InfoWorld articles from February 2006

InfoWorld archives from February 2006

Aventail and F5 extend their security reach to network access control - Companies build on already excellent SSL VPN product lines.(F5 Networks Inc.)
February 6, 2006... During the past few years, SSL VPNs have matured from devices offering very basic application support to enterprise-ready security jacks-of- all-trades, capable of handling thousands of users and a wide range of connectivity options. Security...

Sun Ultra 20 sets sights on Java shops - Low-price Opteron workstation is full of developer tools -- but isn't always easy to use.
February 6, 2006... When most IT people think of hardware from Sun Microsystems, they likely think of massively parallel servers, such as its giant Sun Fire systems.However, the company got its start as a maker of technical workstations, and the Ultra 20...

Uplogix provides remote-site lifeline - Envoy and EMS combo make molehills out of network device management mountains.
February 6, 2006... It's the bane of remote-site network administration: the moment you realize that the routing change you just made on a remote router has locked you out of the site entirely and knocked the site offline. It's not necessarily a case of poor admin...

Finding a home for metadata - Organizing data about data is essential for master data management. But where do you put the metadata repository?
February 6, 2006... Working with data across an enterprise -- especially in an SOA environment -- requires understanding its context and semantics, not just its format and field attributes. And that means metadata. For developers as well as services to track that...

Whipping IT data into shape - Enterprises are tackling the ugly problem of reconciling widely distributed data, driven in part by the move to service-oriented architecture.
February 6, 2006... No one likes data integration. It's painstaking, hard to automate, and hard to measure in terms of business ROI. Yet it's required for making systems work together, whether as a result of an acquisition, as part of a migration to new tools, or...

Product Previews.
February 6, 2006... Fast bolsters search platform, EMC pumps up storage software, Fortify fortifies production apps, Zenprise doctors Exchange for small shops Fast Revs Up Its Enterprise Search Platform Fast Search & Transfer this week released Version 5...

Outsourcing the desktop - Outsourcing desktop management can shave costs while bringing relief to an assortment of infrastructure management headaches.(case studies on outsourcing)
February 6, 2006... In 2003, New York City consolidated 32 autonomous community school districts under a unified Department of Education, creating a vast organization of 130,000 employees serving 1.1 million students. The reorg also brought under one IT roof...

Demo 06: A dating service for startups - Dozens of hopeful companies to present innovative technologies at conference.(search engines)
February 6, 2006... This year's Demo 06, the conference that puts startup hopefuls before an audience of high-tech investors, will feature an eclectic assortment of search, database, open source, and RSS technologies from 68 presenters. Several startups are...

Team Foundation Server gets ready for liftoff - Product marks shift toward collaborative development.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... With the upcoming release of its Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server, Microsoft will attempt to strengthen its relationship with enterprise developers through a new push toward collaborative development. Set to ship in March, Team...

iWay steps gently into ESB - Adapter vendor to compete with partners in emerging enterprise service bus market.(software)(Brief article)
February 6, 2006... iWay software is the Belkin of application adapters, those pieces of software that hook enterprise apps to middleware from the likes of BEA, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Sonic, and Sun. As of today, iWay is joining the ranks of all those companies...

BlackWorm Peters Out - Advance warning takes the sting out of feared worm attack.(computer viruses)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... It isn't every day IT departments take their marching orders from malware authors, but Friday, Feb. 3, was one of them. Last Friday, the BlackWorm virus (also known as Nyxem, MyWife, Kama Sutra, and sundry other names) went off. BlackWorm...

VMware offers no-cost server virtualization - VMware Server is the first commercial server virtualization product to support 64-bit guest virtual machines.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... VMware this week launched the first commercial server virtualization product to support 64-bit virtual machines. Dubbed VMware Server, the new offering attempts to bring virtualization to the masses at an aggressive price point: free of charge....

EDITOR'S LETTER: Clean house, clean data - Developers must consider data logic before writing the first piece of code.(Editorial)
February 6, 2006... Before you build anything, you have to get your house in order -- ripping out the old, reorganizing and cleaning up what's left. I know this firsthand: Right now I'm neck-deep in a house remodeling project that will ultimately transform my...

OPEN ENTERPRISE: Itanium stakes its future on openness - An industry consortium says Intel's beleaguered chip offers choices, but will that be enough to win it market share?(Editorial)
February 6, 2006... Itanium has an image problem. I know it, you know it, and the Itanium Solutions Alliance (ISA) knows it. In fact, if customers were migrating to the Itanium platform even half as readily as Intel had hoped for, the ISA might not even exist. ...

SECURITY ADVISER: Winning the password-probability game - Applying a little logic could help professional password crackers figure out which passwords occur most frequently.
February 6, 2006... The things that come to you in the shower... I was wondering the other morning whether any password-guessing tool uses scientific password frequency analysis. Is there any tool that uses as part of its algorithm the percent chance of a...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Microsoft pushes cells, MPAA defies itself - Crusty columnist sprains brain doing rapid reversal on Google.
February 6, 2006... What a difference a week makes. Mere moments after I praised Google's refusal to release information about user searches to U.S. investigators, the company rolls over and plays dead for the Chinese government. Google claims that it took more...

FROM THE ANALYSTS: Dream of telecommuting may become more elusive - Wary of slackers, the corner office holders appear to be rethinking the wisdom of letting folks work at home.(Editorial)
February 6, 2006... Telecommuting, a perennial dream of the technorati, has been back in the news recently, sparked by bird flu fears, high gas prices, hurricanes, transit strikes, volcanoes -- you name it. The good news is that telecommuting is having a pretty...

STORAGE INSIDER: EMC tolls the ILM bell, again - Multifaceted announcement of new products and features reflects EMC's obsession with information lifecycle management.(EMC Computer Systems (UK) Ltd.)
February 6, 2006... Whatever you think of EMC, you should give the company credit for at least one virtue: perseverance. In fact, since the very first briefings I had with them years ago, EMC has been a relentless and vocal advocate of ILM (information lifecycle...

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: Microsoft injects more smarts into Windows Storage Server 2003 - Forthcoming Release 2 will include goodies such as the handy single-instance storage feature.
February 6, 2006... Intelligent storage. It's golden if you've got it when you need it. But it's a pain if you're simply setting it up for that proverbial rainy day -- or on it. Like my rainy Friday, during which a static charge due to all this dry Northeastern...

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: Opening up iTunes U - Apple's walled-garden approach places unnecessary limitations on its online educational content.(music services)
February 6, 2006... Criticizing free services is always dicey. So when I dinged Stanford University and Apple for the nonaccessibility of the lectures at itunes.stanford.edu, I knew I risked seeming churlish. But there are some things about this deal that rub me...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Our need to know trumps Intel's need for secrecy - The public's interest in AMD v. Intel is guarded by the press, and our right to know is in danger.(Advanced Micro Devices Inc.)
February 6, 2006... Intel got thumped in Japan for violating the nation's anti-monopoly statutes. The Fair Trade Commission of Japan (JFTC) found that Intel coerced system makers into limiting or eliminating AMD processors in their products. The punishment seemed...

REALITY CHECK: SAP steps into the software-as-a-service arena - The applications vendor's managed CRM offering raises the bar for wannabe enterprise service providers.(Systems, Applications & Products in Data Processing)(Customer Relationship Management)
February 6, 2006... It's as momentous as when the Union Pacific met the Central Pacific and the final, golden, spike was driven at Promontory Summit, Utah, completing the transcontinental railroad -- not that in high tech anyone would notice an event as...

OFF THE RECORD: How to get rewarded for incompetence - Sometimes doing your job as badly as possible pays off, especially when the boss is watching.(occupational prestige)
February 6, 2006... By Anonymous Several years ago I found myself working at a manufacturing company where, after years of neglect, the apps that ran the Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable departments were in desperate need of replacement. The IT...

Identity Manager 3 adds provisioning and polish - New Novell release irons out wrinkles with unified user portal, provisioning workflow, and visual Designer.
February 6, 2006... In our October roundup of identity managers, Novell Identity Manager 2 impressed us with a powerful visual modeling tool and an intuitive user interface to corporate white pages and password self-service functions. Still, some aspects of...

Insourcing through thick and thin - For organizations that are sick and tired of managing desktops, thin clients provide another viable option.(outsourcing)(Brief article)
February 6, 2006... Outsourcing desktop management doesn't make sense in every organization. For one thing, you may already have an efficient, top- flight group in charge, and the flexibility of doing it all in-house can outweigh the predictability of SLAs. But...

ClairMail makes mobile app access easy as e-mail - ClairAccess provides one-click remote entry into enterprise systems -- without recoding.(ClairMail software)
February 13, 2006... Sure, it's possible to rewrite applications and user interfaces to run on smartphones or PDAs. Unfortunately, however, rewritten apps often result in click-heavy, unintuitive navigation and code that sucks up a mobile device's limited memory...

Policy Commander ably secures Windows systems - Though somewhat limited, this easy-to-use solution can help reduce security drift.(software industry)
February 13, 2006... Over time, Windows or application updates can change a PC's security posture by adding or removing components not originally part of the approved PC. Factor in regulatory compliance criteria, such as Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA, and this security...

Customers don't have to hate interactive voice apps - Keeping customers on the line with IVR systems requires careful planning and monitoring of the voice response interface.(Interactive Voice Response System)
February 13, 2006... Recently, Paul English made the news with his "IVR Cheat Sheet," a Web site that lists shortcuts to allow customers to quickly escape from corporate IVR systems. The list is a clever idea, but for businesses it poses a serious question: How can...

Plugging in to voice apps - Phone services via speech-enabled software from companies such as Nuance and TuVox are taking off.(telecommunications software)
February 13, 2006... If history is any guide, as many as 88,000 callers will be ringing the toll-free hotlines at 1-800-Flowers this Valentine's Day to make sure their chocolate and roses arrived on time. Managing call volumes that high is a challenge for any...

Conference propels open source into business - OSBC to feature open source legal info, vendor products and services.(open source business conference)
February 13, 2006... The open source business conference in San Francisco this week promises to convey insight into building a business on open source software and how to mitigate associated open source legal risks. Vendors showcased include Sun Microsystems,...

Product Previews.
February 13, 2006... Certeon appliances smooth WAN traffic, Borland zeros in on governance, SWsoft eEases virtual server management, X1 digs deeper into the enterprise desktop By InfoWorld staff Certeon Appliances Smooth WAN Application Traffic ...

Blogs, wikis make a home in the enterprise - ECM vendors Stellent, iUpload tackle thorny security, compliance issues posed by blogs and wikis.(internet services)
February 13, 2006... Blogs and wikis have moved past the tech bling phase and are settling in as core fixtures in the enterprise collaboration infrastructure. Two enterprise content management vendors are helping drive this evolution, bolstering their platforms...

RSA Conference gets the NAC - Annual security show will be abuzz with access control, event management, and compliance solutions.(network security)
February 13, 2006... The vision of a more visibly secure and regulatory-compliant enterprise will be on prominent display this week at the RSA Conference 2006 in San Jose, Calif. In addition to providing a soapbox for high-caliber keynoters including Microsoft's...

Mustang Java release jumps on Web 2.0 and scripting - The next version of Java eases use of Perl, PHP, Python, JavaScript, and Ruby languages.(java language)(Brief article)
February 13, 2006... The next version of Java, code-named Mustang, is expected to feature Web 2.0 functionality in the form of expanded support for scripting languages. Mustang is due in a beta release later this month. Officially known as Java Platform,...

EDITOR'S LETTER: Is the offshoring trend ready to reverse? Economic forces overseas could bring offshore development projects back home.(Editorial)
February 13, 2006... Ephraim Schwartz, InfoWorld's provocateur in chief, is at it again this week, stirring the pot with another column on offshoring. If you've been following his Reality Check column, you know Ephraim is all over the topic; you may also know that...

OPEN ENTERPRISE: A slim market for certified open source? Companies such as Red Hat, SourceLabs, and SpikeSource offer fully validated open source software stacks, but are customers buying?(open source software)
February 13, 2006... How certain are you that the systems you've built using open source software will work as advertised? Given the complexity of your average server environment, there's no easy answer. Even the so-called LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and...

FROM THE ANALYSTS: Handhelds give way to "telephony" devices - Voice is still the killer app that's going to loosen up the purse strings.(production data)
February 13, 2006... Last week brought mixed news for the handheld business. On the one hand, IDC reported that handheld sales actually declined about 17 percent (to 7.5 million) in 2005. On the other, some of the big wireless carriers reported that sales of cell...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: EarthLink gets wormed, Google takes desktop turn? On the case of the mysterious disappearing White House e-mails.(computer viruses)
February 13, 2006... I'm constantly losing things -- keys, lottery tickets, girlfriends. So it's comforting to hear the White House has the same problem with e- mail. According to documents filed by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, an unspecified number of...

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: The browser as orchestrator - Modern Web browsers can be powerful tools for composing services.(web browsers)
February 13, 2006... It's been a busy week for my LibraryLookup project, which first launched in December 2002. In its original and still most widely deployed incarnation, LibraryLookup is a JavaScript bookmarklet that connects an Amazon book page to the...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: BlackBerry handsets will thrive for years to come - Despite the company's patent hassles, its peerless handsets and ardent fan base will see it through.(intellectual property)
February 13, 2006... Research In Motion patent hassles will cost the company a good deal of money to resolve, but writing or reading speculation about the demise of the BlackBerry or its network service is a waste of time. RIM is a company that knows how to tough...

REALITY CHECK: Bringing software development back in-house - To hear one CEO tell it, the tide may be turning against offshore outsourcing.(Chief executive officers)
February 13, 2006... I've written so many columns about offshore outsourcing that I never thought I'd do another. Then I met Mike Fields, the new CEO at CRM vendor Kana Software, and I changed my mind. This time I want to talk about what Fields calls "backshoring."...

OFF THE RECORD: Watch out for billing scams ... and slimy managers - What can you do when a slightly sleazy deal starts to slide deeper into the fertilizer?
February 13, 2006... By Anonymous A few years ago, I was hired as a contractor to lead the development of a Web application for "SatChem," a smallish subsidiary of a large pharmaceutical company in California. SatChem had a top-notch IT/network manager. It...

Imperva keeps database activity in check - SecureSphere Database Security Gateway addresses user access, change control, and compliance concerns.(data base security)
February 13, 2006... Database vendors may be working feverishly to make their systems impenetrable to outsiders, but that's only part of the battle. The hardest part of database security is controlling an authorized user's activity once he's gained access to the...

The open source answer: An interview with Bruce Snyder - Industry insider says open source tips the balance toward the build side, thanks to shorter development times and increased possibilities for reuse.
February 13, 2006... How does open source figure into the build-or-buy decision? For an informed perspective, we turned to Bruce Snyder, co-founder and developer for the Geronimo project and a senior architect at LogicBlaze, a provider of open source solutions for...

Inside MCI's decision to build or to buy IT applications - At MCI, a routine series of questions helps IT managers decide how to best meet their needs.
February 13, 2006... In the past year, MCI had to make a decision about whether to buy or build a system to track third-party services inventory. The following series of questions illustrates how the company arrived at a decision to buy the application. Should...

To build or to buy IT applications? The oldest question in IT keeps getting more complicated as new options emerge. Here's how MCI, Motorola, Visa, and others are tackling the problem.(Information Technology)
February 13, 2006... It's a question of Shakespearean proportions. Should you license a commercial enterprise application that will meet 75 percent of your needs, or would it be nobler to build your own application, one that will track as closely as possible to the...

Innovative IPSes resist our attacks - McAfee IntruShield and NFR Sentivist bring useful extras to intrusion prevention.(data security)
February 13, 2006... There's more than one way to snare malicious network traffic, and the more methods your IPS uses to detect bad streams, the better your chances of keeping your network productive. McAfee IntruShield 2.1 and NFR Sentivist 5.0 each combine...

ShoreTel lets you collaborate right out of the box - Converged Conferencing packs commendable tools into a convenient 1U appliance.
February 20, 2006... With the high costs of travel and time wasted with face-to-face meetings, online collaboration services are flourishing -- from the big names such as Microsoft and WebEx to less elaborate solutions that include GoToMeeting and Raindance. What...

SimpleFeed turns RSS into client relationship tool - Version 2.7 of publishing app streamlines content creation, subscription process for marketing purposes.(Product/service evaluation)
February 20, 2006... RSS (Really Simple Syndication) presents an interesting opportunity for businesses. This attractive technology, which allows users to subscribe to information streams that appear in their browser or feed reader, remains ideal for delivering...

Symantec and Zantaz simplify large-scale backups - Polished e-mail and file archiving solutions offer comparable features.(data security)
February 20, 2006... Administrators often battle with end-users over the amount of space they use on mail and file servers. Users would like to keep everything they might need, while administrators would like to avoid buying more disks and upgrading servers to...

ROI: Debating the value of metrics for IT management - Is an ROI metric an essential tool for project management or merely smoke and mirrors?
February 20, 2006... By InfoWorld Staff You've deployed the technology. Now it's time to gauge the payoff. In many organizations, winning support for your initiatives from senior management means demonstrating the ROI of your IT expenditures. But is ROI a...

Product Previews.
February 20, 2006... Sand/DNA digs into compressed data, Vontu 6.0 stems data loss, Cittio WatchTower 2.5 eyes the network, HP accelerates ProCurve edge switches By InfoWorld staff Sand/DNA Digs Into Compressed Data Sand Technology this week updated...

Microsoft's Office Live services debut with e-mail, Web hosting services - What, you were expecting Excel via the browser?(Microsoft Corp.)
February 20, 2006... The first installment of Microsoft's Office Live initiative landed in beta form last week. No one really thought an AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) version of MS Office was imminent, but it was still slightly disappointing to see that...

Oracle grabs Sleepycat - Company gains embedded-database.(Brief article)
February 20, 2006... Oracle has acquired open source database vendor Sleepycat Software, strengthening its hand in the embedded database market and proving true at least one of the rumors about its plans to buy open source companies. The acquisition extends...

Can Google gain a foothold in the enterprise? Partnerships, new software bolster the search vendor's appeal to corporate customers.
February 20, 2006... Google's got its eyes on your corporate data, and if its ability to parlay its whip-smart Web search technology into a vast empire of consumer services is any indication, you may be Googling enterprise apps and data sooner than you think. ...

OPEN ENTERPRISE: The new scourge of open source? Questions abound as the database vendor begins its planned buying spree of open source companies.
February 20, 2006... Oracle's done it again. Not only has it acquired another company, but in the process it has riled up the open source community once more. If your mind was made up already, then Oracle's acquisition of Sleepycat last week doubtless seemed...

EDITOR'S LETTER: Google makes its move on the enterprise - The search darling's lost love -- but it's mooning over corporate data.(Editorial)
February 20, 2006... The scrappy little startup, the starving artist, the Chicago Cubs -- America just can't resist an underdog. Conversely, there's scorn aplenty for big, successful ventures -- just ask Microsoft, or my own beloved New York Yankees, for that...

FROM THE ANALYSTS: Rogue IT may be a blessing in disguise - CIOs could benefit from hidden tech spending, but only if they learn to work with the "bad boys of IT".(chief information officers)(Information Technology)
February 20, 2006... "Rogue IT," or hidden technology spending outside the IT organization, is a problem long known to large-enterprise CIOs. But by definition it's been hard to quantify, so when an item came across my desk claiming that 93 percent of corporate...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Microsoft whacks Symantec, more Sony antics - Grumpy gossip hound has Google on the brain.(Microsoft Corp)
February 20, 2006... I think computers have become like toasters; it doesn't matter which one you use so long as it doesn't burn the bagels. So the idea behind Google Desktop 3.0 -- you store your data online and access it from any machine -- makes a lot of sense....

STORAGE INSIDER: Three lessons for successful e-mail archiving - Some process changes -- and outsourcing options -- will help your company be better prepared for legal challenges.(outsourcing)
February 20, 2006... To say that e-mail -- once regarded as a primary corporate productivity tool -- has become a gigantic pain in the neck for many companies is probably an understatement. And as if the spam, the many bugs, and the fraud attempts were not...

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: Speeding retrieval with in-memory data management - Though often overlooked, memory is a great place to store databases for fast search and retrieval.(database services)
February 20, 2006... My first real Java application, back in 1997, was a servlet-based group scheduler. It wasn't quite the smash hit that Hanson's "MMMBop" was that summer, but as some of you may recall, it had its charms. One of the things that fascinated me...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Virtualization-oriented architecture takes SOA to the next level - VOA builds on a combination of system, storage, and infrastructure virtualization.
February 20, 2006... It's no secret that I'm a firm believer in virtualizing everything from systems and storage to those infrastructure elements, such LAN segments, that can be abstracted. Zero reality is my mantra. Robust storage virtualization is an...

OFF THE RECORD: For banks, security compliance goes only MSSP-deep - Vetting managed security services providers for compliance with federal mandates just makes sense.
February 20, 2006... By Anonymous In the financial industry, third parties often guard the vault. For example, MSSPs (managed security services providers), such as the company I work for, deliver vital resources and expertise to many small to midsize banks....

REALITY CHECK: Krugle unveils a search engine for code - Startup's new tool for locating open source code could help developers stop reinventing the wheel.(search engines)
February 20, 2006... I'm just back from the Demo 2006 conference in Phoenix. Demo, for those who don't know, is a show owned by InfoWorld parent company IDG, and it gives tech startups six minutes to present their technology to an audience of corporate investors...

Scalable and available Linux mail - Scalix 10 sports new features.(email services)
February 20, 2006... E-mail and calendaring are among the top mission-critical applications, yet many IT managers are frustrated with their current infrastructure's reliability, complexity, and high TCO. Launched last week, Scalix 10 addresses these concerns with...

Building a workflow for insurance reps - The American National Insurance Company discovers a big sales boost in branching BPM applications.
February 20, 2006... With more than $3 billion in sales and more than 2.3 million customers, 100-year-old American National Insurance Company (ANIC) has quite a few legacy systems in operation. The greatest challenge for ANIC was around customer service....

Evaluating anti-terror technology - The boom in anti-terror technology led to a flood of proposals -- and the Institute for Defense Analysis turned to BPM to sort them out.(Business process management)
February 20, 2006... Business process management even has a place in the war on terror, according to Indy Crowley, research staff member and acting lead for IT at the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA), an organization that evaluates technology under the SAFETY...

Modeling employee background checks - An independent employment screening company turns to BPM for sourcing and distributing verification information to customers.(business process management)
February 20, 2006... Sterling testing systems never actually called the solution they came up with BPM (business process management) until after the fact, says Paul Mladineo, vice president of strategic development. But Mladineo and his team, headed up by CTO...

The ABCs of BPM - With a BPM system, you can detach business logic from infrastructure to create new applications quicker than ever before.(business process management)
February 20, 2006... The benefits claimed by BPM (business process management) software sound almost too good to be true. Proponents crow about lower app dev costs, shorter time to market, improved compliance enforcement, and new points of leverage for optimizing...

Midrange SANs with high-end features from Compellent, Xiotech - Multiple-tier storage, data migration jazz up these smaller systems, but ease of management sets them apart.
February 27, 2006... As high-end storage systems come out with new features, those features tend to migrate down over time to systems intended for the smaller enterprise. Two midrange SANs, Compellent's Storage Center 3.3 and Xiotech's Magnitude 3D 3000e, are...

Agitator 3.0 puts Java code through the wringer - Detail-oriented structured rules, new Domain Experts streamline code testing.(Product/service evaluation)
February 27, 2006... Anyone with a 2-year-old knows that one of the most effective ways to test your software is to put it in front of the child: If there's any odd combination of clicks and inputs that will crash the program, the child will invariably find it....

Muscular SunFire X4200 feels the burn - Opteron-powered 2U server proves a strong datacenter workhorse with a nice price.(Product/service evaluation)
February 27, 2006... Last year, Sun announced the Galaxy server line, the company's first foray into the dual-core Opteron world. In conjunction, Sun sent InfoWorld Contributing Editors Oliver Rist and Brian Chee a preproduction unit of the Sun Fire X4100. Although...

Product Previews.(new product UpTime Select from Fluke Networks Inc.)(new product TrueDemand Forecasting and Replenishment Suite from TrueDemand Software)(new product Tandberg Content Server from Tandberg Data ASA)
February 27, 2006... Fluke Networks brings greater visibility to VoIP, Tandberg offers video on the go, Tivoli ID Manager slims down for SMBs, an honest look at the supply chain By InfoWorld staff Fluke Networks brings greater visibility to VoIP Fluke...

AOL hops back into business IM - AIM Pro, developed with WebEx, delivers security and directory integration.(Brief article)
February 27, 2006... America Online is developing a version of its instant messaging service for workplace use, an attempt to fortify the consumer-oriented AIM with the security, collaboration, and IT management features that businesses require. Developed with...

Google Desktop for the enterprise remains controversial - Feature for searching across computers incites concerns about privacy, security.
February 27, 2006... Google has released a new beta version of its enterprise desktop search application that contains a controversial feature for searching across multiple computers. That feature, which temporarily stores a user's data in Google servers,...

Software AG enters SOA fray - Registry and repository are key to company's integrated Crossvision suite.
February 27, 2006... By Paul Krill Software AG is packaging existing products into an integrated platform for SOA management and governance, with the CentraSite registry and repository serving as the linchpin of the platform. Also featured in the company's...

OS X security flaws: Much ado about nothing? Media, security vendors overhype the recent spate of Apple security vulnerabilities.
February 27, 2006... Apple's got a worm... or several, as panicked news headlines of multiple OS X security flaws in the past several weeks have trumpeted. Much has been made in the press about the Mac OS X Leap.A virus and last week's discovery of a Safari...

OPEN ENTERPRISE: Does open source matter? Maybe what enterprise IT really needs can be found in the changing model of the commercial software business.
February 27, 2006... As I said last week, I can't understand why folks want to vilify Oracle for buying up open source companies such as Sleepycat and Innobase. By the same token, I can't really fault those companies for selling out, either. For small software...

EDITOR'S LETTER: IT's input on outsourcing - For the good of the business, IT must have a stake in the business process outsourcing discussion.(Editorial)
February 27, 2006... Few words strike fear into the hearts of IT pros like "outsourcing" and its closely related foreign cousin, "offshoring." For many, the "O" words are simply euphemisms for layoffs, an all-too-common occurrence. Worse, the corporate appetite...

SECURITY ADVISER: Malware dissection 101 - Disassembling and analyzing security exploits reveals their threat potential -- here's how to start your investigation.
February 27, 2006... I'm lucky enough to be sent interesting new malware examples and hacker exploits to examine and figure out. For the most part, senders look to me for clues about how the program works and what it does -- or is capable of doing -- after it has...

FROM THE ANALYSTS: Web 2.0 and innovation -- the enterprise strikes back - Vertical search gets a welcome boost from a company you may not have heard of.
February 27, 2006... Who says all IT innovation has to come from Silicon Valley? I don't want to be accused of Google-bashing, but I admit that when I stumbled onto FidelityLabs the other day, I almost jumped for joy. Lately the buzz in deep thinker circles is...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Google videos nixed, Sony seeks a fix - What happens when limitless power meets limited brain cells?
February 27, 2006... Here's more proof corporate America has lost its marbles: Web designer Paul Dell is being sued over the domain Dellwebsites.com by you know who. It's the second time Dell has sued Dell in the past five years. Next up: lawsuits against Dell...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: What virtualization is -- and what it isn't - Rosetta and Virtual PC for Mac are good case studies in technology that is not virtualization.
February 27, 2006... When a computer or an operating system uses software to do anything it normally can't, the enabling technology tends to get labeled "virtualization." Well, don't believe everything you read (except here). Let's see what virtualization is and is...

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: Getting smart about languages and libraries - Developers spend too much time untangling programming languages and their related code collections.
February 27, 2006... The ever-quotable Sean McGrath penned another of his trademark aphorisms this week: "The library IS the language." By "library" he means the great edifices of reusable code that are, in their modern form, delivered as the core Java and .Net...