Baseline articles from June 2004

Baseline archives from June 2004

SAS Institute: Beyond Nerds.(Company Profile)
June 8, 2004... Most SAS Institute customers historically have worn lab coats and pocket protectors. Now the company wants to attract more customers who dress in business suits. For almost three decades, privately held SAS has been a top provider of...

Gotcha! A Surfeit of Terms and Tribulations.
June 8, 2004... For Merck, scientific computing isn't some ivory-tower exercise. Genetics, biology and medicine (an applied science) are all fundamental to Merck's business. But scientific computing poses a different set of challenges than those that arise in...

'Frugal' IT Doesn't Guarantee Profits.
June 8, 2004... Quantifying a return earned on an investment in information technology can be tough. Analyst firms from Nucleus Research to Alinean to Gartner have developed metrics, with acronyms ranging from ROI and ROIT to TCO and TVO. But it's not an...

Roadblock: the Management Committee.
June 8, 2004... The Obstacle Most strategic-thinking chief information officers feel they should report directly to the chief executive officer. Information technology, they argue, is just as critical to the corporation's success as finance or operations....

Base Technologies: Packaged and Customized Software.
June 8, 2004... Merck uses varied packaged and customized software systems for managing everything from international operations to research and development. Enterprise Systems Application: Financial management Product: J.D. Edwards Financials...

Merck's Player Roster.
June 8, 2004... Chris Scalet Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer Mr. Efficiency? Scalet joined Merck in March 2003 from International Paper, where he had been CIO since 1997. He plans to bring some of the paper industry's tight-fisted...

Merck Seeks a Cure.(Interview)(Company Profile)
June 8, 2004... When Chris Scalet arrived at Merck in March 2003, he knew he had a lot to learn. His immediate predecessors at the pharmaceutical giant had backgrounds in scientific computing and intimate knowledge of the information technology needs of the...

Wal-Mart RFID Suppliers to Top 100.
June 14, 2004... Wal-Mart Stores Inc. expects to have more than 100 suppliers shipping products to the retailing giant with radio wave tracking devices by January, according to a top executive. Simon Langford, Wal-Mart's manager for RFID (radio frequency...

Baselinemag.com Utilities FAQ.
June 25, 2004... *The download link doesn't work, why? *Why are they no longer free? *What happens to the utilities I previously downloaded? *What sort of support can I expect on the paid utilities? *Where do I get help if I have a problem with...

Trek Bicycle Corp: Tour de Force.
June 28, 2004... The day was sunny and warm in Waterloo, Wis., a low-key place where a truck stop operator can commute to work on a 16.5-horsepower Craftsman riding mower. It's 1997. Paul Andrews is taking a 20-minute spin on a Trek Y-Foil road bike. The...