InfoWorld.com articles from June 2008

InfoWorld.com archives from June 2008

You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz; Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan Windows 7 gets translucent, Dell gets in Dutch with the law, and both cable set-top boxes and the inventor of frozen French fries are declared dead. If that's not a weird week, we don't know what one is. Do you know what...

The best CTOs of 2008; InfoWorld chooses the top leaders for technology and management innovation.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman The CTO's job can be both exhilarating and thankless. Exhilarating in that you get to explore new technologies and figure out how to apply them to create new business opportunities or solve thorny business problems....

The 30 skills every IT person should have; An IT manager's guide on how to be better at what you do, no matter how experienced you are.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Richard Casselberry On MSN the other day, I noticed an article called "75 skills every man should master." It included some skills I have and some I don't. For example, I can tie a knot and hammer a nail, but frankly I can't recite...

How to fire an IT person; They can cause devastating damage to your systems and your morale if you don't handle a termination right.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Lisa Schmeiser Joseph Powell first suspected that there were problems with his IT contractor when the admin refused to cede his administrative rights on an accounting software package. Powell, who was the business administrator for...

The shrinking Java tools market; BEA, CodeGear acquisitions reduce developer options as the money disappears.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill The Java tools market is in flux, with the recent acquisitions of CodeGear and BEA Systems altering the landscape, leaving developers with fewer independent tools choices. Oracle bought BEA Systems for $8.5 billion....

Adobe offers Acrobat 9; Update gives PDF documents Flash capabilities and collaboration capabilities.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Adobe Systems on Monday introduced Adobe Acrobat 9, incorporating Flash technology into PDF documents. Integration with Flash enables users to include Flash Player-compatible video and application files in PDF...

AmberPoint extends SOA analysis software; Transactions now can be analyzed across distributed systems.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill AmberPoint is announcing on Monday an extension of its SOA runtime governance software to cover transactions flowing across complex heterogeneous systems. This capability enables analysis and management of business...

Smartphones 'bigger security risk' than laptops; Survey finds key danger with PDAs was that over half of IT execs were 'not bothering' to enter a password when they used their phone.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Leo King Smartphones are seen as a more of a security risk than laptops and mobile storage devices, according to new research. Some 94 percent of senior IT staff fear PDAs present a security risk, just above the 88 percent who...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Dave Barnes, United Parcel Service; Combining telematics, analytics and workflow optimization helps Brown go -- and save -- green.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman The emblematic brown trucks of United Parcel Service seem to be everywhere, their stodgy appearance belying an array of high tech inside that helps UPS deliver parcels more efficiently, save gas, reduce emissions,...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Vincent Biddlecombe, Transplace; A combined datacenter refresh and SaaS platform project provide an opportunity to change the status quo.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman As CTO of logistics services provider Transplace, CTO Vincent Biddlecombe tackles the usual projects such as implementing disaster recovery plans and selecting vendors for tools such as business intelligence. But his...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: John Bowden, Lifetime Products; Company's use of thin clients overseas tied to blade PCs at home ensures protection of key intellectual property.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Tom Kaneshige When Lifetime Products bought manufacturing plants in China and Mexico, CIO John Bowden's job suddenly turned into an epic adventure. He had to envision a novel IT design that crosses oceans and cultures, execute on...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Jim Burns, State of Alabama; A tough-love approach to unifying a fractured IT environment sets the stage for adding real benefit for employees and citizens.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman Sometimes, you just have to be tough. Jim Burns may be soft-spoken and affable, but he also was determined to consolidate the State of Alabama's more than 200 e-mail systems. Not long after Burns became CIO in 2006,...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Bill Chapman, Avnet; An acquisition almost goes bad -- and the rescue effort teaches a valuable lesson about SOA development.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman After electronics distributor Avnet bought Access Distribution, it became clear the expected "cost synergies" -- redundancies that would create quick savings -- weren't there. The problem: Access's custom pricing...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Beach Clark, Georgia Aquarium; Managing a small team in a specialty startup business requires a nuanced balance of internal and external resources.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman You could say it was a whale of a project -- lots of whales, actually. As vice president of IT in a five-person IT shop, Beach Clark had a huge challenge in getting the IT systems in place for the Georgia Aquarium in...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Dave Dillehunt, FirstHealth of the Carolinas; Solving nurses' needs without imposing a burden on either them or the hospital wireless LAN requires management finesse.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Tom Kaneshige Nurses at Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst, N.C., were squirreling away medical devices such as intravenous pumps in closets and cabinets so that they could reach them when their patients needed them. Because...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Greg Framke, ETrade Financial; SOA and some juggling make possible the company's international expansion in just seven months.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman ETrade Financial helped pioneer the business of consumer stock and fund trading, once the province of brokers. But since online trading became commonplace, Americans have focused on U.S. securities, limited to...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Paul Fremantle, WSO2; A leader in the intersection of SOA and open source finds success through a player/coach management approach.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Eric Knorr As CTO and co-founder of WSO2, an open source middleware company, Paul Fremantle stands at the intersection of the two most important trends in software: SOA and the open source movement. He is also at the nexus of...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Hari Gopalkrishnan, Lehman Brothers; Tasked to take over back-office systems, a CTO moves modernization beyond technology and instead changes key processes to improve business capability.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Tom Kaneshige Keeping up with Hari Gopalkrishnan isn't easy -- the CTO of Lehman Brothers constantly looks for ways to move technology forward. And this drive most recently brought him to grid computing. A year and a half ago,...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Bill Gruszka, Southern Polytechnic State University; Faced with an ever-changing, complex mobile user base, the CIO takes a different tack to assure security without having to fight users.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman It's clear that mobile computing is becoming an expectation, both through laptops and the emerging generation of Web-savvy handhelds such as the Apple iPhone and Nokia N95. But the mobile world is both highly...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Matt Kesner, Fenwick and West; Solving an e-discovery challenge opened the door to a new line of business for the law firm.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Tom Kaneshige Last year, CTO Matt Kesner put his reputation on the line when he asked the senior partners at Silicon Valley-based law firm Fenwick and West to "turn the business model on its head." Kesner's big idea: Spin off the...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Vivek Kundra, District of Columbia; Managing IT as if it were a stock portfolio pushes useful technology to the fore while culling dead-end projects.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman When Vivek Kundra became the District of Columbia's CTO a year ago, he inherited an agency known for its prowess in mobile technology and its use of SOA to rework the federal district's basic infrastructure systems...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Jim Lowder, OhioHealth; Deploying the best technology meant getting a government agency to change its rules.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Tom Kaneshige Jim Lowder wanted to roll out biometric technology -- laptops that recognize fingerprints -- to augment passwords at his newly opened Dublin Methodist Hospital, but first he had to convince the Ohio Board of Pharmacy...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Bill Maguire, Virgin America; A risky bet on open source under a tight deadline pays off big for a new airline.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Tom Kaneshige CIO Bill Maguire knows how open source technology can give flight to a startup. He joined fledgling airline Virgin America before it even had planes in the air in early 2006, with the mission to quickly and cheaply...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Bud Mathaisel, Achievo; A prescient security approach helps an outsourcer move quickly to address customer intellectual property protection needs.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman Basing IT services overseas is no longer a novelty to Bernard "Bud" Mathaisel, CIO of software development services provider Achievo. After all, he'd been working with outsourced IT and manufacturing for many years as...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Timothy Olson, Agito Networks; Guiding new product development is old hat for Silicon Valley CTOs -- but this CTO did it in just 20 months, while taking some risky bets.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Curtis Franklin Jr. When Timothy Olson began working on his most recent major project, the object wasn't to help the company -- the project was the company. As CTO of Agito Networks, Olson had the idea for the company's...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Greg Papadopoulos, Sun Microsystems; A steady focus on total system design helped the new Sun reinvent itself with the best of the old Sun.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Doug Dineley Having proved in 2001 that those who fly highest fall hardest, Sun Microsystems spent much of the new decade searching for a new identity, or so it seemed to outsiders. Judging from recent results -- a showcase of...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Humberto Quintanar, Antelope Valley Hospital; A deep freeze on IT spend in a previous regime meant a major effort was needed to get back to par.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Tom Kaneshige CIO Humberto Quintanar's predecessor basked in the press limelight for adopting cutting-edge technology, before being unceremoniously dismissed a few years ago. Many of those glam-to-sham projects, such as computer...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: David Reilly, Credit Suisse; Gaining efficiencies through virtualization first required a change of language to get business buy-in.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Curtis Franklin Jr. David Reilly has led Credit Suisse, one of the world's leading financial services companies, to a virtualized IT infrastructure and has become an expert on the ins and outs of the technology required. When you...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Gerald Shields, Aflac; Tired of the "mother, may I?" budget game, a CIO develops a holistic approach to IT priorities.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Tom Kaneshige Gerald Shields, CIO of Aflac, didn't much care for his whimsical budget dance with the CFO every year. "How much money do you need?" the CFO would ask. "Oh, around $15 million, or $3 million more than last year,"...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Jim Smith, Digital Realty Trust; A focus on the scientific method led to truly effective green datacenter strategies.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Ted Samson Jim Smith has been advocating green computing long before it was about being "green" -- that is, about reducing carbon emissions. Rather, the vice president of engineering at Digital Realty Trust views designing...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: George Spies, MasterCard Worldwide; The use of SOA lets IT create a brand-new, flexible debit platform.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman It was a supersecret project in the small word of financial processing: MasterCard Worldwide was building a new debit-processing platform to be used by financial institutions throughout the globe. And it was up to...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Jon Williams, Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions; A switch to open source helped reduce overall costs but required a fundamental change in culture.
June 2, 2008... Byline: Eric Knorr Jon Williams is a social animal. As the lively and loquacious co-founder of the New York CTO Club, he has helped assemble one of the most successful professional organizations of its kind in the nation. Those same people...

2008 InfoWorld CTO 25: Chris Wysopal, Veracode; An obsession with software security forms the basis for a new model to assessing apps' safety.(Company overview)
June 2, 2008... Byline: Doug Dineley Chris Wysopal's obsession with software security has brought him fame as a member of the L0pht hacker "think tank," led to stints as lead security researcher at @stake and director of development at Symantec, and...

IBM, Acrobat offer response to Google Apps and Office; IBM Symphony and Acrobat.com are two polished alternatives to the current on-premise and cloud leaders in desktop productivity.
June 3, 2008... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz The official rollout on Tuesday of IBM’s Lotus Symphony suite of productivity applications along with the launch yesterday of the official beta version of Acrobat.com from Adobe has all the experts asking the...

Microsoft readies Oslo previews; Modeling-based apps platform advances with three primary components: a modeling tool, a repository, and a declarative programming language.
June 3, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Microsoft this October will launch Community Technology Previews of the three primary components of its Oslo project for model-driven software development, a company official said at the TechEd 2008 conference in...

Microsoft sees parallel app development as future trend; Multi-core app requirements pondered; TechEd attendees comment on multiple technologies.(Conference notes)
June 4, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill With multi-core processors becoming a preferred method for building more powerful computers, Microsoft anticipates that a key trend for the future of application development will be accommodating parallel systems. ...

Lab test: Oracle Database 11g shoots the moon; Oracle's enormous 11g release rumbles with an impressive array of performance and management aids, elegant application testing, standbys that earn their keep, and the promise of lower storage requirements.
June 4, 2008... Byline: Sean McCown I like to define a five-point touch system for my database upgrades. If the new version doesn't change my life in five ways, then it's not a significant upgrade. I'll typically quantify my need by approximating how many...

Developers give Google mixed reviews; Google I/O attendees laud development technologies but question the company's directions and intentions.
June 5, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill If the buzz among attendees of last week's Google I/O conference in San Francisco revealed a common thread, it was that the search giant's ongoing push for developer mindshare remains intriguing, though rife with...

BI steps into the cloud; Panorama Software unveils analytics service that goes beyond Google Docs.
June 5, 2008... Byline: Tom Sullivan Business intelligence functionality has made its way into cloud computing as Panorama Software on Thursday unwrapped PowerApps. Calling it "analytics as a cloud-computing service," the company said PowerApps goes...

IBM seeks consensus on ALM architecture; Company's Jazz platform is leveraged in its Open Services for Licecycle Collaboration along with HTML, REST, and XML.
June 5, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill IBM is pressing forward with an initiative intended to simplify collaboration in application lifecycle management projects that use products from multiple vendors. Called Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration,...

You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz; Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master.
June 6, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan Bill Gates can't bring himself to leave Microsoft entirely, while Carl Icahn can't leave Yahoo alone. Those are two of the stories we've been tracking over at Quizmaster Central. Others include the FCC's plans for a free...

IBM to release enterprise mashup tool; IBM has delivered mashup prototypes before but this will be the company's first generally available, supported product.
June 6, 2008... Byline: Jon Brodkin IBM is getting closer to releasing its mashup technology, with plans to deliver an enterprise-ready software product in the third quarter, and a free trial version hosted on the Web that customers can test out...

Microsoft Silverlight to back Ruby, Python in browser; Company looks to make these dynamic languages work on the client side.
June 6, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Microsoft plans to enable the Python and Ruby languages to be used for client-side development of rich Internet applications that leverage the company's Silverlight browser plug-in technology. The intent is to let...

Oracle to talk about BEA on July 1; High-ranking executives to talk about how the BEA acquisition affects the Oracle Fusion Middleware platform.
June 6, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Questions about the fate of BEA Systems products now that the company has been acquired by Oracle could be answered on July 1. Oracle President Charles Phillips and Oracle Senior Vice President Thomas Kurian plan to...

Last call for Windows XP PCs is mid-June; Retailers will stop taking orders for XP-based systems a few weeks before Microsoft's June 30 cutoff.
June 6, 2008... Byline: Bill Snyder It’s last call for consumers to buy PCs pre-loaded with Windows XP. Most major PC makers and retailers will stop taking orders for consumer-oriented desktops and laptops with the older operating system by the...

Product review: Raritan makes a power play; Raritan enters managed PDU market with the Raritan PX line.
June 6, 2008... Byline: Paul Venezia These days, remote accessibility is the very key to maintaining a stable network that spans a city, region, country, or the globe. One of the somewhat neglected areas for remote management, however, is at the power...

You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz; Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master.
June 9, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan Bill Gates can't bring himself to leave Microsoft entirely, while Carl Icahn can't leave Yahoo alone. Those are two of the stories we've been tracking over at Quizmaster Central. Others include the FCC's plans for a free...

Serena heralds 'rich interface mashups'; Users can mix in Silverlight and Flash components as part of tool to be launched with cloud service.
June 9, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill As part of its planned hosted mashup service, Serena Software in August plans to highlight an upgrade to the Serena Mashup Composer tool that integrates Silverlight and Flash components as well as other media types. ...

15 turning points in tech history; Difficult decisions and paths not taken -- here are the 15 pivotal moments that have shaped today's high-tech landscape.
June 9, 2008... Byline: Neil McAllister Imagine how different the computing world would be if IBM had used proprietary chips in the original PC, rather than off-the-shelf components. The PC clone market would never have happened, and IBM, rather than...

Does sandbox security really protect your desktop? InfoWorld's tests question vendor claims of meaningfully improved security, though not everyone agrees.
June 9, 2008... Byline: Tom Kaneshige Two years ago, GreenBorder, one of the early "sandbox" browsers, received mighty applause from Wall Street Journal tech guru Walt Mossberg. The sandbox browser -- basically, a browser running in a virtual container --...

Lab test: Dell's greener M-Series; Dell's updated M-Series blade server gives more horsepower for less juice.
June 9, 2008... Byline: Brian Chee The Dell M-Series blade server is being touted as using 19 percent less energy than the company's previous blade offering while still providing a jump in horsepower. I had a chance to use this beast as part of the...

How to make the new iPhone work at work; Apple's new SDK,3G handheld and iPhone 2.0 software should make it even easier to bring next-gen mobile to your enterprise. Here's what you need to know.
June 10, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman With the release of Apple's iPhone SDK now come and gone, and the enhanced IT-oriented capabilities planned for the next major iPhone device and software update now unveiled, it's clear that iPhones are going to be...

Tech's 15 turning points; Difficult decisions and paths not taken -- here are the 15 pivotal moments that have shaped today's high-tech landscape.
June 10, 2008... Byline: Neil McAllister Imagine how different the computing world would be if IBM had used proprietary chips in the original PC, rather than off-the-shelf components. The PC clone market would never have happened, and IBM, rather than...

Microsoft's ERP skips on-demand: A wise move? Signs of cloud-delivered app growth raise questions, but a cautious approach seems to be the right decision.
June 10, 2008... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz Microsoft's launch of Dynamics AX 2009 ERP software last week in only an on-premises version has raised the question once again about what midmarket companies are demanding from CRM and ERP applications and how...

Mac security gets a business boost; PGP is second major vendor to offer full-disk encryption of data.
June 10, 2008... Byline: Tom Kaneshige Businesses often thwart Macs from infiltrating their laptop ranks, and one reason given is that there's no good way of encrypting data. A lost personal Mac may bring a few tears to the hapless owner, but a corporate...

Microsoft ALM process templates site set up; CodePlex effort intended to boost company's Team Foundation Server product.
June 10, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Microsoft wants developers using the company's Team Foundation Server ALM (application lifecycle management) server to share process templates via a new project on the company's CodePlex site for open-source projects....

Sun Solaris going on Fujitsu's Intel servers; Some Fujitsu Primergy systems to get Sun's Unix platform.
June 10, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Sun Microsystems is announcing an agreement Tuesday with Fujtisu Siemens Computers to have Sun's Solaris operating system distributed with select Fujitsu Primergy servers. Solaris 10 will be offered on Intel x/86/x64...

WWDC 2008 and iPhone: A deep dive into Apple's mobile empire; What the iPhone improvements mean for competitors.
June 10, 2008... Byline: Tom Yager On the keynote stage at Apple's 2008 Worldwide Developer Conference, Steve Jobs looked like a man who could use a Gatesian escape from the glass house to a quieter life spent in pursuit of passions that a CEO hasn't time...

Product review: Windows Search 4.0 found slim and trim; The upgrade to Windows' integrated search tool improves performance for users while adding much-needed manageability features for IT.
June 10, 2008... Byline: Randall C. Kennedy It's the feature everyone loves to hate. Windows Search, the busy little background service that chews up your CPU cycles and thrashes your hard disk, is alternately revered and reviled, yet it rarely gets the...

Google CEO prefers an independent Yahoo; Schmidt pans Microsoft acquisition effort as bad for the marketplace.
June 11, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Google believes an independent Yahoo is better for the marketplace than one that becomes part of Microsoft, Google Chairman/CEO Eric Schmidt said on Wednesday. Schmidt was the featured speaker at a Newhouse School...

Lab test: Telligent Community Server 2008 spurs collaboration; Blogs, forums, and media galleries integrate with enterprise applications through Web services.
June 11, 2008... Byline: Mike Heck There's little argument that Telligent's Community Server can stand up to the rigors of hosting public-facing communities. This product is the force behind some of the biggest and most visible blogs on the Net, including...

IBM enhances Web 2.0 tools for businesses; Lotus Connections, Atlas upgraded with enhanced profiling, data display, and collaboration capabilities.
June 12, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill IBM is shipping upgrades this month to its Web 2.0-based social networking tools for business, adding capabilities in enhanced profiling, data display and collaboration. The company on Friday will ship version 2.0 of...

Product review: Denodo brings old-school polish to new-fangled mashups; Denodo Platform marries sophisticated tools for working with relational databases and smart tools for importing data from Web, e-mail, and other unstructured sources.
June 12, 2008... Byline: Peter Wayner In the collective imagination, the computers are busy merging into one grand, expansive database filled with minutiae about those pesky, emotive humans so that the machines will be ready for Sarah Connor. The database...

You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz; Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master.
June 13, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan Wait, wait, don't tell me -- there was a new product launched this week, wasn't there? Some kind of cell phone? It'll come to me in a moment.... To honor the second coming of the Jesus phone, we've strewn chunks of Apple...

Answer key: You don't know tech; The facts behind this week’s top 10 tech questions.
June 13, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan Now that you know how you scored, you probably want to know why. Check out the answers below for the gory details. And be sure to return next week for another news quiz, ripped straight from the tech headlines. ...

You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz; Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master.
June 16, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan Wait, wait, don't tell me -- there was a new product launched this week, wasn't there? Some kind of cell phone? It'll come to me in a moment.... To honor the second coming of the Jesus phone, we've strewn chunks of Apple...

Bye-bye, BlackBerry? Not so fast; While the BlackBerry's browser features are lacking, business users still favor its messaging advantages over the iPhone's cool factor.
June 16, 2008... Byline: Tom Kaneshige Will Apple iPhone's "greatest show on Earth" sway Research in Motion (RIM) BlackBerry's business faithful? Hint: Bet on the BlackBerry for business. Sure, the iPhone's browser bailiwick and coolness factor will...

Adobe updates LiveCycle process automation; Content repository added along with support for AIR.
June 16, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Adobe Systems on Tuesday plans to announce an upgrade to its process automation software, Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite (ES) Update 1, featuring an open-source content repository and capabilities to convert data to...

Stupid user tricks 3: IT admin follies; IT heroes toil away unsung in miserable conditions -- unsung, that is, until they make a colossally stupid mistake.
June 16, 2008... Byline: Andrew Brandt For those of us who make our living behind a keyboard in IT, it's hard to imagine a more time-tested vulnerability than the end-user. Armed with network access, these IT viruses wreak havoc nearly everywhere you look...

HP IT automation strategy set; Product rollout mixes technologies from different acquisitions, supports SOA, and offers SaaS options.
June 17, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill HP on Tuesday will roll out an ambitious IT automation strategy that melds product capabilities gained through multiple acquisitions, supports SOA, and features SaaS-based options. The enterprise-level offerings...

.Net, Java tops with wireless app builders; iPhone, Android are relative newcomers but are expected to gain more adherents.
June 17, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Mobile versions of .Net and Java currently lead the way as preferred platforms for wireless application developers, but newcomers in this space, Mac OS and Android, are expected to pick up steam, Evans Data said. ...

Open source batch framework debuts; SpringSource, Accenture partner on Spring Batch, which can help enterprises reduce design and development times.
June 17, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Accenture and SpringSource on Tuesday will unveil a production-ready version of Spring Batch, an open source framework for batch processing. The framework enables large organizations to use open source software to...

Test Center review: Firefox 3 comes out sizzling; After an eight-month beta phase, Firefox's major update scores big with unprecedented ease, snappier performance, and sensible security features.
June 17, 2008... Byline: Paul Venezia As the window to the Internet, the Web browser is arguably the most important application ever developed, and it will only become more important in the coming years, as applications continue their retreat from the...

Pimp my datacenter: American Power Conversion; APC laid the foundation and led the way with InfraStruXure racks, cooling, power management, environmental monitoring, and the software that ties it all together.
June 17, 2008... Byline: Brian Chee, Curtis Franklin Jr., Oliver Rist American Power Conversion (APC) played the central role among the vendors in the HIG 319 datacenter project. The company donated a boatload (literally) of APC InfraStruxure gear and no...

Pimp my datacenter: Avocent; Avocent's MergePoint and DSView out-of-band server management lets our fingers do the walking.
June 17, 2008... Byline: Brian Chee, Curtis Franklin Jr., Oliver Rist Avocent brought its industry-leading out-of-band management systems to our project, providing IP KVM for PC and Sun servers, service processor aggregation, serial terminal services, and...

Pimp my datacenter; What happens when you build the datacenter you really want?
June 17, 2008... Byline: Brian Chee, Curtis Franklin Jr., Oliver Rist More servers, more racks, more UPSes, more users -- the reasons for expanding a datacenter are the same everywhere. Today's datacenter projects, however, have the additional component of...

Pimp my datacenter: Lantronix; The tiny SecureLinx Spider brings advanced IP KVM functions to our nooks and crannies.
June 17, 2008... Byline: Brian Chee, Curtis Franklin Jr., Oliver Rist It may have come in the smallest box, but Lantronix’s SecureLinx Spider KVM had an impact on our project that was far greater than its physical size would suggest. The Spider is a...

Five lessons of a datacenter overhaul; A datacenter makeover and migration can go wrong in many ways. Do as we suggest, not as we did.
June 17, 2008... Byline: Brian Chee, Curtis Franklin Jr., Oliver Rist What are the three most important ingredients of a successful project? Planning, planning, planning. For our datacenter makeover at the University of Hawaii's School of Ocean and Earth...

Pimp my datacenter: OSI Security Devices; The OSI Omnilock card key system, programmable via Pocket PC, provides maximum security at minimal cost.
June 17, 2008... Byline: Brian Chee, Curtis Franklin Jr., Oliver Rist APC’s NetBotz surveillance system can spot any hooligans invading our precious HIG 319 sanctum, but it can’t keep them out. That’s where OSI Security Devices’...

Pimp my datacenter: Rackwise DCM; The Rackwise Data Center Manager provides an all-seeing, planner's-eye view of your datacenter.
June 17, 2008... Byline: Brian Chee, Curtis Franklin Jr., Oliver Rist Rackwise Data Center Manager (DCM), from Visual Network Design, arrived a little late to our HIG 319 build-out. Generally, a datacenter project would have made use of the Rackwise product...

Pimp my datacenter: SilverBack Migration Solutions; The strong-backed experts at SilverBack had us racked, cabled, and reconfigured in record time.
June 17, 2008... Byline: Brian Chee, Curtis Franklin Jr., Oliver Rist One of the most important vendors behind our project's success brought no hardware to the party at all. SilverBack Migrations Solutions, based in Walnut Creek, Calif., is a datacenter...

Pimp my datacenter: Universal Electric; Universal's Starline Track Busway has changed forever the way we bring power to our servers.
June 17, 2008... Byline: Brian Chee, Curtis Franklin Jr., Oliver Rist It's funny. Sometimes the products that have the greatest impact are the most difficult to write about because they simply work. That's the case with Universal Electric's Starline Track...

Pimp my data center: Servprise; Servprise's WebReboot Enterprise gives SOEST's admins a magic finger to push any server's power button.
June 17, 2008... Byline: Brian Chee, Curtis Franklin Jr., Oliver Rist The SilverBack folks introduced us to Servprise, a young company headed by a young CEO. But for all its youth, the Servprise WebReboot product line addresses an old sore spot in...

Web 2.0 scores successes in the enterprise; Best Buy, Serena, and Oracle tout their social networking projects.
June 18, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Incorporating Web 2.0 social networking concepts into enterprises offers great benefits but also challenges, implementers of these technologies, including Best Buy, Serena Software, and Oracle, said Tuesday evening...