ePostal News articles from April 2005

ePostal News archives from April 2005

Finland Post unit debuts new online service.(Itella)
April 4, 2005... Finland Post unit Itella Finland has rolled out a new online marketing communications service called eMessage that's supposed to let people create targeted invitations, thank you notes, brochures and bulletins from their PCs and send them over...

USPS expands data warehouse.(United States Postal Service)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... The US Postal Service has expanded the size and scope of its NCR Teradata enterprise data warehouse to boost customer service, employee productivity and operational efficiency. The USPS initially tapped Teradata in 2000 to develop its Retail...

Slovenia Post beefs up IT infrastructure.(Concord's Spectrum Xsight software)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... Slovenia Post has gone to Concord Communications for software to ensure around-the-clock IT infrastructure availability and performance for the backbone that connects 550 post offices throughout the country. The post has deployed Concord's...

USPS radio ads pitch Web site.(United States Postal Service)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... The US Postal Service is running a national radio ad campaign promoting its usps.com web site. Its 30-second spot makes the pitch that just about anything you can do physically at a post office you can do virtually on usps.com.

Zix acting CEO gets top job.(Rick Spurr )(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... Secure electronic messaging software and services provider Zix Corporation has made its acting CEO Rick Spurr permanent. Spurr, who has been acting CEO since John Ryan stepped down in February, was president and COO of the Dallas firm since...

Escher hires Toime.(Escher Group Ltd.)(appointments)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... Postal veteran Elmar Toime has joined Escher Group as a consultant. Toime, previously CEO of the New Zealand Post and deputy chairman of Royal Mail, will help Escher identify new business opportunities and develop and promote strategic...

Oracle profits fall.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... Oracle reported lower earnings in its fiscal third quarter ended February 28 because of charges related to its PeopleSoft acquisition. Net income was $540 million, or 10 cents a share, on revenues of $2.95 billion. For the corresponding...

Multitasking the Salesforce.com way.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... Online CRM specialist Salesforce.com plans to roll out a new online service called Multiforce as part of its summer upgrade so customers can multitask between multiple on-demand applications all running in the same Salesforce.com environment...

Broadband users worldwide reach 144.9m.
April 4, 2005... The number of broadband subscribers globally reached 144.9 million at the end of the fourth quarter with the addition of more than 45 million new subscribers last year, according to research house Quantum-Web. Asia-Pacific grew 41% to 58...

Broadband cometh, dial-up disappearing.
April 4, 2005... About a year or so ago, some sage looked at a broadband survey and reached the conclusion that the days of broadband growth were ending. It's a silly notion because: a) growth in any business levels off as the market reaches saturation,...

PC leads 'Must Have' list.(GMIPoll )(Brief Article)(Illustration)
April 4, 2005... What do people think are "must have" devices? That's the question a GMIPoll tried to answer. It found: 'Must Have' Devices Worldwide US only Except US PC 75% 87% TV ...

IBM tosses spam back at spammers.(International Business Machines Corp.)(FairUCE)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... IBM is offering a new tool to battle the spam scourge that verifies the sender's identity instead of the usual ineffective content filtering that identifies spam by scanning the content of every e-mail message entering a network. Dubbed...

Spam continues because it gets results.(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... User education is the way to reduce the worldwide spam and virus epidemics, according to Mirapoint, the e-mail server maker, and market research firm Radicati Group. They say users have to learn to stop clicking on the links embedded in...

Kodak to pilot Electronic Postmark with secure e-mail.(Eastman Kodak Co. with AuthentiDate Inc. integrates its Secure Email Service )
April 11, 2005... Eastman Kodak plans to pilot the US Postal Service's Electronic Postmark as part of its Secure Email Service in partnership with AuthentiDate, the e-postmark's provider. Led by Kodak, the pilot is supposed to include several healthcare...

Itacable debuts B2B e-billing service.(business to business)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2005... Itacable has launched what's supposedly Italy's first B2B electronic invoicing and payment service. Dubbed ItaLock, the service is based on CheckFree's iSeries software and complements Itacable's core business management services. ...

DHL To Spend $160m on automation in US.(DHL Airways Inc.)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2005... Deutsche Post's logistics and express delivery arm DHL plans to spend $160 million on a hub automation and integration project to enhance letter and parcel processing operations and tracking capabilities across its US network. The money...

USPS enhances NCOA link.(United States Postal Service)(national change of address )(Brief Article)
April 11, 2005... The US Postal Service has added a new Flat File format to its NCOA Link change-of-address software. The post says that giving mailers a second format will decrease processing time, increase access and make NCOA Link easier to use across a...

Sprint debuts message archive service.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2005... Sprint rolled out a message archive service for business the other day. The off-site managed security service is designed to secure, preserve and retrieve information to help companies meet business continuity, legal discovery and...

Oracle strikes again.(Oracle Corp. acquires Oblix Inc.)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2005... Oracle has bought Oblix, the small nine-year-old privately held identity-based security house run by ex-Symantec CEO Gordon Eubanks, for an undisclosed amount of money. Oracle is still digesting PeopleSoft and hasn't even started munching...

It's a Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi world.(user statistics)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2005... There are more than 30 million Wi-Fi users in North America and about 118 million users worldwide with more than 125 million Wi-Fi hotspots globally, according to Pyramid Research.

CA buys mainframe identity management app.(Computer Associates International Inc. purchases identity and access management application from InfoSec Corp.)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2005... Computer Associates has acquired a mainframe identity and access management product from InfoSec that identifies and removes obsolete, unused and rogue user IDs and access rights automatically. Financial terms weren't disclosed. CA has...

Windows Server 2003 SP1 debuts.(Microsoft launches service pack 1)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2005... Microsoft has released Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2003 to manufacturing, promising availability in the next 60 days. SP1 is supposed to have the usual security, reliability and performance enhancements. Besides a bunch of...

Tiscali has 1.65m broadband subscribers.(Tiscali International Network)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2005... At the end of December Tiscali had 1.65 million ADSL subscribers, up from 840,000 users, a 97% increase in a year. During 2004, Tiscali started unbundling DSL lines in France and Italy and continued to do so in the Netherlands, ending the year...

US falling behind China in broadband.(Brief Article)
April 11, 2005... "The FCC should be responsible for results, not rhetoric. I've been writing lately about how cable at very modest incremental investment can go over 100 Mbps to nearly every home, and DSL, at a slightly greater but not unreasonable cost, can go...

Microsoft RTMs 64-bit windows server 2003, XP.(release to market)(operating systems enhancements)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2005... Microsoft has released the 64-bit x86 versions of Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP Professional to manufacturing in the expectation of making them available through its resellers and OEMs in late April. At Intel's new Xeon MP processors a...

USPS' confirm tracking service slow to take off.(Confirm real-time electronic mail tracking service )
April 18, 2005... The US Postal Service has acknowledged that its Confirm real-time electronic mail tracking service for business has been slow to gain market acceptance and that it's "experienced significant implementation complications." The post provides...

epost to break even by 2007.(acquisition of webdoxs )(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... Canada Post said that its epost electronic bill presentment and payment service would break even by 2007 and offer an improved long-term return as a result of its acquisition of webdoxs last year. However, the post warned that short-term...

Belarus post plans Internet kiosk project.(Belpochta)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... Belpochta, the Belarus postal service, is planning to install Internet kiosks at 40 post offices so the public can access the net. The post expects to complete the project to provide dial-up Internet access at the kiosks by the end of this...

Electronic notarization integrated with archving.(alliances of Image Fortress)(alliances of Surety)( electronic time stamping and digital notarization technology)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... Image Fortress and Surety are coming together to integrate Surety's electronic time stamping and digital notarization technology with Image Fortress' DigitalFortress web-based electronic record archiving service. The combined offering is...

Canada post to get new CEO.(Moya Greene)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... The Canadian government has proposed Moya Greene as the new CEO of Canada Post. A former public servant in the federal government, Greene was most recently senior VP of operational effectiveness at the Canadian aircraft maker, Bombardier....

Microsoft moves to defang EC.(antitrust remedies )(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... Microsoft is trying to calm the wrath of the European Commission, which is ticked over how long it's taking Microsoft to put the EC's antitrust remedies in place to the point of threatening daily fines. In all the EC has a list of 26...

Siebel CEO made to walk the plank: Wall Street roughs up successor.(Mike Lawrie, George Shaheen, Siebel Systems Inc.)
April 18, 2005... Mike Lawrie, the IBMer who replaced Siebel co-founder Tom Siebel as Siebel's CEO last May to turn the place around, is out a week after the company said the first quarter had been a disaster, with licensing revenues down 41% year-over-year and...

Linux & Windows: both good enough.
April 18, 2005... The Yankee Group says that Linux is having trouble displacing Windows Server, XP and Office in both the SMB and enterprise markets, a finding that isn't going to win it any friends among the open source zealots, who tends to treat such...

Wintel & HP create SME consortium.(Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. to form European Small and Medium Enterprise Consortium)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... Microsoft, Intel and HP, which is rumored to be having a few doubts about Linux, have signed a memorandum of understanding expected to lead to the formation of a European Small and Medium Enterprise Consortium aimed at making Europe more...

Podcasts catching on.(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... Podcasts, the Internet broadcasts meant for download to an iPod or other portable media player, may be a new phenomenon, but they seem to be catching on. According to numbers from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, more than 22...

Swiss Post standardizes on Siebel.
April 25, 2005... The Swiss Post has standardized on Siebel Sales, the CRM software, to manage relationships with its enterprise customers, using it to create a single comprehensive view of key corporate accounts across multiple channels. The news was...

Certipost launches CertiONE.(e-communications )(Brief Article)
April 25, 2005... Certipost, the Belgium Post-Belgacom joint venture, has launched CertiONE, an ambitious B2B e-communications platform that exchanges electronic documents. Belgacom, Belgium's primary telecom operator, will be using CertiONE to communicate with...

AuthentiDate fires its auditors.(Doctor Order )
April 25, 2005... AuthentiDate Holding Corporation, the outfit that supplies the USPS electronic postmark and hasn't been able to renegotiate its contract with the post office since it failed to hit revenue targets last year, has dismissed its accountants...

Norway Post, TNT sign new cooperation pact.(to continue their international cooperation)(Brief Article)
April 25, 2005... The Norwegian postal service Posten Norge AS has signed an agreement with TNT, the national postal service of the Netherlands, to continue their international cooperation. The pact builds on an earlier cooperative deal signed last May. ...

Universal Cash Express, YSDO team to nose out posts.(Yard Sale Drop Off)
April 25, 2005... Universal Cash Express, a subsidiary of Universal Express Inc, has joined forces with Yard Sale Drop Off (YSDO), a Total Identity Corporation subsidiary, to build what promises to be the largest network of eBay drop centers in the world. ...

US Postmaster wants more wiggle room.(Brief Article)
April 25, 2005... Citing "declining first-class mail volume"--which of course is a result of computerization--"coupled with a market shift from higher-margin to lower-margin products," USPS Postmaster General John Potter told a congressional hearing the other...

DataFlux bolsters its global address verification services.(Brief Article)
April 25, 2005... DataFlux Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of SAS and a data management vendor, has tied up with Platon Data Technology GmbH, the inventor of AddressDoctor, to enhance the global address verification services in DataFlux(R) solutions. ...

IBM blows the quarter.(International Business Machines)
April 25, 2005... IBM's first quarter lost its sizzle after a strong start when the bottom fell out in March and the computer giant had trouble closing deals, CEO Sam Palmisano said when the company rushed out the news of a shortfall in both sales and earnings...

The third way: broadband over powerline.
April 25, 2005... Broadband over powerline (BPL) might become a third source of high-speed Internet connection for consumers, even businesses. It seems to have staying power in part because of the deep pockets of its backers. Its market opportunity lies below...

MSN Messenger 7, Spaces debut.(Brief Article)
April 25, 2005... Microsoft rolled out the new version of its MSN Messenger instant messaging and its MSN Spaces blogging services. The two have been in beta since December. New features in MSN Messenger 7.0 include a Logitech-powered full-screen PC-to-PC...

Murdoch: do as I say.
April 25, 2005... News Corp kingfish Rupert Murdoch told newspaper editors that four out of every five Americans in 1964 read a newspaper every day, but "today only half do." Like the music and movie industries, newspapers have been slow to harness the Internet...

Consumers snap up camera phones.(Brief Article)
April 25, 2005... It's either a case of "megapixels be damned" or market saturation, but camera phones outsold digital still cameras nearly four to one in 2004 according to Strategy Analytics. Some 257 million camera phones were shipped worldwide last year...

Nothing breeds success like success.(Brief Article)
April 25, 2005... Apple sold a million Macs in the March quarter, scoring a four-year high and 43% increase year-over-year. Pundits and Wall Street call it the iPod halo. The sweetest news was that 40% of the Macs went to people who never owned a Mac...