eWeek articles from September 2003

eWeek archives from September 2003

This eWEEK.
September 1, 2003... Remember 'Chicago'? Once the code name for Windows 95, it generated several years' worth of buildup that was the stuff of legend. At the stroke of midnight, Aug. 25, 1995, camera crews filmed buyers as they charged into computer stores to be...

NYCRM Blue.
September 1, 2003... It took more than an hour and about $60 in credits, but Spence finally scored one basket while playing the free-throw game at the ESPN Zone restaurant in Times Square. As the 13-year-olds who had been taunting the Tabby dispersed, El Gato...

A Default to Safety.(preventing computer viruses and worms)
September 1, 2003... August truly deserved the description "the dog days of summer" this year, at least regarding Internet security. The month was easily one of the worst ever in terms of the spread of worms and viruses, with Blaster and SoBig.F dominating...

Getting Down to the Roots.(System Management Arts' InCharge ACM )
September 1, 2003... System Management Arts Inc. is planning its first step toward complete end-to-end root-cause analysis with tools that track performance from device-level management through applications that deliver business services. The White Plains,...

Sun Incentive Programs Reinforce Good Behavior.
September 1, 2003... Sun Microsystems Inc. is hoping to help customers help themselves and at the same time improve system and network performance through a series of incentive programs tied to product and services pricing. As part of the price of some...

SANs to Reach 1,000 Ports and Beyond.
September 1, 2003... IT administrators will see SANs evolve into scales of 512 ports, 1,000 ports and beyond in the next two years, according to product planners at a number of storage area network vendors. The movement is the result of rapid data growth...

Taking An Ax to Spending.(Ariba's Network Sourcing and Verticalnet's Supply Management 50)
September 1, 2003... Ariba Inc. and Verticalnet Inc. are answering customer demands for help in reducing overall spending with software and services to do the job. Ariba is readying software called Network Sourcing that is designed to help companies run...

SMB Suite Joins Payroll, Accounting.(from Best Software Inc.)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Best Software Inc. has integrated two of its business automation applications to provide a direct interface between payroll and general ledger for small nonprofits and government agencies. The Abra Payroll/MIP Fund Accounting offering...

SAP Builds Compliance Tools.
September 1, 2003... SAP AG is leading a string of developers rolling out software to let companies comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. SAP, of Walldorf, Germany, this fall will announce three pieces of software in its R/3 enterprise platform and MySAP...

Expanding Content Management.(Documentum's Authoring Integration Services and Open Text acquiring Gauss Interprise)
September 1, 2003... Two of the largest enterprise content management software developers, Documentum Inc. and Open Text Corp., are adding to their respective suites through new technology developments and acquisition. Documentum is adding integration...

Device Monitors Data Centers.(Liebert Universal Monitor)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Liebert Corp. is offering a new monitoring appliance for computer rooms and small data centers called the Universal Monitor, the first in a series of products that will eventually scale to large data center versions. The metal-cased,...

Gupta Revs Embedded Database.(SQLBase 8.5 )(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Gupta Technologies LLC is prepping an upgrade to its SQLBase embedded database that promises to simplify application deployment and run at greater speeds. To achieve that simplification, SQLBase 8.5 will allow multiple servers to run in...

Analytic Detective Work.
September 1, 2003... In the movie "Minority Report," crime fighters were able to visualize crimes before they happened, getting enough details to stop the crimes in progress and arrest the would-be perpetrators. Reality today isn't quite so dramatic. But law...

Syllabus for Success.(keeping up with information technology)
September 1, 2003... As children head back to classrooms, after what I hope were memorable vacations, I wonder if we as IT professionals are setting appropriately inspiring examples of the need for lifelong learning. If someone asked you to prove that you were...

SAP Courts Automotive Vertical.(with PMC America's PMCNavigate Autmotive)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... SAP is reaching out to automotive suppliers by adding automotive business process software developer PMC America's PMCNavigate Automotive software as a qualified MySAP All-in-One vertical solution. PMCNavigate is geared toward the small and...

Sterling Eases BPM.(Sterling Bridge Service )(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Business integration software provider Sterling Commerce announced last week new software geared toward helping users more easily send information to UCCnet's GlobalRegistry, without worrying about new format and communication protocol...

Rational Looks Ahead.
September 1, 2003... IBM's Rational division delivered an update on its integration into IBM as well as some new directions at its annual user conference last week in Orlando, Fla. One new direction is a RAS that Rational is contributing to the Object...

NetMotion Hones Mobility Tool.(NetMotion Mobility 5.0 )
September 1, 2003... Remote management software maker NetMotion Wireless Inc. is introducing the next version of its NetMotion Mobility software. NetMotion Mobility 5.0 is designed to help manage devices that roam between wired and wireless networks and to keep...

Process Management Remedy.(Vitria Technology's Vitria:SmartClaims )(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... New software from Vitria Technology Inc. aims to extend the capabilities of health care adjudication systems. The Vitria:SmartClaims offering helps end users manage and easily modify complex and dynamic business rules and processes specific...

Labs Answers VPN Questions.
September 1, 2003... Ziff Davis Media Inc.'s Aug. 19 eSeminar, "Making sense of VPN challenges," revealed high levels of concern among the several hundred attendees in areas such as justifying virtual private network costs and choosing among various technical...

CRM Providers Target SMBs.(Intuit, Marketplace Software and Salesnet)
September 1, 2003... Intuit Inc. and Marketplace Software LLC are each developing CRM software options for small and midsize businesses, which have lately sought such functionality through hosted customer relationship management services. At the same time,...

The Buzz: September 1, 2003.
September 1, 2003... Microsoft Offers OneNote to Students, Teachers Microsoft last week announced it will let students and educators buy the full, packaged Academic Edition of its Office OneNote 2003 product at campus bookstores for $49 when it is released next...

Symantec Takes on Rogue Apps.(Norton AntiVirus 2004)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Symantec Corp. last week announced that the next version of Norton AntiVirus will include technology to protect against rogue applications such as keystroke loggers and spyware. Even as viruses such as SoBig and others rampage across the...

Building a Safety Net.(preventing worms and viruses)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Who is responsible for the latest rounds of virus and worm attacks? While speculation includes the usual suspects--intelligent but twisted coders--the list has also lengthened to include digital terrorists. While we may never know who is...

Going the Extra Mile.(California's Financial Information Privacy Act aka SB1)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... California's Financial Information Privacy Act, known as SB1, is about to send shock waves through IT shops everywhere. The bill was overwhelmingly passed in the California state legislature Aug. 19 and was signed by Gov. Gray Davis last week....

Can PPTP Really Go It Alone?(Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Regardless of any other network management strengths that a virtual private network may offer, any VPN is fundamentally an encryption-based aid to network security. The entire case for any VPN is the belief that encrypting data makes it...

BlackIce Puts Viruses on the Skids.(BlackIce for PC 3.6 )(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... The recent outbreak of viruses targeting Windows systems has caused more headaches for beleaguered corporate IT staffs. For Windows users, the virus onslaught drives home the point that installing a desktop firewall such as BlackIce to protect...

Book Review: Scary Stuff.(Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World)(Book Review)
September 1, 2003... Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World By Bruce Schneier Copernicus Books, September 2003 295 pages, $25 The most appealing part of Bruce Schneier's thorough, well-reasoned approach to security...

Be All That You Can Be.
September 1, 2003... Tight budgets are no excuse. You can optimize it without compromise. Not Just Money Optimization isn't just about cutting costs. In the same way that IT executives who've lived through the Internet boom will one day reminisce...

EDS Enhances Unigraphics NX.(Unigraphics NX2)
September 2, 2003... Electronic Data Systems Corp. announced last week the availability of Unigraphics NX2, the latest version of its integrated software that combines CAD, manufacturing and engineering analysis capabilities. NX2 combines software from EDS'...

USi Names New COO.(Steve Mucchetti)
September 2, 2003... With another quarter under its belt after emerging from bankruptcy earlier this year, USinternetworking Inc. is taking steps to further expand what its CEO characterized as a healthy business. Tomorrow the Annapolis, Md., ASP will announce...

Passlogix Upgrades Single Sign-On Offering.(v-GO SSO 4.0)(Brief Article)
September 2, 2003... Passlogix Inc. this week plans to announce the newest version of its v-GO single sign-on offering, which now has a much smaller memory footprint and is designed to work in any environment, regardless of what mix of platforms and applications...

MicroStrategy Wins Legal Round Against BOBJ.(Brief Article)
September 2, 2003... MicroStrategy has won a summary judgment in a patent infringement lawsuit that rival Business Objects SA had filed against it. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a summary judgment dismissing Business...

Intuit to Buy Innovative Merchant.(Brief Article)
September 2, 2003... MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP)--Intuit Inc., maker of Quicken and TurboTax personal finance software, Tuesday agreed to buy credit and debit card processing company Innovative Merchant Solutions for up to $116 million in cash. Intuit said...

FileMaker Enters Applications Business.(FileMaker Recruiter and FileMaker Meeting being introduced)
September 3, 2003... FileMaker Inc. is expanding beyond database software this week by entering the business applications market. On Wednesday, FileMaker, a subsidiary of Apple Computer Inc., plans to announce two of a series of forthcoming...

Coalition to Fight Online Identity Theft.
September 3, 2003... Microsoft Corp., RSA Security Inc., eBay Inc. and several other technology companies and groups have joined together to form a new organization to fight online identity theft. Known as the Coalition on Online Identity Theft, the nascent...

Gateway to Close Facility, Cut Jobs.(in Virginia )
September 3, 2003... Gateway Inc. will shut down a manufacturing facility in Virginia and rework how it does product sourcing, support and service in moves officials said will save the company $115 million to $130 million a year. Chairman and CEO Ted Waitt...

Microsoft Delivers First Rights-Management Component.
September 3, 2003... Microsoft has made available for download the first of several components of its forthcoming stable of rights-management software. The Redmond software maker posted to its download center on Tuesday its rights-management client. The client...

Microsoft Patches Critical VBA Flaw.(Brief Article)
September 3, 2003... Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday issued a patch for a critical vulnerability in its Visual Basic for Applications SDK, which could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable server. The weakness exists in the way that VBA looks...

What's Next for Oracle?
September 4, 2003... Heading into its major trade show of the year, Oracle Corp. is at a crossroads. It is launching what its executives say is its biggest new technology release in a decade, and it is doing so in the middle of an ongoing tussle to take over...

Oracle Exec Talks Grid Computing.(charles Philli[s)(Interview)
September 4, 2003... Charles Phillips knows the software market. Before moving to Oracle Corp. in May 2003 and working directly for Chairman and CEO Larry Ellison, Phillips analyzed enterprise software with Morgan Stanley's Institutional Securities Division....

Enterprise Linux vs. Server 2003: Smackdown!
September 4, 2003... What's this? People whining about the cost of serious Linux enterprise use? Folks get real? Have you priced Microsoft Server 2003 lately? IT managers who want to run an enterprise operating system like SuSE's Linux Enterprise Server 8 or...

Symbian vs. Linux: Who Will Win in Wireless?
September 4, 2003... It was Scott McNealy who made fun of me, a couple of short years back, for suggesting that users might care what operating system was inside their mobile phones. "You just switch it on!" he said. Not for the first time, Sun Microsystems' CEO...

An Appliance Approach to Backup Reporting.(Bocada Inc. and Network Engines Inc.'s BackupReport Appliance)
September 4, 2003... Knowledge may bring power, particularly for storage administrators and their backups. The results can also produce its share of worry. But no pain, no gain--right? That was a theme of my recent discussion with executives of Bocada Inc. and...

Oracle: Enhanced PeopleSoft Support in the Offing.
September 4, 2003... While PeopleSoft Inc. is hosting its Connect users conference next week in Anaheim, Calif., Oracle Corp. executives will be perched across the street, on the ready to talk one-on-one about its proposed takeover of PeopleSoft. That was part...

HP to Grid-Enable Entire Product Line.
September 4, 2003... Hewlett-Packard Co. is adding to its Adaptive Enterprise strategy this week by announcing plans to grid-enable its entire product line and acquire a new company. The Palo Alto, Calif., company already grid enables its PA-RISC, Integrity,...

How to Test Enterprise Spam Defenses?(Column)
September 4, 2003... There are many measures of a spam-blocking product, but probably the most important one is the number of false positives it generates. False positives are non-spam e-mails that the product mistakenly classifies as spam. They represent the most...

Second Suspect Arrested in Web Worm Case.(Dan Dumitru Ciobanu)
September 4, 2003... Police in Romania on Wednesday arrested a 24-year-old former student in connection with a computer-crippling Internet worm, according to a computer security company that aided police. The company, Bucharest-based BitDefender, identified the...

Updated Eudora Blocks Unwanted E-Mail.(Qualcomm's Eudora 6.0)
September 4, 2003... Qualcomm Inc. Thursday released the latest version of its Eudora e-mail software with a focus on stopping unwanted e-mail and simplifying long e-mail threads. With Eudora 6.0, Qualcomm is beginning a more aggressive push in updating the...

Intel Updates Q3 Outlook.(2003 )(Brief Article)
September 4, 2003... Intel Corp. on Thursday further updated its third-quarter outlook, saying it expects revenues to come in between $7.6 billion and $7.8 billion. This follows the Santa Clara, Calif., chip maker's previous update Aug. 22, when it gave a...

Latest Windows Virus Seen as Low Risk.(Neroma or 911 virus)(Brief Article)
September 4, 2003... Anti-virus experts are watching a new Windows virus that popped up in a few mailboxes Thursday and tries to entice gullible users with references to the upcoming anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Known alternately as Neroma or...

New Tools, Services Rev Up Oracle.(InfoCyclone, XIOTech Corp. and SofTrek )
September 4, 2003... Oracle Corp. partners including InfoCyclone, XIOTech Corp. and SofTrek are unleashing a torrent of products and services to speed Oracle databases, whether you're talking query speeds, technology to hasten cluster rollouts or outsourcing to...

Police Deny 2nd Suspect in Worm Case.
September 4, 2003... BUCHAREST, Romania (AP)--Police on Thursday denied reports that a man has been detained in connection with the computer-crippling "Blaster" Internet worm, but confirmed they were investigating a suspect whom they declined to name. A...

PeopleSoft Spells Out J.D. Edwards Integration.
September 4, 2003... NEW YORK--At its PeopleSoft Analyst Day here, PeopleSoft Inc. outlined its plans for integrating its enterprise software with that of the newly purchased J.D. Edwards & Co. The company plans to maintain three product lines: PeopleSoft...

IBM High Availability Server Plays to Midtier.
September 5, 2003... IBM is rolling out newly configured servers designed to give midsized iSeries system users high availability and disaster recovery help. "Businesspeople in general are concerned about business continuity, making sure their businesses are...

Music Industry to Unveil Amnesty Offer.(Brief Article)
September 5, 2003... WASHINGTON (AP)--The recording industry is expected to announce as early as next week an amnesty program for people who admit they illegally share music files across the Internet, promising not to sue them in exchange for their admission and...

Nations to Develop Non-Windows Software.(Brief Article)
September 5, 2003... TOKYO (AP)--Japan, China and South Korea have agreed to cooperate in a project to boost research and development of software for operating systems other than industry leader Microsoft Corp.'s Windows, a Japanese trade ministry official said...

SoBig Not Gone Yet.
September 5, 2003... Like Ben and J. Lo, the SoBig.F virus long ago overstayed its welcome and seems to be intent on hanging around to annoy as many people as possible. But, unlike Bennifer, the virus mercifully is set to expire on Wednesday, providing worm-weary...

Easing SQL Server Backup, Recovery.(Edgewood Solutions' SQL LiteSpeed 3.0)
September 5, 2003... Edgewood Solutions LLC is aiming to make backup and recovery of Microsoft Corp.'s SQL Server databases fast and painless with SQL LiteSpeed 3, the latest version of its database backup tool. SQL LiteSpeed 3, which the company released on...

Portal Vendors Rallying Around Standards.(Vignette Corp. and Plumtree)
September 5, 2003... Vignette Corp. became the latest portal software developer to announce new products built on the Web Services for Remote Portlets standard 1.0, which was ratified this week by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information...

National Security: Off the Radar.
September 5, 2003... The loss of high-paying jobs to other countries isn't viewed as a national security issue yet, but that may change. If information technology is increasingly moved offshore, the Department of Defense may take a closer look, say analysts. Why?...

Depleting The U.S. Tax Base?(outsourcing )
September 5, 2003... Will the movement of high-paying technology jobs gut the U.S. tax base? In all likelihood, the impact will be muted. Economy.com estimates 800,000 back-office jobs will disappear forever over the next five years. Assuming an average salary of...

National Security: Off The Radar.
September 5, 2003... The loss of high-paying jobs to other countries isn't viewed as a national security issue yet, but that may change. If information technology is increasingly moved offshore, the Department of Defense may take a closer look, say analysts. Why?...

The Next Big Thing: Blind Faith In U.S. Innovation?
September 5, 2003... Typically, worries about the United States' future in technology are brushed aside by uttering four words: "The next big thing." The next big thing will give displaced workers a new career and give them an opportunity to become wealthy if their...

New Kids' Domain Open for Business.(kids.us )
September 7, 2003... A new Web domain geared toward children went live this week, just as the U.S. government announced the arrest of an alleged cyber squatter accused of pointing children to explicit material online. Registration for the kids.us domain opened...

Storage Digest: Snap Unveils 3TB Snap Server, and More.(Excerpt)
September 8, 2003... Enterprise Storage Snap Unveils 3TB Snap Server Snap Appliance Inc. last week introduced Snap Server 14000, which will store as much as 3TB of data as it offloads file management from general-purpose servers. The device uses a...

Storage Digest: Overland Aims Up-market with 500-Cartridge Tape Library, and More.(Excerpt)
September 8, 2003... Enterprise Storage Overland Aims Up-market with 500-Cartridge Tape Library Overland Storage Inc. last week announced its biggest tape library yet with the 500-cartridge NEO 8000. The library, which uses the same robotic arm design as...

Golf Lessons for Techies.
September 8, 2003... What does golf have to teach the technology business? Quite a bit. Recently, I had a chance to play with the Ziff Davis crew and guests at Pebble Beach, where, in between trying to retrieve lost balls and taking too many futile swings, I...

Oracle's Dwight Champions HTML DB.(Interview)
September 8, 2003... Oracle Corp.'s new HTML DB software, formerly code-named Project Marvel, will give developers a hosted environment in which to develop applications for the Redwood Shores, Calif., company's namesake database. Some Oracle users will get their...

C#Builder Covers App Life Cycle.(Borland Software's C#Builder Enterprise 1)(Hardware Review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
September 8, 2003... If Borland Software Corp.'s JBuilder 9 was a single flower of java- focused development technology, the company's August debut release of its new C#Builder is an entire rainforest of enterprise application life-cycle tools. The result is a...

Missing from the Resume: SAN Higher Education.(Industry Overview)(Column)
September 8, 2003... As storage area networks work their way into middle-tier markets, IT managers may be eager to add the technology to their servers and start reaping its benefits. At the same time, they may discover that the knowledge needed for successful...

Slow and Stupid Networks Often Win Race.
September 8, 2003... BOSTON (AP)--"Faster and smarter" is the mantra in the wireless world, but Robert Poor has a different vision: He dreams of networks that are slow and stupid. For years, wireless has been all about developing standards like Bluetooth and...

LynuxWorks Embedded Beta Based on 2.6 Kernel.(BlueCat Linux 5.0)
September 8, 2003... Embedded Linux developer LynuxWorks Inc., shaking off the legal uncertainty around Linux and whether it includes unauthorized Unix code, has embraced the upcoming Linux 2.6 kernel in its latest product. The San Jose, Calif., company this...

NEC, Stratus Take on Downtime.(Stratus Technologies ftServer 5600 and ftServer 6600)
September 8, 2003... Stratus Technologies Inc. and NEC Solutions America Inc. are loading their respective fault-tolerant servers with even more technologies to ward off outages. Stratus this week will roll out two servers powered by the latest Intel Corp....

Calling All ISPs: What Are You Doing to Stop Mailer Worms?(Industry Overview)
September 8, 2003... Are you still getting SoBig.F messages? I know I am. In the past 24 hours, I've received 213 of them, 2,830 since August 26. One might wonder how such nonsense can go on. When you get right down to it, there are two base requirements for a...

InfiniBand Goes 'Prime Time' at OracleWorld.
September 8, 2003... Sun Microsystems Inc. and Topspin Communications Inc. are at OracleWorld 2003 this week demonstrating the benefits of using the InfiniBand interconnect technology in clusters of low-end systems running Oracle Corp.'s new Oracle Database 10G...

Intel Upgrades Power Cheaper Systems.
September 8, 2003... Intel Corp. on Monday will roll out two new energy-efficient and low-cost versions of its 64-bit Itanium 2 chip, and top-tier vendors Dell Inc., IBM and Hewlett-Packard Co. are preparing enhanced products featuring the processors. The...

Be, Microsoft Settle Suit.
September 8, 2003... Be Inc.'s settlement of an antitrust lawsuit with Microsoft Corp. last week is a far cry from the tough talk the dissolving company made in court and in filings regarding its case against Microsoft. Last Friday, Be and Microsoft announced a...

Girding The Grid.
September 8, 2003... Innovation may be the life-blood of technology, but once the electrons stop flowing even the best information system goes limp. About 50 million electricity customers throughout the Northeast and Canada learned that lesson the hard way--an Aug....

BI Vendors Broaden Reach.(Business Objects' Enterprise 6.1, Crystal Decisions' Crystal Enterprise enhancements and Information Builders' ETL Manager)
September 8, 2003... Enterprises looking to consolidate business intelligence software applications have a wealth of new options to choose from. Cognos Inc. will hold a launch event in New York this week for its ReportNet enterprise reporting platform....

Server 2003 Adds Storage.(Legato Systems' Networker 7.1)(Brief Article)
September 8, 2003... Storage administrators this fall will get a fresh round of management software upgrades that are focused on compatibility with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Storage Server 2003. Legato Systems Inc. will lead the trend at this week's Storage...

Group Fights Online ID Theft.
September 8, 2003... Microsoft Corp., RSA Security Inc., eBay Inc., and several other technology companies and groups last week formed an organization to fight online identity theft. Known as the Coalition on Online Identity Theft, the nascent group plans to...

Passlogix Ramps Up V-Go Single Sign-On.(Passlogix v-GO SSO 4.0 )(Brief Article)
September 8, 2003... Passlogix Inc. Is rolling out the newest version of its v-GO Single Sign-On offering, which now has a much smaller memory footprint and is designed to work in any environment regardless of the mix of platforms and applications. The v-GO...

Outfitting Small Business.(Microsoft)
September 8, 2003... Microsoft Corp. is no stranger to small and midsize businesses, which account for half the software company's revenues, primarily through sales of Windows and the Office productivity suite. But the Redmond, Wash., company two years ago began a...