InfoWorld.com articles from August 2007

InfoWorld.com archives from August 2007

NSA guru lauds security intelligence sharing; Efforts to share security data are helping to foster community approach necessary to improve IT practices, said an NSA expert presenting at Black Hat.(Conference notes)
August 1, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines Government initiatives aimed at fostering the sharing of security intelligence throughout the federal space are helping to establish the community atmosphere and best practices necessary to help those agencies -- and...

U.S. spying raises new privacy fears; Vague admissions of broader domestic spying leave business to wonder exactly what data is being mined.
August 1, 2007... Byline: Caron Carlson With confirmation from the national intelligence chief that a domestic spying program extends beyond tapping e-mails and phone calls into other kinds of surveillance, attention is turning to the administration's data...

Payment card regulations get mixed reviews; Data security standard has pushed the industry to significantly improve defenses, but some users are crying foul.
August 1, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines There appears to be little debate that the payment card industry's latest data security standard is improving the protection of electronic customer records. Some enterprise IT leaders, however, complain that the...

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: Microsoft System Center can ease network security fright; With the right tools and some planning, admins needn't jump at every mysterious network noise.
August 1, 2007... Byline: Oliver Rist The night is so dark, it sticks to your skin. The young geek wanders lost through thick foliage, branches grabbing his sleeves, the glow from his pitiful penlight only serving to accentuate the crushing blackness all...

ENTERPRISE INSIGHT: Taunting the CIO; Think you can use technology to keep a tight rein on user behavior? Think again.
August 2, 2007... Byline: David L. Margulius The Wall Street Journal on Monday ran a special section whose lead article was headlined "Ten Things Your IT Department Won't Tell You." The image on the section cover showed a white-shirted IT guy clutching a...

ILOG JRules 6.5 brings rules to SOA; ILOG BRMS shines with smooth deployment of decision services, but some usability quirks remain.
August 2, 2007... Byline: Steven NA*A[+ or -]ez ILOG JRules Version 6.5 is primarily a refinement of the architecture and features first introduced in Version 6.0. With the 6.x line, ILOG adopted the basic architecture seen across the BRMS (Business Rules...

Black Hat tilts toward business users; Corporate IT managers comprise an estimated 42 percent of hacker confab attendees.
August 3, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines According to a survey conducted by anti-virus giant Symantec, more business users than ever before attended the Black Hat 2007 security conference held this week in Las Vegas. Based on the study, which surveyed...

Mozilla shares scanning tool, Firefox 3 features; Company reps highlight measures against malware contained in both releases, but also cite goal of fostering more secure coding practices among programmers.
August 3, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines Open source browser maker Mozilla has developed a wide array of secure coding analysis tools as part of its internal development process, and now it's beginning to share those programs with the outside world. As...

Open source joins the mainstream; LinuxWorld Conference attendees are judging open source software by the same criteria they judge proprietary software, opening up more opportunities.(Conference notes)
August 3, 2007... Byline: Robert Mullins As more than 11,000 attendees converge on San Francisco for the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, beginning Monday, one industry analyst says customers are evaluating open source software the same way they evaluate...

SECURITY ADVISER: File encryption dos and don'ts; Before you dive into an encryption project, consider these questions and caveats.
August 3, 2007... Byline: Roger A. Grimes I've been involved with multiple projects with file encryption lately, and even though I've been assisting with data encryption projects for years, I'm still learning something new every day. They say if you don't...

STORAGE INSIDER: FTP: New tricks for an old dog; Rules-based enhancements help FTP revamp its old-school image.
August 3, 2007... Byline: Mario Apicella Not only has the multimedia revolution increased our appetite for storage, but it has also beefed up our portions, as average file sizes just keep getting bigger every day. Most of the time, this file obesity...

IBM Information Server Blade does data integration; Appliance-like blade system with Information Server reconciles and integrates data from multiple sources.
August 6, 2007... Byline: Eric Knorr For years IBM has doggedly pursued the massive problem of pulling data strewn across the enterprise into an integrated, harmonious whole. At LinuxWorld on Monday, the company introduced IBM Information Server Blade, an...

EDITOR'S LETTER: Enterprise mashups: A blend of risk and reward; Business can’t live without mashups or open source.(Editorial)
August 6, 2007... Byline: Steve Fox The mashup is an almost irresistible idea. Take two or more external apps, data sources, or services, blend them together, and voila, you’ve got an entirely new, eminently useful creation. The classic mashup takes...

Make mashups secure; Mashups offer unprecedented agility in developing lightweight Web applications for the enterprise. Here’s how to keep them from becoming a security risk.
August 6, 2007... Byline: Dave Linthicum With the advent of mashups, innovative developers all over the enterprise are seeking new ways to leverage the value of corporate information through the use of external Web applications, APIs, or services. Although...

Open source upheaval; Support-based business models and collaborative software communities have changed the software industry forever. Is it make or break time for conventional vendors?
August 6, 2007... Byline: Neil McAllister "I don't use the word 'evil,'" says Mike Evans – though he acknowledges that some of his customers do see proprietary commercial software vendors that way. As vice president of corporate development for...

The ABC's of RIA; Frameworks for rich Internet applications can be lightweight or heavyweight, open or closed, and almost anything in between.
August 6, 2007... Byline: Martin Heller Rich Internet applications, or RIAs, comprise a spectrum of application types and technologies. The lightweight end of the spectrum is anchored by AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) or Web 2.0 applications, which...

Dell, Red Hat mix and match OS and application stack; Windows OS and open-source infrastructure will give IT more choice.
August 7, 2007... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz Red Hat and Linux continued its move up and down the enterprise operating stack with the announcement this week by Dell that it would offer its customers the Red Hat middleware stack on Dell PowerEdge servers. ...

eBay imparts datacenter knowlege; Bigger than Nasdaq, eBay knows how to manage a datacenter.
August 7, 2007... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz Imagine creating and managing a datacenter that handles 241 million registered users and sells a car a minute, an auto part every second, and a piece of diamond jewelry every two minutes. Imagine a datacenter...

Little progress in states' ODF considerations; Many state legislators want to move state documents to ODF, citing compatibility and cost issues, but opponents wonder if the alleged benefits of ODF are just a mirage.
August 7, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines The debate over use of the open document format among U.S. states appears to have hit a wall as experts representing both sides of the issue offered few new insights into the subject at a meeting of the National...

Amazon.com CTO stresses services over datacenters; Executive cites shifting paradigms in online retailer's new offerings in software services rather than physical resources.
August 7, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Amazon.com's CTO emphasized Tuesday the benefits of accessing computing resources as services instead of having to maintain large, underutilized datacenters. Companies need to focus on differentiation rather than...

Linux kernel maintainer allays fears about forking; Linux Foundation official also expresses doubts about GPL v3, OpenSolaris.
August 7, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Making separate but critical points about the path of the Linux kernel, the maintainer of the kernel on Monday stressed there is no need to worry about forking and not to expect a move to the GNU General Public License...

Dell to offer Inspirons with Linux in European market; Analysts predict brisk sales for the Linux computers, which are priced $50 to $100 less than similar Windows models.
August 8, 2007... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz Following up on its spring '07 announcement that it will ship Inspiron notebook and desktops with the Linux OS, Dell chose the LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco to add the United Kingdom, France, and Germany...

Leaked Vista hotfix packs ready for download; The two updates are now officially available, though Microsoft is mum on whether they are a part of the forthcoming SP1 Vista service pack.
August 8, 2007... Byline: Gregg Keizer, Computerworld Microsoft released the two Windows Vista updates that had leaked to the Internet at the end of July on Tuesday but won't say when it will begin pushing them to users via Windows Update. Pegged as...

Novell CEO backs standard Linux apps certification; Hovsepian emphasized the need for a vendor-neutral effort on certification.
August 8, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Emphasizing that more must be done to expand the volume of Linux applications, Novell President/CEO Ron Hovsepian proposed Wednesday that a standardized application certification process be developed among different...

SpyProxy takes Web apps security fight to 'virtual sandbox'; Researchers at the ongoing Usenix Security Symposium showed off a new method for thwarting Web-based malware attacks.
August 8, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines Faced with volumes of browser vulnerabilities and Web-based exploits designed to take advantage of the flaws, security researchers presented a new process for protecting users with execution-based malware detection at...

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: Microsoft PsTools bolster Windows admins' utility belts; From password tweaking to remote shutdowns, this array of free utilities makes life a little easier.
August 8, 2007... Byline: Oliver Rist It's been a bit of a roller-coaster week. Fake Steve Jobs peels off his "Mission: Impossible" mask and it's (sad sigh) Dan Lyons. Maybe Webster's can use the incident as the new definition for anticlimactic. Then again,...

InfiView 1.0: An AJAX graphics work in progress; Bindows-based platform offers powerful interactive capabilities to developers who can master its quirks.
August 8, 2007... Byline: Martin Heller Two products emerged from MB Technologies in May: Version 3.0 of Bindows, MB's AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) toolkit, and InfiView 1.0, a software platform for developing interactive, dynamic graphical maps...

Enterprise security remains a balancing act; Minimizing risk by improving process, prioritizing threats, and accepting limitations is the only way for large enterprises to effectively defend their operations.
August 9, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines The sheer size and complexity of today's largest enterprise businesses makes it nearly impossible for such organizations to keep up with the rate of change in IT security, requiring a top-down strategy that prioritizes...

Linux seen vying with Windows for platform dominance; Linux Foundation director sees Linux entering second stage of growth and a computing world dominated by two platforms.
August 9, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Having gained industry-wide recognition, Linux now is moving into its second stage of growth, in which it vies with Microsoft Windows as a dominant computing platform, Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux...

OASIS forms six committees to simplify SOA; Standard group's effort focuses on Service Component Architecture specifications.
August 9, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Can forming six committees result in simplification? OASIS believes this is the way to go with its SOA efforts. In what might seem like a contradiction, OASIS said Thursday it has formed six different technical...

ENTERPRISE INSIGHT: IT meets the cable guy; McKinsey spotlights best practices and technologies for aligning field services worker with core business goals.
August 9, 2007... Byline: David L. Margulius With airlines in the midst of their worst summer (performance-wise) in decades, it seems unimaginable that anyone would recommend that other industries adopt their business practices – especially...

SECURITY ADVISER: Thoughts from Black Hat; Good info on bad deeds from the Black Hat conference.
August 10, 2007... Byline: Roger A. Grimes Talk to anyone who attends Black Hat USA conferences and you'll hear about how boring the talks are, how nobody learned anything new, how the hacks were known last year — not to mention the ridiculous posers....

STORAGE INSIDER: Fueling faster file transfers with RocketStream; Application suite blends UDP and TCP to accelerate file transfers over long distances.
August 10, 2007... Byline: Mario Apicella The data that we send over wires travels between two-thirds and three-quarters the speed of light, depending on the medium. Within the LAN, transfers from point A to point B appear to be immediate, with less than a...

Hospital undergoes wireless surgery; Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital has made a strong effort to incorporate wireless technologies like Wi-Fi into its operations.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines For years, wireless technologies have only shown up in many U.S. hospitals in the form of rolling computers with Wi-Fi network access, but as evidenced at Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital, times are changing. ...

Novell buys endpoint security firm Senforce; Novell will offer a new product dubbed ZENworks Endpoint Security to protect endpoints from data theft, wireless exploits, and malware.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines Novell announced on Monday that it has acquired Senforce Technologies, a provider of endpoint and network security tools, for an undisclosed sum. Waltham, Mass.-based Novell also said that it would move quickly to...

AMD proposes CPU extensions for multi-core apps; Software and hardware will be better integrated, allowing users to take fuller advantage of multi-core processors.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill AMD is announcing plans to extend its CPU instruction set Tuesday to make it easier for software developers to exploit the power of multi-core processors when building applications. The company's Hardware Extensions...

CodeGear, Red Hat add dev tools for Eclipse, Java; Open source developers' 'pain points' are key to product rollouts, which seek to simplify development in open source environments.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill CodeGear and Red Hat plan product rollouts on Monday to enhance Java development on the Eclipse platform. CodeGear is unveiling JGear, featuring a set of Eclipse plug-ins and server software to address Java...

The great Office Server smorgasbord: SharePoint 2007; Microsoft's five new Office Servers give Office 2007 users a wealth of new features and capabilities. We examine how in this four-part series, starting with SharePoint 2007.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Brian Chee, Oliver Rist 2005. A good year made more pleasant because we were still living under certain illusions. For one, we thought Paris Hilton headlines were in a decline. I was still 39 and therefore didn't have to worry...

Government-industry security group expands; Transglobal Secure Collaboration Program seeks to add systems integrators and software developers to roster of major government bodies and contractors.
August 14, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines The Transglobal Secure Collaboration Program (TSCP), an IT security standards consortium that includes heavyweights such as the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and many of the largest government contractors in the...

Eclipse Europa aftermath draws plaudits, complaints; The Europa release train is a success, but Eclipse may need to do a better job setting user expectations, director says.
August 15, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Despite isolated complaints about stability, the Eclipse Foundation has deemed its recent Europa technology release a success with more than 2 million downloads since the software became available on June 29. Europa...

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: Exchange 2007 SP1 packed with goodies; Better security and OWA enhancements top the list of improvements.
August 15, 2007... Byline: Oliver Rist This is what happens when your friends have kids. The kids get sick; your friend gets sick. He comes over to help with rebuilding your deck. You get sick. Or, rather, I get sick. As a dog — which is an expression...

BEA: Revenues up but license fee collections down; Company offers mixed snapshot of second fiscal quarter.(Financial report)
August 16, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill BEA Systems provided a snapshot Thursday of its recently ended second quarter for the 2008 fiscal year, in which revenues were up but the company saw licensing fee collections drop. Revenues were $364.6 million, an...

Gaia AJAX technology set for .Net developers; Upgrade makes it easier to modify code.
August 16, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Gaia Ajax Widgets, an alternative AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) library for developing ASP.Net and Mono applications, has been upgraded with re-factoring to make it easier to view and modify code. The Q3...

ENTERPRISE INSIGHT: Should IT care about the credit meltdown of 2007? Memories of the dot-com bust still linger for many of us. This year's credit bust may or may not be so severe for IT, depending on where you work.
August 16, 2007... Byline: David L. Margulius Some loud, scary noises have been coming from the stock market recently – driven by fears about a credit crunch, liquidity, and subprime mortgages. I don't normally write about Wall Street or economic...

Simple Spotwave Z1900 gives cell reception a boost; Easy-to-set-up hardware can turn two signal bars into five.
August 16, 2007... Byline: Curtis Franklin Jr. As more and more enterprise applications expand to cover handheld wireless platforms, smart phones and radio-enabled PDAs are becoming critical pieces of enterprise infrastructure. Powerful as they have become,...

IBM unveils Version 8 of Lotus Notes, Domino; Client is built on Eclipse framework and includes ODF editors for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations.
August 17, 2007... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz Two years in the making, IBM Lotus division finally unveiled Version 8 of Lotus Notes and Domino this week. By all accounts the much needed new version offers a modernized user interface and new usability tools...

Sourcefire acquires ClamAV open-source anti-malware project; Acquisition brings together the Snort and ClamAV open-source security technologies.
August 17, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines Network security specialist Sourcefire announced Friday that it has acquired ClamAV, an open-source gateway anti-malware project whose technologies are used in the products of a number of other vendors. Sourcefire...

SECURITY ADVISER: Old apps, new vulnerabilities; Updates that don't clean up after themselves are trouble.
August 17, 2007... Byline: Roger A. Grimes One of the best security defenses you can have is a fully patched computer. Not just the OS, but all applications -- large and small -- should be completely up to date. But making sure you have the latest patches...

STORAGE INSIDER: Hunting down dark fiber; Leaving stealth mode after a long R&D phase, XKL seeks to unearth the benefits of DIY WAN connectivity.
August 17, 2007... Byline: Mario Apicella The speed of optical-grade broadband is beginning to reach our homes, at least those lucky enough to live in areas covered by Verizon's FiOS (fiber-optic service) or similar offerings. In addition to providing...

Have your say: What’s the next big thing in IT? InfoWorld’s bloggers and columnists have had their say, and now it’s your turn. What do you think the Next Big Thing will be? There’s a Talkback opportunity at the end of each section, but here’s a spot for you to prognosticate on topics we haven’t addressed.
August 20, 2007... Byline: InfoWorld Staff

Storage: Services in the cloud will meet tomorrow’s storage needs; Storage remains a bear to manage -- and few signs point to significant improvement. The solution? Let someone else do it.
August 20, 2007... Byline: Mario Apicella Despite vendor promises, managing storage is getting harder, not easier. Storage vendors boast of smart applications that ease storage management to the point that a caveman could do it. They promise tools that...

Open source: Innovation through recombination; The stage is set for open source to reinvent itself, fashioning new solutions by borrowing the best code across a broad spectrum of software.
August 20, 2007... Byline: Dave Dargo Today's software business model isn't about writing software; it's about the enablement and servicing of software. And that just happens to be what the open source movement is all about. So far, the open source...

Security: The great privacy compromise; No magic technology bullet will solve the ongoing crisis in enterprise security. The answer is political -- and a long way off.
August 20, 2007... Byline: Roger A. Grimes Security will remain at its current pathetic level or worse during the next 5 to 10 years. The next big thing is a long way off, primarily for cultural rather than technical reasons. Until then, I can...

Application development: The new face of Internet apps; Blending the best of conventional desktop and Web apps, rich Internet applications occupy the hottest app dev real estate around.
August 20, 2007... Byline: Martin Heller A huge chasm divides the application development world, one that dozens of vendors are rushing to fill. On one side are desktop applications; on the other are Web applications. In between are RIAs (rich Internet...

Desktop technology: Streaming to a screen near you; The technology is finally here for application virtualization, which solves the desktop management problem that has cursed IT for decades.
August 20, 2007... Byline: Randall C. Kennedy Shrink-wrap is dead. The era of the traditional end-user seat license is coming to a close. Tomorrow's enterprise desktop is all about subscription-based delivery of customized computing stacks via application...

Middleware: Sharing behavior across a service-oriented landscape; New middleware will expose methods or service calls as if the whole application infrastructure were running on one big, local system.
August 20, 2007... Byline: Dave Linthicum Middleware is morphing from something that only deals with the movement of information from one place to another to something that's much more sophisticated and useful in today's emerging service-oriented world. The...

Business models: A million ways to pay as you go; In a few years time, what will it be like to buy software by subscription? Consult your mobile phone calling plan for a preview.
August 20, 2007... Byline: David L. Margulius The big thing in business models is the subscription, which will be a winner for IT vendors and their customers alike for the next decade. No doubt you've heard that one before. But there's a twist. First, a...

Virtualization: A new era of roaming desktops; Application virtualization will make IT’s life much simpler by separating application code from the platform on which it runs. And the technology is ready to roll.
August 20, 2007... Byline: David Marshall When most people talk about virtualization, they mean server virtualization. But you don’t need to look any further than VMware’s IPO to realize that particular train has already left the station. When...

Databases: Packing larger sizes into smaller spaces; Databases are ballooning to gargantuan proportions, killing performance. That's why the next frontier is new compression technology.
August 20, 2007... Byline: Sean McCown One of the bigger problems databases face is the space crunch. As individual databases edge toward the petabyte range, it's getting much harder to find appropriate storage. And of course, the number of tables isn't...

SMB technology: Replacing in-house software with applications in the cloud; Applications delivered through the browser keep SMBs nimble by eliminating application maintenance costs.
August 20, 2007... Byline: Oliver Rist In the near future, there's only one way to go for SMBs when it comes to purchasing business software -- and that's out of house. Whether it's full-on SaaS (software as a service), where users access all facets of the...

Green IT: Shuffling virtual servers for optimum power efficiency; Today's datacenters squander AC power on excess capacity. But what if you could assemble dynamic, virtual server farms on the fly and consume only the power you need?
August 20, 2007... Byline: Ted Samson It's a pleasant afternoon in New Jersey (I'm pretty sure that's happened before). You're a datacenter operator walking the floor of your facility just outside Newark -- but it's eerily quiet, considering that fleets of...

Offshoring: Staying closer to home; India and China are about to get some competition, thanks to a recent surge in near-shoring in Canada and Latin America.
August 20, 2007... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz The next big thing in offshoring is near-shoring. That's the consensus of many pundits who follow the phenomenal growth of outsourcing in its myriad forms. More and more companies will keep outsourced work on a...

Networks: A fabric smarter than its end points; As switches, routers, and servers bulk up on processing power, the pendulum is swinging back to intelligence residing in the network itself.
August 20, 2007... Byline: Paul Venezia The Internet was built on only a few rules, but one of them was "keep the network dumb and the end points smart." That means that networks are designed to know little about what they're carrying, pushing the onus of...

High-performance computing: Supercomputing everywhere; Plummeting costs, Moore's Law, and creative new applications are making high-performance computing a commodity.
August 20, 2007... Byline: John West Supercomputing isn't just for spies and nuclear scientists anymore. In fact, supercomputers are probably going to play an increasing role in your business's bottom line, starting right now. Governments and large...

Processors: Dividing chips into many virtual cores; The era of the big, muscular CPU is on the decline. The real trend is toward slicing and dicing cores virtually, one for each thread.
August 20, 2007... Byline: Tom Yager The current approach taken by x86 CPUs -- to stuff as many processor cores and as much cache memory as will fit on one chip -- will prove impossible to scale beyond a certain point. And adding more, big, hot processor...

Making a case for virtual patching; Sentrigo's flagship application sits on top of a database and protects it during any patches or updates, filling a crucial hole in enterprise data security.
August 20, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines The period during which businesses work to install security patches to protect IT systems from attack undeniably remains one of the most vulnerable timeframes for many companies -- but a recently-launched startup selling...

First exploit appears for Patch Tuesday vulnerability; Brussels security engineer exploits critical bug in XML Core Services.
August 20, 2007... Byline: Gregg Keizer, Computerworld A security researcher has published the first exploit against one of the 14 vulnerabilities patched last week by Microsoft Corp., security company Symantec Corp. has warned customers. In a posting to...

Moviestar debut brings high-def video to Flash; Adobe backs the H.264 video compression technology in the 'Moviestar' update to Flash Player 9, acknowledging the growing importance of video online.
August 20, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Adobe Systems plans to take its popular Flash Player technology to the next level Tuesday, unveiling an update codenamed "Moviestar" equipped with high-definition video technology. Moviestar will support the H.264...

Industry report: SOA is overly hyped; Nucleus Research has found that SOA adoption is more departmentally based, limiting its return on investment and overall use.
August 20, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill "Rumors of SOA adoption rates are exaggerated," says an industry report being announced on Monday that tosses some cold water on the hot topic of SOA. In a self-funded study entitled "Benchmarking: Service-Oriented...

EDITOR'S LETTER: Pundits on parade: What’s next in tech; InfoWorld bloggers shrug off the heat, look into the future.(Editorial)
August 20, 2007... Byline: Steve Fox You’ve heard of Christmas in July, that classic advertising gimmick designed to lure shoppers into stores despite the oppressive heat and humidity. We’ll, we’ve got New Year’s in August, which...

The great Office Server smorgasbord Part 2: MOSSing up Groove Server; Office Groove 2007 may seem like a client-only application, but for enterprises with many users, Groove Server is the way to go.
August 20, 2007... Byline: Brian Chee, Oliver Rist Tom works for Fergenschmeir Inc. Fergenschmeir just decided to merge with Widgeteria Corp., where Susan works. The two employees are leading the merger effort, and during an initial call quickly realize they...

Mobile malware to pose significant threat; Increased adoption of mobile devices will lead to increased mobile malware sophistication.
August 21, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines Although concerns regarding handheld data security still trump fears of mobile viruses, security software vendors and researchers contend that greater numbers of attacks are on the horizon. [See related story:...

Security remains mobility's weakest link; Enterprises face a new wave of information security implications as greater numbers of workers tap smartphones and PC-like handhelds.
August 21, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines From top-level execs to workers in the field, enterprise end-users are growing increasingly dependent on anywhere, anytime access to essential corporate data and apps. As such, the call for an effective,...

Business Objects, Thomson partner on SaaS; Together, the companies will offer prebuilt Thomson financial reports on demand with Business Objects' reporting, analytics, and dashboard capabilities.
August 21, 2007... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz This week's announcement of a joint venture between business intelligence vendor Business Objects and one of the world's leading sources for financial data, Thomson Financial, goes well beyond a simple partnership...

Mobile workers still struggling with security; A new study shows that even as the business use of mobile devices increases, many users are unconcerned or uninformed about security issues and practices.
August 21, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines A fair amount of business users remain oblivious or unconcerned about many of the security issues involved with mobile devices, according to a new study published by Cisco and the National Cyber Security Alliance. ...

Ask.com CEO: Search technology prominence grows; Jim Lanzone cites search technology's importance in everyday life and talks about upcoming developments and Google.
August 21, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Search technology is becoming a central tool in everyday life, said Ask.com CEO Jim Lanzone at the Search Engine Strategies 2007 conference in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday. Once limited to giving out just a bunch of...

Security SaaS maturing fast; Though security delivered as SaaS is still in its early stages, companies are finding that it maximizes efficiency in personnel and budget.
August 22, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines Security technologies delivered via the SaaS (software-as-a-service) business model may still be in their nascent stage, but some early adopters are already piecing together multiple offerings to outsource a significant...

Google exec touts universal search model; Saying that users are tired of being inundated by information, the company seeks to offer 'better, richer answers' to search queries.
August 22, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Google's recently introduced universal search model represents a major change for the company, a Google official said at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose on Thursday. Unveiled May 16, universal...

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: Does Vista suck? Though not without its warts, Microsoft's much maligned OS gets the job done for enterprise users.
August 22, 2007... Byline: Oliver Rist Does Vista suck? The word on the Web is that it sucks badly enough that we should all don iSheep caps and adopt Macs or Penguins. I usually don't get into those kinds of arguments because they amount to OS holy wars. My...

Clearswift makes a clean sweep of Web threats; MIMEsweeper Web Appliance offers solid, plug-and-play protection against Internet malware and data leaks.
August 22, 2007... Byline: James R. Borck Mitigating network-borne threats has been an imperative to companies of all sizes and statures. As if malware and viral infestation weren’t enough, today’s corporations must contend with even bigger bugs,...

Lotus unveils weapon in unified communications arsenal; The battle for supremacy in unified communications heats up as IBM reveals next version of Lotus Sametime.
August 23, 2007... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz Reminiscent of so many software wars before it, such as the war over word processors, productivity suites, and the battle of the browsers, the latest clash is now taking place over UC (unified communications). ...

Enterprise e-mail gets pumped; We may still call it e-mail five years from now, but it certainly won't look like anything we are using today.
August 23, 2007... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz With IBMs launch earlier this month of Lotus Notes 8 and this week's unveiling of Lotus SameTime Version 8, industry analysts say we are beginning to see the evolution of the e-mail client from a communications...

WebAssist to assist CSS users; Tool makes Web development technology easier to use.
August 23, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill WebAssist with its release of Eric Meyer's CSS Sculptor tool Thursday is looking to make using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) easier for Adobe Dreamweaver users. Developers on the Dreamweaver platform for creating Web...

ENTERPRISE INSIGHT: Kiss and make up with IT? The Wall Street Journal balances its recent slam of IT departments with a pseudo-apology that does more harm than good.
August 23, 2007... Byline: David L. Margulius Three weeks ago I wrote about a special section in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Ten Things Your IT Department Won’t Tell You.” The Journal article, a slap in the face to IT, must have...