ePostal News articles from November 2004

ePostal News archives from November 2004

Deutsche Post Picks Iona's Artix for IT Integration.
November 1, 2004... Deutsche Post has picked Iona Technologies' Artix extensible Enterprise Service Bus as the foundation for its IT integration. Artix can service-enable existing systems. It uses an Enterprise Service Bus approach, essentially a "backplane"...

Stamps.com Upgrade Coming in Q1.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... PC postage vendor Stamps.com said the next rev of its PC postage service, Version 5, will move into beta by the end of the year. Version 5 is expected to include new features that will let the company target small businesses that are larger...

Mac Version of Endicia Internet Postage Debuts.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... PC postage outfit Envelope Manager Software has rolled out a Mac version of its Endicia Internet postage service. The Palo Alto, California concern is touting Endicia for Mac 1.0 as the first software-only Internet postage service for the...

UPS CEO To Join IBM Board.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... UPS CEO Michael Eskew has been named to IBM's board of directors. Eskew, a 32-year USPS veteran, will join Big Blue's board on January 1, taking its total strength to 14.

Mail Manager 2010 Gets ZAPped.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... BCC Software brags that its flagship product Mail Manager 2010 and the lite edition Mail Manager 2010 LE have earned Zone Analysis Program (ZAP) certification from the US Postal Service. ZAP certification, a new USPS standard, determines...

Online Retail Holiday Sales To Surge 20%.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Forrester Research predicts that online retail sales during the holiday shopping season from Thanksgiving to Christmas will increase by 20% over 2003 to $13.2 billion. Online retail sales from 2002 to 2003 increased 31%.

Did you know...?(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... ... that the Australia Post is offering a new service called Easy Mail that lets small and mid-sized companies outsource the preparation and barcoding of their mail to the post. Easy Mail customers have to send an electronic copy of their...

Islamo Hacks on the Rise.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... mi2g claims that Islamic hacking is on the rise and that, without any specificity, says the targets have included assets belonging to the US, UK, Australia and other coalition partners, on the one hand, and within Russia, Turkey, Indonesia,...

Cisco & Microsoft To Harmonize.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Cisco and Microsoft are pitching in together in the name of security, saying that they're going to bring their network defenses into harmony rather than going off in different directions, something that's been worrying their customers, which is...

Microsoft Profit Train Continues Merry Run.
November 1, 2004... Driven by strong sales of its server and desktop software, the Microsoft train chugged into the station with profits of $2.9 billion, or 27 cents a share, including five cents in stock compensation expenses, in its fiscal first quarter ended...

PC Shipments Slumping, Gartner Says; Contradicting IDC.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Worldwide PC shipments were up only 9.7% year-overyear in the September quarter, hitting mere single-digit growth for the first time in six quarters, according to Gartner, a weakness it traced to the poor American consumer, who's been keeping...

Nouveau Riche Watch.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... IDC is expecting global investment in offshore IT services to grow from nearly $7 billion last year to $17 billion in 2008 and for the money to go mostly to India, the Philippines, China and central and eastern Europe. It says it figures...

Norway Leads Broadband.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Back in 2003 Forrester Research predicted that Norway would become Europe's leading broadband country by 2008. Well, Telenor is doing its part by ramping up its ADSL rollout plans to provide broadband access to 90% of Norway's population by the...

US Needs Faster, Less Expensive Broadband Access.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Federal Communications commissioner Michael Copps told the Financial Times that he believes that US broadband is "far behind" countries such as Korea, Japan and Canada. He was critical of the fact that US consumers do not have access to higher...

India Wants 20m Broadband Users by 2010.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... The Indian government's Broadband Policy 2004 has set a goal of adding three million broadband subscribers and six million total Internet subscribers by December 2005. It also wants to have 20 million broadband subscribers and 40 million...

PC Postage Inventor Sues Stamps.com, Claims NetStamps Is a Rip-off.(Kara Technology Inc)
November 8, 2004... Kara Technology Inc, the outfit headed by Internet postage pioneer Salim Kara, has sued Stamps.com in federal court charging it with stealing proprietary Kara IP and using it to create NetStamps, Stamps.com's keystone product. If successful,...

EPM Firm Brings in New CEO.(Brief Article)
November 8, 2004... Electronic postmark (EPM) services provider AuthentiDate, which runs the US Postal Service's EPM service, has tapped new top management naming Suresh Pai president and CEO effective November 15. The Schenectady, New York outfit had replaced...

PostageNow Makes Progress.(Brief Article)
November 8, 2004... The US Postal Service says it's getting $19 billion a year from the 1.6 million customers who use its PostageNow services. PostageNow is a suite of electronic payment options that let customers initiate and authorize secure funds transfer...

FP Mailing Gets New CEO.(Francotyp-Postalia Mailing named Michael Doumas as chief executive officer)(Brief Article)
November 8, 2004... Francotyp-Postalia Mailing has named Michael Doumas its new CEO. The Addison, Illinois concern said Doumas replaces Larry Turner, who has left the company to pursue other opportunities. Before joining Francotyp-Postalia Mailing, Doumas was the...

Sender ID Rises from the Dead Halloween-like; AOL Ceases To Be Spooked.(America Online Inc.)
November 8, 2004... Barely a month after AOL said it wouldn't support the Microsoft-backed spam-fighting Sender ID program, it reversed course and threw its weight behind the scheme after Microsoft revised the specification. Meanwhile, a chastened Microsoft...

AOL Adds Free Anti-Virus Service.(America Online Inc.)(Brief Article)
November 8, 2004... AOL is upping the free services it offers its subscribers by adding McAfee's VirusScan Online to the so-called AOL 9.0 Security Edition. It trumpeted the new service in fullpage ads in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today as well as TV ads....

Microsoft Lost PC Share: Credit Suisse.(personal computers)
November 8, 2004... After talking to Microsoft about its September numbers, Credit Suisse figures Microsoft has lost 2%-3% of its global PC market share to piracy and Linux in Asia particularly, the first time anything like that has ever been heard. The broker...

EC Rolls Over for Oracle.(European Commission)
November 8, 2004... The European Commission rubberstamped Oracle's $7.7 billion proposed acquisition of PeopleSoft, as it's been signaling it would, just days before the term of its feisty antitrust czar Mario Monti expired. In making its announcement, the...

Oracle Sends PeopleSoft an Ultimatum.
November 8, 2004... Oracle Monday morning raised its price for PeopleSoft from $21 a share to $24, a total of $8.8 billion -- as it was widely expected to do despite its intimations that it would drop the price again -- and has given PeopleSoft shareholders until...

Google Snaps Up Keyhole.(mergers)(Brief Article)
November 8, 2004... Google has acquired privately held digital mapping company Keyhole Corporation on undisclosed terms. Mountain View, California-based Keyhole has 3D images of most places on earth and a database of roads, businesses and other points of...

What's Wrong with US, UK & German Phone Companies?(Brief Article)
November 8, 2004... Phone companies in the US (the four major regionals), UK (BT) and Germany (Deutsche Telekom) continue to underdeliver broadband speeds to their customers and consequently hamper their nations' economies. Outside of Japan and South Korea, it's...

Municipal Broadband Networks Risky for Taxpayers, No Boon to Economic Development.(Brief Article)
November 8, 2004... Cities that have attempted to build and operate broadband networks often report large losses that taxpayers or ratepayers have to bear according to a new report from The Heartland Institute. Of some 55,000 towns and municipalities in the...

Telcos Underestimate Bandwidth Requirements.(Brief Article)
November 8, 2004... "Most telcos are underestimating demand for access bandwidth. Our view is that they have most likely grossly underestimated the demand for bandwidth, and that therefore many of them will likely make unwise near-term investments in DSL when the...

Instant Messaging Commercials.(Brief Article)
November 8, 2004... The US Chamber of Commerce is using AOL's instant messaging service to deliver streaming video commercials that "tell the truth" about the efforts of trial lawyers to stop reform of American tort law. It's believed to be the first such use of...

EPM Drives Up AuthentiDate Losses.(AuthentiDate Holding Corporation)(electronic postmark )
November 15, 2004... The electronic postmark may not be the rainbow of opportunity that AuthentiDate Holding Corporation hoped for but it does seem to be making some progress however slowly. AuthentiDate has reported higher losses in its fiscal first quarter...

Swiss Post Unit Debuts B2B E-Billing.(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... Swiss Post subsidiary PostFinance has expanded its yellowbill e-billing service to the B2B segment. Active as a B2C service since 2002 via Swiss Post's PostFinance unit, yellowbill has enabled billers to send out bills electronically to...

SingPost Debuts New E-Mail-Based Service.(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... The Singapore Post has rolled out a new offering called Send4Service that will let consumers e-mail or phone the post to request delivery and repair of their IT and other household products. The post said it had partnered with nine major...

USPS Expands NetPost CardStore.(United States. Postal Service)(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... The US Postal Service has extended its NetPost CardStore offering, which lets users go online to the post's web site and create and send customized greeting cards and postcards via the mail. Launched in time for the holidays, the new...

Did you know...(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... ... that Correos, the Spanish postal service, rolled out an online telegram service the other day? The post says that users can send telegrams from their PCs to anyone in Spain and Andorra. They can also select the telegram's mode of...

Microsoft Buys Off Novell, CCIA Antitrust Complaints; Novell To Sue over WordPerfect.
November 15, 2004... Microsoft announced Monday morning that it has come to terms with Novell, the company generally credited with instigating the antitrust suit that the Justice Department brought against Microsoft in 1998. Novell has agreed not to sue Microsoft...

Dell Sued for Non-Payment of eCommerce 'Tax'.(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... DE Technologies Inc, a little-known Virginia company that apparently holds the patent on international e-commerce, has sued Dell in federal court for patent infringement. The Dell suit is the first DE has brought in the ultimate expectation of...

Group 1 Licenses Data Profiling Technology.(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... Postal software house Group 1 Software says it has acquired an unrestricted source code license to Chicagobased AMB Dataminers' data profiling technology. The AMB technology is supposed to enable businesses to understand the structure,...

BT Touts [pounds sterling]1 Wi-Fi in the UK.(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... European wireless Internet service providers (WISP) are still beset by the accusation that their hotspot services are overpriced and the UK's BT is seeking to attract new customers with a special trial charging just a pound a month. The...

Intel & Microsoft in Their Very First Ad Campaign Together.(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... Imagine, in the whole long, sometimes prickly, sometimes sordid, history of the Wintel alliance Microsoft and Intel have never done co-op advertising together. But the penetration of the parlor is so danged important to both of them that...

AOL Continues Losing Dial-up Subscribers But Increases Earnings.(America Online Inc)(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... AOL lost another 646,000 dial-up subscribers in the Time Warner quarter ending September 30 compared to the prior quarter, dropping its dial-up subscriber numbers to 22.7 million. AOL's dial-up subscribers have declined two million from the...

Belgacom Offers 9 Mbps Broadband.(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... Belgacom, Belgium's largest broadband service, says that it is expanding its broadband portfolio with a new product for homes and small businesses. Belgacom VDSL will offer download speeds of up to 9 Mbps with an upload speed of 400 Kbps....

High Growth Ahead for Broadband Market.(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... Broadband Internet access services will remain the largest driver of Internet access revenue for the next five years, according to Stat/MDR. Broadband generated 50% of the Internet access revenues in 2003 and will account for over 71% by the...

Online Purchases Booming.(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... Online retail sales are expected to increase 19% to $21.6 billion this holiday season, Jupiter Research says. It's predicting that 86 million Americans will buy online during the holidays, up from 73 million last year.

Aussie Firm Debuts ePost Service.(Fukura Pty Ltd. launched an online mail service)
November 29, 2004... An Australian firm has introduced a hybrid ePost mail service so senders anywhere in the world can get their mail to Australian addresses quicker. Launched by Sydney-based Fukura Pty Ltd last Friday, ePost's promoters say it combines "the...

Swiss Post To Buy Document Services.(Swiss Post International)(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... Swiss Post is buying the Telekurs Group's Document Services unit on undisclosed terms. Zurich-based Document Services provides electronic document management and archiving, pre-printing, printing and dispatch and scanning/document...

Swiss Post E-Postage Now Due Next Year.(Swiss Post International to roll out WebStamp online postage service)(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... Swiss Post will be rolling out its WebStamp online postage service in February. It was supposed to go live several months ago. It's been in pilot for a while. Based on Deutsche Post's Stampit technology, WebStamps is designed to let users...

Royal Mail Out To Befriend Small Businesses.(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... The Royal Mail has launched a small business web site to provide "practical information" on how they can save money and time on their postage requirements. The site is supposed to include tips on finding new customers and building enduring...

SmartStamp Picks Up Award.(Royal Mail Group's online postage system won 'Best Use of Technology' award)(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... The Royal Mail's SmartStamp online postage system has picked up a prestigious award. The post said it won "Best Use of Technology" at the National Business Awards, which recognize business excellence and innovation. Launched early...

PeopleSoft Debuts New Outsourced Services.(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... PeopleSoft has rolled out a suite of Application Management services to let customers outsource some or all of the technical support for their PeopleSoft applications. The new Application Management services to be offered on a subscription...

Microsoft Launches Windows Update Beta.(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... Microsoft has put out a public beta of its Windows Update Services, the stuff that's designed so IT administrators can assess, control and automate the deployment of Microsoft software updates more easily and ensure their Windows environments...

HP Recovers from Q3 Drubbing.(Hewlett-Packard Co.)
November 29, 2004... Recovering from the third-quarter missteps that pushed it to pull out the stops internally and benefiting from an improving enterprise environment, Hewlett-Packard said it earned $1.1 billion, or 37 cents a share, on record revenues of $21.4...

Ballmer Plays Patent Card against Linux.(Steve Ballmer)(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer warned Asian governments that could find themselves staring at the wrong end of some patent infringements suits if they adopt Linux. Ballmer was on a trip to the Orient and after a speech in Singapore he was asked...

Broadband Increases 104% in France.(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... In France, as in North America and in the rest of Europe, it's the Internet -- with the help of mobile phones -- that's driving growth in the telecom industry. According to ART, France's government regulator of the telecom industry,...

Sweden First European To Get ADSL2+.(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... TeliaSonera, the joint venture between the incumbent Swedish and Finnish telcos, appears to be first European to the mark with an ADSL2+-based service across Sweden. It plans to launch a 24 Mbps service this month. In the first phase, 101...

Ringtones Most Popular Mobile App.(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... In late 2003 the hot thing in cell phones was number portability -- being able to keep the same number when changing providers. A year later the big trends getting consumers thinking about new phones are multimedia applications and flexible...

Cell Phone as Scanner.
November 29, 2004... Scientists at the Xerox Research Center Europe (XRCE) have developed document imaging software that they believe could turn mobile phones into portable document scanners that let users acquire, store, read, print and share documents. According...

IBM Wants To Borrow Your Computer To Cure Cancer.(World Community Grid)(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... IBM has gotten behind a SETI-style thing called the World Community Grid in the name of finding a cure for cancer and AIDS. IBM is kicking in p630 and x345 systems running AIX and Linux, Shark storage and DB2 and the rest of us are being...