InfoWorld articles from March 2001, page 2

InfoWorld archives from March 2001

FROM THE NEWS DESK: Filling in the pictureon Web services.(Company Business and Marketing)(Editorial)
March 19, 2001... You have to hand it to Microsoft. If there's one discipline in which the company continues to outshine its rivals, it's marketing. In this case, they're leading the industry in putting a name and face on Web services, or e-services, the idea...

InfoWorld e-business 100 update.(Industry Trend or Event)
March 19, 2001... These days even once-promising dot-coms are facing a struggle. Revisiting the top five dot-coms in last year's InfoWorld E-Business 100, however, finds that some are bucking the trend SPRING 2000 WAS a season of sparkling dreams for...

DVD maker goes for Oscar-caliber effects.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 19, 2001... James Moore leads Metropolis DVD in seeking the latest technology to produce titles with unique features WHEN JAMES MOORE sits down to watch the 73rd Annual Academy Awards program, the enthusiastic technical director of New York's...

Keeping track of network infrastructure.(Company Operations)
March 19, 2001... New-breed products allow companies to pay close attention to their routers, hubs, and wires COMPANIES OFTEN neglect the hardware that makes networking possible. That's largely because managing network hardware is such a hassle....

Reverse auctions make a bid for business.(Industry Trend or Event)
March 19, 2001... Auction technology helps companies reach a wider audience and save time and money REVERSE AUCTIONS MAY seem a consumer-centered technology, but savvy businesses are discovering that by allowing buyers, contractors, and service providers...

Intel Capital invests in WebGain.(Company Financial Information)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... WebGain has announced that Intel Capital, the chipmaker's strategic investment program, has taken a share of the tools vendor. The two companies also formed a business relationship to help market and develop enterprise-class e-business...

Oracle, iPrint ink printing partnership.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... Oracle and iPrint Enterprise Systems Group have announced a technology partnership that makes iPrint e-printing services available to Oracle's iProcurement customers. iPrint's Corporate e-Print Center is designed to help companies streamline...

Transora taps ICG for e-procurement.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... Transora, a business-to-business global online marketplace for the consumer packaged goods industry, has tapped ICG Commerce to provide e- procurement services, officials from both companies announced. ICG e- procurement support for the...

IBM, Microsoft bolster ASP efforts.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 19, 2001... IT heavyweights sign up partners for refined ASP forays IBM AND MICROSOFT extended credibility to the troubled ASP (application service provider) market last week with ASP development programs and brand-name assurances intended to inject...

FINANCIALS: CMGI loses $2.56 billion, forecasts modest revenue.(Company Financial Information)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... Internet holding company CMGI last week reported a $2.56 billion net loss for its fiscal second quarter. The loss was largely attributable to a $2 billion write-off against earnings to reflect the value of some acquisitions. CMGI bought...

CONTRACT: EDS wins $2.2 billion Sabre deal.(Company Operations)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... ELECTRONIC DATA Systems (EDS) has signed an agreement with airline booking giant Sabre to run its IT infrastructure, the companies announced last week. Sabre has awarded EDS a 10-year, $2.2 billion service contract, under which approximately...

LAYOFFS: Motorola plans to shed an additional 7,000 workers.(Company Operations)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... MOTOROLA HAS announced plans to cut 7,000 positions in its personal communications sector, citing continuing deterioration in the mobile handset market. Motorola has cut or outsourced approximately 16,000 jobs in the last six months. The...

THE BUG REPORT.(Product Information)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... Microsoft: The company has released patches for Internet Explorer 5.01 and 5.5, as well as for Windows Scripting Host 5.1 and 5.5. The patches plug a security hole that enables an attacker to determine the location of cached content...

Launch of Sun's Serengeti takes server market by the tail.(Product Announcement)
March 19, 2001... SUN MICROSYSTEMS ON Wednesday will introduce its long-awaited "Serengeti" server line at the company's "Data Center to the Nth" event in New York, according to sources close to the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company. Serengeti servers will...

Ellison's NIC ships upgrade to OS.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
March 19, 2001... Oracle Chairman and CEO Larry Ellison's Internet appliance venture, New Internet Computer, announced last week that it has begun shipping Version 2.0 of the operating system for its $199 New Internet Computer (NIC). Available as a free...

Webwasher filters out larger Web ads.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
March 19, 2001... Webwasher.com has released a version of its software for Linux and Windows operating systems that can filter out the new, larger Web site ads that were launched last month. The new ad-size standards include "skyscrapers" with as many as 120 x...

Adexa boosts Net collaboration offering.
March 19, 2001... Adexa has released the latest version of its Internet-based collaboration platform, which includes expanded buy-side and sell-side solutions for order management and procurement that are designed to help enterprises make their supply chains...

B-to-B integration vendors facing shakeout.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 19, 2001... THE MARKET FOR online business-to-business integration is in the middle of a consolidation as vendors join forces to offer solutions that expand traditional EDI (electronic data interchange) trading by implementing emerging XML technologies....

Users size up Web services - IT explores benefits of new model.(Product Announcement)
March 19, 2001... WEB SERVICES MAY be all the rage these days, but users, developers, and even vendors are only nibbling at the edges of what this still- unfolding shift in software architecture and delivery means to them. Microsoft on Monday will attempt...

Net businesses hit hard - Economy's woes color Spring Internet World in Los Angeles.(Industry Trend or Event)
March 19, 2001... LOS ANGELES -- In the shadow of a crashing stock market and vast uncertainty about the economy, a smaller Spring Internet World -- lacking the frenzied hype of previous years -- served as the backdrop for those serious about business on the...

Growing the demand chain - E.piphany partners to extend customer-driven solution.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 19, 2001... E.PIPHANY, a CRM (customer relationship management) vendor, this week unveiled key partnerships toward building a customer-driven demand chain for businesses working via indirect channels. Thanks to deals with PRM (partner relationship...

Intel delivers 1GHz mobile chip.(Intel Pentium lll SpeedStep)(Product Announcement)
March 19, 2001... DETERMINED TO ride the technology curve even in the face of an economic slowdown, Intel on Monday will introduce its first 1GHz Mobile Pentium III SpeedStep processor. A 900MHz version of the new chip will also become available, as well as a...

Novell touts one Net plan - Acquisitions, products move company in new directions.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 19, 2001... NOVELL PLANS to demonstrate this week at its BrainShare conference that the company's strategy for delivering network services over a unified framework is ready for prime time. The Provo, Utah-based company added support for its "one Net"...

Web integrators get squeezed.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 19, 2001... THE PROFESSIONAL services market felt another jolt from its smaller- size occupants last week as MarchFirst suffered resignations from some of its top executives and struggling Cambridge Technology Partners was bought by Novell (see related...

CTIA wireless show ablaze with gadgets and glitter.
March 19, 2001... FROM HIGH-TECH to high fashion, the CTIA (Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association) 2001 wireless show in Las Vegas this week will highlight both the state of the art and the state of confusion to be found among wireless technology...

States' legal chiefs weigh in on online privacy.(Industry Trend or Event)
March 19, 2001... STATE ATTORNEYS general last week signaled the stance states plan to take in the brewing debate over the need for online privacy legislation. At a spring meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), top state lawyers...

Senate OKs customer data protection.(Government Activity)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... In a move that may have repercussions for many failing dot-coms, the U.S. Senate last week approved a bill that cracks down on bankrupt companies selling off customers' personal data. Specifically, the legislation forbids companies from...

NCR sues Palm, Handspring over patents.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... NCR filed a lawsuit last week that could send ripples through the handheld market. The company alleges it possesses patents to the types of devices developed by Palm and Handspring. NCR claims to hold two patents governing the creation and...

Linux mainframes get storage links.(IBM Enterprise Storage Server)(Product Information)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... IBM announced on Friday that its Enterprise Storage Server can be connected to Linux-based mainframes. So corporate users now running Linux-based applications can store and integrate information in a number of different formats on their key...

Companies claim 3.2Tbps transmission.(Optisphere Networks and WorldCom)(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... Two companies are claiming to have reached a new speed record for data transmission using an existing fiber-optic network. Optisphere Networks, a subsidiary of German electronics and engineering conglomerate Siemens, and WorldCom said they...

Rambus wins, loses in patent battle.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... In a case that could force all memory chipmakers to pay royalties to Rambus on SDRAM (synchronous DRAM) and DDR (double-data rate) RAM memory products, Rambus on Friday earned a 3-week delay of its patent infringement suit to complete...

Microsoft's Allchin extols five benefits of .NET.(Company Business and Marketing)(Interview)
March 19, 2001... Web services and component-based architectures figure prominently in Microsoft's platform strategy AS VICE PRESIDENT of the platforms group at Microsoft, Jim Allchin helps decide which technologies will comprise new and updated operating...

The future of Windows.(Product Information)
March 19, 2001... Will Microsoft conquer the corporate world with its new recipe for an enterprise application architecture? The answer depends on whether or not .NET is capable of competing with Java WHEN WRITERS WRITE about Windows, we tend to use the...

Installers ease app distribution pains.(InstallShield Professional 4.0 andWise for Windows Installer 3.0)(Software Review)(Evaluation)
March 19, 2001... Multiple platforms and OSes make it difficult to create installation routines that your users can put to work. By automating the process, two new installer packages help take the sting out of deployment IF YOUR COMPANY uses different...

Office spruced with surprising subtlety.(Software Review)(Evaluation)
March 19, 2001... Shops needing basic collaboration and document management should plan on an XP upgrade AMONG ANALYSTS and IT workers, the predictable yearly updates to integrated productivity suites inspire more yawns than excitement. Although...

Visual Basic.NET makes demands on businesses.
March 19, 2001... Microsoft has created a powerful programming language, but it will require serious investments in coding and training. Is it right for your business? MICROSOFT'S VISUAL BASIC is about to sprout some powerful legs this year in the form of...

Check prospects' eligibility for TN visa.(Industry Trend or Event)
March 19, 2001... For companies hiring IT professionals from Canada, the TN visa provides a faster and less expensive alternative to U.S. entry via the H-1B visa DESPITE THE ECONOMIC slowdown and resulting layoffs, finding experienced IT professionals is...

Leveraging process improvement.
March 19, 2001... Four strategies to squeeze success from process improvement CUSTOMERS TODAY are not shy about telling companies that their processes need improvement. In response, virtually every company has designated PITs (process improvement teams) to...

STATE SNAPSHOT: South Carolina.
March 19, 2001... South Carolina provides reasonable opportunities for IT professionals despite a recent slowdown in economic growth. Vital statistics Population State: 3,885,736 (ranks 26th in nation) Charleston area: 552,803 ...

AT&T, BT Concert joint telecom venture on path to collapse.(Company Operations)
March 12, 2001... CONCERT COMMUNICATIONS, the joint-venture telecommunications carrier established by AT&T and British Telecommunications (BT), is failing, and the partners are locked in talks about how to salvage the operation, according to a recent report in...

Cisco CEO links GDP growth to Net.(Industry Trend or Event)
March 12, 2001... CISCO PRESIDENT and Chief Executive Officer John Chambers described a link between gross domestic product growth and capital spending on Internet infrastructure in his address to Oracle AppsWorld attendees at the Morial Convention Center in...

DoCoMo gets serious about i-mode security in cell phones.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 12, 2001... NTT DOCOMO has begun embedding digital certificates into its cell phones with an eye on improving security for its 19.5 million i-mode wireless Internet users. The company confirmed that root digital certificates supplied by VeriSign and...

Smaller players heat up wireless market.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 12, 2001... TWO SMALLER COMPANIES have infiltrated the wireless content-delivery market with technologies they say could bring the hype about wireless networks closer to reality. Luxxon, in Mountain View, Calif., and BroadCloud, in Austin, Texas,...

Microsoft signs more Stinger smart phone partners.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 12, 2001... MICROSOFT HAS signed agreements with Japan's Mitsubishi and the U.K.'s Sendo to manufacture mobile phone handsets using its Stinger operating system, the company announced. Sendo unveiled a prototype of its Z100 smart phone at the GSM...

MANAGEMENT BRIEFING: E-mail and the Internet are changing the labor/ management power play.(Industry Trend or Event)
March 12, 2001... WHAT ROLE WILL unions play in the New Economy, and what role will the New Economy play in unionization? With the dot-com heyday behind us, a slower economy upon us, and the dreams of many optionaires and aspirants squelched, how will the...

IS SURVIVAL GUIDE: Business-to-business can benefit from the miscues of b-to-c vets.(Industry Trend or Event)
March 12, 2001... MANAGEMENTSPEAK: We strive to be the industry leader. TRANSLATION: We strive to copy our competitors, but on the cheap. -- This week's anonymous contributor is now an industry phrase leader. ...

WIRELESS WORLD: It's a deafening sound: Bluetooth and wireless Ethernet rush into a noisy head-on collision.(Technology Information)(Column)
March 12, 2001... DON'T TALK TO me while I'm in the shower. What has that got to do with wireless? Bucketsful. After two years of being told time and again by various members of the Bluetooth consortium that collisions between Bluetooth (the local wireless...

WINDOW MANAGER: Learn faster ways to explore your network, burn CDs, and fix cluttered e-mails.(Product Support)(Tutorial)
March 12, 2001... READERS PROVIDE me with the most useful secrets for this column and for my new "E-Business Secrets" newsletter (see below). Keep sending those tips in, and you may see yourself here soon. Browse Windows 2000 and 98 faster. Reader John...

THE OPEN SOURCE: HP could become an open-source hero, if only it had the nerve.(Product Development)
March 12, 2001... HEWLETT-PACKARD HAS decided to stop development on its HP OpenMail server after it releases Version 7.0, although HP says it will continue to support customers of versions 6 and 7 for the next five years. No doubt HP hopes its customers will...

SECURITY WATCH: Cryptography tools abound, yet we rarely use them. Are they really only for crooks?(Technology Information)
March 12, 2001... I WAS THINKING ABOUT cryptography the other day while reading about the rift between Phil Zimmerman and Network Associates over just how much of the PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) source code will be published. For crypto fans, this is the...

FROM THE EDITOR IN CHIEF: Ignore talk of Net doom and gloom as the industry grows more sophisticated.(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)(Column)
March 12, 2001... The Internet is everywhere and touches everything. The problem is that once something becomes ubiquitous, we have a tendency to take it for granted. And that would be a dreadful mistake given the unrealized potential of the Internet. When you...

E-BUSINESS MATTERS: Effective warranties and guarantees boost business for savvy dot-com retailers.(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)
March 12, 2001... WHEN IT COMES TO warranties and guarantees, the Internet presents some excellent opportunities to assure your customers that your company stands by its products and that consumers won't get stuck with something they don't like. But if...

NET PROPHET: Amazon/Wal-Mart pact may signal the highway to success for pure-plays.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 12, 2001... A FEW WEEKS AGO, I wrote about options for the king of pure-play consumer e-commerce, Amazon.com, to get into the physical-store business (see Net Prophet, Feb. 26). During the past few months, the retail industry has come to realize that...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Lab honcho tells inside story of SQL tests and the wrath of Redmond.(News Briefs)
March 12, 2001... WITH YAHOO THE latest dot-com to suffer the consequences of the New Economy downturn, it's hard to know just whom you can believe in anymore. "Will the Yahoo stores still be up and running, Bobby?" Randi asked me. "I have my eye on a new...

THE GRIPE LINE: Don't blame the vendor: Web shoppers are not always innocent victims.(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)
March 12, 2001... WE'VE HEARD A lot of complaints from online shoppers about the various indignities they suffer at the hands of e-tailers. But it appears that these Web retailers have a few beefs of their own about online shoppers. As we run an equal...

FROM THE NEWS DESK: Is 'Web services' more than a catchphrase?(Industry Trend or Event)(Editorial)
March 12, 2001... It is tempting to say that the current vendor interest in Web services, or e-services, is another attempt to sell more complex software to simplify the complexity of building enterprise IT systems. After all, past attempts to devise an...

Web services.(News Briefs)
March 12, 2001... The ASP is being replaced by the Web service provider. How come? WEB SERVICES MAY be the El Dorado of the software industry. Just as Sir Walter Raleigh and countless prospectors looked for the city of gold, vendors and corporations alike...

Peering into the next wave of Internet apps.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 12, 2001... XDegrees' Internet services allow users to open up their machines to simplify file and resource sharing MANY AMBITIOUS IT projects on the Internet have a CTO at the core of their operations. XDegrees, a startup company building a new type...

Pioneers push app distribution alternatives.(Product Information)
March 12, 2001... A few vendors are exploring options for extending applications across the Internet THE DEMANDS FOR improving the speed, performance, and availability of e-business transactions on the Web often run in direct opposition to the Internet's...

Technology helps CFOs expand their roles.(Industry Trend or Event)
March 12, 2001... The Net's speed and better software tools allow execs to move far beyond 'bean counting' TAMARA MACDUFF HAS seen the CFO job description change quite a bit during her time in the business world."The role of the CFO is not just as number...

IBM offers e-commerce packages.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... IBM has announced agreements with five software services companies to deliver e-commerce solutions to target markets. IBM signed deals with Enterpulse, Eviciti, MCBA, Rare Medium, and Web Emporium, which will craft IBM WebSphere-based...

Cvent, StarCite team for online meeting, event planning.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... Cvent, an ASP (application service provider) for online corporate registration and Internet marketing tools, and StarCite, a meeting and planning management software vendor, have partnered to offer integrated services. StarCite will integrate...

PwC, VerticalNet form partnership.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and VerticalNet Solutions have joined forces in a partnership that will provide PwC's application integration services to VerticalNet customers using that company's direct procurement software solution suite. As...

THE BUG REPORT.(Product Information)
March 12, 2001... Cisco Systems: Because of an undocumented ILMI (Integrated Local Management Interface) community string, both Cisco's IOS 11.x and 12.0 software have a security hole that may allow unauthorized viewing and modifying of some SNMP objects....

Potential ICANN rival bursts onto Net domain name scene.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 12, 2001... IN A DIRECT challenge to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a new domain name registry last week began selling an additional 20 TLDs (top-level domains), including.kids, .travel, and.xxx, for $25 per year. ...

SMS show unveils future Microsoft management offerings.(Product Announcement)
March 12, 2001... MICROSOFT GAVE Systems Management Server (SMS) users a good look at the product's forthcoming features last week and led developers through an in-depth tutorial on a new operations management application due out in beta within weeks. The...

Sun acquires InfraSearch to further its p-to-p initiatives.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 12, 2001... JUST WEEKS AFTER first publicly hinting of its peer-to-peer technology aspirations, Sun Microsystems signed an agreement last week to acquire privately held p-to-p search company InfraSearch (aka Gonesilent.com). In mid-February Bill...

Biz process standards emerge.(Technology Information)
March 12, 2001... A GROUP FORMED in August to define a standard way to model business processes last week released the first draft of specifications for BPML (Business Process Modeling Language), an XML schema that is the first step toward the organization's...

Akamai, Context Media collaborate.(Product Information)(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... Akamai Technologies and content syndication player Context Media have announced a partnership designed to boost the distribution and syndication of corporate digital content. Under the agreement, Context Media will integrate the content...

IBM's DB2 7.0 for mainframes debuts.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
March 12, 2001... IBM last week announced DB2 7.0 for OS/390. The 64-bit database, slated to be available March 30, will provide a better engine for e-business and more support for XML, including an XML extender and an XML-aware text extender, according to the...

BMC ships Patrol for Sun servers.(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... BMC Software has announced Patrol for Sun Automated Dynamic Reconfiguration (ADR), which manages domain resources for Sun Enterprise 10000 servers. Patrol for Sun ADR delivers automated resource allocation within the server by dynamically...

IT security under the gun.(Industry Trend or Event)
March 12, 2001... IT caught between tight budgets and hackers' onslaught IN WHAT IS becoming an all-too-familiar scenario, IT security managers are feeling the pinch to stay ahead of the security spending curve during uncertain economic times and an...

i2 raises b-to-b stakes with RightWorks buy.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 12, 2001... CONSUMMATING A DEAL rumored for weeks, i2 Technologies bought its way into the e-procurement business last week by acquiring RightWorks, a provider of e-procurement and commerce systems. The acquisition, which has already been approved by...

Intel advocates low power.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 12, 2001... Chipmaker wants standards for laptop components INTEL HAS DEVELOPED a plan to get the individual component makers of laptop computers working in unison to optimize the company's low-power Mobile Pentium III SpeedStep processors. The...

Salesforce.com looks to take a bigger chunk of CRM market.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 12, 2001... ALTHOUGH Salesforce.com's entry into the e-CRM (electronic customer relationship management) market this week is by no means a sure bet on success, the company believes its low-cost approach to Internet-enabled CRM will propel it to the...

Wireless wheeling, dealing.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 12, 2001... Vendors forge ties to accelerate access to corporate apps WITH THEIR EYES on providing much-coveted wireless access to back-end business applications, a number of companies last week rolled out new products, forged partnerships, or...

B-to-B banks on e-payments.(Industry Trend or Event)
March 12, 2001... Financial services to streamline supply chain WHEREAS THE PRODUCT supply chain is achieving both visibility and velocity in the New Economy, the money supply chain lags far behind, with most companies still working under Old Economy,...

Wall Street firms embrace WorldStreet's p-to-p offering.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 12, 2001... TAKING ADVANTAGE OF the financial services industry's eagerness to adopt early on peer-to-peer technologies, WorldStreet this week will roll out what it believes to be the first p-to-p network for the financial services market. The network is...

Yahoo revises estimates, loses CEO as online ads drop.(Company Operations)
March 12, 2001... SUCCUMBING TO THE challenges of the tightening online advertising market, Internet giant Yahoo last week announced that it expected a major shortfall in earnings, breaking even in the first quarter despite analysts' earlier predictions of...

Congress votes down ergonomics work rules.(Government Activity)
March 12, 2001... CONGRESS LAST WEEK shot down ergonomics workplace rules imposed by former President Clinton during his final weeks in office. The Bush administration is expected quickly to follow Congress' lead and bless a measure that would rescind...

Intel cuts jobs, revenue forecast.(Company Operations)(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... Intel joined the list of victims of a slowing U.S. economy last week when the company announced it will drastically reduce its work force and slashed revenue expectations for its first fiscal quarter. The chip behemoth will cut 5,000 jobs...

Cisco to reduce staff, spending.(Company Operations)(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... Cisco Systems on Friday said it will cut full-time, temporary, and contract employees in an effort to reduce expenses amid turbulent U.S. economic conditions. The company will cut 2,500 to 3,000 temporary or contract employees and between...

Loudcloud issues IPO.(Company Financial Information)(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... Loudcloud, the e-commerce hosting and site development company founded by Marc Andreessen, went public Friday with an IPO of somewhat lower valuation than previously expected. Shares of the stock opened at $6, reduced from a prior range of $8...

Deloitte makes Intira investment.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 12, 2001... Deloitte Consulting has taken a nearly 10 percent stake in Intira, a provider of Web and communications services for businesses, an Intira representative said. The companies plan to integrate Intira's capabilities for operating datacenters...