Computerworld articles from January 2003

Computerworld archives from January 2003

McDonald's scraps networking plans. (At Deadline).
January 6, 2003... McDonald's Corp. has scrapped a networking project that would have connected about 30,000 of its restaurants worldwide to its headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill. The project, called Innovate, began in 1999, and the network was due for initial...

Air traffic systems upgrade continues. (At Deadline).
January 6, 2003... Lockheed Martin Corp. said it has completed the third phase of a $226 million project to upgrade mainframe systems at 23 air traffic control facilities in the U.S. The latest work involved the replacement of storage devices that hold...

Sun plans 12-CPU server at low end. (At Deadline).
January 6, 2003... Sun Microsystems Inc. is readying a low-end Unix server called the Sun Fire V1280 that will support up to 12 of its UltraSPARC Ill processors, according to information that was posted on its Web site last week. Sun declined to comment about the...

CA arranges new bank credit line. (At Deadline).
January 6, 2003... Computer Associates International Inc. said it has set up a new $400 million revolving credit line that will be available through January 2005. The software vendor owes $350 million under its existing credit line, which is set to expire June...

Banks pick up pace of IT outsourcing: financial services firms seek savings through pay-as-you-go computing deals. (News).
January 6, 2003... A COMBINATION of intense competition, the sluggish economy and the lure of pay-as-you-go IT services is prompting a growing number of banks and brokerages to outsource back-office systems and business processes. Several high-profile...

American Airlines secures wireless LANs in Denver: but airport wireless networks still pose security dangers to corporate data. (Wireless).
January 6, 2003... American Airlines Inc. has taken significant steps to secure wireless bag-matching and curbside check-in operations at Denver International Airport (DIA) that a year ago were found to be highly vulnerable to hackers. But a test conducted...

Java developers laud ruling: Microsoft must include up-to-date Java in Windows. (News).
January 6, 2003... A U.S. DISTRICT COURT judge's plan to force Microsoft Corp. to ship the most recent version of lava software with Windows desktop operating systems may revive Java development and help rival Sun Microsystems Inc. battle .Net. That's how...

Microsoft launches U.S. smartphone push. (News).
January 6, 2003... Microsoft Corp. today plans to kick off a push into the U.S. market for software-equipped mobile phones, in a bid to eliminate ahead start by similar devices that run Palm-Source Inc.'s rival operating system. Microsoft and two hardware...

Sybase combines software divisions. (Briefs).
January 6, 2003... Sybase Inc. said it has set up an operating unit that combines its business intelligence, e-business and data management software divisions into a single group. The Dublin, Calif.-based company hired Thomas Volk, former vice president and...

ACS wins IT deal with ingram Micro. (Briefs).
January 6, 2003... Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services Inc. (ACS) announced a deal to take over IT infrastructure management at Ingram Micro Inc., a computer products distributor in Santa Ana, Calif. About 200 IT workers will be transferred to ACS as part...

Ariba to restate fiscal 2001 results. (Briefs).
January 6, 2003... Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Ariba Inc. said it will restate its financial results for the fiscal year that ended in September 2001 to account for a $10 million payment made that year to an executive who no longer works for the company. Ariba, which...

IBM and Hitachi Ltd. (Short Takes).
January 6, 2003... IBM and HITACHI LTD. completed a deal in which Tokyo-based Hitachi bought majority ownership of IBM's disk drive unit, which will be part of a new company called Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.

Cray Inc. (Short Takes).
January 6, 2003... Seattle-based CRAY INC. said it has shipped the first production version of its Cray X1 supercomputer.

Cyberthreats not to be dismissed, warns clarke: says vulnerabilities still 'underappreciated' as threat to nation's critical infrastructure. (News).
January 6, 2003... THE U.S. has ignored warning signs before: two attempts by al-Qaeda in 1994 to use airplanes as weapons, as well as public statements in 2000 about terrorists being trained as pilots. Now Richard Clarke, chairman of the President's Critical...

U.S. tries to restrict 5-GHz wireless LANs: worried about interference with military radar. (News).
January 6, 2003... The U.S. Department of Defense is seeking to restrict the use of wireless LANs in the lower portion of the 5-GHz frequency band because of concerns about possible interference with military radar. Portions of the 5-GHz band have already...

Real-time IT leadership. (Premier 100 IT Leaders 2003).
January 6, 2003... I JUST SEARCHED FOR THE PHRASE "real-time IT leadership" on Google and came up with a big fat goose egg. Zip. Nada. No documents found. That led me to ask one of those tree-falling-in-the-forest questions: If it can't be Googled, does it really...

Learn from the best. (100 Premier IT Leaders 2003).
January 6, 2003... THINK OF THEM AS YOUR VERY of business-savvy, technology-smart consultants. They offer advice, instruct you on how to perform better and warn you of hidden traps, all at no charge. They are this year's Premier 100 IT Leaders, and they have...

How will you invest your IT dollars? There's precious little money for IT investments this year, but the cash Premier 100 leaders do have to spend will go toward projects with minimal risk and surefire payoff. (Premier 100 IT Leaders 2003).
January 6, 2003... THE YEAR IS BRAND NEW, but the budget challenges are old news: very little money to spend and plenty of projects competing. Among this year's Premier 100 IT Leaders, spending plans vary widely. As expected, some IT shops face budget cuts...

What are your top projects? (Premier 100 IT Leaders 2003).
January 6, 2003... IT leaders will pick and choose their projects this year, aligning each closely with business goals. Here are the top five projects the Premier 100 IT Leaders for 2003 will tackle in the year ahead. How will you Automate Your Enterprise?...

How will you secure your company data? A stronger management commitment gives IT security more clout, but project funding, government regulation and ease of access to data still present big challenges. (Premier 100 IT Leaders 2003).
January 6, 2003... FOR IT SECURITY PROFESSIONALS, 2003 promises to be a year filled with old and new challenges. Whether balancing the needs of security with the push for greater access to data, coping with government mandates or planning for possible budget...

How will you optimize your infrastructure? (Premier 100 IT Leaders 2003).
January 6, 2003... In their quest to improve efficiencies and cut costs, IT leaders will work to prime their existing technology through hardware consolidation, performance monitoring and application tuning. As VICE PRESIDENT OF MIS at Circuit City Stores...

How will you prove IT value? Most Premier 100 honorees rely on traditional ROI calculations, such as net present value and internal rate of return, to help demonstrate IT's business value. (Premier 100 IT Leaders 2003).
January 6, 2003... THE PREMIER 100 IT LEADERS didn't reach the top of their professions by being softies. Indeed, a vast majority of them regularly rely upon hard-dollar metrics such as net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR) to consistently...

How will you manage your labor force? Staff layoffs and budget cuts have put IT leaders' management skills to the test. Here's how some have picked up the pieces and helped workers left behind feel informed and valued. (Premier 100 IT Leaders 2003).
January 6, 2003... THE IT WORKFORCE, once lavished with high salaries, large sign-on bonuses and generous perks, learned the meaning of austerity with the dot-corn bust of the late 1990s. For some IT managers, the subsequent recession has offered up...

How will you manage your vendors? IT vendor management is a new core competency requiring new skills and partnerships. Here's how Premier 100 IT Leaders will meet the challenge. (Premier 100 IT Leaders 2003).
January 6, 2003... CATHY BRUNE REMEMBERS planning a retirement party for a 26-year IT veteran several years ago, before she became chief technology officer at All-state Insurance Go. She also recalls her surprise when she discovered that he wasn't an employee of...

How they have learned to lead: some of this year's Premier 100 talk about their career challenges and triumphs, and the leadership lessons they've learned along the way. (Premier 100 IT Leaders 2003).
January 6, 2003... He steered the largest system upgrade in MasterCard's history. JERRY MCELHATTON IS PUTTING the finishing touches on what could be called the magnum opus of his career -- a five-year, $160 million upgrade of MasterCard International Inc.'s...

IT accountability requirements on the rise: can you answer the tough questions? (Advertisement).
January 6, 2003... Could you answer these questions quickly and accurately? * What were your 10 largest IT projects last quarter based on total cost? * What is the ROI for each of those projects? * How are your resources deployed and what is their...

2003 on a shoestring. (Frankly Speaking).
January 6, 2003... LET'S START WITH WHAT EVERY IT LEADER knows already: There's no money. There is no money. There is no money. There's not going to be money anytime soon. You don't know when there will be money. You can't make any plans that depend on there...

Energy market revamp pushes $79m IT effort: wholesale electricity firm tries to get jump on standardizing data.
January 13, 2003... Federal efforts to create a standardized, nationwide wholesale electricity market have prompted ISO New England Inc. to jump ahead of the regulatory curve and invest $79 million in a system redesign that's scheduled to go live March 1. ISO...

'Trustworthy' plan plods uphill: Microsoft continues struggle to balance security functionality.
January 13, 2003... Wednesday will mark the one-year anniversary of the day that Bill Gates decreed, via a companywide memo, that "Trustworthy computing" would be the highest priority for all the work Microsoft Corp. employees do. Plenty of hurdles still lie...

HP sets the stage for Alpha's last hurrah: company will introduce new line of high-end servers along with plan to migrate to Itanium. (Migration Strategies).
January 13, 2003... Hewlett-Packard Co. is gearing up for the Jan. 21 launch of a long-awaited line of Alpha-Servers that promises to deliver substantial price/performance gains over existing technology. But HP's previously announced plans to eventually...

Judge won't end Microsoft suits. (At Deadline).
January 13, 2003... A federal court judge in Baltimore denied motions by Microsoft Corp. seeking to dismiss private antitrust lawsuits filed by Mountain View, Calif.-based Be Inc. and Santa Rosa, Calif.-based Burst.com Inc. Late Friday, Judge Frederick Motz was...

Amdocs finalizes IT deal with SBC. (At Deadline).
January 13, 2003... Amdocs Ltd., a Chesterfield, Mo.-based software vendor, said it has finalized a seven-year IT outsourcing deal valued at "hundreds of millions of dollars" with SBC Communications Inc. in San Antonio. Amdocs will upgrade the systems used by...

Oracle makes cuts in sales force. (At Deadline).
January 13, 2003... Oracle Corp. said it has nearly finished a planned reorganization of its North American sales force that includes layoffs of about 200 workers in the U.S. and Canada. The software vendor last month said the cuts were on the way in connection...

Database giants scoff at open-source invader. (On the Mark).
January 13, 2003... ... MySQL AB, not unlike how operating system behemoths once laughed off the Linux phenomenon. But Marten Mickos, CEO of the Uppsala, Sweden-based company, thinks 2003 may be the year the popular open-source database, MySQL, sneaks into the...

BMC ships consoles to wrap up Patrol upgrade. (News).
January 13, 2003... BMG Software Inc. last week completed the rollout of its Patrol Version 7 enterprise management software, and clothing retailer The Men's Wearhouse Inc. said it's ready to put BMC's new network management consoles into production after a...

Southwest gives net nod to Sprint. (Briefs).
January 13, 2003... Sprint Corp. said it has won a three-year deal to provide voice and high-speed data networking services to Southwest Airlines Co. A Sprint spokesman said Dallas-based Southwest chose Sprint to deliver services similar to those that had been...

IBM signs chip deal with AMD. (Briefs).
January 13, 2003... IBM and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said they plan to jointly develop chip manufacturing process technologies aimed at producing faster and less power-hungry microprocessors. The first devices resulting from the deal will be produced using a...

And switch pact with Cisco. (Briefs).
January 13, 2003... IBM also announced that its storage division plans to resell Cisco Systems Inc.'s new MDS 9000 line of switches for storage-area networks. IBM said it plans to begin offering the switches along with its disk and tape products by the end of this...

Microsoft Corp. (Short Takes).
January 13, 2003... MICROSOFT CORP. released a second beta-test version of its Exchange Server 2003 messaging software, which is code-named Titanium and due for shipment by the end of June.

Storagenetworks Inc. (Short Takes).
January 13, 2003... ... STORAGENETWORKS INC., a storage management software vendor in Waltham, Mass., replaced its CEO and laid off about half of its 220 workers.

Tax break could ease IT purchasing pain: high-tech groups hope stimulus plan will include boost to depreciation bonus. (News).
January 13, 2003... CORPORATE USERS may get a tax incentive to avoid delaying hardware and software purchases if congressional backers prevail in their efforts to increase the depreciation bonus. The bonus could influence the timing of business IT purchases,...

State CIOs face budget crises: layoffs, IT project cuts, pressure on vendors expected. (News).
January 13, 2003... The worst fiscal crisis to hit state governments since World War II is forcing state IT managers to lay off employees, squeeze vendors for better deals and limit IT projects to those that deliver an immediate return on investment. Nothing less...

Singlestep readies network management integration tool: start-up seeks to broaden capabilities of 'manager of managers' technology. (News).
January 13, 2003... SINGLESTEP Technologies Corp. this week plans to ship a tool for integrating different network management systems, a move analysts described as another effort to find the Holy Grail of network control products known as a "manager of managers"...

Feds drop Wall Street IT disaster recovery proposal: implementation labeled unfeasible. (News).
January 13, 2003... A U.S. senator this month said federal regulators have abandoned a proposal that, if made law, could have required Wall Street firms to move their disaster recovery data centers hundreds of miles away from their primary IT facilities. That...

IBM offers on-demand service for high-end use: option will enable companies needing supercomputer power to lower costs. (News).
January 13, 2003... IBM LAST WEEK launched a capacity-on-demand option under which companies with high-performance computing requirements will be able to rent supercomputing power on an as-needed basis. The service will provide companies in sectors such as...

SGI offers Itanium 2-based Linux systems: Altix servers to complement Irix. (News).
January 13, 2003... Silicon Graphics Inc. last week announced systems that combine the Linux operating system with Intel Corp.'s Itanium 2 processor to create a nonproprietary server that can scale up to 64 processors. The Altix 3300 and Altix 3700 run on a...

Storage vendors see stronger Q4. (Briefs).
January 13, 2003... EMC Corp. said its fourth-quarter financial results should top expectations, with revenue totaling at least $1.47 billion. That's up from a projection of about $1.26 billion that EMC made during the quarter. However, EMC said it still expects...

IBM to outsource production work. (Briefs).
January 13, 2003... IBM announced that San Jose-based Sanmina-SCI Corp. will take over manufacturing of "a significant portion" of its low-end and midrange xSeries servers and IntelliStation workstations in a deal valued at $3.6 billion over three years. IBM also...

SAP reorganizes, cuts sales force. (Briefs).
January 13, 2003... SAP AG said it laid off about 130 workers at its U.S. subsidiary in Newtown Square, Pa., as part of a sales force reorganization. SAP America Inc.'s sales personnel will now work on a regional basis instead of focusing on vertical industries,...

AT & T Corp. (Short Takes).
January 13, 2003... AT&T CORP. said it plans to lay off 3,500 of its 72,000 workers, with most of the cuts coming at its business services unit.

Lotus Software Corp. (Short Takes).
January 13, 2003... IBM said it's transferring Al Zollar, general manager of its Lotus Software Group, to a new job heading the unit that develops its iSeries servers.

Geac adds CTO, looks to integrate apps. (Applications).
January 13, 2003... Geac Computer Corp. last week hired a new executive to manage both product development and internal IT operations as part of the business applications vendor's plan to prop up its sagging revenue and woo new users. Markham, Ontario-based...

McDonald's ends network project in cost-cutting move. (News).
January 13, 2003... The new senior management team at McDonald's Corp. is looking to cut costs, and IT is one of the departments feeling the pinch. McDonald's this month confirmed that it has stopped work on a networking project to connect about 30,000...

No rest in 2003. (Opinion).
January 13, 2003... JANUARY IS THE MONDAY OF THE YEAR. The big-sigh, gotta-get-back-to-it, foot-dragging mentality permeates everything. It's excessively gray and filled with humorless resolve. Even so, a spanking new year is still cause for hope and excitement....

Don't leave OS choice to developers. (Opinion).
January 13, 2003... THE PAIN IN MY HEAD isn't from a wild New Year's, but from the torrent of e-mails I've been reading from eager and enthusiastic Linux fans responding to a recent column [QuickLink 35071]. Indeed, at the risk of igniting more claims of my...

'Utility' model needs better focus. (Opinion).
January 13, 2003... RECENTLY, there has been a great deal of talk about the viability of the "utility model," the idea that information, just like water, gas, electricity and phone service, should be provided on demand via some sort of largely transparent conduit....

Readers' letters.
January 13, 2003... Try Klingon S-RO PETRELEY rimarkas, en lia artikolo "Digital Rights and Wrongs. "ke la CableX specifo estos en la lingvo Esperanto. Tiuokaze. proksimume du milionolda personoj tutmonde povos legi gxin. Misugestas, ke Mikrosoft anstataux...

CRM opens up: vendors are pushing both the use of enterprise suites and new integration tools as ways to mesh CRM with other enterprise applications. (Technology).
January 13, 2003... AS CUSTOMER relationship management (CRM) technology has matured, users have begun looking for bigger payoffs by enabling better integration with other enterprise applications. For instance, companies that want to let their customers view the...

Dallas answers the call: a newly integrated 311 call-taking system for all city services helps initiate action and track performance. (Technology).
January 13, 2003... ONE YEAR AGO, on Jan. 13, 2002, the Dallas municipal IT department flipped the switch on a $5 million automated citizen-request management system. From that moment on, city residents could make their 1.1 million annual calls for city...

.Net Terminal Services drive rental system: Enterprise Rent-A-Car's thin-client project will be one of the biggest ever attempted using Microsoft's .Net Terminal Services. (Technology).
January 13, 2003... ENTERPRISE RENT-A-CAR CO. is venturing where few, if any, Companies have gone before. The St. Louis-based firm plans to deliver Microsoft Office and internally developed car-rental applications to 5,000 branch locations equipped with...

Pervasive computing gets organized: beyond the 20th century; standards emerge for sharing data across heterogeneous computers and input devices. (Future Watch).
January 13, 2003... FORGET MOORE'S LAW. The reality is that workstations haven't changed all that much in 30 years, despite their enormous power and performance gains. Interfacing is still a matter of pressing plastic keys and clicking on a mouse. But...

Spam issue viewed as IT security failure: a surge in e-mail spam undermines user confidence in an otherwise solid security infrastructure.
January 13, 2003... THE PROBLEM of unwanted e-mails may not be the biggest security threat my company faces, but it's a highly visible failure to our employees and threatens to taint the IT security group's good reputation. One of the ways that staffers judge...

Security bookshelf. (Security Log).
January 13, 2003... * The Art of Deception, by Kevin Mitnick and William L. Simon; John Wiley & Sons, 2002. Mitnick, once the world's most reviled hacker, has co-written this book to teach companies how to defend against the threat of social engineering...

NAI adds Spam control. (Security Log).
January 13, 2003... Network security vendor Network Associates Inc. (NAI) beefed up its antispam products by acquiring Palo Alto, Calif.-based Deersoft Inc. NAI will use Deersoft's Spam-Assassin Pro and Enterprise editions as the basis for its upcoming antispam...

Sourcefire ships sensors. (Security Log).
January 13, 2003... Intrusion-detection systems (IDS) vendor Sourcefire Inc in Columbia Md., this month be gins shipping two IDS network sensors for use in businesses that don't require gigabit-speed intrusion detection. The Sourcefire Network Sensor 1000...

Digital rights dominate 2002 awards. (Technology).
January 13, 2003... GIVEN THE YEAR'S EVENTS, it should come as no surprise that digital rights dominate my 2002 "You Can't Be Serious" awards. These annual awards recognize truly astonishing achievements in IT double-think. In that spirit, the "Beverage...

LANDesk updates Management Suite. (Briefs).
January 13, 2003... LANDesk Software Inc. in Salt Lake City today will announce a version of its Management Suite product that provides operating system deployment functionality. The new version provides patented multicasting technology for distributing operating...

Microsoft releases Security package for Servers. (Briefs).
January 13, 2003... Microsoft Corp. last week released Feature Pack 1 for its Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2000. The feature pack includes new application-layer firewall defenses and security enhancements for Exchange Server and Internet...

OASIS launches PKI initiative. (Briefs).
January 13, 2003... The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) announced last week the formation of a new technical committee to promote adoption of public-key infrastructure (PKI)technology for Web services and other...

Biting back: find and fix 1% of your software bugs, and 90% of your system problems go away, say experts. (Management).
January 13, 2003... BUGS ARE SMALL. Usually. Unless, of course, they are of the software kind, in which case they can grow quite large and become hugely expensive to fix. The Sustainable Computing Consortium, a collaboration of major corporate IT users, university...

When the plug gets pulled: how to survive and maybe even thrive in the wake of a canceled IT project. (Careers).
January 13, 2003... IN A PREVIOUS JOB at a large refining company, IT director Bob Ghirlanda spent a year putting together a plan to install a computerized maintenance management system. With the system specifications and ROI analysis in place, Ghirlanda went to...

High anxiety: dread and uncertainty can hurt an IT group. What to do? (Management).
January 13, 2003... AN IT MANAGER and a programmer at a large Eastern frozen food company were locked in mortal combat. "Bob," the programmer, was working 60- to 80-hour weeks for "Larry," his manager. But Bob thought that Larry didn't appreciate his efforts and...

Coming in from the cold. (Q&A).
January 13, 2003... Steve Romaine, chief strategist in the technology group at Hartford Financial in Hartford, Conn., is a former IT consultant and author of Soldier of Fortune 500: A Management Survival Guide for the Consulting Wars (Prometheus Books, 2002). In...

Gartner's view for IT pros in 2003. (Outlook).
January 13, 2003... IT professionals should take time in 2003 to enhance their perceived value and better understand business priorities, Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc. advises. Here are eight guidelines to consider: * Take inventory of your technology and...

Calculating from experience. (Management).
January 13, 2003... AS 2003 UNFOLDS, a fantastic tale will emerge in which a wise manager, after witnessing a software sales presentation, will see so clearly the profound impact the proposed technology can have on the business that the organization will dispense...

Not so obvious. (Frankly Speaking).
January 13, 2003... DID THOSE Wall Street investment houses really forget about PONI -- the price of noninvestment -- when they failed to create good e-mail archiving systems and got slapped with a $1.65 million fine per firm, as I wrote in my Dec. 9 column...

Clue, Clue, Who's Got a Clue? (Shark Tank).
January 13, 2003... Nontechie IT director insists on doing the first interview with every technical job applicant -- "to determine their technical competence," says database manager pilot fish. "He interviewed one application development candidate for 25 minutes...

AT & T Corp. (Short Takes).
January 13, 2003... MICROSOFT said a faulty router upgrade by AT&T CORP. last Thursday temporarily cut off access to several of the software vendor's Web sites and messaging services for about 40% of Internet users.

Art Technology Group Inc. (Short Takes).
January 13, 2003... ART TECHNOLOGY GROUP INC., a vendor of online marketing and sales software in Cambridge, Mass., said it laid off about 115 employees in a move that cut its workforce by 20%.

Deployments raise profile of blade PCs: PC heavyweights keep an eye on new technology. (Client Systems).
January 13, 2003... SEVERAL COMPANIES that have been kicking the tires on so-called blade PCs are starting to deploy the rack-mounted desktop technology in their data centers, looking for benefits such as increased security and ease of management. For now,...

IBM plans software to link data from multiple sources. (News).
January 13, 2003... IBM late this year plans to deliver DB2-based integration software that will let IT managers link data throughout their systems without needing to collapse the information into a single data warehouse. While sketchy on the details, IBM last...

Report questions ROI of i2's software: vendor acknowledges complexity but says most users get returns. (News).
January 13, 2003... After spending years of effort and millions of dollars, some marquee users of i2 Technologies Inc.'s software say they're not getting their money's worth on their investments, according to a report due to be released this week. Nucleus...

Vendors push SSL-based remote access devices. (News).
January 13, 2003... Remote access appliances that support the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol are gaining the attention of various networking vendors, with the latest product announcement expected to be made today by Seattle-based Aventail Corp. Aventail...

Correction.
January 13, 2003... In our Premier 100 IT Leaders list last week [QuickLink 345841], the title of The New York Times Co.'s Linda Lenox was incorrect. Her title is computer support manager. Also, Claus Hohmann is chief technology officer at Volkswagen...