InfoWorld articles from September 2006

InfoWorld archives from September 2006

EDITOR'S LETTER: The case for altruism - Is a desire to contribute to open source coded into our genes?(Editorial)
September 4, 2006... The first timeI heard about Wikipedia, I thought, This has no shot. Why would highly qualified people devote their energies to an encyclopedia they couldn't make a dime on? Boy, was I wrong. In applying a pragmatic, pay-to-play view of...

FROM THE ANALYSTS: Business strategy, meet execution - Study shows profound disconnect between strategy and everything else.(Column)
September 4, 2006... I got an interesting teaser in the e-mail this week: "Study Suggests Nearly Half of All Leaders See a Disconnect Between Strategy and Execution." I won't say who sent it because they blew the execution: The so-called study wasn't posted...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Toshiba preps the Zune, banker croons new tune - Where there's smoke, there's probably a Sony battery.
September 4, 2006... Michael Dell is probably sending roses to Steve Jobs right about now. When Apple announced its recall of 1.8 million laptop batteries it (ahem) took the heat off Dell and put it on squarely on Sony. The beleaguered battery maker may spend more...

SECURITY ADVISER: NetScreen firewall: Five-star security - Juniper's product and service has Roger proclaiming 'I will never use another vendor's firewall'.
September 4, 2006... I've been using and configuring firewalls for 10-plus years -- perimeter, software, hardware, Windows, Linux, and BSD variants. Until recently, I've never had occasion to try or use a Juniper Networks NetScreen firewall, although it always gets...

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: Microsoft refurbishes Windows Marketplace - Slick new design may be too much for end-users to resist downloading apps.
September 4, 2006... First, best wishes to my friend First Lt. Robert Lange, who is about to head off to Iraq in charge of a new "law and order" company. Good luck, Rob; keep your head down and come home. Next congratulations to Microsoft for finally getting...

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: Amazon.com's rent-a-grid - For tasks that don't need a dedicated server, online application hosting can't be beat.
September 4, 2006... Amazon.com is on a roll. In March, the company launched the Simple Storage Service (S3), a metered disk in the cloud that I praised here and discussed in more detail on my blog. So in July, when the Simple Queuing Service (SQS) emerged from...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Linux will get buried - Microsoft and Apple aren't sending Linux away, just underground to do the job it was made for.(Column)
September 4, 2006... I've kept a practically subterranean profile since Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference a few weeks ago. I have so many venues at which to serve the many pots of content I've got bubbling upstairs that spreading it evenly and avoiding...

OFF THE RECORD: Choosing the wrong software - The best application vendor doesn't always win ... even when it does.(Column)
September 4, 2006... By Anonymous The road to new software can follow a strange and convoluted course. I was feeling optimistic as I began a new consulting engagement for a national retailer, as part of a team developing an RFP (request for proposal) for a new...

Blazing trails with open source - Community-driven code is quietly outpacing the proprietary competition in key markets.
September 4, 2006... It's often said that open source doesn't innovate. It imitates. That's certainly what the proprietary software industry would have you believe. And to look at the activity in some of the most prominent open source projects in use in enterprises...

Devices gain an edge with Linux - Embedded systems developers benefit from an open source OS.
September 4, 2006... Linux is finding success in much smaller devices than the servers and workstations that have traditionally been its mainstays. For embedded systems developers, the advantage of Linux over proprietary OSes lies as much in its flexibility and...

Open source breathes life into Java - Community-built tools have solidified Java's lead in the developer market.
September 4, 2006... There can be no doubt that open source has been a tremendous boon to Java. The JCP (Java Community Process), by which the Java language and platform moves ahead, seems to inch forward at a glacial pace. Committee review and approval are slow,...

"Wide open" means extra security - Experts rely on access to source code to reduce threats and prevent exploits.
September 4, 2006... There's a reason nearly every security appliance vendor uses open source tools, and it has little to do with licensing. The vast majority of these devices -- ranging from spam and spyware filters to network scanners to intrusion detection and...

Collaboration yields new frontiers for multimedia - Patent-free audio and video technologies lower barriers to entry and spur innovation.
September 4, 2006... It's easy to assume that open source and multimedia are mutually exclusive. A common criticism of free desktop Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, is that they lack support for multimedia playback, even for common formats. But don't blame the...

Community drives scripting adoption - Modern scripting languages succeed to the extent that they are open.
September 4, 2006... Scripting languages, sometimes called "dynamic" languages, have become all the rage, in part because they let developers get a lot of work done with comparatively little code. This "bang for the buck" derives from new approaches that push more...

Steering clear of proprietary messaging - Open source e-mail and collaboration servers future-proof with flexibility.
September 4, 2006... Open source tools and e-mail share a long history. Mail servers such as Exim, Postfix, and Sendmail enjoy widespread use, to say nothing of a healthy assortment of open source mail clients, from Mozilla Thunderbird to Pine. But e-mail isn't the...

Entuity grants network admins a third Eye - Shortcomings and high price hinder Eye of the Storm 4.5's potency.
September 4, 2006... Far too many enterprise networks today lack an essential tool: comprehensive monitoring. Most have some form of connectivity monitoring, such as simple ping tests to ensure that remote sites and Internet access are functional, but the proactive...

Encryption fuels security trends - Decryption key is central to controlled rights and self-deleting data.
September 4, 2006... Two new trends in data protection are using encryption to accomplish their goals: controlled rights and self-deleting data. Application suites such as EMC's Documentum 5 allow documents to be created with controlled rights built-in. The...

How to develop an enterprise encryption strategy - An end-to-end strategy must factor in all the ways the data can be input and output, as well as how it's stored.
September 4, 2006... Here's a sobering prediction: One-third of all adults in the United States will have their personal identity information compromised or lost this year by a company that electronically stores the data, according to figures supported by the...

Keep data confidential -- or else - Plenty of statutes on the books protect data, but those involving encryption don't offer prescriptive guidance.
September 4, 2006... Multiple laws and regulations exist to protect customer data. The unfortunate consequence of multiple laws governing confidential data and encryption is that none offers prescriptive guidance. Whether encryption solutions and strategies satisfy...

Enterprise DRM products protect documents from prying eyes - Liquid Machines, SealedMedia secure enterprise perimeter by controlling document access, compliance.(Digital rights management )
September 4, 2006... Enterprise DRM (digital rights management) shares DRM's basic concept of controlling content use. However, it goes beyond unauthorized-copy protection to help stop sensitive information from being read, altered, or shared outside an origination...

Group will unveil mobile security open specs - Mobile trust specs cover malware protection for mobile devices.(America Online Inc.)
September 4, 2006... I search, therefore I am. That was the rude lesson AOL subscribers learned last month when the Internet giant thoughtlessly released reams of data on searches that its users conducted. Sure, the users' identities were removed, but as people...

Intel's rolls out Merom - Update for Centrino could cause confusion.
September 4, 2006... Intel has been beating out a steady rhythm of big product announcements in recent months. And last week that beat went on: The company shipped Merom, the mobile entry in Intel's 64-bit Core 2 Duo processor line. The announcement, following...

Vista RC1 has few new bells, whistles - Final beta, plus details on price and availability show OS near complete.
September 4, 2006... As Microsoft's five-year-long development effort slouches toward completion, details began to emerge last week that showed the company is (finally) gearing up to release Windows Vista after the new year, as promised. Pricing information popped...

Wi-Fi Alliance won't wait for IEEE - Tangle, delays on 802.11n prompts two-phase certification.(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)(Brief article)
September 4, 2006... "I-triple-what?" was the question being asked last week, after the Wi- Fi Alliance said it will start certifying next-generation wireless LAN products by the first half of 2007, regardless of whether the IEEE has signed off on new wireless...

The end of VC? Kieden founder says SaaS made VC unnecessary.(software as a service)(Kraig Swensrud)(Interview)
September 4, 2006... For anyone who doesn't play close attention to developments in the SaaS (software as a service) space, the story of San Francisco startup Kieden might sound like a replay of one of those "spin straw into gold" tales from the height of the...

OPEN ENTERPRISE: Open source needs a profit motive - If you can't scratch your own itch, the free market will.
September 4, 2006... As Eric S. Raymond points out in his landmark work, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, the most powerful motive for open source developers is the need to "scratch their own itch." They begin writing software to address their unique needs. As they...

Cisco beefing up WAFS - WAAS update promises faster apps, file transfers.
September 11, 2006... Cisco Systems is stepping up to the plate in the highly competitive application acceleration game, banking on technology and a lot of end- to-end network expertise to set it apart from other players. The company will announce on Tuesday...

EDITOR'S LETTER: Virtually anonymous - Our secret weapon struts his stuff at the Virtualization Executive Forum.(Editorial)
September 11, 2006... Doug Dineley is the quintessential inside guy. Though you may not know it, if you've been reading InfoWorld for any length of time, you've benefited from the fruits of his labor. As executive editor of the InfoWorld Test Center, Dineley...

OPEN ENTERPRISE: Open source is entangled in .Net - Like it or not, cross-pollination between Microsoft technologies and open source software is here to stay.
September 11, 2006... Python developers had reason to celebrate last week, with the release of IronPython 1.0, a full implementation of the Python language for Microsoft's CLR (Common Language Runtime). With IronPython, Python programs can run as first-class managed...

SECURITY ADVISER: Is the end of anti-virus finally here? Crimeware may prove to be the straw that breaks the AV scanners' backs.
September 11, 2006... I first heard that the anti-virus scanner was dead in December 1989. Experts had postulated that the increase in the number of different computer viruses, which at the time numbered almost 200, would quickly outpace the ability of anti-virus...

FROM THE ANALYSTS: Improving IT through mentoring - A tribute to the late band leader, and mentor, Maynard Ferguson.(Column)
September 11, 2006... I always knew this day would come. I'd be talking to somebody and they'd say: "Hey, did you hear, Maynard Ferguson died this week?" I knew I'd go home, crack open a beer, crank up the stereo, and retreat into the pure raw energy of a jazz...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: OS priced to the max, Radio Shack's electronic ax - What's a few driver incompatibilities between friends?
September 11, 2006... Three days after sharing a "Pre-Release Candidate 1" version of Vista with 100,000 of its closest friends, Microsoft has let fly the actual Release Candidate 1. Reactions so far range from gushing to guarded. But some folks, including faithful...

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: Vista's not so revolutionary after all - With its high hardware requirement and simply nice features, XP's successor's not worth rushing into.
September 11, 2006... I just finished previewing Vista Release Candidate 1 for the Test Center, and I suddenly realized I'm more underwhelmed than I anticipated. A few months ago, in this very column, I used the adjective revolutionary instead of evolutionary. I'm...

STORAGE INSIDER: A tale of two storage acquisitions - Emulex bought Sierra Logic because of its complementary SATA technology, but what motivated Tandberg to grab Exabyte?
September 11, 2006... Returning to work after a two-week vacation, I wasn't all that surprised to see acquisition news pop up from my inbox. After all, this is storage, where it's not unusual to see one vendor or the other on a buying spree. One of those...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Apple ensemble hits the right note - More than any commercial software platform for x86, OS X is unified and consistent.(Column)
September 11, 2006... My city's symphony orchestra is marvelous. In a lesser setting, any of the orchestra's musicians would be a marquee soloist, front and center. But as an orchestra, about 100 consummately talented artists become one. The visual spectacle and the...

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: Mandatory translucent data - Database designers should make protecting customers' privacy a key architectural principle.
September 11, 2006... Back in 2003 I was trying to drum up interest in Peter Wayner's book, Translucent Databases, which shows how to build and operate databases whose contents are opaque to their operators. Three years later, there's still no serious discussion of...

OFF THE RECORD: Beware the programming guru - Never try to code complex software with no scope, no requirements, and no project plan.(Column)
September 11, 2006... By Anonymous Ten years ago I took a job with a large, privately owned plastics manufacturer. The firm's president had decided to update the proprietary systems that had been running the business for more than a decade with more efficient...

Virtual databases: An alternative solution - For some applications, virtualized data is more effective than virtual servers.
September 11, 2006... Server virtualization is an efficient way to save on server hardware costs, real estate, and management resources, but it isn't the only way. Just ask the folks at Avanade, a systems integrator specializing in Microsoft solutions. For one...

Virtual test benches ease QA - Thanks to virtualization, quality assurance for both desktop and server configurations is getting a whole lot easier.
September 11, 2006... Desktop virtualization can ease IT's own efforts, not just lighten the burden of end-user support. Testing is a prime example. Setting up and tearing down development and QA environments is hard, time-consuming work. But with desktop...

Desktop virtualization: Making PCs manageable - Virtualization can reduce the time and expense of managing desktops by a magnitude. But the choice of technologies and approaches is downright dizzying.
September 11, 2006... Managing PCs has always been painful, but the job has gotten considerably nastier thanks to an endless parade of application upgrades, operating system patches, and anti-threat updates. Even with network-based installation and patch management...

Server virtualization: Doing more with less - Although server virtualization technologies are still maturing, early customers see real benefits.
September 11, 2006... Virtualization has gone mainstream. According to The Yankee Group's 2006 Global Server Virtualization Survey of 750 businesses, 62 percent of respondents said they already had a virtualization solution in place or were in the process of...

Exclusive: Software AG crossvision suite takes on SOA - Closely integrated mix of Java, XML gives nonprogrammers a leg up on service creation.(Service oriented architecture (Software design))
September 11, 2006... The basic goal of an SOA is to make resources available on a network in such a way that the resources are accessible by client applications without the applications having to resort to low-level (language- or platform-specific) APIs. The...

Vivisimo Velocity races ahead of the search pack - Souped-up Version 5 combines high speed with killer control.
September 11, 2006... Choosing an enterprise search product is often fraught with compromise. If you, say, pick something with a simple search interface to appease users, administrators will likely be restricted in indexing databases or customizing results. From the...

Mail encryption made easy - Voltage SecureMail Appliance conquers encryption for admins and end-users.
September 11, 2006... Basic e-mail encryption between two users isn't terribly difficult to implement. Free add-ons to the more popular e-mail clients provide for easy encryption and decryption of messages. It's exponentially more difficult, however, to deploy...

Cisco banking on collaboration tools - Plans data, voice, video, and mobile integration.(Brief article)
September 11, 2006... Triple plays are rare in baseball. But Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers plans to do one better Wednesday by promising to pull off a "quadruple play" in the networking business: incorporating data, voice, video, and mobile capabilities across its...

Paller: Government cybersecurity gets an F - SCADA attacks are latest proof of vulnerable infrastructure.(Interview)
September 11, 2006... As director of research at the SANS Institute, Alan Paller has a unique window from which to view the U.S. government's efforts to secure its vast computer networks. An original member of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, Paller has...

Cisco, Microsoft NAC plans leave many questions - Companies still face third-party support, timeline issues.(Network Access Protection)
September 11, 2006... Building a bridge is rarely a quiet affair. Just ask John Augustus Roebling and his son, Washington, whose Brooklyn Bridge took 13 years to complete and cost 27 people their lives. Nevertheless, for the past two years, IT titans Cisco and...

HP back on the couch over phone record hacks - Phone record hacks spawn investigations, sow dissent.
September 11, 2006... Like a good friend who has just gotten out of a terrible relationship, Hewlett-Packard seemed to be on the rebound and all the happier for it in recent months. After the departure of controversial CEO Carly Fiorina, the company has as of late...

Intel layoffs trim down company - Layoffs, restructuring to save billions annually.
September 11, 2006... Not satisfied with its string of product announcements and sunny press coverage in recent weeks, Intel kept the ax swinging, announcing plans to lay off thousands more employees as part of a larger restructuring that will include some 10,500...

Targeted training keeps IT workers sharp - Widening skills and sharpening business acumen is the name of the game when companies are running lean and mean.(information technology)
September 18, 2006... Dimension Data's IP telephony services were growing at more than 100 percent per year. But instead of hiring the 30 to 40 new IPT engineers it needed to keep up with demand, the $2.7 billion IT solutions provider decided to invest in training...

Genuitec brightens up Eclipse - MyEclipse 5.0 gives developers broad, but not deep, toolset for building Java apps.
September 18, 2006... The market-share leader among Java IDEs is unquestionably Eclipse, the platform freely available from the Eclipse Foundation. Its success stems from several factors: the foundation's vendor independence, its considerable ability to forge...

Eclipse: The billion-dollar baby? Eclipse's Milinkovich talks up the Eclipse ecosystem.(Interview)
September 18, 2006... By InfoWorld staff The Eclipse Foundation's Eclipse World 2006 made its way to Cambridge, Mass., in early September, with foundation executives touting the success of the open source application development project in attracting developer...

BEA looks to tap Web 2.0 for Enterprise - Carges to talk tagging, wikis in BEA World speech.
September 18, 2006... Long a player in the geeky world of enterprise middleware, BEA will soon be diving into a frothy Web 2.0 space as it tries to tap into the genius of Web sites such as del.icio.us, Wikipedia, and YouTube, according to Mark Carges, executive vice...

HP "pretexting" scandal keeps chugging - Reverberations from phone account hacking will continue.(Brief article)
September 18, 2006... Huge, ugly scandals have a way of planting new terms in the lexicon. Consider the way the Watergate affair of the early 1970s made -gate an all-purpose suffix denoting scandal, or the way last year's Sony digital rights management imbroglio...

Infravio latest SOA player to fall - X-Registry strengthens webMethods' SOA story.(service oriented architecture)(BEA Systems, Flashline)(Brief article)
September 18, 2006... And then there were none. Two weeks ago, these pages noted the dwindling number of dedicated SOA registry vendors, amid rapid consolidation in the SOA space. BEA had acquired Flashline, which left Infravio as one of the few registry vendors...

More players announce NAC plans - Symantec and Juniper team up, Microsoft looks beyond Cisco.
September 18, 2006... Microsoft and Cisco Systems played the role of proud parents on Sept. 6. But with so many questions about when NAC-NAP, as it's been called, will be available, and how it will work with non-Windows clients and non-Cisco infrastructure, it's...

STORAGE INSIDER: Copan takes on conventional storage - Boasting a new architecture and a net of partnerships, the vendor promises more efficient support for persistent data.
September 18, 2006... You may remember that just two years ago, Copan began shipping the Revolution 200T, an archiving system that emulates tape libraries by using cabinets filled to the brim with SATA drives. The Revolution was the first system to pack almost 900...

EDITOR'S LETTER: Making sense of the IT job market - Despite a notably hot job market, some IT pros have been left out in the cold.(Editorial)
September 18, 2006... Here's a paradox for you: The latest government stats indicate that the IT job market is positively sizzling right now. Unemployment hovers at a nearly imperceptible 3 percent, and employers everywhere report difficulties finding qualified...

OPEN ENTERPRISE: Sun blazes trails with open source silicon - Community development methods could broaden the market for specialized chip designs.
September 18, 2006... Traditional hardware design is a top-down process. If you need a CPU, you choose one from the various manufacturers' catalogs and then build your device around its specifications. If a given part doesn't suit your needs perfectly, you can...

SECURITY ADVISER: The 14 best ways to protect your computers - No need for pricey, complex security systems; a few simple checks and management policies will have major impact.
September 18, 2006... Forget expensive IDSes, host-based IDSes, and unified threat management appliances. Here's how to really get the best security bang for your buck: 1. Prevent the installation or execution of unauthorized software or content. Learn what is...

FROM THE ANALYSTS: Standing tall among giants - To make it in today's enterprise, companies must find a way to manage high transaction volumes.(Column)
September 18, 2006... I made a quick stop at the Gartner Financial Services Technology conference in Boston last week, en route to a long weekend in Rhode Island, where I consumed more lobster than previously thought physically possible -- we don't get lobster on...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: HP's Dunn impeached, Jobs extends his reach - Cranky columnist miffed at being left off Hewlett-Packard "enemies" list.
September 18, 2006... Did HP Chairwoman Patricia Dunn attend the Richard M. Nixon school of management? In an effort to uncover HP board members who had leaked information to reporters, Dunn hired "security consultants" to secretly collect their personal phone...

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: Microsoft aims to open an easier Office 2007 - Closely studying the work habits of nontechies has proven valuable to the UI team.
September 18, 2006... When Microsoft called to tell me that the Office user interface team wanted to meet, I figured that'd be fun. After all, I've often said that I consider Office, and especially its interface, to be a bigger success for Microsoft than Windows....

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: Dynamic languages for agile enterprises - New efforts from the Java and .Net camps help bridge the gap between development styles.
September 18, 2006... At the 2004 Open Source Convention (OSCON) in Portland, Ore., Jim Hugunin, the creator of Jython, made the dramatic announcement that he would be joining Microsoft to pursue his latest project, IronPython, a Python implementation for the .Net...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Sun is winning in the server market - How did Sun jump ahead of Dell in server growth? Not with Windows, Intel or Linux.(Column)
September 18, 2006... Inexplicably, we've gotten through much of 2006 without Linux completely kicking Unix out of the market. Analysts and Linux faithful are at a loss to explain how Sun Microsystems' server revenue climbed almost 14 percent since the second...

OFF THE RECORD: Paying good money for bad software - Your company is buying new software. Why isn't anyone talking to IT about it?(Column)
September 18, 2006... By Anonymous When I went to work for a company I'll call "Heart of Glass," a firm that imports and sells high-end glassware, I was initially hired as a programmer. At the time, HoG had only one warehouse and five retail stores, but we...

IT jobs special report - Looking for work? Looking for IT workers? Look no further for a wealth of advice and trend reports to that will help improve your position.
September 18, 2006... Is the IT job market still on the upswing? Or are recent layoffs, such as Intel's hemorrhage of 10,500 jobs, a sign of bad times returning? No one can be sure. But one thing is certain: IT workers are restless and exploring new options. A full...

How to get a job at Google - Figure out what you want to do, be above average, and demonstrate your eagerness to collaborate.(Interview)
September 18, 2006... Attention, job hunters. Google is hiring. In fact, it's having a problem finding enough people with the right talent and skills to fill all its openings. So what's the best way to get your foot in the door? When you visit Google's career...

Nailing the interview: A headhunter tells how - Think like an investment banker and present a business plan for how you'll work profitably.
September 18, 2006... You can ace your job interview by remembering one simple fact: The company interviewing you isn't in business to hire people. It's in business to produce profit. That's why all those interview books are wrong: Success in a job interview is not...

IT's seven deadly career sins - Like your job and want to keep it? Want a better one someday? Then avoid these common mistakes.
September 18, 2006... The fast track to any successful career has its turning points. Lose your way on any of the detours described here, and you may be in for a rough patch -- or, worse. So keep your head up and steer clear of these seven common pitfalls: 1....

Become your own IT career coach - As you set out to blaze your trail, think of yourself the way a product manager thinks.
September 18, 2006... "Be your own brand." It's good advice that adapts well to cultivating a career in IT. But brand management is the province of marketing, not IT. So before you go adding a "New and Improved!" sticker to your resume, it's important to...

Executive order: Attract and retain top IT talent - IT hiring managers are in overdrive, devising new methods to lure candidates in a technology workers' market.
September 18, 2006... It was a sweltering June night at the Middle East Club in Cambridge, Mass., and Joe Turner & the Seven Levels were about to take the stage. But this was no ordinary battle of the bands, and the alt-rockers were vying to win more than merely the...

Strategic IT talent: Offshoring is not the answer - Offshoring appears to have little effect on openings for project managers with sought- after skills.
September 18, 2006... It's been a common refrain for years, growing to a chorus in the election year of 2004. As technology workers rail against the exporting of IT jobs to India, China, the Philippines, and beyond, their would-be bosses bemoan an ever-shrinking IT...

HP pushes unified storage for the masses with StorageWorks AiO models - Bundled ASM management software simplifies iSCSI SANs -- but it's not errorproof.
September 18, 2006... My favorite feature in windows Storage Server 2003 R2 is the recently added support for iSCSI targets that complements traditional file sharing via CIFS, NFS, and other protocols. And it looks like I'm not the only one who likes this...

Microsoft NAS solution plays well with others - Storage Server R2 upgrades storage experience with better management and space saving features.
September 18, 2006... Effectively overseeing data storage across the network is a problem that all network managers face. Some estimates peg annual storage growth at 60 percent to 100 percent; with growth numbers like this, even small and branch offices can quickly...

Infragistics and telerik grant better control over ASP.Net 2.0 development - Injected with AJAX, NetAdvantage and r.a.d.controls expand developers' toolboxes.
September 18, 2006... One of the big advantages of developing ASP.Net 2.0 Web sites with Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Web Developer Express is that you can accomplish a great deal in design mode by dragging, dropping, and configuring components before manipulating...

Surgient delivers virtual test labs - Impressive performance offsets VQMS's complexity.
September 25, 2006... Test-lab automation software that leverages virtualization to ease fundamental IT operations has started to emerge. Just two products currently compete in this market space: Surgient VQMS (Virtual QA/Test Management System) and Akimbi...

Vizioncore's got VMware's back - esxRanger 2.0 offers a slick, simple way to back up VMs.(virtual machines)
September 25, 2006... Technically, backing up virtual servers running on VMware ESX and Infrastructure server should be simple, given that they're just disk images, not actual disks. In practice, however, it's not quite so straightforward. VMware virtual machines...

Ben Fathi: looking beyond Vista - Virtualization, application security high on post-Vista agenda.
September 25, 2006... By InfoWorld Staff It's not easy being Ben Fathi. As corporate vice president of Microsoft's Security Technology Unit, Fathi took the place of longtime STU leader Mike Nash in March amid a larger management shake-up just days after...

BEA's 360 vision still fuzzy - Good idea, but questions unanswered.(service oriented architecture)
September 25, 2006... BEA jumped ahead of the pack last week, announcing the industry's first native SOA platform, SOA 360. But the company left enough unanswered questions about the new platform to prompt one analyst to say there's still much explaining to do. ...

Demofall to highlight Java Wares - Startups demo diverse wares they hope will shape the future technology landscape.
September 25, 2006... The Demofall show has never had quite the cache of the bigger Demo conference, but it's still a fun time, as startups from across the tech sector give their patented six-minute pitches for why their company's product will change the world. ...

EMC moves on data management, security - Security buy and Infoscape launch part of grand vision.(Brief article)
September 25, 2006... There was a time when EMC was considered a rather staid tech company in a boring, if profitable market: storage. No longer. With regulations bearing down on enterprises, EMC is now a major player in areas such as security and content...

Motorola hatching big plans for Symbol - RFID, Wi-Fi, and Wi-Max technologies seen as a good match.
September 25, 2006... Motorola's Greg Brown was channeling Winston Churchill last week when he announced his company's plans to take on the BlackBerry market with wireless devices for all manner of enterprise jobs. "We will address the needs of mobile workers...

EDITOR'S LETTER: Apple avoids the "e" word - Despite enterprise-worthy products, Apple wants no part of the enterprise.(Apple Computer Inc.)(Editorial)
September 25, 2006... History hasn't been kind to Apple's enterprise ambitions. Blame it on the products -- which emphasized personal productivity over corporate citizenship -- or on the smug superiority of Apple users. But "Mac" and "enterprise" have seldom been...