Baseline articles from February 2007

Baseline archives from February 2007

Study: U.S. Identity Theft Losses Fall.
February 1, 2007... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Americans lost about $49.3 billion in 2006 to criminals who stole their identities, an 11.5 percent decline that may reflect increased vigilance among consumers and businesses, a study released on Thursday shows. Losses...

Day 2 of Demo: Mobile Takes Center Stage.
February 1, 2007... PALM DESERT, Calif.--Targeting enterprises with mobile assets, companies at the Demo conference here demonstrated a number of products designed to bring increased manageability, storage and even longevity to laptops, cell phones and another...

Finding the Slacker-Worker Equilibrium.(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Everyone knows The Solitaire Guy. He's the one with the red message light on his phone always blinking, the one that gives the "I'll get to it, I'll get to it" brush-off whenever he's asked when he'll get his tasks done. He's late to meetings,...

Alan Kay: Beyond The Box.
February 1, 2007... Alan Kay is not a fan of the personal computer, though he did as much as anyone to create it. A winner of the Turing Prize, computer scientist Kay was the leader of the group that invented object-oriented programming, the graphical user...

Gartner Predicts $9.1 Billion Security Apps Market.
February 2, 2007... While technology vendors and security analysts continue to endorse the notion that anti-virus software is increasingly becoming commoditized, sales of the IT systems defense tools will help drive $9.1 billion in security applications sales...

Cavalcade of New Security Products Expected at RSA.(RSA Security Inc., RSA Conference 2007)(Brief article)
February 3, 2007... Officials in charge of coordinating the upcoming RSA Conference 2007, being held in San Francisco's Moscone Center from Feb. 5-10, said that this year's security industry trade show will be larger than ever before. If the sheer volume of...

Newspaper: NBC Universal Chooses New CEO for Digital Age.
February 4, 2007... LOS ANGELES (Reuters)--Entertainment giant NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric, will announce this week it is bringing in a new, younger chief executive to better compete in the digital age, the Los Angeles Times newspaper reported on...

McAfee Dives into Data Loss Prevention.
February 5, 2007... SAN FRANCISCO--McAfee announced its initial foray into the emerging data loss prevention software market here at the RSA Conference Feb. 5, launching a set of tools to manage the flow of sensitive information across corporate networks and...

VMware Set for SMB Play.
February 5, 2007... VMware, which has been a leader in virtualization software in the enterprise, is making a bolder move into the small and midsize business space. The Palo Alto, Calif., company on Feb. 5 is rolling out a bundle of software, along with...

Cisco Expands Footprint of Self-Defending Network.
February 5, 2007... SAN FRANCISCO--Cisco Systems announced its latest series of product moves aimed at pushing forward its vision of the self-defending network Feb. 5. The San Jose, Calif.-based networking market leader detailed work to further tie together a...

New Zero-Day Threat Excels.
February 5, 2007... Microsoft zero-day vulnerabilities are increasingly so commonplace, the risk is lost with the message. On Feb. 2, Microsoft issued another security alert, this one for Excel, that largely went unnoticed. In its security bulletin, Microsoft...

HP to Acquire Bristol Technology.
February 5, 2007... Hewlett-Packard is building out its software and solutions management capabilities with the Feb. 5 acquisition of Bristol Technology. Bristol, based in Danbury, Conn., develops two separate software suites, TransactionVision and...

IBM Readies New Virtualization Tools.
February 6, 2007... IBM is preparing to ramp up its virtualization capabilities on Feb. 6. The Armonk, N.Y., company is using the IDC Virtualization Forum in New York City to launch two new products aimed at increasing its presence within the virtualization...

British Telecom's Tech Transformation.
February 6, 2007... British telecom had a problem. Three years ago, as the U.K. telecom giant (now BT Group plc) sought to remake itself from a provider of traditional telephone services into a leader in network-centric IT solutions, it found its own IT shop was a...

R.I. Attorney General Is TJX's Latest Headache.
February 6, 2007... On Feb. 5, the Rhode Island attorney general's office confirmed that it is launching a formal investigation of TJX's data breach, including what caused it, why it wasn't detected more quickly and why the announcement of it was delayed. The...

Microsoft's Fathi: So Far, So Good for Vista Security.
February 7, 2007... SAN FRANCISCO-- Roughly two months after the initial launch of Windows Vista, Microsoft software development leader Ben Fathi said his company is pleased with the security, performance and feedback it has received regarding its newest operating...

Virtualization Enters '2.0' Era.(enterprises expand the technology to plan for business continuity services )(Brief article)
February 7, 2007... NEW YORK CITY--In the coming 18 months, virtualization, already a mainstream tool for IT administrators looking to consolidate applications within a data center, will continue to be adopted within enterprises as companies expand the technology...

Root Server Attack Fizzles.
February 7, 2007... An attack, apparently intended to get the attention of the security community, failed in its attempt to bring down, or even slow down, the Internet, analysts say. According to the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and...

For Johnson & Johnson, ITIL Means No More I.T. Tears.
February 7, 2007... Six years ago, Johnson & Johnson was among the world's oldest and most profitable heathcare companies. In 2001, profits hit nearly $5.7 billion on sales of $33 billion, and the far-flung enterprise surpassed 100,000 employees at 197 operating...

Business Intelligence: What Are You Thinking?
February 7, 2007... Most of the businesspeople I know use Google Trends--an online tool that allows ordinary people to compare the frequency of Google search terms-- to check out how an idea is resonating with the market, running multiple quick analyses to get an...

Can ID Theft Be Solved with More Regulation?
February 8, 2007... SAN FRANCISCO--Early one morning several years ago, the police knocked on Robert Maynard's door and told him he was under arrest for fraud. There was just one problem: The Robert Maynard the police were looking for did not actually exist. ...

Botnet Stalkers Share Takedown Tactics at RSA.
February 8, 2007... SAN FRANCISCO--A pair of security researchers speaking here at the ongoing RSA Conference Feb. 7 demonstrated their techniques for catching botnet operators who use secret legions of infected computers to distribute malware programs and violent...

BMC's Beauchamp Bullish on BSM.(BMC Software's president Bob Beauchamp)(business service management)(Brief article)
February 8, 2007... BMC Software, now a Wall Street darling with a stock price that's doubled in the past two years, has transformed itself from a company struggling to remain profitable to one that is outpacing competitors--despite a relatively flat mainframe...

Microsoft to Patch Dirty Dozen in February Update.
February 8, 2007... Microsoft reported Feb. 8 that it will ship a dozen security bulletins, including five updates meant to fix critical Windows flaws, as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday updating process on Feb. 13. The software giant, based in Redmond,...

PayPal Security Chief: User Education Remains Greatest Hurdle.
February 9, 2007... SAN FRANCISCO--A sleek, silver, nearly weightless gizmo that fits in your hand represents the next generation of security for customers of eBay's PayPal division. The diminutive machine is a wireless password-generation device that the...

Next Wave in Security: Protecting Smart Phones, PDAs.
February 9, 2007... SAN FRANCISCO--With the number of employees using smart phones and other mobile devices, corporations must start to focus their security on more than just their network perimeter, according to security analysts and specialists attending the RSA...

Why Vista Matters to Developers.
February 11, 2007... To some, Windows Vista is Microsoft's most secure operating system ever. To others, it's the most Mac-like. But from a developer standpoint, it's the first proving ground for Microsoft's new family of managed programming interfaces that have...

IBM Unveils Its Latest Open Client Offering.
February 12, 2007... IBM has a new open client offering that runs on Linux, Microsoft Windows and, later this year, the Apple Macintosh, and which is supported by services from IBM, Red Hat and Novell. Customers will be able to select technologies and...

Microsoft Debuts 3 Windows Live Mobile Services.
February 12, 2007... Microsoft will announce three new Windows Live services for mobile devices at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona on Feb. 12: Live Search on Windows Mobile, Live Search on Java and Windows Live for Windows Mobile. The new services will...

AMD Drops Desktop Chip Prices.
February 12, 2007... Advanced Micro Devices, which announced a change in the pricing structure of several of its dual-core Opteron chips Feb. 7, is preparing to lower the prices on several of its dual-core and single-core desktop Athlon processors. The lower...

Surviving Valentine's Day at 1-800-Flowers.com.
February 13, 2007... The surge of online buying around Valentine's Day has begun, and 1-800-Flowers.com is prepared. More precisely, it has been prepared for weeks. On Valentine's Day and the two days leading up to it, the number of transactions handled by the...

50 Technologies: Where CIOs are Spending Their Money.
February 14, 2007... Welcome to the most comprehensive report on IT spending CIO Insight has ever poduced. Unlike previous years' surveys, where we tracked only project-related spending on applications and infrastructure, we've asked respondents about any and all...

SAP Skills Pay Off Big for IT Pros.
February 14, 2007... Pay for non-certified IT skills grew 8 percent in 2006, while pay for certified skills showed flat growth, according to the most recent edition of the Hot Technical Skills and Certification Pay Index released Feb. 12 by New Canaan, Conn., IT...

Microsoft Reaches Settlement in Iowa Lawsuit.
February 14, 2007... SEATTLE (Reuters)--Microsoft Corp. said Wednesday it agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit in Iowa that accused the world's largest software maker of overcharging consumers in the state. The terms of the settlement will not be disclosed...

System Management Suite Bridges Linux, Unix, Windows.
February 14, 2007... Xandros introduced Feb. 14 a new software suite for IT administrators that enables Windows-to-Linux server and desktop integration and management, and deployment of systems that mix Linux, Unix and Windows platforms, according to the company....

Man Pleads Guilty in DuPont Data Theft Case.
February 15, 2007... The U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware announced on Feb 15 the unsealing of a one-count industrial espionage case against Yonggang (Gary) Min, formerly a senior scientist for DuPont, the Delaware-based chemical company. According...

Data Center Power Consumption on the Rise, Report Shows.
February 15, 2007... The amount of electricity used to power the world's data center servers doubled in a five-year span due mainly to an increase in demand for Internet services, such as music and video downloads, and telephony, according to a new report. If...

Microsoft CEO: Vista Revenue Forecasts Too Aggressive.
February 15, 2007... SEATTLE (Reuters)--Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on Thursday analysts' forecasts for revenue from Windows Vista in fiscal 2008 were "overly aggressive." Ballmer's comments come two weeks after the world's largest...

U.S. May Charge Ex-Execs at Broadcom, Apple: Report.
February 16, 2007... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Federal prosecutors are strongly considering criminal charges against former executives of Broadcom Corp., Apple Inc., and KLA-Tencor Corp., related to the backdating of stock options, the Wall Street Journal reported on...

Sun to Offer 10G Ethernet Across Its Product Line.
February 20, 2007... Sun Microsystems is preparing to offer new 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology across its hardware product line, including its processors, blades, motherboards and switches. The Santa Clara, Calif., IT company formally announced its 10G...

CodeGear Branches Out with New PHP, Vista, AJAX Tools.
February 20, 2007... CodeGear, the developer tools unit of Borland Software, has announced new tools to enable the rapid development of PHP applications, as well as a new rapid application development environment for Windows Vista and AJAX. CodeGear on Feb. 20...

Commentary: JetBlue's Management Meltdown.
February 20, 2007... CEO David Neeleman pledged to "bring humanity back to air travel" through a combination of common sense with innovation and technology when he founded JetBlue Airways in 1999. "All travelers should have access to high-quality airline service at...

HP Profits Increase 26 Percent in First Quarter.(Financial report)
February 20, 2007... Hewlett-Packard, which has overtaken Dell as the world's largest producer of PCs, soared to profitability on Feb. 20, with earnings of 55 cents a share and revenue of $25.1 billion. Excluding one-time items and other charges, the Palo Alto,...

SAP Plans to 'Tuck' Pilot Software into NetWeaver.
February 20, 2007... Seeking to bolster the performance management analytics capabilities of its NetWeaver platform, SAP AG on Feb. 20 announced that it has acquired privately held Pilot Software of Mountain View, Calif. Pilot Software has a 20-year history in...

Storage Platform Enhances Mobile Users' Multimedia Experience.
February 21, 2007... Marvell Semiconductor announced Feb. 20 that, along with Seagate Technology, it has developed an ultra-portable storage platform that allows users to retrieve multimedia content wirelessly from their mobile handsets. The Seagate Digital...

ANSI-Approved Health IT Standard Announced.
February 21, 2007... A health IT standards group released a new, more-comprehensive standard for electronic health records on Feb. 21. The standard, released by Health Level Seven, is the first that specifies functional requirements for electronic...

JetBlue Not Alone: 5 Other Critical I.T. Events.(JetBlue Airways Corp.)(Brief article)
February 21, 2007... JetBlue's problems in the past week, as cancellations left tens of thousands of passengers stranded and tarnished the carrier's reputation, are still being tallied, but it's clear the company lacked a system that could reassign personnel...

Calculator: Comparing Security Testing Approaches.
February 21, 2007... What approach should you take to scan for internal and external vulnerabilities? This worksheet, prepared by Baseline with help from executives at security vendors VeriSign, BigFix and CyberTrust, shows some of the costs for using in-house...

TJX: Data Theft Began in 2005; Data Taken from 2003.(TJX Companies Inc.)(Brief article)
February 21, 2007... The mountains of data apparently taken from $15 billion retailer TJX were taken a lot earlier than had previously been announced, with the intrusions starting in 2005 and some of the impacted transactions dating back to 2003, TJX said in a...

CompTIA to Certify Printing, Document Imaging Technicians.
February 21, 2007... The Computing Technology Industry Association announced Feb. 21 that it plans to develop a new certification of IT skills that focuses on the printing and document imaging industry. The seven companies that plan to support this...

Google Apps Premier Edition Takes Aim at the Enterprise.
February 22, 2007... After months of testing, Google is ready to see whether businesses large and small are ready to pay to use its online suite of basic business applications, including spreadsheets, e-mail, word processing, calendars and instant messaging. ...

Privacy Advocates Resign from Federal Health IT Committee.
February 22, 2007... Citing lack of progress, the deputy director of the nonprofit Health Privacy Project resigned as co-chair of a federal committee charged with advising the government on privacy issues in electronic health information. In an open letter to...

USB Firewall Software Seeks to Prevent Insider Data Breaches.
February 22, 2007... The most problematic database security breaches often don't come hackers, but from the inside. With that in mind, the software company CoSoSys has released Secure it Easy for Windows Vista, software that blocks the unauthorized transfer of...

Microsoft Hit with $1.52B Patent Suit Damages.
February 22, 2007... NEW YORK (Reuters)--A U.S. federal jury found that Microsoft Corp. infringed audio patents held by Alcatel-Lucent and should pay $1.52 billion in damages, Microsoft said on Thursday. Microsoft said it plans to first ask the trial judge to...

Report: Offshoring to Have No Sudden Bad Effects.
February 22, 2007... While offshore outsourcing is expected to affect wages and employment in developing countries, it won't have any sudden negative impact on developed countries' economies, according to a report released Feb. 22 by the McKinsey Quarterly, the...

The Dissection of a Rootkit.
February 23, 2007... Security analysts have been predicting that kernel rootkits, which cloak their activity by replacing a portion of a program's software kernel with modified code, are expected to continue to grow in frequency in 2007. While rootkit-fighting...

IBM Patches Flaws in DB2 Database.
February 23, 2007... IBM has patched some serious flaws affecting users of DB2 Universal Database version 9.1 that could be exploited locally by attackers. A vulnerability in several set-uid DB2 binaries allows a user to write to any file on the system through...

Siemens Walks the Talk with Fixed Mobile Convergence.
February 26, 2007... A lot of vendors in the telecom space talk about Fixed Mobile Convergence. Siemens Communications on Feb. 26 will back up that talk with what officials claim is the first Session Initiation Protocol-based product to support dual-mode Wi-Fi/GSM...

ITAA Announces Results of Federal CIO Survey.(Information Technology Association of America)(chief information officers)(Brief article)
February 26, 2007... ARLINGTON, Va.--The Information Technology Association of America has found that CIOs in federal agencies think they're making great strides in security, enterprise management and in making progress on consolidating IT efforts to save money and...

Microsoft: UAC Can Be Hijacked by Social Engineering.
February 26, 2007... Microsoft's UAC in its Vista operating system release was meant to signify that finally, the company has gotten serious about securing Windows by limiting a user's rights during day-to-day computer usage. It's come to signify something...

Getting Unstuck from the Password-on-a-Stickie Method.
February 26, 2007... Rohm and Haas makes things stick. The glue that holds the first sheet of tissue paper to the roll, the stuff that keeps your candy bar wrapper snug on your chocolate, the chemicals in paint that keep it stuck to the wall. There are good...

Hewlett-Packard to Acquire Virtualizer PolyServe.
February 26, 2007... Hewlett-Packard said late on Feb. 26 it has agreed to acquire privately owned PolyServe, a Beaverton, Ore.-based provider of storage virtualization software for application and file-serving utilities. Terms of the deal were not disclosed....

Salesforce.com Announces 2.0 Strategy, Wealth Management Edition.(Brief article)
February 27, 2007... Some startling numbers emerged from Salesforce.com's fourth-quarter earnings announcement on Feb. 21, including a 58 percent increase in sales--the company added an impressive 90,000 net new subscribers for the quarter--tempered by a 91 percent...

Daylight-Saving Time Change: Bigger than Y2K?(Brief article)
February 27, 2007... Although nobody's crystal ball is clear on the impact that the change in the daylight-saving time rules will have on enterprise IT systems and applications, the problems could be bigger than most people realize. That's because IT shops...

IBM Pushing Clusters for Midmarket Businesses.
February 28, 2007... IBM is looking to expand its high-performance computing product offerings with an eye toward gaining traction in the midmarket space. The IT giant, based in Armonk, N.Y., is announcing on Feb. 28 several new software applications for its...

AMD Launches First ATI Integrated Chip Sets.
February 28, 2007... Advanced Micro Devices is finally delivering on its promise to integrate ATI graphics technology into its product line. On Feb. 28, the chip maker, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., plans to introduce a pair of chip sets called the AMD 690 series...

5 Tips for Asset Management Planning.
February 28, 2007... Information-technology asset management is changing, seemingly, by the minute. The software tools that manage I.T. assets from cradle to grave have many moving pieces--just ask the users we cited this month--and ownership changes have redrawn...

IBM Links Google Gadgets to WebSphere Portal.
February 28, 2007... Google gained a major new ally in its campaign to extend its applications and information services deeper into the enterprise with IBM's Feb. 28 announcement that it has integrated Google Gadgets with its WebSphere Portal. Customers who...