InfoWorld articles from December 2001

InfoWorld archives from December 2001

Practical peer-to-peer.
December 24, 2001... WorldStreet CTO gives business partners a place to engage in real-time collaboration IT IS EASY TO dismiss peer-to-peer computing as a failed consumer business model, but corporations are beginning to adopt p-to-p technologies to change...

Examining PLM's benefits - Project life cycle management gets an edge from collaboration.
December 24, 2001... AT FIRST BLUSH, the term PLM (product life cycle management) -- with its implied emphasis on long-term paybacks in product development -- seems unlikely to appeal to businesses in this era of slashed IT budgets and immediate ROI demanded of...

Supply-chain collaboration - Businesses are getting a hold on their supply chains with advanced planning and supplier management.
December 24, 2001... MANUFACTURERS AND SUPPLIERS are abandoning their traditional adversarial relationships characterized by price haggling and hedging bets on product orders in favor of a collaborative-commerce model designed to be mutually beneficial. To...

ENTERPRISE STRATEGIES: Back to basics in 2002 - In the new year, buy for ROI but don't neglect innovative solutions that support your long- term strategies.(Column)
December 24, 2001... AS 2001 COMES to a close and we shake off the stench of a rotten fiscal year, the outlook for 2002 isn't looking much rosier. Consequently, the majority of projects influencing the IT horizon in 2002 will be focused on cutting costs and...

WINDOW MANAGER: A sharper-image catalog - Readers have a laundry list of ideas to make low-end LCD screens look picture-perfect.
December 24, 2001... THIS WEEK I conclude my series on fine-tuning the flat-panel displays that Windows users are buying in droves. As usual, my readers have the last word, with a litany of tips they share for a sharper image. Donald Tsao reports on the...

SECURITY ADVISER: Santa Claus is coming - He knows who's been naughty and who's been nice, and so do the rest of us who follow IT security.(Column)
December 24, 2001... GIVEN THAT IT'S holiday time, I ought to hand out some lumps of coal to misbehaving folks, and oranges to the good boys and girls. So while I hunt through my attic for the Santa drag, and check my list once or twice, dream of those...

THE OPEN SOURCE: The year the hype died - In 2001, open source made less noise but more real progress toward penetrating corporate walls.(Column)
December 24, 2001... IN THE YEAR 2000, some pundits suggested the growing enthusiasm about open source was destined to give out. Once economic conditions returned to pre-dot-com levels, they reasoned, open source would be seen as a fad, just like the pet rock....

SURVIVAL GUIDE: What goes around ... This holiday season, consider my grandfather and remember, how you define success is a personal matter.
December 24, 2001... "The promise of America is Opportunity, not Guarantee." -- Abraham Lincoln MY GRANDFATHER SOLD gloves in the five-state area bounded by Illinois and Minnesota. Not door-to-door, you understand, but to every major retailer. He became...

WIRELESS WORLD: Fearless forecasts - Call it a hunch, but wireless networks, handhelds, and, yes, Amazon.com will make big news next year.(Column)
December 24, 2001... PREDICTION 1: Wireless Ethernet, also known as IEEE 802.11b or Wi-Fi, will continue to cover ground like a stampeding brontosaurus in Jurassic Park III. And as it becomes ubiquitous, wireless carriers will start to hurt. Why? Because as Wi-Fi...

CTO CONNECTION: Prioritize, prioritize - Customers come first, then focus on the technology vision, time-savers, and keeping your staff happy.(Column)
December 24, 2001... ONE OF THE toughest aspects of a CTO's job is time management. In addition to the usual meetings, conferences with employees, and bureaucratic paperwork, CTOs must spend a lot of time reading up on the latest technology trends to inform the...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Season's greetings to all.(Column)
December 24, 2001... "CRINGE, I'M GOING stir-crazy," Amber complained as we trudged through the mall. The tension is only just beginning to subside after the last- minute rush to help feed the holiday economy. But stresses aside, let me offer you my season's...

THE GRIPE LINE: Parallax paradox - Our world today might look decidedly different if we had already been stuck with the DMCA for half a century.(Column)
December 24, 2001... As a special holiday treat, I thought this week I'd let you read the column of my counterpart in a parallel universe with whom I happen to be in contact. As near as we can tell, our two universes were identical until -- by some strange quirk...

ABOVE THE NOISE: An odyssey that is just beginning - New trends in 2002 offer a glimpse of what the future holds and what can't be ignored.
December 24, 2001... FOR MOST OF US, 2001 has been an odyssey we would just as soon forget, but what most people don't recognize is that 2002 is the beginning of an odyssey we can't afford to ignore. What started out as a long-expected collapse of the booming...

E-BUSINESS PULSE: E-business vision - Now is the time to fully review your e-business priorities in light of the current economic situation.
December 24, 2001... THE START OF 2002 is an excellent time to re-examine and reprioritize e-business initiatives. During the past year or so, we've been through irrational exuberance, the burst of the dot-com bubble, and the start of a recession. Have your...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: When we was fab - Tributes to the innovators and artists who brought us where we are today and who helped us imagine the future.
December 24, 2001... IT'S THAT TIME of year. All the Christmas and Hanukkah gifts are unwrapped and scattered around the house -- time to sit down and write thank you notes to the people, technologies, and innovative products that have given us much to be...

FOR THE RECORD: New Year's wish list: Innovation, credibility.
December 24, 2001... A networking CEO once talked to me about his company's "sharp right turn," a dramatic shift in strategy that recast his business forever. In 2001 it felt as if the IT industry as a whole swung very hard to the right, causing many bruises and...

Heavyweights join Liberty Alliance.(Brief Article)
December 24, 2001... Hewlett-Packard, France Telecom, General Motors, and MasterCard International joined the Liberty Alliance last week in another sign of growing industry cooperation. The companies, along with an unnamed commercial bank, will also take...

Progress introduces online recovery services.(Brief Article)
December 24, 2001... A business unit of Progress Software has announced a new set of online disaster recovery services to be offered to customers as part of a managed services program dubbed ASPen. The subsidiary, Progress Company, will make available in January...

J.D. Edwards integrates CRM, ERP packages.(J.D. Edwards CRM 1.1)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
December 24, 2001... J.D. Edwards last week detailed a new version of its collaborative CRM (customer relationship management) offering, CRM Version 1.1, which links to the company's ERP applications. Based on the CRM product it gained from the $86 million...

Nokia coalition ranks swell - Microsoft left standing as new partners join mobile architecture initiative.
December 24, 2001... NOKIA OPENED the next chapter of its Open Mobile Architecture Initiative last week by signing most of the major U.S. infrastructure and application server vendors, with the notable exception of Microsoft. Committed to creating a common...

EMC catches heat for AutoIS program.
December 24, 2001... EMC HAS COME under fire for being too picky and too aggressive in the way it is fulfilling its AutoIS (automated information storage) storage-management software program. Critics have charged the storage behemoth with slowing the progress...

Portal plans target integration.(IBM Websphere Portal Server 4.1)(Product Announcement)
December 24, 2001... TAPPING ITS VAST resources, IBM early next year plans to rev up its WebSphere Portal Server, creating tighter links to the WebSphere Application Server and integrating content publishing, search, and Web services functionality. Eyeing...

SAP readies SRM solution - ERP giant jolts Commerce One partnership, takes direct aim at Ariba, i2.
December 24, 2001... SAP PLANS TO enter the SRM (supplier relationship management) market in a move that could jeopardize its relationship with key partner Commerce One. With the launch of an SRM solution imminent, SAP is slated to become a direct competitor...

Disaster recovery dominates agenda.
December 24, 2001... FEW COMPANIES felt the impact of 2001's massive shift in priorities as vividly as those directly affected by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center complex. Companies in the New York metropolitan area learned firsthand the...

2001: A year of stark ROI reality.
December 24, 2001... THE IMPACT of 2001's dramatic events will ripple well into next year as IT departments readjust to dramatically altered corporate priorities. The rapidly declining economy, coupled with the tragedy of Sept. 11 and widespread changes in...

Built on a firm foundation - BEA WebLogic Portal 4.0 builds on app server strengths to ease b-to-c administration and b-to-b integration.
December 24, 2001... FACILITATING B-TO-B relationships across a web of supply chains and partners isn't easy, and many organizations have turned to e-business portals in search of a solution. A myriad of issues, including system integration, security, real-time...

Ends meet the middle - Borland JBuilder 6 serves developers well from design time to coding, testing, documenting, and deployment.(Product Announcement)
December 24, 2001... ASIDE FROM A FAVORITE code editor, compiler, and debugger, developers also need tools that allow them to design, test, and document their code. Using multiple, unintegrated tools can actually increase the amount of time needed to complete...

Ubiquitous Web services - The Java platform and available Java tools ramp up for rapid creation and deployment of enterprise Web services.(Product Announcement)
December 24, 2001... WEB SERVICES HOLD significant promise for enterprises that need a better strategy for integrating enterprise applications and data with those of business partners. Combining the cross-platform strengths of Java with available XML-based Web...

Oracle spells services - Oracle9i JDeveloper 4 puts the tools for J2EE, SQL, XML, and Web-services development all in one box.(Evaluation)
December 24, 2001... AS ENTERPRISE IT strategists hone their plans for Web services, corporate developers must begin working with tools that will let them rapidly create and deploy them. For Java-based enterprises, a plethora of tools is available that can speed...

Powering the supply links - Portals and auctions tap the Web to succeed where ERP failed.
December 24, 2001... THE GREATEST cost for any production cycle is idleness. Nothing is more disruptive for a manufacturing company than a shortage of material that feeds the production line. Consequently, the greatest challenge for a production manager is to...

Best used before NT 4.0 - Sun cooks up an alternative to IIS fare, but ChiliSoft ASP's ingredients just aren't fresh enough.(Sun Microsystems ChiliSoft ASP 3.6)(Evaluation)
December 24, 2001... AFTER GARTNER recommended that companies ditch IIS (Internet Information Server), Microsoft's frequently hacked Web server, Sun quickly proffered its ChiliSoft ASP as an alternative. ChiliSoft ASP makes it possible to run scripted Web...

Is IIS worth the risk?
December 24, 2001... InfoWorld analysts debate the virtue of sticking with Microsoft's oft- targeted Web server IIS (Internet Information Server), the Web server built into every Microsoft server operating system since Windows NT 4.0, has recently come under...

Web services wizardry - Silverstream eXtend Workbench lacks some tools, but eases the way to Web services for Java application developers.
December 24, 2001... THE ULTIMATE ACCEPTANCE of next-generation Web services technologies in the enterprise hinges on their ease of adoption and solid performance. Moreover, developers will require timesaving tools that can speed the development of Web services...

Streamlining the service desk - When you need to hold on to core help desk operations, benchmarking and automation can reduce headaches and costs.
December 24, 2001... STARBUCKS' RAY SCHUTTE knew he had a problem. The company's service request system had become a black hole; pending requests waited for countless hours to be fulfilled. With about 36,000 requests to handle per year, that lost time was adding...

E-learning leaps into the limelight - Budget cuts and calls for gains in productivity are sparking interest in expanding e-learning's reach.
December 10, 2001... DELIVERING JUST-IN-TIME online knowledge and training to workers' desktops, e-learning is encountering renewed interest in the wake of shrinking budgets and flagging interest in business travel. According to estimates from Framingham,...

One word: Plastics.(Interview)
December 10, 2001... Omnexus CTO says public exchanges still excite interest as a way to save transaction costs OMNEXUS IS A neutral digital marketplace for the plastics industry that counts Dow, DuPont, Bayer, Ticona, and BASF among its co-founders. As the...

Coming together - Collaboration is gearing up with XML integration, peer-to-peer, and e-mail delivery, as it tries to shift the balance toward user acceptance and ROI.
December 10, 2001... WITH E-MAIL TEETERING out of control as an effective collaboration tool, a number of technologies are converging around end-user collaboration in an attempt to move it into the mainstream. New collaboration options, including peer-to-peer...

ABOVE THE NOISE: Software customers, know your rights - Vendors must start viewing application integration capabilities as a basic requirement.
December 10, 2001... THE PROBLEM WITH adopting any suite of applications from a single vendor is that the decision to go with a suite means embracing a series of trade-offs. Simply put, because it's impossible for one vendor to be the best at all things, any...

E-BUSINESS PULSE: The cost of e-business - When planning to implement a new system, be sure to calculate ongoing costs realistically.
December 10, 2001... ONE OF THE more significant roadblocks to e-business is that IT managers and business leaders have continually underestimated the costs of e-business systems. Underestimating costs is not a new thing, and it is endemic in IT. Major...

CTO CONNECTION: Legwork that pays off - In a tough economy, CTOs need to go the extra mile to check the fiscal health of vendors and partners.
December 10, 2001... AS I'VE WRITTEN in this space before, the role of CTO is particularly challenging in a tough economy. The CTO must look for immediate returns on technology investments, balance the need for systems redundancy with the need to keep budgets in...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Lord of the database dance.
December 10, 2001... "LARRY ELLISON REMINDS me of Michael Flatley from Lord of the Dance," Amber said with a laugh, when I told her about Ellison's ego-driven keynote performance at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco last week. Is it just me, or are we tired...

FOR THE RECORD: Web services will move slowly to ERP.
December 10, 2001... Integration consistently tops IT executives' list of priorities, and with the focus on wringing value out of existing systems, there's no sign of that changing. The integration point that is perhaps most painful is ERP. Although ERP vendors...

WINDOW MANAGER: More LCD tuning tricks - Plopping a flat-panel on your desk doesn't make the picture sharp, and tweaking can be counterintuitive.
December 10, 2001... MY MOST RECENT columns have, um, focused on little-known ways to sharpen the picture on the new, less-than-$400 flat-panel LCD screens that have become popular in the past year. This week, I'll share with you some more industry secrets from...

SURVIVAL GUIDE: The craft of CRM - If you're looking for the right system to manage your customer relationships, think strategically.
December 10, 2001... IF YOU DON'T have a new idea, coin a new acronym. Last year's fad was C-level positions. We had CKO (chief knowledge officer), CPO (chief privacy officer), and CCO (chief customer officer) -- it was a wonder nobody added CSO (chief...

THE OPEN SOURCE/CTO TEST CENTER: In the name of quality - The best work, including software, comes from people willing to sign their names to their work.
December 10, 2001... WHAT WOULD LIFE be like if everything you did was signed? Every action, every professional accomplishment, every faux pas you ever committed would have your name on it. Whenever someone wanted to see what you accomplished in your career, it...

WIRELESS WORLD/CTO TEST CENTER: The magic of handhelds - Three things you can do on your Pocket PC or Palm OS handheld that you can't do on a cell phone.
December 10, 2001... NO MATTER HOW fat the bandwidth or how fast the wireless network, converged devices with larger screens will ultimately be the winning form factor. Here's why. If you are an enterprise PC user and you have a new Pocket PC 2002 handheld,...

ENTERPRISE STRATEGIES: Your best foot forward - On the road to CRM, employee training and a cohesive strategy can help you avoid stepping in a mess.
December 10, 2001... THE UNDERPINNINGS of enterprise e-business efficiency are processes such as CRM, business intelligence, and ERP -- each so intricately entwined that untangling them can be as frustrating as a knot in the laces of your canvas high-tops. Often...

SECURITY ADVISER/CTO TEST CENTER: Magic Lantern concerns - Security vendors may turn a blind eye to the FBI's keyboard snoop, putting law- abiding citizens at risk.(Column)
December 10, 2001... AS HAVE MANY of you, I've been watching the case of Nicodemo Scarfo with interest -- Scarfo's the alleged mobster in New Jersey being prosecuted with evidence gained by the FBI through the use of a keystroke-snooping Trojan horse. I'm...

THE GRIPE LINE: Riding into the sunset - Readers suspect that more and more vendors are using expiration techniques to force product upgrades.(Column)
December 10, 2001... PERHAPS NOTHING IS more beautiful and relaxing than contemplating a sunset... unless you're beholding one of the quick and brutal "sunset" policies software publishers have recently instituted to kill off older versions of their products....

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Mercedes bends - Oracle's Larry Ellison uses OpenWorld in San Francisco to put the focus on reliability and to go after the competition.
December 10, 2001... IN A DOWN CYCLE, ROI comes roaring back into play. Along with it comes a return to old friends -- the tried, true, and reliable. But there has to be something fresh to sell, and in these insecure times, Larry Ellison offers a comforting word:...

ERP stalwarts fuel integration.(use of Web services)
December 10, 2001... MAJOR ENTERPRISE application software vendors are racing to embrace Web services, but for many of them the next generation of application integration technologies may prove to be a double-edged sword. Oracle in the first quarter will...

Show touts flexible CDNs - Akamai, Digital Island to tailor services to customers at Internet World.(content delivery network)
December 10, 2001... REFLECTING THE maturation of CDN (content delivery network) services, this week at Internet World Fall 2001 in New York Akamai and Digital Island will unveil new services targeting specific business problems such as site security and...

Liberty Alliance bolsters ranks.(developing technologies for single sign-on service)
December 10, 2001... THE LIBERTY ALLIANCE'S ranks continue to swell after it welcomed what might be Microsoft's most formidable competitor in the development of single sign-on services: AOL. Further validating the Liberty Alliance, American Express also...

Click Commerce joins .Net crowd - E-commerce application leverages Web services standards, avoids Java.(Product Announcement)
December 10, 2001... CLICK COMMERCE PLANS to announce Click Commerce 4.3 this week, a sell- side e-commerce application for channel and partner relationship management that is based on Microsoft's .Net Web services platform. Due to ship in early January,...

Show briefs.
December 10, 2001... Oracle's product news stole much of the limelight at its OpenWorld conference last week in San Francisco, as an army of exhibitors on the show floor announced new products and services designed to keep Oracle's software running. *...

Ellison reignites DB wars - IBM, Microsoft attacked over database reliability, speed, and cost.
December 10, 2001... ORACLE CHAIRMAN and CEO Larry Ellison has lashed out at his two biggest database rivals, IBM and Microsoft, adding cost to the standing list of claims that Oracle is more secure, more reliable, and faster. "Despite what everyone says, our...

BEA to renew developer push.
December 10, 2001... BEA SYSTEMS is set to renew its developer recruiting effort, revealing plans to use the upcoming BEA eWorld conference, Feb. 24 to Feb. 27, as a forum to detail a new framework for building Web services and unveil an enhanced version of its...

SQL data store orbits .Net - Microsoft uses SQL data store technology to better integrate its products.
December 10, 2001... MICROSOFT IS TURNING the SQL Server data store into a common data store that will, over time, be capable of spanning several of its .Net server products. The company is also looking to use SQL Server's data engine and search capabilities in...

HP, PwC cooperate on supply chain.
December 10, 2001... PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Hewlett-Packard have forged a global alliance to co-develop collaborative supply-chain solutions for their joint clients in the manufacturing sector. The first of these solutions -- known as the Rapid Supply...

Congress to push broadband bill.(Brief Article)
December 10, 2001... Lawmaker W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, R-La., signaled last week that Congress will soon move on two key high-tech initiatives: formulation of broad online privacy legislation and a vote on the controversial "broadband bill." Most immediate, he said,...

Standard adopted.(Brief Article)
December 10, 2001... The U.S. government adopted its next-generation data encryption standard last week, aimed at better protecting government data transmission and storage. Known as the AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), this new algorithm will replace the one...

HP propels blades standards.
December 10, 2001... HEWLETT-PACKARD hopes to lead the industry in the adoption of both the NEBS (network equipment building standard) and the CompactPCI standard for the design of server blades, officials at the Palo Alto, Calif.- based company said last week....

Smart routing on the rise - Sockeye, Radware, and Internap promise to shave costs , boost bandwidth.
December 10, 2001... NETWORK VENDORS continue to see opportunities in intelligent routing, coming to market with technologies that identify faster, more economical data paths than those offered by the older BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) method. Sockeye...

Cisco looks to Web apps, fiber optics.
December 10, 2001... FUTURE NETWORKING profits will be driven by "wave after wave" of new applications in every industry type, Cisco President and CEO John Chambers said last week at the company's Worldwide Analyst Conference in Santa Clara, Calif. But...

Excite@Home strands users - Cable Internet company's demise reflects further broadband woes.
December 10, 2001... IN A MOVE that portends poorly for the growth of cable broadband access, bankrupt cable ISP Excite@Home said it will cease operations in 90 days, and AT&T announced it is dropping its $307 million acquisition bid for the company. As...

Microsoft casts its server .Net, but will customers bite? Despite tasty bait such as improved manageability and built-in .Net Framework support, companies may not wait for .Net Server.
December 10, 2001... MOST IT organizations distinguish themselves by the operating systems on their servers: "We're a (name of OS vendor) shop. We don't use that junk from (OS vendor's leading rival)." Therefore, it's not surprising that Microsoft's next server...

Across the enterprise - Informatica's easy integration, beefy tools give managers a grip on all major business processes.(Evaluation)
December 10, 2001... ENTERPRISES HAVE STRUGGLED long and hard to glean the meaningful data needed to make sound business decisions from the vast stores of information available in most corporate settings. Informatica Applications 5 provides a solid analytics...

Are you down with PHP? PHP's C-like syntax and plentiful extensions make it a popular choice for powerful open-source scripting.
December 10, 2001... DEVELOPERS CREATING scripted, dynamic Web applications have an embarrassment of riches in programming languages to choose from, although the choices may sometimes be limited by the platform. For example, WebSphere developers work in Java,...

Scale without hardware - Zend Accelerator provides an easy, affordable performance boost to PHP-based Web sites.
December 10, 2001... ENTERPRISES LOSE REVENUE every year due to inadequate Web site performance. Customers visiting your Web site can leave very quickly and do business elsewhere should your applications fail to execute promptly. However, this isn't the only...

Storage made too easy - Snap Server 2200 is convenient and affordable, but it's a very limited alternative to a standard file server.(Evaluation)
December 10, 2001... IT HAPPENS EVERY day. A company runs out of storage space but has neither the IT budget nor the time to add another expensive, multipurpose file server to its network. If this predicament sounds familiar, you might want to check out the...

Security for hire - The decision to outsource security functions is complex. For some IT managers, giving up the keys to the kingdom boils down to internal expertise and cost.
December 10, 2001... ANY HESITANCY CTOS once felt about outsourcing aspects of their security operations has recently begun to disappear. Thanks go in large part to the realization that their internal IT organizations have neither the time nor the sophisticated...

Pushing intelligence to the edge - Silicon-enriched edge-networking devices allow performance gains and ease server workload.
December 3, 2001... THE DEVELOPMENT OF intelligent edge-network devices are enabling better performance by taking on a greater share of the processing burden, thereby relieving overworked servers. "The way networks used to be built, you'd have a central...

Building on success - Problem-solving CTO constructed a new staff and repaired an ailing database.(National Association of Home Builders)
December 3, 2001... WHEN DON ZACHERL took over as the new CTO for the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), the Y2K threat loomed large, but that was the least of his worries. His IT organization was only 50-percent staffed and was about to move...

Authenticating Web services - As users hunger for secure authentication across Web services networks, vendors do battle and create interoperability concerns.(Microsoft's controversial Passport authentication product)
December 3, 2001... SECURE WEB SERVICES authentication that not only recognizes users but also grants access to particular systems is becoming a thorny and contentious issue with few signs of clarity in the near term. With security so high in enterprises'...

Shoring up Web services - A new breed of service provider offers the security and reliability for deploying services today.
December 3, 2001... OPENNESS IS BOTH a blessing and a curse for Web services. On one hand, reliance on open standards such as XML, SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), and UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration) has fostered seamless...

E-BUSINESS PULSE: Learning how to play - Video games have a lot to teach us about creating products that will enhance the user's experience.(Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation and Nintendo Game Boy and Game Boy Advance)
December 3, 2001... I HAVE BEEN informed by my teenage son that he wants a Microsoft Xbox for Christmas. That's the snazzy new gaming system from our friends in Redmond, Wash. My son's request caught me off guard, because he already has a Sony PlayStation for...

CTO CONNECTION: Hitting the books - Education is a continuing process for IT professionals, but there are many paths to knowledge.(Column)
December 3, 2001... ONE ITEM THAT comes up in my conversations with other technology professionals is the relative importance of formal education in one's career. In retracing my steps to the CTO job at InfoWorld, some key moments stand out in my mind: building...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Merger gossip abounds.(Column)
December 3, 2001... WHEREAS MOST PEOPLE, including yours truly, might feel like it's time to relax and wind down for the year, others are cranking up the dial. Amber is one of them, recently landing a job at a South San Francisco biotech company -- about the...

FOR THE RECORD: Defined metrics may heal CRM reputation.(Editorial)
December 3, 2001... A CTO recently told the story of his CEO insisting the company get CRM, even though it wasn't totally clear what exactly that meant. Improved customer relationship management should be at the top of every company's agenda, but IT executives...

WINDOW MANAGER: Get your LCD in sync - Obscure settings such as phase and pixel tracking could be just what you need for a sharper display.
December 3, 2001... I WROTE LAST week that the new, more affordable LCD screens can be harder to adjust properly than the flat panels found in laptops, which are always digitally tuned to a particular video subsystem (see "A 1, 2, 3 for your LCD," Sept. 26). ...

SURVIVAL GUIDE: Customer disservice - CRM is a useful tool, but it can't be expected to help companies that treat customers poorly.
December 3, 2001... AND NOW, NEWS from the trailing edge of customer service, which my father, the great guru of direct marketing, has dubbed CEM for "Customer Elimination Management." I won't mention the names of the offenders -- that would be crass -- and...

THE OPEN SOURCE/CTO TEST CENTER: Desktop revolutions - In the computer business, where change is constant, 'never' comes a lot sooner than you might think.
December 3, 2001... HARDLY A WEEK goes by these days without some expert on the future of technology declaring that "Linux will never make it to the corporate desktop." And I have to admit that some of the arguments supporting this conclusion seem convincing....

WIRELESS WORLD/CTO TEST CENTER: Applications on the go - Web services fuel mobile computing by allowing developers to publish and integrate apps via the Net.
December 3, 2001... AS SO OFTEN happens in this industry, a new buzzword suddenly appears and everyone is afraid to say they don't quite know what it means. Web services falls into this category. What are Web services? They are a way to publish and share not...

ENTERPRISE STRATEGIES/CTO TEST CENTER: Stretch your IT dollar.
December 3, 2001... TODAY'S SPUTTERING economy is requiring CIOs, CTOs, and other IT managers to rethink their spending habits. As shrinking budgets force these executives to buy smarter and repurpose whenever possible, financial constraints are also fueling a...