eWeek articles from September 2007

eWeek archives from September 2007

Cisco Rolls Out Enterprise-Class Wi-Fi.(Cisco Systems' Aironet 1250)
September 4, 2007... Cisco Systems debuted on Sept. 4 its first enterprise-class wireless LAN access point based on the Wi-Fi Alliance's 802.11n standards. According to Cisco, the Aironet 1250 access point is the only commercially available product to have...

New Tool Slashes Exploit Writing Time, Pains McAfee.(Brief article)
September 4, 2007... Untitled PODCASTembedSWF(); New Tool Slashes Exploit Writing Time, Pains McAfee Writing exploits is getting close to automatic now that Immunity has updated its Debugger pen-testing tool. We got Immunity Chief Technology Officer Dave Aitel...

SAP, Oracle Case Management Meeting Postponed.
September 4, 2007... The case management conference scheduled to kick off Oracle's suit against SAP has been postponed before it even got off the ground. A SAP spokesperson has confirmed that the case management meeting scheduled for 2 p.m. PDT today, Sept. 4,...

Yahoo Buys BlueLithium Ad Network.
September 4, 2007... Yahoo on Sept. 4 agreed to buy online ad network BlueLithium for $300 million in cash, in a move to fortify the company's position versus Google and Microsoft in the competitive market for placing ads on the Internet. BlueLithium, of San...

Apple Event May Ring In New iPods, iPhone Upgrades.
September 4, 2007... Apple watchers are speculating that the company may introduce new iPods, Beatles content for Apple's iTunes store or perhaps an enhanced iPhone ring-tone feature at a media briefing Sept. 5 at the San Francisco Moscone Convention Center. ...

Quechup Viral Marketing Irks Members.
September 4, 2007... Online networking site Quechup.com is infuriating would-be members by e-mailing their contacts without permission, turning the unwary into unintentional spammers. "I inadvertently invited everyone in my Gmail contact 'list' to join a lousy...

Microsoft, Eolas Settle Patent Dispute.
September 4, 2007... The nearly decade-long browser patent infringement dispute between Microsoft and Eolas Technologies is over. Terms of the out-of-court settlement were not disclosed. The technology involved allows for the launch and display of software...

Oracle Grabs Netsure, Bridgestream in Latest Buyouts.(Netsure Telecom)
September 4, 2007... While the rest of the United States celebrated Labor Day weekend, Oracle was busy behind the scenes making its latest corporate acquisitions. Oracle announced on Sept. 2 that it acquired Netsure Telecom, of Dublin, Ireland, a company that...

Botnet Attack Sinks Its Fangs into eBay Accounts.
September 4, 2007... A network of infected zombie computers has been roped into acting as vectors in a new distributed attack that's targeting eBay accounts. The attack, which is trying to wrestle personal financial data out of eBay accounts by brute force,...

Microsoft Loses, Spins Open XML Vote.(Extensible Markup Language)
September 4, 2007... Microsoft conceded that it had been unsuccessful in its attempt to make its document formats, Open XML, an ISO standard in an early morning press release on Sept. 4. According to Microsoft, the ISO (International Organization for...

MetroPCS Jumps at Leap.(MetroPCS Communications and Leap Wireless)(Brief article)
September 4, 2007... MetroPCS Communications said on Sept. 4 that it is interested in merging with Leap Wireless in a tax-free stock swap valued at more than $5 billion. If Leap accepts the offer, the merger would create the fifth largest wireless carrier in the...

SOA Group Membership Climbs.(Brief article)
September 4, 2007... The SOA Consortium, a group of vendors and other organizations aimed at promoting the use of service-oriented architecture, is continuing to grow, with 31 new members joining since May 1. The additions bring the total number of participants...

Tech Frets Over Dems' Continued Commitment.(Democrats)
September 4, 2007... As Congress reconvenes this week, there's guarded optimism in Washington technology policy shops that the 8-month-old Democratic body will continue to champion a pro-tech agenda. For the first time in six years, the tech wish list actually...

China Rejects U.S. Charge It Hacked Pentagon.
September 4, 2007... BEIJING--China on Sept. 4 rejected a report that hackers controlled by its military had successfully entered a Pentagon network, calling the claim a product of "Cold War" thinking. The Financial Times, citing former and serving U.S....

iPhone Outsells Smartphones in July.(Brief article)
September 4, 2007... FRANKFURT--Apple Inc's iPhone outsold all smartphones in the United States in July, its first full month on sale, accounting for 1.8 percent of all U.S. mobile handset sales, research group iSuppli said on Sept. 4. iSuppli reiterated its...

Most Malware Made in China.
September 5, 2007... China can keep on denying that its People's Liberation Army is responsible for infiltrating government networks, but good luck denying that it's pumping out the most malware on the planet. Sophos nailed China as the top junk-spewer back in...

China Denies Pentagon Network Trespass.
September 5, 2007... In a routine that's become as regular as the waxing moon, China has once again denounced charges that the People's Liberation Army has been engaged in hostile hacking of government sites--in this case, a Pentagon network--calling the charges...

MuleSource Forges Developer Site.
September 5, 2007... MuleSource has launched MuleForge, a collaborative development site for Mule extensions and applications built by the Mule community and MuleSource partners. San Francisco-based MuleSource provides open-source infrastructure and...

Broadcom-Qualcomm Litigation Cleared to Continue.
September 5, 2007... Reversing a lower court ruling, a U.S. Court of Appeals on Sept. 4 ordered an antitrust case brought by Broadcom against Qualcomm to proceed in a New Jersey district court. The case is one of several tangled legal battles between the rival...

Apple Refreshes iPods, Cuts iPhone Prices.
September 5, 2007... SAN FRANCISCO--Apple introduced a redesigned iPod Nano and iPod Classic along with a multi-touch-screen iPod, confirming most of the rumors about what the company was going to introduce at a Sept. 5 product briefing at the Moscone Convention...

NetApp Sues Sun over File System IP.
September 5, 2007... NetApp filed a lawsuit on Sept. 5 against Sun Microsystems seeking damages and a permanent injunction against the company, claiming Sun has infringed on several patents regarding NetApp's home-grown WAFL file system. NetApp claims Sun's...

Sun's Schwartz: High-Performance Computing Will Be Pervasive.(Sun Microsystems' Jonathan Schwartz)
September 5, 2007... To Jonathan Schwartz, the rapidly growing data loads being generated within enterprises mean that high-performance computing will be coming to every industry sector sooner or later. That, in turn, means that many of the businesses in these...

Benioff Praises Microsoft, Love Taps Google.(Marc Benioff)
September 5, 2007... NEW YORK--Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff isn't spitting fire like he used to. That may not be a bad thing. There was a time when Benioff wouldn't spare Microsoft a bit of criticism and wouldn't stint Google a bit of praise. Microsoft,...

Citrix to Acquire QuickTree.(Citrix Systems Inc.)
September 5, 2007... Citrix Systems, which develops application delivery infrastructure software, announced Sept. 5 that it will buy QuickTree, a small privately held company that creates software to help companies better manage the growing risk of Web services and...

Check For Contacts Becomes Spam Your Friends.
September 5, 2007... It's an example of how social networking sites can go horribly wrong. Quechup is being accused of sneaking into members' address books and spamming their contacts. Quechup, owned by Las Vegas-based iDate Corporation, is part of the...

Whatever Happened to Net Neutrality?
September 5, 2007... A year ago, network neutrality was roiling Capitol Hill. From Congress to the Federal Communications Commission to the Federal Trade Commission, there wasn't a hotter--or more controversial--tech issue. Today, net neutrality barely raises a...

Cognos to Acquire Applix for $339 Million.
September 5, 2007... Business intelligence software developer Cognos announced Sept. 5 plans to buy Applix for about $339 million in cash. The deal will almost double Cognos' customer base and add much needed financial performance analytics capabilities to the...

Database Security in 5 Steps.
September 5, 2007... ATLANTA - Monster.com, TJX, Pfizer--the list of companies and organizations affected by database breaches grows bigger and badder every week, but most enterprises remain focused on the perimeter and ignore the database. Some 80 percent of...

Congress Pushes Back on H1-B Visas.
September 5, 2007... When the immigration reform bill went down in flames in May, a provision to raise the cap on H-1B visas also went up in smoke. That the controversial legislation--loaded with such explosive political hot buttons such as border security and...

Microsoft Delivers Updated Windows Live Suite.
September 5, 2007... Microsoft will deliver an updated suite of Windows Live services Sept. 5, along with a new unified installer that customers can use to download all of these applications. This suite of services includes the first public beta of Windows...

Vista Reduces Mobile Computing TCO, Study Says.(Total Cost of Ownership )
September 5, 2007... Organizations currently running Windows XP on their mobile PCs could save $605 a year per machine by replacing those systems with Windows Vista, using the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack and best practices to improve infrastructure...

Whitelisting and Elegance.
September 5, 2007... The weaknesses of conventional anti-virus are well-known: It's mostly a reactive approach, looking for problems after they've already been identified. Threats which haven't already been found--"zero-day attacks"--either have to be identified...

Silverlight in the Moonlight.(Microsoft's Web Silverlight 1.0)
September 5, 2007... Microsoft on Sept. 5 is expected to release to the Web Silverlight 1.0, a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering richer user experiences on the Web. In addition, the Redmond, Wash., software maker has announced that it will...

Azul: A $14.4 Billion Server Market Gone Wrong.(Interview)
September 6, 2007... Stephen DeWitt: Good morning (or afternoon) everyone. Mike Vizard: Hello and welcome to Ziff-Davis IT Link. Why don't you tell us a little about who you are and what Azul does? DeWitt: Great to be here. I'm Azul's president and CEO and...

Report: Self-Checkout Usage Soared 24 Percent Last Year.
September 6, 2007... Consumers spent more than $137 billion in retail self-checkout in 2006, with increased self-checkout use in do-it-yourself stores, supercenters and warehouse clubs mostly responsible, according to an IHL study released Sept. 6. That's 24...

NEC Claims First Multi-Frequency, Multi-Protocol RFID Device.(Radio-frequency Identification )(Brief article)
September 6, 2007... When NEC issued its statement in Tokyo Sept. 6 that it developed the world's first RFID device that can read and write tag data in the three most common RFID frequencies, it gave a boost for today's RFID deployments. But NEC's focus was...

Today's IT Leaders Must Take Social Responsibility.
September 6, 2007... Successful professionals--regardless of their industry or sector--have a responsibility to share knowledge, give back and help prepare the next generation of leaders. It's a responsibility that I feel strongly about, and one that I've...

iTunes Prey to Nasty Music Takeover.(Brief article)
September 6, 2007... Before you rush out to snag one of those new iPods or cheaper iPhones, update your iTunes, because it's got a buffer overflow that could let some nasty music file "pwn" your toy. Apple on Sept. 6 put out an update, iTunes 7.4, that deals...

Business Objects to Acquire Fuzzy Informatik.(Brief article)
September 6, 2007... Business Intelligence software developer Business Objects announced Sept. 6 an agreement to acquire Fuzzy Informatik, its second "data quality" purchase in 12 months. Business Objects, with dual headquarters in San Jose, Calif., and Paris,...

Will iPod Touch Translate into iWant?
September 6, 2007... Apple grabbed the lion's share of wireless headlines Sept. 5 with a product rollout in San Francisco that included the iPod Touch, which is essentially an iPhone without the phone and the pricey two-year AT&T contract. The new device...

Lexmark Touts Advantages of Wireless Printing.(Lexmark International Group Inc.)
September 6, 2007... Lexmark International intends to do for printing what WiFi did for notebook computing. The Lexington, Ky.-based print vendor unveiled a set of 802.11g-enabled additions to its inkjet color printer and Multi-Function Printer fleet on Aug....

Gateway Sells Professional Services Unit to MPC.
September 6, 2007... Gateway dropped its Professional Services unit in a sale to system builder MPC as the PC maker prepares to be assumed by new owners, Taiwanese PC maker Acer. The Irvine, Calif.-based Gateway said the sale of its mostly profitable...

Calif. Makes Another Run at RFID Regulation.(California)(Radio-frequency identification)
September 6, 2007... California legislators have voted once again to derail security and privacy issues with checks on RFID technology, this time with a bill that will prohibit the forced implantation of an identification device--including RFID chips and so-called...

An Apple iPod for the Enterprise?
September 6, 2007... OK, so the biggest market for Apple's new iPod Touch, and its newly reduced in price 8GB iPhone, is consumers. But, if you take a closer look at both you'll see mobile devices that also make a great deal of business sense as well. When you...

Analysts Predict Death of Traditional Network Security.(Robert Whiteley and Natalie Lambert )
September 7, 2007... Robert Whiteley and Natalie Lambert have seen the future--and in it, traditional network security is dead. At least that is the message the two Forrester Research analysts delivered to a crowd at the Forrester Security Forum in Atlanta Sept. 6....

Netuitive Performance Tool Targets Enterprises.
September 7, 2007... Business service management provider Netuitive on Sept. 10 will take its brand of end-to-end performance management to large enterprises when it launches the latest release of its Netuitive SI tool. In the latest release, Netuitive...

Real-Time Collaboration Is Key for Office 2.0.
September 7, 2007... SAN FRANCISCO--The future of work will include real-time collaboration, said officials from Google, Microsoft, SAP and other vendors participating in the kickoff keynote panel Sept. 6 at the Office 2.0 Conference here. Panel moderator and...

Tandberg to Acquire Conferencing Upstart Codian for $270 Million.
September 7, 2007... Videoconferencing vendor Tandberg on Sept. 6 announced its plans to acquire upstart Codian for $270 million. The Oslo, Norway, company hopes to capture more momentum in the fast-growing high-definition segment of the videoconferencing...

Office Open XML Down but Not Out.(Extensible Markup Language)
September 7, 2007... Microsoft may have lost the battle to have its Office Open XML file formats approved as an ISO standard, but the war is far from over. The Redmond, Wash., company's OOXML (Office Open XML) file formats failed to achieve the two-thirds vote...

iTune Tagging Unveiled.(Brief article)
September 7, 2007... LOS ANGELES--Apple, iBiquity Digital, a developer of high-definition radio technology, and major radio companies said on Sept. 9 they are offering a new, free service called "iTunes Tagging." The service lets listeners with HD Radio...

Eudora E-mail Program Reborn as Open Source.(Brief article)
September 7, 2007... BOSTON (Reuters)--Eudora, a pioneering e-mail program named after author Eudora Welty, is rising from a technical grave as an open source program after owner Qualcomm Inc quit selling the product in May. Eudora routinely got strong reviews...

Know Your Enemy.
September 7, 2007... With all of the PCI and data breach talk these days, it's easy for retailers of all sizes to be on edge. Although it's undeniable that merchants of all sizes need to protect themselves, different issues threaten Wal-Mart and Phil's Bait Shop....

No ISO for Microsoft Means Little.(International Organization for Standardization )
September 7, 2007... Microsoft's ISO standardization ambitions for its Office Open XML file format have hit a rough patch, as OOXML recently failed to garner enough votes for fast-track ratification. ODF (OpenDocument Format) advocates are pleased, but they're...

Easy 2-Factor Authentication You Can Afford.
September 7, 2007... Ask any security guru. What's makes for better security, two-factor authentication or the typical one-step username/password combination? Even Homer "Burns' Nuclear IT Assistant" Simpson would know that it's two-step. Of course, Homer...

Palm, Motorola Seen Most Hurt by iPhone Price Cut.
September 7, 2007... NEW YORK--Apple's hefty iPhone price cut pits it in direct competition with handsets from Motorola and Palm, which are struggling to convince Wall Street they can turn around their aging brands. With the music-playing iPhone now selling at...

No-Defense Department.
September 7, 2007... On July 18, Sunbelt Software came across a SQL command passed as a query within a URL belonging to an arm of a European country's military. With that, any visitor can pass queries in the URL straight to the back-end database and squeeze out any...

DOJ: No Need for Network Neutrality Laws.
September 7, 2007... The Department of Justice gave Congress another reason to avoid a vote on network neutrality. In a Sept. 6 filing with the Federal Communications Commission, the DOJ said lawmakers should not rush into "premature regulation" of the Internet....

Motorola Sees R&D Expense Cut for Mobile.(research and development)(Brief article)
September 7, 2007... NEW YORK--Motorola is aiming to cut its quarterly research and development expenses for mobile devices 15 percent to help it return to profitability, the head of the company's handset business said on Sept. 9. But Stu Reed, who was...

Rackable to Virtualize on VMware.(Rackable Systems)(Brief article)
September 7, 2007... Rackable Systems, which makes a number of high-density storage servers and other products for large data centers, announced it will run VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3 software suite to further its mission to consolidate and cluster the data...

Business Intelligence and The One Truth.(Brief article)
September 7, 2007... Business Intelligence and The One Truth PODCASTembedSWF(); Business Intelligence and The One Truth Business intelligence is making inroads into virtually every corner of the enterprise. Don Campbell, Cognos vice president of product...

Virtualization Changes Everything.(Brief article)
September 7, 2007... Virtualization Changes Everything PODCASTembedSWF(); Virtualization Changes Everything Virtualization promises to change the way IT pros think about applications. Trigence CTO and founder Donn Rochette explains why to Mike Vizard in this...

Did Radio (Waves) Kill The Biometric Star?
September 7, 2007... A few years ago, retail biometrics had what seemed to be a very bright future. They promised superior security and a permanent CRM association. If that customer switched credit cards, moved to another state, changed their name and changed...

Big Software May Give Office 2.0 Apps Needed Legitimacy.
September 7, 2007... In many circles Microsoft might not be considered hip enough or at least too mature now to pull off Enterprise 2.0 or Office 2.0. But eventually having Microsoft and other big technology vendors in the game may give technologies like social...

InterDigital Inks License Deal with Apple.
September 7, 2007... BANGALORE (Reuters)--Wireless technology firm InterDigital Inc said it signed a seven-year licensing agreement to provide technology for Apple Inc's first cell phone, the iPhone. Separately, InterDigital raised its third-quarter revenue...

House Approves Patent Reform.(United States. Congress. House)
September 7, 2007... The technology sector scored a significant legislative victory Friday afternoon as the House of Representatives approved the first significant overhaul of patent law in a half a century. The big win, however, may be short-lived as the...

EMC Launches Deduplication, Backup for VMware Machines.(EMC Corp. (Hopkinton, Massachusetts))
September 7, 2007... Expanding on its 2006 acquisition of deduplication specialist Avamar Technologies, EMC on Sept. 6 launched what it calls the storage industry's first deduplication and backup tool designed specifically to run on VMware virtual machines. ...

Microsoft to Spackle Holes in Windows, Messenger, Visual Studio.
September 7, 2007... Microsoft is planning to release five security bulletins on September's Patch Tuesday. While only one--a vulnerability in Windows--is deemed critical, three of the advisories address vulnerabilities that can lead to system takeover: the...

Malware Mashup is Monstrous.(Monster Worldwide Inc. manages it's data from viruses)
September 10, 2007... "They did the mash, they did the monster mash," droned the dulcet-toned Drudge as a pal told him about the ongoing attacks against Monster.com and its users. The employment Web site itself claims the attack is called...

Tech Seeks Congressional Relief.
September 10, 2007... As the new Congress reconvened the week of Sept. 3, there was guarded optimism in Washington technology policy shops that the 8-month-old Democratic-led body will continue to champion a pro-tech agenda. For the first time in six years, the tech...

Eudora E-Mail Just Won't Die.(Eudora 8.0)
September 10, 2007... Some programs just won't die. Eudora 8.0 is a mail and news application from Qualcomm based on the open source Thunderbird client from the Mozilla Foundation. After abandoning Eudora as a commercial product in May, six Qualcomm programmers...

Serena Launches Mashup Maker.(Serena Software Inc. (Burlingame, California))
September 10, 2007... Serena Software on Sept. 10 is officially announcing the launch of its Serena Mashup Composer, formerly codenamed "Vail," for the point-and-click creation of business mashups. The San Mateo, Calif., company announced and demonstrated its...

Welcome to Wireless.(municipal wireless )
September 10, 2007... In some ways, the mind-set around municipal wireless technology is much like that around net neutrality: Most people think it's a good thing, but almost no one can agree on what it actually means. That's not stopping muni wireless from wending...

Free Wi-Fi Is Up for Grabs.(EarthLink Inc. and Google Inc. deals)(wireless service's finance)
September 10, 2007... San Francisco free Wi-Fi is dead. Long live San Francisco free Wi-Fi! EarthLink, the Internet ISP and erstwhile municipal Wi-Fi build-out partner for various U.S. cities, has hit upon some rough financial times--rough enough that the...

The Cost of 'Free' Wireless.(AT&T Inc.providing the city of Riverside, Calif., with free wireless access)(Brief article)
September 10, 2007... AT&T is providing the city of Riverside, Calif., with free wireless access, supported by advertising. But there are still costs involved, said Michael Beck, assistant city manager. "It doesn't come free, but it can be very cost-effective,"...

Apple iPhone Sales Hit 1M.(Apple iPhone (Smart phone))(Brief article)
September 10, 2007... Apple sold its one millionth iPhone, the company announced Sept. 10, just 74 days after unveiling the popular product and three weeks ahead of its own projections. The announcement came less than a week after Apple slashed the price of the...

Cisco Integrates NAC with Routers.(Cisco Systems Inc.'s network expansion)
September 10, 2007... Cisco Systems is expanding its network access control offerings in a move company officials said will cut complexity, the cost of operations and extend security at the endpoint. The San Jose, Calif., company Sept. 10 launched the NAC...

Facebook: An Open Book for Developers.(Interview)
September 10, 2007... Adam D'Angelo, chief technology officer at Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook, is charged with overseeing the development of new applications, maintaining existing ones and ensuring that the overall platform can continue to scale to meet the...

Behind the Facebook Developer Platform.
September 10, 2007... PALO ALTO, Calif.--The first and main thing I wanted to learn on my visit to Facebook headquarters here was how the social networking juggernaut was going to take on the enterprise. It seemed the company had the consumer segment licked and...

Why We Haven't Stopped Spam.(Viewpoint essay)
September 10, 2007... Several years ago when Bill Gates declared that the spam problem would be solved within two years, he appeared to be thinking of SMTP authentication as the heart of that solution. I wouldn't have said what he said, but I was pretty optimistic...

Web Apps: The Next Generation.(Brief article)
September 10, 2007... EVIDEOembedSWF(); Sponsored by: Web Apps: The Next Generation This next generation of Web applications is one of dynamic, interactive, open and highly flexible applications that not only go beyond the capabilities of classic Web...

Shih's Curve Can Bring Smiles.(Stan Shih)
September 10, 2007... You should know three things about Stan Shih. He figured out the PC industry faster and better than any other major executive; he came up with one of the easiest-to-understand descriptions of where to make money in computers; and he knew when...

Open Formats Put to the Vote.(Brief article)
September 10, 2007... Untitled PODCASTembedSWF(); Open Formats Put to the Vote In this Tech Rising podcast, eWEEK Chief Technology Analyst Jim Rapoza talks to Marino Marcich, managing director of the ODF alliance, about the recent ISO vote on Microsoft's...

Big Apple Tech by the Numbers.(Brief article)
September 10, 2007... * $75,458 - Average pay for NYC technology jobs in 2004 'most recent year for which a full set of data was available', a full 21 percent above average private employer earnings of $62,545 * 18,446 - Number of students enrolled in...

NetApp Rolls Out Arrays for Midsize Enterprises.(Network Appliance)
September 10, 2007... Reacting to research that suggests midsize enterprises are looking to buy more storage hardware over the next four years, Network Appliance on Sept. 10 launched a new line of products aimed directly at that busy sector. NetApp, based in...