Computerworld articles from November 2006

Computerworld archives from November 2006

Dems deploy data tools; GOP expands microtargeting use.(Democratic Party, Republican Party (often referred as Grand Old Party))
November 6, 2006... Perhaps the only issue that sparring Democrats and Republicans can agree on prior to tomorrow's midterm elections is the increasing importance of using technology to better target specific voters. The Democratic National Committee has spent...

Glitches in state databases could turn away voters.
November 6, 2006... Eligible voters in Florida may arrive at the polls tomorrow and find that they are ineligible to cast ballots because of the strict requirements for inclusion in the state's new database of registered voters. Tomorrow marks the first time...

HP in flap over offshore support: OpenVMS users unhappy about quality of overseas help.(Hewlett-Packard Co.)
November 6, 2006... Hewlett-Packard Co. began shifting some of its OpenVMS technical support offshore two months ago, a move that's drawing complaints from users and consultants who say the overseas workers don't know enough about the 29-year-old operating system....

Kumar gets 12 years in prison, $8M fine.(Sanjay Kumar)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Former CA Inc. CEO Sanjay Kumar was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison on securities fraud and obstruction of justice charges. Kumar, who resigned from CA in June 2004, after the scandal unfolded, was also fined $8 million by Judge I. Leo...

Mozilla promises to fix Firefox 2.0 bug.(AT DEADLINE)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Mozilla Corp. has pledged to fix a second minor bug found in the Firefox 2.0 Web browser. "We will fix it because we need reliability," said Tristan Nitot, director of Mozilla's European operations. No timetable has been set for releasing a...

FCC delays vote on AT & T-BellSouth deal.(in approving the merger)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... The Federal Communications Commission has once again delayed a decision on whether to approve AT & T Inc.'s proposed acquisition of BellSouth Corp. The FCC last week postponed a plan to consider the deal last Friday. The agency had also...

Oracle pays $440M for software maker.(Stellent Inc.)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Oracle Corp. has agreed to buy Stellent Inc., a maker of content management software, for about $440 million. Oracle said Stellent's Universal Content Management software will be integrated with its own Content Database. The deal is expected to...

Microsoft follows Oracle in tighter Linux embrace: agrees to back use of SUSE Linux with Windows, plans joint work with Novell.
November 6, 2006... MICROSOFT CORP. last week announced a deal to promote the use of Novell Inc.'s SUSE Linux operating system alongside Windows in mixed server environments--a move that came just a week after nemesis Oracle Corp. significantly tightened its...

Virtualization rivals take divergent paths.(VMware Inc. planning to introduce Lab Manager )(XenSource Inc. introducing XenEnterprise for Windows)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... VMware Inc. today begins its annual user conference, which the virtualization vendor expects will be attended by about 6,000 people plus some of its rivals--one of which, XenSource Inc., will announce its first commercial software release for...

Storage consolidation returns mixed: some users see efforts as reason to demand even more storage capacity.(Storage Networking World conference)(Symantec Corp. introduced Backup Exec 11d, Symantec AntiVirus 10.2 and Ghost Solution 2.0)
November 6, 2006... USERS AT Storage Networking World here last week said they are looking to consolidate disparate storage systems into storage-area networks (SAN) as a way to cut costs. However, some users at the conference, which was sponsored by...

Microsoft confirms Visual Studio bug.(Microsoft Visual Studio 2005)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... A vulnerability in Visual Studio 2005 could let an attacker execute code on a targeted Windows machine, Microsoft Corp. said last week. Security vendor Secunia APS rated the vulnerability as "extremely critical," noting that there are...

Former McAfee exec settles SEC case.(Eric Borrmann, Securities and Exchange Commission)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... A former senior financial officer at McAfee Inc. has agreed to pay $757,000 to settle charges filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC charged Eric Borrmann with taking part in a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme from 1999...

AMD seeks Intel documents in suit.(Advanced Micro Devices Inc.)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has asked a U.S. court in Delaware to compel Intel Corp. to disclose documents about its activities outside the U.S. as part of an ongoing antitrust lawsuit. AMD has charged that Intel used offers of exclusive deals...

Ingres adds Linux version of database.(for DBMS software "Icebreaker")(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Ingres Corp. will begin shipping in about two weeks a beta version of its new Project Icebreaker software, which combines the company's open-source database with a version of Linux from rPath. The final version will ship by the end of the year....

Flessner to leave Microsoft post.(Paul Flessner)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Paul Flessner, who helped Microsoft Corp. develop SQL Server 2005, plans to resign. Flessner, vice president of the data storage and platform division, will leave on Jan. 1 to pursue personal endeavors, a spokeswoman said. He will continue to...

EMC buys storage software maker.(Avamar Technologies Inc.)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... EMC Corp. has agreed to acquire Avamar Technologies Inc. for $165 million. Avamar makes software that helps companies ensure that they back up each data segment only once, a process known as deduplication. Avamar uses EMC Clariion servers as a...

Vendors to create battery standard.(laptop vendors and battery manufacturers plans a standard for lithium-ion computer batteries)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... A group of laptop vendors and battery manufacturers plans to announce a standard for making safer lithium-ion batteries by June 15, 2007, said IPC, the Association Connecting Electronics Industries. The vendors, including Apple Computer Inc.,...

Sun ships new NetBeans version.(Sun Microsystems Inc., application development software)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Sun Microsystems Inc. has released NetBeans 5.5. The latest version of its open-source Java integrated development environment adds a Java Persistence application programming interface and a Java API for XML Web Services 2.0 tools. It also...

Users of IBM's midrange line fall short on security controls: execs, analysts back up report finding lax processes for securing System i.(International Business Machines Corp.)
November 6, 2006... IBM'S SYSTEM i computers--originally known as the AS/400 and then the iSeries--have long enjoyed a reputation for rock-solid reliability. But poor security practices by many IT managers are making the mid-range systems vulnerable to...

Wall Street paves the way for ...(information technology budgets says Steve Pawlowski)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Wall Street Paves The Way for... multithreaded applications to cap power demand in data centers. It doesn't surprise Steve Pawlowski, chief technology officer and a senior fellow at Intel Corp., that financial services firms are ahead of the...

Following Microsoft's money leads to ...(Microsoft is focusing on software-as-a-service vendors)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Following Microsoft's money leads to... a curious destination. Also speaking at Venture Northwest was Matt Mulligan, a director within Microsoft Corp.'s emerging business team, which invests in and/or acquires other companies. In the past five...

Take 2: Wall Street paves the way ...(Aspeed Software Corp. upgrading systems management software "Accellerant 4.3")(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Take 2: Wall Street paves the way... for multicore applications. Although he wasn't in Portland for Pawlowski's speech, Kurt Ziegler, executive vice president of development at Aspeed Software Corp. in New York, agrees that financial services...

Next, you may need to hang mirrors ...(videoconferencing technology)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Next, you may need to hang mirrors... outside all of your conference rooms. Blame it on the kids, suggests Stephen Von Rump, CEO of Be Here Corp. in Fremont, Calif. He's talking about the anticipated arrival of videoconferencing technology in...

IT cost savings at issue on upgrades to Vista: Microsoft expects new OS to reduce tab for managing PCs; others are skeptical.
November 6, 2006... As Microsoft Corp. prepares to release Windows Vista to manufacturing this week and make it available to corporate users at the end of the month, the debate is ratcheting up over how much money companies could save--if any--by upgrading to the...

Undisclosed flaws undermine IT defenses: users, analysts say companies need to be able to contain surprise attacks.
November 6, 2006... Attacks targeting software vulnerabilities that haven't been publicly disclosed pose a silent and growing problem for corporate IT. But responses to such threats have been largely misguided because of misconceptions about them, according to...

Siemens offers software for managing wireless LANs.(Siemens Communications Inc., wireless communications software)("HiPath Wireless Manager ")
November 6, 2006... Siemens Communications Inc. last week announced software designed to let corporate users manage thousands of wireless LAN access points from a single console and to ease the integration of third-party mobile services with business applications....

InterSystems updates Cache database.(InterSystems Zen, web application development software)
November 6, 2006... InterSystems Corp. hopes that Cache 2007, the newest version of its object-relational database, will help it expand its customer base beyond its health care niche. About 80% of the Cambridge, Mass.-based company's customers are in the...

U.Va. aims to improve accessibility of Web site.(University of Virginia signed license agreement with UsableNet Inc. for Lift Assistive software)
November 6, 2006... The University of Virginia plans to install software that can convert its 3.5 million Web pages into a format optimized for users with disabilities. Nancy Tramontin, the university's director of webmaster services, said U.Va. has signed a...

Stock exchange sued over botched trade.(Mizuho Securities filed case against Tokyo Stock Exchange on a botched trade )(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... A TOKYO-BASED BROKERAGE has filed a lawsuit against the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) over losses incurred on a botched trade that the firm contends wasn't canceled because of a defect in the exchange's electronic trading system. Mizuho...

Chinese dissident hits Yahoo on info release.(An International IT News Digest)(Wei Jingsheng)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... A CHINESE DISSIDENT last week claimed that what he described as the capitulation of Western Internet companies to Chinese authorities is a more serious threat to free speech in China than is the government deciding what its citizens can access...

Infineon blames cuts on BenQ Mobile crisis.(Infineon Technologies AG)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... INFINEON TECHNOLOGIES AG late last month said it will lay off 400 workers and take a charge of [euro]80 million ($102 million U.S.) as a result of the loss of BenQ Mobile GmbH as a customer for its communications chips. Munich-based BenQ...

Singapore firm agrees to settle piracy case.(Business Software Alliance, PDM International Pte.)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... ASINGAPORE-BASED COMPANY that was caught using pirated software has reached a settlement with the Business Software Alliance, bringing to a close what the BSA claims is a landmark copyright-infringement case. PDM International Pte., an...

IBM shifts SOA work to new sites in Asia.(International Business Machines Corp., service-oriented architecture)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... IBM IS setting up development centers in Beijing and in Pune, India, that will take over responsibility from a facility here for building industry-specific business services based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA). The SOA Solutions...

IBM.(and Lehman Brothers Inc. set venture fund for investing in Chinese companies )(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... IBM and investment firm Lehman Brothers Inc. have set up a $180 million venture fund for investing in Chinese companies that want to adopt new technology and business practices. IBM and New York-based Lehman Brothers said they each contributed...

Capgemini.(acquired Kanbay International Inc.)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Capgemini signed an agreement to acquire Kanbay International Inc., a Rosemont, III.-based IT services firm, for $1.25 billion. Paris-based Capgemini said it made the move to boost its ability to deliver services from India, where most of...

Symantec Corp.(plans to double the research and development staff in China)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Symantec Corp. said last week that it plans to double the research and development staff at its China Development Center in Beijing by next March. The software vendor will add 300 workers at the facility, which develops products mostly for the...

Motorola Inc.(opened a research and development facility in Hyderabad, India)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Motorola Inc. last week opened a research and development facility in Hyderabad, India, that will eventually house more than 100 engineers. Schaumburg, III.-based Motorola said workers at the facility will create an intelligent user interface...

Alibaba.com Corp.(acquired Koubei.com)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Alibaba.com Corp., an e-commerce company in Hangzhou, China, said it will acquire an undisclosed stake in Koubei.com, which operates Web sites that offer classified ads and discussion forums. Koubei, also based in Hangzhou, claims to have 2...

A lot to learn.(International Business Machines Corp., Lehman Brothers teamed up to create the China Investment Fund)
November 6, 2006... LAST WEEK, IBM and Lehman Brothers announced that they had teamed up to create the China Investment Fund, an initiative to invest not in start-ups, but in "mid-stage to mature" Chinese companies, both public and private. With an initial...

Signs of excitement.(Chief information officers leading their organizations)(Column)
November 6, 2006... MY OCT. 9 column, "Bring the Excitement Back," talked about IT's need to do just that. This month, I'd like to honor some of the cases where I've seen CIOs leading their organizations in ways that truly are exciting. Getting More From a...

Fiorina bad, Hurd good, HP better.(Hewlett-Packard Co., Mark Hurd, Carly Fiorina)
November 6, 2006... HEWLETT-PACKARD IS back with a vengeance. The board-spying fiasco is the only blemish on what has been a stellar inauguration for CEO Mark Hurd--and I don't blame him for that at all, since he inherited a dysfunctional board. A year ago,...

It's a crime to use next door's Wi-Fi.(READERS' LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
November 6, 2006... ALTHOUGH THE article "Open Season on Unsecured Wi-Fi" [Computerworld.com, Sept. 4] is an interesting read, I believe Douglas Schweitzer misses the mark on several instances. Most importantly, there is no question that unauthorized access to a...

Know your SOA.(Letter to the editor)
November 6, 2006... SUE HILDRETH ["Common-Sense SOA Approach," Computerworld.com, Sept. 4] forgot an SOA component key to governance: a registry/repository that lets you to know at the very least which services your SOA has. Javier Camara Software...

Intel's problems go beyond a layoff fix.(Letter to the editor)
November 6, 2006... CONTRARY TO what Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini claims, layoffs will not make the company more agile and efficient ["Intel Confirms Layoffs as Part of Restructuring Effort," Computerworld.com, Sept. 5]. That's because the management...

Tips on talking the talk to executives.(Letter to the editor)
November 6, 2006... THE FOLLOWING steps have always helped communicate technical information to business executives ["Selling IT to the CEO: Keep It Simple," News, Sept. 18]: * As an appendix to all communications, attach a well-crafted glossary of the...

Lost in translation: poor communication about user requirements can doom a software development project. But there are tools to make the discussion more organized and successful.(Cendant Mortgage Corp.)
November 6, 2006... KIM WETTEN, lead process specialist at PHH Mortgage Corp., knows how difficult managing application requirements can be. Before 2002--when the Mt. Laurel, N.J.-based company invested in a major overhaul of its application development...

Superstorage: as storage moves to the forefront of supercomputer research, advanced technologies from national labs and universities are expected to trickle down to commercial users.(FUTURE WATCH)
November 6, 2006... DISCUSSIONS ABOUT supercomputer performance almost always center on processing speed--how many gazillion operations per second can be performed by the giant machines. Makers and users of supercomputers also like to brag about things like the...

Sometimes a light bulb just turns on: our manager loves it when her staffers share their ideas and get excited. Is this really a government job?(SECURITY MANAGER'S JOURNAL)
November 6, 2006... ONE OF the fun things about managing people is that moment when you can actually see them grow. You see the light bulb turn on, and you know it's the right light that's burning inside them. I have explained before that my management...

Spammers start island-hopping.(domain names)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... McAfee Inc. researchers have been tracking a trend whereby spammers use the top-level domain names of small islands as Web site links in spam campaigns to circumvent spam filters that traditionally catch more well-known domains. The practice...

Spam victory sets German precedent.(Microsoft Corp.'s trademark infringment case)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Microsoft Corp. has won a case against a spammer in Germany. The country lacks an antispam law, so the case turned on trademark violation, a criminal offense in Germany. An unnamed man was found guilty of sending unsolicited e-mails with...

Australia sees first Spam conviction.(Clarity1 Pty. fined for sending spam mails)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... In the first conviction under Australia's stringent Spam Act of 2003, Clarity1 Pty. was fined $3.46 million (U.S.) and its director, Wayne Mansfield, $768,000 for sending 280 million unsolicited commercial e-mails over the course of two years....

Liquid Computing unveils server.(LiquidIQ)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Liquid Computing Corp. in Ottawa last week released its first server, the LiquidIQ. The vendor's technology, called the Interconnect Driven Server, integrates high-speed networking technologies. It also includes hardware-level virtualization...

LogMeIn announces hosted VPN service.(virtual private networks)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... LogMeIn Inc. in Woburn, Mass., last week announced a virtual private network service designed to let network administrators quickly and inexpensively provide remote user connectivity. LogMeIn Hamachi takes less than a minute for an...

Wildfire IM links to public IM networks.(Jive Software )(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Enterprise collaboration software vendor Jive Software has released Wildfire 3.1, a new version of its open-source enterprise instant messaging server application that lets users communicate with people using public IM products, including Yahoo...

Getting a handle on handhelds.(wireless telephones)(Column)
November 6, 2006... IF YOU'RE RESPONSIBLE for managing wireless devices, you know that it's like trying to hit a moving target. Wireless deployments are expanding at a rapid pace as wireless spending is becoming a much larger portion of corporate telecom expenses....

Outsourcing in China: most providers target the burgeoning domestic market, but a few offer a hybrid approach that appeals to the West.(MANAGEMENT)
November 6, 2006... ABOUT TWO years ago, Kevin Miller needed a little help supporting legacy applications and developing new software for large automotive manufacturers. He decided to conduct a Cobol pilot project with Information Technology United Corp., a...

And we aren't talking about Eliot ness, either.(VitalSmarts survey)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... IF YOU THINK Steve Carell's character on the NBC show The Office is no more than a figment of some comedy writer's imagination, many of us would like to get a job in your office. According to a recent online poll by corporate training firm...

Paul Maglio.(of International Business Machines Corp.)(Interview)
November 6, 2006... TITLE: Senior manager, service systems research [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] COMPANY: IBM IBM has been at the vanguard of efforts to develop a new academic field. Service science, management and engineering (SSME) is a new research area...

IT on the OULD SOD.(Fastrack to IT's vocational education)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... THE EUROPEAN UNION is taking a look at Ireland's Fastrack to IT initiative as it considers replicating the program in its member states. FIT was set up by 18 of the largest technology companies working in Ireland, including Dell Inc., Microsoft...

9.(labor statistics from Bureau of Labor Statistics)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Average number of years 55-to-64-year-old workers have been with their current employers. That's more than three times the average tenure of 25-to-34-year-old workers. SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS' "EMPLOYEE TENURE SUMMARY,"...

Plotting productivity: how to gauge IT staffers' performance? The jury's still out on the value of quantitative metrics versus more subjective approaches.(MANAGEMENT)
November 6, 2006... WHEN Joel Jacobs helps evaluate the performance of each of the 325 IT staffers at The Mitre Corp., some of the factors in his decision-making are subjective. But he has increasingly tried to quantify the productivity of IT workers at the...

National Archives names Morphy CIO.(National Archives and Records Administration appointed Martha Morphy)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration announced the appointment of MARTHA MORPHY as assistant archivist for information services, the agency's CIO position. During most of her seven years at the agency, Morphy has been the...

Sorgen tapped for the COO post at EEI.(Howard P. Sorgen appointed by Enterprise Engineering Inc.)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... HOWARD P. SORGEN has been named president and chief operating officer of New York-based Enterprise Engineering Inc., where he has served on the advisory board since 2003. Sorgen was formerly senior vice president and chief technology officer at...

Romito picked as CIO at Insure.com.(Daniel A. Romito)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... DANIEL A. ROMITO has been named vice president and CIO at Darien, Ill.-based Insure.com Inc. Previously, Romito spent 27 years at The Allstate Corp., most recently as senior executive director of its marketing project management office.

Manufacturing firm makes Famurewa CIO.(Modine Manufacturing Co. appoints Yomi Famurewa)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... YOMI FAMUREWA has been named CIO at Modine Manufacturing Co., a maker of thermal components in Racine, Wis. Most recently, Famurewa was CIO at Keego Technologies.

Parisi appointed CTO.(Paul D. Parisi appointed at Declude Inc.)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... PAUL D. PARISI has been named CTO at Declude Inc., a Newburyport, Mass.-based provider of e-mail security. Parisi was founder of MicroData Group Inc. and MicroData Software Inc. Most recently, he was vice president of technology and services at...

One sure way to fail.(leadership)(Column)
November 6, 2006... WITH FAIR REGULARITY, someone will ask me, "What is the single most important thing for a leader to do to be successful?" In other words, "What's the secret to good management?" Of course, there's no good answer. There are many paths to...

Got questions about wireless security? Computerworld's IT Executive Summit has the answers.
November 6, 2006... December 7, 2006 * San Francisco, California JW Marriott San Francisco 7:45am to Noon Securing the Enterprise Infrastructure from Wireless Threats 7:45am to 8:15am Registration and Networking Breakfast 8:15am to 8:30am ...

Microsoft opens up Embedded OS: offers full access to kernel code, expands virtual memory space.(Microsoft Windows Embedded CE)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Microsoft Corp. last week released an upgrade of the embedded version of Windows, making 100% of the source code in the software's kernel available to developers and packaging the latest release of its Visual Studio development tools with the...

Botnet threat.(hacker threat against water treatment plant)
November 6, 2006... LAST MONDAY, the story hit the news: Foreign hackers attacked a water treatment plant in Pennsylvania in early October and took control of a server there. A day later, we learned the reality wasn't quite so dramatic: A water plant employee's...

Exceptional IT.(information technology)(Column)
November 6, 2006... At this department meeting, IT boss announces that from now on, staffers are not to respond to any user request unless it's made through the new IT work-tracking system. But what if a frantic manager calls? pilot fish asks. "No exceptions,"...

Reliability a tossup in e-voting exit poll: technology causes chaos in some spots but few problems in others.(NEWS)
November 13, 2006... The jury is still out on the performance of e-voting systems throughout the country in last week's midterm elections, according to officials and technical experts interviewed during and after the vote. The prospect of widespread use of...

Protecting data becomes top security priority for IT: focus shifts from network defenses to sensitive info.(NEWS)(Conference news)
November 13, 2006... Regulatory requirements and increasing consumer concerns about the exposure of personal information are making the addition of data-level security controls a top priority for IT managers, according to attendees at the Computer Security...

CIO resigns from Kaiser Health Plan.(Cliff Dodd)(Brief article)
November 13, 2006... Cliff Dodd resigned last week as CIO at Kaiser Foundation Health Plan/Hospitals. Bruce Turksta, vice president and program director of HealthConnect, was named interim CIO. The company declined to say whether the resignation is related to a...

Utah man pleads guilty in piracy case.(Ronnie Knott)(Brief article)
November 13, 2006... The operator of a Web site that sold software from several vendors has pleaded guilty to one count of criminal copyright infringement, said the U.S. Department of Justice. Ronnie Knott of Salt Lake City will be sentenced Feb. 23 in a Virginia...

Microsoft to release Windows patches.(AT DEADLINE)(Brief article)
November 13, 2006... Microsoft will release six groups of security patches tomorrow that fix flaws in the Windows operating system and the company's XML parser. Security experts said hackers have posted code showing how a flaw in the parser could be exploited to...

buys wireless tech firm.(AT DEADLINE)(Motorola acquires Good Technology Inc)(Brief article)
November 13, 2006... Motorola Inc. has agreed to acquire Good Technology Inc., a maker of wireless messaging, handheld-security and data access products. Terms of the deal, expected to close early next year, were not disclosed. The acquired firm will be part of...

BI becoming strategic corporate asset: IT must gain user buy-in, expand capabilities of tools, panel says.(NEWS)
November 13, 2006... BUSINESS intelligence technology is evolving from a tactical tool to a strategic asset as many companies look to it to help bolster enterprise operations, according to a panel of users at the Business Objects SA user conference here last week....

Sun set to part with Java's source code; Users' reactions mixed: some welcome access to code; others fear code forking.(NEWS)(Sun Microsystems)
November 13, 2006... SUN MICROSYSTEMS Inc. this week is set to make significant chunks of the Java language freely available, making good on its promise in May to open the source code of the technology. Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz is slated to formally announce...

Pa. health system moves to simplify network sprawl.(NEWS)(University of Pittsburgh Medical Center signs contract with Alcatel)
November 13, 2006... The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center last week said it has signed a $300 million contract with Alcatel to help it develop an IP network that supports voice, data and video communications via wired and wireless connections. According...

Microsoft probes ActiveX defect.(BRIEFS)(Brief article)
November 13, 2006... Microsoft Corp. is investigating reports of a vulnerability in a Windows ActiveX control that could allow an attacker to remotely control a computer. One security company rated the flaw critical, but Microsoft said it allowed only limited...

Firefox 1.5 support to end April 24.(Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.8)(Brief article)
November 13, 2006... Mozilla Corp. said it will stop issuing security and stability fixes for the open-source Firefox 1.5 browser on April 24. The company recommended that users upgrade to Firefox 1.5.0.8 by that date. The new version includes software that will...

HP charges InkTec with patent breach.(Hewlett-Packard Co.)(Brief article)
November 13, 2006... Hewlett-Packard Co. has filed a complaint against the German subsidiary of InkTec Co. for violating HP's printer ink patents. The complaint, filed in a German court, alleges that InkTec-branded, do-it-yourself cartridge refill kits violate HP...

BEA adds bundled SOA offering.(BEA Systems introduces Enterprise Integration Portfolio tools, Service Oriented Application )(Brief article)
November 13, 2006... BEA Systems Inc. has announced its first package of Enterprise Integration Portfolio tools, which are designed to help users during different stages of their SOA deployments. The offering includes the existing WebLogic Integration 9.2 and...