InfoWorld articles from April 2002

InfoWorld archives from April 2002

EAI seeks to remold - Web services, application vendors challenge EAI vendors' status quo.
April 1, 2002... DRIVEN BY THE demands of Web services, EAI (enterprise application integration) vendors are maneuvering to reposition their technologies as companies seek long-term application integration solutions and evaluate competing offerings from...

TightLink ties data.(TightLink Service 3.0)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
April 1, 2002... TightLink this week launched TightLink Service 3, a Web-based application that will support collaborative sales processes across multiple companies. Organizations using the service can provide their business partners with shared case...

WebSphere improved.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
April 1, 2002... IBM this week rolled out a beefed-up version of its WebSphere Commerce package that more tightly integrates e-commerce with inventory and order management systems and other features that contribute to streamlining business processes and...

A matter of minutes - In rapid-response disaster recovery plans, experts say intangibles and wireless are keys to mitigating damage.
April 1, 2002... EMERGENCIES IN IT often arise outside the realm of technology and they are unpredictable, so developing a rapid-response disaster recovery plan for every contingency is impossible. Nevertheless, rapid-response disaster recovery plans are...

Always look back - Past experience leads Flamenco Networks CTO to believe Web services are here to stay.(Dave Spicer)
April 1, 2002... THERE ARE THOSE who believe in the coming of Web services, and those who remain skeptical. But make no mistake about it: Dave Spicer -- CTO, CEO, and founder of Flamenco Networks -- is one of the devout believers. How he got there is a result...

Dollar delivery.
April 1, 2002... Senior executives want IT to improve and drive the bottom line, according to a March 2002 poll of 55 InfoWorld CTO Network members. Copyright (c) 2002 InfoWorld Media Group Inc.

Considering continuity - CIS, Henry Schein, and the Tracey Edwards Company had different reasons to create business continuity plans, but all had the same goal: to keep the company running.
April 1, 2002... Planning for business continuity means weighing risk: What systems can your business not live without? How can you get access to that data or computing power should something happen? And, perhaps most importantly, how much do you want to spend...

Can you decentralize data? Remote data replication can protect the most valuable data assets and, ultimately, a company's business.(such as using EMC's Symmetrix Remote Data Facility)
April 1, 2002... Making company data more mobile is possibly the greatest hurdle to moving from a centralized to distributed computing model. In fact, creating a multisite datacenter is not a great technical challenge, because many technologies make it possible...

Spreading out the safety net - The concept of distribution is coming into play when planning for continuity.
April 1, 2002... DURING THE PAST few years, companies have been moving toward the centralization of technical and operational resources to cut costs and improve efficiency. But now, spurred by the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and the ensuing interest in ensuring...

Next-gen distributed computing - A convergence of new technologies will bring business continuity benefits to the datacenter.
April 1, 2002... IF YOUR LARGE enterprise is like most, about 10 percent of your available CPU cycles actually gets used -- a fact that is driving enterprises to deploy the next generation of cost-reducing distributed computing architectures. Distributed...

W3C to open SOAP envelope - Web Services Architecture Working Group to tackle messaging demands.(Simple Object Access Protocol)
April 1, 2002... FACED WITH demand to develop more sophisticated Web services, a new working group -- formed within the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) -- is set to tackle key standards challenges, including reliable messaging and extended SOAP (Simple Object...

J2ME standard fuels wireless buzz - Developers, carriers celebrate J2ME initiatives but lock horns over standards.
April 1, 2002... WIRELESS CARRIERS, handset manufacturers, and developers rallied around a number of mobile platform initiatives at Sun Microsystems' JavaOne conference this week in San Francisco, despite evidence that these groups are becoming increasingly...

SAP embraces Web services - Open stance promises to improve data access for third-party applications.
April 1, 2002... LOOKING TO ADAPT to changing industry tides, SAP is embracing Web services in an attempt to open up its applications to enable them to exchange data with other systems and to make SAP data more accessible to users. Henning Kagermann, SAP...

Storage titans switch tracks - Fibre Channel, IP interoperability switches back on enterprise agenda.(Storage Networking World conference report)
April 1, 2002... A HOST OF storage vendors will break with tradition this week, unveiling a slew of new products that illustrates the convergence of IP and FC (Fibre Channel) technology. After years of mudslinging and giving interoperability mere lip...

Shaped for the network - CommVault Galaxy 3.7 simplifies managing backups across a wide range of platforms and storage devices, but gaps remain.(Evaluation)
April 1, 2002... That's why an administrator needs tools that provide a comprehensive view of the company's environment. Many big-name vendors have recently enriched their backup solutions to offer a single point of management for different network...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Tricks up his sleeve.
April 1, 2002... I MANAGED TO pull off a surprise party after all. With a little chicanery, we convinced the twins to meet each other at a local favorite restaurant and when they got there, so were all their friends. "You really caught me off guard, Bobby,"...

To the editor.
April 1, 2002... Mass media decisions I THINK YOU have oversimplified the operation of a daily newspaper (see Survival Guide, March 18). Advertising certainly services an advertiser's needs. And advertisers are more motivated to advertise to a larger...

THE OPEN SOURCE: Get Mono from .Net? Ximian CTO Miguel de Icaza is working on a Linux-friendly adaptation of Microsoft's touted platform.
April 1, 2002... IT SEEMS THAT everyone knows about .Net. Microsoft's latest effort is featured in television and magazine ads all over the place. Of course, some people think that enough vapor surrounds .Net to cause one to become lightheaded if exposed to it...

WINDOW MANAGER: Microsoft's handset war - Cell-phone makers won't buy Windows, so the software giant is trying to bankrupt them.
April 1, 2002... I WROTE LAST week that major players such as Nokia and Sony Ericsson are coming out with "smart phones" based on Symbian rather than Windows (see "Symbian cell-through," March 25). Now another handset leader, Samsung, is making Symbian...

SECURITY ADVISER: Printer protection - Secure network printers and other "smart devices" before they start bad-mouthing your business.
April 1, 2002... I RECENTLY DEALT with a Hewlett-Packard LaserJet printer that had its console Ready message changed to something impolite. Replacing the message was easy with a simple program available on the Internet that changes this display for you: It...

STORAGE INSIDER/CTO TEST CENTER: Storage hierarchies - Lowering storage costs is good, but not when it puts even less important data at risk.
April 1, 2002... ONE THING WE can all agree on regarding hard times: They make you appreciate what you have. Take last month's Storage Management Conference 2002 in Chicago. Gone was the expansionist mentality of years past, when the easiest way to solve a...

WIRELESS WORLD: Battle of the spectrums - A knockdown, drag-out fight over Wi-Fi access looms with GM and Ford facing Intel and Cisco.
April 1, 2002... IN THE OLD days, when General Motors and Ford spoke, people listened, especially people in the government. They still do. We have all seen reports about delays on stricter emissions requirements and pushing back the deadline for increasing gas...

ENTERPRISE STRATEGIES: Careful, Big Brother - Using IT assets to monitor and restrict staff activities can bring unwelcome consequences.
April 1, 2002... MIXED IN AMONG gloomy economic statistics are occasional bright spots, one of them being a 5.2 percent increase in worker productivity in the fourth quarter. That figure is no surprise, particularly in IT. Workers are putting in extra hours,...

CTO CONNECTION: The unsung heroes - CTOs need to make sure developers get the credit they deserve for wrestling with the machine.
April 1, 2002... IN MOST corporate technology organizations, there are three basic groups: desktop support and help desk; networks and systems administration; and software development. Most staff in a company understand what the help desk does -- they fix your...

SURVIVAL GUIDE: The value of a test drive - Now that IT projects are really about changing the way your organization does business, prototyping is critical.
April 1, 2002... I WONDER IF any skill remains relevant by the time we've mastered it. Take prototyping as an example. The idea has been around as long as engineers have been designing gadgets, but we in IT resisted the notion for decades -- although...

THE GRIPE LINE: The rebate runaround - Readers complain that Microsoft and other vendors are unfairly restricting payouts on product rebates.
April 1, 2002... ONE THING TO remember about rebates: If the manufacturer really wanted you to have that price, it would have offered a discount instead. Complaints about deadbeat rebates are a longtime staple of The Gripe Line, but I have noticed of late...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: The new McNealy? Sun chief acknowledges the importance of XML, but sees his battle with the big boys over standards as a fair fight.
April 1, 2002... JAVAONE WAS AHEAD of the curve in more ways than one this year. Last week's developer conference was forced out of its usual June slot in San Francisco's Moscone Center, throwing the timing of vendor upgrades out of whack. Attendance was down,...

ABOVE THE NOISE: CRM fools and their jobs are soon parted - You can't expect CRM to fix poor customer management systems.
April 1, 2002... THROWING MONEY AT a problem is the wrong thing to do and CRM software is no exception to the rule. By now, most major IT organizations have experimented with CRM software with mixed results. The typical scenario by which the CRM project...

Reaching for gold - Intel targets enterprise rivals with aggressive, high-end CPU strategy.
April 1, 2002... IN A DARING bid to wrest a larger share of the enterprise systems market from leaders IBM and Sun Microsystems, Intel is revamping its entire line of high-end CPUs, support chipsets, and server building blocks. This ambitious plan reworks...

ComponentSource merges Java platforms.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Looking to arm developers with technology to find and reuse existing application development components, ComponentSource announced the integration of its Java component marketplace with Borland JBuilder and IBM WebSphere Studio Application...

Sun, Vignette team.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... To help businesses speed to market with e-business infrastructure, Sun and Vignette announced at JavaOne this week a package that integrates CM (content management) with the Sun ONE (Open Network Environment) architecture products. The Sun...

Ximian releases Exchange connector.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
April 1, 2002... Ximian has released Ximian Connector for Microsoft Exchange, along with Red Carpet Corporate Connect, a Web-based service that provides users with centralized software maintenance and version management of Linux workgroups. Ximian Connector, a...

Separation anxiety - Enron fallout has companies dividing IT, financial services.
April 1, 2002... AS THE DUST settles after the explosive revelations of the Andersen- Enron alliance, Fortune 2000 CxOs may need to do more than rethink current contracts with auditors and their professional services division. Industry advisors say they may...

Peering in at a price - Akaba PointScan probes networks for security holes, but results are undependable and the cost is steep.(Evaluation)
April 1, 2002... STAND-ALONE APPLICATIONS have traditionally ruled the network vulnerability assessment space, but assessment services are gaining in popularity. Such services can provide detailed analysis of Internet- facing systems from the eyes of an...

Feathers fly over Oracle - E-business Suite sales head up app integration challenges.
April 8, 2002... DETERMINED TO STAND tall on its database legs, Oracle walks into its AppsWorld conference next week in San Diego carrying a kit bag of troubles weighted with sluggish sales of its 11i E-business Suite. And as the Redwood Shores, Calif.,...

FileNet bids for eGrail.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2002... Content and business-process management company FileNet announced this week plans to acquire eGrail, a Web content management vendor, in a $10 million-deal. FileNet plans to sell eGrail's software, designed to manage collaborative content...

Affinium turns 4.(Affinium 4.0 from Unica)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
April 8, 2002... Unica this week rolled out the latest version of its enterprise marketing software. Affinium 4 is designed to enable marketers to gather and analyze information from multiple date sources to identify customer demands, plan and manage tailored...

CTO of the year - As CTO for Defense Information Systems Agency, Dawn Meyerriecks deploys new technologies in direct support of U.S. troops.
April 8, 2002... WHEN DAWN MEYERRIECKS makes decisions, lives are at stake. As CTO of the $4 billion U.S. Defense Department's Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), her mission is to identify, create, and implement technology to give U.S. service personnel...

A fundamental shift - With flexibility from Web services, enterprise CTOs are redefining software roll-out models. They're deploying software as a service for a positive ROI.
April 8, 2002... FOR A LONG TIME, the idea of accessing and distributing software across enterprise systems in easy-to-use service arrangements stood high on the wish list of Putnam Lovell Securities CTO Rodric O'Connor. When the opportunity arose to implement...

Wireless health driven by HIPAA - Concentra's wireless success may be hampered in meeting the Fed's expensive security compliance rules.
April 8, 2002... CONFORMING TO THE federal government's HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) regulations regarding patients' security and privacy has put Concentra Health Services, an Addison, Texas-based occupational therapy group of...

Time to think small.(Nanotechnology )
April 8, 2002... Nanotechnology is coming out of the lab and the realm of theory -- and into mainstream business NANOTECHNOLOGY IS ONE of those arcane segments of the technology world that has been getting a lot more attention lately. One of the more...

Budget forecast.
April 8, 2002... IT comes down to the bottom line. CTOs find that their technology vision is affected by numbers beyond their control -- economic forecasts, sales forecasts, and technology industry market forecasts. Midmarket surge Companies with 500...

HP makes play for utility computing - HP trumps IBM, Sun in move to secure control over emerging grid model.
April 8, 2002... EAGER TO CAPTURE a lead in the race to deliver utility computing, Hewlett-Packard this week at InfoWorld's CTO Forum in San Francisco will detail the next phase of its UDC (Utility Data Center) architecture, combining the vision of grid...

TechEd talks .Net.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2002... Microsoft plans to use next week's 10th annual TechEd developer conference in New Orleans to fire back at Sun Microsystems, which just held its own developer conference, JavaOne, in March. Just as Sun touted Web services, Microsoft will use the...

Zambeel details NAS.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2002... Zambeel will next week demonstrate the provisioning capabilities of its NAS system at the InfoWorld CTO Forum in San Francisco. Expected to hit the market sometime in the second quarter of 2002, the Zambeel NAS system lets administrators...

Microsoft, SAS, Hyperion push data-mining access.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2002... Looking to promote access to data-mining functions via Web services, SAS and Hyperion on Monday will join Microsoft to co-chair the XML for Analysis Council. The three companies are pushing to add data mining to the XML for Analysis Protocol....

Dell sharpens blade attack - PowerEdge 1655MC server blades to arrive ahead of server 'bricks,' offering assembled storage and memory blocks.(Product Announcement)
April 8, 2002... JOINING A GROUNDSWELL of competitors striving to capitalize on IT executive interest, Dell is set to roll out its first server blades during the third quarter of this year. Announced at its spring analyst meeting in New York this week, the...

Looking for Web app weak spots - KaVaDo's ScanDo vulnerability scanner pinpoints potential security shortcomings by probing Web applications.(Software Review)(Evaluation)
April 8, 2002... Web applications are popping up everywhere these days, and the growth of Web services will only expand that trend. When data must be accessed and easily shared, the standard solution is to develop a quick Web application that provides data...

Securing the back end - AppDetective does wonders, but database security doesn't come cheap.(Application Security)(Software Review)(Evaluation)
April 8, 2002... DATABASES ARE THE backbone of today's applications, containing a wide variety of data that ranges from price lists and inventory information to social security numbers, credit card numbers, and customer lists. Having any of this data released...

Security concerns inspire simplicity - Okena, Sanctum, and Stratum8 tighten server-side security offerings.
April 8, 2002... RIDING UNIQUELY different approaches to secure Web and server applications, security vendors are simplifying their products as they march toward a Web services protection showdown. This week, Okena will announce that it is going to release...

Designer data warehouse - Sun, Sybase combine on Enterprise Data Warehouse Reference Architecture.
April 8, 2002... HELPING TO LOWER the cost and to reduce the risk associated with enterprise data warehousing, Sun Microsystems and Sybase have jointly issued an EDWRA (Enterprise Data Warehouse Reference Architecture). Essentially a blueprint for a...

Web services inspire content.(CTO Forum)
April 8, 2002... AS ENTERPRISES PREPARE their networks to deal with the impact of Web services, several vendors will take the wraps off content delivery technologies at InfoWorld's CTO Forum in San Francisco this week. At one end of the scale, Mirror Image...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: They call it puppy love.
April 8, 2002... WE FINALLY MADE IT out on the Harley for a long weekend. I took two days off, packed up some gear, Amber, and some more gear, then we rode up to Redwood National Park. Amber felt a slight separation anxiety, though, since we left Apache the...

To the editor.(Letter to the Editor)
April 8, 2002... Sun-Microsoft wars I LOVED YOUR column, "Write once, sue many II," (see Ahead of the Curve, March 25). You couldn't be more accurate. Approximately 18 months ago, I did a quickie analysis of one of the outcomes of the then-hot...

WINDOW MANAGER: Google's new news - If you need an authoritative source for the latest stories, now Google can give it to you.
April 8, 2002... MILLIONS OF WORDS have been written about Google.com, the rapidly growing search engine that people love for its uncannily relevant results. But the Googlers have just started beta testing a new service that you probably haven't heard boo...

THE OPEN SOURCE: New name, same smell - The CBDTPA, formerly the SSSCA, still potentially puts severe limitations on open-source development.(Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, Security Systems Standards and Certification Act)(Column)
April 8, 2002... A FEW MONTHS back, I mentioned a bill that could greatly impact the world of open source: the proposed Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA). The SSSCA has now been retagged Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion...

SECURITY ADVISER: Password-by-number - How do you deal with all those pesky passwords and still keep the keys to the kingdom secure?
April 8, 2002... THE YEAR OF PKI (public key infrastructure) has come and gone. Smartcards and biometrics have not caught on as anticipated. So, after all the hype, discussion, and technological advances, passwords are still the main method of authentication....

STORAGE INSIDER/CTO TEST CENTER: NAS grows up - New tricks set network attached storage on a collision course with storage networks.
April 8, 2002... AFTER A RECENT chat with a key partner at Charles River Ventures, we went away with a pretty good picture of what the venture capital investment firm sees as the storage network of the future. "Push the clock forward five years and networks...

WIRELESS WORLD: J2ME's future shines - Sun has won the battle for wireless development standard supremacy, but will the company profit?(Column)
April 8, 2002... I JUST GOT back from Sun Microsystems' big developer event, JavaOne, in San Francisco. What I've taken away from that event is perhaps not news, but an impression. At the show I met with some of the larger wireless carriers and handset...

ENTERPRISE STRATEGIES: Avoiding merger fallout - The HP-Compaq merger's impact on IT planning can be mitigated with a little effort.
April 8, 2002... UNCERTAINTY ATTENDS all mergers. Under the best conditions, it takes several months for the merged entities to identify and trim redundant personnel and projects. It takes years to build a cohesive culture. Corporate customers with plans to...

CTO CONNECTION: 802.11 is revolutionary - The wireless technology is a strategic choice that can help save money and speed responsiveness.(Column)
April 8, 2002... 802.11 IS GOING to take over the world, and it arguably already has. Order a decent, business-class laptop, and it's likely to have an 802.11 card already built in. Boot a wireless-enabled machine under Windows XP, and the system will...

SURVIVAL GUIDE: 802.11's no panacea - Don't get too wrapped up in this technology, because it won't fundamentally change your business.
April 8, 2002... THE REDOUBTABLE CARL REINER asked Mel Brooks' 2,000 Year-Old Man what the greatest invention of all time was. "Saran Wrap," Brooks replied. "It's clear, you can wrap a sandwich in it and see if it's still good... ." When, in protest,...

THE GRIPE LINE: Bargain bloopers - If an Internet price looks too good to be true, it may well be just the kind of deal you want to avoid at all costs.
April 8, 2002... WHAT DOES "INTERNET price" mean? E-business Web sites would like you to believe it means you're getting a special discount. All too often, though, what Internet pricing really means is that you must dig many layers deep to find out what you're...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: We can work it out - The architecture of unintended consequences is pointing the way to the future of the Internet, and you can see it now.
April 8, 2002... EVERY NOW AND THEN, Tim O'Reilly sits down and compiles his thoughts on where we're going and where we ought to go. Tim's a publisher by profession and an activist at heart. "We watch what the hackers are doing, and try to capture their...

ABOVE THE NOISE: The real reasons for the rise of the CTO - Leading companies recognize that technology choices are also critical business decisions.(chief technology officer)
April 8, 2002... MORE OFTEN THAN not, conventional wisdom is wrong because it's born of conventional thinking. One such example of that is the assumption that the rise of the chief technology officer was a phenomenon of the great dot-com era. The truth is...

Intel to bear chip fruit - Web services inspires processor, hardware infrastructure rethink.
April 8, 2002... DRIVEN BY THE advent of Web services, Intel has begun a wide-ranging process of adapting its hardware infrastructure offerings to accelerate the interactions of machine-to-machine computing. The effort includes plans to make microprocessors...

Web services tools on show - Grand Central, Comergent detail support for Web services at CTO Forum.
April 8, 2002... GRAND CENTRAL Communications and Comergent will separately detail new initiatives designed to leverage emerging Web services standards at InfoWorld's CTO Forum in San Francisco this week. Grand Central will discuss enhancements to its Web...

Hurrying toward HIPAA - As deadlines loom, health care industry eyes outsourcing.
April 8, 2002... AS THE CALENDAR days slip away toward federally mandated health care privacy, security, and EDI (electronic data interchange) transaction restrictions, the health care industry is finding IT outsourcers an attractive alternative to in-house...

Linux targets Windows - Codeweavers, Ximian tout open-source alternatives to Microsoft OS.(Product Announcement)
April 8, 2002... ATTEMPTING TO broaden Linux acceptance in the enterprise, developers are targeting the crucial connection between Microsoft Windows and the application layer with open-source alternatives. Codeweavers and Ximian separately announced...

The peer-to-peer push - Vendors groom p-to-p offerings to broaden their overall appeal.
April 15, 2002... AS THE HYPE surrounding peer-to-peer networking recedes, vendors are surging ahead to deliver p-to-p-based collaboration applications designed to address enterprise concerns about security, control, and management of distributed systems....

Getting into the Groove - With enhanced collaboration tools and ties to enterprise apps, Groove 2 reveals admirable advances in peer-to-peer.(GROOVE 2.0)(Evaluation)
April 15, 2002... GROOVE 2.0, SLATED for release on April 15, delivers richer collaboration for users and more control for corporate administrators. Some might find these aims contradictory, but Groove has never been a pure peer-to-peer product. The strategy was...

And that's our final offer - Uncovering a CTO career opportunity is often a matter of networking. But in negotiating a job offer, CTOs often put the technology and mission before compensation and contracts.
April 15, 2002... FINDING A CAREER-making CTO position is as much about technology as it is about personal networks. CTO and other executive-level technology job opportunities are often uncovered through a technologist's contacts -- and a little luck. When...

Supply-chain redesign - The CTO of Prime Advantage helped his company survive by focusing on customer needs.
April 15, 2002... JOE NEUHAUS SOMETIMES felt as if he were riding a whirlwind as the CTO of Prime Advantage, a business-to-business ecommerce marketplace provider in a sector experiencing one of the more spectacular flameouts of the tech downturn. The...

Revenue or support?(InfoWorld CTO Network poll)(Brief Article)
April 15, 2002... Revenue-generating spending takes the bigger piece of the IT budget pie, according to an InfoWorld CTO Network poll. Copyright (c) 2002 InfoWorld Media Group Inc.

THE UTILITY COMPUTING PROMISE - Tapping into computing resources on an as-needed basis has plenty of benefits for enterprises -- but success depends on maturity of foundation technologies.
April 15, 2002... Tapping into compute resources with a simplicity equal to plugging a lamp into an outlet has been a goal of pervasive computing efforts from the start. Known as utility computing, the idea is to provide unlimited computing power and storage...

The realities of utility - The dream of utility computing awaits advances in infrastructure, applications, interoperability, and more.
April 15, 2002... ATTENTION DATACENTER STAFFERS: Utility computing is coming, but don't start planning your retirement just yet. In the utility computing dream, compute resources flow like electricity on demand from virtual utilities around the globe --...

Utility future.(Utility computing )
April 15, 2002... Utility computing is starting to make some noise, but getting ideas off the ground will take time and technological evolution, as well as a vote of confidence from IT departments. Critical facets of contracts involving a utility service ...

Microsoft plays - My Services repositioned, MS moves to thwart emerging Project Liberty threat.
April 15, 2002... MICROSOFT MOVED TO put two smoldering business problems to rest this week with the demise of its My Services initiative for consumers and the signing of a Web services security pact with IBM and VeriSign. The elimination of Microsoft's...

Microsoft maps out .Net future - MapPoint .Net signals attempt to build out commercial Web services.
April 15, 2002... ATTEMPTING TO BOLSTER its Web services credentials, Microsoft used its Tech Ed conference this week to roll out its first commercial Web service -- Exchange 2000 Server XML Web Services Toolkit -- and beta versions of SQL Server Notification...

Special delivery for XML - Networking startups are putting XML traffic in the fast lane.
April 15, 2002... SENSING AN untapped opportunity, emerging networking vendors are developing XML switches capable of supporting latency-intolerant applications based on Web services. Also known as XML acceleration appliances, companies including DataPower...

Vendors cheer interoperability initiatives.
April 15, 2002... DETERMINED TO BRIDGE the interoperability gap and ease user frustrations, storage equipment vendors are rallying around the Distributed Management Task Force's CIM (Common Information Model). On display this week at the semi-annual Storage...

ABOVE THE NOISE: The next era in enterprise evolution - Utility computing will let IT target investments and act as sector service providers.
April 15, 2002... GIVEN THAT ON-DEMAND computing resources are an attractive concept, a lot of noise is being generated by the phrase "utility computing." In essence, utility computing means that network and server are paid for on a usage basis and that...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: A peaceful coexistence.(Column)
April 15, 2002... "ISN'T THERE SOME kind of a contraption we can get to bring Apache on the Harley?" Amber demanded. Seems she is starting to worry we might leave the pup behind more often come summertime. "I don't know, I kind of liked taking a break from the...

To the editor.(Letter to the Editor)
April 15, 2002... Weighing in on CRM I FEEL THAT most people get sold a bill of goods and wind up with a wildly complex CRM system that they and their business processes aren't ready for (see Above The Noise, April 1. To me, what is needed is fairly...