Computerworld articles from June 2006

Computerworld archives from June 2006

Sun users left to wonder what's next: vendor plans to slash up to 5,000 jobs, cut R & D and 'simplify' product lines.(Sun Microsystems Inc.)
June 5, 2006... Sun Microsystems Inc. last week revealed plans to cut its workforce by 4,000 to 5,000, sell off some real estate, eliminate redundant R & D projects and "simplify" its product line. What the company hasn't said is what products will be...

VA takes initial steps to address security woes: agency promises to reform internal policies following massive data breach.(Department of Veterans Affairs)
June 5, 2006... The fallout from the massive security breach at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs continued last week with the appointment of a "special adviser for information security" at the agency and an announcement that the VA is firing the data...

IT execs race against time along Gulf Coast: users scramble to shore up systems as the new hurricane season starts.(University of New Orleans's information management after Hurricane Katrina)
June 5, 2006... FROM HIS office window at the University of New Orleans, Jim Burgard can see construction crews working feverishly to repair the London Avenue canal, which was breached during Hurricane Katrina last August--causing flooding on campus and...

Storms prompt new approaches inside IT.(SPECIAL REPORT)
June 5, 2006... IN ADDITION TO upgrading their data center facilities and their communications and data-backup capabilities, some IT managers are adopting new procedures that they hope will further boost the hurricane preparedness of their companies. For...

Heavy rotation of storms drives IT action in Florida, other states: Katrina, other hurricanes have far-reaching effects.(SPECIAL REPORT)
June 5, 2006... Although Hurricane Katrina's devastation of the Gulf Coast got most of the headlines last year, for obvious reasons, other hurricane-prone areas were also hit hard by storms. And even IT managers whose operations weren't seriously damaged are...

Hot-site approach runs hot and cold with users.(Gilsbar Inc. managed the disaster recovery after Hurricane Katrina)
June 5, 2006... THE DAY AFTER Hurricane Katrina rampaged through the Gulf Coast last August, Neal Hennegan, director of technology at Gilsbar Inc. in Covington, La., spent three hours walking a half mile up a tree-filled road in order to get to the...

Red Hat halts development of app server.(Red Hat Application Server )
June 5, 2006... At its annual Summit user conference here last week, Red Hat Inc. disclosed plans to halt development of its Red Hat Application Server (RHAS). The move had been anticipated since Red Hat in mid-April announced plans to buy open-source...

New flaw found in Windows software.(Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... A new flaw found in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows software could be exploited to cause a denial-of-service attack on certain applications, although the bug isn't viewed as being severe. The flaw affects the Home and Professional editions of...

Motorola to buy U.K. firm for $193M.(TTP Communications PLC)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Motorola Inc. has agreed to buy mobile phone technology developer TTP Communications PLC for $193 million. TTP already supplies technology used in Motorola mobile phone products. Motorola said it plans to retain the 575 employees of TTP, which...

SMIC plans $300M plant investment.(Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., China's largest chip maker, plans to use a $300 million loan from a consortium of Chinese banks to expand production capacity at a manufacturing plant in Tianjin. The company did not offer...

IBM unveils Tivoli asset-tracking tool.(International Business Machines Corp.'s Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager )(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... IBM has launched software that can help companies deploying virtualized computing environments more easily bill internal departments or external clients for the resources they use. The Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager is based on technology...

Cell phone security nightmare ...(data security)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... ... is looming. But CIOs can take actions to protect their end users. Victor Kouznetsov worries that as standards for handling mobile data become widely adopted by handset makers and cellular network operators, the security landscape for cell...

SaaS shrinks the software market ...(software-as-a-service)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... ... with each deal. Market research analysts may see a slowdown in overall software revenue growth as a result of IT's increasing adoption of software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings. That's the contention of Jim Howard, CEO of Los Angeles-based...

CIOs and CEOs finally find themselves ...(Chief information officers, Chief executive officers)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... ... on the same strategy page. Bruce Barlag, CEO of Balanced Scorecard Collaborative Inc., a division of Palladium Group Inc. in Lincoln, Mass., draws that conclusion from a survey of 354 high-level executives that his firm commissioned earlier...

Don't clog your corporate e-mail ...(Accellion Inc. introduced Secure File Transfer Appliance 5.0)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... ... system with large files. "The problem of sending big files is bigger than you think," says Jurgen Edholm, CEO of Accellion Inc. in Palo Alto, Calif. Indeed, many Internet service providers refuse to handle files that are over 10MB. But...

Take a good look at your ...(Tableau Software Inc. introduced information management software)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... ... business data. With so much data for analysts to sort through, they need "a living, breathing picture on top of a database," says Kevin Brown, vice president of marketing at Tableau Software Inc. in Seattle. Tableau's eponymous visual...

CA delays issuing Q4, full-year results.(BRIEFS)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... CA Inc. has delayed issuing its final fourth-quarter and 2006 full-year results and restated its third-quarter results, partly because of the impact of its new sales commission plan. The move was not expected by analysts. CA said it may have to...

Microsoft splits Sinofsky's duties.(Kurt DelBene, Antoine Leblond appointed to share Steven Sinofsky's duties)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Microsoft Corp. has created two posts that split the duties of Steven Sinofsky, the former head of its Office engineering team who now leads the Windows unit. Antoine Leblond was named corporate vice president of the new Office productivity...

AMD seeks to protect PC vendors' secrets.(Advanced Micro Devices Inc.)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has asked a Delaware judge to protect the trade secrets of PC vendors so they can testify in the company's long-running antitrust lawsuit against Intel Corp. The move is part of a June 2005 lawsuit in which AMD...

CollabNet may open its source code.(core development software )(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... CollabNet Inc. is considering whether to put some of its core development software under an open-source license or a dual-licensing model to boost its market share, said President and CEO Bill Portelli. Though he wouldn't discuss firm plans,...

Ruiz: chip advances not held back by technology; But AMD's CEO sees increasing need to balance performance, power usage.(Hector Ruiz of Advanced Micro Devices Inc.)(Interview)
June 5, 2006... THE AWARDS ceremony for the 2006 Computerworld Honors Program is being held tonight in Washington. Each year, the program recognizes organizations for using technology to promote social, economic or educational advancements. In addition,...

VMware to unveil upgrades, bundles.(VMware Infrastructure 3.0 and ESX Server )(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... VMware Inc. today is expected to unveil bundles of several upgraded server and software products that change how the company packages its virtualization tools. Among the upgrades in the new VMware Infrastructure 3 suite is support for...

California election to provide e-voting paper trail: first vote requiring compliance with new state law.(NEWS)
June 5, 2006... California tomorrow will become one of the first states to require that all voting machines produce a paper audit trail that can verify the accuracy of a tally. The audit trail is required for Tuesday's primary vote to ensure that election...

StarOffice gets hit with first virus.(Sun Microsystems Inc.)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... The first virus affecting StarOffice was detected last week, but experts say that so far it isn't being used to infect computers. Kaspersky Lab said the virus uses macros to attack the Sun Microsystems Inc. office suite. The bug does not yet...

Symantec patches software flaw.(Client Security, Antivirus Corporate Edition)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Symantec Corp. has patched a widely reported flaw in the English versions of its corporate antivirus software. The flaw could be exploited by hackers to run unauthorized software on unpatched PCs. The problem affects Versions 3.0 and above of...

Ballmer defends Microsoft R & D plans.(Steve Ballmer, research and development)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer has defended the software vendor's plan to boost its research and development budget by $2.6 billion next year--a move that Wall Street analysts fear will lower its earnings potential and result in lower...

Oracle buys Mass. Software vendor.(Demantra Inc)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Oracle Corp. has agreed to buy Demantra Inc., a maker of business applications. Terms of the deal, expected to close later this month, weren't disclosed. Waltham, Mass.-based Demantra's product line includes analytics tools that help large...

Correction.(Correction notice)
June 5, 2006... The coverage of Computerworld's Mobile & Wireless World conference in last week's News section omitted a credit for the photos that ran with the stories. The photos were taken by Marc Auster.

U.S., Europe 'certain' of continued data sharing.(An International IT News Digest)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... EUROPEAN and U.S. officials last week downplayed fears that airline flights from Europe to the U.S. might be disrupted at the end of September, when an agreement on the sharing of personal data about passengers is scheduled to expire as the...

Loss at Vodafone leads to layoffs, IT changes.(An International IT News Digest)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... VODAFONE GROUP PLC last week reported a massive loss for the fiscal year that ended March 31 and announced restructuring plans that include an overhaul of its IT organization. Nonetheless, the company said its business operations continue to...

China enacts Internet copyright regulations.(An International IT News Digest)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... INTERNET PIRATES will face fines of up to 100,000 renminbi ($12,500 U.S.) for unauthorized use of copyrighted material on the Internet under new Chinese regulations. Starting July 1, uploading or downloading copyrighted material from the...

Data thieves target German speakers.(spam email containing Trojan called Sinowal was detected)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... SPAM E-MAIL containing a password-stealing Trojan horse program surfaced last week, using a German-language pitch that claimed that an attached file was an official update to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows. The attached malware is a Trojan...

Singapore to upgrade, unify e-gov systems.(information and services)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... SINGAPORE OFFICIALS last week announced plans to spend 2 billion Singapore dollars ($1.3 billion U.S.) to overhaul the country's e-government systems in order to provide citizens with easier online access to services and data. Government...

Dell Inc.(factory in Xiamen, China )(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Dell Inc. last week opened a 55,000-square-meter factory in Xiamen, China, doubling its manufacturing capacity in the country. The facility will produce computers for customers in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong. Dell's other Chinese plant,...

Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Association.(chip sales)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... The Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Association said that chip sales by Taiwanese vendors climbed 28% in this year's first quarter to 307 billion New Taiwanese dollars ($9.6 billion U.S.). Chip makers based in Taiwan sold devices worth 240.7...

Accenture Ltd.(facility in Warsaw)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Accenture Ltd. last week announced the opening of a facility in Warsaw that will offer business process outsourcing services in more than a dozen European languages. Hamilton, Bermuda-based Accenture said the BPO center will eventually employ...

Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.(SPI Technologies Inc. acquired)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. in Makati City said it has acquired New York-based SPI Technologies Inc. as part of an effort to become the largest provider of business process outsourcing services in the Philippines. Terms of the deal...

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.(SAP AG)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. will offer a program to help businesses migrate to SAP AG's Web-based applications, under an agreement announced last week at SAP's European user conference in Paris. The agreement calls for Mumbai, India-based...

Tivoli chief expects CM databases to cut IT costs.(Al Zollar)(Interview)
June 5, 2006... IBM last week started shipping its Change and Configuration Management Database, along with three Process Manager tools. In an interview with Computerworld late last month, Al Zollar, general manager for IBM's Tivoli software unit, talked about...

Hospitals expand videoconferencing.(Alameda County Medical Center and San Francisco General Hospital)
June 5, 2006... Videoconferencing has boosted the efficiency of speech and language interpreters at two public hospitals in the San Francisco area, where patients speak 35 different languages. Three months ago, the two hospitals--Alameda County Medical...

Veterans Affair.(editorial cartoon on identity theft at the Department of Veterans Affairs)(Editorial)
June 5, 2006... ORDINARILY, I'm not bothered by letters from readers who lambaste me for something I've written or for something else that's appeared in Computerworld. I am a firm believer that the spark of truth comes from the clash of differing opinions, so...

The robust 80% solution.(OPINION)(Agility Corps. information technology management at the restaurant)(Column)
June 5, 2006... WE'VE BEEN doing this agility training for a couple of months now. Training is fine, but the reason you're here is to make it happen in the real world. So let's have a postmission debriefing on an actual agility mission I just completed. Listen...

'It'll soon shake your windows ...'.(Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Office 2007)(Column)
June 5, 2006... CHANGE CAN be good, but sometimes, no matter how good new ideas are, they don't catch on. Take the venerable keyboard arrangement. Legend has it that the QWERTY layout was adopted by typewriter vendors to keep users from typing too fast...

Certifications are of diminished value.(READERS' LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
June 5, 2006... CERTIFICATIONS ARE definitely of questionable value ["Debate Over Costs, Benefits of Certification Is Unsettled," April 17]. One problem is that when demand increases for a certification, the value in terms of salary decreases as holders of...

Free the Web of proprietary tech.(READERS' LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
June 5, 2006... CHARLES HAVEN and Bill Pratt claim in their letters that Firefox is not an alternative 100% of the time, mainly because not all Microsoft proprietary technologies are supported ["Firefox vs. IE vs. None of the Above," April 17]. That, however,...

Good UWB primer.(READERS' LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
June 5, 2006... THE APRIL 10 QuickStudy article on "Ultrawideband" wireless technology was the clearest, most cogent explanation of UWB that I have ever read! Joanne Bandlow Cleveland

The ills of 'works out of the box'.(READERS' LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
June 5, 2006... THE "WORKS out of the box" syndrome is prevalent ["Factory Settings--Insecure by Default," Technology, April 24]. I am sure many organizations have "rogue" access points because somebody went to the office supply store, bought a wireless...

Wi-Fi cellular at crossroads: the convergence of mobile networks and devices could extend coverage and simplify access, but loose ends linger.(EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES)
June 5, 2006... BUSINESSES going mobile today face a daunting array of wireless access technologies, services and devices that are fairly complex to cobble together. To maximize network coverage, for example, most large organizations must work with several...

Minds of Microsoft: you might expect Microsoft Research to concern itself with the next version of Office, and you'd be right. But an AIDS vaccine?(FUTURE WATCH)
June 5, 2006... THERE'S A JOKE at Microsoft Research that designing the next version of Microsoft Office is like ordering pizza for 100 million people. No matter how you do it, a few million of them are going to complain. But Microsoft Research (MSR)...

Saying you're wrong can feel so right: our security manager had a bad feeling about all-in-one security devices, but she bought them anyway.(SECURITY MANAGER'S JOURNAL)
June 5, 2006... I HAD A moment of brilliance this week, and it had to do with realizing that I had made a serious mistake. Yes, admitting you made a mistake can be considered brilliant if accompanied by the fix. You may have read the article in which I...

Portable storage's risks not heeded.(SECURITY LOG)(Centennial Software Ltd. survey of the companies)(Survey)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Although 91% of businesses believe that portable storage devices such as iPods and USB memory sticks pose a large security risk to corporate and network integrity, only 34% have taken steps to prevent their unauthorized use on the corporate...

New spam king.(SECURITY LOG)(Sophos PLC report)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... More spam is relayed through Asia than via any other continent, a sharp difference from two years ago, when the U.S. accounted for over half of all spam sent to the world. According to a Sophos PLC report on the top 12 spam-relaying countries...

Free site-hack monitoring offered.(SECURITY LOG)(MyWebAlert introduced online service)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Web site monitoring company MyWebAlert has launched a free service that will visit registered sites every five minutes and verify that they have not been attacked or hijacked. The service is aimed at small companies and educational institutions...

P2P case settled.(SECURITY LOG)(Federal Trade Commission and Cashier Myricks Jr.)(peer-to-peer file-sharing )(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... The Federal Trade Commission has settled with Cashier Myricks Jr. of Los Angeles, who deceptively claimed that users of peer-to-peer file-sharing programs who joined his Mp3downloadcity.com site would be able to transfer copyrighted materials...

OpenPages updates Financial Controls.(introduced Financial Controls Management 4.0)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Regulatory compliance software maker OpenPages Inc. has released Financial Controls Management 4.0 (formerly SOX Express). It includes support in six languages to help companies comply with regulations similar to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in a...

Lenovo rolls out widescreen laptop.(Lenovo 3000 V100 )(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Lenovo Group Ltd. has introduced a 4 lb. laptop for home and business use that features a 12-in., 1200-by-800-pixel screen. The widescreen Lenovo 3000 V100 is available now. Pricing starts at $1,099 for a unit with an 80GB hard drive and a...

Enterprise search system upgraded.(RecomMind Inc. introduced MindServer 4.2)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Recommind Inc. has launched Version 4.2 of its MindServer enterprise search platform. MindServer 4.2 is designed to transform large volumes of files, documents and messages contained in enterprise applications into a manageable format....

Compuware improves load-testing tool.(BRIEFS)(Compuware QALoad 5.5)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Compuware Corp. unveiled a new version of its performance-testing tool that's designed to increase productivity. Compuware QALoad 5.5 is an automated load-testing tool for Web, Java, .Net and packaged enterprise applications. New features...

In search of the information kilowatt.(virtuak machines)(Microsoft Corp.)(Column)
June 5, 2006... THE DA VINCI CODE recalls the human fascination with the elusive Holy Grail and its promise to answer a lot of big questions. Electronic souls catch a glimpse of the information Holy Grail revealed in the virtual machine, which offers the...

Remote control: how Marriott manages outsourced projects.(MANAGEMENT)
June 5, 2006... YOU CAN OUTSOURCE A PROJECT, but you can never outsource management of a project. As outsourcing has grown to be a major tool in business projects, that maxim has been touted widely. But the devil's in the details. How, exactly, do you manage...

Toughest tasks: five IT chiefs talk about the most difficult challenges they've ever faced at work--and the lessons they learned.(MANAGEMENT)
June 5, 2006... Systems fail. Employees burn out. Vendors disappoint. But it's those tough times that teach you how to lead. Five Fortune 500 IT executives recently told us what they learned from the most challenging experiences of their careers. 1 JIM...

Offshoring opens up: the offshore outsourcing hot spots of the past decade may not be the only choice--or even the best.(MANAGEMENT)(Diana Farrell of McKinsey and Company Inc.)(Interview)
June 5, 2006... The popularity of some offshore outsourcing venues has come at a price. IT wages in Moscow have soared by 50% in the past few years. Banking industry IT turnover in some cities in India exceeds 30%, and hiring IT talent has become a nightmare,...

New cert for sec.(Career Watch)(Information Systems Security Engineering Professional certificate for IT workers)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... The American National Standards Institute has accredited (ISC)[.sup.2]'s Information Systems Security Engineering Professional (ISSEP) credential. According to (ISC)[.sup.2] (the International Information Systems Security Certification...

IT employment in the high-tech sector.(Career Watch)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... 2006 5.6M 2001 6.5M Note: Table made from bar graph. NOTE: The 2006 figure represents a 1% increase from the previous year, the first time since 2001 that the number of IT jobs has increased. SOURCE: AMERICAN ELECTRONICS...

Seeking STARS.(Career Watch)(Students and Technology in Academia, Research and Service got finance from National Science Foundation)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... A consortium of 10 colleges, mostly in the Southeast, has received a $2 million National Science Foundation grant to recruit a diverse group of students to earn college degrees in IT, computer science and other computing fields. The STARS...

Dan Reynolds.(of The Brokers Group LLC)(Interview)
June 5, 2006... TITLE: CEO ORGANIZATION: The Brokers Group LLC, Princeton, N.J. By most accounts, the economy is on an upward trajectory, with corporate profits growing, unemployment rates low and demand for skilled labor--including business-savvy...

Data bank.(survey of workers salaries by Hudson Highland Group Inc.)(Table)(Survey)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... 72% U.S. workers who say they are very or somewhat satisfied with their compensation. 44% Say they would change their mix of cash and benefits if they could. 33% Say they want a flexible schedule. 26% Work for an organization...

Under threat of litigation: how to survive a software audit.(Robert J. Scott of Scott & Scott LLP)(Interview)
June 5, 2006... "There are two types of companies: those that have been audited [for software violations] and those that will be." So says Robert J. Scott, the managing partner of legal and technology services firm Scott & Scott LLP. Recent settlement fines...

Software licensing.(EVENTS)
June 5, 2006... June 19-20, New York Sponsor: American Conference Institute This conference includes topics such as preventing domestic and international privacy violations, negotiating risk allocation provisions, defining the scope of licensing...

Project management.(EVENTS)
June 5, 2006... June 19-21, Pittsburgh Sponsor: CMU's CIO Institute Complex IT Project Management is a three-day course at Carnegie Mellon University worth 21 professional development units for project management professionals. Topics include defining...

CIO symposium.(EVENTS)
June 5, 2006... June 21, Cambridge, Mass. Sponsor: MIT's Sloan School of Management This conference includes three tracks. The "CIO as CEO of IT" track covers how CIOs manage people and their teams, and how CIOs manage interaction with the rest of the...

IT performance measurement.(EVENTS)
June 5, 2006... June 26-28, Philadelphia Sponsor: International Quality & Productivity Center This conference includes presentations on designing and developing meaningful metrics, using metrics to align IT to customer objectives, using a strategy map...

When life intrudes on the workplace.(MANAGEMENT)(managers strategy)(Column)
June 5, 2006... OVER THE YEARS, I've come to the conclusion that a critical measure of a manager isn't always found in hard metrics, productivity or profit, but in humanity. I've also learned that this humanity often shows itself best when life intrudes on the...

Have you unlocked the true Value of Business Intelligence? Computerworld's IT Management Summit can show you how.
June 5, 2006... July 26, 2006 * New York, New York The Rainbow Room * NBC Building, 64th Floor * Pegasus Suite Unlocking the Value of Business Intelligence: Keys to Maximizing Business Performance 8:00am to 8:30am Registration and Networking...

Microsoft to expand BI plan.(acquires ProClarity Corp.)
June 5, 2006... Microsoft Corp. this week plans to unveil an updated business intelligence strategy that includes its first business process management (BPM) offerings. The BPM family will feature new dashboard tools and analytic applications for...

Vista opportunity.(Microsoft Windows Vista)(Column)
June 5, 2006... YOU'RE about to get a rare opportunity. Oh, not this week, or even this year. But sometime next year, you'll likely start rolling out Windows Vista. That's when you'll have the opportunity to make your end users truly loathe you--or make them...

A little TOO efficient.(SHARK TANK)(Column)
June 5, 2006... Support pilot fish chastises an executive assistant for the sloppy organization of files on her PC, and the user promises to clean things up. Next morning, fish gets a call: "She said I'd be really proud of her because she cleaned up her...

HP sets limits on telework by IT staffers: Mott pulls employees back to offices; move aligns with his goals, say CIOs.(NEWS)(Hewlett-Packard Co)
June 12, 2006... An eyebrow-raising decision by Hewlett-Packard Co. to put a stop to telecommuting by some of its IT staffers isn't a signal that the idea of working from home is falling out of favor at large companies. But it does show that telecommuting has...

Costs slow adoption of e-health record systems: Health care providers see promise of payoffs but face initial funding hurdles.(NEWS)
June 12, 2006... While some physician practices and regional health IT partnerships have successfully adopted electronic medical record systems, many others are still struggling to absorb the implementation costs. That was the message from several speakers...

Award winners tap technology for greater good: ten organizations receive honors for their use of IT in projects that break new ground.
June 12, 2006... THE 2006 Computerworld Honors Program awards ceremony focused attention last week on some of the world's most cutting-edge IT projects, including a grid computing initiative managed by David Milne, director of database technologies at Chicago...

Cisco ends reseller contract with EMC.(Cisco Systems Inc., EMC Corp. (Hopkinton, Massachusetts))(Brief article)
June 12, 2006... Cisco Systems Inc. has put the brakes on a reseller agreement under which it offered rebranded versions of EMC Corp.'s network-attached storage (NAS) devices. Cisco said halting sales of the NAS products "is an initial step in our restructuring...

Stolen data leads to identity thefts.(University of Michigan Credit Union)(Brief article)
June 12, 2006... The University of Michigan Credit Union in Ann Arbor confirmed that a data theft has resulted in some of its members becoming identity theft victims. The credit union said that so far, "less than 100" people have had their identities...

IBM sets July date for DB2 upgrade.(International Business Machines Corp.)
June 12, 2006... IBM formally announced its DB2 9 database, previously code-named Viper, and said the hybrid relational and XML technology will be shipped worldwide on July 28. DB2 9 will be able to natively store and manage not only structured relational data...

Short takes.(Cisco Systems Inc.'s John Chambers becomes chairman)(Electronic Data Systems Corp. buys stake in Mphasis BFL Ltd.)(Brief article)
June 12, 2006... JOHN CHAMBERS, president and CEO of Cisco since 1995, will become chairman in November while continuing as CEO. Cisco doesn't plan to immediately name a new president.... ELECTRONIC DATA SYSTEMS CORP. said it has succeeded in its effort to buy...