Computer Weekly articles from March 2000

Computer Weekly archives from March 2000

Compensation claims likely as BT network crashes.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 2, 2000... BT faces compensation claims from some of the UK's biggest companies following last week's network crash. Customers of companies including NatWest Bank, the Virgin Group, the AA, British Gas, and Railtrack, were unable to get through on...

SAP under fire from retailers.(Company Operations)
March 2, 2000... A multi-million pound project by WH Smith News to roll out SAP to its newspaper and magazine distribution depots has provoked a volley of complaints and threats of legal action from independent newsagents. The project, which is [pounds]8m...

ITNet to launch Internet hub for council suppliers.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... INFORMATION technology outsourcer ITNet is planning plans to build an e-procurement service that promises significant cost savings to local councils. ITNet is licensing InTrade e-Hub from e-commerce specialist Infobank to tap into a market...

Mobile commerce will be as big as the Internet in five years.(Industry Trend or Event)
March 2, 2000... MOBILE commerce is going to be as big as the Internet, according to the latest Computer Weekly/Harvey Nash poll. Sixty-seven per cent of respondents believe that mobile commerce will have as much impact on business-to-business trade over...

EU split threatens movement of data.(Government Activity)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... THE free movement of data across national borders is threatened by a spilt between European Union bodies over how to settle a dispute with the US over data protection law. The new Data Protection Act means companies cannot export personal...

Nirs2 delay 'could last until June 2001'.(Government Activity)
March 2, 2000... THE problem-dogged computerised National Insurance Recording System (Nirs2) may not be operational until June 2001 -- almost three years after it was supposed to be fully on-stream. The system has already cost the taxpayer more than...

Chinook software probe due.(Government Activity)
March 2, 2000... MPs are next week expected to investigate the air-worthiness of the engine control software on the type of Chinook helicopter that crashed on the Mull of Kintyre in 1994, killing 29 people. The enquiry, to be staged by the Public Accounts...

Selfridges will profit from e-procurement.(Company Operations)
March 2, 2000... SELFRIDGES has unveiled ambitious plans to roll out an Internet-based electronic procurement system. The system promises to transform the business by delegating buying and stocking decisions to suppliers. The department store hopes to...

E-commerce expenditure to double.(Industry Trend or Event)
March 2, 2000... IT DEPARTMENTS are set to double expenditure on e-commerce this year to [pounds]2.6bn. The explosion investment in e-commerce projects ranges from the smallest to the largest companies, according to data from the latest Computer Weekly/Kew...

New IT director at BACS.(Company Operations)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... Tim Gregory, former head of IT at Lloyd's of London insurance market, has joined BacS, the UK clearing-house for financial transactions. writes Hooman Bassirian. Gregory, who is also the chairman of the blue-chip user group the Technical...

E-business Review launched today!(Editorial)
March 2, 2000... TODAY sees the launch of the Computer Weekly E-Business Review, a monthly magazine targeted at those building and running e-business projects. E-Business Review will provide detailed analysis and discussion of the technologies and business...

Mobile Web browser makes debut.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
March 2, 2000... MICROSOFT last week unveiled a mobile version of its Web browser for personal digital assistants. The US software giant said its dual-mode Mobile Explorer would support HTML and Wap-based content. Mobile Explorer is operating system...

IBM expands S/390 for safer e-business.(Product Announcement)
March 2, 2000... Top-level encryption capabilites , the highest level allowed under US export laws, and increased bandwith -- all part of updated 0S/1390 2.9 IBM this week boosted the S/390 mainframe with e-business focused enhancements: these include...

Magic mouse... CeBIT.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
March 2, 2000... Magic mouse... CeBIT saw the introduction of the world's first Bluetooth mouse. The intelligent C-Mouse can share information with other portable devices such as notebooks, mobile phones and PDAs using short-range radio commutation. In addition...

Motorola committed to Wap-enabled products.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
March 2, 2000... MOTOROLA used CeBIT to announce its commitment to providing rich data content on its mobile products. The company launched six different Wap-enabled (wireless application protocol) phones, including the world's first equipped with GPRS...

M&S learns from its mistakes.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 2, 2000... THE head of e-commerce at Marks & Spencer has promised the retail giant will learn from its past mistakes in harnessing the Internet for business. Peter Robinson, head of e-commerce at M&S told Computer Weekly that the company acknowledged...

Wap firms face court over patent.(Industry Trend or Event)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... THE future development of Internet content across the mobile phone network could be slowed as a result of a patent dispute over Wireless Application Protocol (Wap) technology. Wap development company Geoworks, which is a member of the...

Third generation e-business to rely on bespoke supplier info.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 2, 2000... E-BUSINESSES will come to rely on the Internet to manage supply chain relationships electronically and in real time to gain competitive advantage. This is the vision of microprocessor supplier Intel, which has dubbed this next phase of the...

Controversy over call for IT skills "green card".(Government Activity)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... The IT skills crisis in Germany hit political centre stage last week at CeBIT when Chancellor Gerhard Schroder controversially supported calls for IT work permits for people from Eastern Europe. Asia and other non-European countries. ...

Cost of data networking set to plummet.(Industry Trend or Event)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... The cost of high-speed data networking is set to plummet following the introduction of optical long distance WDM technology. According to Stephen Harbour of Pirelli Optical Systems, which was recently bought by Cisco, the cost measured in...

Banking via Wap phone becomes a reality.(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... Banking transactions completed from anywhere at any time using a mobile Wap phone are now a reality according to German online banking front-office integrator Brokat. At Cebit-Brokat demonstrated its capability to allow online banking...

Clustering software opens up to Linux.(Product Information)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... Silicon Graphics is to open up its Iris Failsafe high-availability clustering software to the Linux community in a joint agreement with SuSe. Silicon Graphics board member Joachim Redmer said that as Iris guarantees real time input/output this...

Powerline comms won't work.(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... Sending communications via electricity power lines is technically feasible, but it remains a pipe dream because of bureaucracy and a lack of commitment from utility providers. That was the view of Mail Desch. president of Nortel Networks...

SAP joins ranks of ASPs with Web-hoster launch.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 2, 2000... Enterprise resource planning software supplier SAP is launching an international application Web-hosting subsidiary to allow customers to rent its software directly. Under the proposed business model, users will pay monthly or yearly fees...

Ford sees first-ever strike by IT professionals.(Company Operations)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... Management and unions representing IT and other professional staff at Ford were locked in negotiations to settle a dispute over pay and pensions as Computer Weekly went to press. Three thousand members of manufacturing, science and finance...

Big Blue takes direct-sell approach in US.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... IBM is planning to enter a direct buying and selling arrangement with 14 of its biggest customers in the US. The plan is part of a widespread drive to expand the company's direct sates and to benefit from reduced distribution costs.

Motor giants link online supply chain networks...(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... Car giants General Motors and Ford are to combine their Internet-based supply chain management networks to create a single car parts exchange. The exchange, which will also include the third-largest carmaker, DaimlerChrysler, is expected to...

...with Sears and Carrefour following suit.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... Two of the world's Largest retailers. Sears and Carrefour have followed the model set by General Motors and Ford to launch a global business-to-business online exchange serving the retail industry. The Link-up, dubbed the GlobalNetXchange will...

Credit cards 'need to get smart'.(Industry Trend or Event)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... Rising credit card fraud is making the roll-out of smart cards a priority, according to the Association of Payment Clearing Services, the industry body for banks and building societies. APACS said counterfeit card fraud accounted for...

Suspended sentence for cash machine hacker.(Company Operations)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... A French computer scientist who fooled cash machines into giving him $2,000 every 15 minutes has been given a 10-month suspended prison sentence. Serge Humpich tried to sell his discovery to France's Cartes Bancaires interbank payments system...

Baan may accept takeover bid.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... Pierre Everaert, interim chief executive of troubled integrated applications software developer Baan, refused to rule out accepting a takeover bid for the company last week. However, he said he was confident he could get Baan back on track in...

EU adopts e-commerce directive.(Government Activity)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... The European Union Council of Ministers has formally adopted the e-commerce directive setting up a simplified legal framework for the development of e-commerce in the 15 member states. It aims to clarify crass-border legal issues arising out of...

Capital One splits IT chief's job in two.(Company Operations)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... US financial services giant Capital One is to split the chief information officer's job in two and share it between two women. Laure Olle and Marjorie Connelly, from different parts of the organisation.

Cap Gemini buys Ernst and Young consultancy.(Industry Trend or Event)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... French software house Cap Gemini has bought the consulting arm of accountancy firm Ernst and Young in a deal worth about [pounds]7bn. The companies will combine their consulting and IT Services, although the link-up is stilt subject to a vote...

Wap gateway server from Motorola.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... Motorola has launched a Wap gateway server as part of its Internet package. The server conforms to the Latest Wap standard version 1.2 and will allow service providers, developers, system integrators and corporations to offer Internet and...

HSBC to up spend for online banking roll-out.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... HSBC is to increase its global IT spend from [pounds]1 .7bn to [pounds]2bn as it rolls out online banking services. The company is expected to launch Internet banking through a firstdirect.com site this week and is to transfer part of its...

Dr Robina Chatham.(Correction Notice)
March 2, 2000... In a 20 January article on the subject of workplace skills, entitled "Hot Prospects". Dr Robina Chatham, a course lecturer at the Cranfield School of Management, was referred to as having a "relative lack of sensing and thinking qualities". Dr...

Incubators to tempt IT chiefs.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... IT MANAGERS with business-to-business e-commerce ideas are being offered money and business support by a top-flight management consultancy. Price WaterhouseCoopers this week launched a $500m ([pounds]312m) incubator for high-growth...

Comdirect orders bespoke share system.(Industry Trend or Event)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... A EUROPEAN online bank has commissioned a bespoke Internet stockbroking system for the UK. Comdirect, a subsidiary of Gommerzbank, is paying Parity Solutions [pounds]700,000 to develop a paperless, secure share dealing system. Managing...

Human error takes its toll on electronic counting.(Government Activity)
March 2, 2000... SIMPLE arithmetical errors marred the introduction of one of the first computerised vote counting systems to be used in the UK. The errors almost derailed a trial of the system of electronic vote counting, which will be used for the London...

Benefits glitch hits Coventry.(Government Activity)
March 2, 2000... City Council to seek compensation from Sanderson COVENTRY City Council is the latest in a long line of local authorities to report problems with its housing benefits computer systems. The council, which installed software from supplier...

Sainsbury's pins its hopes on PkMS to save millions.(Company Operations)
March 2, 2000... SAINSBURY'S expects to make savings "in the multi-millions" after implementing a new warehouse and distribution software system. US developer Manhattan Associates last week announced that the retailer would put in the first major European...

Scots utility picks IBM for support.(Company Operations)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... SCOTTISH AND Southern Energy (SSE) has signed a [pounds]30m teaming arrangement with IBM to improve the application development and support services of its IT operations. IBM is to create an Application Development Centre, staffed by IBM...

Obituary: Alan Benjamin OBE.(Obituary)
March 2, 2000... MANY of our readers will have heard of the death of Alan Benjamin OBE. Alan's contribution to our industry would be difficult to overestimate. Benjamin was the first director general of the Computing Services Association in 1975 and led it...

You can't blame the boffins.(Government Activity)
March 2, 2000... The flawed development of Chinook's systems holds vital lessons for IT managers BATTLE FOR JUSTICE IT managers can glean vital lessons in software development from problems with the Chinook's engine control system, according to one of...

Report shows 'two nations' of IT spend.(Industry Trend or Event)
March 2, 2000... Paul Mason delves down into the details of last week's Computer Weekly/Kew Associates report on UK firms' IT expenditure It spending is set to grow 18% this year, but budget breakdowns will vary sharply according to sector. The finance...

CORRECTION.(Correction Notice)
March 2, 2000... Last week's report of the Computer Weekly/Kew Associates IT budget survey contained an error in the growth percentage figures. Growth in the year 2000 was wrongly reported as 1999 growth. Thus the headline growth figure for 1999 should have...

Labour's IT masterplan.(Government Activity)
March 2, 2000... Will McCartney's tough new measures prevent further Government IT disasters? IT IS put up or shut up time for Ian McCartney, the Cabinet Office minister charged with getting government IT projects back on track. Last week McCartney...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
March 2, 2000... Monopolies are not good From Ann Phillips I can't stand it. It's that Jack Schofield again. "Perhaps not every Apple Macintosh, IBM AS/400 or other non-standard machine will be relocated to its rightful place in a skip." What is the...

Be prepared for protection.(Industry Trend or Event)(Editorial)
March 2, 2000... While governments prove, yet again, that a unified response to data protection is beyond them, corporate IT should make moves to regulate itself Today, in the week that the UK adopts a new data protection regime, similar European rules for...

Staff with a great Deal of potential.(Government Activity)
March 2, 2000... This time last year more than 841,000 people were employed in IT related jobs - almost 46% more than the same period four years ago. And every day new Web sites, "dotcoms", services and products become available online. Such companies can...

Building in home improvement.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 2, 2000... A partnership that accredits trustworthy painters and decorators is just one aspect of the Internet strategy carefully formulated by an offline business information giant It was probably only a matter of time before someone decided that...

Are you sitting on a goldmine?(Industry Trend or Event)
March 2, 2000... Is your IT department worth more than the business? On the face of it this may seem a ridiculous question, but given the valuations attached to IT companies compared to the more traditional businesses they support, the answer may well surprise...

Convergence wars.(Industry Trend or Event)
March 2, 2000... As the network and telecoms sectors continue to converge and rivals look to battle it out, ANNIE GURTON assesses what this means for your business In today's world, with voice and data networks converging, companies that previously worked...

No more IT projects.(Industry Trend or Event)
March 2, 2000... There's no such thing as an IT project, just business plans with an IT element, believes Mike Wright at Willis Coroon, who talks to It's no surprise that IT directors say their jobs are becoming increasingly stressful. The pressure is on...

Is it really yours?(Industry Trend or Event)
March 2, 2000... The world is full of people trying to steal our ideas, and the Internet is making it even easier. MURDOCH MCTAGGART Intellectual property rights (IPR), the catch-all term that covers copyright, moral rights, patents, design rights and...

Linux comes of age.(Product Information)
March 2, 2000... Major corporate suppliers were lining up to promote Linux at CeBIT The first wave of Linux is now hitting high-end corporate IT, while the second wave - Linux embedded on chips - is also making its mark, writes John Riley. IBM, SAP,...

Quark promises to bring XML to the masses.(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... US SOFTWARE firm Quark put its enterprise document management system on show at CeBIT writes Paul Mason. Quark DMS uses powerful server-side features to allow companies to "repurpose" written and graphic materials between hard-copy...

NEC prototype notebook is first to use Bluetooth.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 2, 2000... NEC has developed a prototype notebook computer that could be the first to use the Bluetooth short-range wireless data technology, writes Matthew Thomas. NEC is displaying a prototype of the notebook at CeBIT. It features National...

Does HP's ePC herald the era of the disposable machine?(Industry Trend or Event)(Column)
March 2, 2000... Everyone knows that the cost of PCs has fallen over the past 20 years. However, not enough people have taken the idea to its logical conclusion: that they're rapidly becoming disposable. Just comparing prices is not enough. You also have to...

SCO software will open up the ASP market.(Tarantella ASP Edition)(Product Announcement)
March 2, 2000... SCO last week unveiled a version of its Tarantella Web-enabling software that will allow applications to be delivered online from most types of servers, writes Hooman Bassirian. Tarantella ASP Edition, which made its debut at CeBIT, will...

BP Amoco poor performance.(Site Meter)(Company Business and Marketing)
March 2, 2000... After attaining high levels of reliability in January the BP Amoco failed to impress Site Meter this week. Out of 1,000 attempts to connect to the site, it failed a total of 232 times, compared to no failures being registered in February....

Lucent wireless launch.(Orinoco products)(Company Business and Marketing)
March 2, 2000... Lucent used CeBIT to bring together its wireless strategy for PCs and mobiles, writes Cliff Saran. The network specialist launched the Orinoco product family of broadband wireless Internet access and networking systems at the show. ...

MS-Sun court battle looms.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... A US judge last week dismissed a Microsoft motion in its legal battle with Sun over Java, writes Matthew Thomas. Microsoft had hoped for a quick ruling that it did not breach Sun's restrictions on Java in its dispute with the firm over...

Phone in a watch from Samsung.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
March 2, 2000... Samsung Electronics has launched a watch phone. Just slightly bulkier than a regular wristwatch, the watch phone measures 6.8cm by 5.8cm and is 2cm thick. It claims 90 minutes of talk time and 60 hours of standby time. Features include...

Huge capacity claim for hologram storage.(Imation)(Company Business and Marketing)
March 2, 2000... Imation is developing a $10 disc that has the capacity of 27 DVDs and promises to improve data warehousing capabilities Imagine being able to put 27 copies of a film like The Matrix onto a single disc no larger than a DVD. This massive...

Software firm lays down a prize challenge to hackers.(Wick Hill's Norman Access Control software)(Company Business and Marketing)
March 2, 2000... Wick Hill is so confident that its network security product cannot be broken into that it set a hacking challenge to CeBIT visitors last week. Anyone who manages to break into a word processing file on a Windows 95 PC protected using Wick...

Cheetah breaks the 10,000rpm ceiling to become fastest disc drive.(Seagate's Cheetah X15)(Product Announcement)
March 2, 2000... Seagate says it has developed the world's fastest disc drive, which it hopes will run the spots off existing drives, writes Caroline Davis. The Cheetah X15 runs at 15,000rpm, one-and-a-half times faster than the fastest drives currently...

Psion offers Windows from mobiles.(Citrix' Independent Computing Architecture)(Company Business and Marketing)
March 2, 2000... Psion has announced the first implementation of Citrix's Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) on the Symbian platform, which will enable users to access Windows applications from mobile devices writes Caroline Davis. Symbian and Psion...

Travellers download Web pages on the move.(Symbian's new mobile Internet strategy)(Company Business and Marketing)
March 2, 2000... Symbian revealed a new mobile Internet strategy that aims to enable road warriors to download full HTML pages onto mobile computers and phones, writes Antony Savvas. Symbian -- owned by Psion, Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola, and Panasonic --...

Nokia introduces three new Wap models to meet rising demand.(Nokia 7110, 6210, 6250)(Product Announcement)
March 2, 2000... Nokia launched three new Wap mobile phones at CeBIT in an attempt to alleviate the pressure created by users demanding the scarce 7110 phone, writes Antony Savvas. The 7110 was launched last year in a blaze of publicity over its ability to...

...but Ericsson says Wap market is limited.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 2, 2000... As Nokia was launching its A three new Wap-enabled phones, Ericsson was trying to deflect criticism over the scarcity of its own Wap products, writes Antony Savvas. Chief executive Kurt Hellstrom maintained that there is currently only...

Major players work together to synchronise desktop and mobile data.(Company Business and Marketing)
March 2, 2000... Industry giants have joined up to produce a standard for synchronising data between mobile devices and desktop PCs, writes Caroline Davis. IBM, Lotus, Motorola, Nokia, Palm and Psion have founded the SyncML initiative, which will produce...

Cyberventing.(customer relations)(Industry Trend or Event)
March 2, 2000... One of the most disconcerting aspects about the Internet for businesses is how it changes the power balance between them and their customers. In the pre-Internet world, companies found themselves in an enviable position. For it was the...

Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill.(Government Activity)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... The Government has published the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill, which includes powers to force the disclosure of encryption keys. More information at www.homeoffice.gov.uk/oicd/ripbill.htm.

Sendmail Inc.(Sendmail Switch e-mail software)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
March 2, 2000... Sendmail Inc. the firm set up by the creator of the free Sendmail program, has released Sendmail Switch, which adds a GUI-based administration system. Details at www2.sendmail.com/switch/.

Altavista.(News Briefs)
March 2, 2000... Altavista (www.altavista.com/) has added new multimedia search facilities.

Kenjin.(Internet search software)(Product Information)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... Kenjin is software that provides links to related material whenever text is typed within Windows programs. See www.kenjin.com/.

Corel and Inprise/Borland.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
March 2, 2000... Corel and Inprise/Borland have announced they will be merging. More at www.core.com/news/2000/february/february_7_2000.htm.

Attack of the zombie networks.(denial of service attacks)(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)
March 2, 2000... Distributed denial of service attacks are hitting even the most well-protected sites Last week I discussed the threat of a new kind of vulnerability that lies at the heart of current Web technologies. For the moment, this threat is purely...

Siteseeing.(Financial Times' first commercial and media sites)(Company Business and Marketing)
March 2, 2000... The Financial Times set up one of the first commercial and media sites, and it has been one of the mainstays for business users of the Web, especially outside the US. So turning itself into a fully-fledged portal was not just a natural move,...

25 years ago: 27 February 1975.(News Briefs)
March 2, 2000... * ICL users were protesting at increases of from 10% to 15% on a wide range of support and maintenance charges. These had followed similar increases in both March and September 1974. Meanwhile ICL itself had set up a single division to cover...

10 years ago: 1 March 1990.(News Briefs)
March 2, 2000... * STC had enjoyed a good year largely thanks to subsidiary ICL, which contributed more than half of both sales and profits. ICL's sales had risen 18% to [pounds]1.6m while its profits rose 13% to just under [pounds]150m. These results were...

10 years ahead: 2 March 2010.(News Briefs)
March 2, 2000... * Darren Peabody. surprise winner of the Thanet and Rockingham by-election. became the first MP to have graduated from the Virtual University. Peabody's election campaign had made great play of the Digital Revolution Party's commitment to...