Computer Weekly articles from January 2002

Computer Weekly archives from January 2002

Utility group cancels two multimillion-pound deals.(KPMG)
January 10, 2002... THE IT director of a leading UK utility firm has spoken about the cancellation of major IT projects with two top consultancies because of delays and spiralling costs. Energis, the telecommunications and e-business provider, pulled the plug...

Thieves damage supercomputer.
January 10, 2002... POLICE have urged universities to step up security after a professional gang, believed to be stealing to order, caused more than [pounds sterling]1m worth of damage to one of Britain's largest academic supercomputer systems. The gang...

Compression breakthrough puts Tbytes on the desktop.(technique, developed by mathematicians at US company ZeoSync)
January 10, 2002... A NEW data compression technique that promises to reduce demand on computer memory and network bandwidth to a fraction of its current level has vast potential for allowing new applications to be created and run on existing IT infrastructure....

PC Group seeks IR35 test cases.(Professional Contractors Group)
January 10, 2002... THE Professional Contractors Group (PCG), which represents self-employed IT contractors, plans to canvass its members for test cases that could challenge the Inland Revenue's controversial IR35 tax regulations. The group will send a...

E-prescriptions would save lives.(Department of Health urged to adopt e-mail prescription services)
January 10, 2002... AN AUDIT Commission report has called on the Department of Health (DoH) to radically improve its use of technology for administering drugs in NHS hospitals to help prevent tragic errors. The report said, "Computerised prescribing linked...

CE .net puts windows everywhere.(Windows CE .net operating system)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... WINDOWS everywhere came a step closer when Microsoft launched its Windows CE .net operating system at a trade show on Monday. The operating system will allow businesses to buy or build applications that run from corporate IT systems down to...

IT chiefs reject investment 'gap year'.(Computer Weekly/ Harvey Nash Big Question poll)(Brief Article)
January 10, 2002... OF THE IT managers responding to this week's Computer Weekly/ Harvey Nash Big Question poll, 67% said their company would not stop investing in IT during 2002, flying in the face of advice from Gartner. Gartner said firms should see 2002 as...

Retail giants make 2002 the year for m-business.(Tesco.com's Pocket Shopper)(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... ANALYSTS have predicted that m-commerce adoption will be mainstream by the end of 2002, after three leading high street brands announced plans to boost their services by using mobile technology. Tesco.com, the UK's leading online retailer,...

Software makes [pounds sterling]4m tax error.(Aberdeen City Council)
January 10, 2002... A SOFTWARE error at Aberdeen City Council resulted in a total of [pounds sterling]4m being withdrawn from 32,000 council taxpayers' bank accounts on Christmas Eve-more than a week early. The council was forced to promise to pay bank charges...

Census site buckles under demand.(QinetiQ plans to double the capacity of the database)
January 10, 2002... AS THE first online UK census site buckled under demand, its designers, a public private partnership, claimed it was the victim of its own success. Members of the public were unable to access the site for hours on the day of its launch...

Users take action over HP3000.
January 10, 2002... THE UK Hewlett-Packard Computer Users' Association (HPCUA) is to hold an emergency meeting following HP's announcement of the demise of its HP3000 minicomputer. The user group is concerned that the planned withdrawal of the machine in 2003...

No software amnesty for UK firms.(Business Software Alliance)(Brief Article)
January 10, 2002... SUPPLIER association the Business Software Alliance (BSA) has no plans to extend its US software piracy amnesty to the UK. Last week the BSA launched a month long grace period in five US cities to give companies running unlicensed...

Government turns to logica for CPS deal. (News).(Crown Prosecution Service's contract with Logica)
January 10, 2002... PROBATION officers have given a cautious welcome to the Crown Prosecution Service's (CPS) decision to sign a [pounds sterling]200m deal with Logica to manage its IT services and build a new case management system. Harry Fletcher, assistant...

Telecoms deal wins 40% saving. (News).
January 10, 2002... WEST Surrey NHS Community has replaced multiple telephony suppliers with a single contract with NTL aimed at saving 40% on communications costs. The managed voice network will provide communications between Ashford St Peters, Frimley Park...

Chip wars heat up as rivals launch processors. (News).(Intel's 2.0 and 2.2GHz Pentium 4 versus AMD Athlon)(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... INTEL'S release of a smaller, faster Pentium 4 chip is in danger of being eclipsed by AMD's latest processor, both launched last Monday. Intel's 2.0 and 2.2GHz Pentium 4, codenamed Northwood, is being aimed at the anticipated needs for...

Guinness manages global views. (News).(Peregrine's Remedy Service Management suite selected)(Brief Article)
January 10, 2002... DRINKS group Guinness can take a global approach to IT purchasing with the roll-out of new service management software. Following the merger with UDV, Guinness has now implemented a single service management platform Peregrine's Remedy...

Web site numbers decline. (In Brief).(Brief Article)
January 10, 2002... There are now fewer Internet domain names in existence than a year ago but more users are surfing more often, according to recent research. There are 36 million Web sites in existence although the number fell 180.000 in the year to December by...

Judge refuses Microsoft sanctions delay tactic. (In Brief).(Brief Article)
January 10, 2002... Microsoft's plea for a delay on hearings covering sanctions against the company for its antitrust violations has been rejected. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is determined to stick to schedule to ensure a proposed settlement by nine states...

Government fails to meet online user deadline. (In Brief).(Brief Article)
January 10, 2002... The Government will miss the deadline set by the European Union to implement legislation that outlines online consumer rights. The EU deadline to comply with the E-commerce Directive is 17 January, but it emerged this week that the Government...

Teachers to get laptops to save on admin. (In Brief).(Brief Article)
January 10, 2002... The Department for Education and Skills is to launch a pilot scheme which will see all teachers at 30 schools being equipped with laptops in a trial of new working practices. The teachers will use the laptops to access the Internet to plan...

Christmas Net usage doubles. (In Brief).(Brief Article)
January 10, 2002... UK Internet users settled down loan afternoon of surfing and e-mailing on Christmas day, according to usage figures released by the London Internet Exchange (Linx) last week. Peak data flows recorded through Linx were 8gbps in the afternoon and...

Shopping early online eases fulfilment fears. (In Brief).(Brief Article)
January 10, 2002... UK consumers overcame their worries about fulfilment by buying online Christmas presents early and doing last-minute shopping in the high street, according to Net monitoring company Keynote. The company, which measured the online performance of...

Mobile first with roaming 3G call. (In Brief).(Brief Article)
January 10, 2002... Nortel and Vodafone claimed they conducted the world's first roaming 3G mobile phone call last week. The call was made from Vodafone's Spanish UMTS network and that of its Japanese subsidiary, J-Phone using a Qualcomm handset and Nortel...

Job cuts at mobile phone portal. (In Brief).(Brief Article)
January 10, 2002... Vizzavi, the Internet portal for mobile phone users, has announced plans to cut 100 jobs and restructure its business model. The job losses will go across the company's eight European operations. Vizzavi, which is jointly owned by mobile phone...

Euro will have more impact than Y2K bug: The euro: Unprepared UK businesses face the effects of currency change. (News).
January 10, 2002... CW360.com THE IT industry's Y2K success may have created false optimism over the more complex task of converting IT systems to handle the euro. Bankers and politicians have been lining up this week to claim that this month's...

SMEs must accept euro or lose markets. (News).
January 10, 2002... SMALL and medium-sized UK companies risk severely underestimating the impact of the euro on their businesses, said an influential firm of financial advisers. Grant Thornton's 10th annual European Business survey, published last month,...

Online vote plan despite glitches. (News).
January 10, 2002... THE Government has set out plans for the UK to become the first country to allow its citizens to vote online in an ambitious shake-up to' the parliamentary system. Pilot schemes for local elections will begin in the spring and there is an...

Asda scraps dedicated online distribution sites. (News).
January 10, 2002... ASDA has announced a U-turn in its online shopping strategy, scrapping two central distribution picking centres and moving to a store-based system. The supermarket giant has closed its two dedicated picking centres at Watford and Croydon,...

Small growth in IT spend presages recovery in 2003: Nick Huber examines a future that may not be as black as it has been recently painted. (News Analysis).
January 10, 2002... European IT budgets are expected to rise by 4% this year, according to a survey of chief information officers (CIOs), an indication that the financial squeeze in some IT departments maybe drawing to a close. Despite recessionary fears...

New year sets m-banking test: Mobile telecoms operators want a slice of the busy banking market. (News Analysis).
January 10, 2002... The sharp downturn in the economy will cast a long shadow over IT projects in the financial services industry this year. Budgets have shrunk in response to the slump. IT staff and consultants have been made redundant. But despite the...

How would you spend the [pounds sterling]15m IT training budget? (News Analysis).
January 10, 2002... IT managers know better than anyone about skills gaps. E-Skills NTO wants the benefit of that expertise and your input in planning for future training needs in networks and telecoms. Computer Weekly readers are being urged to have their...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
January 10, 2002... Flexible working benefits From Lucy Thomas I read with interest your feature "Levelling out the work-life balance" (Computer Weekly, 6 December). The company I work for has seen a baby-boom of late, with four babies born within three...

The worst is over.
January 10, 2002... Now the Christmas decorations have come down and the new year's hangover has subsided, it is time to look ahead to what 2002 has in store for IT professionals across the UK. Last year, IT was hit by the biggest slowdown it has seen in...

What's on the cards? (forecast for 2002).
January 10, 2002... The next 12 months will be a time for consolidation and hard bargaining as IT directors take on suppliers seeking stronger revenue streams. Computer Weekly's writers assess which of the short-term and long-term trends will give you the edge....

Early online upgrade for Oracle SMB. (ERP).
January 10, 2002... Oracle and Netledger are showing how dynamic software as a service can be by releasing an upgrade to Oracle Small Business Suite (SMB) 7.0 just six weeks after it was launched. The ERP software, hosted by Netledger, spans accounting and...

Microsoft launches WinCE.net. (Mobile).(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... Microsoft has launched its Windows CE embedded mobile operating system, codenamed Talisker, which is geared towards the company's .net Web services future. Windows CE .net is complementary to Windows Embedded but is aimed at small handheld...

Silicon on sapphire offers massive speed increases. (Processors).(technology developed at Johns Hopkins University)(Technical)
January 10, 2002... Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in the US have developed a technique that allows them to use light, rather than electricity, to send data between microchips. The technology will greatly increase the speed at which data travels in...

IBM puts mainframe technology in PC server. (Servers).(IBM eServer x360)(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... IBM has introduced the first PC server based on the Intel Xeon MP processor and a chipset derived from its mainframe and high-end systems. The new eServer x360 uses a compact rack format that IBM claims will offer users 40% more processors...

Eclipsing code barriers: IBM is driving work to create an open standard for interoperable tools. (Getting Wired).(IBM Eclipse)(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... In the last Getting Wired I wrote about Open Office and Star Office, and how for the first time it looks as if a true alternative to Microsoft Office is emerging -- one, moreover, that is available for both the Windows and GNU/Linux platforms....

A year of drama and romance: Mergers, job cuts and ASP -- few things went according to plan in 2001. (Tech Talk).
January 10, 2002... It has become something of a tradition for me to ring out the old year and welcome the new by looking at the events of the past 12 months. You may remember that a couple of years ago I predicted, with some scepticism, that Linux and ASP...

Jini Technology Starter Kit. (In Brief).(Sun Microsystems' Jini Technology Starter Kit 1.2)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... Sun Microsystems has released the Jini Technology Starter Kit v1.2 to allow development of network-centric services. Jini is designed as a self-discovery environment so that devices can find and use services on wired or wireless Lans, allowing...

Computer Associates, Overland Data. (In Brief).(Brief Article)
January 10, 2002... Computer Associates, Overland Data, QLogic and Nstor have joined forces to promote the adoption of 2Gbit serverless back-up and restore services for Fibre Channel storage area networks. The technology is based on Overland's Neo Fibre Channel...

Hewlett-Packard. (In Brief).(releases HP Pavilion ZT1000 wireless notebook computer)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... Hewlett-Packard has released a wireless version of its Pavilion notebook in the US. The ZT1000 supports either 802.1lb or Bluetooth networks to provide a quick and simple method of developing a networked system for small offices. The notebook...

JD Edwards' One World. (In Brief).(passes Veritest's certification tests)(Brief Article)
January 10, 2002... JD Edwards' One World collaborative business software has passed Veritest's testing requirements for Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server certification. Certification means that the J 0 Edwards suite of supply chain management. CRM and ERP...

The next big thing. (Management).(Andy Tinlin of KPMG forecasts coming technologies for 2003)
January 10, 2002... You don't need to read the tea leaves or gaze into a crystal ball to find out what the new year holds. Andy Tinlin of KPMG consulting looks into the future and lists his top three technology predictions for 2002. What a year 2001 was. Job...

The skills you need for 2002. (Xtra!).
January 10, 2002... CW360.com's technology guru Cliff Saran investigates the state of the IT skills market and finds out what to drop and what to swot in 2002 The coming year looks set to be a difficult one for the IT industry, with the global economic...

Insomnia slows the great return to work.
January 10, 2002... Few people will have missed the office over Cluistmas. A couple weeks of eating and L drinking to your heart's content, staying up until 3am watching old film then getting up just in time for lunch are a surefire way to sap motivation and turn...

Work, rest and play next move: consult the experts on your career.
January 10, 2002... the question Business analysis to Web design I have a BSc in computer science and 13 years experience in IT. and have gained hands-on experience of the whole software development lifecycle. I am currently a business systems analyst...

What are you laughing at? (Caption Competition).
January 10, 2002... In our Christmas caption competition we asked you what was going on in the picture on the right. Network manager Phil Nicholson wrote. "With mobile phones continuing to shrink in size, it was only a matter of time before one was lost mid call."...

Female ITers get top exam scores in 2001. (British Computer Society).
January 10, 2002... For the second year running women have come first in the two top BCS professional examinations. Sarah Ferebee won the [pounds sterling]500 prize for being the top-scoring candidate among those who took the BCS diploma last year, and Lucy...

Build on existing work practices: Richard Cross, principal knowledge management officer, Xerox UK. (Director's Cut).
January 10, 2002... Printer and copier company Xerox UK has developed an internal knowledge management (KM) system, called Eureka, which has been so well received that the company plans to sell the product on to other businesses. According to Richard Gross,...

NSPCC introduces secure e-mail: The nature of its work means electronic security is vital for the children's charity. (Smart Projects).
January 10, 2002... The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) is supporting its efforts to protect children by using secure content management software to help transmit confidential information safely via the Internet. Although...

DPM's diary.(Editorial)
January 10, 2002... C P Bound Monday As the last embers fade in the Yule log and the batteries finally die on the Gameboy Advanced, we stagger back, turkeyed-out and mince pie-weary, to the land of work. So it must be. All good things come to an end...

World cup skivers get excuses online. (Downtime).(Editorial)
January 10, 2002... With this year's World Cup matches being played in Japan and South Korea and being broadcast to the UK in the early hours, fans could struggle to follow all the action. Fortunately, football gear manufacturer Umbro has launched a Web site to...

MP seeks OFT aid on stiffing.
January 17, 2002... A LABOUR MP is seeking to involve the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) in talks with small companies which fear they are being tied to software operating systems by hardware suppliers. Brian White MP is concerned that at a time of rising prices...

Write-off ends insurer's 31-day court challenge: Unisys and Royal London sacrifice millions to settle IT's longest-running court battle.
January 17, 2002... UNISYS and one of its largest insurance customers, Royal London, have decided to write off millions of pounds in legal fees by withdrawing from a marathon IT dispute days before the court's judgement was due. In ending what lawyers say is...

Initiative aims to recruit more women to IT.
January 17, 2002... SCHOOLS are being urged to set up all-girl computer clubs as part of a government-backed programme to persuade more young women to consider taking up careers in IT. The clubs, which will be tested in a number of schools this year, will set...

Lloyds TSB uses .net to give instant credit rating.
January 17, 2002... MICROSOFT'S .net Web services strategy received a major boost this week with the announcement that Lloyds TSB has implemented a .net-enabled Web server to support an online credit reference service. The bank will use Microsoft's Biztalk...

BSA fines Scottish council.
January 17, 2002... THE Business Software Alliance (BSA) continued its controversial "name and shame" policy last week when it announced that Clackmannanshire Council in Scotland has agreed to pay a [pounds sterling]42,500 fine for the unlicensed use of 470 copies...

Foreign Office turns to ICL for [pounds sterling]6.3m knowledge pool.(Brief Article)
January 17, 2002... THE Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has signed a [pounds sterling]6.3m four-year deal with ICL to build a knowledge service that will enable its staff around the world to share information. Officials have described the scheme as a...

Few firms have mobile plans.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
January 17, 2002... THE majority of UK companies are not planning any mobile commerce projects this year, according to the results of this week's Computer Weekly/Harvey Nash Big Question poll. Tesco and Sainsbury's recently announced major mobile projects and...

Whitehall suppliers must use XML.(Brief Article)
January 17, 2002... COMPANIES that want to do business with the Government over the Internet will have to adopt XML and other Web services standards, according to Anwar Choudhury, director of technology strategy at the Office of the E-Envoy. Previewing a...

Hackers fire Donut at .net.
January 17, 2002... VIRUS writers have targeted Microsoft's Web services flagship with a benign program, W32.Donut, which specifically infects.net files. Donut is a "proof of concept" virus -- a prototype bug that is not yet circulating in the wild. Although...

Users: Don't rush migration from NT 4.0.
January 17, 2002... ANALYST firms Gartner and IDC have warned against swift migrations from Windows NT 4.0 after Microsoft said the system is nearing the end of the road. Thomas Bittman, a senior analyst at Gartner, said mission-critical Windows servers...

Zurich Financial Services to axe one in three IT staff.
January 17, 2002... ZURICH Financial Services is to axe more than a third of its IT staff following the collapse of a major outsourcing deal with IBM last year. The insurance giant plans to shed about 180 full-time IT staff from a total of 450 in its general...

Banks back online B2B payment.(Barclays Bank, HSBC and ABN Amro)
January 17, 2002... AN AMBITIOUS Internet payment service for the business-to-business market has taken a major step forward with the announcement of several pilot schemes and investment from leading global banks. Barclays Bank, HSBC and ABN Amro are among the...

Change for the meter.(Mobile 2 Meter signs deal with ACI Worldwide)(Brief Article)
January 17, 2002... Caption: Change for the meter... motorists will soon be able to pay car parking charges by mobile phone and receive the bill by e-mail. Mobile 2 Meter. a provider of payment services to the parking management industry, has signed a deal...

Online development cuts Sainsbury's costs by a third. (News).
January 17, 2002... SAINSBURY'S aims to reduce by one third the time it takes to get a new product on to its supermarket shelves, by moving the entire product development process to the Internet. The supermarket giant, which developed or enhanced 3,000...

Glasgow makes housing team m-workers. (In brief).(Glasgow City Council procurement of Compaq iPaq handhelds and Oracle 9i Application Server)(Brief Article)
January 17, 2002... Glasgow City Council has equipped 80 operational field managers in its housing department with access to back-office systems via Compaq iPaq handhelds and Oracle 9i Application Server. The scheme, which will eventually be rolled out to 200...

Microsoft gets thumbs-down from US IT chiefs. (In brief).(Windows XP selling slowly)(Brief Article)
January 17, 2002... US IT managers are fed up with Microsoft's upgrade cycle and are considering moving to competitor operating systems, a survey by analyst firm IDC has found. Despite the launch of Windows XP. the 300 US IT managers surveyed reported that they...

Cert sees security incidents double in 2001. (In brief).(Computer Emergency Response Team)(Brief Article)
January 17, 2002... Security incidents more than doubled in 2001 compared to 2000. according to statistics released by the co-ordination centre of US security body the Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert). While there were 21.756 security incidents in 2000....

E-business clubs for SMEs. (In brief).(initial creation of 16 e-business clubs and a Web site planned by British Chamber of Commerce)(Brief Article)
January 17, 2002... In an attempt to boost the use of e-commerce among small-and medium-sized businesses, the British Chamber of Commerce and the DTI-led UK Online for Business have set up a support network of e-business clubs. The initiative, launched this week...

Justice Department moles are biggest hack threat. (In brief).(Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been hacked 27 times)(Brief Article)
January 17, 2002... Hackers broke into government computer systems at least 64 times in the past five years. figures released by the Liberal Democrats reveal The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been hacked 27 times: the Lord Chancellor's Department 19 times,...

Information commissioner advises on monitoring. (In brief).(Brief Article)
January 17, 2002... The information commissioner is to publish guidelines for employers monitoring staff in the workplace at the end of February. The guidelines. which were issued in draft form last year. alarmed employers by placing tight restrictions on the...

Judge rejects Microsoft's billion-dollar apology. (In brief).(Brief Article)
January 17, 2002... Microsofts offer to make amends for its antitrust behaviour in the US by donating $1 bn-worth of cash, hardware and software to underprivileged schools has been turned down. Judge Frederick Motz said the sum was insufficient, considering the...

Lufthansa in global intranet deal with Sita. (In brief).(Brief Article)
January 17, 2002... Lufthansa has signed a $40m ([pounds sterling]28m) contract for the design. implementation and management of a fully-managed global IP-based intranet with Sita. The airline said the deal will see it reduce network costs as well as increasing...

Visa rules relaxed for non-EU IT workers. (In brief).(lobbying by the Computing Services & Software' Association)(Brief Article)
January 17, 2002... From this month, workers with IT skills wilt be able to apply to seek work in the UK without having a definite job offer. The move follows lobbying by the Computing Services & Software' Association to remove the barriers to firms employing...

E-pension flop harms net hopes. (News).
January 17, 2002... THE marginal interest in online stakeholder pensions means that IT managers will have to work harder to secure future investment for Internet-based projects, industry experts have warned. When stakeholder pensions were launched in a blaze...

E-auctions extended after Littlewoods sees 24% saving. (News).
January 17, 2002... RETAILER Littlewoods is implementing an online sourcing system following a pilot project which cut procurement costs by 24% -- equivalent to [pound]80m a year if used across the whole company. The company is implementing Oracle Sourcing, an...

Burden of data act hits law-abiding firms. (News).(Data Protection Act)
January 17, 2002... THE information watchdog has attacked ministers for introducing data privacy laws which do not properly protect the public and are too complex and burden some for businesses. In a report to the Home Office published this week, the...

Lloyds TSB filters e-mail. (News).(anti-virus defences bolstered)(Brief Article)
January 17, 2002... LLOYDS TSB bank has added an extra layer of security to its anti-virus defences, following concerns that the time lag in updating its existing software with new virus signatures could leave its systems vulnerable to attack. The company has...

Wet, wet, wet... this year sees the 25th Computastars, the IT industry's very own sports competition, run in association with Computer Weekly. (News).(Brief Article)
January 17, 2002... Caption: Wet, wet, wet... this year sees the 25th Computastars the IT industry's very own sports competition, run in association with Computer Weekly. The organisers have started taking entries for this year's challenge. Plans are already...

UK Online gets new lease of life: As the government portal gets another facelift James Rogers examines the impact of UK Online on targets for delivering services via the Internet. (News Analysis).
January 17, 2002... First launched in a blaze of publicity in February 2001, the government portal UK Online is designed to link more than 1,000 government Web sites, effectively dispensing with the red tape and bureaucracy that has traditionally characterised...

NCC to champion open source: A key research group says open source needs to be organised if it is to capitalise on corporate resistance to licence price hikes. (News Analysis).
January 17, 2002... Free open source software could benefit UK companies but it needs a "fairy godmother" to co-ordinate development and understanding of the technology, according to a leading UK research group. In their current state open source products,...