Baseline articles from August 2006

Baseline archives from August 2006

IBM Launches New Servers.
August 1, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)--IBM, the world's largest technology services company, on Tuesday is announcing new server computers giving businesses access to computing power typically used by universities and large corporations. The five...

EDS Posts Higher Q2 Profit.
August 1, 2006... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Electronic Data Systems Corp. reported higher quarterly earnings on Tuesday after it turned a profit on a mammoth U.S. Naval contract that had lost money a year earlier. EDS, the world's No. 2 technology services...

Four Countries Order 4 Million Linux-Powered Laptops.
August 1, 2006... A spokesperson for the One Laptop Per Child program reported July 31 that the countries of Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina and Thailand have each tendered orders for 1 million Linux laptops through the U.S.-based program. Several media outlets...

EPA Claims Vastly Improved Security.
August 1, 2006... Even with the renewed scrutiny being given to government IT systems in light of the recent laptop theft at the Department of Veterans Affairs, officials working with the Environmental Protection Agency say the organization has significantly...

IBM Unveils New Opteron Servers.
August 1, 2006... NEW YORK--IBM is rolling out a family of servers that combine Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron processor with its own hardware and software technology to increase performance and system utilization while addressing the growing problems of power...

Sun Digging Deep for Dynamic Language Support.
August 1, 2006... REDMOND, Wash.--Sun Microsystems is planning to increase support for dynamic languages and is looking at various ways to better allow dynamically typed languages to run on the Java Virtual Machine. Gilad Bracha, a computational theologist...

Oracle: Open Source No Threat in Enterprise Database Space.(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... Oracle is holding its own in the open-source database space, while not seeing any competition in the enterprise database market from open-source companies, Bob Shimp, the vice president of Oracle's technology business unit, told eWEEK July 31....

E-Mail Archiving: What's Your Legal Liability?
August 2, 2006... Companies facing lawsuits and regulatory audits must produce specific electronic data by court-mandated deadlines. Those that can't risk multimillion-dollar fines and penalties. Yet two-thirds of companies have no policies for saving, purging...

IBM Acquires Webify in Software Expansion.
August 2, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)--IBM, the world's largest computer services company, said Tuesday it had acquired privately held Webify Solutions to expand in the fast-growing market of integrating corporate software systems. Terms of the...

Outsourcing: What CIOs Need to Know.(The Hackett Group's Scott Holland)(chief information officers)(Interview)
August 2, 2006... Several consulting and information-technology management firms recently have come out with studies claiming outsourcing is declining. According to a July survey by DiamondCluster International, for instance, 9% of respondents employing onshore...

FBI: Hackers Must Help Fight Web Mob.
August 2, 2006... LAS VEGAS--The FBI's point man for Internet crime wants hackers to join the fight against international gangs of Web mobsters. Dan Larkin, unit chief of the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, used the spotlight of the Black Hat security...

Wyse, VMware Split the Desktop from the PC.
August 2, 2006... Wyse Technologies and VMware are doing the dance of the virtualized desktop. Wyse on August 2 rolled out hardware designed to support WMware's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, software that allows companies to host and distribute a...

Report: IT Workers Less Restless.
August 2, 2006... Fifty percent of IT workers surveyed said they are not likely to look for a new job in the coming months, up from 44 percent last quarter, which may suggest greater satisfaction in their current employment situations, according to a report...

Microsoft Details Server 2003 SP2 Plans.
August 2, 2006... With beta testing under way for Windows Service 2003 Service Pack 2, which also is designed for Windows XP x64 edition, Microsoft is providing a bit more details about the impending upgrade. Windows Server program manager Ward Ralston says...

Experts Point to Weaknesses in NAC Security.
August 3, 2006... LAS VEGAS--While Network Admission Control technologies are being heralded as a major step forward in helping to secure corporate IT infrastructures, security researchers contend that the tools remain open to a range of threats. At the...

The Dilemma of Reporting Spyware Attacks.
August 3, 2006... LAS VEGAS--The Federal Trade Commission is asking corporations to report incidents when they are victimized by spyware attacks, but some experts say the process of doing so puts businesses in a tricky position, where they must weigh the...

Wireless Laptops Hacked at Black Hat.
August 3, 2006... LAS VEGAS--Every year, security researchers and hackers at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas compete to reveal new and scary vulnerabilities. Hundreds of them, almost all men, are running around Caesar's Palace this week in black T-shirts,...

August 2006 Online Extras.
August 3, 2006... BASELINE ONLINE Slideshow: The Million-Dollar CIO Club This slideshow presents a snapshot of some of 2005's top-paid information-technology executives. ITIL Special Report: 4 Experts Share Keys to Success The Information Technology...

Review: Online Office Apps Fall Short for Enterprise.
August 3, 2006... When Microsoft releases Office 2007 later in 2006, the major overhaul of the venerable office productivity suite is likely to spur an examination of lower-priced alternatives. Competitors such as Sun Microsystems' StarOffice,...

FCC Supports Broadband over Power Lines.
August 3, 2006... WASHINGTON--The Federal Communications Commission decided Aug. 3 to reaffirm its stance on the deployment of broadband-over-power-line technology. In a Memorandum Opinion and Order adopted by the FCC today, the commissioners affirmed that BPL...

Microsoft Sways Black Hatters with Vista Security Pledge.
August 3, 2006... LAS VEGAS--When Microsoft launched its Trustworthy Computing initiative in 2002, many industry watchers doubted the seriousness of the software giant's pledge to improve the security of its products. As the company prepares to release its...

AJAX Vulnerabilities Could Pose Serious Risks.
August 3, 2006... LAS VEGAS--AJAX technology is rapidly being adopted by online businesses to help boost the interactivity of their Web sites, but a long list of potential vulnerabilities introduced by inexperienced programmers could create a troubling security...

AJAX Vulnerabilities Could Pose Serious Risks.
August 3, 2006... LAS VEGAS--AJAX technology is rapidly being adopted by online businesses to help boost the interactivity of their Web sites, but a long list of potential vulnerabilities introduced by inexperienced programmers could create a troubling security...

Problems Plague Windows Live Spaces.
August 3, 2006... Microsoft's Aug. 1 launch of its Windows Live Spaces blogging/social-networking platform has not been a smooth one. Customers of Microsoft's successor to MSN Spaces are reporting a variety of performance, publishing, rendering and...

Virtualization Vendor to Reveal New Mac Product.
August 4, 2006... Virtual machine developer VMware will make an announcement on Aug. 7 in conjunction with Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. VMware said it would give demonstrations to the press a few hours after Steve Job's keynote address. A...

Apple Says Likely to Restate Results, Delay Filing.
August 4, 2006... LOS ANGELES (Reuters)--Apple Computer Inc. said on Thursday it would likely need to restate earnings and will delay filing its quarterly report because of additional irregularities it found in its accounting of stock options and its shares fell...

Black Hat: Do Companies Have the DNA to Thwart Hacks?
August 4, 2006... LAS VEGAS--Do businesses and other organizations have the right stuff to fight off hacks and other attacks against their computer systems? Speakers at Black Hat, a security convention, debated those issues and more Thursday at sessions that...

Microsoft Takes LSD to Test Vista Security.
August 4, 2006... LAS VEGAS--Remember the LSD--or Last Stage of Delirium--hacking group? Back in 2003, the group of four Polish security researchers discovered the RPC (Remote Procedure Call) interface vulnerability that would later be used to unleash the...

July 2006 Survey: The Bitter Truth About ROI.
August 4, 2006... After running surveys on ROI in 2003 and 2004, we decided to take a sabbatical. Despite the ongoing pressure to demonstrate the business value of IT, progress doesn't come swiftly in the field of measurement. So it made sense to wait to see if...

MS Watches as Vista Gets 0wn3d by Rootkit.
August 4, 2006... LAS VEGAS--Ben Fathi slipped into the darkened, standing-room-only conference room and took a seat on the carpeted floor. On the Black Hat stage, malware researcher Joanna Rutkowska, of COSEINC, was discussing a new technique that could...

Mac Faithful Anticipate Annual Apple Announcement.
August 4, 2006... With Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference about to kick off in San Francisco, the usual rumors, innuendo and sheer guessing of what CEO Steven Jobs is about the reveal is well underway. It is no surprise to anyone that, as in years past,...

Lenovo to Load Linux on ThinkPad Laptop.
August 4, 2006... Lenovo Group is planning a full embrace for Linux. The PC maker, at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo beginning Aug. 14 , will announce a plan to pre-load Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 on one of its ThinkPad notebooks, sources...

Report: State, Local Health IT Spending to Swell.
August 4, 2006... New legislation and certification programs will boost state and local government spending on health and welfare IT from $7.6 billion in fiscal year 2006 to $12.2 billion by fiscal year 2011, concludes a report from Input, a firm that helps...

Cyber-Thieves Steal $700K Via ATM Hacking.
August 4, 2006... Cyber-thieves who hacked into the ATM information of at least 800 retail customers in California and Oregon have stolen as much as $700,000 from personal accounts during the last two months, according to police reports. People who used ATM...

Can Mac OS X 'Leopard' Features Compete with Vista?
August 5, 2006... Little is known for sure what Steve Jobs will reveal to the throng of coders at Apple Computer's Worldwide Developers Conference on Aug. 7. However, it's a good bet that the current more-general debate between Macs and Windows...

Another VA Computer Goes Missing.(from the office of Unisys Corp., Department of Veterans Affairs)
August 7, 2006... WASHINGTON--Officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs announced this afternoon that a VA contractor has discovered that a computer containing information on as many as 38,000 veterans is missing. Matthew Burns, spokesman for the...

Sun Slashes 5,000 Jobs, 950 in U.S.
August 7, 2006... After boasting fiscal fourth-quarter revenue gains the week prior, Sun Microsystems laid off approximately 5,000 workers in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia Aug. 4 as part of an ongoing plan to improve profits. The job cuts,...

Sun Slashes 5,000 Jobs, 950 in U.S.
August 7, 2006... After boasting fiscal fourth-quarter revenue gains the week prior, Sun Microsystems laid off approximately 5,000 workers in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia Aug. 4 as part of an ongoing plan to improve profits. The job cuts,...

Microsoft Focuses on User Behavior with New Search Research.
August 7, 2006... Search is about more than search-engine algorithms. It also must take into account user click-through and browsing behaviors, if search-result accuracy is to be improved. That's according to Microsoft researchers, who are set to present...

Microsoft Maps Plans for 'Rosario' App-Dev Future.
August 7, 2006... Microsoft is charting its future product course beyond "Orcas" in 2007. The next major release of the company's Visual Studio application development tool set is known by the code name Orcas, but Microsoft also is hard at work on a version...

Google Mini: Can Cute Cut It?(Google launches Search software)(Brief article)
August 7, 2006... While its name is synonymous with searching the Web (just look in the dictionary), Google hasn't quite made the same kind of inroads when it comes to search in corporate environments. Who knows? Maybe Google is just too cute for its own...

Apple Options Granted Before Stock Jump: Report.
August 7, 2006... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Several options grants to top executives at Apple Computer Inc. were dated just before sharp increases in its stock between 1997 and 2001, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing a review of regulatory filings....

Baseline's Look Ahead, Week of Aug. 7.
August 7, 2006... CONFERENCES THIS WEEK Aug. 7-10: SpeechTEK 2006 at the New York Marriott Marquis in New York City. Exhibitors include Avaya, Cisco Systems, Genesys, IBM, Microsoft and Verizon Business. Aug. 7-11: ESRI International User Conference in...

Enterprises Want It All and Want It Now.
August 7, 2006... When I heard last week that Oracle is "losing patience" with key providers of virtualization technology, I confess that my first reaction was something like, "What's to lose?" I've never thought of patience as Oracle's defining...

AOL 'Screw-up' Causes Search Data Spill.
August 7, 2006... AOL on Aug. 7 blamed an internal "screw-up" for the embarrassing release of detailed keyword search data for roughly 658,000 anonymized users. Dulles, Va.-based AOL's mea culpa comes in the midst of a firestorm of criticism from privacy...

Apple Computer Announcements Disappoint Investors.
August 7, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)--Apple Computer Inc. on Monday introduced the last of its computers to be converted to Intel chips and said it will launch the next version of its operating system in spring 2007, but investors expecting a new consumer...

EchoStar: Talk to the Robot.
August 7, 2006... This fall, Rob Strickland will mobilize almost two dozen androids. No, he's not a mad scientist: The CIO of EchoStar Communications Corp. is aiming to use the robots to close the gap with his chief rival, DirecTV, on automated customer...

Another VA Computer Goes Missing.(from the Unisys Corp. office, Department of Veterans Affairs )
August 7, 2006... WASHINGTON--Officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs announced this afternoon that a VA contractor has discovered that a computer containing information on as many as 38,000 veterans is missing. Matthew Burns, spokesman for the...

Giant Health Insurance Claims Database Pilot Unveiled.
August 7, 2006... Blue Cross Blue Shield Association is creating a database of health insurance claims from 79 million of its clients. The data will have no personal identifiers and is intended to be a resource for evaluating health care trends, treatments,...

Leopard Spotting Piques Developers' Interest.
August 7, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO--The new Leopard version of Mac OS X with its Time Machine feature, along with the briefly mentioned Xcode 3 application development environment, held attendees' attention Aug. 7 at Apple Computer's keynote speech at this year's...

Expert Voices: Working Together to Improve the Health Care IT Prognosis at Montefiore.
August 7, 2006... The history of health care IT has not, in general, been a happy one. The industry has consistently underinvested in IT, and thanks to the ongoing misalignment of interests among the patients, providers and payors, it doesn't look as if...

Microsoft Wants Vista PCs to Pop.
August 7, 2006... Microsoft wants PC buyers to recognize a machine running its forthcoming Windows Vista operating system from afar. The software giant has already set out the minimum hardware requirements for a PC to run the operating system. Now it's...

SAP Goes Vegas With Exec Hire.
August 8, 2006... SAP has decided it wants a piece of Vegas action. The German software giant on Tuesday announced that it has named Rod Massey, former chief information officer of Clark County, Nevada--which includes the city of Las Vegas--to run the unit...

Researchers Warn of Serious BlackBerry Vulnerability.
August 8, 2006... Businesses that use gateway security appliances to protect Research In Motion's BlackBerry communications servers could be subject to attacks based on the planned release of exploit code by a high-profile malware researcher. According to a...

Sprint to Build WiMax Network.
August 8, 2006... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Sprint Nextel Corp plans to spend up to $4.5 billion to build a high-speed wireless data network using an emerging technology known as WiMax that can cover whole cities, a source familiar with the plans said on Tuesday. ...

Staffing Firm Hires Itself a CIO.
August 8, 2006... Recruiting firm Hudson on Monday named Michael Whitmer CIO for North America, hoping he'll help right the company's PeopleSoft project. Also Monday, Hudson's parent company, New York-based Hudson Highland Group, announced second-quarter...

Brocade to Buy McData for $713M.
August 8, 2006... BOSTON (Reuters)--Data storage equipment maker Brocade Communications Systems Inc. said on Tuesday that it would buy McData Corp. for $4.61 per share, or $713 million. That's a 48 percent premium to Monday's $3.11 closing price of McData's...

Researchers Warn of Serious BlackBerry Vulnerability.
August 8, 2006... Businesses that use gateway security appliances to protect Research In Motion's BlackBerry communications servers could be subject to attacks based on the planned release of exploit code by a high-profile malware researcher. According to a...

Apple's Xcode 3 Gives Application Life to 64-Bit 'Leopard'.
August 8, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO--In addition to unveiling new hardware and previewing the new "Leopard" version of OS X, Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs used his keynote Aug. 7 at the Worldwide Developers Conference here to announce Xcode 3, a new version of...

Microsoft to Pay Reparations for Vista, Office Delays.
August 8, 2006... Microsoft is working on a new reparations strategy, known internally as a customer incentive program, for those customers with volume licensing programs who will be negatively affected by the delay in the release of Windows Vista and Office...

Microsoft Fixes a Dozen Security Flaws, Nine Critical.
August 8, 2006... Microsoft released a dozen security bulletins on Aug. 8 in an effort to patch a variety of security issues affecting Windows and Office, including nine critical vulnerabilities present in popular applications such as Internet Explorer, Outlook...

IBM Tries to Lure SMBs with 'Express' Storage.
August 8, 2006... It's hard to think of normally heavy-duty data storage servers as something like "storage lite," but IBM is giving it a serious go. Big Blue introduced a new entry-level storage product Aug. 8--System Storage DS4200 Express--designed to...

Sprint Announces WiMax 4G Wireless Service.
August 8, 2006... Sprint Nextel will begin offering a high-bandwidth wireless service to customers by the end of 2007 that will use WiMax technology and operate in the 2.5GHz band, where Sprint has extensive spectrum holdings. The company expects the 4G...

Engineers: DC Power Saves Data Center Dough.
August 8, 2006... Engineers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and about 20 technology vendors this month will wrap up a demonstration that they said shows DC power distribution in the data center can save up to 15 percent or more on energy consumption...

No Surprises, No Disappointments for Apple.
August 8, 2006... Although industry watchers have speculated for months about new video iPods and the possibility that the company may offer movie rentals, Apple CEO Steven Jobs left the stage at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco without...

Microsoft Phasing in Support for Dynamic Languages on .Net.
August 9, 2006... Microsoft is working on a phased approach to enhancing its support for dynamic languages on the company's .Net platform. Jim Hugunin, creator of the IronPython language and a development leader on Microsoft's CLR (Common Language Runtime)...

Homeland Security: Apply MS06-040 Patch.
August 9, 2006... Less than 24 hours after Microsoft shipped security fixes for 23 serious software vulnerabilities, the U.S. government's Department of Homeland Security issued a firm notice to Windows users: immediately apply the patches in the MS06-040...

Google Pooh-Poohs Click Fraud Claims.
August 9, 2006... Click fraud is a huge threat to the massive, but not especially stable, Web advertising market. Ad hawker extraordinaire Google is doing its best to combat that threat. Unfortunately, Google is focusing on fighting the claims as opposed to...

Wal-Mart's CIO Dishes on RFID at NRFTech Conference.
August 9, 2006... SAN DIEGO--Wal-Mart's philosophy for its stores is deceptively simple: right product, right place, right time. Rollin Ford, the company's new CIO--he was assigned to the top tech job in April--reiterated that Wal-Mart plans to use RFID, in...

VA Announces Data Breach Analysis Contract.
August 9, 2006... The Department of Veterans Affairs is hiring ID Analytics to perform data breach analysis to ensure that information on 26.5 million veterans contained on a stolen laptop was not compromised. The laptop has since been recovered. According to a...

August 2006 IT Organization Survey: CIOs Expect IT Organizations to Keep Growing.
August 9, 2006... The first set of results from our new IT Organization survey reveals that the future of IT is brighter than many think. IT organizations grew 3.8% on average during the past 12 months, and 45% of respondents expect their companies to add...

IBM to Buy FileNet for $1.6B.(Company overview)
August 10, 2006... IBM on Thursday said it plans to acquire FileNet, a document management and business process management software vendor, in an all-cash deal valued at $1.6 billion--IBM's 20th acquisition since February around its "information on demand"...

Subway Merges Payment, Loyalty and CRM Programs.
August 10, 2006... In what one executive of the $9 billion, 26,000-restaurant Subway chain dubbed "the single largest integrated cash card program in the world," Subway has come out with a card that handles payment, instant loyalty rewards and highly targeted...

AOL Miscue Could Reinvigorate Privacy Legislation.
August 10, 2006... AOL's internal mistake that led it to release detailed keyword search data for roughly 658,000 of its users is being highlighted by at least one Washington legislator as a chance to inject new interest into a consumer privacy bill before...

Apple Issues Two Security Patches for New Mac Pro.
August 10, 2006... Apple Computer on Aug. 9 issued two security patches for its new Mac Pro, the Intel-based desktop that had just been unveiled at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. The two patches fix two serious code execution...

Vista's Fortified Kernel Could Trouble Third-Party Apps.
August 10, 2006... Researchers at Symantec are questioning whether security modifications added to the kernel of Microsoft's Vista operating system could prevent the anti-virus company, and other third-party software makers, from enjoying the same level of...

With Exploits Out, MS Braces for Worm Attack.
August 10, 2006... A network worm attack exploiting a critical Microsoft Windows vulnerability appears inevitable, security experts warned Aug. 10. Just days after the Redmond, Wash., software maker issued the MS06-040 bulletin with patches for a "critical"...

DOT Is the Latest Victim of Computer Theft.
August 10, 2006... The US Department of Transportation has announced that a laptop computer containing names, addresses and social security numbers of 133,000 Florida residents was stolen two weeks ago. According to a letter sent to Congress on August 9, the...

Report: Google to Invest an Additional $1B in India.
August 11, 2006... Google could be planning to invest as much as an additional $1 billion in India, according to a Bear Stearns research report. The research report, released Aug. 11, claims that the Mountain View, Calif., search engine giant is interested in...

Baseline's Look Ahead, Week of Aug. 14.
August 11, 2006... CONFERENCES THIS WEEK Aug. 14-17: LinuxWorld Conference & Expo - San Francisco 2006 at the Moscone Center. Scheduled keynote speakers include Lawrence Lessig, professor at Stanford Law School, and Greg Besio, corporate vice president of...

Kaiser Permanente's Rx for Better Projects.
August 11, 2006... For most organizations, software development is seldom easy. Projects are often fraught with miscommunication between the information-technology department and the business units. Key requirements may get short shrift or be omitted altogether...

What Does the Future Hold for the PC?
August 11, 2006... On Aug. 12, the IBM PC hits the 25-year mark. The date is significant not because it was the first PC on the market, as there are a number of contenders for that distinction: The Apple 2, the Radio Shack TRS-80, the Commodore 64, and even...

SAP's Move Ruffles Feathers.
August 14, 2006... SAP's move to expand its in-memory technology beyond its business intelligence confines to broader enterprise data sets has sparked debate over the potential threat to database vendors. eWEEK reported in its Aug. 7 issue that, according to...

IBM Unveils Linux IM.
August 14, 2006... IBM is taking instant messaging to Linux--on both the desktop and server. The company will use the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, taking place Aug. 14-17 in San Francisco, to announce that its Lotus Sametime IM platform will support Linux....