Baseline articles from December 2006

Baseline archives from December 2006

What's on Tap for IT Pros in 2007?
December 1, 2006... The themes of the 2006 IT professional world could be summed up as the following: H-1B visas, certifications, a job market that either rocked or was awful; and the Baby Boomer-Generation Y gap in the workplace. Not bad for a year's work,...

LiveOffice Offers 'Sale' on E-Mail Compliance Package.
December 1, 2006... Message archiving and compliance provider LiveOffice revealed Dec. 1 that it will offer what is in effect "sale pricing" through Dec. 29 for its e-mail compliance package to organizations preparing for the new amendments to the FRCP (Federal...

U.N. Agency Sees Risks to Privacy, Security Online.
December 2, 2006... GENEVA (Reuters)--Computer users who type in the same username and password for multiple sites--such as online banks, travel agencies and booksellers--are at serious risk from identity thieves, a United Nations agency said on Sunday. The...

Technology M&As to Keep Booming in 2007.
December 4, 2006... Technology mergers and acquisitions are forecast to jump 40% next year, as private equity companies flush with cash increase their activities in the sector. That increase would follow this year's projected increase of 50%, says Eric...

Phishers Attack MySpace with QuickTime Exploit Worm.
December 4, 2006... Identity thieves are manipulating a feature in Apple Computer's embedded QuickTime player to launch phishing attacks on the popular MySpace.com social networking portal. According to a warning by San Diego-based Websense Security Labs, a...

Iona Delivers on Open-Source SOA Strategy.
December 4, 2006... Iona Technologies, which makes SOA infrastructure software for enterprise users, on Dec. 4 announced the availability of Celtix Enterprise, the company's open-source Enterprise Service Bus. Iona, based in Dublin, Ireland, with U.S....

SAP Enhances MySAP ERP.
December 5, 2006... LAS VEGAS--At its annual TechEd event here in September, SAP AG announced that it would stabilize its MySAP ERP suite for the next five years. The plan: Rather than release a major upgrade every couple of years--pretty much the tradition in the...

Half of American Business PCs Can't Run Vista.
December 5, 2006... About half of the average business PCs in North America are unable to meet the minimum requirements for Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system, while 94 percent do not meet the system requirements for Vista Premium. Within these...

Study: Most Companies Unprepared for Disasters.(Survey)
December 5, 2006... According to the World Health Organization, the number of cases of avian flu have nearly tripled since 2005 and with February's flu season peak edging closer, many organizations are playing the "what if" game this time of year. Yet a new survey...

Microsoft Issues Word Zero-Day Attack Alert.
December 5, 2006... Microsoft on Dec. 5 warned that an unpatched vulnerability in its Word software program is being used in targeted, zero-day attacks. A security advisory from the Redmond, Wash., company said the flaw can be exploited if a user simply opens...

Robert Reich: The Economics of People.(Interview)
December 5, 2006... Equal parts economist, professor, polemicist and politician, Robert Reich is quite unlike any other business thinker on the current public scene. These days, the former Labor Secretary under President Clinton is a professor of public policy at...

Forecast: HHS to Spend $5 Billion on Technology in 2007.(Department of Health and Human Services)
December 6, 2006... The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will probably spend more than $5 billion on 670 technology initiatives in 2007, according to forecasts from a company that helps businesses find federal contracts. According to fedXccel, the...

Cell Phones Don't Raise Cancer Risk: Study.
December 6, 2006... WASHINGTON (Reuters)--Using a cellular phone does not increase a person's risk of cancer, according to a broad study released on Tuesday involving more than 400,000 Danish cellular telephone users. A team of researchers used data on the...

What It Takes To Be a Top Technology Executive.(Interview)
December 6, 2006... Since joining executive recruiter Heidrick & Struggles in 1995, Gerard McNamara has helped bring top technology talent to some of the biggest U.S. corporations. The former IBMer and Marine captain talked about what he's seeing in an interview...

I.T. Triumphs & Trip-Ups of 2006.(Brief article)
December 6, 2006... The awful truth about technology projects is that the blunders become visible overnight--your main consultant pulls out, or your security breach becomes a national news story. The problems are embarrassing and sometimes career-ending....

Oracle to Provide Secure Identity Management Suite.
December 6, 2006... Oracle announced Dec. 6 the release of its Oracle Enterprise Single Sign-On Suite. The suite will offer single-sign-on access control and password management for many Oracle applications such as Oracle Database, Forms, Discoverer and...

Convergence: The People's Choice.
December 6, 2006... As we say goodbye to 2006, the convergence of computing models appears to be overtaking distinct types of computing such as Software as a Service (SaaS) to the point where distinct models are becoming irrelevant. In other words, as the next...

U.S. Dominates List of Technology Pioneers.(Brief article)
December 6, 2006... Forty-seven companies--more than half of which are U.S.-based and 19 of which are IT-focused--were awarded status as Technology Pioneers 2007, announced the World Economic Forum, a Geneva-based independent organization that seeks to improve the...

Whirlpool Soothes Highs and Lows.
December 6, 2006... Whirlpool, a $13 billion global manufacturer and marketer of major home appliances, credits its success in the industry to innovation, a focus on customer needs, productivity and quality. So it's no surprise that when company executives looked...

Inside eBay's Innovation Machine.
December 6, 2006... Business is steady on an early december afternoon at the iSold It consignment store on Skeet Club Road in High Point, N.C., as customers drop off items to be sold on eBay. Bikes, electronics, power tools--a steady flow of stuff, forming a...

DoCoMo to Recall 1.3 Million Sanyo Cell Phone Batteries.
December 7, 2006... TOKYO, Dec 7 (Reuters)--NTT DoCoMo Inc., Japan's top mobile phone operator, said on Thursday it would recall 1.3 million cellphone batteries made by Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. because they may overheat and rupture. The recall comes as the...

10 Office Holiday Party Landmines to Avoid.
December 7, 2006... There's a reason a lot of workers dread holiday parties and it's because "fun" and "making sure you can continue to pay your bills" rarely mix in a copasetic manner. Can you drink? Must you wear a tie? What if you say the wrong thing? What...

HP Settles Civil Complaint for $14.5M.
December 7, 2006... Hewlett-Packard has settled its civil case with the California Attorney General's Office, and the company will pay $14.5 million in fines but admit no liability, according to a statement released Dec. 7. In addition to the fine, HP, which...

Large Employers to Provide Online Personal Health Records.
December 7, 2006... A group of large employers, including Intel and Wal-Mart, announced a plan to supply their 2.5 million employees with online personal health records. Each employer is donating about $1 million or more for the initiative, which will be...

Microsoft Issues Word Zero-Day Attack Alert.
December 7, 2006... Microsoft on Dec. 5 warned that an unpatched vulnerability in its Word software program is being used in targeted, zero-day attacks. A security advisory from the Redmond, Wash., company said the flaw can be exploited if a user simply opens...

Reports Indicate Healthy 2007 for I.T.(Brief article)
December 8, 2006... Signs are pointing to a healthy new year for information technology. The job market for I.T. workers is expanding, reflecting a strong U.S. economy and an unemployment rate that is hovering near its lowest level in five years, according to job...

Technology Spending Healthy in 2007.
December 8, 2006... It may not be time to "Party Like It's 1999," but a study released this week of worldwide technology spending trends shows that companies will continue to spend more in 2007. This will mark the fourth consecutive year of healthy spending...

Survey: Patients Want Online Health Records.
December 8, 2006... A survey released this week by the nonprofit Markle Foundation finds patients enthusiastic about being able to access their health information online. A vast majority say they would use this information to prevent unnecessary care and take...

Tech Pros Unconvinced I.T. Boom Will Last.(information technology professionals)(Brief article)
December 8, 2006... Most I.T. professionals believe that the current I.T. boom has little juice left, according to a monthly report on the state of the tech job market published Dec. 4 by New York-based Dice, an I.T. careers site. Sixty-two percent of...

Internet Gangs Hire Students for Cyber-crime.(Brief article)
December 8, 2006... LONDON--Organized gangs have adopted "KGB-style" tactics to hire high-flying computer students to commit Internet crime, a report said on Friday. Criminals are targeting universities, computer clubs and online forums to find...

SAP Looks to the Midmarket.
December 11, 2006... SAP is looking to an aggressive midmarket push to help triple its customer base over the next four years and stave off competition from the likes of Oracle and Microsoft. In his keynote speech Dec. 4 at the company's annual analyst...

IDC: Vista Will Create U.S. I.T. Jobs.
December 11, 2006... A Microsoft-commissioned study that looks at the economic impact of Windows Vista in the United States in its first year of shipment estimates that for every dollar of Microsoft revenue from the new operating system, the ecosystem around it...

Sun Releases Third Update to Solaris 10.
December 11, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO--Sun Microsystems made the third, and latest, update to Solaris 10 available for download on Dec. 11, which is the most secure version of the operating system ever released, Tom Goguen, the vice president of systems software at...

Sun Releases Java 6.
December 11, 2006... Sun Microsystems has announced the availability of Java Platform Standard Edition 6 (Java SE 6). This new version of Sun's Java platform is "an exciting release for us because it's our first community release," said Jean Elliott, director...

CIOs Anticipate Hiring to Hit Five-Year High.
December 11, 2006... CIOs anticipate a rise in IT hiring in the first quarter of 2007, according to the IT Hiring and Skills Report released Dec. 11 by Robert Half Technology, a tech placement firm based in Menlo Park, Calif. Sixteen percent of executives...

MS Office Communications Server 2007 Goes to Beta.
December 12, 2006... Microsoft will make its new enterprise voice communications server available to 2,500 companies under a private beta program on Dec. 11. The product, which will be known as Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, brings with it the...

3 Tips for Intrusion Security Planning.
December 12, 2006... Gartner vice president Paul E. Proctor wrote the book--literally--on intrusion detection. But a lot has changed since 2000, when he penned the Practical Intrusion Detection Handbook, a 359-page tome with tips on choosing vendors, setting up...

Intrusion Detection: The Old Guard Dog Learns Some New Tricks.(Brief article)
December 12, 2006... Intrusion detection systems used to be a must-have for technology security managers. But as threats to the network evolved, so did the tools that counter them. Today, in-house security experts are building defense systems with multiple...

Double Trouble: Microsoft Confirms Another Word Zero-Day Flaw.
December 12, 2006... Microsoft's security response center has confirmed that a second zero-day vulnerability in its Word software program is being targeted by unknown attackers. The latest flaw comes just days after the software maker issued a security...

Microsoft Delivers Seven Security Bulletins, Three Critical.
December 12, 2006... Microsoft released seven security bulletins, including fixes for three critical vulnerabilities, as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday update delivered on Dec. 12. The software giant, based in Redmond, Wash., shipped 11 security patches in...

Dell Hires New Managers, Restructures Product Group.
December 12, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO--Dell Inc. has named former EDS executive Steve Schuckenbrock to lead the computer maker's $5 billion a year global services organization, the latest in a string of new management hires. Separately, Dell said it was...

Hacker Infiltrates UCLA, Data on 800,000 People.
December 13, 2006... LOS ANGELES (Reuters)--An unknown hacker has infiltrated a massive University of California, Los Angeles database with personal information on 800,000 people, the school said on Tuesday, in one of the worst computer breaches ever at a U.S....

IT Project Managers Will Be in Demand in '07.
December 13, 2006... It may not be a bonanza on a par with other information-technology job categories, like network administrators and help desk personnel, but project managers will be in demand in 2007. Six percent of chief information officers say I.T....

Calculator: How to Measure Your Security Investments.
December 13, 2006... No matter how much money you throw at securing your systems, there's no guarantee that they are 100% secure. Nonetheless, there are indicators that you can examine to determine if your information security approach is on track or needs to...

'Logic Bomb' Backfires on Hacker.
December 13, 2006... NEW YORK (Reuters)--A former UBS PaineWebber employee was sentenced to eight years in prison on Wednesday for planting a computer "logic bomb" on company networks and betting its stock would go down. The investment scheme backfired when...

Microsoft, HP Plan Joint Investment, Closer Ties.
December 13, 2006... SEATTLE-- Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. have agreed to invest jointly at least $300 million over three years and work more closely together to win over large business customers. The two companies, the world's largest makers of...

Teradata Unveils New Advanced Analytics for Data Warehousing.(Teradata Warehouse Miner 5.0)(Brief article)
December 13, 2006... Data warehouse giant Teradata on Dec. 13 introduced a new suite of data-mining software for enterprises that it says significantly automates data preparation and accelerates performance of its partners' data-mining tools. Teradata...

Microsoft Releases Bug-Fix Version of Visual Studio 2005.
December 14, 2006... Microsoft has released to manufacturing Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1, which features fixes for user-reported issues. Service Pack 1 of the development platform also includes more than 70 improvements for common development scenarios,...

Researchers Warn of Security Expertise Shortage.
December 14, 2006... Businesses are increasingly being put at risk of failing compliance audits and struggling with other security-related efforts, as demand for employees capable of managing such projects is outpacing the supply of qualified candidates. ...

Boeing Confirms Security Breach.
December 14, 2006... Boeing officials confirmed that a laptop containing the personal data of some 382,000 current and former employees was stolen from a former employee's car in the first week of December. Officials of the Seattle-based company declined to say...

VHA Fixes Rules of Engagement.(Veterans Health Administration)
December 14, 2006... Veterans enrolled in the Veterans Health Administration, part of the Department of Veterans Affairs, have to answer a variety of questions regarding compensation, pension status, military service and more. Based on those answers, a veteran is...

Congressmen Question HP CEO's Stock Transaction.
December 14, 2006... A pair of Democratic congressman from Michigan are asking Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd to explain why he cashed in more than a $1 million worth of stock options just before a scandal concerning boardroom leaks became public. In their...

Berkeley Data Systems Unveils Unlimited Online Storage.(introduced Mozy Unlimited Backup)(Brief article)
December 15, 2006... Online data storage provider Berkeley Data Systems on Dec. 14 introduced Mozy Unlimited Backup, a new service that individuals can use to back up an unlimited amount of digital files--documents, photos, video --to a secure, multi-petabyte...

Senators Question Use of RFID in E-Passports, National ID Cards.
December 15, 2006... The separate initiatives put forth by the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to utilize RFID in passports, identification cards and driver's licenses are coming under fire from various directions. At issue are...

Dark Day Planning: Insuring Against Data Loss.
December 15, 2006... The list of data breaches involving sensitive personal information maintained by the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse achieved a significant milestone Dec. 13, as the nonprofit group saw the total number of records exposed in such events crest the...

2006 Year in Review: Hits and Misses.
December 17, 2006... There is little if any status quo in the technology business, and that fact was on full display in 2006. Stalwarts such as Bill Gates and Scott McNealy took a back seat after decades of leading their companies; Dell, which seemed...

HP Offers New Security Features in Unix OS.
December 18, 2006... Hewlett-Packard is bundling new security features with its HP-UX 11i v2 operating system. The additional security features, which the Palo Alto, Calif., company will start making available to its customers Dec. 18, will include new...

Oracle Profit Rises, Shares Down on Software Sales.
December 19, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)--Oracle Corp. on Monday posted a 21 percent rise in second-quarter profit, but sales of new software application licenses were weaker than Wall Street's forecast, sending its shares down 3 percent. Larry Ellison,...

Oracle Offers New Licensing Model.(and new pricing structure)
December 19, 2006... Oracle wants to make its pricing model easier to handle. The Redwood Shores, Calif., company announced its new pricing model on Dec. 19, one day after posting a 26 percent revenue gain during its second fiscal quarter. Oracle also announced...

75% of Work Force Is Headed for the Door.
December 19, 2006... The new year may bring resignations aplenty, as more than 75 percent of employees are currently looking for new jobs, according to a poll released Dec. 19 by the Society for Human Resource Management and The Wall Street Journal's...

Women CIOs: How To Smash the Glass Ceiling.
December 20, 2006... Do women have a decent opportunity of getting promoted to chief information officer? Though statistics on the number of women CIOs are hard to come by, one thing is certain: There are not all that many. "It's still a pretty small number,...

Survey: Typical SOA Development Takes 3-6 Months.(service-oriented architecture)
December 20, 2006... According to a recent survey by Evans Data, more than 40 percent of developers polled who said they were working on service-oriented architectures also said they can finish a typical SOA development in three months. The Evans Data poll...

Dell Names Former American Airlines Chief as CFO.
December 20, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)--Dell Inc. Tuesday named former American Airlines chief Donald Carty as its chief financial officer, replacing James Schneider who leaves as the world's No. 2 personal computer maker faces probes into its finances. ...

Ericsson and Redback Networks: A Cinderella Story.(acquired by Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson)
December 20, 2006... Multiservice edge routing provider Redback Networks on Dec. 19 became the Cinderella of the telecom industry when European telecommunications equipment vendor Ericsson announced its plans to acquire Redback for $2.1 billion. Ericsson...

Valassis to buy ADVO at lower price; suits dropped.
December 20, 2006... NEW YORK (Reuters) - Valassis Communications Inc. 'VCI.N' said on Tuesday it would buy fellow direct marketer ADVO Inc. 'AD.N' for $1.08 billion, an 11 percent discount to the original price in a deal ending a four-month legal battle. ...

HP Adds Mobile Device Management with Bitfone Buy.
December 21, 2006... Hewlett-Packard announced Dec. 21 that it plans to purchase Bitfone, a privately held company that develops mobile device management software. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The purchase is expected to be completed by...

Crafting Leadership.
December 21, 2006... The business community is awash in books, manuals and courses on what it takes to be a great leader. So why do you need another one? Consider the source: Ram Charan, coauthor of Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done and author of...

The 8 Characteristics Of Great Leaders.
December 21, 2006... The business community is awash in books, manuals and courses on what it takes to be a great leader. So why do you need another one? Consider the source: Ram Charan, coauthor of Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done and author of...

I.T. Pros Share Their New Year's Resolutions.(information technology professionals)
December 22, 2006... Jeff Peterson, CIO of UNICCO Service Company, a $700 million facilities and equipment management company, has big plans for 2007. He'll be laying the technology groundwork for the Newton, Mass.-based firm, which maintains offices, production...

Vista Exploit Surfaces on Russian Hacker Site.
December 22, 2006... Proof-of-concept exploit code for a privilege escalation vulnerability affecting all versions of Windows--including Vista--has been posted on a Russian hacker forum, forcing Microsoft to activate its emergency response process. Mike...

IT Worker Wonderland.
December 22, 2006... When the majority of people talk about work, it's almost undoubtedly followed up with a complaint. From "Dilbert" comics to the movie "Office Space," the grumblings are remarkably similar: too little pay, too many hours, no respect, bad...

Red Hat Earnings Beat Forecast.
December 22, 2006... Red Hat on Dec. 21 announced better-than-expected financial results for its fiscal year 2007 third quarter. The total revenue for the quarter was $105.8 million, an increase of 45 percent from the year-ago quarter and 6 percent from the...

Baseline's Top 10 Most Popular Stories of 2006.
December 22, 2006... Baseline readers have cast their votes: Here are the 10 most popular stories on our Web site this year. 1. How Google Works For all the razzle-dazzle surrounding Google, the company must still work through common business problems such...

Multicore Computing, Virtualization Will Grow in Importance in 2007.
December 26, 2006... Next year will be a busy one in the server industry with a host of new products and innovations, thanks in large part to the increasing importance of multicore computing and virtualization technology. However, it looks like 2007 will prove...

VOIP Will Take On New Roles in 2007.
December 26, 2006... In the networking space in 2007, voice over IP will be less about reducing communications cost on a converged IP network and more about improving productivity and creating new business applications that incorporate voice to generate new streams...

Interest in SOA, SAAS Expected to Grow in 2007.
December 26, 2006... For companies that use enterprise applications from the leading vendors, 2007 to some degree won't offer many surprises. The top vendors--SAP, Oracle and to some degree, Microsoft--will continue investing in service-oriented architectures and...

Judges OK $2.45B Settlement in Nortel Case.
December 26, 2006... NEW YORK--Two U.S. judges on Tuesday gave their blessings to an estimated $2.45 billion settlement between Nortel Networks Corp. and shareholders, moving the pact closer to final approval. Nortel and shareholders had agreed in principle to...

Security in 2007: Zero-Day World Puts Bull's-Eye on Vista.(Microsoft Windows Vista)
December 26, 2006... Who will find the first major security flaw in Windows Vista? Will it be released as zero-day? Is there an end in sight to the botnet menace? Is spam close to being canned? Just who are these criminals phishing for your credit card data? ...

Survey: 40 Percent of Employers to Hire in 2007.
December 27, 2006... Nearly one in 10 employers will hire more than of 500 new employees in 2007, according to a survey released by Chicago-based CareerBuilder.com on Dec. 26. While more than one-third (36 percent) of employers expect to add 10 employees or...

PC Platforms: Looking Back at 2006 and Ahead to 2007.
December 27, 2006... Consider the desktop personal computer. Form factors have changed, new CPUs have emerged, and more-advanced chip sets have arrived on the scene, but the fundamental PC platform remains little changed. You still have core logic, a CPU, separate...

Report: Spamming Soared in 2006.(Brief article)
December 27, 2006... A report on spam by e-mail security firm Commtouch Software dubs 2006 the "Year of the Zombies." The study found that "zombies," the name given computers remote-controlled by hackers, can number up to 8 million hosts globally on a given...

RFID in '06 and '07: Years of Ups and Downs.
December 29, 2006... It turns out 2006 wasn't quite the banner year for RFID adoption that some analysts had predicted--particularly in the retail and consumer packaged goods sectors where fast growth was expected. And it looks like the coming year won't be much...