Baseline articles from May 2004

Baseline archives from May 2004

Drilling Into Web Bedrock.
May 1, 2004... Toyota Financial Services (TFS) last year decided to make a clean break from the past. The Torrance, Calif.-based finance and insurance subsidiary of Toyota Motor has run a homegrown call-center application for more than 15 years to help manage...

Virgin Territory.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Mike Parks Virgin Mobile USA Chief Information Officer Walnut Creek, Calif. www.virginmobileusa.com Manager's Profile: Head of technology operations and strategy for the "virtual" mobile phone network operator, a joint...

BEA's WebLogic : Quick on the Draw.
May 1, 2004... BEA has been heartily toasting itself after reaching the billion-dollar-sales mark for its most recent fiscal year. But to customers, the nine-year-old company remains a scrappy independent that must work harder and smarter to beat its larger...

IBM's WebSphere:: Dances With Mainframes.
May 1, 2004... IBM's WebSphere Application Server has the most appeal for those who already have a good deal of Blue in their blood. In late 2000, Atlanta-based National Account Service Co. (NASCO), which processes more than 100 million health-benefits...

What Is Your System for Finding People?
May 1, 2004... There's one thing that executives who run information system projects often forget they're in charge of. Information. It's so easy--and fascinating--to get caught up in software engineering that you can forget the actual object is to...

Making a Store Fit Its Customers.
May 1, 2004... The discipline I learned as a pianist has helped me throughout my technology career. Music requires that you have the ability to focus, collaborate, be creative, then execute, whether it's for an upcoming concert or a master class. The same is...

Sun Tries to Avoid a Nightmare.
May 1, 2004... Called to task by their customers for childish squabbling, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft have agreed to play nice. Sort of. If you've heard Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy speak in the past about Microsoft, the last thing you'd have...

Hoopmasters: Courting Success.
May 1, 2004... College basketball's championship tournament is known as March Madness, but things really get crazy in the business of amateur hoops in July. Midsummer is peak season for the high-profile tournaments and camps where high-school stars show...

Oracle's Application Server: Captive Audience.(Company Profile)
May 1, 2004... In the late 1990s, Oracle executives realized the company was leaving millions of dollars on the table as customers hooked up BEA or IBM application servers to Oracle databases. Since then, Oracle has bulldozed its way to the No. 3 spot in the...

Green Bay Packers: Reel Time.
May 1, 2004... Green Bay Packers fullback William Henderson isn't known for his gaudy statistics. He doesn't pass for 210 yards a game like quarterback Brett Favre and doesn't average eight tackles like linebacker Nick Barnett. His metric: "dominating...

San Jose Sharks: On Thick Ice.
May 1, 2004... Joe Will and other San Jose Sharks executives finally have something to smile about this spring. Their National Hockey League team is back in the playoffs--and with a lighter payroll.That means Will is probably doing something right. He is the...

Riding Radio Waves.
May 4, 2004... As project leaders ponder pilots of radio frequency identification systems this summer, in the rush to meet the mandates from Wal-Mart, Target, the Department of Defense and others, the real action may be at the theme parks where they'll take...

Google's Big Project.(Brief Article)
May 4, 2004... Search provider Google's highly anticipated initial public offering filing featured a folksy letter to shareholders, stellar financials and plans to allow small investors to purchase shares. But it also listed a technology project as a key risk...

Olympic Recycling.
May 6, 2004... In Athens this summer, the organizers of the Olympic Games will attempt a technological feat never tried before at the Games: recycling. No, technology staffers won't be collecting discarded Evian bottles for the deposit, but they will...

Vexed Vendors.
May 6, 2004... Computer Associates ousted its chairman and chief executive over accounting concerns. Ditto for Nortel Networks, which booted its CEO and chief financial officer. What will you do if your vendor hits turbulence? It's a question worth...

Billy Beane: What MBAs Can Learn From MLB.
May 20, 2004... When you have to run a major league baseball team--or any organization--on a shoestring, you can't afford to roll the dice with the payroll and hope for the best. You have to make every dollar count. And making salaries count is the...

Regulation Redux.
May 28, 2004... Are you ready to declare your company secure against attacks from cyberterrorists? If you're not, get moving. The odds are increasing that in the not-so-distant future, legislators will make corporate America adhere to yet-to-be-defined...

My Weird Project: Sewage Stats.(Brief Article)
May 28, 2004... Project Manager: Andy Harbison, Instrumentation Chief, City of Orlando Wastewater Dept. Project: Flushing Out Data. Harbison maintains the systems that track how much raw sewage sloshes through Orlando's waste-treatment plants. Up to 20...

A Deal to Watch.(Web services alliance between SAP, Microsoft)
May 28, 2004... Autumn Bayles, chief information officer for Tasty Baking Co., expects the May 11 Web services alliance between SAP and Microsoft to make it easier for the $250-million-a-year Philadelphia snack cake company to become more efficient. "It's...

Back in Control.(Company Profile)
May 28, 2004... Obscured by the attention paid to the $11 billion worth of outright accounting fraud at telecommunications giant WorldCom was this normally staggering detail: The company, now known as MCI, didn't really know what its costs were for each line...