Baseline articles from May 2007

Baseline archives from May 2007

Out of Scope: Tales From The Tech Project Front.(Driving While Texting law)(projects fails due to insufficient planning and scheduling goals survey)(NBC Universal's Web Master)
May 1, 2007... Put Your Thumbs Where I Can See 'Em! There's a new acronym that legislators want short-winded squirrelers to get used to: DWT. That's "Driving While Texting," the newest bit of collateral damage from handheld devices like cell phones and...

TIBCO to Buy Spotfire for $195 Million.
May 1, 2007... TIBCO Software has announced an agreement to acquire Spotfire in a deal worth $195 million. At TUCON (TIBCO User Conference) in San Francisco May 1, TIBCO unveiled its plans to acquire the privately held Somerville, Mass., company, which...

Tech CEOs Predict Swelled Use of Offshore Talent.
May 1, 2007... Admitting that finding, hiring and retaining qualified employees is their biggest operational challenge, nearly half of fast-growth technology CEOs said they are tapping overseas markets for talent. This is a trend they expect to only...

IBM to Cut 1,315 Jobs in U.S., Union Says.
May 2, 2007... SAN FRANCISCO--IBM, the world's largest technology services company, is cutting 1,315 services-related jobs in the United States, a union trying to organize IBM workers said on May 1. The cuts affect employees in a variety of areas...

Wal-Mart to Add RFID to 400 More Stores.
May 2, 2007... The world's largest retailer on May 1 reaffirmed its support for RFID, citing one-third fewer out-of-stock items, a reduction in excess supply chain inventory and shorter customer waits. At the RFID Journal Live conference in Orlando, Fla,...

Why Big IT Is a Different Place to Work.
May 2, 2007... From the size of systems to the depth of resources, working at a big IT shop bears little resemblance to smaller counterparts, finds new analysis from Forrester Research. Defined in the Forrester report as organizations with more than...

U.S. High Court Hands Tech Firms Patent Victories.
May 2, 2007... WASHINGTON--The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday sided with software and technology companies in two major patent rulings that could leave them less vulnerable to infringement lawsuits. The high court moved to curb the liability of firms for...

Apple Unveils Plans to Go Greener.
May 3, 2007... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Apple Inc., responding to criticism from environmental groups, unveiled plans on Wednesday that Chief Executive Steve Jobs claimed would make the company greener than most of its competitors. In a message titled, "A...

IT Worker Confidence a Mixed Bag.
May 3, 2007... Are IT workers confident about the economy, their jobs and finances? It depends who you ask. New York-based Hudson Talent Management, a recruiting firm, reported May 2 that confidence among IT professionals hit a record high in April, as...

Intel Plans Push into Mobility, Emerging Markets.
May 3, 2007... At a gathering of analysts in New York, the world's largest chip maker unveiled plans to use its 45-nm technology to enter new markets, while increasing the number of processors and platforms for laptops and ultramobile devices. At a...

Court Denies Vonage Bid for Patent Case Retrial.
May 3, 2007... WASHINGTON (Reuters)--A U.S. appeals court has denied a request by Internet phone company Vonage Holdings Corp. that it order a retrial in the patent infringement case brought against it by Verizon Communications Inc. The U.S. Court of...

AMD Hosts Preemptive Lunch Before Intel Launch.
May 3, 2007... AMD made a strong preemptive statement on May 2, hosting a press and analyst luncheon to hype the company's strengths in mobile processing compared to the upcoming Intel mobile chip code-named Santa Rosa. "We believe that versus Santa...

Network General Brings App Intelligence to Network Managers.
May 4, 2007... Network General on May 7 will deliver on some of the promises it made last September with the launch of its new Network Intelligence Suite and NetworkDNA Architecture. Both the architecture and the suite, which Network General beefed up...

Reports: Microsoft Eyeing Deal to Buy Yahoo.
May 4, 2007... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Microsoft Corp. has stepped up its pursuit of a deal to buy Yahoo Inc., two newspapers reported on Friday, as the two companies reenter talks to strike a deal amid huge growth from rival Google Inc. Yahoo shares jumped...

IPv6: Ready or Not.
May 4, 2007... Way to go, vendors of low-end routers and intrusion detection and prevention systems--you're a stumbling block on Bechtel's path to the next-generation Internet. "We're doing 'both IPv4 and the next-generation IPv6 networks', and we...

Web Alarms, Mobile Alerts Aim to Make You Safer.(emergency message networks)
May 5, 2007... NEW YORK (Reuters)--From emergency message networks that can reach 100,000 people within minutes, to alarm systems that allow you to monitor your home over the Web, new technologies are aiming to make U.S. consumers feel safer. While...

Sun Beefs Up NetBeans.
May 7, 2007... SAN FRANCISCO--Sun Microsystems and the NetBeans community will announce the availability of the NetBeans 6.0 Integrated Development Environment Preview release at the company's NetBeans Day prelude to its annual JavaOne conference on May 7....

I.T. Cost Containment: 5 Best Practices.
May 7, 2007... For many companies, the budgeting season is coming up fast. Two-thousand-and-seven has already taken shape, and the finance department is reminding managers that their forecasts for 2008 are due in a few months. Technologists aren't exempt from...

Dell Joins Microsoft, Novell in Linux Pact.
May 7, 2007... NEW YORK--Microsoft Corp. said on May 7 Dell Inc. had joined a business collaboration it had with Novell Inc. to allow open-source Linux software to work with Windows. The move makes Dell the first major systems provider to join the...

Oracle Makes Bid to Streamline Data Auditing.
May 7, 2007... Oracle has released an audit management tool company officials say will help address both regulatory compliance issues and the so-called insider threat facing enterprises. Organizations can use Oracle Audit Vault to centrally manage their...

IBM Offers Paid Support for No-Cost Data Server.
May 7, 2007... IBM is offering users of its no-cost DB2 Express-C data server a new paid-support option. The move, announced last week by IBM, made the company the first of the three largest database players to offer an annual support option for the...

The State of Ubuntu 7.04 Is Strong.
May 7, 2007... With companies and individuals everywhere failing to find the wow in Windows Vista, Apple's OS X riding iPod sales and snarky commercials to steady growth, and long-time Microsoft partner Dell announcing plans to market a Linux desktop to the...

Who Are the Linux Desktop Users?
May 8, 2007... A typical Linux desktop user is a guy in his twenties who's computer savvy but may very well not be an IT professional. Those are some of the conclusions you can draw from the just-released openSUSE survey results. The survey, published by...

Sun Reveals a Slew of Moves at JavaOne.
May 8, 2007... Sun Microsystems has announced the release of an open-source version of its Java Development Kit for Java Platform Standard Edition, the systems company and Java giant also announced a new competitor to Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's...

Why Do CIOs Get Fired?(Excerpt)
May 8, 2007... Having viewed success from many angles, Robert J. Herbold now analyzes its perils. Herbold, a Ph.D. in computer science, served as senior vice president of advertising and information services worldwide during his 26-year tenure at Procter &...

Video Resumes: A New Way To Land A Job?
May 8, 2007... First Aleksey Vayner's video resume made him infamous. Now it may have spawned a niche market. Vayner's almost seven-minute film, dubbed "Impossible is Nothing," showcased the then-Yale student smashing bricks barehanded, ballroom dancing...

HP Teams with Intel to Remotely Manage Laptops.
May 9, 2007... Hewlett Packard will chime in on Intel's Centrino Pro launch on May 9 with greater manageability for laptops using the new mobile processor technology. HP worked early on with Intel to allow IT administrators to secure and manage notebook...

Dell Notebooks Turn Green.
May 9, 2007... Dell is bringing to its enterprise customers a greener notebook that will also help cut down on electrical bills. The Round Rock, Texas, PC vendor announced three new notebooks May 9 that company officials said can be configured to meet the...

I.T. Exec Out of Touch? 7 Signs.(information technology executives)
May 9, 2007... We are all keenly aware that there are hundreds of I.T. consultants around the world ready to jump to our assistance. Of course, many of these experts can be out of touch with the latest developments in their respective fields, but they still...

Red Hat's New Global Desktop Is Ready to Run.
May 9, 2007... SAN DIEGO--Red Hat announced its upcoming new client product, the Red Hat Global Desktop, at its annual summit here on May 9. The global desktop is designed to deliver a modern user experience with an enterprise-class suite of productivity...

Java Security Traps Getting Worse.
May 9, 2007... A year ago at JavaOne, Fortify Software Founder and Chief Scientist Brian Chess gave a presentation titled "12 Java Technology Security Traps and How to Avoid Them." A year later, how far have we come in addressing those inherent...

Java Security Traps Getting Worse.
May 9, 2007... A year ago at JavaOne, Fortify Software Founder and Chief Scientist Brian Chess gave a presentation titled "12 Java Technology Security Traps and How to Avoid Them." A year later, how far have we come in addressing those inherent...

Microsoft Outlines BI Strategy, Platform.
May 9, 2007... Microsoft declared the opening day of its first BI conference, May 9, "a new day" for business intelligence, with the same old goal every BI vendor has had for years: To make BI ubiquitous in the enterprise, used by all relevant workers, not...

VMware's Latest Virtualization Software Supports Vista.
May 9, 2007... VMware has added to the latest version of its workstation virtualization software support for Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system. The Workstation 6 desktop virtualization software, or hypervisor, which the Palo Alto, Calif.,...

Report: Supply of IT Pros Down, Though Demand Is Up.
May 10, 2007... IT employment posted a small increase in April, but has remained essentially flat for the last 11 months, finds the April 2007 IT employment report released on May 9 by the National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses, a trade...

Nokia Launches Energy-Saving Phones.
May 10, 2007... Nokia on May 10 announced new phones designed to help users save energy by notifying them when their phone has been charged. The phones feature an alert that encourages people to unplug the charger once the battery is full, helping to...

HP Beefs Up Blade Services.
May 11, 2007... Hewlett-Packard is moving to show its blade customers that there's more to its service offerings than hardware repairs. Starting May 11, the Palo Alto, Calif., company will start offering blade customers a new set of services dubbed HP...

IBM Moves to Make Data Centers More Energy-Efficient.
May 11, 2007... IBM on May 11 introduced its energy-efficiency deployment strategy, where the company will invest $1 billion per year to help businesses increase their level of energy efficiency in their IT departments while also allowing businesses to save...

U.S. Rep. Sounds IT Wake-Up Call.
May 11, 2007... In an article in the Spring issue of Issues in Science and Technology, Congressman Bart Gordon, chair of the house Committee on Science and Technology, lambasted the education system for not giving students the solid grounding in math and...

Google to Focus on Software: CEO.
May 12, 2007... MOUNTAIN VIEW, California (Reuters)--Google Inc.'s corporate tagline has become "Search, Ads and Apps," reflecting a shift beyond search and advertising into online software applications, its chief executive said on Thursday. Speaking to...

AMD's New Quad-Core Chip is a 'Phenom'.
May 14, 2007... Advanced Micro Devices believes its next generation quad-core desktop processors are a true phenomenon in the IT industry. With those high expectations in mind, AMD is preparing to launch its quad-core desktop processors, which will go by...

Microsoft Claims Open-Source Technology Violates 235 of Its Patents.
May 14, 2007... Microsoft is using the threat of patent violations by the free and open-source software community to try to drive enterprise customers to SUSE Enterprise Linux and to further muddy the waters around the next version of the upcoming GNU General...

SAP Snags 2 Companies, Partners with SunGard.
May 14, 2007... At its annual international Sapphire user event, this year held in Vienna, SAP is stressing several themes centered on the notion of helping companies to keep up with global changes--mandates, regulations, consolidations--and to differentiate...

Report: Tech's Gender Gap Widened by Uninviting Workplace.
May 14, 2007... For years, word has circulated of a significant gender gap in the technology workplace, where women are greatly outnumbered by men. The blame is typically placed on low interest on the part of women to pursue computers and engineering, but...

Sun's Gosling: Java Is Open Source and Doing Just Fine.
May 14, 2007... James Gosling, the creator of the Java language, is a Sun Microsystems vice president and fellow. Gosling spoke with eWEEK senior editor Darryl K. Taft at JavaOne and discussed the open-sourcing of Java, new directions for the Java platform and...

Gates to Tout First 100 Days of Vista at WinHEC.
May 15, 2007... LOS ANGELES--The 2,700 attendees at Microsoft's annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference here are going to get an earful about Windows Vista, the upcoming Windows Server "Longhorn" and Windows Home Server--and that's just from the keynote...

Oracle to Buy PLM Specialist Agile for $495M.
May 15, 2007... Oracle continued its relentless campaign of cherry-picking enterprise application software companies with a May 15 agreement to buy Agile Software, a producer of product lifecycle management products, for $495 million in cash. Oracle has...

Enterprise Apps Vendors Vie for Position.
May 15, 2007... The enterprise software market is in flux, with applications vendors morphing into platform providers, service-based architecture concepts ruling development investments, consolidations dominating the marketplace and customers looking for...

Microsoft Research Aims to Make Computing Ubiquitous.
May 15, 2007... LOS ANGELES--Microsoft is doing research on multiple fronts aimed at bringing computing into every aspect of people's lives and improving the ways that they communicate, said Craig Mundie, the company's chief research and strategy officer,...

Software Guru: Clean Technology Bigger than Internet.
May 15, 2007... FRANKFURT (Reuters)--A global response to climate change will spur a business revolution bigger than the Internet, said co-founder of Sun Microsystems Bill Joy. "This is a much larger opportunity," he told Reuters, pointing to the scale of...

Novell and SAP Partner Up.
May 16, 2007... SAP AG and Novell announced May 15 that they have extended their relationship to offer a new joint support solution for customers who run SAP applications on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. These customers now have a single support entry point...

SAP, Microsoft Team to Increase Migration to SQL Server 2005.
May 16, 2007... SAP AG and Microsoft Corp. are extending their longtime partnership to win over customers in a bid to reduce the risk and cost associated with migrating to SAP's Enterprise Resource Planning software on SQL Server 2005 from rival products. ...

Where Will All the IT Cowboys Go?
May 16, 2007... NASHVILLE, Tenn.--Over the next five years, business will become so deeply embodied in technology--and technology so embedded in the business--that it will change the way IT is managed by an organization. This was the message delivered by...

Oracle's Agile Buy Could Boost PLM.
May 16, 2007... With Oracle's intended $495 million acquisition of software maker Agile Software, product lifecycle management may finally have its day. PLM software, which manages a product's life cycle from design and material procurement through...

How We Picked Our Top CIOs.
May 17, 2007... "Influential" will never have the air of rigor, however phony, that ROI enjoys. There is no equivalent in the IT world to baseball statistician Bill James, measuring CIOs by such metrics as NPCC Average (Number of Projects Copied by...

Naughty Norton: Symantec Fixes Flaw in Security Software.
May 17, 2007... Symantec has fixed a serious vulnerability with an ActiveX control used by Norton Personal Firewall 2004 and Norton Internet Security 2004 that could allow a hacker to execute code remotely on a vulnerable system. According to Symantec...

Thin Clients Save Energy, Spare CO2.
May 17, 2007... Using thin clients instead of conventional PCs would lower energy consumption by 51 percent and reduce CO2 emissions, concludes a recent study by the Fraunhofer Institute. The study, whose results were announced Wednesday by Igel Technology,...

Six Steps to Successful Vendor Management.
May 17, 2007... NASHVILLE, Tenn.--To meet the technology needs of their organizations, CIOs are increasingly turning to outside vendors, a trend that appears to have little chance of letting up. Although the ability to manage vendors effectively enhances the...

Critical Flaws Found in Java Development Kit.
May 17, 2007... Two vulnerabilities open to remote exploitation by hackers have been found in Java Development Kit, one of which could be used to take over a compromised system. JDK (Java Development Kit) is a software development tool made by Sun...

Security: New Study IDs Top Threats.
May 17, 2007... It seems no matter how many companies make the news because of IT security problems--recent victims and foul-ups include AOL LLC, AT&T Inc., Sovereign Bancorp Inc., the TJX Companies, UCLA and Verizon Wireless--the perceived state of security...

How Secure Are Mid-Market Companies?
May 17, 2007... For several years now, CIO Insight's annual security surveys have found that IT executives have more confidence in their security than is warranted by the strength of their security measures, or the number of breaches that are occurring....

Microsoft Reorg Focuses on Business.
May 18, 2007... Microsoft has reshuffled its organizational chart again, this time adding the Developer and Platform Evangelism team to its Server and Tools division, and then moving that merged entity into the Business division. The server and tools...

Computing Grid Helps Get to the Heart of Matter.
May 20, 2007... In November, when physicists at CERN in Switzerland begin their grand experiment using the world's largest particle accelerator--the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC--computer scientists there and across the globe will also put the world's largest...

Salesforce Announces On-Demand SOA Feature.
May 21, 2007... At its first developer conference May 21 centered on Apex, Salesforce.com's yet-to-be-released on-demand programming language, the company announced a new platform capability that will help developers build on-demand applications. ...

Nortel Reveals Data Networking Strategy.(Nortel Networks outlines its Business Optimized Networking products at Interop conferance)
May 21, 2007... Nortel Networks will try to breathe new life into its data networking product portfolio when it outlines its Business Optimized Networking strategy backed up by three new products on May 21 at Interop in Las Vegas. The strategy, built on...

Special Report: I.T. Security Findings.
May 21, 2007... Finding 1:IT Executives Say Security Is Adequate Despite Threats Security snafus often make news, but most CIOs aren't rattled. As previous CIO Insight surveys have shown, very few IT executives think their companies are at high risk, and most...

EMC Plans On-Demand Storage Offering.
May 21, 2007... ORLANDO, Fla.--According to CEO Joe Tucci, EMC plans to develop a storage service offering to penetrate the SMB market, where it has "relatively little share today." Speaking in an interview with eWEEK editors here at the EMC World partner...

IBM Shows Impact of SOA.
May 21, 2007... ORLANDO, Fla.--IBM is serious about service-oriented architecture. It's so serious that the company is holding an entire conference around SOA this week in Orlando, the Impact 2007 event. Impact 2007 is IBM first customer event focusing on...

IronPort Revamps Security Monitoring Site.
May 21, 2007... IronPort Systems has revised its Internet traffic monitoring Web site, a resource for IT staffers searching for a real-time view into security threats. This Web site, www.senderbase.org, provides e-mail administrators visibility into the...

Methodology: How the Survey was Done.(Brief article)
May 21, 2007... CIO Insight editors designed the 2007 Security Survey together with members of the Ziff Davis Media research staff. IT executives gathered from Ziff Davis Media publication lists were invited to participate in the study by e-mail. The questions...

Dell Ubuntu Linux Desktop Details Emerge.
May 22, 2007... On the record, a Dell spokesman said he "can't comment on unannounced products," when asked about Dell's forthcoming Ubuntu-powered PCs. Over on Direct2Dell, meanwhile, John Hull, Dell's manager of Linux OS technologies, on May 21 published...

U.S. House Approves Less Stringent Anti-spyware Bill.
May 22, 2007... WASHINGTON (Reuters)--The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation on Tuesday that would impose specific penalties for the fraudulent use of spyware but would not impose new requirements on software makers. House lawmakers approved...

A Linux Computer in Every Garage?
May 22, 2007... A U.S. government- and industry-led coalition aiming to equip every car and roadside in America with wirelessly connected computers has tapped Linux for a prototype design. The Vehicle Infrastructure Integration Consortium (VII-C) hopes to...

Proposed National Database Raises Privacy Concerns.
May 22, 2007... The mammoth database system that would be needed under an immigration bill currently being discussed by Congress has security experts thinking about procedures, privacy and protection. The Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and...

MS Security Tool for Office 2003 Hits the Scene.
May 22, 2007... Microsoft officials have released a much-anticipated tool to help protect Office 2003 from malware attacks. MOICE (Microsoft Office Isolated Conversion Environment) has gone live and is available for download. The free tool converts files...

ITIL in the Data Center: Adoption Low, but Interest High.
May 23, 2007... A study conducted by Symantec found that IT professionals worldwide are counting on a variety of technologies, including Information Technology Infrastructure Library frameworks, storage capacity management and virtualization to ease the...

Activist Rails Against 'Myth' that U.S. IT Skills Are Inferior.
May 23, 2007... On the heels of a busy season for H-1B-related activity--a record-breaking depletion of the temporary worker visas, two related pieces of Senate legislation and a published list of the companies that are taking the most advantage of the...

Health Care Gets a Better IT Prescription.
May 24, 2007... The health care industry can expect to get a big shot in the arm in the coming months from IT vendors as more and more top-tier OEMs look to invest considerable time and money in solutions for patients and doctors. In just the past several...

Survey: Data Centers Facing New Complexity Challenges.
May 24, 2007... Data security and storage provider Symantec announced May 23 the findings of a study that reveals some harsh realities but might not be much of a surprise to many IT managers: IT professionals worldwide struggle with the increasing complexity...

Dell to Sell Through Wal-Mart.
May 24, 2007... Dell will make its first move into the retail channel starting on June 10, putting two of its Dimension desktop computers out to be sold through the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart. CEO Michael Dell hinted in April in a widely leaked...

MS Nixes Potential IIS 6.0 Flaw.
May 24, 2007... Microsoft on May 24 concluded an investigation into a potential IIS 6.0 flaw that researchers said may lead to a denial of service attack and which researchers said "definitely" allows attackers to access special DOS devices (COM1 in this...

Connecticut Sues Best Buy for Deceiving Customers.
May 24, 2007... After months of investigation, the state of Connecticut sued Best Buy on May 24 and accused the chain of tricking customers with two identical-looking Web sites in its stores, with the only difference being that one had higher prices. ...

Keylogging Trojan Dodges Anti-virus Detection.
May 24, 2007... A new variant of the Russian Trojan Gozi is circulating on the Web, this time armed with a keylogging function and the ability to scramble itself so it is difficult to detect by anti-virus software. The Trojan is believed to have been...

Apple Patches 17 Bugs.(for Mac OS X)
May 25, 2007... Apple on May 24 released patches for 17 vulnerabilities spanning a host of technologies and a slew of potential unpleasantness: from system takeover to denial of service to password snatching. The patches can be downloaded automatically by...