Baseline articles from March 2002

Baseline archives from March 2002

How ADP Gets Tough with IBM.(Automatic Data Processing)
March 1, 2002... In the basement of Automatic Data Processing's labs in Roseland, N.J., server farms pound on IBM's WebSphere application server. Even on weekends, when VP of Internet and client/server development Yen-Ping Shan would go to supervise, the...

By the Numbers: March 2002.
March 1, 2002... Download the PDF file for this month's charts and statistics, including: *Security Attacks Rise, Breaches Kept at Bay *Who's Attacking? *Infrastructure: From Whom to Buy? *Fancy Isn't Frivolous: HTML vs. Text E-mail *Web...

Containing the Pain of Scope Creep.(project management)
March 1, 2002... Cost overruns. Delays. Infighting. Most problems in the development lifecycle can be traced back to scope creep--including project failure. Scope creep is a natural part of every project, says Douglas Brindley, senior vice president of...

Why Andersen Cracked in IT Suit.
March 6, 2002... Arthur Andersen is not just struggling with fallout of its auditing work at Enron, Global Crossing and Qwest Communications. Its information technology consulting also led to an agreement to pay Department 56--an Eden Prairie, Minn.,...

Enron: Security Woes, Too?
March 8, 2002... Protecting a company from external computer hackers is not a job for the faint of heart. Even when the attacks are routine, it's tough, and it can be risky. Add a bunch of angry ex-employees and a slew of investigators who all want to get at...

Allfirst Financial: Out of Control.
March 12, 2002... Baltimore's Mount Washington neighborhood is not a likely locale for an international banking scandal. But the narrow streets of this hilly upper-middle class enclave were jammed in the first week of February with TV remote trucks and British...

How Allfirst Gambled on Monte Carlo.
March 12, 2002... It's a truism--or at least it should be--that the most expensive software you can buy is the wrong software. Never has that been more painfully obvious than in the case of Allfirst Financial, the U.S. subsidiary of Allied Irish Banks, where one...

Inside WorldCom's Billing Blunders.
March 14, 2002... Four years after telecommunications giant WorldCom acquired long-distance sibling MCI for $34.7 billion, the company continues to face significant hurdles in providing large customers with a single, accurate bill for its services. While...

How Allfirst Trader Fudged Data.
March 14, 2002... Allied Irish Bank on Thursday spelled out its accusations against former Allfirst Financial currency trader John Rusnak in the wake of a scandal that lost the AIB subsidiary $691 million. AIB's report of an internal investigation accuses...

Auditor or Consultant? Time to Choose.
March 14, 2002... The Enron implosion seems to have proven that it's not smart to use the same company as your auditor that you use for consulting work. But what if you're already in that position--if your auditor is already your information technology...

Can Tech Protect Food from Terror Attacks?
March 15, 2002... American consumers may always have harbored a low-level worry that the produce they buy will be less than fresh, or the raw meat tainted with some naturally occurring bacteria. But now, in a world that suggests threats from terrorists almost...

Why Osram Stuck with SAP.
March 18, 2002... Paul Byrne was not sure how his pitch would play. The SAP account executive wanted deeply to keep Osram Sylvania as a client for SAP's enterprise software. But Osram, one of the three largest manufacturers of lamps, bulbs and lighting equipment...

Getting a Handle on Biometrics.
March 18, 2002... What is it? In today's usage, technology that uses unique biological attributes, such as fingerprints or iris patterns, to identify a person. Why bother with it? It's the ultimate in security. Unlike smart cards or passwords, fingers and...

The Osram Player Roster.(Osram Sylvania)
March 18, 2002... Mehrdad Laghaeian CIO, Osram Sylvania Role: Responsible for all information technology projects undertaken within Osram Sylvania. Became involved with bringing SAP software to Osram when he joined the company in 1994. Henny Peters EVP, GM,...

How Carreker Manages PeopleSoft.
March 18, 2002... Carreker--a $110.3-million-a-year provider of software and consulting to banks--bought software around which it could organize itself. The company found that the best way to manage that choice was to change itself, not its software or its...

Why Odwalla Pitches Oracle.
March 18, 2002... Ostensibly, companies develop "co-marketing" programs in order to promote themselves to the outside world. But for Gary Hensley, director of information technology at Odwalla, a maker of high-energy juices and snack bars in Half Moon Bay,...

Gotcha! Creating a Portal for Enterprise Applications.
March 18, 2002... Did You Know That: Networks that work well serving data to desktop computers from internal servers may slow to a crawl with the use of applications based on the Web Less processing on the users' PCs means more demand on network...

How to Bid Farewell to Microsoft.(Life Time Fitness moves away from Microsoft's Web-based software)
March 18, 2002... Brent Zempel wasn't sure when or how it happened. But as CIO of Life Time Fitness, he had to untangle the $225-million-a-year health club and food retailer from the comfortable constriction of Microsoft's Web-based software, in favor of a...

How JetBlue Makes Microsoft Fly.
March 18, 2002... Jeff Cohen dogs Microsoft. He calls, he visits, he lobbies his way into every early adopter program he can find that will help JetBlue Airways take advantage of the latest Microsoft technologies. Cohen says he works hard at getting and...

SAP: Technical Virtuoso.
March 18, 2002... SAP is a relentless $6.4 billion seller of complex software to large corporations. The company excels in one of the most technically demanding areas--enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Its products, particularly its ERP package...

When a Project's ROI Can't Be Pinpointed.
March 18, 2002... We spend a lot of time at Baseline thinking about the business case--the often-sensible requirement that technology initiatives must be demonstrable winners, paying for themselves by returning more cash than they consume. These sorts of...

Spin Unspun: Adding Up Oracle's New Pricing Plan.(for the Oracle 11i business-management software suite)
March 18, 2002... In January, Oracle announced a new licensing plan for its 11i business-management software suite--a flat rate of $4,000 per user for access to all its applications. Oracle Vice President Jacqueline Woods says the new pricing model could save...

The Bottom Line Per ... Don Sunderland.(CIO of Edison Schools)(Interview)
March 18, 2002... Don Sunderland arrived in 1999 as chief information officer of Edison Schools, a for-profit company that runs 136 public elementary and secondary schools from Chula Vista, Calif., to Baltimore. A former managing director in charge of global...

The Twin Challenges of Succeeding as CIO.
March 18, 2002... Throughout my career, I've made it a point to understand every aspect of the business I'm in, and understand what the customer wants from my business. Growing up in a small town in the South, I was fortunate to have been raised by my...

Bad Software Can "Enronize" Anyone.
March 18, 2002... "Kenny Boy" Lay and his cohorts at Enron sold the world on a badly flawed company, whose innards were twisted beyond reclamation, but were beyond their responsibility. Or so they would claim. So, in the extreme, can it be with companies...

Imperial Sugar Rebuilds on Web Services.
March 18, 2002... At the outset of 2001, life at Imperial Sugar was about to turn bitter. As sugar prices collapsed, so did the Sugar Land, Texas, company, filing for bankruptcy protection. It was hardly the ideal time to start a bleeding-edge technology...

A Cheat Sheet for CRM Success.
March 18, 2002... "People are going into CRM and failing left and right," says Mark Sklenar, VP and CIO at Underwriters Laboratories, the product safety and testing organization. "There's a high degree of complexity here that's not fully appreciated." ...

Voice of Experience: Charles Irsch, Centex Homes.
March 18, 2002... Charles Irsch Centex Homes Vice President, Information Systems Dallas, Texas www.centexhomes.com Manager's Profile: Irsch held a variety of information technology posts and worked as a consultant at Arthur Andersen & Co. before joining...

Siebel: The Undisputed Leader.
March 18, 2002... There are reasons Siebel is the leader in customer relationship management software. Its products are technically sound and its interface is top-notch. It's setting the pace with CRM products tailored for industries such as retail and auto. And...

PeopleSoft: A Focus on Simplicity.
March 18, 2002... In becoming the first major vendor to introduce a customer relationship management product specifically for the Web, PeopleSoft was ahead of the pack. But technology managers who have bought or evaluated the now nine-month-old package say...

Oracle: A Bumpy Beginning.(the company's CRM suite)
March 18, 2002... There's a lot to be said for Oracle as a customer relationship management vendor. Its core CRM suite is getting better, and the support the company provides is excellent (and doesn't tail off after Oracle closes the sale). But for all its...

SLAs: A Penalty Now Saves Suffering Later.(service level agreement)
March 18, 2002... Negotiating any part of a service level agreement (SLA) can be tricky, but perhaps none is more so than penalties. It is at this point, where rosy promises of performance are linked to stark dollar amounts, that hackles rise. "It's always...

Sun Makes New Play for Developers.(announces the formation of the Java Center of Excellence practice)
March 28, 2002... SAN FRANCISCO--Even as Microsoft pulls out the stops to convince corporate developers that Java is passe, Sun Microsystems has been working behind the scenes to up the programming language's corporate appeal--and even to steal away some of...