InfoWorld articles from November 2001

InfoWorld archives from November 2001

Home sweet home - CTO guides a close-knit IT team for more than a decade to support one of the largest financial services companies.(Federal National Motrgage Association)
November 5, 2001... IF YOU THINK you're a good manager, comfortable with criticism from your staff, ask yourself this: Would you offer your team the opportunity to regularly post anonymous comments and questions on an electronic bulletin board? For Julie St. John,...

Olympic IT - Snow, ice, competition, screaming fans, and thousands of terminals -- IT will be everywhere at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
November 5, 2001... WHEN SKIERS, SKATERS, hockey players, and other world-class athletes compete at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in February, behind the scenes will be a large IT infrastructure intended to make information flow as smooth and as fast...

VPN connection options expand - Network-based VPNs require less rollout work and less expense to improve network access.
November 5, 2001... MANY IT EXECUTIVES likely have shaken their heads in frustration at the thought of possibly spending three times as much for VPN-related gear and services as they do in costs to outfit remote connections with inexpensive broadband access. ...

Managing outsourced data streams - In the quest for better online performance, companies are keeping a close eye on partners.
November 5, 2001... AT ONE TIME even customer-facing Web sites were nothing more than HTML brochures. As Web sites have become increasingly complex, more and more companies are turning to outsourced partners to handle services such as caching, content feeds, and...

ENTERPRISE STRATEGIES: Dynamic acceleration - Getting the right product into your customers' hands shouldn't have to cost you an arm and a leg.
November 5, 2001... IN AN EFFORT TO attract and retain customers online this holiday season, vendors will be making use of Web site personalization tools. The practice of tailoring content has become a common logistical component for enriching the user...

THE OPEN SOURCE: IT manager's nightmare - When a company goes defunct, the open-source software doesn't have to become obsolete.
November 5, 2001... ON OCT. 19, a very simple e-mail announced the release of Version 1.0.5 of the Nautilus graphical shell and file manager. There were a few new features in the latest release, but nothing earth-shattering. In fact, the release was entirely...

SECURITY ADVISER: Squashing dissent? Buggy patches hurt Microsoft's security as the company works harder to silence critics than to fix holes.
November 5, 2001... FREQUENT readers know how I feel about software patches. They were a big issue when I managed IT for a living, and remain one today. How many of you would ignore an automaker's recall notice, particularly when it involved your safety or the...

WINDOW MANAGER: And no XP for thee - Readers' enthusiasm for my recommendation against XP may spell trouble for Microsoft.(Evaluation)
November 5, 2001... A FEW WEEKS AGO, in a column entitled, "There'll be no XP for me," I recommended that people should avoid buying Windows XP. Since then, I've been deluged with e-mail from readers who've come to the same conclusion. Too many customers may...

SURVIVAL GUIDE: Not beyond influence - Your corporate culture is beyond your control, but it isn't immune to your influence.
November 5, 2001... MANAGEMENTSPEAK: It was developed that way for a reason. TRANSLATION: I don't know what the reason is, and I don't want you to find out because it will make me look bad for not improving it before you asked. -- This week's contributor...

WIRELESS WORLD: Keep your goals in sight - Building-to-building networks link up with point-to-point wireless Ethernet connections.
November 5, 2001... WHEN I STARTED writing for InfoWorld, the dateline on my stories was always Silicon Valley. That's where high-tech was happening. Today's datelines are more likely Detroit (for the auto industry); Ft. Wayne, Ind. (gas pump dispensers); or, for...

CTO CONNECTION: Hitting the road - Few business tools are better than meeting your company's customers face-to-face.
November 5, 2001... IN ITS MOST basic form, the CTO's job at most companies is leveraging technology to help drive forward business goals. As I've written in previous columns, a CTO lives and works at the intersection of business and technology; however, most of...

E-BUSINESS PULSE: Too good to be true - Some technical schools paint an overly optimistic picture of IT careers, even in this tight economy.
November 5, 2001... I'M NOT KNOWN for ranting, but I feel a distinct rant coming on. The problem is those ads for technical schools I keep hearing on the radio and seeing on television. You know the ads for those 1-year or 2-year programs that prepare people for...

Freedom from vendor dependence - Microsoft settlement means IT needs to rely on itself to rein in vendor ambitions.
November 5, 2001... FREEDOM IS TAKEN, not given. In the wake of the settlement between Microsoft and the Department of Justice, understanding this simple statement is more important than ever for IT organizations concerned about being too dependent on any one...

Letters to the editor.(Letter to the Editor)
November 5, 2001... Government intrusion I AGREE WITH the position that P.J. Connolly took in "Defining patriotism" regarding constitutional protections (see Security Adviser, Oct. 22). E-mail and all other means of communication are protected from...

THE GRIPE LINE: Spammers prey on fears - Sept. 11 terror attacks bring out the e-hucksters in full force, peddling everything from anti- terrorism aids to phony charities.
November 5, 2001... IN SPITE OF ALL that's changed since Sept. 11th, isn't it nice to know that there's at least one constant? No matter what the situation, we can count on spammers to try and take advantage of us. InfoWorld readers have been both appalled and...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Wisdom of hindsight - With the launch of XP, it's time to look back and reflect on how Gates' vision of the future has played out in the real world.
November 5, 2001... THE XP LAUNCH was a tough one for the marketing folks. As the PowerPoints slid by, you could almost see the speaker's notes scrolling below like the post-Sept. 11 news crawl. "Stability, multimedia, ease of use, my grandmother wants it, free...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Singing those layoff blues.
November 5, 2001... "I'VE DECIDED IT'S time to stop watching TV," Amber proclaimed in disgust. She's tired of watching reruns of the Sept. 11 disaster where egocentric news anchors stand up and recast the events, searching for their own few minutes of fame....

For the record - A pending antitrust enforcement minefield.
November 5, 2001... It looks as if Microsoft has won its game of hardball after all. When the Department of Justice found that Microsoft unlawfully defended its monopoly in late 1999, the remedies that came down from U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson...

Vendors graft wares onto Web services.
November 5, 2001... WEB SERVICES AND application integration technologies are moving full- speed ahead on their convergence course, and this week that destiny will ring truer than ever before. A bellwether of this phenomenon, Dublin, Ireland-based Iona...

Ariba, PeopleSoft target supplier links.
November 5, 2001... VENDORS ARE maneuvering to offer strategic sourcing solutions to meet the growing demand for technology that cuts straight to the bottom line of enterprise operations. Pleasanton, Calif.-based PeopleSoft and Ariba, in Sunnyvale, Calif.,...

Sun plans p-to-p splash - Open-source Jxta platform launch signals renewed .Net competition effort.
November 5, 2001... SUN MICROSYSTEMS will climb back on the industry's p-to-p radar next week when it turns out the first full release of its open-source Jxta environment along with details of plans for other versions of the platform. At this week's O'Reilly...

Software drives EMC rollout - First elements of AutoIS emerge as storage giant seeks new opportunities.
November 5, 2001... EMC IS LOOKING to repeat its success in storage hardware and become known as a serious software provider, last week opening the first chapter of its AutoIS (automated information storage) initiative with four new storage software products. ...

IBM servers heal themselves - Delivery of tools allows Project eLiza initiative to reach latest milestone.
November 5, 2001... IBM LAST WEEK delivered the first self-managing, self-healing products to come from its Project eLiza initiative and unveiled a new management service that monitors corporate IT systems around-the-clock to provide real-time alerts of potential...

Proposed deal ignites passions.(Microsoft antitrust case)
November 5, 2001... THE VAST MAJORITY of senior IT executives believe none of the key issues in the government's case will be properly addressed by the proposed settlement of the Microsoft antitrust case. With the states reluctant to support the proposed...

CA sets sights on digital media.(to introduce Jasmine Advanced Content Management)(Product Announcement)
November 5, 2001... ONCE A DOMAIN of media and entertainment companies, the management of digital assets is becoming a strategic technology initiative across a broad range of industries, including manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and finance. Eyeing this need,...

Copper wire eyed for last-mile access.(Symmetricom GoWide network management device and Ikanos Communications CleverConnect 150 processor)(Product Announcement)
November 5, 2001... SEEKING TO BRIDGE the gap between deliverable bandwidth and enterprise affordability, some network vendors are turning to solutions that provide high-speed access via existing telephone copper wire. The challenge for enterprises is to...

The bug report.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2001... Bugs and fixes reported to BugNet MICROSOFT: Using Sysprep.exe setup wizard to install Windows XP, the product ID will be briefly displayed on-screen. Fix at http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q307/3/16.asp MICROSOFT:...

SPSS snaps up Netgenesis.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2001... SPSS last week said it will acquire NetGenesis, a provider of software for analyzing Web trends. When the stock swap is completed, NetGenesis' Webcentric data analysis tools will be combined with the data mining capabilities of SPSS, including...

AMD slashes chip prices.(on AMD Athlon XP 1800+ and AMD Duron 1.1GHz)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2001... Advanced Micro Devices last week cut wholesale prices on some of its Athlon and Duron processors, following rival Intel's recent cuts. The price of an Athlon XP 1800+ -- which competes with Intel's Pentium 4 range -- was cut to $223 in...

HP's bid wins Comdisco.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2001... Comdisco last week accepted Hewlett-Packard's $750 million offer to buy its disaster-recovery services business, leaving a rival bid of $825 million from SunGard Data Systems in the dark. Comdisco, in the middle of bankruptcy reorganization, is...

FAA does wireless alerts.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2001... The Federal Aviation Administration last week completed installation of an upgrade to its wireless paging system in all of its operation command centers. A network support administrator for the FAA said that the software and technology are "far...

Carriers take on new roles.(Industry Overview)
November 5, 2001... AS WIRELESS NETWORK operators spend billions to change from carriers to platform providers of advanced services, their biggest barrier is convincing business customers that they understand IT. If the carriers can win this battle, they will...

BSD's strength lies in devilish details - Time-tested, stable, and secure, open-source trailblazer BSD continues to innovate after all these years.(Berkeley Software Distribution Unix)
November 5, 2001... WITH ALL THE PLAY Linux has been getting in the news lately, you'd think no one else thought of gathering brilliant developers, working them to distraction for no pay, and binding their product into a commercial-grade operating system. But...

The penguin swoops into the OS fray - Linux is catching up to mainstream Unix variants in scalability, just in time to shatter Windows' dominance.
November 5, 2001... ONCE UPON A TIME, it was possible to dismiss Linux distributions as Unix knockoffs for undergraduate slackers who might someday be allowed on the real hardware if they behaved themselves. That's no longer the case, as businesses small and large...

Just don't call J# Java - J#, Microsoft's newest language for the .Net platform, easily moves Visual J++ applications to .Net -- and makes a bid for Java programmers.
November 5, 2001... IN A SURPRISING move, Microsoft recently released the latest addition to the .Net constellation of programming languages: J#, pronounced J sharp. Although J# is not Java, it is a full implementation of Sun's Java language specification and will...

JDO streamlines data access in Java - Eliminating the need for database-specific code, Java Data Objects reduces development time.
November 5, 2001... MAKING CORPORATE DATA accessible to business applications today typically falls into the capable hands of Java developers, who often spend a good deal of time writing code specifically for data access and manipulation. A new standard called JDO...

Forte fuels b-to-b apps - Simplifying data-access coding and Web services creation, Sun's IDE pairs power with productivity.(Sun Microsystems' Forte for Java 3.0 Enterprise Edition)(Evaluation)
November 5, 2001... AS THE USE of Java in enterprise settings continues to grow, developers need useful tools that can help them put the programming language to work powering business processes. The latest version of Forte for Java 3.0 Enterprise Edition, Sun...

Linux vs. BSD - Battle of the open-source operating systems.
November 5, 2001... CORPORATE AMERICA'S trepidation about the safety of using open-source software for business seems to have passed. The slow economy and sinking prices for PC server components have made Linux a media darling and, increasingly, an enterprise...

Practice makes perfect - Is 'community of practice' just the knowledge management buzzword du jour? Some IT organizations don't think so.
November 5, 2001... WHEN SOCIAL SCIENCE researcher Etienne Wenger coined the term "community of practice" in 1987, he was studying patterns of learning in apprenticeships, not knowledge management. Yet Wenger's term for work group interactions has gradually taken...

Mission of mercy - Angel Flight responds quickly to the events of Sept. 11 thanks to IT expertise from Edgewater.
November 12, 2001... IN TIMES OF CRISIS, nonprofit organizations are often in the forefront with solutions. But for their own IT problems, they sometimes find themselves in need of a helping hand. Angel Flight North East (AFNE), a nonprofit based in North Andover,...

Embracing the other CRM - Defining and managing relationships can strengthen future client interactions.
November 12, 2001... A DIFFERENT KIND of CRM is emerging for professional services companies -- such as law and accounting firms -- that do not necessarily deal with customers calling in on 800 numbers with product-support questions. In this case, CRM stands...

CTO as innovator.(Lexis-Nexis' Allan McLaughlin interviewed)
November 12, 2001... LexisNexis looks for ways to expand the company's menu of online offerings LexisNexis is a household name in the world of online information gathering. Building out the IT architecture to support this endeavor represents a significant...

Embedded chaos - OSes for PDAs and cell phones are fast maturing, but the rush of vendor interest is creating confusing choices for enterprises.
November 12, 2001... THE EMBEDDED SOFTWARE space used to be a fairly esoteric market of proprietary RTOSes (real-time operating systems) designed to run on the small processors that power medical devices, factory automation controllers, and your car's ignition...

Embedded debate: Microsoft - Microsoft's Keith White discusses the company's position in the embedded OS market.(Interview)
November 12, 2001... THE UPCOMING launches of the Windows XP Embedded and Windows CE.Net operating systems have kept Keith White, senior director of Microsoft's embedded and appliance platform group, a very busy man. White sat down with InfoWorld Senior Writer...

Embedded debate: Red Hat - Red Hat's Michael Tiemann discusses open source, Linux, and the embedded OS market.(Interview)
November 12, 2001... MICHAEL TIEMANN, CTO of Durham, N.C.-based Red Hat, has some experience in a variety of open-source embedded technologies, to say the least. For 10 years at Cygnus Solutions, Tiemann wore many hats including that of president and director of...

ENTERPRISE STRATEGIES: Pop the top on SODA - Service-oriented development architectures bring cost savings to in-house application development.(Column)
November 12, 2001... DESPITE A contracting economy, CIOs are expected to deliver first-rate services as they continue to plan and position the enterprise for effectiveness during economic recovery. For the past year I've been recommending the in-house...

SURVIVAL GUIDE: Don't debate, innovate - Managers can learn what it takes to spur creativity if they take away the right lessons from open source.(Column)
November 12, 2001... MANAGEMENTSPEAK: That's not a sacred cow. TRANSLATION: Don't even think about going near it! -- Today's anonymous contributor knows what happens when you get too close to the cattle. VUJA DE: An experience like nothing I've ever...

THE OPEN SOURCE: Who controls your biz? Saving money is a good reason, but not the most important one, for using open-source software.(Column)
November 12, 2001... WHEN PEOPLE TALK about the benefits of open source, certain pluses inevitably head the list. Usually the first to come up is the cost of acquisition. The fact that open-source software is typically available for free is notable, even if it is...

SECURITY ADVISER: Gloomy skies clearing - A siege mentality is appropriate in light of repeated virus attacks, but there are silver linings in the picture.
November 12, 2001... ALTHOUGH THE approaching gloom of winter is icing on what's already been a terrible year, there are some silver linings out there. The first of these is the announcement last month that e-mail list software vendor L-Soft would add F-Secure's...

WINDOW MANAGER: A few more eXPeriences - Pioneering users have had strong reactions to Windows XP; here's a sampling of opinion.(Column)
November 12, 2001... MY READERS HAVE flooded me with their findings about Microsoft's new Windows XP ever since I recommended in a recent column that companies and individuals avoid buying it due to numerous drawbacks (see "There'll be no XP for me," Oct. 8). I'll...

WIRELESS WORLD: Trucking with wireless - How not to let industry analysts' pronouncements prevent you from doing what you need to do now.
November 12, 2001... VIEWING LIFE from the 60,000-foot level is fine, but sometimes you have to get down there with the frozen meat on a refrigerated truck heading from St. Michael, Minn., to Hibbing, Minn., to understand the benefits of technology. Until a...

CTO CONNECTION: No more prima donnas - Lean times mean the demanding, high-maintenance IT staffer is a liability organizations can't afford.
November 12, 2001... AS DOES EVERYONE else, I am hoping that the current economic downturn will reverse itself quickly, but until it does, I am focused on creating value for InfoWorld's customers and effectively managing our technology organization. As a manager,...

E-BUSINESS PULSE: Mining for e-gold - Value-enhancing e-business practices can help you take full advantage of assets such as intellectual capital.
November 12, 2001... WE TEND TO think of e-business applications as transformational, but not all of them involve a total overhaul of your business. E-business can also be used to enhance the value of what you already have, and that can be particularly valuable in...

ABOVE THE NOISE: Microsoft case is a waste of our money - An agreement created by lawyers and politicians may leave customers in worse shape.
November 12, 2001... THE DEPARTMENT OF Justice's antitrust suit against Microsoft stank the minute it was filed and it continues to reek today. It was a course of action that had little chance of reining in Microsoft for two reasons. First, the people filing the...

To the editor.(Letter to the Editor)
November 12, 2001... Manufacturing and ERP AS A MANUFACTURING professional, I would like to respectfully challenge Bob Lewis's classification of the ERP system as more than a "category of software" (see Survival Guide, Oct. 29). Perhaps that is what it has...

THE GRIPE LINE: UCITA: a security threat - The terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 make it clearer than ever that UCITA is the wrong way to go, and it will leave us too vulnerable.(Column)
November 12, 2001... THE EVENTS OF Sept. 11 taught us that our enemies are ready to take advantage of any weakness to do us harm. One weak link we have right now is UCITA (Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act) and the security holes it encourages in...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Things must change - An insider's view of how he's moving the Microsoft mountain toward a new vision of a programmable Web using XML.
November 12, 2001... MARK LUCOVSKY calls himself a rebel inside Microsoft. Who's Mark Lucovsky? The architect of HailStorm, the first .Net component to reach a critical mass -- based on what Lucovsky calls a gamble to use XML not just as a message transfer protocol...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Bill Gates takes a holiday.
November 12, 2001... RIGHT NOW IT seems we are all work and no play. Amber saw me hunched over my PC typing furiously in order to hit this column's deadline. Comdex is on this week, so the trade show fun continues. "You can relax over Thanksgiving," Amber assured...

For the record - Enterprise security needs to be pervasive.
November 12, 2001... It's not surprising that security will be a recurring theme at the Comdex trade show this week in Las Vegas. It's also not surprising that more stringent security measures will be part of the routine as we move about and do our business. Both...

Ray Lane lands at eLance.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2001... Ray Lane, former Oracle president and COO, has been appointed chairman of services procurement and management company eLance, which recruited him to help market its services to large businesses. Lane is noted for having set up Oracle's...

Cisco's numbers down.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2001... Cisco Systems saw a slight uptick in sales for the quarter ending Oct. 27, but overall revenue and profits were well below year-earlier numbers. Cisco reported $4.4 billion in revenue for the period, a 3 percent increase from the previous...

GM launches portal.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2001... General Motors last week launched the world's largest employee intranet site, called mySocrates. It will offer inexpensive Internet access to its more than 180,000 hourly and salaried employees in the United States. GM will provide employees...

States split on Microsoft case.
November 12, 2001... AFTER A WEEK and a half of legal drama, the settlement in Microsoft's antitrust case is still not a done deal as it heads down two separate courtroom paths. Last week, nine of the 18 states involved in the case agreed to join the U.S....

Compaq eyes file virtualization.
November 12, 2001... COMPAQ IS in the early stages of developing a technology that will allow IT organizations to attach self-describing rules and policies to different types of data. "We need to create rules around content," said Mark Lewis, vice president...

Commerce One details 5.0 plans - Version 5.0 turns its back on b-to-b with enterprise integration focus.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2001... COMMERCE ONE CEO Mark Hoffman received a warm welcome from attendees when he took the wraps off Commerce One 5.0 at the company's user conference in Santa Clara, Calif., last week. Although the press was uninvited to the event following its...

Security concerns top agenda.
November 12, 2001... VENDORS WILL ATTACK key security problems from various directions this week in response to peaking interest in new methods for protecting corporate assets. As enterprises re-evaluate their needs, a myriad of options are coming to the fore,...

Intel readies new chips.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2001... The first 0.13-micron Pentium 4 processors will be demonstrated by Intel at Comdex this week. The 0.13-micron Pentium 4 lays the groundwork for the Pentium 4 chip family to attain speeds as fast as 3GHz by the end of next year. Intel also will...

PCs in 'sleep mode'.(computer vendors prepare for Comdex)(Brief Article)
November 12, 2001... Vendors such as IBM, Compaq, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard will demonstrate PCs that will include IAPC (Instant Available PC) technology from chipmaker Intel. IAPC enables idling PCs to quickly drop into a "sleep mode" even when still networked or...

Microsoft scrawls on Tablet PC.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2001... Microsoft is expected to make a number of announcements about its Tablet PC at Comdex, with Chief Software Architect Bill Gates conducting an on-stage demonstration of the prototype. Sources report Microsoft will also demonstrate a two-pound...

Wireless LANs a hit.(Intel Pro/Wireless 5000)(Brief Article)
November 12, 2001... Intel will announce the availability of its PRO/Wireless 5000 LAN family of products, while rival Proxim will unveil its first range of products that, just as do Intel's products, support the upcoming 802.11a WLAN (wireless LAN) specification....

XDegrees of application on p-to-p platform.(XDegrees System)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
November 12, 2001... Peer-to-peer vendor XDegrees this week will release the first version of its p-to-p application-sharing platform and announce that it has implemented Microsoft's .Net My Services for a business application. The XDegrees System allows users to...

VA Linux shows its software side.(VA Linux Systems SourceForge 3.0 Enterprise Edition)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
November 12, 2001... VA Linux Systems Tuesday unveiled a new version of its collaborative software, SourceForge 3.0 Enterprise Edition, which allows companies to build communities for managing internal development projects. Born as a vendor of hardware systems...

Dell brings entry-level NAS in-house.(Dell PowerVault 715N, 750N, 755N)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
November 12, 2001... Dell has introduced three new general-duty NAS (network-attached storage) systems: PowerVault 715N, 750N, and 755N. Scalable to 400GB, the PowerVault 715N is designed for small workgroups or remote offices. The Ethernet-based device is based on...

Sun, Compaq gird the grid - Mainstream vendors offer grid computing solutions targeted at enterprises.
November 12, 2001... SUN MICROSYSTEMS and Compaq are throwing their weight behind grid computing, pointing to its potential beyond the domains of academia and computer science. Grid computing, still in its early stages, applies the interconnected model used by...

Preparing for Web services - Application server vendors are paving the way for users to develop Web services.
November 12, 2001... APPLICATION SERVER vendors are going a long way toward easing Web services development -- some are even offering their wares for free. After Hewlett-Packard last week announced that it will offer its application server for free, Borland...

SAP pours Java into ERP mix.
November 12, 2001... ERP VENDOR SAP last week offered a significant endorsement to the Java programming language, making it an equal partner with the company's legacy ABAP programming language in the mySAP.com application architecture. Via mySAP.com, the...

Microsoft targets suppliers - Microsoft bundles .Net servers to help users better manage supply chains.(Microsoft Solution for Supplier Enablement)(Product Announcement)
November 12, 2001... MICROSOFT LAST week pulled three of its .Net servers together, more closely integrated them, and dubbed the triptych Microsoft Solution for Supplier Enablement. The newly formed trio, consisting of SQL Server, Commerce Server, and BizTalk...

Taking a virtual approach - HP, Terraspring are urging virtual, centralized forms of systems management.(HP UDC and Terraspring 1.0)(Product Announcement)
November 12, 2001... HEWLETT-PACKARD AND Terraspring are touting new products to help IT managers wring improved efficiency from their datacenters and other IT environments. Designed for datacenter and service provider environments, HP UDC (utility datacenter)...

HP family voices merger dissent - Packard's son joins Hewlett family in opposing planned merger with Compaq.
November 12, 2001... HEWLETT-PACKARD and Compaq's proposed merger suffered a setback last week when reports surfaced that David Packard, son of HP's co-founder, had joined the Hewlett family in opposing the deal. The new objections could do more than simply...

Ailing giants court enterprises.
November 12, 2001... AFTER A STUNNINGLY brutal fiscal season, telecom giants AT&T, Sprint, and WorldCom are revving up enhanced services for the enterprise, realizing that their futures likely hang on selling deeper into corporate accounts. AT&T has trumpeted...

It's time for a handheld strategy - CTOs should begin examining embedded OSes today with an eye toward next-generation capabilities.
November 12, 2001... ENTERPRISE END-USER computing will undergo a dramatic transformation in the next two years to 10 years. CTOs and other business leaders should begin examining now how the convergence of next-generation handheld computers and high-speed wireless...

Fast, flexible, expensive - Cross-platform mainframe and client/server backups don't come cheap from StorageTek.(Evaluation)
November 12, 2001... FOR COMPANIES THAT run a mix of mainframes and client/server machines, a cross-platform tape solution can simplify daily backup operations and provide an efficient way to move data from one system to another. Unfortunately, because tape storage...

Tape backup to build on - Quantum ATL's expandable M1500 spreads backup hardware acquisition costs over time.(Evaluation)
November 12, 2001... ALTHOUGH TODAY'S storage market offers an unprecedented variety of choices, choosing a tape library often requires compromising cost and scalability. For backup needs that exceed the capacity of a single tape drive or an entry-level autoloader,...

Microsoft's power play for portables - Tablet PC, .Net Compact Framework, and Smart Device Extensions form Redmond's mobile vision.(Product Announcement)
November 12, 2001... AS PART OF its .Net strategy, Microsoft is launching a series of initiatives intended to unify the mobile and portable device markets under the .Net flag. The new Tablet PC specification adds touch- sensitive screens to notebook computers,...