InfoWorld articles from June 2001

InfoWorld archives from June 2001

Do-it-yourself CTO - NextJet's CTO finds balance between building and purchasing core technologies.(Company Operations)
June 25, 2001... WHEN PAUL ORSAK took the post as CTO of NextJet, he was faced with creating a production-quality infrastructure in about 90 days, a chore he could accomplish only by deciding which parts to build in-house and which to buy along the way. ...

Tech vendors seek access for all - New federal rules requiring disabled access to industry products will spur innovation.(Government Activity)
June 25, 2001... BEGINNING JUNE 21, all vendors selling to the federal government are officially required to provide versions of their products and services to agencies, which can then accommodate people with disabilities. A by- product of the new regulations...

Rx for online growth - Pharmaceutical industry takes a slow-and-steady approach to adopting the Net and e-business.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 25, 2001... THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY may not yet be leaping into the Web world with unabashed excitement, but some companies are slowly becoming more comfortable with embracing new technologies. This wait-and-see approach is to be expected because...

ENTERPRISE STRATEGIES: A private investment - In attempting to secure online business, don't leave your good common sense locked out of the process.(Industry Trend or Event)(Column)
June 25, 2001... WE HAVE CERTAINLY come to recognize the incontrovertible significance of protecting customer privacy and identity from online theft. The cost to business comes not only from up-front monetary losses; the deficit in consumer confidence erodes...

SURVIVAL GUIDE: Wanted: Superman - Without an executive champion to back you up, your job description may set you up for failure.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 25, 2001... MANAGEMENT SPEAK: We have a terrific project opportunity for you. TRANSLATION: This project is like the Titanic, and we need you to conduct the band. -- IS Survivalist John Pfeifer explains how a captain and a conductor differ. ...

SECURITY ADVISER: Summer smorgasbord - Does wireless networking security exist at all? How should I secure a Windows server? Where's Echelon going?(Technology Information)
June 25, 2001... NOW THAT SUMMER is officially here, beach trips and picnics become feasible again. I'll tidy up a few loose ends here and then get some fresh air. First of all, if you haven't already done so, check out my take on the security of...

THE OPEN SOURCE: Why the Linux desktop? If you aren't sure about adopting Linux desktop, look closely at conventional reasons against Windows.(Technology Information)(Column)
June 25, 2001... LAST WEEK I noted that the battle for open-source advocates is not one for the desktop (see The Open Source, June 18). Be that as it may, Microsoft is obviously threatened by Linux on the desktop, as evidenced by the rash of articles in...

WINDOW MANAGER: MetaFrame weighs in - A contender for the title of 'Best Remote-Access Application'lends Terminal Services a hand.(Product Information)
June 25, 2001... AS I WROTE last week, a new upgrade makes Microsoft's useful Terminal Services (TS) remote-access application much easier to manage (see support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q287/6/87.asp). Under Microsoft's original pay-per-view...

WIRELESS WORLD: Bluetooth comes of age - Life with Bluetooth is just around the corner, and companies are now talking about what it'll be like.(Technology Information)
June 25, 2001... DISCOUNTING FOR the moment the issue of collisions when Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11b are in close proximity to each other, Bluetooth is getting closer to becoming real, and for the first time, companies are beginning to talk about what it will...

CTO CONNECTION: The resourceful CTO - The economic forecast may not be as rosy as it was last year, but the opportunities are just as ripe.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 25, 2001... IT'S BUDGET time here at InfoWorld Media Group, and as are many of you, I am spending a lot of time plowing through Excel spreadsheets, reviewing service contracts, and taking a fresh look at the strategic vision of my technology...

THE GRIPE LINE: MS licensing shell game - If you have been playing Microsoft's BackOffice licensing sweepstakes, chances are you've lost and will continue to do so.(Company Business and Marketing)
June 25, 2001... THE CLOSER ONE looks at Microsoft licensing, the more it resembles an elaborate, years-long shell game that you know the customer's going to lose. In May Microsoft announced a number of changes to its volume licensing programs. In the...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: AOL amuses as XP annoys.
June 25, 2001... HER NAME IS AMBER. We met at a Northern California diner during my first ride on my Harley Sportster. She's doing postgrad studies in computer science and working tables to make ends meet. Strangely enough, yours truly found himself back at...

E-BUSINESS PULSE: Security we can agree on - In b-to-b e-commerce, partnering companies must show the full monty when it comes to security.(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)
June 25, 2001... BY THEIR nature, business-to-business relationships require companies to open up their kimonos. Doing b-to-b commerce means exposing internal business processes and connecting them to partners' systems and services. But such openness...

FOR THE RECORD: Web services demand we rethink development.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 25, 2001... Web services will have the biggest impact on how fast we do business. But to reap the benefits of reduced development time and increased business agility, technology providers will need to transition their user base to Web services, and...

E-Business Barometer.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 25, 2001... Amid mixed economic signals, the E-Business Barometer slipped to 19 in May, a 14 percent decrease from April. E-business stocks closed the month down slightly; merger and acquisition activity for Internet- related firms picked up. Job cuts at...

Innovation the buzz at former PC Expo.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 25, 2001... CUTTING-EDGE DESIGNS, reduced power consumption, and a call for businesses to upgrade their PC fleets with performance chips will be key topics this week as the industry gathers in New York for TechXNY, the trade show formerly known as the PC...

Commerce One to port to Sun systems.(with MarketSet)(Company Business and Marketing)
June 25, 2001... BATTERED BY THE downturn in the economy, Commerce One is moving aggressively to boost its sales with a new relationship with Sun Microsystems and a possible expanded partnership with PeopleSoft. Commerce One is scheduled to announce this...

Enterprises seen as unlikely sales savior.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 25, 2001... A SOBERING REALITY has pushed struggling networking giants and bandwidth providers to pursue enterprises and megacarriers in an effort to stay alive. Networking vendors are expected to refocus on profitable product lines, whereas service...

Microsoft pushes for 'shared development'.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
June 25, 2001... As a way to speed development and deployment of Web services for a range of different technology initiatives, Microsoft last week rolled out the Shared Development Process (SDP), a framework for more efficiently gaining industry feedback....

Computer Associates is target of takeover coup.(from Ranger Governance)(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
June 25, 2001... A Dallas investment group last week launched a proxy fight to replace Computer Associates' board of directors in an effort to right what it believes is a sinking ship. Ranger Governance is proposing that CA's board of directors be replaced by...

Waiting for the haze to clear.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 25, 2001... WHILE INDUSTRY vendors climb over one another to get to the top of the Web services heap, users are opting for caution until critical technology and business issues are resolved. Concerns about hazy pricing and potential interoperability...

Poised to reap rewards of wireless - Strategizing now will let you take advantage of data-based applications as they emerge.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 25, 2001... DO YOU REMEMBER the thrill of using a cellular phone for the first time, calling your boss, your mom, or your best friend from your car? Mobile technologies freed us to conduct business at anytime from anyplace, and now that the "wow" is...

Taking enterprise services to the air - Wireless services stumbled in the consumer market, but they can still boost b-to-b and enterprise workflow.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 25, 2001... THE INTERNET'S second coming, the one based on wireless Internet availability, appears to have come and gone. Lauded as the next, best hope for tapping new consumer-side revenue streams, business-to- consumer wireless services stalled out...

Wireless security riddled with flaws - 802.11's built-in security turns out to be nearly useless, but data protection is yet to be priority for IT leaders.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 25, 2001... THE INTERCEPTION OF wireless traffic has gone on for decades, initially proving its value during World War I. In the years since, anxiety about wireless security has shifted but is no less valid. Now it has less to do with the movements of...

Wireless holds the key to the future - Facing down the challenges of a wireless implementation can mean getting the edge on your competition.(Industry Trend or Event)(Polling Data)
June 25, 2001... IT LEADERS ARE aggressively embracing wireless technological advances, almost as quickly as users have, and are reaping the benefits of improved customer service and reduced operating expenses. In fact, if the investment in wireless is...

In denial no longer after experts fall - Attempts to thwart DoS attacks may be futile, but precautions can be taken to minimize their effects.(Company Business and Marketing)
June 25, 2001... WHEN BOTH MICROSOFT and CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) are vulnerable to DoS (denial of service) attacks, it may be that the rest of us are sitting ducks. A recent study at the University of California at San Diego found that at...

Inside Intel's Itanium - Affordable and OS-agnostic, Intel's 64-bit server platform looks poised to compete with midrange Unix systems.(Hardware Review)(Evaluation)
June 25, 2001... UNLESS YOU'RE willing to sift through technical minutia and swim through murky marketing hype, you could miss the potential benefits of Intel's Itanium processor. Intel has projected a lengthy evolutionary time line for Itanium and is...

Improving ROI for PKI - Entrust/PKI 6.0 beta foretells lower costs through easier integration, interoperability, and deployment.(Software Review)(Evaluation)
June 25, 2001... EACH OF THE past few years was supposed to herald the onset of PKI (public key infrastructure), the digital certificate-based technology that allows users to safely exchange data on insecure networks. But PKI has yet to gain a foothold....

All-in-one security tool - Niksun's NetDetector proves worthwhile with its powerful analysis and forensic tool for network attacks.(Software Review)(Evaluation)
June 25, 2001... DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks are a rapidly growing problem for many network administrators. Attackers can easily launch crippling attacks from hundreds or even thousands of compromised hosts, making the attacks difficult to...

Vive la difference - CTOs and CIOs differ in their relationships to technology, business, team-building, and compensation.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 25, 2001... ALTHOUGH DISAGREEMENT remains about the definitions of C-level IT titles and their respective corporate roles, CTOs have emerged as a distinct breed of IT professional, fulfilling a role that has remained valuable even through economic...

Working to get a job - The market has changed, and so has the job interview.(Industry Trend or Event)(Tutorial)
June 25, 2001... DURING THE HEYDAY of the Internet boom, getting an interview was easy. And often the IT job candidate interviewed the interviewer. "Why you should hire me" had become "Why should I work for you?" But the market has changed and with it...

Cutting the purse strings.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 25, 2001... Which is the lesser of two evils: layoffs or pay cuts? Layoffs are often the first and most public cut taken. Thirty percent of respondents to the 2001 InfoWorld Compensation Survey said that their company had laid workers off during the 12...

Making the most of survey results.
June 25, 2001... The data from the 2001 InfoWorld Compensation Survey is but a snapshot of the complex factors composing the ever-changing IT compensation landscape. We've broken down average IT salaries by popular and useful criteria. No single factor,...

What are you worth? The new economy has come and gone, and some IT professionals are feeling a paycheck pinch.(Industry Trend or Event)(Polling Data)
June 25, 2001... Welcome to the return of technology as a good job -- not an automatic ticket to wealth. "IT was so hyped up in the last two or three years with stories about massive salary increases," says Stacy Hayes, executive recruiter at The McCormick...

2001 InfoWorld compensation survey methodology.(Company Business and Marketing)(Editorial)
June 25, 2001... The 2001 InfoWorld Compensation Survey was administered via the Internet by IDG Research Services, an InfoWorld Media Group affiliate. Both InfoWorld print subscribers and visitors to InfoWorld.com were included in the survey. On March...

Philanthropic p-to-p - FightAIDSatHome uses volunteers' idle computing power to do drug research calculations.(Technology Information)
June 18, 2001... TEN YEARS AGO, when Art Olson and a team of researchers at The Scripps Research Institute developed an algorithm that could be used to improve the design of drugs that fight AIDS, Olson felt like he was standing at the bottom of a towering...

Searching for quality QoS - As methods for assuring QoS reach critical mass, new technologies may hold the answer.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 18, 2001... THE GROWTH IN network-reliant business services and applicationsin the past decade has resulted in enterprise LANs brimming with heterogeneous traffic, intranets, ERP (enterprise resource planning) and e-business applications vying for the...

Quality of service - As the Internet takes an ever-larger role in business operations, companies are taking a harder look at the quality of life online.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 18, 2001... WHEN GENERAL MOTORS launched its Saturn division in 1990, the marketing plan was simple: Hook customers with a unique "no-pressure" sales approach. The business plan was just as simple: Emulate Japanese manufacturing quality and level of...

QoS guarantees - Sitara Networks knows how important QoS can be and what delivering it entails.(Company Operations)
June 18, 2001... FOR YEARS, BUSINESSES have been trying to prioritize network traffic and guarantee network service levels. With the spread of IP-based networks and their inherent inability to control data flow precisely, the task has become harder. Startup...

Steering clear of design snafus - With virtual collaboration, users gain better control of product design and delivery.(Company Business and Marketing)
June 18, 2001... AS MUCH AS 80 percent of the cost of taking a product to market can accrue during the design phase. This has prompted enterprises to consider collaborative design software to eliminate snafus that can literally force them back to the drawing...

On the vertical horizon - B2BWorks' CTO helps run a one-stop shop for marketers in various industries.(Company Business and Marketing)
June 18, 2001... B2BWORKS IS AN online-services company that facilitates marketing across vertical industries. As the company's CTO, Bob Zimmerman is the point person for pulling together the infrastructure that drives the company's services. In an interview...

Streaming video comes to the enterprise.(Company Business and Marketing)
June 18, 2001... In February, Watertown, Mass.-based VideoShare, a provider of streaming video technology, found an ideal partner in storage solutions provider EMC, in nearby Hopkinton, Mass. VideoShare had been hamstrung by the limitations of aiming its...

ENTERPRISE STRATEGIES: Sun is slow but burning - With Sun slow to address XML integration and Web services, some question Java's long- term viability.(Company Business and Marketing)
June 18, 2001... AFTER OUR IN-DEPTH look at Web services five weeks ago, a great number of you wrote seeking advice on Java and how it fits into the framework of Web-services architectures. (see "Next-generation e-biz" at www.infoworld.com/printlinks.) Many...

SURVIVAL GUIDE: Put vendors to the test - Ask the hard questions, compare the answers, and make your product evaluations without looking back.(Industry Trend or Event)(Column)
June 18, 2001... MANAGEMENT SPEAK: Honesty is the best policy. TRANSLATION: Well, lying didn't work. IS survivalist Dale McKinnon explains the values card. I HAD TO change e-mail addresses to get my PDA working. I've been using CompuServe 2000...

SECURITY ADVISER: A return to Echelon - Draft report makes convincing case that Echelon participation may violate European laws, privacy rights.(Technology Information)
June 18, 2001... AS I WAS SAYING last week, the European nations aren't thrilled about Echelon, the ongoing electronic-surveillance project carried out by the U.S. National Security Agency in partnership with the NSA's Australian, British, Canadian, and New...

THE OPEN SOURCE: MS masters NC mind-set - A wake-up call to the media and to the open-source community regarding Microsoft's .NET.(Industry Trend or Event)(Column)
June 18, 2001... WAKE UP, open-source community. The battle is not for the desktop; it is not for the server; it is not for the operating system; it is not for the development environment; it is not about the GNU General Public License (GPL) vs. Microsoft's...

WINDOW MANAGER: Terminal Services tricks - A patch for Windows' useful remote applications featurehelps harried administrators.(Product Information)
June 18, 2001... TERMINAL SERVICES is a much-improved feature in Windows 2000. Despite its "dumb terminal" sound, TS is actually a great way to use a full- powered PC to run almost any Windows application on a server from a remote location. I described...

WIRELESS WORLD: Mobile gripe time - Pondering a handheld that can't connect, our columnist decries the sorry state of mobile technology.(Technology Information)(Column)
June 18, 2001... I'M ON VACATION and far from breaking news. So this week I will rant a bit about the state of mobile technology. Will a handheld ever replace a notebook for the majority of mobile workers? I set out to prove this in the affirmative...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Don't believe all you read.(News Briefs)(Editorial)
June 18, 2001... "THAT'S A NICE BIKE you've got there." A young waitress in a diner noticed me during my weekend escape to stretch the new Harley's legs. I think that this Harley thing just might work. Speaking of work, one of my spies has not been...

THE GRIPE LINE: Redmond reinvents whip - Licensing audits sent out by Microsoft's legal team to crack down on so-called pirates and infringers is quite innovative.(Company Business and Marketing)
June 18, 2001... ANYONE WHO THINKS Microsoft never does anything truly innovative isn't paying attention to the part of the company that pushes the state of its art: Microsoft's legal department. A few months back an IT manager we'll call Mr. Chance...

E-BUSINESS PULSE: When the 'e' drops off - Who cares whether or not e- business runs the show? Thank heaven we're getting back to just good ol' business-as-usual.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 18, 2001... AT SOME POINT, the "e" is going to fall off e-business, and it's just going to be business as usual. Just when this will happen is anybody's guess. Not next week certainly, but probably several months (as opposed to several years) from now....

CTO CONNECTION: Defining the CTO role - InfoWorld CTO Chad Dickerson explains why he believes today's CTO must be both player and manager.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 18, 2001... AFTER PLUNGING into my role as CTO of InfoWorld Media Group several weeks ago, it's now time to begin presenting my hard-earned wisdom to you. In this space each week, you can expect me to explore the themes of being a CTO in day-to-day life,...

ABOVE THE NOISE: Managing the Internet's complexity - Network management has not kept pace with today's Internet innovation.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 18, 2001... WE LIVE IN a world of extremes. As we continue to push more data and application logic out to the edge of the Internet, the process associated with managing all of it is becoming more centralized. On the face of things this would appear...

FOR THE RECORD: Microsoft's .NET bet rides on interoperability.(Company Business and Marketing)
June 18, 2001... Of all the software vendors staking their future on XML-based Web services standards, Microsoft has the most to lose. Since its success with Windows, the company's strategy has been based around controlling APIs and creating de facto...

Lotus tests Web services waters - At DevCon 2001, company exposes products to Web services standards.(Company Business and Marketing)
June 18, 2001... LOTUS DEVELOPMENT will use its DevCon 2001 developers conference this week in Las Vegas to tear the shroud of mystery from Web services, announcing the availability of a kit designed to let developers expose Web services on Lotus'...

Developers test-drive Infiniband - Broad support base sets stage for widespread adoption.(Technology Information)
June 18, 2001... A WELL-HEELED networking technology called Infiniband will take major strides in the marketplace this week at the Infiniband Trade Association's Spring Developer's Conference in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. Infiniband is a switched fabric...

HP takes new OpenView path - Users offered route away from network management complexity.(Product Development)
June 18, 2001... HEWLETT-PACKARD took a significant step toward simplifying its OpenView network management suite with the announcement of 11 new solutions last week. The offerings at HP's OpenView 2001 conference in New Orleans cover a wide range of...

Cutting back on false alarms - Vendors fine-tune intrusion detection systems to find real security threats.(Product Announcement)
June 18, 2001... SECURITY ADMINISTRATORS are grappling with intrusion detection system products that search for intrusion too broadly and that alert users to potential attacks that often turn out to be false alarms. This has prompted security vendors to offer...

Ballmer: Microsoft .NET is about integration.(Company Operations)
June 18, 2001... AS PART OF AN ambitious effort to create an architecture that fosters data and application integration, Microsoft has laid out a broad foundation based on XML technologies that will be marketed under the name of Microsoft.NET. In an interview...

Microsoft takes aim with .NET.(Product Announcement)
June 18, 2001... JUST TWO WEEKS after rival Sun Microsystems and its Java partners ballyhooed Web services at JavaOne, Microsoft will fire back this week with its own salvo. The company will use its TechEd developers conference in Atlanta to extol the...

Suppliers to ride new app wave.(J.D. Edwards to include suppliers to participate in planning)(Company Business and Marketing)
June 18, 2001... SELF-SERVICE APPLICATIONS that give suppliers access to a company's sensitive supply-chain planning data promise to minimize inventory and distribution costs, and may be the first indication that a sea change in strategic business processes...

Competitive pricing for 9I - With IBM and Microsoft in mind, Oracle scales back its controversial pricing model.(Company Business and Marketing)
June 18, 2001... DELIVERING AS promised the 9i database in the first half of this year, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said last week that Oracle is moving to a processor pricing model and away from one that calculates not only the number of processors but also the...

Middleware vendors boost integration.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
June 18, 2001... WebMethods this week will announce Partner Connect, a product-and- services offering that helps companies build online trading hubs and connect to partners in the process. The announcement follows last week's news that Tibco is releasing what...

Transmeta goes to 1GHZ.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
June 18, 2001... Transmeta plans to begin shipping a 1GHz version of its Crusoe processor in the third quarter of this year. Transmeta will officially announce the chip and provide more details about it during the upcoming PC Expo show in New York, to begin...

SAP bolsters B-to-B with IBM, Palm partnerships.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
June 18, 2001... At its Sapphire 2001 conference last week, SAP shored up its business- to-business efforts with key partnerships. The software giant expanded its strategic global alliance with IBM to cover the entire mySAP.com e- business platform. Under the...

Peregrine buys remedy.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
June 18, 2001... Maker of e-business infrastructure software Peregrine Systems last week agreed to buy rival Remedy in a cash and stock deal valued at more than $1 billion. Peregrine said the deal extends its product line, giving customers the flexibility to...

Verizon sues Covad.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
June 18, 2001... In the brewing broadband battle, Verizon last week hit DSL vendor Covad with a lawsuit, charging Covad with an "intentional campaign of lies and distortions designed to deceive the public and regulators." Verizon claims Covad employees...

Boeing backs broadband.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
June 18, 2001... Boeing inked a joint venture with three airline carriers to offer two- way Internet broadband in the sky. Backed by Boeing, United Airlines, American Airlines, and Delta Air Lines, the venture will use the Connexion by Boeing name and offer...

Microsoft attempts to lure developers to .NET World.(Company Business and Marketing)
June 18, 2001... As are IBM, Sun, and every other major software company, Microsoft is scrambling to position itself as the best friend Web services could have. The company's .NET initiatives, previously as scattered and changeable as Windows DNA (Distributed...

BizTalk automates b-to-b - Microsoft's cost-effective BizTalk Server 2000 uses SOAP and XML to glue together disparate projects.(Software Review)(Evaluation)
June 18, 2001... TODAY'S CONVENTIONAL wisdom holds that XML is the key to helping businesses work together, at least from the standpoint of merging information from disparate systems. But by itself, XML can't do anything to help. Someone has to define the...

Robust process gives developers boost - Development shops looking to churn out top-notch software projects should give Rational Unified Process a go.(Technology Information)
June 18, 2001... IN THE SOFTWARE development realm, Rational Software sits near the center. As the developer of the industry-standard UML (Unified Modeling Language) notation and the purveyor of a leading suite of software development tools, Rational clearly...

More gigabyte bang for your buck - NetForce 1700 squeezes 1.8TB of affordable storage into a small form factor without sacrificing reliability or performance.(Hardware Review)(Evaluation)
June 18, 2001... LISTENING TO storage solution vendors hawking their wares these days is like hearing traders on the floor of the stock exchange as the market closes: They're all screaming, and it's often difficult to make sense of their message. So many...

PProcess makes perfec - Successful software development starts with a methodology that suits your development team and project goals.(Technology Information)
June 18, 2001... SOFTWARE development today is more difficult than it used to be. We're still balancing the same competing goals: We want to produce a reliable, bug-free application that meets the needs of management and end-users, but we want to do it as...

Warp-speed storage - Imperial Technology's MegaRam delivers heart- stopping speed to I/O-bound applications.(Hardware Review)(Evaluation)
June 18, 2001... SOME APPLICATIONS, including databases, knowledge management, and Web sites are less often constrained by server hardware than by storage. These apps keep the slowest hardware in your enterprise -- your hard drives -- churning constantly....

Profit from programming practices - Leveraging development methodologies such as XP and Open Source can boost efficiency and software quality.(Technology Information)
June 18, 2001... TECHNOLOGY HAS CHANGED significantly during the past 30 years, but the practices by which we create software have progressed very little. It's no wonder that software project failure rates are so high and overall quality is low. Inasmuch as...

Instantly connected - SiteScape Forum 6.0 provides a collaborative work space for partners, customers, employees.(Software Review)(Evaluation)
June 18, 2001... WITH SO MANY companies and businesses working with multiple offices in different time zones, communication is critical. Employees and business partners don't have time to waste waiting for people to get back to them by phone or e-mail. More...

Agreements on the level - Making the most of external service providers involves careful service-level agreement negotiations.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 18, 2001... For Lisa Censullo, CTO of WordWave, the time to think about negotiating SLAs (service-level agreements) for her company may be coming soon. The Web-based documentation and transcription company currently hosts all of its own service...

Exchanges avoid antitrust - Joint e-commerce efforts require heeding some basic advice to minimize risk of antitrust claims.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 18, 2001... POTENTIAL ANTITRUST concerns arising from business-to-business exchanges are not new to the federal agencies that monitor such activities -- just new to some b-to-b operators and members. And therein lies the problem: How far is too far for...

Powering a peacock - As CTO at NBC, she searches for technology solutions that fit the media giant's needs.(Company Operations)
June 11, 2001... WHEN NBC NEEDS to get a breaking news story out to its affiliates, that famous triad of tones now chimes through the Web on desktops at more than 200 stations in the United States. The person who designed that mission-critical messaging...

Portal power - CTOs employ customized portals for converging corporate tools.(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)
June 11, 2001... CTOS CAN DIG into a deep chest of software and tools to manage every element of the corporate enterprise. But corralling the enterprise's dispersed systems and knowledge assets into a single, easily accessible source is a challenge that...

Optical networks hit the suburbs - To some, suburban networks are a sound business strategy.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 11, 2001... WITH THE ECONOMIC downturn forcing companies to reduce expenses, some are fleeing their big-city offices in favor of cheaper real estate in suburban areas. But some are finding that fiber service is scarce in the suburbs. To address this...

Realty anticipates paperless deals - Using the Web, real estate and title companies keep all parties up to date on closing progress.(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)
June 11, 2001... CLOSING A REAL ESTATE deal can be about as much fun as a root canal. Thankfully for buyers and sellers, the Internet is now helping to take some of the pain out of the sometimes excruciating closing process. The document-based real estate...

ENTERPRISE STRATEGIES: Next-generation portals - With growing need for on-demand information, forthcoming portal solutions are an energizing proposition.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 11, 2001... WE'VE ALL BEEN there, searching for that last supporting detail before the board meeting or hunting down a project status minutes before the client meeting. Frustrated, you sift through heaps of irrelevant data. Intranets have done a...

SURVIVAL GUIDE: Outsourcing prenuptial - Before you commit to happily outsourcing ever after, negotiate for the possibility that one day you may need to re-insource.(Industry Trend or Event)
June 11, 2001... MANAGEMENT SPEAK: There will be no cuts in personnel after the merger is completed. TRANSLATION: Please don't leave until we decide who we want to lay off. -- I think we can guess why this week's contributor chose to remain...