Computerworld articles from June 2007

Computerworld archives from June 2007

IT execs gird for hurricane season: ready to test upgrades implemented after 2005 disasters.(NEWS)
June 4, 2007... While bracing his IT systems to weather another hurricane season, Max Prather can't help but recall just how swiftly undetected weak points in his IT disaster recovery plan were cracked by Hurricane Katrina. "We thought we were prepared...

Update gives IT services guidelines a wider reach: new version of ITIL puts focus on strategic issues, not just operations.(IT Infrastructure Library vol. 2)
June 4, 2007... The IT Infrastructure Library, a best-practices guide to managing technology operations as a set of services, may face higher levels of scrutiny as it attempts to delve deeper into IT management issues via an update released last week. ...

Dell to lay off 8,800 workers to cut costs.(AT DEADLINE)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... While reporting a $759 million profit for the third quarter, Dell Inc. announced it will lay off 10% of its 88,100 workers. Both its profit and revenue of $14.6 billion in the quarter were well above Wall Street analysts' expectations. Dell...

ChoicePoint settles states' complaints.(AT DEADLINE)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... ChoicePoint Inc. has agreed to pay $500,000 in fines and change the way it screens new customers under a settlement with 43 states and the District of Columbia over complaints about a 2004 data breach. The data broker disclosed in early 2005...

IBM cuts 1,500 services workers.(International Business Machines Corp.)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... IBM has laid off 1,573 employees as part of an overhaul of its services unit. Most of the layoffs came from IBM's North American services operation. In April, Chief Financial Officer Mark Loughridge announced that the company was planning to...

Brocade to pay $7M SEC penalty.(AT DEADLINE)(Brocade Communications Systems Inc., Securities and Exchange Commission)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... Brocade Communications Systems Inc. has agreed to pay a $7 million penalty to settle charges of stock-option backdating fraud. The payment concludes a civil action brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Brocade said it does not...

Credit unions bank on state data-security laws: groups push bills to protect payment card info, get retailer reimbursements.(NEWS)(California Credit Union League)
June 4, 2007... AS AN increasing number of states consider bills seeking to codify pieces of the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard into law, a common thread is emerging: the involvement of credit unions in pushing the legislation. ...

Online thefts draw fast response from city hall: treasurer spots illegal transfers; security tightened.(NEWS)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... An online thief or group of thieves stole $449,000 from a bank account that belongs to the city of Carson, Calif., last month, likely using a Trojan horse program placed on the city treasurer's laptop to gain access to the required username and...

Top IT exec says feds look to be leading-edge on tech.(Q & A)(Karen Evans of the White House Office of Management and Budget)(Interview)
June 4, 2007... Karen Evans is the U.S. government's top IT executive--essentially, its de facto CIO. Her official title is administrator of the office of electronic government and IT at the White House Office of Management and Budget. Evans, who is also...

$12M IT upgrade links remote Nevada prisons: WAN accelerators speed satellite communications.(Nevada Department of Corrections, wide area networks)
June 4, 2007... Faced with remote desert locations and lacking an overall network infrastructure, the Nevada Department of Corrections is turning to a satellite-based network combined with a key add-on--WAN acceleration appliances--to connect 24 prisons across...

Motorola plans to cut 4,000 more workers.(BRIEFS)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... Motorola Inc. has announced that it will lay off 4,000 workers as part of a cost-cutting program started in January. The company also said a previously announced layoff of 3,500 workers will be completed by June 30. Motorola said that the...

SAP names CTO in realignment.(BRIEFS)(Vishal Sikka, chief technology officer)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... SAP AG has named Vishal Sikka as its first chief technology officer. The appointment of Sikka, previously senior vice president and chief software architect at SAP, is the latest move in a reorganization prompted by the resignation two months...

OMB calls for fed security plans.(BRIEFS)(White House Office of Management and Budget)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... The White House Office of Management and Budget has announced that federal agencies have 120 days to develop and implement their own security breach notification policies. U.S. agencies have been instructed to review their use of personally...

Private equity firm to purchase CDW.(BRIEFS)(Madison Dearborn Partners LLC)
June 4, 2007... Computer reseller CDW Corp. has agreed to be acquired by private equity investment firm Madison Dearborn Partners LLC for $7.3 billion. The deal is expected to close by the end of the third quarter. Since negotiations with Madison Dearborn were...

Unified messaging calls get ...(technology use)
June 4, 2007... Unified Messaging Calls Get... a busy signal from top management. After six years of successful but limited deployment of unified messaging at AAA East Central, Mike Gladish is still getting the go-slow message from senior executives. Gladish,...

Before you hit the road ...(ON THE MARK)(Autobytel Inc.'s search engine)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... Before you hit the road... check out MyRide.com. Americans' love affair with their cars is legendary. (That's why we need all those AAA maps.) In fact, according to Mark Canon, chief product officer at Autobytel Inc. in Irvine, Calif., people...

Road warriors wreak havoc ...(ON THE MARK)(Itronix Corp.'s notebooks)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... Road warriors wreak havoc... on their notebooks. That was the impetus for Spokane, Wash.-based Itronix Corp. to design its semirugged GoBook VR-2 notebook and its fully rugged cousin, the MR-1. These computers can handle extreme temperatures,...

Get traffic intelligence ...(ON THE MARK)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... Get traffic intelligence... and get it in real time. If your business is dependent on workers driving from Point A to Point B, Marc Prioleau, vice president of marketing at deCarta Inc. in San Jose, thinks you need better data to plot routes...

Microsoft postpones developer event.(Professional Developers Conference )(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... Microsoft Corp. has scrapped plans to hold its Professional Developers Conference this October in Los Angeles. The company said the event will be held at a later, as-yet-unannounced date that is "better timed with the next wave of platform...

Google confirms FTC probe into deal.(BRIEFS)(Federal Trade Commission, DoubleClick Inc. merger)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... Google Inc. has confirmed that the Federal Trade Commission is investigating its proposed $3.1 billion purchase of online advertising seller DoubleClick Inc. Google said it is confident that the FTC will approve the deal. An FTC spokesman...

BMC to purchase analytics vendor.(BRIEFS)(ProactiveNet Inc.)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... BMC Software Inc. has agreed to buy ProactiveNet Inc. as part of an effort to extend the analytics offerings in its line of business service management tools. Terms of the deal, which is expected to close within 30 days, were not disclosed....

Cisco completes $3.2B WebEx buy.(BRIEFS)(Cisco Systems Inc., WebEx Communications Inc.)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... Cisco Systems Inc. has completed its $3.2 billion acquisition of WebEx Communications Inc. Cisco said that it will maintain WebEx's business model of selling subscriptions for Web-based collaboration services. WebEx will become a wholly owned...

Computer glitch cancels Japan flights.(An International IT News Digest)(All Nippon Airways Company Ltd.)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... HUNDREDS OF domestic flights in Japan were canceled or delayed last week because of a computer glitch at All Nippon Airways Co. The glitch hit data flowing between the Tokyo-based airline's main reservations host computer and intermediate...

EU official expects airline data pact.(An International IT News Digest)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... EUROPEAN DATA Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx said late last month that he expects the U.S. and the European Union to reach an agreement on how to share information about passengers flying across the Atlantic--but not by their July...

NEC employees, firms faked software orders.(An International IT News Digest)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... A GROUP OF 10 employees at Tokyo-based NEC Corp. worked with 17 contractors to fraudulently inflate the company's costs by $18 million over seven years ending in March 2006, the company disclosed last week. The news comes just a year after...

Germany strengthens antihacking laws.(An International IT News Digest)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... THE GERMAN government has approved a law that strengthens earlier legislation aimed at preventing hacker attacks on IT systems. The legislation, approved late last month, aims to crack down on a sharp rise in computer attacks in both the...

Australian agency set for switch to Linux.(An International IT News Digest)(New South Wales Department of State and Regional Development seeks bids)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... THE NEW South Wales Department of State and Regional Development is seeking bids from vendors for a project to replace Novell NetWare-based systems with servers running open-source Linux software. The department has solicited bids from 23...

109M.(GLOBAL FACT)(broadband subscribers )(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... 109M Number of broadband subscribers in the Asia-Pacific region in 2006, up 25% from 2005. SOURCE: IN-STAT, SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ.

LogicaCMG.(Briefly Noted)(Martin Read retires)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... Martin Read last week announced plans to retire as CEO of LogicaCMG after 14 years at the helm of the IT services firm. The move came just days after London-based Logica issued a warning that its latest quarterly results won't meet estimates...

Nokia Corp.(Briefly Noted)(to open research center with Tsinghua University )(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... Nokia Corp. last week announced plans to open a research center in China that will be jointly operated with Tsinghua University in Beijing. The research center will be the first opened in Asia by Espoo, Finland-based Nokia. The partners will...

Microsoft Corp.(contract with the Australian Department of Defence )(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer late last month signed an enterprise license agreement with the Australia Department of Defence during a 24-hour stopover in the country. The agreement upgrades the department's support plan and calls for...

United Microelectronics Corp.(Briefly Noted)(opened a new nanotechnology lab in Taiwan)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... United Microelectronics Corp. has opened a nanotechnology lab in southern Taiwan to develop chip-production technologies that are 45 nanometers in size and smaller. The $1 billion New Taiwan ($30 million U.S.) lab will eventually employ more...

Cybertrust Inc.(Briefly Noted)(service against computer crimes)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... Sydney-based Cybertrust Inc. has launched an Asia-Pacific investigative response team to help companies deal with a range of security attacks, breaches and fraudulent activities. The three-person team specializes in identifying the source of a...

Digital library director says innovation, leadership require more than a vision: executing on ideas can be a big hurdle for project teams, award recipient says.(NEWS)(Laura Campbell, 2007 EMC Information Leadership Award)(Interview)
June 4, 2007... Laura Campbell, who works at the Library of Congress as associate librarian for strategic initiatives and director of the National Digital Library Program, is the recipient of the 2007 EMC Information Leadership Award. The award is given...

Steve Mills: the senior vice president and group executive of IBM's software group talks about the benefits of open-source software, Web 2.0 tools for business and taking programming for granted.(THE GRILL)(Interview)
June 4, 2007... In the 1990s, IBM made a big push into services but now seems to be placing more emphasis on software. Is that right? Over the past 20 years, we have been increasing our investment in software pretty steadily, so there's nothing new in the...

New Hampshire legislators say no to Real ID program: governor set to sign bill that rejects state's compliance with federal law.(NEWS)
June 4, 2007... NEW HAMPSHIRE is poised to become the latest of a handful of states to enact a law banning implementation of the federal national identification act. The Real ID bill, whose evolving guidelines were last updated in March by the U.S....

A new talent pool?(Viewpoint essay)
June 4, 2007... I HATE computer games. What's more, it's a hate born of ignorance, because I know almost nothing about computer games. The last one I played was Pong, and my interest in that waned rapidly because it demanded far too much hand-eye coordination....

IT's thinking but not yet acting green.(Viewpoint essay)
June 4, 2007... INFORMATION technology is going green. At least IT systems vendors are, with announcements of new energy-efficient servers, data center power and cooling products, and device recycling initiatives coming thick and fast these days. But...

Online chatter: excerpts from readers' comments on stories at Computerworld.com.(OPINION)
June 4, 2007... RESPONSES TO: Offshoring Isn't Just About the Money, Survey Suggests MAY 14, 2007 Of Course It's About Money American executives are now incapable of original thought. Their whole perspective is one of cost-cutting. Not...

Web 2.0 goes corporate: tools like wikis and podcasts can provide significant advantages to a business. But CIOs have been slow to embrace these lightweight Web technologies.(STRATEGIES & TACTICS)
June 4, 2007... FOR JEFF HERRMANN, co-director of research at investment company Manning & Napier Advisors Inc., the impetus to invest in Web 2.0 came abruptly late last summer. That's when one of Herrmann's analysts left the company--and much of his recent...

She got game: women bring fresh insights to computer gaming. The industry needs more of them.(STRATEGIES & TACTICS)(Report)
June 4, 2007... SUSIE WEE knows that gaming technology is crucial to the corporate world. As director of the Mobile and Media Systems Lab at Hewlett-Packard Co., Wee worked on the company's Panoply project. Panoply uses technology to create an "immersive"...

Great expectations: an otherwise perfect project may go down as a failure if it's not what users anticipated. Here's how to prevent unhappy endings.(STRATEGIES & TACTICS)
June 4, 2007... LIKE OTHER IT MANAGERS, Dom Gugliotti knows how tough it can be to properly set business executives' expectations for big IT projects. So four years ago, when Gugliotti's employer, Northeast Utilities, embarked on a massive effort to...

Search engine optimization.(QUICK STUDY)
June 4, 2007... IF YOU HAVE a public Web site, you want people to visit it. Whether its function is to disseminate information, promote shopping or other commercial transactions, or generate advertising revenue, your site won't be effective if no one sees it....

Sometimes, you just can't avoid politics: it's especially difficult when you work in a state agency and a new governor and his newly appointed top IT people are talking about consolidation.(SECURITY MANAGER'S JOURNAL)
June 4, 2007... WHEN A new governor comes into office, you have to expect changes if you work for a state agency. For the new administration in my state, budget cuts were the first thing on the agenda. I had to slash my budget proposal by 16%, just like...

Even IT pros fail to secure passwords.(SECURITY LOG)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... Most companies mismanage administrative passwords by keeping them in unsecured locations and not controlling access to them, according to a survey by Cyber-Ark Software Ltd. The results show that 57% of companies store their administrative...

Engineer devises cheap encryption.(SECURITY LOG)(Laszlo Kish)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... Laszlo Kish, an engineer at Texas A & M University, has devised a seemingly foolproof and cheap way to encrypt messages using the natural noise caused by electrons flowing along a wire. Data messages can be sent intermittently and camouflaged...

Phishing sites spike in April.(SECURITY LOG)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... The number of phishing Web URLs nearly tripled from March to April, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group. The APWG, an association of more than 1,600 companies and government agencies, said cybercriminals tried to overwhelm antiphishing...

Wireless VoIP drives auto dealership: new technology frees the sales force and boosts customer service at Kings Toyota.(STRATEGIES & TACTICS)(voice-over-IP system)
June 4, 2007... WHEN KINGS TOYOTA built its 68,000-square-foot new-car showroom--the largest Toyota showroom in the U.S.--across the street from its existing facility last summer, a new wireless voice-over-IP system from SpectraLink Corp. was so integral to...

Martin-Flickinger to head IT at Adobe.(Gerri Martin-Flickinger appointed by Adobe Systems Inc.)(information technology)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... GERRI MARTIN-FLICKINGER has been named senior vice president and CIO at Adobe Systems Inc. She will report to Mark Garrett, Adobe's executive vice president and chief financial officer. Martin-Flickinger was previously CIO at VeriSign Inc.,...

Butler chosen as CIO at Norfolk Southern.(Deborah H. Butler named Chief Informations Officer)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... DEBORAH H. BUTLER has been named CIO and executive vice president for planning at Norfolk Southern Corp. She will report to CEO Wick Moorman. Butler joined the Norfolk, Va.-based transportation company in 1978 and has served in various...

Coady tapped as CIO at Frontier Airlines.(Gerry Coady appointed as chief information officer)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... GERRY COADY has joined Denver-based Frontier Airlines Holdings Inc. as vice president and CIO. He will report to Chief Financial Officer Paul Tate. Previously, Coady was chief technology officer at Evident Software Inc. and chief IT officer at...

Pacheco to serve as Archer Daniels' CTO.(Micheal A. Pacheco appointed as Chief Technology Officer at Archer Daniels Midland Co.)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... MICHAEL A. PACHECO will join Archer Daniels Midland Co. in Decatur, Ill., as CTO and a member of the strategic planning committee. He will report to Chairman and CEO Patricia Woertz. Previously, Pacheco was director of the U.S. Department of...

ADC appoints Jurasek CIO.(Christopher Jurasek appointed at ADC Telecommunications Inc.as Chief Information Officer )(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... CHRISTOPHER JURASEK has been appointed CIO at ADC Telecommunications Inc., a Minneapolis-based firm that provides networking services. Previously, Jurasek was vice president of customer service and logistics and CIO at Rexnord Corp.

IT, we have a problem--revisited.(STRATEGIES & TACTICS)(information technology)(Column)
June 4, 2007... IN A RECENT COLUMN (Nov. 27,2006), I chronicled my frustration while serving as a guest lecturer in a management of information systems technology MBA class at a local university. My topic had been IT governance. As I wrote here, I had...

IT group says online election may have been compromised: e-mail cites possible database access, says voting process is being probed.(information technology)
June 4, 2007... An online election that was held last October to choose a new board of directors for the U.S. chapter of the IT Service Management Forum (ITSMF) may have been compromised, and the professional association is now investigating the voting...

Kaffeeklatsch PC.(FRANKLY SPEAKING)(Microsoft Corp. diversifies into furniture business)
June 4, 2007... AND NOW, the Microsoft coffee table. Don't kid yourself; Microsoft is going into the furniture business. The product that Microsoft unveiled last week under the name "Surface" isn't a technology, a reference design, a user interface, an...

A little knowledge.(computer log in)(Column)
June 4, 2007... New coordinator at this county lockup says he can't log into the network. "The help desk tech asks him to verify his password, make sure the caps lock is not on and try again," reports a pilot fish watching it all. "User says it's still not...

Microsoft gains political edge in ODF battles: bills requiring open document formats fail in five states after heavy lobbying.(OpenDocument Format)
June 11, 2007... A bill introduced last week in the New York legislature would require the state's IT director to study the issue of using open document formats within government agencies. If the measure passes, New York will become the latest state to consider...

School IT's assignment: obey e-discovery rules; Districts face heavy summer workload to comply with new federal regulations.
June 11, 2007... School districts nationwide face a difficult IT assignment this summer: to create systems that ensure they are compliant with new federal regulations on electronic discovery. Updates to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which took...

IT users make noble causes achievable: ten organizations receive awards for projects that focus on more than profits or cost savings.(Harold Skow, director of IT for the Navajo Nation to lead multiyear project, bring internet access to residents, Navajo Nation)
June 11, 2007... THE NAVAJO Nation falls between West Virginia and South Carolina in terms of total land area. But its 27,000 square miles are home to only about 250,000 people, many of whom are still waiting for a chance to access the Internet. If all...

Microsoft to issue four critical patches.(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Microsoft Corp. tomorrow plans to issue six security patches, including four designed to fix critical flaws in Windows or integrated applications such as Internet Explorer, Outlook Express and Windows Mail. Less-critical updates will be...

Qualcomm hit with ban on U.S. imports.(U.S. International Trade Commission)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... The U.S. International Trade Commission barred imports of future mobile phones and handheld devices that contain certain Qualcomm Inc. chips. The ruling follows the ITC's finding late last year that Qualcomm had infringed on a power management...

Indian firm to pay H-1B back wages.(Patni Computer Systems Ltd., agreement with the U.S. Department of Labor)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Patni Computer Systems Ltd. will pay $2.4 million in back wages to 607 H-1B workers under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Labor. The agency said the Mumbai, India-based IT services firm failed to pay prevailing wages to the workers...

Short takes.(NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, Social Security numbers and other personal data exposed, Microsoft Corp. acquired Stratature Inc.)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY said a breach of one of its systems may have exposed the Social Security numbers and other personal data of about 4,000 people. The security breach, discovered on June 1, was the second reported by the school within the...

Retailers fuming over card data security rules: claim PCI standard shifts burden to them, could alienate customers.(Payment Card Industry)
June 11, 2007... SEVERAL RETAILERS last week bristled at having to comply with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard, complaining that they carry an unfair burden in securing credit card data. In interviews and speeches at the annual...

Ohio U. creates IT advisory council.(Ohio University, information technology)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Ohio University has set up an IT advisory council as part of its efforts to improve data security following a series of high-profile system intrusions. The council is made up of faculty members, staffers, students and university officials, plus...

IBM to buy security auditing tool maker.(International Business Machines Corp. to purchase Watchfire Corp.)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... IBM has agreed to purchase Watchfire Corp., a developer of auditing tools. Terms of the deal, set to close in the third quarter, weren't disclosed. Watchfire sells software that can identify vulnerabilities in Web applications and audit sites...

Equity firm acquires 25% stake in Palm.(Elevation Partners to buy a 25% stake in Palm Inc.)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Private equity firm Elevation Partners plans to buy a 25% stake in Palm Inc. for $325 million as part of a recapitalization plan initiated by the struggling mobile device maker. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter. At that time,...

Short takes.(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... SUN MICROSYSTEMS INC. introduced a line of blade servers that can run on multiple processors, including Intel Corp.'s Xeon chip--Sun's first use of Xeon under an alliance it signed with Intel in January.... GOOGLE INC. has acquired PeakStream...

Mobile tools migrate from ...(ON THE MARK)(RakWeb service from Raketu Communications Inc.)(Mobivox Corp.'s VoxGirl)
June 11, 2007... Mobile Tools Migrate From... kids to mainstream business operations. IT has always had to contend with consumer gadgets sneaking into the office. But mobile devices and services are blurring all distinctions between what is serious business...

SaaS + SOA = ...(Jim Howard of CrownPeak Technology Inc. on service oriented architecture)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Saas + SOA =... fewer jobs. So argues Jim Howard, CEO of CrownPeak Technology Inc., a content-management service in Los Angeles. He says that companies once needed hordes of programmers who could work with vendor APIs to integrate legacy...

But if you must write code ...(Programming languages, trends)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... But if you must write code... get on the Rails road. Programming languages are always getting eased out by newcomers. Cobol edged out Fortran. C clobbered Cobol. Java jousted with C++. Today, Ruby on Rails is routing PHP, or so its proponents...

Get a better sense ...(ON THE MARK)(6th Sense Analytics Inc.)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Get a better sense... of what your developers do. 6th Sense Analytics Inc. in Morrisville, N.C., today will update its SaaS offering for keeping tabs on programmer productivity. Jake Sorofman, vice president of marketing, says 6th Sense puts a...

Mark Shuttleworth: the founder of Ubuntu Linux talks about free software for the masses, cultural tidal waves and building rockets in his parents' kitchen.(THE GRILL)(Interview)
June 11, 2007... Mark Shuttleworth made news in 2002 when he fulfilled a lifelong ambition and became the first South African to travel into space, paying $20 million to be a civilian cosmonaut on an eight-day flight aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. In 2004,...

Hardware woes crash bank IT systems.(An International IT News Digest)(Royal Bank of Scotland PLC)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... THE ROYAL BANK of Scotland Group PLC blamed a computer hardware problem for shutting down its online and telephone banking operations as well as cash machines throughout the U.K. earlier this month. The financial services firm, whose...

Staffing firm launches ERP implementation.(An International IT News Digest)(Skilled Group uses Enterprise resource planning software from Agresso Ltd.)(Logica-CMG PLC)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... THE SKILLED GROUP, a staffing services provider here, is in the process of implementing a multimillion-dollar ERP system from Bristol, England-based Agresso Ltd. London-based services firm Logica-CMG PLC will build, test and integrate...

New Zealand school buys IBM Blue Gene.(An International IT News Digest)(University of Canterbury)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... THE UNIVERSITY of Canterbury has agreed to become the first research institution in the southern hemisphere to purchase an IBM Blue Gene supercomputer. The acquisition of the Blue Gene/L supercomputer was approved by the university's...

[euro]2.3B.(amount of venture capital invested in IT industry)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... [euro]2.3B Amount of venture capital invested in start-up IT companies in Europe in 2006. SOURCE: LIBRARY HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND

Red Hat Inc.(will train federal IT staff of Kerala government)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Red Hat Inc. has agreed to train government IT staffs in the Indian state of Kerala to develop and maintain open-source applications. The Kerala government in January announced a draft IT policy that called for the use of open-source software...

Flextronics International Ltd.(acquired Solectron Corp.)(Brief article)
June 11, 2007... Flextronics International Ltd. in Singapore last week agreed to acquire rival Solectron Corp. to create an electronics manufacturing services powerhouse with more than $30 billion in annual revenue. The deal, valued at $3.6 billion in cash and...

Dell Inc.(opened a reseach and development facility in Bangalore)
June 11, 2007... Dell Inc. late last month opened a 200,000-square-foot R & D facility in Bangalore, India, that can house a staff of up to 1,000. The new facility is part of Dell's plan to develop enterprise servers, storage systems and software in India. ...

Climate changers.(cyber warfare)(Editorial)
June 11, 2007... A STORY that was posted on our Web site two weeks ago about China developing cyberwarfare first-strike capabilities created quite a stir, and a couple of readers were curious about my take on the development. One said he would be interested in...

Open-source desktop is almost here.(OPINION)(Column)
June 11, 2007... IS 2008 the year of the open-source desktop? Red Hat Linux is now widely deployed on the servers in my data center. Users have no idea what operating system underlies our Web applications and databases, nor do they care, as long as those tools...

BPM for the responsive enterprise.(business process management)
June 11, 2007... WE LIVE in a global economy, where continuous incremental change is the name of the game. Gone are the days when companies could hope to prosper by just doing the same things and making the same products over and over. Successful products and...