Computerworld articles from February 2002

Computerworld archives from February 2002

Palm Starts Testing Mobile OS Upgrade.(Palm OS 5.0 beta)
February 11, 2002... Palm Inc. last week released a beta-test version of its upcoming Palm OS 5 operating system, which is expected to include expanded security, wireless and multimedia features. Palm said the upgraded operating system will include 128-bit...

Blades Spin ROI Potential.
February 11, 2002... Until recently, most buyers of supercomputing power have paid little attention to the cost of power consumption, space and environmental requirements, says Wu Feng, technical staff member and team leader of research and development for advanced...

IPSec: Making the VPN Secure.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... IPSec is a security protocol set by the IETF for securing the transmission of data across IP networks. It operates at the network layer of the Open System Interconnection standard, authenticating and encrypting all packets that traverse the...

Outsourcing VPNs: Privacy For Hire.
February 11, 2002... So Gaulda chose OpenReach Inc. in Woburn, Mass., to provide Link Staffing with a secure VPN over the public Internet. Link Staffing is one of many companies that are turning to outsourced VPNs, whether over the Internet or through the...

CIO in Scandal.
February 11, 2002... "That's impossible," the CIO said. "This is a cash-and-carry account." No bills should have come in at all, never mind multiple transactions, each for tens of thousands of dollars. The nightmare had begun. The next morning, the CIO sat...

Protect Yourself.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... * Trust, but verify. Read all documents that require your signature. * Use effective checks and balances. For example, have monthly bank statements sent to the CEO's house, not to the finance department at work. * Get all subsidiaries...

LDAP.(lightweight directory access protocol)
February 11, 2002... LDAP was originally created to be a trimmed-down, lower-overhead version of another directory protocol -- the international X.500 standard -- and is considered to be an easy key to the "white pages" of the network. The distinction between the...

You Can Avoid CRM's Pitfalls.
February 11, 2002... Why do so many CRM projects fail, and how can you increase your odds of success? Darrell K. Rigby, a director at Bain & Co. in Boston, tackles those questions with colleagues Frederick F. Reichheld and Phil Schefter in February's Harvard...

Layoff Lessons Learned.
February 11, 2002... But when she lost her job in May during the flailing company's third round of layoffs, Ionita quickly realized that the glory days were over. Until then, her achievements in the wireless industry had been catching the attention of...

A Form for Fairness.(user form contracts)
February 11, 2002... A user form contract can outline the terms and conditions under which the customer is willing to acquire certain equipment, software or services. The most significant difference between a user contract and a vendor contract is that a user...

The Pain of H-1B Policy, 3.
February 11, 2002... 1. High-tech labor has a boom/bust cycle. The economy is currently in recession, and many IT workers have lost their jobs. 2. The H-1B policy makes this cycle more severe because it increases the labor pool in a time when demand is...

Something Was Missing.
February 11, 2002... Sharon Harvey Computer science instructor Normandale Community College Bloomington, Minn. Editor's note: "The 5th Wave" had a brief hiatus at the start of the year, when our annual double issue was devoted to Computerworld's...

UCITA Still Needs Modification.
February 11, 2002... Eagle is quite correct when he says that the UCITA opposition remains unsatisfied. Quite simply, the changes don't go far enough. For example, despite the much ballyhooed "banning" of electronic self-help, that provision still applies only to...

UCITA Still Needs Modification, 2.
February 11, 2002... I suggest the following terms as a replacement. SECTION 1 -- Individual purchase, including preloaded software 1.) All software purchased at retail shall be considered to be a copy of the software in the same manner as the purchase of a...

The Reason for Audit Clauses.
February 11, 2002... Steven Harrod President/owner Applied Arts Lexington, Ky. Editor's note:The premise of Joe Auer's column was that if the customer doesn't try -- with malicious intent -- to defraud the licensor, he shouldn't be subjected to...

Brave New OS.(Farsite project at Microsoft Corp. )
February 11, 2002... But not to worry. Thanks to an experimental operating system technology called Byzantine fault-tolerant protocols, users and their data are protected. That scenario is part of the Farsite project at Microsoft Corp. Farsite is just one of...

Turn Red Hat Blue?(a possible Red Hat Linux purchase by IBM)
February 11, 2002... Red Hat has done wonders to help Linux penetrate the server market. An AOL Time Warner purchase would almost certainly upset Red Hat's relationship with its customers and server vendors. This might prompt them to look elsewhere for a Linux...

VOIPWins a Convert.
February 11, 2002... Ed Watson Director NCP Solutions Birmingham, Ala. ewatson@ncpsolutions.com

The Pollyanna Perspective.(IT venture spending forecasts)
February 11, 2002... In the first quarterly uptick since mid-2000, some $7.1 billion in venture capital money poured into new companies, according to Thomson Financial's Venture Economics division and the National Venture Capital Association. It was the upward...

Vendors Send Feds Wrong Message.
February 11, 2002... the public policy views of a select group of America's most important computer hardware makers. Its current membership consists of the CEOs of Compaq, Dell, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Motorola, NCR and Unisys -- all in all, a pretty...

Pushing Web Endeavors.
February 11, 2002... Tom C. Tourand CIO City of Macon, Ga. infopro1@lycos.com

The Pain of H-1B Policy, 2.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... Yes, I am a computer programmer. Without a college degree, I was able to develop my expertise to the point where I commanded a fee greater than someone with an advanced degree. But a few years ago, the corporations for which I worked convinced...

The Pain of H-1B Policy.
February 11, 2002... Basil Stieffen Software developer Atlanta

VC Spending's Strong; Will IT Money Flow?(PricewaterhouseCoopers survey)
February 11, 2002... Data released early this month in the PricewaterhouseCoopers/Venture Economics/National Venture Capital Association/MoneyTree Survey shows that 2001 wasn't the investment bust many expected. It was the third- best year on record for venture...

Vigilance Inc.
February 11, 2002... Web: www.vigilance.com Niche: Vigilance's business-process management and automation software detects errors or malfunctioning processes across different systems. Company officers: * Jonathan Golovin, co-founder and CEO * Subhash...

To the Supply Chain -- and Beyond.(Vigilance Inc.)
February 11, 2002... Karen Peterson, an analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc., is particularly upbeat about Vigilance's potential to help handle inventory procurement. "I think that Vigilance has a good opportunity to thrive," she says. Vigilance sees...

Vigilance Puts Faith in Process Management.
February 11, 2002... Since going live with Vigilance's Alerts and Collaboration applications in April, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based KeySpan has been able to proactively notify internal users when environmental compliance benchmarks are exceeded. Although Sunnyvale,...

What Do You Do When You're Nipped by Nimda?
February 11, 2002... The security infrastructure we have needs a lot of work. A year ago, we had fewer than 1,000 employees. Today, that number exceeds 7,000. We have no security policies, our firewall rule base exceeds 1,500 lines, and we lack a good centralized...

Links.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2002... www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2001-26.html: This is the original CERT advisory with details on the Nimda worm. www.treachery.net/~jdyson/earlybird/: Earlybird is a free, real-time worm reporting tool. It watches Web logs for suspicious...

Lotus Gives Glimpse Of Its 'Phred' Strategy.
February 11, 2002... Described as an "overarching" strategy, Phred is essentially the way Cambridge, Mass.-based Lotus will try to move beyond e-mail services and make its collaboration technology pervasive throughout IBM's WebSphere middleware infrastructure and...

Briefs.
February 11, 2002... The European Commission confirmed last week that it has decided to close its yearlong antitrust investigation of Intel Corp. To do so, the EC must first inform the remaining complainant, believed to be rival chip maker Advanced Micro Devices...

Microsoft and SpeechWorks Team on Voice-to-Web Tools.
February 11, 2002... The companies said they're creating open standards to be used by developers to build applications that will tie speech to Web-enabled programs, including Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, using Microsoft's .Net speech platform. The...

Bush IT Budget Promotes Info Sharing and Security.
February 11, 2002... President Bush wants to knock down federal agency IT silos, integrate systems and develop the means to quickly share information across government agencies and businesses. And across the board, he wants to beef up IT security. Security was...

GM Locomotive Unit Puts ERPRollout Back on Track.
February 11, 2002... Officials at GM's Locomotive Group said order backlogs and fulfillment cycle times still aren't at levels that fully meet customer demands, although business operations started to improve shortly after the rescue effort began in July. The...

News briefs.
February 11, 2002... Responding to a request from U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar- Kotelly, Microsoft Corp. and the U.S. Department of Justice said they plan to suggest any last-minute changes to their proposed antitrust settlement deal by Feb. 27. In a...

Collaborative Planning Still Eyed With Caution.
February 11, 2002... And Pharmavite must look beyond Kmart. A Kmart spokeswoman said last week that the struggling Troy, Mich.-based retailer pulled the plug on its CPFR program because the collaborative technology duplicated an existing inventory management...

Ace Has a Place for CPFR Technology.
February 11, 2002... The retailer uses CPFR technology to manage about 6,000 items made by 23 manufacturers, according to Scott Smith, manager of Ace's inventory department. The suppliers sell their wares to Ace, and individual stores purchase from the corporate...

UPS Takes WirelessApplication to Asia.(United Parcel Service)
February 11, 2002... Starting today, UPS will provide wireless package tracking to mobile phone users in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Users will be able to track packages in their native languages, including traditional...

Winter Olympics IT Chief Has No Room for Errors.(Bob Cottam, SchlumbergerSema's chief integrator)
February 11, 2002... If the system doesn't work properly, New York-based lead integrator SchlumbergerSema and its partners, including Sun Microsystems Inc., Gateway Inc., Xerox Corp. and Samsung Electronics Inc., will have to race to beat back a world-class public...

Employee Data Exposed on Web.(Global Crossing ex-employee charged)
February 11, 2002... The postings have appeared periodically over the past five months. They include data on all employees on Global Crossing's payroll as of Sept. 1, according to an internal memo. The company currently has about 8,000 employees. An attorney...

Vermont Opt-in Rules Spur Suit.(by insurance industry)
February 11, 2002... Beginning this week, financial services companies with customers in Vermont are facing strict limits on what they can do with the personal data of state residents. And the insurance industry has retaliated with a lawsuit and threats of price...

Web Sites Seenas Terrorist Aids.
February 11, 2002... The audit, produced by security consulting firm Stroz Associates LLC, is one of the first of its kind in the private sector. It marks a growing trend by companies in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to assess whether content on...

Telecom Infrastructure an Open Book.
February 11, 2002... A recent Computerworld survey of eight national and local telecommunications service providers uncovered enough information to produce a relatively accurate blueprint of the major network backbones serving businesses across the U.S. In...

Energy, Nuclear Infrastructure Exposed.(at Department of Energy Web site)
February 11, 2002... An examination of U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Web sites revealed maps that provide the approximate locations of all nuclear waste storage facilities, nuclear reactors and surplus plutonium storage sites in the country. In addition, the...

WSJ.com Completes Web Site Overhaul.
February 11, 2002... The revamped WSJ.com relies heavily on personalization technology to boost advertising revenue and expand paid reader services. A key goal of the rebuilt site, which was launched two weeks ago, is to attract higher-value, repeat customers...

Java Tapped as Platform for Wall St. Apps.
February 11, 2002... Nigel Woodward, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s worldwide manager of capital markets and securities, said that during the next year, Java-based systems should aid in Wall Street's efforts to adopt straight-through processing of trades by creating a...

At Deadline.
February 11, 2002... Microsoft Corp. warned Windows 2000 users about a new security vulnerability in the operating system's Telnet remote-access program. The buffer overflow hole could be used to launch denial-of-service attacks against unprotected systems or to...

Law GroupSlams UCITA's Complexity.(American Bar Association)
February 11, 2002... The American Bar Association called the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) so difficult to comprehend that even lawyers can't understand it, and so vague that the proposed law is doomed to face constant "litigation over what...

Sun Widens Its Embrace of Linux in New Product Plans.
February 11, 2002... Sun last week said it will introduce a low-end line of Intel-based servers running Linux by midyear and offer more components of its Solaris operating system to the open-source community. Ed Zander, president and chief operating officer at...

Shark Tank: Politically incorrect.
February 11, 2002... New computer room is state of the art, beautifully laid out and stuffed with useful tools for systems management. "But the feature we're all proudest of is the fact that the card-key reader to get in is located much lower on the wall than in...

Survival Strategies.
February 11, 2002... What Strassmann didn't say is this: If your top management wants to dump your IT shop, there's probably not much you can do about it. Strassmann is a hard-numbers guy. He comes to his conclusions by crunching lots of real data from lots of...

Microsoft Launches New Version of BizTalk Server.(Microsoft BizTalk Server 2002)(Product Announcement)
February 11, 2002... Microsoft's main product in the business-to-business space, BizTalk Server software is designed to help companies exchange data between applications residing inside and outside their corporate firewalls. It also lets users manage business...

Palm Starts Testing Mobile OSUpgrade.
February 11, 2002... Palm said the upgraded operating system will include 128-bit security and support for the Wi-Fi wireless LAN standard as well as Bluetooth short-range wireless devices. Palm OS 5 will also have multimedia hooks that are designed to support the...

News Briefs.
February 11, 2002... The New York attorney general's office filed a lawsuit alleging that Network Associates Inc. illegally prohibits users of its software from posting informal product reviews or tests without its permission. That could preempt discussions of...

An IT Boost for Developing Countries.(Opinions)(Letter to the Editor)
February 18, 2002... Great job, UN and Markle Foundation \("UN Initiative to Help Developing Countries Boost IT Infrastructure," Computerworld.com, Feb. 5\). It's about time that the issue of the digital divide and the isolation and marginalization of developing...

Cheers for Vermont Regs, 2.(Opinions)(Letter to the Editor)
February 18, 2002... The warning that "Vermont residents may be excluded from the kind of promotional offers and information that data sharing allows" isn't exactly a threat. I'd love to get less spam and junk mail. I hope California enacts a similar law. Eric...

Cheers for Vermont Regs.(Opinions)(Letter to the Editor)
February 18, 2002... Let's hear it for Vermont! Opt-in is how the sharing of customer information should be handled \("Vermont Opt-in Rules Spur Suit," Page One, Feb. 11\). Even where the opt-out standard is followed, any ethical business would adopt opt-in. The...

He Should Start April 2.(Opinions)(Letter to the Editor)
February 18, 2002... Scott Charney starts April 1 as Microsoft's new chief security strategist \("Microsoft Taps Former DOJ Cybercop," News, Feb. 4\). Is this some kind of joke? I can see the headlines now: "Microsoft Finally Focusing on Security - April Fools!"...

Garbage In, Garbage Out.(Opinions)(Letter to the Editor)
February 18, 2002... Nick Petreley says Linux has "all the frills of Windows minus the crashes and cost" \("Baseball Cap Linux," Technology, Feb. 4\). I have run DOS, X Window, Mac OS, Unix and Linux. They will all crash if your disks are treated like a garbage...

Let Your Voice Be Heard.(Opinions)(Letter to the Editor)
February 18, 2002... In regard to the recent letters to Computerworld about the H-1B visa and its effect on computer jobs, there is something programmers can do: Write to your congressman, senators and the president. You can get your representative's name at...

Analyzing Outsourcing.(Opinions)(Letter to the Editor)
February 18, 2002... It was interesting that Paul A. Strassmann has confirmed his earlier findings "that major outsourcing moves can be a telling symptom of a company in trouble" \("Still a Loser's Game," Business, Feb. 4\). The decision to outsource is a business...

Unix on Rise? Mac's OS X May Mark Spot.(Opinions)(Column)
February 18, 2002... Unix rising? Maybe, but the story isn't just Linux, and maybe it isn't just on the server. Like many people, I was in- trigued, if puzzled, this month when Sun Microsystems told the world how much it loved GNU/Linux. I'm still not...

Standards Hole for Storage Management.(Opinions)(Column)
February 18, 2002... Demoland is populated with vendors that promote the virtues of open standards in a heterogeneous world but give product demos limited to their own equipment. I suppose Sun Microsystems should be commended for selling software to manage...

Phone Network Has Security Holes, Too.(Opinions)(Letter to the Editor)
February 18, 2002... It was stated in "Don't Plunge Into VOIP" \(Knowledge Center, Jan. 21\) that VOIP lacks security measures. The first thought that comes to mind is how the public switched telephone network (PSTN) failed to protect the privacy of Martin Luther...

Briefs.
February 18, 2002... Kodak Sues Sun Over Java Technology Rochester, N.Y.-based Eastman Kodak Co. filed a lawsuit claiming that Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java technology infringes on three patents it holds. Kodak said the companies have been discussing the issue...

Google Targets Intranet Data Searches With New Devices.
February 18, 2002... Internet search engine vendor Google Inc. last week joined the market for technology that lets companies provide built-in search capabilities on their corporate intranets. Mountain View, Calif.-based Google released a pair of Linux-based...

Nortel Struggles to Rebound, Build Sales.
February 18, 2002... Nortel Networks Corp.'s attempt to recover from the huge losses and revenue declines that have been plaguing it didn't get any easier last week. The Brampton, Ontario-based telecommunications and networking equipment vendor announced bad...

Xerox Calls on CRM to Help Bolster Turnaround Attempt.(uses Siebel Systems' applications such as eChannel)
February 18, 2002... Xerox Corp. is investing in two new customer relationship management (CRM) applications as part of its effort to boost sales after two years of big losses. The Stamford, Conn.-based maker of copiers and other business equipment plans to...

Analyzing Outsourcing, 2.(Opinions)(Letter to the Editor)
February 18, 2002... Paul Strassmann, as usual, is right: IT outsourcing decisions are strongly associated with future financial trouble for the company making the decision. Although Strassmann merely points out the facts of the association without drawing...

News - Other.
February 18, 2002... Keep E-Commerce in Mind Companies that are increasing their security spending should take the opportunity to boost security - and buyer confidence - in their e-commerce operations, writes Computerworld's Rick Saia in our Security...

Analysts Suggest Slow .Net Migration.
February 18, 2002... Corporate developers are being advised to take a gradual approach if they migrate existing applications to Visual Studio .Net, and a cautious approach if they build new applications. "If you're talking about a high-profile, fairly complex...

Users Weigh Microsoft Development Options.
February 18, 2002... San Francisco Migration tools are available to help developers port their existing applications to the new Visual Studio .Net environment that Microsoft Corp. launched here last week. But some corporate developers said they don't intend to...

Girls Warm Up to IT.(according to Girl Scouts' report)(Column)(Statistical Data Included)
February 18, 2002... Statistic: 18% of teenage girls online believe they could hack into their schools' computers. That's according to a survey of more than 1,000 young women ages 13 to 18 conducted last summer and released last week by the Girl Scouts. Could these...

Shark Tank: Say what?
February 18, 2002... Sales manager's new notebook PC has a wireless network card. He loves it - for a day or so, until the battery goes dead. Did you plug it into a power outlet to charge it? asks IT pilot fish. "No," says sales guy impatiently. "It's wireless, why...

Terrorists Look for Info on Web, Says Fed Cyberchief.
February 18, 2002... Washington While promoting the Bush administration's plan to boost the government's IT security spending, Richard Clarke, the nation's cybersecurity chief, warned Congress that terrorist groups are surfing the Web for information about how...

[0] Briefs.
February 18, 2002... Microsoft Warns of Six Holes in Browser Microsoft Corp. released a software patch that's designed to fix six newly discovered security holes in its Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser. The most serious vulnerability could let attackers run...

Antispam Legal Burden Rests With Affected Corporations.
February 18, 2002... In the wee hours of the morning one day last month, a spammer began using a Microsoft Exchange server at Arrow Products Inc. to send bulk e-mail to Yahoo, Hotmail and other accounts. It's possible that the spammer had sent several thousand...

Spam Taking a Toll on Business Systems.
February 18, 2002... Raymond Huff doesn't do much to block spam from invading servers and e-mail in-boxes at his company, Trans Pacific Stores Ltd. He doesn't have to. But he's paying a fairly high price for that luxury. Huff is keeping Trans Pacific's e-mail...

Gates May Take the Stand in Antitrust Case.
February 18, 2002... WASHINGTON By putting its top executives on the potential witness list for the remedy phase of its antitrust battle with nine states and the District of Columbia, Microsoft Corp. is on a risky yet necessary path, legal experts say. ...

Calif. City Plans Wireless LAN For Critical Communications.(Glendale)
February 18, 2002... Glendale, Calif., has decided to use wireless LAN technology to provide high-speed data service to its police, fire and public works departments after determining that cellular mobile data services cost too much and deliver too little. ...

Energy Dept. Runs Security Tests on Wireless LANs.
February 18, 2002... Sandia National Laboratories has begun testing wireless LANs to determine whether they can meet the kind of rigorous security required for Department of Energy facilities. Pace VanDevender, CIO at Sandia, said the lab has started limited...

Security Firm Alleges Flaw in .Net Compiler.
February 18, 2002... A dispute broke out last week between Microsoft Corp. and a security consulting firm over the safety of using a feature in the compiler that comes with Microsoft's new Visual C++ .Net development tool. Dulles, Va.-based consultancy Cigital...

Striking a Balance Between the Bottom Line and Creativity.
February 18, 2002... Asking tough questions about IT can be valuable, but it can also stifle innovation if there's no room to take risks. Still, IT leaders say there are ways to strike a balance between fiscal responsibility and technical creativity. * Don't...

Enron Lesson: Tech Is for Support.
February 18, 2002... Even great ideas have their limits. Following the debut of Enron Corp.'s Web-based power and gas trading platform, revenue at the Houston-based energy company jumped from $40.1 billion in 1999 to $100.8 billion the following year. But...