InfoWorld.com articles from May 2003

InfoWorld.com archives from May 2003

Microsoft to elaborate on Passport upgrade; Web services enhancements eyed.
May 1, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill Microsoft this summer plans to reveal further details about the next version of its Passport e-business authentication service, although the company is not yet committing to a release date. One improvement planned...

SCO outlines Web services plan; Smaller businesses eyed.
May 1, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill SCO this week outlined its SCOx strategy for providing Web services to small and midsize businesses and branch offices. Through specifications such as SOAP and UDDI, SCO and its partners will deliver Web services-enabled...

Microsoft to show PC prototype; 'Athens' system features video, voice, text messaging.
May 2, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates next week will unveil a PC prototype named "Athens," which purports to make the computer the center for collaboration and communication. Co-developed with...

Anti-spam panel: Proposed laws aren't enough; FTC panel focuses on issue.
May 2, 2003... Byline: Grant Gross WASHINGTON -- Two proposals aiming to curb unwanted commercial e-mail currently being discussed in the U.S. Congress won't go far enough toward eliminating spam, several members of a panel of antispam advocates said...

Closing notes; Russell is moving on, but there's plenty to watch in the world of open source.
May 2, 2003... Byline: Russell C. Pavlicek (This is the second of two special columns written by Russell Pavlicek for distribution via e-mail.) The world of Linux and open source is a big place. And good things tend to happen very quickly, often with...

The many faces of data protection; Automatic snapshots can save the day in a pinch but can cram your storage.
May 2, 2003... Byline: Mario Apicella Keeping track of data protected in your datacenter used to be simple: Look at the historical database -- automatically created from your preferred backup software -- and see all the facts. From a single GUI, you...

Ahoy, RSS Enterprise; Pushing your company to support Really Simple Syndication now is like giving a present to the future.
May 2, 2003... Byline: Brian Livingston (This is the last installment of the Window Manager column that will be distributed by InfoWorld as an e-mail newsletter. You must go to www.briansbuzz.com and re-subscribe to continue to receive Brian Livingston's...

AmberPoint boosts Web services management; Company introduces package for managing service levels.
May 5, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill AmberPoint on Tuesday will introduce software for managing service levels in distributed Web services environments, the AmberPoint Service Level Manager. The product enables organizations to allocate Web services...

Update: Borland adds to C#, integration; Software provides connectivity sans Web services.
May 5, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill Borland Software on Tuesday will unveil four products, including a C# development environment and middleware for integrating systems without requiring Web services wrappers. The third product is an application server...

Veritas jumps on utility bandwagon; ISV looks to ease storage and server automation.
May 5, 2003... Byline: Scott Tyler Shafer As if the utility computing pool wasn't already crowded, Veritas Software is the latest to dive in. Today at its Veritas Vision annual user conference in Las Vegas, the storage software company said it plans...

Novell to implement Web services spec; Company backs BPEL.
May 6, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill Novell is joining the list of vendors planning to implement Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), a Web services choreography specification now being reviewed by the OASIS standards organization, the company said...

HP unveils Adaptive Enterprise strategy; New toolkit, reference architecture to bolster software business.
May 6, 2003... Byline: Mark Jones SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Hewlett-Packard on Tuesday will unveil its Adaptive Enterprise strategy here at an event scheduled to mark the one-year paper anniversary of the company's merger with Compaq. Now squarely...

PeopleSoft embraces Linux; IBM tapped to guide transition and support.
May 6, 2003... Byline: Brian Fonseca In a move that boosts its customers' OS options, PeopleSoft will announce on Tuesday that it is exploding its Linux support from one application to more than 170 applications running on the open-source OS. To help...

PeopleSoft pursues Total Ownership bounty; New products flood user conference.
May 6, 2003... Byline: Brian Fonseca Energized by a slew of new product offerings introduced at its 2003 Leadership Summit, PeopleSoft on Tuesday signaled a new era for the ISV (independent software vendor) which shifts its customers away from a...

Sandial unveils SAN switch; Company positions new device as challenger to Cisco, Brocade.
May 6, 2003... Byline: Scott Tyler Shafer Sandial Systems emerged from stealth mode today with something many others in its market don't have: a customer. The Portsmouth, N.H.-based startup is at work on a storage switch that the company claims is...

Microsoft seeks compelling PCs; Users see no need to upgrade hardware, exec says.
May 7, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill NEW ORLEANS -- Looking to inspire PC buyers to upgrade, Microsoft is hailing "life immersion" technology, featuring multimedia and other improvements that the company hopes will compel users to buy new boxes. ...

Tibco, HP partner on business process management; System to be based on HP OpenView.
May 7, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill Tibco is partnering with Hewlett-Packard to develop a Web services-based process management offering enabling joint customers to integrate and optimize infrastructure alerts and business process management alerts,...

Virtual Windows goes native; Microsoft's acquisition of Connectix's VM technology could be a boon for Windows shops -- unless MS gets greedy.
May 9, 2003... Byline: Oliver Rist VM (virtual machine) technology may have a Linux-geek reputation, but Windows systems managers will be interested in Microsoft's acquisition of Connectix and its VM technology last February. It can significantly affect...

SCSI going serial; New serial protocol brings greater performance and flexibility to SCSI storage.
May 9, 2003... Byline: Mario Apicella Have you had a chance to take a look at the new SATA (serial ATA) drives and RAID controllers? You'll appreciate SATA's point-to-point, slim, independent connections between controllers and disk drives. ...

The road ahead.
May 9, 2003... Byline: Jack McCarthy The launch of AMD's Opteron processor now seems successful, given the key last-minute support of IBM and the already secured backing from Microsoft, Oracle, Red Hat, and SuSE. But industry observers are watching to...

Avaya bundles software.
May 12, 2003... Byline: Scott Tyler Shafer Looking to simplify its IP telephony message, Avaya on Monday announced it has realigned all of its communications software under the Multivantage brand. Jorge Blanco, vice president of product marketing at...

Sun plans N1 developer kit, defends Java process; Official rejects open-source notion.
May 12, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill Sun Microsystems plans to release a developer toolkit tailored to Sun's N1 architecture for IT infrastructure management. Company officials on Friday afternoon also defended the process for publicly submitting...

Interview: BEA invests in reliable delivery; Adam Bosworth discusses the need for standards-based messaging in Web services.(Interview)
May 13, 2003... Byline: Mark Jones, Jon Udell and Paul Krill Talk to Adam Bosworth, BEA's chief architect and senior vice president of advanced development, and he will tell you reliable messaging is at least as important as security when it comes to Web...

IBM hails 64-bit database for mainframes; Memory capacity, online alteration capability touted.(Interview)
May 13, 2003... IBM on Wednesday is announcing a 64-bit version of its DB2 Universal Database data management platform for the zSerieseServer mainframe-class system. Called DB2 UDB v8 for z/OS, the database is tuned for the newly announced z990 mainframe...

IBM enhances Shark; Extra disks help meet storage demands.(Interview)
May 13, 2003... Looking to affix the 'On Demand' tag on to anything it can, IBM today announced enhancements to its high-end storage array. At a press event here IBM said its TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server Model 800 (Shark) can now be purchased...

Sendmail, HP, Intel team for Linux-based e-mail; Workforce mail targets 'deskless' workers.(Interview)
May 13, 2003... Messaging software vendor Sendmail on Tuesday announced it is working with Hewlett-Packard and Intel to develop a Linux-based e-mail server designed for deskless enterprise workers. The Workforce Mail offering combines Sendmail's e-mail...

Sun eyes network computing focus at JavaOne; Company also sets release date for app server.
May 14, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill Sun Microsystems at the JavaOne conference inSan Franciscoin June will focus on Java as a technology for network computing, keying in on the next major release of J2EE and the company's JINI network software, a company...

IBM CEO: On-demand strategy paying off; Palmisano sees IT market as stable.
May 14, 2003... Byline: Stacy Cowley NEW YORK -- Six months after IBM adopted its "on demand" mantra, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sam Palmisano proclaimed himself pleased with the progress being made to refashion IBM around that vision, during his...

IBM thinks provisioning with ThinkDynamics purchase; Software acquisition set to bolster Tivoli, on-demand initiative.
May 14, 2003... IBM acquired privately held ThinkDynamics on Monday, a move IBM executives say will accelerate Big Blue's aggressive cross-business unit on-demand strategy. IBM says the provisioning muscle is designed to help customers improve responsiveness...

IBM to ship DB2 integration software; Software accesses multiple content types.
May 15, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill IBM on Tuesday plans to announce availability of its DB2 Information Integrator software, for integrating and analyzing multiple forms of information, the company acknowledged on Thursday. In beta since February, the...

Iona shuffles front office; Company seeks right-sizing.(IONA Technologies)(Brief Article)
May 15, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill Struggling middleware and integration vendor Iona on Thursday announced major shakeups in its senior management ranks. At the request of the Iona Board of Directors, the following persons have resigned: Barry Morris,...

Application performance and test management.
May 16, 2003... Byline: Tim Talbot You don't have to look hard to find evidence of IT implementations gone wrong. The Standish Group reports that U.S. companies are wasting as much as $145 billion a year on failed IT projects. only nine percent of...

Experts take hard look at utility model; Top-tier vendors have long way to go before visions become reality.
May 16, 2003... Now that IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun Microsystems have sketched their visions for on-demand and utility computing, analysts and users are taking a hard look at the real-world value of such initiatives. What they are finding is that the...

Giuliani, Netanyahu, Woolsey speak out on terror, technology; The three men warned of the dangers of inaction.
May 16, 2003... In a series of speeches this week, two well-known political figures and a former CIA director warned of the dangers of inaction and lack of preparedness when it comes to cyberterrorism and homeland security. "We're in a very dangerous...

A not-so-distributed file system; Windows 2000 Server's DFS Replication feature isn't WAN friendly.
May 16, 2003... Byline: Oliver Rist A key feature in Windows 2000 Server is DFS, short for Distributed File System. DFS is handy because it lets you point all network drives, no matter what server they physically occupy, to a single virtual share. That...

Directions in testing; So what is it you want, anyway?
May 16, 2003... Byline: Wayne Rash I looked out into the tangled vegetation in the tropical darkness. "It's quiet out there. Too quiet," I said to myself. Then I slid the curtain shut and returned to my desk. Perhaps I was overstating the drama of the...

Surfing the services wave; Should you hire consultants' expertise to simplify storage selection?
May 16, 2003... Byline: Mario Apicella I should never complain about information overload. After all, I am one of the offenders, along with my pals at InfoWorld. Nevertheless, those waves of announcements that storage vendors aim at the public are...

APIs, protocols, and rogue plumbers; Who should unclog the Web pipes to keep information flowing?
May 16, 2003... Byline: Jon Udell My local bank is switching from one online bill payment system to another. I'm looking forward to the new system, which will improve on the current one, but I wasn't expecting this: "IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR CURRENT BILL...

HP rolls out Itanium OS; Software boosts Adaptive Enterprise Strategy.
May 19, 2003... Byline: Ed Scannell Hoping to bolster its Adaptive Enterprise strategy for on-demand computing, Hewlett-Packard on Monday plans to ship the latest version of its Unix-based HP-UX operating system for Intel's family of Itanium processors....

IBM readies first Rational product rollout; Rapid development, modeling, testing are keys.
May 19, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill IBM will make a rollout of Rational software development products on Tuesday, its first since officially acquiring the company in February. Products to be announced under the IBM Rational nameplate include Rapid...

IBM gets vertical with WebSphere; Big Blue rolls out 48 industry-specific solutions.
May 19, 2003... Byline: Ed Scannell Ratcheting up its efforts in the application integration market, IBM on Tuesday will roll out 48 industry-specific solutions that cover 11 different industries including banking, energy, utilities, and electronics. ...

; ONLINE PAYMENT OPTIONS COULD SPUR CONSUMER BUYING.
May 19, 2003... ONLINE PAYMENT OPTIONS COULD SPUR CONSUMER BUYING Alternatives to credit card purchase options could improve online content buying, according to a recent study conducted by Javelin Strategy and Research. Many concerns that consumers have...

Mercury Interactive offering J2EE app management and delivery; Optane Family is shipping.
May 20, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill Mercury Interactive is now shipping Optane for J2EE, which is application delivery and management software intended to improve application quality, performance, and scalability, the company said this week. Mercury's...

MySQL backs AMD Opteron processors; Database also leverages QNX OS.
May 20, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill MySQL on Tuesday announced that the MySQL open source database has been optimized to run on the 64-bit AMD Opteron processor. MySQL for Linux on the AMD Opteron is available now and enables developers to build MySQL...

Microsoft unwraps new Visio tool; Office Visio 2003 improves users' access to server-based business data.
May 20, 2003... Byline: Ed Scannell Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled a new version of its Visio diagramming tool that aims to enable corporate users to take better advantage of traditional Office desktop applications and also connect desktop users with...

NetScreen and Trend Micro tie AV knot; AV baked into NetScreen wares.
May 21, 2003... Byline: Brian Fonseca Firewall maker NetScreen Technologies announced on Wednesday a joint development agreement to integrate its full appliance suite with Trend Micro's anti-virus and content inspection technology in the latter half of...

Worldwide RDBMS revenue drops; IBM, Microsoft gain market share, Oracle declines.(Brief Article)(Industry Overview)
May 21, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill The worldwide RDBMS market declined by seven percent in 2002, dropping to $6.6 billion in license revenues when it had been $7.1 billion the year before, according to a Gartner statement released on Wednesday. ...

Sun seeks to grow Java developer base to 10 million; Ease of development to be a focus at show.
May 21, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill and Tom Sullivan Sun Microsystems wants to increase the number of Java developers from 3 million today to as many as 10 million, company officials said during a teleconference with the media on Wednesday. Java has to...

W3C finalizes stance on royalty-free Web services specs; Patent policy is approved.
May 21, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) on Wednesday formally approved its patent policy, which requires that technology used in W3C standards, or "Recommendations," be submitted on a royalty-free basis. The policy pertains...

IBM enhances DB2; Integration, analytics, performance boosted.
May 22, 2003... Byline: Marc L. Songini, Computerworld LAS VEGAS -- Looking to keep its installed base of database users happy, IBM continues to enhance its DB2 relational database product family with boosts in integration, analytics and performance...

This week, Bob Metcalfe returns to his old Friday time slot.
May 22, 2003... By Lynndal Daniels, InfoWorld Community Editor Nearly two years ago, when I took over InfoWorld's Friday newsletter slot, we replaced a newsletter featuring archived content from Bob Metcalfe's "From the Ether" column. This week, Bob...

Web services to offload integration from professional services; Service-oriented architectures to dominate.
May 23, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill As service-oriented architectures utilizing Web services become dominant, companies will increasingly be using professional services organizations less for system integration and more for architectural consulting and...

Waiting for SMS 2003; Companies can benefit from some third-party SMS utilities.
May 23, 2003... Byline: Oliver Rist First it was last summer; then it was last fall; now, as far as most of us can tell, it'll be this fall before Microsoft will finally release SMS (Systems Management Server) 2003. A few months longer and we can start...

Small drives get larger and faster; New disk devices for mobile computing beef up capacity and performance.
May 23, 2003... Byline: Mario Apicella Do you remember HGST? Hint: they just announced two new disk drives for laptops. Still doesn't ring a bell? Those 2.5 inches drives, part of the Travelstar line, are the 60GB 7K60, which is the first device in that...

CA updates backup software; Enhancements focus on management and integration.
May 27, 2003... Byline: Scott Tyler Shafer Addressing the pain points of storage administrators, namely shrunken budgets, fewer staff, and too many backup applications, Computer Associates (CA) on Tuesday introduced version 10.5 of its backup and recovery...

MySQL gets access to SAP database technology; Companies to collaborate on open source offering.
May 27, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill MySQL plans to include enterprise-level technology from SAP in its own open source database, after announcing Tuesday the acquisition of rights to SAP's database, SAP DB. The two companies will work together to build...

Six CTO lessons from the War in Iraq; After the War In Iraq, the future of warfare and the future of enterprise IT look very similar.
May 30, 2003... Byline: Bruce Skaistis Like many, I served as an armchair general during Operation Iraqi Freedom. From my position in front of the TV receiving regular updates on the war and in front of my computer monitoring various Internet news sites,...

IBM looks to unify business integration package via Java; Consistent programming is sought.
May 30, 2003... Byline: Paul Krill Looking for programming consistency in middleware, IBM plans to revamp its WebSphere Business Integration package by rewriting it to conform to the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) specification and running it on top of...

Will Microsoft Office never let us rest? Just as companies get accustomed to Office XP, Redmond prepares a new version.
May 30, 2003... Byline: Oliver Rist It's taken months to work the kinks out, but now you've got your users humming along on Office XP backed up by Windows 2000 Server and Active Directory. So what happens? Redmond goes and starts trumpeting the release of...

What do readers want? Workload and complexity make security management than it should be, readers say.
May 30, 2003... Byline: Wayne Rash The tone of the e-mail made it clear that the reader was running out of hope. She needed something, anything, to make managing her security environment possible. Her security staff was being downsized, and she already...

I told you so; Small drives with enterprise muscles expected next year.
May 30, 2003... Byline: Mario Apicella If I were paranoid, I would think someone at Seagate was peeking when I wrote last week's column. The closing went: "... the next big milestone for enterprise disk drives will be moving to the smaller 2.5 inch form...