InfoWorld articles from November 2005

InfoWorld archives from November 2005

Steps to SOA No. 8: Build out your messaging infrastructure - Can you rely on point-to-point XML? For awhile, perhaps. But as your SOA grows consider the advantages of asynchronous messaging.(service oriented architecture)
November 7, 2005... Your next crucial technology choice: how messages will be sent or received among services and applications. With small-scale SOA implementations, you can often get away with direct, synchronous XML (most often, SOAP) connections that...

What's wrong with Dell? Changing market and increased competition inflict financial havoc on Dell.
November 7, 2005... Dell's run as the financial darling of the technology world may have come to an end, as the company announced last week it would miss its quarterly revenue target for the second straight period. The company blamed a shortfall in its U.S....

Lifting the Curtain on SQL Server, VS 2005 - Database and IDE updates add muscle to Microsoft's apps ambitions.(Microsoft SQL Server 2005)
November 7, 2005... Microsoft created quite a stir at its Professional Developers Conference and Business Summit back in September, when it lifted the veil on ambitious plans for stitching together a stupefying array of client, middleware, and server technologies...

OPEN ENTERPRISE: Developing with open source, risk-free - A new insurance product protects companies against liability for unintended license violations.
November 7, 2005... Picture this scenario: Suppose Company A acquires Company B, a hardware vendor that incorporates the Linux kernel into its products. After the acquisition is complete, however, an unfortunate thing happens. Linux developers bring suit against...

EDITOR'S LETTER: SOA: Watch your steps - Presenting a process for thinking about, and implementing, SOA.(Editorial)
November 7, 2005... You've seen this trick before -- a headline built around an eye-catching number ("101 Windows Secrets" or "Thinner Thighs in 30 Days") designed to lure readers into a fluffy, often disposable story. But let me assure you, this week's cover...

SECURITY ADVISER: A constant state of insecurity - Passwords are in the air, and it isn't even spring.
November 7, 2005... For the past few months an acquaintance of mine has been sniffing various public wireless and wired networks around the world, looking to see what plain text passwords are visible. It was an eye-opening experiment. She used a bunch of...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Gen X style, Gates on trial - The old gray gossip monger just keeps cranking along.(Generation X career changes)(Breast implants)(Google Inc.)
November 7, 2005... It appears corporate America is struggling to keep Generation X workers happy. According to a recent survey, Gen Xers change jobs every 1.1 years and are junkies for "increased intellectual stimulation," telecommuting, and bosses they can talk...

FROM THE ANALYSTS: Is the CIO's prestige really slipping? New research shows that very few have a seat at the table among the corporate board of directors.(chief information officers)
November 7, 2005... Ephraim Schwartz's recent InfoWorld column "Are CIOs Headed for Extinction?" got me good and riled up, ready to fire back a rebuttal, until I cooled off and realized he's kinda right, but for the wrong reasons. He essentially said CIOs are...

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: Toolkits for user innovation - Software that takes a toolkit approach can make mass customization economical.
November 7, 2005... Technology trends obey certain predictable laws, among them that every action produces an equal and opposite reaction. So the recent backlash directed at AJAX and other "Web 2.0" technologies was no surprise. Nicholas Carr called Web 2.0...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: AMD in hot pursuit of bulletproof servers - Mainframe blueprints from tiny Opterons would be the key.(Advanced Micro Devices Inc.)
November 7, 2005... Even those who came late to enlightenment about AMD's concurrent leadership in firepower per dollar, transactions per kilowatt, value per square inch, and vastness of commercial software library are wondering what AMD will do next. AMD CTO...

REALITY CHECK: Cellular data services ramp up - With carriers struggling to maintain profit margins, could an Oracle phone be in your future?
November 7, 2005... If you're susceptible to advertising sales pitches, you'd best -- like Ulysses' crew -- plug up your ears. Otherwise, you will soon hear the siren call from the cell phone carriers pitching their newest data services. Until now, carrier...

OFF THE RECORD: Working for Dilbert's boss - You can't do a three-month project in three weeks.(Column)
November 7, 2005... By Anonymous I'm the software QA manager at an enterprise application development company -- and all my boss needs is pointy hair and an Etch A Sketch for a computer to be a direct replacement for Dilbert's boss. A few months ago, he calls...

SQL Server 2005 piles it on - Marked improvements in programmability and manageability are just the start.(Microsoft SQL Server 2005)
November 7, 2005... Microsoft's first major release of SQL Server in many years includes such sweeping improvements that it's sometimes hard to see the old SQL Server underneath. Not a single area of the database remains untouched, and many portions have been...

ActiveBatch deftly juggles Windows jobs - Complex yet sophisticated, ActiveBatch empowers admins to easily manage and automate jobs.(ActiveBatch 5.0 from Advanced Systems Concepts Inc. )
November 7, 2005... I've seen many shops with hundreds of OS-level jobs to manage -- file copies, system reboots, defrags, FTP jobs, and so forth -- and the admins there all have done the same thing: They go from server to server to check on job success, or to...

Arming administrators with full client control - FullArmor IntelliPolicy provides wonderfully granular control over Windows workstations.
November 7, 2005... We've been using various versions of the FullArmor software since the mid-1990s, mostly to combat the problem of users (often students) modifying the machines at their desks or in university computer labs. These early versions allowed us to...

HP makes push for network stability - Hardware-heavy ProCurve Access Control Solution a step in the right direction.(Hewlett-Packard Co.)(ProCurve 760wl)
November 7, 2005... These days, network stability means more than just making sure links are available and the proper routes are in place. A single workstation on a network segment can easily wreak havoc following a virus or worm infection, as continuous attempts...

Exclusive: Systinet reins in Web service registries - Systinet Registry 6.0 does a good job of managing UDDI entities, but this SOA must-have carries a hefty price.(service oriented architecture)(Systinet Registry 6.0 )(universal description, discovery and integration )
November 7, 2005... At the outset, I should admit a bias: I'm a UDDI skeptic. Still, I'm willing to believe that maybe I just haven't dug deeply enough into UDDI to see its real value. So, I was naturally eager to review the latest version of Systinet's Web...

Making SOA work - Four companies explain how they met the challenge of implementing service-oriented architecture.(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... Implementing SOA (service-oriented architecture) is one of the most daunting projects that an enterprise IT organization can undertake. Service orientation represents a whole new way of thinking and doing, one that changes the way developers...

British American Tobacco builds SOA one step at a time - Flush with early success, the company has begun transitioning legacy systems across the enterprise.(British-American Tobacco Company Ltd.)(service oriented architecture)
November 7, 2005... For British American Tobacco (BAT), SOA success came early. The challenge now lies in determining how quickly SOA should be scaled across the enterprise, and for which functions. The company's SOA journey began with a pilot project to build...

Sabre's customer-driven SOA - The travel solutions provider Web services-enabled its applications in response to customer demand.(service oriented architectures)(Sabre Holdings Corp.)
November 7, 2005... How does a technology-driven company with massive performance and scalability requirements -- and incredibly varied customer and supplier bases -- transition to SOA? For Sabre Holdings, the answer was a lot of in-house development and a complex...

New processes for Thomson Prometric - Getting developers on board for SOA called for a radical change in thinking.(service oriented architectures)(Thomson Corp. Thomson Learning)(Company Profile)
November 7, 2005... "The biggest challenge we've faced in creating an SOA has been identifying exactly what a service is," says Christopher Crowhurst, vice president and chief architect at Thomson Learning. "Understanding what the business is doing, converting...

Verizon goes back to the workbench - Convincing developers to embrace SOA meant extensive custom development.
November 7, 2005... To overcome its SOA roadblocks, Verizon had to build an entire SOA operational infrastructure virtually from scratch -- and it has the patents to prove it. "As a technology, Web services are great, but today's standards don't have nearly enough...

10 steps to SOA - Service-oriented architecture begins and ends with business process marshaling a sprawling set of technologies along the way. Don't know where to start? Try Step 1.
November 7, 2005... SOA is an idea, not a technology. True, SOA (service-oriented architecture) builds on the stack of protocols that define Web services, but it is hardly limited to that stack and draws as much on time-honored notions of business "re-...

Stepping into the future of SOA - Missing technology pieces stand in the way of ultimate business agility, but limited SOA deployments can still deliver benefits today.(service oriented architecture)
November 7, 2005... Everyone has heard the cliches about "aligning business and IT," as if technologists needed to be corralled into serving business needs. The problem, though, isn't the will, it's the way. SOA provides the framework necessary for a new level of...

Steps to SOA No. 1: Think big, start small - High-maintenance trouble spots in your organization can provide a great opportunity to demonstrate the value of an SOA approach.(service oriented architecture)
November 7, 2005... SOA starts with a business promise: to enable enterprises to re-engineer themselves on the fly. From the outset, look for opportunities for agility. The more dynamic the business, the more it will benefit from a well-implemented SOA. And the...

Steps to SOA No. 2: Go to the whiteboard - It all starts with breaking processes into services in concert with business stakeholders -- before you make any technology decisions.(service oriented architectures)
November 7, 2005... You can't expect to dissect business processes and see what makes them tick all by yourself. In collaboration with business stakeholders, review and rationalize the processes in the domain you've identified. Often, much of the heavy lifting...

Steps to SOA No. 3: Survey your surroundings - Take careful inventory of existing resources, determining which applications and data sources will be involved in your first deployment.(service oriented architecture)
November 7, 2005... Here's where all that process work starts to meet technological reality. Before you implement, look carefully at what you have in place to leverage. A basic tenet of SOA, particularly in its early phase, is to work with what you've got when...

Steps to SOA No. 4: Connect your first services - Choose the platforms and protocols best suited to the first services you deploy, while leveraging existing technology and skillsets.(service oriented architecture)
November 7, 2005... See correction below Time to get your feet wet. Take that whiteboard map and focus on one area as a pilot project. Identify a key point of redundancy in your set of related applications, spec out your first service, decide who will build...

Steps to SOA No. 5: Choose and deploy a registry or repository - A registry or repository provides a nexus where services are discovered -- and forms a clearinghouse for valuable metadata about your SOA.(service oriented architecture)
November 7, 2005... Many organizations mark the beginning of their SOA initiative at the point when they deployed a registry as a mechanism for service discovery. At a minimum, a registry prevents duplicative effort, a place where developers can determine whether...

Steps to SOA No. 6: Start tackling governance - Particularly in large enterprises, managing service interface definitions and deciding who is responsible for what pose the biggest challenges.(service oriented architecture)
November 7, 2005... Registries are more than just containers in which services can be described by metadata and discovered by clients and other services. They are also centers of SOA governance, where IT can list human service owners, manage versioning, ensure...

Steps to SOA No. 7: Lay your security plans - Inside the firewall, security may be relatively simple; but transactions that span multiple parties often indicate standards-based authentication.(service oriented architecture)
November 7, 2005... Years ago, when the industry began promoting Web services, the first objection raised was: What about security? That's because, back then, the emphasis was on XML integration across enterprise boundaries. By contrast, SOA tends to focus on the...

Microsoft goes live with Windows, Office - With Live Software Microsoft dips its toe in the software services water.
November 7, 2005... Microsoft took a high-profile baby step in the direction of software as a service, with the expected launch last week of its Live Software strategy. A substantial change in how the company does business, however, is still years off, analysts...

Steps to SOA No. 9: Deploy service management - SOA increases dependencies across the organization, so monitoring the health of services and making global changes become critical.(service oriented architecture)
November 7, 2005... If more than a handful of services are up and running, and if any are mission-critical, you need to manage them the way you would any network resource. Several vendors offer dashboardlike solutions that monitor the health of services, maintain...

Steps to SOA No. 10: Consider orchestration - Orchestration enables business processes to be reflected immediately in new composite applications -- but you may not need it yet.(service oriented architecture)
November 7, 2005... Every platform includes some method for orchestrating services. Whether it works well is another question. Ultimately, service orchestration will be vital for whipping up new, process-based composite applications in the dynamic manner promoted...

Stellar Steelhead WAN accelerator reduces network wait time - Riverbed adds Proxy File Service, Microsoft SQL performance enhancement.(Riverbed Technologies Steelhead 3010)(wide area network)(Product/Service Evaluation)
November 14, 2005... If you're tired of having your remote users complain about the WAN's performance, it may be time to check out a WAN optimization/acceleration solution. Up until a few years ago, the only way to try to improve poor WAN performance was to throw...

Top 100 IT projects of 2005 - Look no further than the 2005 InfoWorld 100 Awards for proof that smart, successful IT projects abound.(Illustration)
November 14, 2005... The InfoWorld 100 Awards celebrate enterprise IT projects that have made the best use of technology to meet business goals. Entries were judged on innovation and project complexity, as well as stumbling blocks that were overcome to achieve...

CA seeks revival at user show - Struggling CA will attempt to regain customer trust at its CA World show this week.(Computer Associates International Inc.)(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... At its user conference this week in Las Vegas, Computer Associates will have its work cut out as a new management team attempts to regain the trust of CA's customers in the wake of an accounting scandal and a legacy of poor customer support....

Next-gen Wi-Fi standard showdown - Vendors race to market with non- standard implementations of high speed 802.11n.
November 14, 2005... Battle lines are now being drawn over the next-generation WLAN standard, IEEE 802.11n, which promises speeds of 100Mbps and higher, as well as increased range. Behind a seemingly innocuous announcement last week of a new wireless router...

SOA comes down to earth - Veterans of SOA projects impart lessons learned.(service oriented architecture)(InfoWorld's SOA Executive Forum)(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... Moving past concept into real-world deployments, SOA initiatives are starting to bear fruit, and with that harvest come valuable lessons for IT professionals. At InfoWorld's SOA Executive Forum in New York last week, attendees heard practical...

Sun looks to Niagara chip for crossover appeal - Sun takes on IBM and Intel with new multithreaded processor.(Sun Microsystems Inc.)(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... Sun Microsystems is gearing up for an early launch Monday of its UltraSparc T1, the multithreaded, multicore processor formerly code- named Niagara. The chip was previously slated to appear early in 2006. The new chip incorporates Sun's...

EDITOR'S LETTER: IT projects that matter - InfoWorld 100 prizewinners innovate while keeping an eye on ROI.(Editorial)
November 14, 2005... Is it finally time to put Nicholas G. Carr's theory to rest? If the name Carr isn't familiar, then certainly his 2003 Harvard Business Review polemic, "IT Doesn't Matter," should ring a bell. Carr's contention -- that IT has become such a...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Sony discovers its roots, Grokster gets the boot - The inside dope on insiders and dopes.(Sony BMG used digital rights management software)(Grokster Ltd. paid damages to recording companies)(Microsoft Corp.'s sites are unable to access)
November 14, 2005... In yet another twist to its suit against IBM, the SCO Group detailed 217 alleged violations of its proprietary UNIX code -- in a sealed document only the judge can read. I hear the new evidence reveals the name of the insider who leaked the...

FROM THE ANALYSTS: Losing its cool, Apple iPod gets ROI; plus auto industry avoids RFID - Coolness no longer sole reason to buy iPod; plus RFID foot-dragging in supply chain.(Column)
November 14, 2005... The Diffusion Group is out with a study hinting that the iPod is no longer cool. That's right, with more than 30 million iPods on the streets, it seems, the hip factor is wearing off. So all you smug Apple store employees can just stop wearing...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Preparing for a technology disaster - Planning for any situation you're afraid to face makes responding to any other far easier.(Column)
November 14, 2005... Observing others react to (or fail to confront) the devastating 2005 hurricane season angers me. Lately, we've gotten the idea that an effort to study, discuss, and extract useful knowledge from a tragic event, even as it unfolds, is a...

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: Beyond office document formats - The current debate over office document formats misses the bigger challenge still facing us.(Column)
November 14, 2005... Let's cut to the chase in the Massachusetts/Microsoft brouhaha over office document formats. One possible outcome: Microsoft Office gains support for the OASIS OpenDocument format, either from Microsoft or from the open source community....

REALITY CHECK: Microsoft is stuck on the C: drive - Despite its new service offerings, Redmond will have a hard time transitioning from the desktop software model.
November 14, 2005... Bill Gates' Nov. 1 announcement that Microsoft would soon be in the SaaS (software-as-a-service) business should be taken as a warning sign to the faithful: Something is rotten in Redmond. In the past, Gates has aimed his message at the...

OFF THE RECORD: Outsourcers gone bad - If your CEO is in bed with your consultant, trouble can't be far behind.(Column)
November 14, 2005... By Anonymous A couple of years ago I was working as manager of software development at a small animation company, where a really dangerous situation developed. For several years, Charlie, the CTO, had let Joe, the network administrator,...

Reconnex revs slip spotter - Reconnex iGuard gains beefier hardware and stronger analysis tools for battling the insider threat.
November 14, 2005... Workers don't have to expose confidential data deliberately to do harm; often such information slips out inadvertently in an e-mail note or a file attachment. Reconnex iGuard diligently monitors e-mail and other communications channels (like IM...

Exclusive: ConSentry keeps a watchful eye on users - LAN Controller enforces policies at the hardware level.(ConSentry Secure LAN Controller)
November 14, 2005... Network security is going through a paradigm shift. It is no longer enough to secure just the network edge against unknown attackers trying to break in; traffic inside the network must come under increased scrutiny, as well, to ensure that...

Reflexion effectively blocks spam without fallible filters - Challenge- and-response approach gives users ample control over who can and can't contact them.(RTC (Reflexion Total Control) 3.0)
November 14, 2005... Most anti-spam engines use a variety of filtering engines to block messages based on originating IP address of the sender, the domain, words in the message, or a wide variety of other indicators. There are two inherent problems with this...

Lehman Brothers puts identity in a vise grip - Total Access Control eases account management and tightens access.(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... All it takes is one disgruntled former employee with access to sensitive customer data to wreak costly havoc. To counter this risk, the investment bank Lehman Brothers recently implemented TAC (Total Access Control), a companywide user-access...

Span-Alaska freezes out legacy supply-chain system - Linking facilities and tracking equipment throughout the delivery process pleases customers.(business logistics management)(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... Imagine hundreds of 18-wheelers rolling into Span-Alaska's warehouse every week, each carrying as much as 28 tons of cargo from hundreds of different shippers. Each trailer must be off-loaded, and every manifest must be sent to the back office,...

CACI brings order to paperwork chaos - New system integrates data and plays well with others.(Procurement Desktop for Industry)(Department of Defense)(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... The only thing harder than buying for the Department of Defense is selling to it. Although the department's own buy-side processes are largely automated and standardized, providing the same degree of integration to the vendor side was more...

Aquarius joins the age of wireless - New antenna blasts data with virtually no signal loss.(Aquarius sealab installed Orthogon Systems' OS-Gemini integrated wireless bridges)(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... You think you have wireless connectivity problems? Imagine being 63 feet below the surface of the Atlantic, with hurricanes overhead and buckets of data to stream from the seafloor to an orbiting space station. That's just a day at the beach...

Coldwell Banker Elite connects with buyers - Company overhauls IT infrastructure to reduce costs and streamline processes.(Zultys Technologies' MX250 Enterprise Media Exchange)(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... In the realty game, where a missed call can mean losing a million-dollar sale, communications is everything. So when Coldwell Banker Elite looked to converge voice and video over IP, it was determined not to get locked into a proprietary...

Broward School system gives parents an edge - Virtual Counselor puts records, test scores, and key information at parents' fingertips.(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... Keeping track of 286 schools, 41,000 employees, 50,000 adult students, and 276,200 children is not for the faint of heart. But that's just business as usual for Broward County Public Schools, the nation's sixth- largest school district. Its IT...

American Express eases business travel - Web-based traveler profiles retain customer preferences to smooth the ride.
November 14, 2005... Business travelers seeking the fastest routes to their destinations can now hop aboard the TravelBahnSM Gateway , a new Web-based reservations system from American Express. Instead of navigating arcane commands for five different computerized...

Prudential widens retirement options - Financial stalwart rejuvenates its employee coverage plans.(Prudential Financial Inc.)(Plan Accounting and Reporting Information System)(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... In 2000, Prudential Financial realized it could no longer manage complex 21st-century retirement schemes, a system built for handling employee pension plans of the 1960s and '70s. So it retired its legacy system and headed to PARIS (Plan...

Sprint ramps up for data deluge - 3G spurs telecom outfit to implement 'application fabrics'.(Appistry Enterprise Application Fabric)(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... The challenge of aggressively rolling out high- speed wireless service is dealing with all the operational data coming back upstream. By betting big on 3G nets, Sprint is adding an enormous load to its billing, network management, and...

Iconix finds a cure in AJAX - Pharmaceutical company's innovative approach to integration eases access to data.(Iconix Pharmaceuticals Inc. developed DrugMatrix)(asynchronous JavaScript and XML)(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... Data integration is a major challenge for the pharmaceutical industry. The daunting task of analyzing volumes of information that span several databases often stymies companies involved in creating drugs. To address this problem, Iconix...

Brigham and Women's Hospital goes mobile - eMAR system ensures accuracy of clinician and patient identification, medications.(Electronic Medication Administration Record)(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... Brigham and Women's Hospital, a 720-bed facility with more than 6,000 admissions per year, ambitiously created its eMAR (Electronic Medication Administration Record) system, a wide-reaching, entirely mobile application. The initiative is...

Bowne takes pioneering role in XBRL - Solution eases the tagging process aimed at improving usefulness of financial data.(Bowne Financial Print used XBRL-based solutions for financial reports writing)(Extensible Business Reporting Language)(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... In April, the Securities Exchange Commission commenced a voluntary pilot program to test the data tagging technology known as XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language). Someone had to be first up to the plate. As it happened, Bowne...

SBC Communications thinks mainframe at the mid-tier - Portfolio infrastructure management project paved the way for expansion.(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... As an IT organization grows, it invariably becomes harder to manage. For David Brickhaus, director of operations for IT Services at SBC Communications, streamlining an organization comprising more than 10,000 employees and 9,000 servers meant a...

EDS puts the match to arsonists - Tracking system aids Feds in evidence gathering.(Bomb Arson Tracking System for Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms)(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... If you're designing a national database for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, it's got to be, well, bulletproof. That's why the ATF hired the EDS team to redesign its BATS (Bomb Arson Tracking System), which houses data on incidents...

Essent retools processes to boost profits - IT overhauls middleware infrastructure to good result.(Essent Energie's custom Gas Optimization application)(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... Essent Energie had two big problems. First, the company's gas portfolio was expanding faster than conventional reporting tools could record the details. This led to the second problem: The portfolio consistently underperformed, as energy...

GE Transportation does the loco-motion - Web-based apps bring crucial improvements to rail fleet.(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... GE transportation is doing a brand new dance. When locomotives steam into one of its more than 40 service centers, technicians no longer have to paw through paper files looking for each model's documentation. Thanks to GE's improved Web-based...

Starwood aims for enterprise Valhalla - Move to SOA benefits reservations, maintenance, and loyalty.(Starwood Hotels and Resorts Inc)(service oriented architecture)(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... When you operate more than 750 hotels -- including the Sheraton, St. Regis, W, and Westin brands -- your guests naturally expect great service. They also expect equally good service when they book their rooms on the Web, through a call center,...

The IRS goes electronic -- for real this time - Modernized file system reduces labor and saves taxpayers' money.(Internal Revenue Service )(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... You may have been able to file your 1040 forms electronically for quite some time now, but until recently corporations had to do it the old- fashioned way -- submitting reams of paper. Complex corporate tax forms are too unwieldy for the IRS's...

VCom brings Africa online - Telecom giant reaches out to underdeveloped nations.(broadband internet services)(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... In sub-Saharan Africa, where you can drive for hundreds of miles without seeing a single phone line, it's easier to check your e-mail than your voice mail, thanks in part to VCom. Although wireless broadband is available on the continent using...

Product previews.(McAfee AntiSpyware Enterprise and McAfee Managed VirusScan plus AntiSpyware from Network Associates Inc.)(Lucid8's DigiVault backup software)(ActiveState's Komodo 3.5 testing software)
November 14, 2005... McAfee Tailors Anti-spyware to Fit, Lucid8 Backs Up Exchange Data, Ruby Developers Get IDE with Komodo, ShoreTel Unveils IP Phone system for SMBs McAfee tailors anti-spyware to fit business needs Spyware has become a formidable...

MoneyGram achieves fast, effective disaster recovery - Company invests in VMware and virtualizes server resources across four datacenters.(MoneyGram Payment Systems Inc.)(Brief Article)
November 14, 2005... When a few minutes of downtime can mean thousands of lost transactions and millions in lost revenue, you'd better have a disaster recovery plan. MoneyGram, a global payment services company, had a plan alright - - except that it could guarantee...

Use metrics to prove your IT project's worth - Is your IT project a dog or a delight? It all depends on how you measure it -- and who's doing the measuring.
November 21, 2005... If you ever talk to Andrew Stewart, don't say the words "IT project." As financial director at GAP Group, a $100 million equipment rental firm in Glasgow, Scotland, Stewart had to help his firm decide whether to spend $2 million on a new...

Product Previews.(Compagnie Financiere Alcatel introduces OmniSwitch 9000 )(JunC++ion 3.0 from CodeMesh)(PingFederate 3.0 from Ping Identity)
November 21, 2005... Alcatel eyes the future with new 10Gb Ethernet switches, Ping taps SAML 2.0 for federated identity management, NetIQ manages compliance risks, CodeMesh provides common ground for Java and C++ By InfoWorld staff Alcatel flips the switch...

AMD: Quad-core Opterons by 2007 - The new server processor design is similar to the core used by Opteron and Athlon 64 chips.(Advanced Micro Devices Inc.)(Brief Article)
November 21, 2005... Advanced Micro Devices has added a new quad-core server processor to its road map. The new processor design, similar to the core used by the company's Opteron and Athlon 64 processors, will debut in 2007. The processor will incorporate four...

IBM's master plan for data - Big Blue takes its time stitching together three acquisitions to create a master-data offering.(IBM Master Data Management)(Trigo Technologies Inc., Ascential Software Corp. and DWL )
November 21, 2005... What's the ugliest problem in IT? Many would say it's the contradictory or incomplete data strewn around the enterprise in various databases and formats. Reconciling and normalizing all that data is hard, tedious work. There's no magic...

Microsoft shows prominently at Supercomputing '05 - Microsoft enters HPC fray, with a splashy booth and beta release of Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003.(high performance computing)(Brief Article)
November 21, 2005... Microsoft's presence at Supercomputing '05 in Seattle last week was unmistakable. The conference, which spotlights innovations in HPC (high- performance computing), featured more than 200 exhibitors, including HPC stalwarts such as...

EDITOR'S LETTER: Metrics for IT success - If you can't measure a project, you can't manage it -- or prove it worked.(Editorial)
November 21, 2005... What percentage of IT projects fail? At our recent SOA Executive Forum in New York, an attendee asked a group of panelists to estimate their success rate on projects; specifically, he wanted to know how many of their IT initiatives had "failed...

OPEN ENTERPRISE: Novell faces setbacks in its open source strategy - Despite ambitious plans, the server software vendor is still struggling to reinvent itself for the 21st century.
November 21, 2005... My local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, has a unique system for rating movies. Next to each review is a different version of the paper's trademarkLittle Man icon. For a surefire hit, he's leaping to his feet in uproarious applause. A...

FROM THE ANALYSTS: Microsoft Live may open gates to desktop ads - Redmond adopts new role as systems integrator, while Amazon Mechanical Turk kicks off 'Webshoring'.
November 21, 2005... I saw Real Networks' CEO Rob Glaser on stage this week at a high-tech gadgets preview and had a flashback to his company's nightmarish RealPlayer -- the most advertising-laden, nagging, hard-to-uninstall piece of software ever to grace my...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Murdoch auctions a snack, MSN rejects IE for Mac - Even aging boomers need love -- or at least a nice lunch.(baby boomer generation)(Rupert Murdoch's lunch auction)(Microsoft MSN)(Column)
November 21, 2005... Several readers wrote in to correct a recent column in which I accidentally reversed my Generation X and Y coordinates: X are the slackers, whereas the Y generation is into self-mutilation. Another reader called me an "aging boomer" and blamed...

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: Get the most from your host - When considering software as a service, be mindful of the costs and the risks.
November 21, 2005... All of a sudden, hosted software is the belle of the ball. When folks first thought of it, we called it the application service provider technology. Now we're calling it software as a service, or even more nebulous: Web 2.0. Don't get me...

STORAGE INSIDER: Storage media security: It's the OS, stupid - Sony's squabble over DRM proves that blending data security and storage should start at the OS level.(digital rights management software)(operating systems )(Column)
November 21, 2005... Have you been following the Sony DRM (digital rights management) saga? We may not have seen the last chapter of that story, but Sony recently published a somewhat conciliatory statement, saying, among other things, that "as a precautionary...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: RFID is stupid - Forcing RFID into mainstream use will slow development of more capable sensor solutions.(radio frequency identification equipment)(Column)
November 21, 2005... We'll soon live in a country where sensors outnumber people. If you believe what you read, RFID is a magical technology that will forever banish wires, grocery store scanners, credit cards and pocket change from our working and personal lives....

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: Toward swappable Web services - New collaborative tools are needed before outsourced business services can become truly interchangeable.(California Independent System Operator Corp. )
November 21, 2005... Walt Johnson is an IT planner at California Independent System Operator (CalISO), the not-for-profit operator of the state's wholesale power grid. I met him at InfoWorld's SOA Executive Forum last week, where he described CalISO's transition to...