Computerworld articles from March 2003

Computerworld archives from March 2003

BEA unifies its software development environment: upgraded version of WebLogic suite converges integration and building of homegrown apps.
March 3, 2003... To kick off its annual eWorld conference, BEA Systems Inc. today will unveil beta versions of its new suite of WebLogic software products, including its application server, enterprise portal and integration broker technologies. But...

CRM analytics starts to pay off for users: Siebel, other vendors put priority on built-in tools after slow start.
March 3, 2003... The use of analytical customer relationship management software is still in its infancy. But some companies that have been willing to give the technology a shot say their investments are paying off. For example, Honeywell Aerospace is...

IBM defends pricing model: plans to keep, improve mainframe Workload License Charge.
March 3, 2003... IBM remains fully committed to its Workload License Charge mainframe software pricing model and will continue to try to make it easier for users to implement it. That was the message delivered by an IBM executive at the Share large-systems user...

IBM signs $1B IT services deal. (At Deadline).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... IBM announced a six-year IT services deal valued at about $1 billion with AXA Group, a Paris-based insurance and financial services firm. The companies said IBM will consolidate AXA's servers, mainframes and storage devices into an "on-demand"...

IETF to research antispam measures. (At Deadline).(Internet Engineering Task Force )(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) said it has set up an antispam research group to investigate new ways to help users block unsolicited commercial e-mail. The group will explore the development of a common architecture for detecting...

Sun plans CPUs with multiple cores. (At Deadline).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... At a meeting with financial analysts, Sun Microsystems Inc. outlined plans to develop chip multithreading processors, starting with an UltraSPARC IV device due later this year. Sun said it will put multiple CPU cores that can each...

EMC Corp. (Short Takes).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... EMC CORP. in Hopkinton, Mass., added Gigabit Ethernet support and new disk drives to its Symmetrix 8000 storage arrays and announced models optimized for use with mainframes.

Lucent Technologies Inc. (Short Takes).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES INC. in Murray Hills, N.J., signed an agreement in principle to settle an accounting probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

IBM upgrades business integration technology: WebSphere tools reduce need for Java programming skills. (News).(WebSphere Business Integration Server 4.2)
March 3, 2003... IBM IS ENHANCING its Web-Sphere middleware technology in an effort to simplify the task of creating and monitoring data and business-process workflows through corporate systems. This week, IBM will announce an upgrade of its WebSphere...

Cisco builds rugged switch to link factory, back office. (News).(Cisco Catalyst 2955 )
March 3, 2003... In a move aimed at unifying factory-floor networks with the ones m corporate back offices, Cisco Systems Inc. will unveil today at the National Manufacturing Week show in Chicago a ruggedized line of switches based on IP and Ethernet. The...

Navy's massive Intranet rollout OK'd: some users still cite costs, other concerns. (News).
March 3, 2003... The U.S. Navy confirmed last week that the Pentagon has given it the go-ahead to move as many as 310,000 Navy and Marine Corps IT users to the Navy/Marine Corps Intranet (N/MCI). The decision comes after months of operational testing that...

UPS readies wireless upgrade in U.S.: 50,000 drivers to get new info terminals. (News).
March 3, 2003... United Parcel Service Inc. will deploy higher-speed wireless services to its U.S. delivery fleet this year, starting with retrofitting 4,500 driver data terminals with modems that support AT&T Wireless Services Inc.'s General Packet Radio...

Ford to slash IT budget by $300m. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... Ford Motor Co. said it's cuffing its IT budget by about $300 million as part of a cost-reduction initiative that began. early last year. The cutbacks will lower Ford's IT spending by 20% and may include layoffs of some of its 2,800 contract IT...

HP results hit by weak U.S. sales. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... Hewlett-Packard Co. reported lower-than-expected financial results for its first quarter and pinned most of the blame on continued weak IT spending in the U.S. HP said it had a $721 million profit on revenue of $17.9 billion in the quarter,...

CERT, IT vendors warn of SIP flaw. (Briefs).(Session Initiation Protocol)(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... The CERT Coordination Center in Pittsburgh warned about a software flaw that could affect networking devices with support for the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Analysts and IT vendors said users haven't reported any problems as a result of...

Dell Computer Corp. (Short Takes).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... DELL COMPUTER CORP. CEO. Michael Dell said at a conference that the company will announce its first Dell-branded printers this month....

Divine Inc. (Short Takes).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... DIVINE INC., a Chicago-based software and IT services vendor, filed for Chapter 11 protection and said it's exploring a possible sale of its assets.

IT digital Dashboard to get face-lift... (On the Mark).
March 3, 2003... ... and improved integration with major applications in Version 5.0 of Kintana Dashboard slated for June, sources said. Kintana Inc. in Sunnyvale, Calif., whose eponymous IT capacity planning and resource management product has attracted a...

Sockeye upgrades WAN routing tools. (News).(GlobalRoute 3.0 )
March 3, 2003... Sockeye Networks Inc. today will release an upgrade of its wide-area network routing optimization software that's designed to support the complex network billing models used by companies that rely on multiple Internet service providers (ISP)....

Serial SCSI promises faster I/O in servers: drive vendors set shipment plans as spec OK nears. (News).
March 3, 2003... AN IT STANDARDS body is close to ratifying a new serial interface specification for SCSI disk drives that's expected to speed up I/O throughput in servers and could eventually challenge Fibre Channel technology's share of the high-end disk...

Veritas upgrades backup software, looks to diversify. (News).(NetBackup 4.5 )
March 3, 2003... Veritas Software Corp. last week upgraded its flagship data backup technology. But Veritas, the second-largest vendor of storage management tools, is also embarking on an acquisition-fueled strategy to expand into other IT management...

Qwest execs face fraud charges. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... The Justice Department said a Denver grand jury indicted four former Qwest Communications International Inc. executives on corporate accounting fraud charges. The Securities and Exchange Commission also filed civil fraud charges against the...

Bankrupt peregrine turns to mediator. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... Peregrine Systems Inc. said it has agreed to use a mediator to try to resolve differences with its creditors over a bankruptcy reorganization plan filed by the San Diego-based asset management software vendor. In return, the creditors will stay...

Microsoft upgrades XP rollout tools. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... Microsoft Corp. updated tools that are designed to help corporate users speed up rollouts of Windows XP Professional and Office XP. The tools, available at no cost on Microsoft's Web site, include new features for testing application...

Computer Associates International Inc. (Short Takes).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... COMPUTER ASSOCIATES INTERNATIONAL INC. plans this week to release Version 7 of its eTrust Antivirus software, which bundles together several tools....

Enterasys Networks Inc. (Short Takes).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... ENTERASYS NETWORKS INC. in Rochester, N.H., said it has settled an accounting investigation launched by the SEC last year.

SAP readies CRM upgrade with vertical industry focus: new apps will also include increased support for Web services, mobile users. (News).(mySAP CRM )
March 3, 2003... SAP AG is readying an upgrade of its customer relationship management (CRM) software that officials said will deliver more industry-specific functions and increased ties to other applications. SAP plans to release the next version of its...

Outsourcing debate driven by cost, agility: IT managers find offshore outsourcing to be a compelling way to cut costs. (Premier 100 IT Leaders 2003).
March 3, 2003... COST PRESSURES and the need for increased business agility are leading a growing number of companies to shift more of their IT work offshore, according to panelists who discussed sourcing issues at the Computerworld Premier 100 conference here...

Microsoft security Czar critiques efforts: 'traffic cop' says company making strides toward goal. (News Premier 100).
March 3, 2003... Listeners praised Microsoft Corp.'s recent efforts to improve product security and patch management after hearing Scott Charney, the company's chief security strategist, describe them in detail. But they agreed that Microsoft hasn't yet shown...

CIOs discuss strategies for demonstrating value of IT: IT chief warns against overselling projects to execs. (News Premier 100).(John Moon of Baxter nternational)
March 3, 2003... CIOs often have trouble communicating to senior management the value IT investments can deliver to their organizations. After an upgrade to his company's global network infrastructure last year, Baxter International Inc. CIO John Moon decided...

Identify, Kill nonessential projects, CIO recommends: narrow focus to a few issues, he says. (News Premier 100).(Jay Gardner)
March 3, 2003... If he were writing a song about his first 18 months in the top IT post at BMC Software Inc., CIO Jay Gardner might call it "I Learned It the Hard Way." Gardner, who spoke last week at the Camp uter world Premier 100 conference here, held...

Keeping the faith. (Opinion).
March 3, 2003... WHEN WILL THE accelerating pace of change finally overwhelm us? That one question--and the astonishing answer--will resonate with me long after the end of Computerworld's Premier 100 IT Leaders Conference, which drew more than 500 CIOs,...

Fight threats from within. (Opinion).
March 3, 2003... YOU CAN'T PREDICT a security disaster, but you can prepare for one. The recent revelation that an intruder stole more than 8 million Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover credit card account numbers should fan the flames about the...

Blogging for fun and profit. (Opinion).
March 3, 2003... IF I WERE REMAKING The Graduate today, with Dustin Hoffman's character as an IT professional who was looking to advance his career, the one word of advice I would give him would be: web logs. Weblogs, those personal journals and information...

Readers' letters.(Letter to the Editor)
March 3, 2003... Commit to ROI, IT I KNOW THAT MARK HALL was trying fo stimulate thought by taking a contrarian position in his column "Forget ROI" [QuickLink 35575]-at least I hope that's what he was doing-but he is way off base. I agree that pure ROI has...

Trades at top speed: straight-through processing means that financial services firms must move to all-digital processes to remain competitive and connected. (Technology).(and related article)
March 3, 2003... IN THE NAME OF STRAIGHT-THROUGH PROCESSING (STP) of securities trades, financial services companies over the next two years will spend an estimated $6 billion replacing their manual processes by plugging into virtual trade-matching utilities...

Wireless nets go regional: wide-area wireless networking systems can provide a cost-effective alternative to leased lines for Internet access or metro-area connectivity. (Technology).
March 3, 2003... THE UNLICENSED PORTION of the U.S. radio frequency spectrum represents just one-tenth of 1% of the total bandwidth allocated for communications, but this thin slice has made the current boom in wireless LANs possible. Because WLANs use the free...

Virtually face to face; outlook: as corporations upgrade infrastructures for IP telephony, integrated IP-based videoconferencing systems are starting to proliferate. (Emerging Technologies).(and related article)(Industry Overview)
March 3, 2003... VIDEOCONFERENCING used to require users to adjourn to specially designed rooms filled with complex technology that worked over satellite, Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) or other private network services. Such systems cost upward of...

Escape from SQL hell: quick response to SQL Slammer deflects potential disaster. (Security Manager's Journal).
March 3, 2003... UPFRONT preparation helped my company ward off the SQL Slammer worm, which exploits a buffer overflow vulnerability in Microsoft SQL Server and creates a flood of packets, similar to a denial-of-service attack. But we still didn't totally avoid...

Aegis client. (User Review).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... Meetinghouse Data Communications Inc. Portsmouth, N.H. www.mtghouse.com One problem we discovered with our Cisco wireless LAN is that its implementation of Lightweight Extensible Access Protocol (LEAP) authentication works...

Certification for Security Managers. (Security Log).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... The information Systems Audit and Control Association In Rolling Meadows, Ill., has launched the Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) certification. CISM is aimed at experienced information security managers; applicants must have three...

Lindows Antivirus. (Security Log).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... San Diego-based Lindows.-com Inc. has Introduced the first antivirus software tuned specifically for Lindows, its Linux-based desktop operating system. The new software, VirusSafe, is based on Central Command Inc.'s Vexira Antivirus for Linux...

Movex gets XML. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... Intentia International AD, a customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning application vendor in Sweden, is adding XML Web services technology to its Movex flagship suite. The Movex Web Services Framework will include a tool...

Expand Networks boosts Accelerator. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... Expand Networks Inc. in Rose-land, N.J., has added a new feature to its Accelerator traffic-compression appliance that improves the performance of voice over IP on low-bandwidth data links up to 128K bit/sec. Expand offers a free upgrade to...

NetIQ updates SQL management suite. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... NetIQ Corp. has released Version 2.0 of its year-old SQL Management Suite, with new features including a revamped user interface in one module and additional reporting tools in another. The San Jose vendor's offering is intended to ease...

ERoom offering gets addition. (Briefs).(Documentum's ERoom Enterprise)(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... Enterprise content management software vendor Documentum Inc. announced its first integrated product offering resulting from its acquisition of collaboration technology provider eRoom Technology Inc. last year. ERoom Enterprise lets corporate...

Don't-ask-don't-tell e-commerce. (Technology).
March 3, 2003... WHEN IT COMES to IT security, good technology can't protect an organization against bad policy. Judging from the way the banking industry handled the recent theft of more than 8 million credit card account numbers [Quick-Link 36530], that's a...

Follow the money: here are 10 ways to assess the financial health of your IT vendors.
March 3, 2003... CHOOSING A STRATEGIC VENDOR is a long-term commitment that involves a lot more than technology. Before you tie your company's fortunes to those of a supplier, you'd better dig deep into your would-be partner's financial health. Here are 10...

Drawing a crowd: how to build and maintain portals that users will really use. (Management).(and related article)
March 3, 2003... COMPANIES typically plan and deploy software portals to provide employees, customers and suppliers with a single, Web-based access point for data, content and both new and legacy applications across the enterprise. But things don't always...

A setup for a security nightmare: lessons learned at the Department of Energy can be applied to the corporate world. (Q&A).(Notra Trulock)(Interview)
March 3, 2003... A new book by Notra Trulock, former director of intelligence at the U.S. Department of Energy, details how apathy and politics can infect the decision-making of senior managers and create a security nightmare for frontline administrators. ...

Newsmaker. (Q&A).(Paul Brinkley of JDS Uniphase Corp.)(Interview)
March 3, 2003... PAUL BRINKLEY, vice president and CIO at JDS Uniphase Corp., a $1.1 billion fiber-optics company in San Jose, has cut corporate IT expenditures by $35 million annually by outsourcing its Oracle applications (data center, product data management...

ROI: whose job is it, anyway? (Management).(return on investment)
March 3, 2003... RECENTLY, I conveyed the elements of a comprehensive return-on-investment program to the IT organization of a small but fast-growing company. The presentation included how a financial forecast looked, how the company needed to plan for change...

IT careers in financial services. (Advertising Supplement).(Advertisement)
March 3, 2003... Among the most aggressive industries using information technology to enable business is financial services. Despite the upheaval of the past two years, the industry continues to lean on information technology and its professionals to drive...

Offshore face-off. (The Back Page).(Industry Overview)
March 3, 2003... FRANKLY SPEAKING NERVOUS ABOUT OFFSHORE OUTSOURCING? You should be--and not just because offshoring has just become the favorite theme of the usual IT-analyst suspects. Last week at Computerworld's Premier 100 conference, some panelists...

See a PIN and pick it up. (Shark Tank).
March 3, 2003... Hospitals new computerized transcription system requires a PIN for access, but one older doctor can't manage to log in. "I didn't have time for the instruction class--how do I do this?" he asks help desk pilot fish. Fish walks him through it,...

Tight IT budgets impair planning as war looms: companies lack funds for disaster protection.
March 10, 2003... Regardless of how imminent a U.S.-led war in Iraq might be, IT budget constraints are preventing many companies from taking appropriate security and disaster-preparedness measures to defend themselves against possible retaliatory terrorist...

Tight IT budgets impair planning as war looms: states struggle to pay for homeland security.
March 10, 2003... States are rapidly taking steps to standardize systems, eliminate IT redundancy and cut expenses in order to fund cash-strapped homeland security initiatives. State IT spending will rise slightly this year, much of it going to improve...

Top execs demand data now: but legacy systems hamper delivery of real-time information.
March 10, 2003... A growing number of CIOs say they're facing increased pressure to deliver real-time financial and operational data to their CEOs and chief financial officers, who want to be able to react more quickly to changing business conditions. The...

New BEA tool wins guarded user support: developers wary of proprietary features.
March 10, 2003... BEA Systems Inc.'s new WebLogic Workshop 8.1 tool drew mixed reactions -- sometimes from the same person -- at the software maker's eWorld conference, held here last week. The allure for many users is the point-and-click, drop-and-drag...

SCO sues IBM for $1B over Unix. (At Deadline).
March 10, 2003... The SCO Group filed a lawsuit in a Utah state court charging IBM with breaching a Unix license agreement and stealing trade secrets. Lindon, Utah-based SCO, which owns the source code for Unix, claimed that IBM is illegally using Unix features...

IBM builds data workload tools. (At Deadline).
March 10, 2003... In other IBM news, the company announced three tools designed to let systems automatically shift computing resources to meet increases in data processing demands. The new tools initially will work with the latest versions of IBM's DB2 database...

SAP late with apps for small business. (At Deadline).
March 10, 2003... SAP AG added five industry-specific versions of business applications it has tailored for small and midsize companies. But the company confirmed that a planned U.S. rollout of general-purpose applications for those users has been delayed. SAP...

Microsoft Corp. (Short Takes).
March 10, 2003... MICROSOFT CORP. released a beta-test version of a corporate instant messaging and real-time collaboration tool, code-named Greenwich.

Groove Networks Inc. (Short Takes).
March 10, 2003... GROOVE NETWORKS INC., a software vendor in Beverly, Mass., said it received $38 million in new financing but laid off 20% of its workers.

Manufacturing firms expect modest IT budget increases: emphasis is on integration, supply chain and customer-facing projects. (News).
March 10, 2003... Integration of back-end and plant-floor applications, as well as projects that build better links with suppliers and customers, is where many manufacturing companies will focus their IT spending this year. Despite the ongoing recession,...

Microsoft expands its office family by two. (News).
March 10, 2003... Microsoft Corp. today will begin distributing a beta evaluation kit of its newly named Office System product set, which includes two new additions to the family. One new offering, called InfoPath, allows users to create and complete...

States rush to pass laws to fight spam: congress urged to preempt states by adopting a national antispam rule. (News).
March 10, 2003... BY THE END of this year, all 50 states may have antispam laws, and Congress could also act to adopt a national law. Lawmakers have never been under greater pressure to take action to fight spam. But there's little hope that legislation will...

CRM projects continue to inspire caution, users say: fearing failure, companies roll out software slowly. (News).
March 10, 2003... Despite several years of technology evolution, rollouts of customer relationship management (CRM) software still pose challenges that are causing many companies to proceed with caution. Corporate IT managers continue to face considerable...

Bug disclosure, fix process improving: sendmail episode shows progress made. (News).
March 10, 2003... SEVERAL USERS welcomed the growing willingness of vendors and security researchers to work together to identify and fix software vulnerabilities in the wake of last week's disclosure of a major hole in a widely used e-mail protocol. But...

SANS institute lauds microsoft security efforts: patch automation, security tests cited. (News).
March 10, 2003... Microsoft Corp., long at the receiving end of widespread user criticism for buggy products, last week received a rare pat on the back for its security efforts from the SANS Institute. SANS, a research organization for systems administrators...

Airlines agree to sell Worldspan. (Briefs).
March 10, 2003... Worldspan IP, which runs a computerized reservations system, said its airline owners have agreed to sell it to two investment firms. American Airlines Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc. and Northwest Airlines Inc. will sell Worldspan to a new company...

Microsoft signs app lease services deal. (Briefs).
March 10, 2003... Microsoft Corp.'s IT financing unit announced a deal to offload lease contract management services for users of its business applications to another company. The leasing functions will now be handled by De Lage Landen Financial Services Inc. in...

Peregrine lowers revenue by $509M. (Briefs).
March 10, 2003... Peregrine Systems Inc. restated its financial results for the three fiscal years from April 1999 to March 2002, chopping the revenue it had reported by $509 million. That reduced the original three-year total of $1.34 billion by 38%. Peregrine,...

Intel Corp. (Short Takes).
March 10, 2003... INTEL CORP. this week plans to launch a new foray into the notebook PC market by announcing six mobile processors under the name Pentium M.

Sun Microsystems Inc. (Short Takes).
March 10, 2003... SUN MICROSYSTEMS INC. said an open-source group that's developing its JXTA peer-to-peer computing software has released an upgrade.

Vendors scramble to fill web services hole. (On the Mark).
March 10, 2003... ... in application management, which could pose a serious problem to companies rolling out Web services-based software. Oded Noy, CTO at Path Communications Inc. in Marina Del Rey, Calif., worries "that all the coding errors we used to catch at...

Web services management standard sought.
March 10, 2003... More than a dozen IT vendors last week said they plan to work together to develop a standard way to manage Web services technologies used in distributed applications. The list of participating companies includes systems vendors, such as...

EMC, Hitachi end patent dispute. (Briefs).
March 10, 2003... EMC Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. agreed to settle dueling patent-infringement claims related to storage technology. Hitachi will make unspecified "balancing payments" to EMC as part of a patent cross-licensing deal, the companies said. They also...

3Com sells off carrier products. (Briefs).
March 10, 2003... 3Com Corp. announced a deal to sell the key assets of its CommWorks business unit to UTStarcom Inc. in Alameda, Calif., for $100 million in cash. CommWorks makes IP-based networking equipment for telecommunications carriers. Santa Clara,...

Palm says sales will miss target. (Briefs).
March 10, 2003... Blaming weak sales of its handheld devices to corporate users, Palm Inc. warned that it will report lower-than-expected revenue for its third quarter, which ended Feb. 28. Milpitas, Calif.-based Palm said revenue will total about $210 million,...

IBM recalled about 56,000 PC monitors sold in 1997 and 1998. (Short Takes).
March 10, 2003... IBM recalled about 56,000 PC monitors sold in 1997 and 1998 because of a faulty component that could overheat.

Macromedia Inc. (Short Takes).
March 10, 2003... San Francisco-based MACROMEDIA INC. warned of a security flaw in Version 6 of its Flash Player software and urged users to install an updated release.

AT&T launches VPN service based on SSL: Aventail's remote-access devices to be used to expand networking choices. (Network Services).
March 10, 2003... AT&T CORP. today plans to join forces with Aventail Corp. by announcing a deal to resell that company's new Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) remote-access devices as part of a managed virtual private network (VPN) service. AT&T said it will...

Vendors team up to develop remote-authentication device: security appliance controls end-user access to networks. (News).
March 10, 2003... Funk Software Inc. and Network Engines Inc. today will release a jointly developed security appliance for authenticating remote users connecting to corporate WANs as well as users on wireless LANs. The combined product is a rack-mountable...