developer Plumtree Software Inc., the fund announced Wednesday. The bid, made just...

All About PHP.
September 4, 2002... "Programming PHP" is a great overall reference for the fledgling dynamic Web developer. Since PHP&#151an HTML-embedded scripting language also known as PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor&#151was created by Rasmus Lerdorf in the mid-1990s, it has...

Good News for BeOS Aficionados.(beta testing for opensource incarnation)
September 4, 2002... Yesterday, the file system team from the OpenBeOS Project (one of several current efforts to bring the BeOS back to life as open-source software) announced that the fruit of their efforts, OpenBFS, has reached beta stage and is ready for...

SAP Signs Deal to Extend SMB Reach.
September 4, 2002... At its Sapphire user conference in Lisbon, Portugal, this week software giant SAP AG announced it's targeting small and midsized business software sales channels, quicker return on investment for customers and helping financial institutions...

Microsoft to Unveil Storage Software.
September 4, 2002... Microsoft Corp. on Thursday will announce storage multipathing software for Windows 2000 and Windows .Net. Multipath input/output technology lets servers talk to storage devices across simultaneous access paths. An access path is a...

Intel Sells Software Division.(LANDesk)
September 4, 2002... Intel Corp. is selling off controlling interest in LANDesk, its software division that develops applications to manage computer networks. The software unit will be sold to LANDesk Acquisition Corp., an entity formed by two venture capital...

No IBM, PwC Layoffs Yet.
September 4, 2002... IBM and Price WaterhouseCoopers LLC officials confirmed reports that the two companies are conducting assessments that could lead to layoffs once PwC's global consulting business is acquired by IBM by the end of this month. Officials from...

Tool Gives WSDL Programmers a Hand.(Cape Clear WSDL Editor)(Product Announcement)
September 4, 2002... In a move to establish itself as a key provider of technology for creating and editing Web Services, Cape Clear Software Inc. Wednesday announced a free editor for the Web Services Definition Language (WSDL). The Cape Clear WSDL Editor...

Microsoft's Office 11 Nears Beta.
September 4, 2002... Microsoft Corp. is moving closer to the release of the first beta for Office 11, the next version of its Office XP productivity suite. Sources told eWEEK on Wednesday that the Redmond, Wash., software firm this week notified those testers...

Altiris Upgrades Lifecycle Management Suite.(Altiris Lifecycle Management Suite 5.6)(Product Announcement)
September 5, 2002... Altiris Inc. next week will brave the unlucky travel dates and declining attendance at Networld + Interop in Atlanta to introduce a new release of its integrated asset management suite. The suite, which integrates inventory, application...

EDS to Add New Service Capability.
September 5, 2002... EDS this week outlined its plans to implement metering of computer usage and billing based on usage in its hosting data centers. EDS, which is implementing Ejasent Inc.'s MicroMeasure software, is building on its computing-on-demand...

Maxtor Launches 160GB Drives.(Product Announcement)
September 5, 2002... Drive maker Maxtor Corp. on Thursday launched four upgraded models, using its new 80GB media platters. Two of the drives, the DiamondMax 16 and the DiamondMax Plus 9, have 160GB capacities, using two platters. The DiamondMax 16 spins at...

Microsoft Puts Out Patch for Windows Flaw.
September 5, 2002... Microsoft Corp. on Thursday released a patch for the Windows flaw discovered last month that allows an attacker to generate and sign fake certificates for third-party Web sites. The flaw affects all versions of Windows back to 95, Office...

Certs Pay Rises While Skills Bonuses Sag.(Column)
September 5, 2002... Note: Skills Moneyline is a new monthly column about technical skills and certifications compensation and related issues. I'll draw from Foote Partners' rigorous research involving nearly 30,000 public and private sector IT professionals in...

Quantum Expands Tape Portfolio Through Acquisition.(of Benchmark Storage Innovations)
September 5, 2002... Tape industry player Quantum Corp. announced today its acquisition of Benchmark Storage Innovations Inc. for $11 million and up to 15 million shares of stock. Quantum, of Milpitas, Calif., makes high-end tapes, tape automation hardware and...

SAP Taps Integration, CRM at Sapphire.(Product Announcement)
September 5, 2002... At the second day of its Sapphire user conference in Lisbon, Portugal, on Thursday, SAP AG announced new products and services. Targeting integration, SAP announced a new software product, Collaborative Master Data Management [CMDM],...

Intel Stock Hits Five-Year Low.(Q3 2002)
September 5, 2002... Intel Corp., in an acknowledgment that its sales are proving disappointing, Thursday lowered its revenue guidance for the third quarter. While revealing few details in its scheduled midquarter update, the company said revenues would come...

BlackBerry Gains Web, Printing Enhancements.
September 5, 2002... Wireless application developer Onset Technology Inc. next week will introduce a new version of its MetaMessage application that adds new printing capabilities and one-touch Web access to Research in Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry handheld devices....

PGP Vulnerability Opens Door to Remote Attacks.
September 6, 2002... Security researchers at Foundstone Inc. have discovered a serious vulnerability in PGP--the popular e-mail encryption program--that gives remote attackers the ability to use encrypted files to force a vulnerable machine to run arbitrary code....

XML Schema: Breaking the Code.
September 6, 2002... As the famous developer said while on his deathbed, "XML is easy, XML Schema is hard". OK, so maybe it really was a famous actor speaking about acting and comedy. The point is still the same. One of the reasons for the heavy adoption of...

Liberty Alliance President Resigns.(Eric Dean)(Brief Article)
September 6, 2002... The president of the Liberty Alliance Project resigned his position Friday, citing a shortage of time resulting from the problems facing his employer, United Airlines. Eric Dean, who serves as chief information officer at UAL Corp.'s...

WorldCom Bolsters VPN Services.
September 6, 2002... Scrambling to maximize the potential of the relatively lucrative business market, WorldCom Inc. this week during its bankruptcy proceedings lofted a series of updates to its portfolio of global virtual private network services. To make...

XForms a Huge Step Forward for Web Forms.
September 6, 2002... HTML is probably the world's most important data format, and so changes come very slowly. But the World Wide Web Consortium's HTML Working Group has big plans for HTML. The current HTML standard is actually now XHTML 1.0 Second Edition,...

Macromedia Rolls Out Development Kit.(Product Announcement)
September 6, 2002... Macromedia Inc. on Friday announced the availability of the Macromedia MX Developer Resource Kit, Volume One, a new tool to help developers create applications using Macromedia's products. Macromedia officials said the kit, which is the...

Tool Aligns Business Processes, Security.(IDS Scheer Aris Process Risk Scout)(Product Announcement)
September 6, 2002... Business process management software provider IDS Scheer Inc. on Monday will announce a new tool that is designed to align business processes and enterprise systems with new standards of operational security. IDS Scheer's Aris Process Risk...

AT&T Offers Unlimited Calls on GPRS.(Brief Article)
September 6, 2002... AT&T Wireless Services Inc. this week began offering a promotional plan that lets subscribers make unlimited calls and data transmissions on its high-speed GPRS network. The plan, priced at $99.99 per month, is designed to compete with...

Plumtree Rejects Buyout Offer.
September 6, 2002... Plumtree Software Inc. has rejected an unsolicited takeover bid made earlier this week by the Sutter Opportunity Fund 2 LLC. The bid, valued at nearly $150 million, would have paid $5 a share for each outstanding share of the San...

Adobe Automates Image Production Tasks.(Adobe Graphics Server 2.0)(Product Announcement)
September 9, 2002... Adobe Systems Inc. Monday announced the newest version of its graphics and imaging server software, Adobe Graphics Server 2.0. The new software, formerly known as Adobe AlterCast, reduces the time and cost of creating and updating images by...

Still Much We Can Learn From Sept. 11.
September 9, 2002... Disaster planning used to focus on natural disasters, accidents and careless employees. But after the terrorist strikes on Sept. 11 last year, disaster planning expanded to become the work of planning to recover from an attack once thought of...

Groove Smooths Connections.(Groove 2.5)(Product Announcement)
September 9, 2002... As Groove Networks Inc. bolsters its peer-to-peer collaboration software with nuts-and-bolts efficiency enhancements, the company is also looking to test the Web services waters. Version 2.5 of Groove's namesake software, due next quarter,...

WLAN System Centralizes Management.(Mobius Axon Wireless System from Symbol Technologies Inc)(Product Announcement)
September 9, 2002... Symbol Technologies Inc. this week will introduce a WLAN system that centralizes the features of a wireless LAN on a single switch, rather than on multiple access points. To be generally available at the end of next month, the Mobius Axon...

New ColdFusion MX Line Links to J2EE App Servers.(Maromedia ColdFusion MX for J2EE Application Servers)(Product Announcement)
September 9, 2002... Macromedia Inc. this week will roll out products designed to let developers create applications with its ColdFusion MX tools and run them in enterprise environments on the leading Java 2 Enterprise Edition application server platforms. The...

CRM Hosts to Provide Back-Office Services.(NetLedger and Salesforce.com)
September 9, 2002... Development efforts at NetLedger Inc. and Salesforce.com Inc. will provide hosted software offerings of integrated front- and back-office applications accessible via the Web. Such services will enable companies to automate the entire sales...

Wireless Spec No Security Elixir.(Steel-Belted Radius 4.0 from Funk Software Inc, Connect System 3.0 from ReefEdge)(Product Announcement)
September 9, 2002... A new WLAN security specification is gaining momentum in the marketplace, with several vendors set to announce new products that use the technology. However, experts warn that the specification, 802.1x, has unresolved problems and should not be...

Data Launched on Path to Integration.(Ascential Software Twister and SAP Collaborative Master Data Management)
September 9, 2002... Ascential Software Corp. and SAP AG are rolling out tools that will enable data normalization--a key step in making Web-services-based application integration work. The next version of Ascential's DataStage data integration platform,...

Apple Plans Expo Double-Header.
September 9, 2002... For Apple Computer Inc.'s next trick, the company this week will attempt to be in two places at once--on two separate continents. Mimicking the dual-processor performance of its latest professional desktop systems, the Mac maker has secured...

The Buzz: September 9, 2002.
September 9, 2002... Napster Sings Its Swan Song Music-swapping pioneer Napster is shutting down after a bankruptcy judge last week blocked the sale of the company to Bertelsmann. The ruling was the final blow for a company that at one point last year had...