InfoWorld articles from January 2003

InfoWorld archives from January 2003

SAP aims to bridge suites - Early adopters weigh xApp reality as company pursues best-of-breed.
January 20, 2003... SAP IS FORGING ahead with its mission to build a set of xApps with the help of key business partners in an attempt toredefine the evolution of enterprise applications. Accenture, Cap Gemini, Bearing Point, and IBM are releasing a slew of...

Front-end integration - Digital Harbor's PiiE Express 2.0 leverages XML, Java, and a rich client to stitch together back-end apps at the desktop.(Software Review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 20, 2003... TRADITIONAL EAI DEPLOYMENTS are thorny, expensive endeavors that frequently go overbudget well before completion. For some projects, such as a call center scenario in which users typically are forced to navigate multiple screens and to tap...

Renegotiating the IT buyers market - Entering the new year, CTOs still have an upper hand in SLA contract negotiations -- but how long before sellers say enough is enough?(Industry Overview)
January 20, 2003... EVER SINCE THE economy plunged into recession, analysts have pointed to one bright side for IT buyers: a climate ripe for negotiating better prices and added value from service providers. With vendors still crunched for business and likely to...

Capital challenge - The District of Columbia's CTO takes on outdated technology and infrastructure to improve services.
January 20, 2003... SUZANNE PECK, CTO of the government of the District of Columbia sees opportunities where others might see headaches. A decade without adequate investment in technology by the city's leaders had left Washington's infrastructure in serious...

CTO status check.(Brief Article)
January 20, 2003... Fewer than half of CIOs surveyed in late 2002 report having a CTO. Of those surveyed companies that include a CTO on the org chart, most CTOs do not report to the CIO. Copyright (c) 2003 InfoWorld Media Group Inc.

Repackaging apps - Application vendors add pre-integrated options and modularity to soothe frustrated users.(Industry Overview)
January 20, 2003... ENTERPRISE APPLICATION vendors are casting off traditional tactics of marketing monolithic suites, and are instead focusing on selling more affordable pieces of their offerings architected for specific business processes and designed to more...

SAP weaves new net.(NetWeaver)(Brief Article)
January 20, 2003... SAP has announced NetWeaver, a reincarnation of MySap that supports both IBM WebSphere and Microsoft .Net. NetWeaver will be the foundation for SAP's ebusiness applications, xApps, and ERP and will serve as the way SAP plans to build a new...

IBM invests in content.(Brief Article)
January 20, 2003... IBM says it plans to bolster R&D spending by 25 percent and will more tightly integrate content-management-related products. Approximately 1,000 people are working on the strategy that in part will see a new version of Content Manager later...

Big guns hit LinuxWorld - IBM, HP, CA extend Linux strategies as smaller players battle to survive.
January 20, 2003... DOMINANT LINUX players such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard are proving to be the chief beneficiaries of Linux's rising financial fortunes in the enterprise as smaller, Linux-only companies struggle for survival. The industry's top-tier...

Veritas to leverage backup strengths - Backup Exec rollout builds on Linux, file-system, virtualization strategies.(Veritas Backup Exec 9.0)
January 20, 2003... VERITAS SOFTWARE IS expected to release Backup Exec 9.0 next week, a new version of a venerable and profitable product in the software maker's lineup, industry sources report. The upgrade is part of a large product refresh at Veritas that...

With room to grow - EMC's CX400 storage array brings durability, resiliency to the midtier.
January 20, 2003... expensive investments in storage arrays are often written off -- not because of the demise of perfectly functional equipment, but because of the emergence of a new technology twist or the demand for higher capacity. When replacing outdated...

ABOVE THE NOISE: Preaching to the convergence choir - CES attracts tech leaders eager to play in the consumer electronics market.
January 20, 2003... DIGITAL RELIGION IS alive and well, and it's coming to a watch, refrigerator magnet, and robo-dog near you. Consumer electronics and the tech industry at large have long been preaching doctrines that continue to look ever more similar,...

THE OPEN SOURCE: DVD fairy tale - There's a happy ending to this story in Norway, but DeCSS remains illegal in the United States.(Open source case)
January 20, 2003... ONCE UPON A TIME, in a land far, far away, there was a young man named Jon. Jon was a decent, intelligent young man, who lived a fairly normal life with his family. One day, Jon purchased a DVD. He thought to himself, "I have a laptop...

WINDOW MANAGER: There's life left in IIS - New tools mean reports of Internet Information Server's death have been greatly exaggerated.(Microsoft INTERNET Information Server)
January 20, 2003... INTERNET Information Server (IIS) don't get no respect. Microsoft's Web server software suffered a heavy blow to its reputation when the Code Red and Nimda worms exploited weaknesses in millions of IIS installations in the summer of 2001....

SECURITY ADVISER: Your security tune-up - It's 2003 and already it's time to review existing policies and perform vital status checks.
January 20, 2003... YOU CAN TELL it's a new year. The eggnog in the fridge smells like neither eggs nor nog. The party streamers are still in the conference room, but they have cobwebs. Your hangover has been replaced by the headaches you get from constant noise...

STORAGE INSIDER: With a silver spoon - Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is off and running, but it could face family feuds.
January 20, 2003... JANUARY 1 MARKED not only the birth of a new year but also the delivery of a new storage company, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST), the offspring of Hitachi's $2 billion acquisition of IBM's disk drive business in December. Although...

WIRELESS WORLD: Putting G before A - Apple surprisingly deploys the unofficial 802.11g Wi-Fi standard for its future wireless offerings.(new Apple PowerBook has 17-inch display)
January 20, 2003... THE WINTER edition of Macworld Conference & Expo has come and gone, but it has left some lasting impressions. Apple introduced a version of the PowerBook with a huge (by notebook standards) 17-inch landscape display. Literally, it's the...

ENTERPRISE STRATEGIES: The missing link - You'll be able to grab a great phone/PDA/Internet device this year, but it's useless without converged services.
January 20, 2003... I'M NO LONGER willing to clip two or three devices to my belt: Ultra- nerd is not the look I'm going for. Yet I have to do that today, not only because each device is only good at certain things, but because their services are neither unified...

CTO CONNECTION: Minding human assets - Devoting time and energy to optimizing human capital will make your IT operation run more efficiently.(Column)
January 20, 2003... AS I WAS thinking about topics for this column, I realized that in the dozens of columns I have written, I have addressed a number of strategies for optimizing IT -- Linux and outsourcing, to name a couple. But I haven't written specifically...

SURVIVAL GUIDE: Productive flexibility - Instead of banishing all employee software installations, devise a plan that offers balanced support.
January 20, 2003... "WE CAN'T JUST LET users install anything they want!" This, the mission statement of the Value Prevention Society (VPS), has, in a decade, evolved from controversial policy to unquestioned postulate. The history of the personal computer...

THE GRIPE LINE: Don't pass this along - Intuit's TurboTax comes with a little surprise for those who attempt to use it on more than one computer.(Column)
January 20, 2003... WE THINK NOTHING of passing along a book or video we've enjoyed to a friend, but what about a software CD? In the case of Intuit's TurboTax, at least, you'd better think twice. The Gripe Line has been buzzing with complaints from readers...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Trolling the bottom - As high tech holds its breath for the end of the deep dive, the wiser fish have enough bubble left to breathe.(Editorial)(Industry Overview)
January 20, 2003... THE BUBBLE IS DEAD. Long live the Bubble. With reports that AOL Time Warner Chairman Steve Case is stepping down in May, media analysts have finally received the news they've been waiting for. As with another favorite corner-turning myth --...

Stronger than steel - Exchange 2003 improves clustering, Web access, and wireless support.(Microsoft Exchange Server 2003)(Software Review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 20, 2003... UNLIKE ITS WINDOWS OS family or its Office suite, Microsoft's Exchange Server is not an inescapable fact of life. After all, if one is merely looking for e-mail delivery, it's hard to compete with the simplicity of a Linux box running...

E-mail adoption rates slow.
January 20, 2003... ALTHOUGH MESSAGING heavyweights Microsoft and IBM continue to pump new platform upgrades into the market, enterprise adoption of new releases has lagged under the pressure of shrinking IT budgets and the considerable effort required to...

Rise from the ashes - New breed of hosted software vendors is taking flight.(Industry Overview)
January 20, 2003... SINCE THE TERM ASP (application service provider) went out of style a couple years ago, a lot of HSVs (hosted software vendors) have washed up on the rocks. Some found that large enterprises didn't want to give up control over their software...

Collaboration cure - Tablet PC hands users a whole new way to work interactively.
January 13, 2003... AMONG THE IT FOLKS we've talked with, there seem to be two primary reactions to Microsoft's born-again push for the Tablet PC. Most of them see it as a ho-hum, here-goes-Bill-again product in search of a market to conquer -- they're not...

Blogs refine enterprise focus.(Web logs)(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... BUILDING ON THE success of Weblogs for personal Web publishing, enterprises are starting to tap into blogs to streamline specific business processes such as intelligence gathering or to augment traditional content-and knowledge-management...

Counting on Linux - With budgets tight, CTOs are placing bets on the OS to add functionality while maximizing the bottom-line.
January 13, 2003... AT FINANCIAL SERVICES giant Merrill Lynch, CTO John McKinley is blazing a trail to boost productivity and enhance ROI with his strategy. And that trail has led him to pursue a company-wide deployment of Linux open-source software. ...

Contracting clout.( Lockheed Martin Information Technology CTO favors open source)(Interview)
January 13, 2003... CTO of Lockheed Martin's IT division uses open source as a tool to help serve customers with diverse needs TO BE A CHIEF TECHNOLOGIST at Bethesda, Md.-headquartered aerospace giant Lockheed Martin takes broad strategic vision. Curt...

Leaner and meaner into 2003.(Information technology staffs smaller in 2003)(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... Most CTOs are entering the new year with a smaller staff but with confidence that those remaining are up to taking on future challenges of achieving business growth in 2003. IT executives say that lack of communication with staff is the...

Security's next steps.
January 13, 2003... Next-generation security technology pushes the envelope to address evolving threats If the multifaceted computer attack threats and surprises of the past year are any indication, 2003 could shake out to be as tumultuous and unpredictable...

Managing it all - Security event management solutions ride the data influx to spot potential threats.
January 13, 2003... WHILE ENTERPRISES loaded up on security-related technologies from anti- virus to IDS (intrusion detection system) solutions during the past few years, a new problem was brewing: how to aggregate the streams of information coming from the...

Sun, Oracle unveil Web services reliability spec.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... Setting the stage for another potential battle over Web services standardization, Sun, Fujitsu, and Oracle introduced a specification for Web services reliability -- without the participation of rivals IBM and Microsoft. The WS-Reliability...

Liberty Alliance foreshadows offerings.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... In addition to naming 22 new members, the Liberty Alliance hinted at some of the ways its specification is being backed and gave a glimpse into the forthcoming Version 2.0. The second phase of specifications is due out in the first half of...

Zollar moves from Lotus to IBM's iSeries.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... IBM said it is transferring Al Zollar, who has served as general manager of its Lotus division for the past three years, to head its iSeries server group. IBM gave as the reason for the move its practice of regularly shifting executives to...

Apple, MS drive digital agenda - Rivals outline opposing strategies in the fight to shape enterprise applications.
January 13, 2003... INVESTING IN THE emerging digital platform, Microsoft and Apple have launched into the new year with strategies that signal what some believe represent the next wave of IT innovation. Keynote addresses by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at Macworld...

Key to Wi-Fi security - Wireless authentication may change the outside- the-firewall mind-set.
January 13, 2003... CONVENTIONAL WISDOM says wireless LAN access to an enterprise adds enormous risk because the broken security model at the heart of Wi-Fi networking allows crackers to break encryption, snoop traffic, insert packets, and associate at will....

ABOVE THE NOISE: Journalism 101: You had to be there - Reporting in the age of the Internet gives rumor and innuendo undeserved credence.
January 13, 2003... I WAS WOLFING down a hamburger at DFW airport, waiting to board my flight to San Francisco for this year's Macworld Conference & Expo. As often happens, someone noticed my PowerBook G4 and came by my table. "Jeez, that notebook is gorgeous,"...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Foreign relations.(rumours for Microsoft and Worldcom)
January 13, 2003... GETTING AMBER BACK may not be as easy as I had hoped. She declined to attend Cappy's New Year's Eve party with me, but instead showed up alone. She seemed surprised to see me there without Bianca Day. Other than a few jabs here and there, she...

To the editor.
January 13, 2003... New Year's CTO resolutions I'M NOT A CTO yet, but Chad Dickerson's column on New Year's resolutions for CTOs certainly fit nicely with what I need to do(see "Let the resolutions roll"). The only resolution Dickerson has listed that I...

THE OPEN SOURCE: Let the battle begin - Now that open source is clearly at the center of Microsoft's radar, things are going to get ugly.
January 13, 2003... I HAVE ONE basic prediction for open source in 2003: The competition between Microsoft and the open-source world will become fierce. 2002 started with Microsoft basically ignoring open source. By the close of the year, however, Microsoft...

WINDOW MANAGER: Patch and probe - Readers suggest several new fixes that can help you deal with a plethora of problems.
January 13, 2003... THE BEGINNING of a new year is a great time to catch up on new information sent to me by my readers. This week, I'll update you on a few important changes that relate to previous columns. Mistaken identity. As part of a series I wrote...

SECURITY ADVISER: Good news, bad news - In retrospect, you had it easy last year when it came to security -- don't plan on it happening twice.
January 13, 2003... THE GOOD NEWS is that the only companies that really had problems with worms, viruses, and other malicious code last year were companies without decent firewalls, such as those that depended strictly on anti- virus software to keep them safe....

STORAGE INSIDER: Tales of the tape - The tape market shrinks, but not the tapes. Brother, can you spare a terabyte?(Sony Corp.)
January 13, 2003... UNLESS IT'S THE only protection you have for your databases, a tape backup may seem passe. After all, disk-based copies now offer more flexibility and less exposure to operating snafus. But don't discount that old faithful tape quite yet;...

WIRELESS WORLD: The lord of mobility - If Microsoft's long-term vision becomes reality, then one wireless platform shall rule them all.
January 13, 2003... SOMETIMES I think of myself as a war correspondent stuck in Middle Earth, covering the dark forces of Mordor converging against the forces of light. Unfortunately, I'm stuck behind enemy lines. Just got off the phone with Microsoft. I was...

ENTERPRISE STRATEGIES: Consolidation fallout - Take inventory now of the technologies, suppliers, and partners you can't live without.(Industry Overview)
January 13, 2003... PHOTOGRAPHY HAS long been a hobby of mine, and I often carry a camera with me. While driving to Dallas last week, I pulled over to shoot a picture of a shipping warehouse surrounded by trailers parked in neat rows. It's an unremarkable...

CTO CONNECTION: Doing more with less - IT spending forecasts may seem gloomy, but they reflect the arrival of more efficient technologies.(Industry Overview)
January 13, 2003... AFTER THE Christmas shopping season of 2002, the media trumpeted the worst results for retailers in 30 years. However, gross shopping receipts were the highest in recorded retail history. And although the growth rate was the lowest in 30...

SURVIVAL GUIDE: Playing the numbers - When reviewing the cost of new technology, don't ignore the benefits it brings to your organization.( According to Gartner)
January 13, 2003... GARTNER HAS FINALLY achieved perfection. Not content to rest on its laurels, it has supplemented its thoroughly meaningless Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) calculation for personal computers with a perfectly ludicrous companion calculation...

THE GRIPE LINE: Eternal vigilanceIt's a new year, but the same powerful interests continue to threaten our diminishing digital rights.(Industry Overview)
January 13, 2003... WILL 2003 BE THE YEAR we lose what remains of our digital rights? It's all too possible. Perhaps I'm overly pessimistic, but just from the sheer number of political and legal threats to our rights looming in various and sundry quarters,...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Come together - With hot and cold running applications, Steve's two jobs converge as Apple strikes back at Microsoft's Office empire.
January 13, 2003... THE BIG LIE -- that consumer and enterprise markets are completely different animals -- is coming apart at the seams. For those few holdouts who still think Apple is focused solely on the creative, educational, and digital elitist markets,...

Blades with an edge - RLX Technologies sharpens blade attack with high density and top-notch management.(RLX Technologies Serverblade 1200i)(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 13, 2003... BLADES DECONSTRUCT the enterprise server to the bare minimum -- processors, memory, chipset, hard drives, and network interfaces -- mounting all on a circuit board that's stuffed into a high-density rack-mount enclosure. The enclosure...

The two faces of Linux - Cost-effective open-source OS carries security burdens of its own.( Guardian Digital )
January 13, 2003... WHILE LINUX continues to make inroads among corporate accounts, it is also is taking on one of the burdens typically assumed by archrival Microsoft, as it becomes a more attractive target for hackers. New services-oriented offerings on...