Computerworld articles from January 2006

Computerworld archives from January 2006

ABN Amro unit reveals electronic data-transfer plan after tape snafu: information on 2 million mortgage customers lost in transit for a month.(ABN AMRO Mortgage Group Inc.)
January 2, 2006... ABN AMRO Mortgage Group Inc. said it plans to stop sending data tapes to its credit-reporting bureaus after a tape containing personal information on more than 2 million customers was temporarily lost late last year. Group CEO Thomas...

Users unmoved by Oracle pricing changes: multicore model dictates hardware choice, some say.(NEWS)
January 2, 2006... Users interviewed after Oracle Corp. revamped its multicore-processor pricing model last month seemed largely unimpressed with the move. In a conference call in December, Jacqueline Woods, Oracle's vice president of global pricing and...

HP gives reprieve on support to e3000 users: says it will offer 'reactive' services through 2008.(NEWS)(Hewlett-Packard Co.)
January 2, 2006... IN A major product road map turnaround, Hewlett-Packard Co. last month pushed back the end-of-support date for its discontinued HP e3000 midrange system from the end of this year to December 2008 or later. HP said it decided to extend the...

Faulty ERP app results in shortfall for medical firm: Oracle rollout costs Invacare millions.(enterprise resource planning)
January 2, 2006... Problems with rolling out a set of Oracle Corp. ERP application modules have caused Invacare Corp. to take a hard financial hit; the company expects to report a fourth-quarter revenue shortfall of about $30 million. The Elyria, Ohio-based...

CIO who bucked Microsoft to resign.(Peter Quinn)(Brief Article)
January 2, 2006... Peter Quinn, who has been trying to move Massachusetts state agencies toward the OpenDocument file format, will resign as the state's CIO effective Jan. 9, according to a memo obtained by the IDG News Service. Quinn sent the memo to staffers in...

EC OKs Oracle's purchase of Siebel.(European Union. European Commission, Siebel Systems Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 2, 2006... The European Commission has cleared Oracle Corp.'s proposed $5.85 billion purchase of Siebel Systems Inc. The commission said it concluded that the acquisition would not "significantly impede effective competition." The deal was approved by...

IBM agrees to buy network tools vendor.(Brief Article)
January 2, 2006... IBM has agreed to buy Micromuse Inc., a network management software vendor in San Francisco, for $865 million in cash. IBM said it plans to add Micromuse's offerings, which can be used to manage services such as videoconferencing for remote...

Short takes.(backup tapes missing at backup tapes)(Unilever Group's outsourcing contract to International Business Machines Corp. )(Brief Article)
January 2, 2006... MARRIOTT INTERNATIONAL INC.'s vacation club unit said Dec. 27 that backup tapes containing data on 206,000 staffers and customers have been missing from its central offices in Orlando since at least mid-November.... UNILEVER NV announced a...

EC warns Microsoft on antitrust obligations.(Brief Article)
January 2, 2006... THE EUROPEAN Commission last month issued Microsoft Corp. a new warning to comply with the commission's March 2004 antitrust ruling or face daily fines of up to [euro]2 million ($2.4 million U.S.). On Dec. 22, the commission sent Microsoft...

Tele2 exits fixed-line in the U.K. and Ireland.(Carphone Warehouse Group PLC, acquisition deal)(Brief Article)
January 2, 2006... CITING PROBLEMS in accessing established telecommunications networks in the U.K., Stockholm-based Tele2 AB has sold its fixed-line telephony operations in that country and Ireland to The Carphone Warehouse Group PLC for [pounds sterling]8.7...

AMD, Intel spar over court ruling in Japan.(Advanced Micro Devices Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 2, 2006... THE TOKYO District Court ruled last month that evidence collected by Japan's Fair Trade Commission as part of a yearlong investigation into Intel Corp.'s business practices must be publicly disclosed, according to Advanced Micro Devices Inc....

Perot Systems Corp.(plans for new facilities)(Brief Article)
January 2, 2006... Perot Systems Corp. has announced plans to offer IT infrastructure services at its facilities in Noida and Bangalore, India. Plano, Texas-based Perot also formally opened an office tower in Noida that will house 800 employees. The company said...

NEC Corp.(plans to release RX LR9000)(Brief Article)
January 2, 2006... NEC Corp. plans to ship its first laptop based on Intel's Yonah mobile processor this year. Yonah is the code name for a dual-core version of the Intel Pentium M processor slated for release in the first quarter. NEC said its Yonah-based RX...

La Caixa.(Electronic Data Systems Corp., Caja de Pensiones Para La Vejez y de Ahorres, contract)(Brief Article)
January 2, 2006... La Caixa, a Barcelona-based bank, has signed a four-year, [euro]200 million ($236 million U.S.) contract extension with Electronic Data Systems Corp., which has provided the bank with IT and business process outsourcing services since 1996. EDS...

New members proving Eclipse independence from IBM.(Mike Milinkovich)(Interview)
January 2, 2006... In an interview with Computerworld, Mike Milinkovich, executive director of The Eclipse Foundation, discussed the open-source community's past year and talked about its plan to add IT managers and CIOs to its target audience of developers....

Correction.(Correction Notice)
January 2, 2006... The "Hands On" story in the Dec. 19 issue's Management section misnamed Johnson & Johnson's IT infrastructure and support services organization and incorrectly referred to John Barbano as the unit's former CIO. Barbano, who is now CIO for...

Got questions about enterprise infrastructure? Computerworld's IT executive summit has the answers.(Advertisement)
January 2, 2006... If you are an IT executive in an end-user* organization, apply to attend Computerworld's upcoming complimentary half-day summit on enterprise infrastructure. In today's competitive economy, enterprises must continue to adapt to new...

When e-mail is evidence.(managing e-mail servers)(Advertisement)
January 2, 2006... As e-mail grows in volume and increases in importance to organizations the world over, it continues to present some vexing dilemmas to the IT and network managers who must ensure the mail keeps flowing. Aside from the day-to-day job of keeping...

Blogs galore.(public and private sector to control blogs)(Brief Article)
January 2, 2006... With the explosion of new blogs and blog search engines, the "blogosphere" will become the single richest source of material news leaks in the history of the stock market. This will cause public companies to take emergency action to control...

Consolidation maxed.(future of hardware, software and telecom consumers)(Brief Article)
January 2, 2006... In 2006, the consolidation of hardware, software and telecom is nearing both practical and legal maxima. Buyers of IT products and services will be either taxed or empowered, depending on the agility of their spending. The size of merged...

Searching the enterprise.(Predictions)(Brief Article)
January 2, 2006... Customers of IT will demand Internet-quality search in the enterprise. The key is breaking down content barriers inside companies and migrating away from nonmainstream technologies to technologies that deliver value. Enhanced search...

Not happenin'.(forecast of information technology services industry)(Editorial)
January 2, 2006... I'VE been in this line of work for about 15 years, and I've learned a great deal. One of the things I learned early on was to leave it to others in Computerworld's physical and virtual newsrooms to predict what will happen in the new year. I'm...

What's next: project management; Five biggest project challenges for 2006.
January 2, 2006... PROJECT MANAGEMENT ain't what it used to be. From who's on the team and where team members are located to the tasks they're expected to complete, project management is a changing discipline. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Consider that project...

Priority plans: these three projects will top many 2006 to-do lists.(FORECAST 2006)
January 2, 2006... WHAT'S NEXT: Security Expect THREATS TO GET NASTIER as networks become more complex. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] MOST information technology managers have already devoted long hours to shoring up their companies' security--and they can...

10 predictions for 2006: an IDG News Service reporter offers her picks for the year's top IT stories.(FORECAST 2006)
January 2, 2006... 1 AT ODDS OVER OFFSHORING Furious debate over the offshoring of IT jobs and services jobs will continue, sparking another round of state and U.S. federal "protectionist" legislative proposals early in the year. Most of those proposals will...

Skills scope: developers, security experts and project managers will be hot properties this year.
January 2, 2006... WHETHER YOU'RE looking for a job or looking to fill one, expect hiring to heat up this year, driven by small but consistent gains in IT budgets. And if you're a job seeker with the right skills, this could be your big year. [ILLUSTRATION...

Sound-off: thin clients; Our columnists lock horns on the future of PCs.(FORECAST 2006)(Column)
January 2, 2006... Wave of The Future POOR MISGUIDED FRANK. Still dedicated to a dusty strategy to upgrade to Longhorn--oops, Vista. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Frank, Frank, Frank, you should know that rolling out fat operating system upgrades on...

Mastering IT agility, accelerating business innovation.(Advertisement)
January 2, 2006... March 5-7, 2006 JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort Palm Desert, California [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Nation's Leading IT Executive Conference for: * CIOs, CTOs and CSOs * Vice...

Hope & hesitation: a boon for some but a disappointment for others, these three technologies are still viewed with a skeptical eye by IT.(FORECAST 2006)
January 2, 2006... 1. RFID COST AND COMPLEXITY continue to block enterprise use. THE IT TRADE PRESS and industry analysts alike have been hailing radio frequency identification as the second coming of bar codes. But for users, most of whom have...

What to do: 2006.(managing information technology business)
January 2, 2006... READY FOR 2006? If you've read the tips, insights and hard looks ahead in this special Forecast issue of Computer world, you already know plenty about what lies ahead in the coming year. Now you need to turn that information into a practical...

Doing the best they can.(SHARK TANK)(humors at information technology services industry)
January 2, 2006... Outside sales guy is promoted to manager, so he'll need a docking station for his laptop. Sysadmin pilot fish gives sales guy the manual in advance, so he'll know how to use it; then, during the sales guy's last road trip, fish installs...

Learn how to achieve storage networking success.(information technology conferences)(Brief Article)(Advertisement)
January 2, 2006... April 3-6, 2006 Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego, California [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Featured Speakers Include: JERRY BARTLETT Chief Information Officer, Ameritrade [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] GREG BRANDEAU...

Power lunch: for a group of Atlanta CIOs, informal lunch meetings have evolved into something that's of compelling value for themselves, their companies and their community.(chief information officers)
January 9, 2006... EVERY OTHER month in Atlanta, one of the most powerful groups of IT managers anywhere meets over lunch. But you won't find this organization in the telephone book or in any other directory of IT movers and shakers. In fact, it doesn't even have...

How did I miss that? 'Bounded awareness' can cause you to ignore critical information when making decisions.(Max H. Bazerman, Dolly Chugh)(Interview)
January 9, 2006... Success in IT, as in any field, is all about focus. But in this month's Harvard Business Review, MAX H. BAZERMAN and Dolly Chugh posit that focusing too tightly can cause you to miss critical information that's right under your nose. From the...

Measuring project risk: managing risk is a top priority in IT projects, but you can't manage what you can't measure.
January 9, 2006... NO MATTER how good a project manager you are, you can't eliminate risk in IT projects. But you can and must manage it. And since you can't manage what you can't measure, good risk metrics should be part of your project tool kit. Without...

Developing the managerial mind.(IT professionals leadership skills)(Column)
January 9, 2006... RECENTLY, I decided to visit the national convention of the Society of Human Resource Management. The annual SHRM conference is an astonishingly large gathering of HR professionals and hundreds of vendors of everything from health insurance to...

Ewing is Nasdaq CIO.(The Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. appoints Anna Ewing as chief information officers)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... The Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. in New York announced that ANNA EWING has succeeded Steve Randich as CIO and executive vice president of operations and technology, reporting to CEO Bob Greifeld. Previously, Ewing served as Nasdaq's senior vice...

Stewart promoted to CTO at Wal-Mart.(Nancy Stewart hired as chief technology officer)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... NANCY STEWART has been promoted to senior vice president and chief technology officer at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. She will report to CIO Linda Dillman. Stewart will be responsible for the company's infrastructure and technology, operations,...

Carey will be CTO at eBay Marketplaces.(Matt CArey appointed to chief technical officer)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... MATT CAREY will join San Jose-based eBay Inc. as CTO and senior vice president for eBay Marketplaces, effective Feb. 1. He will be responsible for eBay's product development, architecture, project management, operations, information systems and...

Bott to lead Ryder IT.(Ryder System Inc. appoints Kevin Bott)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... Ryder System Inc., a transportation and supply chain management company in Miami, announced the appointment of KEVIN BOTT as senior vice president and CIO. Bott was previously vice president of global supply chain solutions technology services...

Microsoft releases fix for WMF flaw ahead of schedule: says user pressure influenced decision to change course.
January 9, 2006... Citing "very strong customer sentiment" and an earlier-than-expected wrap-up of testing work, Microsoft Corp. last week released a patch for a flaw in a Windows image-processing module after initially saying the fix wouldn't be issued until...

IT uses Web services to expose apps to outsiders: technology eases sharing of data beyond firewalls.(Automatic Data Processing Inc.)
January 9, 2006... Buoyed by the opportunity to easily and safely share data with customers and partners, IT organizations are increasingly exposing internal applications and data outside their corporate firewalls as Web services. The District of Columbia,...

EMC lays off 1,000, will hire even more.(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... Storage giant EMC Corp. plans to lay off about 1,000 workers, or 4% of its workforce, during 2006. The company said it will take an $80 million fourth-quarter charge to cover the costs of the action. At the same time, EMC said it expects to...

Sun to break out software sales.(Sun Microsystems Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... A Sun Microsystems Inc. executive said the company plans to break out the financial results of its software business on its financial statements. Currently, Sun breaks out only systems, storage and services revenue. President and Chief...

Outage causes delays for United.(United Air Lines Inc.'s services delayed due to internet service outages)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... A four-hour computer outage affecting passenger ticketing, baggage check-in and printing of boarding passes caused delays of United Air Lines Inc. flights across the country early last week. Cendant Corp., which partners with IBM and others to...

Infor adds asset app maker to portfolio.(Infor Global Solutions acquires Datastream Systems Inc)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... Infor Global Solutions has agreed to acquire Datastream Systems Inc. for $216 million in cash. The maker of asset performance management software is the latest company that privately held Infor has acquired in its effort to create a line of...

DHS CIO needs more power, agency's chief auditor says: report cites lack of clout, resources as threats to IT integration efforts.(Department of Homeland Security's chief information officer Scott Charbo)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... SCOTT CHARBO, CIO at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, lacks the authority, influence and staff resources needed to accomplish the agency's goal of creating a unified IT infrastructure, according to a report issued by the DHS's...

NASA testing in-house system for analyzing space station health: Web services, EII technology improve information aggregation, officials say.(systems health information portal being tested by National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
January 9, 2006... NASA is testing an application that uses Web services and enterprise information integration (EII) technology to aggregate data from disparate sources in order to diagnose and resolve problems detected on the International Space Station. ...

GM drives dealers toward integrated business systems.(General Motors Corp.)
January 9, 2006... General Motors Corp. wants its dealers to install new IT systems that, if widely adopted, would give the automaker benefits such as improved insight into the spare-parts inventories at dealerships. In an attempt to encourage dealers to make...

Mercury delisted from Nasdaq.(Mercury Interactive Corp., The Nasdaq Stock Market Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... Shares of Mercury Interactive Corp. have been removed from the Nasdaq Stock Market because the software maker failed to file financial reports. Several top Mercury executives resigned in November after an investigation by the company's...

AMD, Rambus sign $75M license pact.(Advanced Micro Devices Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has signed a five-year, $75 million patent license agreement with Rambus Inc. Under the deal, Rambus will provide AMD with a license for patents used in the design of memory and logic controller interfaces. The...

EMC finalizes $275M Captiva acquisition.(Captiva Software Corp.)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... EMC Corp. has completed its $275 million purchase of document capture software vendor Captiva Software Corp. Captiva will become part of EMC's software group and continue to be managed by Reynolds Bish, previously Captiva's president and CEO....

RSA completes Cyota acquisition.(RSA Security Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... RSA Security Inc. has completed its $145 million acquisition of privately held Cyota Inc., a maker of online security and antifraud systems for financial institutions. RSA officials projected that the addition of Cyota will add approximately...

Software pricing frustrates and ...(pricing models)(vendors)
January 9, 2006... ... infuriates IT buyers. Jim Geisman, president of MarketShare Inc. in Wayland, Mass., argues that users and vendors are at odds over product pricing strategies. "Vendors have a narrow view of a product," he says. "They see features and...

CNL financial updates disaster recovery plan: firm also adds encryption to protect backups.(CNL Group Inc.)
January 9, 2006... AFTER MULTIPLE brushes with hurricanes in recent years, Orlando-based CNL Financial Group Inc. over the past year changed its storage strategy to improve disaster recovery and data security. The company moved first to protect 82 Wintel...

Three more states add laws on data breaches.(Illinois, Louisiana, New Jersey)
January 9, 2006... Companies struggling to keep up with a patchwork of state laws related to data privacy and information security have three more to contend with, as a result of new security-breach notification laws that went into effect in Illinois, Louisiana...

McAfee to pay $50M in SEC settlement.(Securities and Exchange Commission fines Network Associates Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... McAfee Inc. has agreed to pay a $50 million penalty and set up an anonymous ethics hot line where employees, customers and resellers can report unlawful behavior. The settlement ends a long-running investigation by the U.S. Securities and...

CA to buy systems software maker.(Computer Associates International Inc., Wily Technology Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... Computer Associates International Inc. has agreed to buy application management software vendor Wily Technology Inc. for $375 million. Wily builds software that monitors the performance of applications and lets IT managers diagnose bottlenecks...

Cisco acquisition passes U.S. test.(Cisco Systems Inc., Scientific-Atlanta Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... Cisco Systems Inc. passed a critical milestone in its planned $6.9 billion acquisition of Scientific-Atlanta Inc. when the U.S. antitrust waiting period passed without regulators taking any action. The merger still needs the approval of...

Symantec buys IM tool maker.(IMlogic Inc. acquired)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... Symantec Corp. has agreed to buy IMlogic Inc., a provider of enterprise software for instant messaging clients, for an undisclosed sum. Symantec plans to integrate IMlogic's security and content-inspection capabilities with its antispam and...

Buggy app causes tax problems in Wisconsin: CGI-AMS agrees to fix $37M system it built in 2002.(Wisconsin. Department of Revenue signs contract with CGI Group Inc.)
January 9, 2006... THE STATE of Wisconsin this month started to fix a troubled $37 million tax system that has caused mistakes in collecting and distributing millions of dollars. The Wisconsin Department of Revenue is working with service provider CGI-AMS...

ES&S efforts ease Calif. E-voting concerns: warning prompts company to address potential problems with machines.(Election Systems and Software Inc.'s testing of voting machines)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... So far, the California secretary of state's office is satisfied with the efforts of electronic voting systems maker Election Systems & Software Inc. to address concerns about its machines. The state had notified the Omaha-based company last...

Chip exec to resign in spat with government.(United Microelectronics Corp., Robert Tsao)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... TAIPEI, TAIWAN THE FOUNDER and chairman of United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) announced late last month that he plans to resign from the world's second-largest contract chip maker because of a dispute with the Taiwanese government, which...

Indian IT units oversee offshore development.(information technology)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... BANGALORE, INDIA CIOs AT the Indian operations of multinational companies are increasingly managing software development, outsourcing and other IT work for their corporate parents. For example, Pfizer Inc.'s Mumbai-based Indian...

Sales gains seen for Taiwanese hardware.(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... TAIPEI, TAIWAN THE VALUE of IT hardware products built in Taiwan grew by an estimated 10.5% during 2005, to $77 billion U.S., and it is expected to increase by an even larger percentage this year, according to Market Intelligence Center...

T-Systems international GmbH.(buys Gedas United Kingdom Ltd. and signs contract with Volkswagen AG)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... T-Systems International GmbH, the IT services unit of Deutsche Telekom AG, has agreed to buy Volkswagen AG's IT consulting unit for an undisclosed price. Berlin-based Gedas AG employs 5,500 workers, about two-thirds of them outside of Germany....

Samsung Electronics Co.(starts production of liquid crystal displays)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... Samsung Electronics Co. last week started commercial production of LCD display panels at a factory in Tangjung, South Korea, four months ahead of schedule. Meanwhile, rival LG Phillips LCD Co. began production at a facility in Paju. MARTYN...

Business Objects SA.(appoints Mark Doll)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... Business Objects SA has hired an executive to expand its professional services group and develop more business intelligence services offerings tailored for vertical industries. Mark Doll, previously a partner at consulting firm Ernst & Young,...

Private office or cubicle: the debate goes on: an office can shut out distractions but stifle communication among coders.
January 9, 2006... Jim Cooper considers himself one lucky software developer. He works in a private office at SAS Institute Inc. in Cary, N.C., with a radio playing in the background, and he takes calls on a speakerphone. It's an environment that makes him...

U.S. leadership on cybersecurity efforts is lacking, says RSA CEO: Coviello claims federal government has yet to act on 2003 plan.(RSA Security Inc.)(Art Coviello)(Interview)
January 9, 2006... Art Coviello, president and CEO of RSA Security Inc., is a founding member and co-chairman of the standards committee of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance (CSIA), an Arlington, Va.-based consortium of technology companies. He is also...

Refusing futility.(IT management)(Column)
January 9, 2006... THIS is a true story. One day last week, my son Dan, a freshman at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, went skiing with Adam, his best friend and a WPI floormate who happens to be an avid skier. Dan had two things working...

A new IT vision and mission.(OPINION)(Column)
January 9, 2006... A GAIN AND again during the past 12 months, I've had clients tell me that they are rewriting their IT vision and mission statements. Good! Far too many of those documents are dispiriting pablum that no one can remember anyway. Vision...

What 2006 holds in store for IT.(Longhorn operating system)(tablet PC)(third-generation communications)(Column)
January 9, 2006... WELL, IT'S a new year. Whenever the family gathers by the glow of the high-definition display and the warmth of new high-tech gear fills our homes and offices, I know it's time to take a look at what's going to happen in the world of IT in the...

Apple's Computer Roots run deep.(Letter to the Editor)
January 9, 2006... I'M CURIOUS to know if the author of the piece "Is Apple Moving Away From Its Computer Roots?" [Computerworld.com, Nov. 11] was around the first time Apple moved away from its computer roots. I remember when the clunky little Apple IIs...

SQL Server doesn't stand a chance.(Letter to the Editor)
January 9, 2006... MICROSOFT'S 2005 SQL Server database can't even handle a terabyte of data, and CEO Steve Ballmer wants to break into the enterprise market ["Ballmer Looks to Change Users' Views of SQL Server 2005." Computerworld.com, Nov. 11]. Larry Ellison...

Securing data in transit is essential.(Letter to the Editor)
January 9, 2006... SECURING DATA in storage is only one part of a complete security solution ["Getting Tough on Data Security," Computerworld.com, Nov. 10]. We secure at the perimeter and are now securing the data itself in storage and yet seem content to allow...

Get the picture: data visualization software is helping companies make decisions by making sense of mounds of information.(TECHNOLOGY)
January 9, 2006... WITH GASOLINE prices up and equipment to drill new wells backlogged, oil producers want to squeeze every drop out of existing wells. But which sites have more oil to give up? To revisit old drilling data for possible clues, Halliburton Co.'s...

Ray Kurzweil: IT will be everything: he predicts 3-D molecular computing, nanobots in the brain and intelligence for the universe.(Raymond Kurzweil)(Interview)
January 9, 2006... Inventor, writer and futurist Ray Kurzweil has been a pioneer in speech and character recognition, reading technology, music synthesis, virtual reality and artificial intelligence. He has founded nine businesses in those fields, including...

U.S. customs becomes latest security issue: a requirement to allow a server to connect to a third-party service provider via a VPN is reason for concern.(virtual private networks)(Column)
January 9, 2006... ONE OF my duties as the information security manager is to approve firewall change requests. With 17 firewalls throughout the world, reviewing such requests can take a lot of my time. I don't mind that, though, since that process makes me aware...

Security Bookshelf.(Penetration Testing and Network Defense)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 9, 2006... Penetration Testing and Network Defense, by Andrew Whitaker and Daniel Newman (Cisco Press, 2005). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Although this might seem like your typical Cisco book, the material isn't Cisco-centric at all. In fact, many of...

Two vulnerabilities hit BlackBerry.(Research in Motion Ltd., Blackberry Enterprise Server)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... Two vulnerabilities in BlackBerry Enterprise Server can permit malicious attacks that prevent users from opening e-mail attachments or disrupt the flow of information between BlackBerry Enterprise Server and BlackBerry Router, said systems...

Seagate announces two hard drives.(new products Seagate 500GB eSATA PushButton Hard Drive and 160GB Portable Hard Drive from Seagate Technology Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... Seagate Technology LLC in Scotts Valley, Calif., last week announced the first portable hard drive based on perpendicular recording technology. The vendor also announced a 500GB Serial ATA push-button backup hard drive. The Seagate 160GB...

Parlano updates MindAlign IM app.(instant messaging)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... Parlano Inc. has announced that Version 6.3 of its MindAlign enterprise instant messaging application is now available. It features enhanced secure connectivity to the AOL, Yahoo and MSN IM networks. It also offers enhanced integration with...

Microsoft still leads in corporate e-mail.(market research)(Brief Article)
January 9, 2006... Microsoft Corp. will stay at the top of the growing corporate e-mail market, thanks in part to its software's new "wireless push" capabilities, according to a new report from The Radicati Group Inc. in Palo Alto, Calif. The study revealed that...