Computerworld articles from February 2003

Computerworld archives from February 2003

Microsoft adds a year to NT Server 4.0 support: users feeling upgrade pressure get a reprieve, but extension doesn't cover all support options.
February 3, 2003... Microsoft Corp.'s confirmation last week that it will extend key support provisions for Windows NT Server 4.0 through 2004 provided a reprieve for companies feeling pressure to move off the aging operating system. Many corporate users that...

Unprepared firms slammed: worm took advantage of IT shops' failure to use available patches.
February 3, 2003... The widespread disruptions caused by last week's SQL Slammer worm demonstrated yet again the importance of proactive vulnerability patch management, users and analysts said. Slammer, a self-propagating worm also dubbed Sapphire and SQL...

Cheap cartridge option in peril: Lexmark's legal action could dry up printer cartridge aftermarket.
February 3, 2003... The remanufactured toner cartridge industry, which provides low-cost printer cartridges for many corporations, is under a legal and technological assault that could deprive IT managers of a moneysaving option. The major printer...

Vendors promise mobile Java spec. (At Deadline).
February 3, 2003... A group of vendors led by Sun Microsystems Inc. detailed a road map for creating a unified specification that companies could use to develop wireless Java applications. The group, which includes more than a dozen makers of mobile devices, said...

IBM plots app server upgrade. (At Deadline).
February 3, 2003... IBM announced that it's developing an upgrade of its WebSphere application server software that will include new capabilities for managing business-process work-flows. The upgrade is due by midyear and will include new Web services...

AMD revamps 64-bit chip plans. (At Deadline).
February 3, 2003... Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said it plans to launch its 64-bit Opteron microprocessor for servers and workstations in April. But the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company added that its Athlon 64 chip for desktop PCs has been delayed for a second...

SUN. (Short Takes).
February 3, 2003... SUN said it will announce its plans to expand the level of Web services support in Java this week but wouldn't disclose any details.

The Institute For Information Infrastructure Protection. (Short Takes).
February 3, 2003... ... THE INSTITUTE FOR INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION, a group of 23 colleges and research laboratories, released a report calling for the U.S. government and private-sector companies to increase spending on cybersecurity research.

SEC examines i2's books as vendor reports another loss: firm plans to reaudit 2000, 2001 results. (News).
February 3, 2003... SUPPLY CHAIN software vendor i2 Technologies Inc. last week reported its fifth straight quarterly loss and confirmed that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is now probing its finances. The Dallas-based company said the SEC has...

IBM targets corporate users with grid computing. (News).
February 3, 2003... IBM last week announced an initiative to expand its grid computing offerings from its traditional niche in academia and research to commercial enterprises. Under the plan, IBM will deliver 10 separate grid computing bundles optimized for...

H-1B visa count down, anger up: jobless protesting program despite a decrease in the number of H-1Bs issued. (News).
February 3, 2003... In a year when the U.S. began what has been characterized as a jobless recovery, immigration authorities issued 79,100 H-1B visas, a sharp decline from previous years. But that's cold comfort for displaced workers. The number of H-1B visas...

Analysts say doubts about ROI are slowing corporate handheld rollouts: mobile device sales drop off, although some users are reporting fast paybacks.
February 3, 2003... Vendors of handheld devices had "dismal" sales last year, with worldwide product shipments dropping 9.1% from their 2001 level, according to a report released last week by Dataquest Inc. That finding dovetails with a report on the handheld...

HP, delphi expand SAP services deal. (Briefs).
February 3, 2003... Hewlett-Packard Co. said it has expanded a technology and IT services deal under which it runs SAP AG's business applications for Delphi Corp., a Troy, Mich.-based supplier of automotive parts. Under a new five-year agreement, SAP systems for...

Alcan outsources operations to CGI. (Briefs).
February 3, 2003... Alcan Inc., a Montreal-based maker of aluminum and packaging materials, said it has finalized a 10-year IT outsourcing deal valued at about $110 million (U.S.) with CGI Group Inc. CGI, also in Montreal, will take over management of Alcan's help...

IBM, british airline agree on pact. (Briefs).
February 3, 2003... IBM and Luton, England-based Britannia Airways Ltd. said they're developing a system that will use IBM's ThinkPad X24 notebook PCs and a wireless network to electronically store flight manuals and safety information in airplane cockpits. The...

Microsoft Corp. (Short Takes).
February 3, 2003... European Union officials said MICROSOFT CORP. has agreed to make "substantial changes" to its .Net Passport identity management software in order to conform to European data privacy laws.

SAP. (Short Takes).
February 3, 2003... SAP dropped the dot-com reference from its applications product line, which is now called mySAP Business Suite.

IT users botch security again. (On the Mark).
February 3, 2003... ... and again. The Slammer worm being the latest in a long history of utterly incompetent computer Security procedures by IT systems managers. Blame software developers, if it makes you feel better. But IT buyers are the major problem. Security...

Cisco launches network quality-of-service tools. (News).
February 3, 2003... Cisco Systems Inc. last week introduced automated quality-of-service functions for nine of its switches and routers, a move aimed at helping users create converged networks that include voice-over-IP (VOIP) capabilities. Currently, setting...

IBM, Hitachi try to counter EMC's symmetrix upgrade: storage vendors jockey for technology leadership in high-end disk arrays. (Storage).
February 3, 2003... EMC CORP.'S planned announcement today of a new line of its high-end Symmetrix disk arrays is shaking up the storage industry, with competitors such as IBM and Hitachi Data Systems Corp. scrambling to steal EMC's thunder with technology...

EMC, other vendors team on e-mail archiving system: designed to help financial firms meet storage regulations.
February 3, 2003... EMC Corp. last week said it's teaming with Iron Mountain Inc. and a vendor of contentarchiving software to offer technology and services aimed at financial services firms that are under pressure to comply with federal mandates to retain e-mail...

Correction.
February 3, 2003... Our story about Foote Partners' predictions on outsourcing trends on page 12 of last week's issue characterized the data as part of a "new report." In fact, the research is still ongoing, and the data was only preliminary.

Homeland security dept. faces leadership void: private-sector IT waits to see who, what emerges. (News).
February 3, 2003... IN ONE OF his first moves as secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge last week appointed former J.P. Morgan Chase Bank executive Alfonso Martinez-Fonts Jr. to serve as special assistant to the secretary for the private sector. But much...

J.D. Edwards upgrades CRM tools, adds ties to back office. (Applications).
February 3, 2003... J.D. Edwards & Co. last week took the next step in binding its back-office software with the customer relationship management (CRM) applications that the company bought through its acquisition of YouCentric Inc. in late 2001. Denver-based...

Looking deeper, staying safer: an intelligent infrastructure provides integrated network security, keeping your business applications more secure. (Special Advertising Section).
February 3, 2003... When you run your business applications over an intelligent network infrastructure, you're protecting much more than data. You're protecting the value of your IT investments. You're protecting the privacy and productivity of employees,...

Siebel, IBM plan to link software. (Briefs).
February 3, 2003... Siebel Systems Inc. and IBM said they plan to work together to integrate Siebel's customer relationship management (CRM) software with IBM's WebSphere middleware products. Siebel's application server technology will be used to support only...

SAP adds tool for homeland security functions. (Briefs).
February 3, 2003... SAP AG announced an application that's designed to support homeland security functions, including border management. emergency planning and information analysis. The company said the Security Resource Management software uses its new Net Weaver...

And reports Q4 increase in profits. (Briefs).
February 3, 2003... SAP also reported its fourth-quarter financial results, which showed a 490/0 year-over-year increase in profits despite a small revenue dip. Net income totaled $510 million at current euro-to-dollar conversion rates, up from $343 million in the...

Sybase Inc. (Short Takes).
February 3, 2003... SYBASE INC. in Dublin, Calif., reported a $9.8 million fourth-quarter loss as revenue fell 11% year over year to $210.6 million.

Nextwave Telecom Inc. (Short Takes).
February 3, 2003... ... The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that NEXTWAVE TELECOM INC. can keep 63 wireless spectrum licenses that the government tried to take back after the Greenwich, Conn.-based company sought bankruptcy protection in 1998.

CA ships CleverPath Portal upgrade, bundles new tools with software: rollout part of plan to ease integration burden for users.
February 3, 2003... Computer Associates International Inc. this week plans to announce a software suite that tightly integrates its portal server with business intelligence tools, an end-user dashboard, access-control technology and other capabilities. The...

Your outsourced future. (Opinion).
February 3, 2003... READER REACTION was swift and scornful last week after we ran a story predicting that 35% to 45% of existing IT jobs in the U.S. and Canada will be outsourced, shifted to contractors or moved offshore within the next two years [QuickLink...

Free speech benefits IT. (Opinion).
February 3, 2003... THE IT COMMUNITY has always thrived on free speech. The exchange of information gives users essential ways to compare experiences, develop new products and enhance the affordability and usability of all types of systems. Unfortunately, the...

Tell the truth effectively. (Opinion).
February 3, 2003... INFORMATION technology leaders are often described as "ambassadors" for our profession. In the first part of the 17th century, the father of the British foreign service, Sir Henry Wotten, described the ambassadorial function this way: "An...

Readers' letters.
February 3, 2003... Small Businesses Get Help Selling to Feds THERE'S A PRESUMPTION within the federal government that large businesses can figure out the "federal labyrinth" on their own ["Federal Labyrinth Stifles IT Vendors," QuickLink 35305]. We assume,...

Moving into mainframe Linux: running Linux on IBM big iron can delivery savings-but only with the right applications and upfront planning. (Technology).
February 3, 2003... MAINFRAME LINUX can boost application uptime and reduce support costs. But users and analysts recommend acting carefully when choosing which applications to move to the open-source operating system and when training staff in the required...

Inside trustworthy computing: Microsoft's Craig Mundie sounds off on how the initiative is working within the company and for customers. (Q&A).
February 3, 2003... CRAIG MUNDIE spent his first six years at Microsoft Corp. incubating a variety of non-PC computing and service offerings -- including Windows CE, software for the Pocket PC and WebTV -- for the company's consumer platforms division. But now the...

Session Initiation Protocol. (Quick Study).
February 3, 2003... DEFINITION Session Initiation Protocol is a signaling protocol for Internet conferencing, telephony, presence, events notification and instant messaging. The protocol initiates call setup, routing, authentication and other communication...

Task-centric storage takes the stage: Outlook; new intelligent, inexpensive ATA-based storage appliances are solving application-specific problems-and may redefine the traditional role of the application server.
February 3, 2003... NETWORK APPLIANCE INC.'S NearStore ushered in the era of using inexpensive, Advanced Technology Attached (ATA) disk arrays for disk-to-disk backup or secondary, near-line storage. The product, launched in March 2002, offers faster backup and...

Missing PKI root key causes a panic attack: a potentially compromised root key threatens to undermine the entire corporate public-key infrastructure. (Security Manager's Journals).
February 3, 2003... MY COMPANY has a formal process to deal with staffers who are leaving our company. It helps us close accounts quickly and deal with complicated situations like firings. We don't want someone to find out from our team that he's lost his job,...

Security Bookshelf. (Security Log).
February 3, 2003... Honeypots: Tracking Hackers, by Lance Spitzner, Addison-Wesley Professional, 2002. Lance Spitzner, a guiding light in the Honeynet Project, has produced a masterful summary of the current state of the art for "honeypots" - security systems...

A better browser. (Security Log).
February 3, 2003... Antivirus software intercepts and scans e-mail file attachments at the point of entry; but files downloaded using a browser aren't scanned until after they're saved. Secure IE, an Internet Explorer add-on from Boston-based Winferno...

Media exchange appliance debuts. (Briefs).
February 3, 2003... Zultys Technologies in Sunnyvale, Calif., last week announced the MX1200, a media exchange appliance for integrating voice over IP, data, video and fax with one software interface. It runs on the Linux operating system using standard protocols...

Microsoft updates MOM 2000. (Briefs).
February 3, 2003... Microsoft Corp. has announced enhancements to its Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2000 software, which helps companies manage Windows environments. The enhancements include about 30 management pack updates with application-specific...

Compuware offers Vantage 8.5. (Briefs).
February 3, 2003... Compuware Corp. in Farmington Hills, Mich., released an instant reporting upgrade to its Vantage application performance management line. Version 8.5 will include a Web-based user interface to manage an entire enterprise from a single console,...

Just pin it on Microsoft. (Technology).
February 3, 2003... MICROSOFT HAS BECOME the company that the computer industry loves to hate. It's downright fashionable these days to blame everything on the "convicted monopolist." But that attitude also serves as a convenient vendor smoke screen that distracts...

When yanking the mainframe isn't an option: Minnesota's solution may have been cheap and inelegant, but it works just fine. (Case Study).
February 3, 2003... WHEN EX-WRESTLER Gov. Jesse Ventura promised to shape up Minnesota's government, the state's Driver and Vehicle Services (DVS) division was taking as long as four months to renew a driver's license or issue car registrations and license plates....

How to do an IT security audit: understanding your business will focus your efforts. (How To).
February 3, 2003... IF YOU'RE THE IT MANAGER at a small to midsize business, it's only a matter of time until you're asked to do an IT security audit. Even in a larger company, if security is decentralized, you may be the go-to guy in IT. You're neither a security...

Perk watch: BMWs are out, bowling is in: companies are doing their best to keen IT talent. (Management).
February 3, 2003... A ROSE FINALLY DID IT. Competing IT services firms in Michigan had been doing everything they could to move in on The Epitec Group Inc.'s growing IT services business. Underbidding on IT staffing contracts. Wining and dining corporate...

Getting the right person at the right time. (Steal This Idea).
February 3, 2003... DOW CHEMICAL CO. was used to receiving literally thousands of resumes -- via postal mail and e-mail -- which would pile up and go ignored until a hiring manager was presented with a job requisition for a chemist, database specialist,...

Newsmaker. (Q&A).
February 3, 2003... ALEX ZOGHLIN, chief technology officer at Orbitz LLC, will leave the company in April but plans to stay on as a consultant. Zoghlin recruited his own team of developers and has positioned the travel reservations company with what he estimates...

ROI or your money back. (Management).
February 3, 2003... THIS YEAR, we might witness the injection of a powerful new dose of value into value-based contracting. As vendors continue to build their sales efforts around an ROI narrative -- and some will -- their customers are likely to be concerned...

Niche vendors catch users' eyes at Lotusphere: they fill gaps in Notes, Domino functionality.
February 3, 2003... Among the 5,000 attendees from around the world at last week's IBM Lotusphere 2003 conference were IT leaders from companies on separate but similar missions: to find out how to make their Lotus Notes and Domino systems meet their specific...

Bug chase bungle. (Frankly Speaking).
February 3, 2003... MAYBE YOU MISSED THIS NEWS last week amid all the hubbub about the Slammer worm: Security researcher Next Generation Security Software Ltd. (NGS) said it will stop sharing information with the CERT Coordination Center, the government-funded...

Unclear on the concept. (Shark Tank).
February 3, 2003... When will the new spam filters be working? Software development chief asks IT VP pilot fish. "I just logged onto my Hotmail account, and it's still clogged with spam." Fish gently points out that the filters work only on the company's own mail...

IT goes on a mission: GPS/GIS effort helps pinpoint shuffle debris. (Special Report: The Loss of Columbia).
February 10, 2003... Within hours of the space shuttle Columbia's disintegration over East Texas, geographic information system departments at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, marshaled their researchers and students to help pinpoint the...

IT goes on a mission: IT cutbacks at NASA raised safety concerns. (Special Report: The Loss of Columbia).
February 10, 2003... NASA has a history of IT workforce management and funding problems that may have contributed to safety oversights, according to critics and independent government audits. Of particular interest is a September 2001 report by the General...

$1.8bit rollout is Rx for Kaiser: HMO halts internal medical records project with IBM, switches to commercial software.
February 10, 2003... Kaiser Permanente Health Plan Inc. last week announced a $1.8 billion project to deploy an automated medical records system for its 8.4 million members, its second attempt to use technology to eliminate paper-based charts and files. ...

New parts-marking technology would have helped investigators. (News Special Report: The Loss of Columbia).
February 10, 2003... A highly durable product-marking system approved for use by NASA in 2001 and currently being tested on the International Space Station would have helped investigators identify the debris from Columbia, had the technology been available when the...

Storage key to NASA investigation. (News Special Report: The Loss of Columbia).(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... NASA officials said last week that voice messages, video and photos being collected from the public are creating a data picture that will play a key role in determining the cause of the Columbia disaster. The trick will be managing that data....

NASA reinvents troubled IT with help of private sector: space agency reaches out to improve mission software, business systems. (News Special Report: The Loss of Columbia).
February 10, 2003... THE Columbia disaster has confronted NASA at a time when the agency is working to move past a troubled IT history that includes canceling major business-system projects, being victimized by security breaches and dealing with software glitches...

A message from NASA's acting CIO. (News Special Report: The Loss of Columbia).
February 10, 2003... Just hours after the Columbia disaster, NASA Acting CIO Paul A. Strassmann, a former Computerworld columnist, conveyed this message to Computerworld editor in chief Maryfran Johnson: The NASA information systems family of more than 10,000...

Microsoft releases slammer tools. (At Deadline).(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... Microsoft Corp. made available prerelease versions of three software tools designed to help IT managers find systems vulnerable to the Slammer worm, which used a patched security hole in Microsoft's SQL Server 2000 database to cause widespread...

Bank to cut IT, back-office jobs. (At Deadline).(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... Bank of America Corp. said it will cut about 1,000 IT and back-office operations jobs by the end of March as part of an effort to cut costs. The Charlotte, N.C. based bank didn't break down the planned cuts but said IT won't be hit as hard as...

Insurer picks Perot for outsourcing. (At Deadline).(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... Perot Systems Corp. in Plano, Texas, said it's negotiating a 10-year deal to manage IT and back-office business process operations at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island. About 600 of the Providence-based insurer's 1,740 workers will be...

EDS says profit, sales down in Q4. (At Deadline).(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... Plano-based Electronic Data Systems Corp. reported net income of $360 million for the fourth quarter, down 11% from the year-earlier total of $405 million. Revenue dropped 5% to $5.5 billion, down from $5.8 billion. The IT services firm said it...

Teradata steals Oracle's data mart users. (On the Mark).
February 10, 2003... ... in a consolidation program. And Oracle Corp. has taken a bit of revenge. Teradata, a division of Dayton, Ohio-based NCR Corp., this week is announcing that it has successfully migrated more than 400 data marts into a few dozen Teradata data...

Nortel set for switch battle with Cisco. (News).(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... Nortel Networks Ltd. today plans to unveil five new and upgraded switches for corporate users, a rollout that one analyst said should help the struggling vendor match offerings from Cisco Systems Inc. in competitive bidding battles. Two of...

Windows XP Java ruling put on hold. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... A federal appeals court in Richmond. Va., issued a stay order putting on hold a lower-court ruling that would require Microsoft Corp. to start offering Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java software with Windows XP by early June. The appeals court's...

Microsoft files Sendo countersuit. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... In another case. Microsoft filed a countersuit against Sendo Ltd., a Birmingham, England-based mobile phone maker that in December charged the software vendor with stealing its intellectual property. Microsoft denied the allegation and claimed...

Cisco says profits up, sales down. (Briefs).(Q2 2002)(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... Cisco Systems Inc. reported $991 million in profits for its second quarter, which ended Dec. 31, up 50% from $660 million in the same quarter last year. But revenue fell 2% to $4.7 billion, and Cisco CEO John Chambers said users are slowing...

SAP AG. (Short Takes).(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... SAP AG said Hasso Plattner, its co-chairman and CEO. has stepped away from daily operations and handed over software development to Shai Agassi, who had been in charge of new technology areas.

Computer Associates International Inc. (Short Takes).(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... COMPUTER ASSOCIATES INTERNATIONAL INC. said it bought Netreon Inc., a Mountain View, Calif.-based developer of storage software.

Sun technology targets low-end server market: mass rollout includes blade servers, 12-CPU system, virtualization software. (News).
February 10, 2003... SUN MICROSYSTEMS Inc. today will announce a slew of hardware and software products aimed at lowering technology ownership costs and reducing complexity for users. The mass rollout also heralds a fresh assault by Sun on the low end of the server...

Sun says Java will support key web services standards: delay in J2EE 1.4 shouldn't affect users adversely. (News).
February 10, 2003... DEVELOPERS who hoped that the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition, would support guidelines that seek to ensure that Web services applications will interoperate got some good news last week. Sun Microsystems Inc. announced that the new 1.4...

SAP users welcome end of mySAP.com Era: some say name change may help ease confusion. (News).
February 10, 2003... The demise of SAP AG's mySAP.com brand name didn't provoke much mourning among users of the vendor's business applications last week. Several IT managers said the mySAP.com concept had remained somewhat mystifying, even after being in place for...

Microsoft pulls NT 4.0 fix off site. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... Microsoft Corp. pulled a software patch for Windows NT 4.0 from its Web site after users complained that the security fix was crashing the operating system. The company is updating the patch, which was released in December to plug a hole in the...

...and posts new patch for browser. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... Microsoft also issued a new patch designed to fix a pair of flaws in the cross-domain security tools built into the Internet Explorer Web browser. The company gave the vulnerabilities a "critical" severity rating and said attackers could use...

Comdex owner files for Chapter 11. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... Key3Media Group Inc., which runs Comdex and other IT conferences, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as part of a deal designed to reduce its debt. The Los Angeles-based company said it hopes to emerge from Chapter 11 within 90 days....

Worldcom Inc. (Short Takes).(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... WORLDCOM INC. said it plans to cut another 5,000 jobs, primarily corporate and administrative positions...

IBM and America Online Inc. (Short Takes).(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... IBM and AMERICA ONLINE INC. said they're working to integrate their corporate instant messaging products so users can communicate without having to enter two passwords or maintain separate contact lists.

IBM beta-tests database technology: users eye tools for integrating SQL databases, other content repositories. (News).
February 10, 2003... IBM IS STARTING to beta-test two software tools designed to integrate distributed data repositories, and several users last week said the new technology could help them set up virtual databases that pull together a wide range of information....

Microsoft gains Visual Studio .Net Momentum. (Application Development).
February 10, 2003... Microsoft Corp. this week will mark the one-year anniversary of its Visual Studio .Net development environment with a flurry of announcements intended to show momentum around its latest tools. Partners such as Borland Software Corp. will...

Directory links, new user interface due for netware: novell plans to release upgrade of network operating system by midyear. (News).(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... NOVELL INC. this week will announce plans for the next upgrade of NetWare, which will include a browser-based user portal, directory integration tools and an application server that supports Web services. NetWare 6.5, code-named Nakoma, has...