Baseline articles from November 2006

Baseline archives from November 2006

EMC Buys De-Duplication Specialist Avamar.(Company overview)
November 1, 2006... ORLANDO, Fla.--EMC, the world market leader in several information management and storage sectors, on Nov. 1 announced a signed agreement to acquire privately held Avamar Technologies, a provider of enterprise-class data protection software...

Interview: Democrat Says Sarbanes-Oxley Already Being Thinned.
November 1, 2006... WASHINGTON (Reuters)--The most controversial section of 2002's post-Enron Sarbanes-Oxley law--under fire in the run-up to Tuesday's elections--is already being thinned down by regulators under orders from the U.S. Congress, a senior Democrat...

SQL Server 2005 SP1 Users Face Vista, Longhorn Glitches.
November 1, 2006... Microsoft's corporate customers may have another reason to take their time upgrading to Vista. The latest one is that the current version, Microsoft's SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 1, released in April 2006, won't work with Vista or with the...

IBM Intros Cross-Platform App Deployment Package.
November 1, 2006... IBM, based in Armonk, N.Y., announced Nov. 1 the launching of Lotus Expeditor, an open standards platform for creating Eclipse-based Web 2.0 applications. Lotus Expeditor will target enterprises who want to combine existing and new...

Dell Offers AMD-Based Notebook on Its Web Site.
November 1, 2006... It appears that Dell is ready to start offering an AMD-based notebook. Although no formal announcement was made Nov. 1 by the PC maker, Dell's Web site displayed the Inspiron 1501 notebook, offering customers a chance to order the notebook...

Chesapeake Energy CEO on Working Without an I.T. Budget.
November 2, 2006... In 1989, Aubrey McClendon and Tom Ward, two 29-year-old Oklahoma oil guys, created Chesapeake Energy, which specializes in natural gas--what the two saw as the future of energy. While Ward retired from the company this year at age 46,...

CA's Ex-CEO Sentenced to 12 Years in Prison.
November 2, 2006... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Sanjay Kumar, the former chief executive of CA Inc., was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison Thursday for his role in a $2.2 billion accounting fraud at the computer software company. U.S. Judge Leo Glasser also...

Microsoft/Novell Patent Deal Opens Up Opportunity.
November 2, 2006... Microsoft's agreement with Novell to collaborate on Windows/Linux interoperability sheds light on the many patent issues surrounding open-source and proprietary-source development, opening opportunities for those who can help sort those issues...

Certeon Confronts Challenges of Open XML.
November 2, 2006... Microsoft's new open XML file format could take the wind out of the sails of application acceleration vendors thanks to the compression it adds to those files. One new startup in the fast maturing market is working to exploit that. Certeon...

Air Force to Create Cyberspace Command.(Brief article)
November 2, 2006... WASHINGTON (Reuters)--The U.S. Air Force plans to set up what could become a major command aimed at safeguarding U.S. military and civilian cyberspace, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said on Thursday. Wynne, speaking at a military...

Adobe Acrobat 8, Acrobat Connect Foster Real-Time Collaboration.
November 2, 2006... Adobe Systems announced in a statement Nov. 2 the release of its latest collaborative software, Acrobat 8 for PDF files and forms, and Acrobat Connect, a hosted Web conferencing program. Acrobat 8 will allow users to interact with...

E-Voting, As it Takes Hold, Faces Big Risks.
November 3, 2006... With Tuesday's midterm elections nearing, computer experts are sounding an alarm about possible problems with the electronic systems that two in every five voters will be using. And more recently, there has been criticism of the Defense...

Another Nail in the IT Certification Coffin.(Brief article)
November 3, 2006... IT certifications are worth less than ever, and the value of non-certified technology skills has surged, according to the third-quarter edition of the "Hot Technical Skills and Certifications Pay Index" from Foote Partners, a New Canaan, Conn.,...

IBM, Business Objects Deepen Relationship.
November 3, 2006... IBM, which has pledged to invest $1 billion over the next three years on developing information management products and services, announced Nov. 2 a deal with business intelligence software developer Business Objects that should help further...

The Midterm Elections.
November 6, 2006... Tuesday's mid-term elections will test the power of technology. Will electronic voting systems measure up to expectations? Will blogs and other digital campaigning methods prove successful? Read on for the latest news and opinions from CIO...

Gates Outlines Live Dynamics Vision.
November 6, 2006... Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, at the company's first European-based Convergence conference that kicked off in Munich Nov. 6, is working hard to show that Microsoft is on top of the tech revolution--at least when it comes to offering its...

Cognos Gives Banking Industry BI Blueprint.
November 6, 2006... Cognos, a software company that specializes in business intelligence and performance planning, announced in a statement Nov. 6 the release of Cognos Customer Segment Performance Blueprint, designed to help retail and corporate banks turn...

PeopleSoft Founder Launches ERP Software Company.
November 6, 2006... Dave Duffield, founder of PeopleSoft, announced Nov. 6 the launch of a new ERP company with its foothold in human resources--the area of backend business applications where PeopleSoft made its name. The big difference with Workday,...

SOA Success: Five Actions CIOs Say You Should Take.
November 6, 2006... Alan Goldstein, managing-director of the Bank of New York's technology risk management and architecture division, says service-oriented architecture has let the bank trim 15 percent to 20 percent of the cost of new development and testing. He...

Customer Self-Service: Automat Redux.
November 6, 2006... Opportunity Customer self-service can make small companies seem bigger, and big companies more personal. Amid the wreckage of countless failed CRM rollouts, a bright spot is emerging. Companies that grossly underestimated, by orders of...

WSJ: Verizon Near Content Deal with YouTube.
November 7, 2006... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Verizon Communications Inc., the No. 2 U.S. telecommunications company, is in advanced talks with YouTube Inc. to bring the Web site's videos to cellphones and television sets, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday....

HP, SAP Ink Deal to Better Optimize Apps on Hardware.
November 8, 2006... What do "Shrek 2" and SAP have in common? A lot, according to Hewlett-Packard. The infrastructure hardware company announced Nov. 7 that it will collaborate with SAP on research aimed at improving the efficiency of HP systems running SAP...

E-Voting Glitches Abound: Five States with the Biggest Problems.
November 8, 2006... With roughly 33 percent of all voters using new electronic equipment to cast their votes in yesterday's mid-term election, there was little surprise when precincts began reporting problems with the machines. In fact, counties in at least seven...

Microsoft Ships New Malware Hunting Utility.
November 8, 2006... On the heels of its July 2006 acquisition of Mark Russinovich's Winternals Software, Microsoft has replaced the popular Regmon and Filemon utilities with a single tool offering advanced capabilities for real-time monitoring of registry and...

Kaiser EHR System Is Stalled, Employee Says.(Brief article)
November 8, 2006... Shortly after a Kaiser Permanente project supervisor circulated an internal e-mail to more than 180,000 employees denouncing the company's electronic health record system and the alleged financial waste associated with it, Kaiser's CIO has...

Microsoft to Start Selling Vista at Retail Jan. 30.
November 8, 2006... SEATTLE (Reuters)--Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista, the software giant's first major upgrade of its operating system in five years, is complete and will be available to retail customers on January 30, a senior executive said on Wednesday. ...

Robert Reich: Democratic Victory Won't Change Economic Policies Affecting IT Workforce.
November 8, 2006... Robert Reich, who was secretary of labor under president Bill Clinton and is now a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, is one of the leading experts on economic policy in the Democratic Party. Executive Editor...

Putting Customers to Work.
November 8, 2006... Click to the Coca-Cola Web site, and check out the growing collection of video clips and musical podcasts available via links on the front page. This is "The Coke Show," the online centerpiece of the soft-drink giant's newest global marketing...

BMC Reports 7 Percent Q2 Revenue Growth.
November 9, 2006... IT systems management technology company BMC Software on Nov. 8 reported net earnings of $58 million, or 28 cents per share, on revenue of $387 million in its fiscal 2007 second quarter. The company reported net earnings of $43 million, or...

On Your Mark, Get Set for Job-Hunting Season.
November 9, 2006... Thirty-eight percent of IT professionals surveyed said they were likely to look for a new job in the third quarter of 2006, and the number is expected to grow in the fourth quarter, according to a survey released Oct. 23 by Spherion, a...

Microsoft to Deliver Six Security Bulletins, Some Critical.
November 9, 2006... Microsoft confirmed on Nov. 9 that it will ship at least six security bulletins as part of its monthly effort to patch vulnerabilities discovered in its products. The Redmond, Wash. software maker said that it will deliver fixes for five...

How Red Hat Does Support.(Brief article)
November 9, 2006... Oracle, with its recent claims to be able to support Red Hat Enterprise Linux under the name Unbreakable Linux better than Red Hat does, has a hard road ahead of it. Behind Red Hat's support network is a large, well-trained organization. ...

Vista's Beta Users Praise System's Security.
November 10, 2006... With Microsoft getting ready to ship its new Vista operating system, experts who have been evaluating it for use within corporations are praising its security enhancements while fretting about the finer points of implementation. Five years...

Case Study: Open Source's Sole Purpose at Zappos.
November 10, 2006... Pop quiz: Name the fastest retail Web site for American consumers, as measured by the number of seconds it takes to load the home page. If you said Amazon, you're probably not alone. But you're wrong. Likewise if you answered Overstock.com,...

Google Faces Legal Challenges over Video Service.
November 11, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO--Google Inc.'s video service faces at least one copyright infringement lawsuit, the company confirmed on Friday, and the Web search leader faces a separate subpoena tied to the service. Copyright infringement has become a hot...

Jack in the Box Forgoes Contactless Trial, Opts for Immediate Rollout.
November 13, 2006... When the $2.5 billion Jack in the Box fast-food chain started looking at contactless payment this year, it became clear that a faster transaction time wouldn't be the only benefit to accepting RFID-enabled credit cards. Embracing the technology...

Sun Pours Out Java Cup.
November 13, 2006... To those long-suffering open-source developers who have been waiting for years to venture unencumbered into Java code and tweak it to their heart's content, Sun Microsystems has three things to say: G, P and L. Sun on Nov. 13 released at...

SAP Hires Head of New Business Unit Focused on SMEs.
November 13, 2006... SAP has a big goal: Nearly triple its customer base over the next four years. The company plans to grow its current 30,000-plus customer roster to 100,000, by 2010. One way it plans to do that is by gaining more customers in the SME (small...

Microsoft Invests Heavily in Swift Vista Deployment.
November 13, 2006... REDMOND, Wash.--An important distinction between the Windows Vista rollout and previous Microsoft operating system upgrades is the amount of effort Microsoft has put into reducing both the cost and time to deployment for Vista. When Vista...

IT Employment Numbers Show Some Slipping.
November 13, 2006... With a loss of 1,800 workers, IT employment pulled back in October, according to a report released Nov. 10 by the National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses. This .05 percent decline in October came one month after the NACCB,...

Microsoft Forms Interoperability Vendor Alliance.
November 14, 2006... BARCELONA, Spain--Microsoft has formed a new group, the Interoperability Vendor Alliance, to enhance interoperability between Microsoft and non-Microsoft systems across workflows and operational processes. Microsoft will announce the move...

Symantec API to Enable Native Integration with Disk Devices.
November 14, 2006... Data security and storage provider Symantec announced a new API Nov. 14 that offers enterprise developers a way to connect Symantec's backup software with other companies' disk drives. The new interface, called the Symantec NetBackup...

Sun Bulks Up HPC Offerings.
November 14, 2006... Sun Microsystems is lengthening its list of high-performance computer offerings with new hardware, software and services designed to let users quickly deploy the necessary technologies to build compute-intensive environments. The new...

Sales and Marketing Technologies Continue to Underwhelm.
November 14, 2006... Applications rarely become ubiquitous, no matter how much fuss and bother there has been about them. Case in point: the technologies that are supposed to be transforming sales and marketing. Technologies like customer analytics, competitive...

Dell Expands Its Enterprise Services Platform.(Brief article)
November 14, 2006... In an effort to offer more services to its enterprise customers, Dell announced Nov. 14 that it would acquire ACS, a London-based IT services provider. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed and the two companies, in a joint...

Microsoft CEO Touts Company "Bet" on Web Services.
November 14, 2006... BELLEVUE, Wash.-- Microsoft Corp. is making a "big bold bet" on Web services, which it sees as the most important technological development of the next decade, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said Tuesday. But the software company, whose...

The 30 Most Important IT Trends for 2007.(information technology)
November 17, 2006... From CIO Insight: When it comes to IT, change may very well be the only thing CIOs can depend on in 2007. That's what the editors at CIO Insight found when we took each of the 13 surveys we conducted in 2006 and put them under the microscope to...

U. S. Technology Czar Says More IT Workers Needed.
November 17, 2006... Following a time of mass avoidance in the aftermath of the dot-com bust, the U.S. IT work force is facing a shortage of people, according to the Commerce Department's technology czar. "The IT work force is not skilled enough and almost...

Yahoo Internal Memo Urges Major Shake-Up, Job Cuts.
November 18, 2006... BERKELEY, California (Reuters)--Yahoo Inc. needs a dramatic organizational shake-up and cuts in its work force of up to 20 percent, according to an internal memo written last month by Senior Vice President Brad Garlinghouse. Garlinghouse,...

A Look At The Bank Of The Future.
November 20, 2006... The bank of the future may very well feature biometric "welcome stations" where customers are identified when they walk in the door by a fingerprint or other means of individual identification, and serviced according to their needs and banking...

5 Tips for Better BI Planning.(Business intelligence)
November 20, 2006... "Business intelligence" has quite a ring to it. What company would say no to these software tools, which peer deep into an organization's data to aggregate records and deliver reports and analyses? Not many. But before diving in, technology...

Wikis Are Alive and Kicking in the Enterprise.
November 20, 2006... Look in the wiki! If you haven't heard that cry already, chances are you will soon, as the use of wikis in enterprise environments spreads like wildfire. Proliferating virally, wiki usage has grown exponentially in recent months,...

IBM Rolls Out Latest Batch of 'Service Products'.
November 20, 2006... Concluding a staged rollout covering two months, IBM has spilled out a grab bag of so-called "service products" encompassing a wide range of skills and technologies, from point-of-sale systems to an IT executive workshop. The bundles of...

Novell CEO Rebuffs Microsoft Claims.
November 20, 2006... Just weeks after its controversial patent cooperation agreement with Microsoft, Novell is hitting out at statements made by Microsoft executives that the deal acknowledges that Linux infringes on its intellectual property. Novell has been...

Microsoft's BitLocker Alters the Security Dynamic.
November 20, 2006... A feature that automatically encrypts laptop hard drives will likely be the first thing security managers look at when the enterprise edition of Microsoft's new Vista operating system ships later this month. The feature, BitLocker, will...

California Court Expands Immunity for Bloggers.
November 21, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)--Individuals who use the Internet to distribute information from another source may not be held to account if the material is considered defamatory, the California Supreme Court ruled on Monday in a reversal of a lower...

Microsoft to Face Challenge over Linux Licenses.
November 21, 2006... BRUSSELS (Reuters)--Supporters of PC operating system Linux are preparing to counter a recent deal penned by Microsoft Corp which establishes for the first time the principle of paying the software giant for the operating system, whose license...

The Future of Business Intelligence.
November 21, 2006... Business intelligence software vendors continue to work to make the technology available to a broader range of users and increase the adoption rate within organizations. Here is a snapshot of some new uses: Office Apps/Mobile Access ...

The Vanishing Veg-Out Vacation.(shortened workdays before big holidays are an increasingly rare occurrence)
November 21, 2006... Shortened workdays before big holidays are an increasingly rare occurrence, finds a survey released Nov. 15 by Hudson Employment, a New York-based staffing and outsourcing company. Half of the workers surveyed responded that their companies...

Despite IT Support, Customer Service Is Getting Worse.
November 21, 2006... In an ideal world, customer service ought to improve every year. But this year's survey suggests that service levels are taking a step backward. Except for product or service quality, service levels dropped or remained the same as in 2005--even...

Online Jobs for IT Climb in New York.(Monster Worldwide report)
November 21, 2006... Fueled by greater demand for qualified IT workers, online opportunities in New York climbed in October, according to the local employment index released by online career and recruitment resource Monster Worldwide on Nov. 20. Heightened...

Microsoft Brings 129 Lawsuits Against Phishers.
November 22, 2006... AMSTERDAM (Reuters)--Microsoft is helping law enforcers hunt down criminals who try to steal bank account details on the Internet and has initiated 129 lawsuits in Europe and the Middle East, the U.S. software company said. One court case...

3 Metrics To Gauge Security Spending.
November 22, 2006... The idea that the Internet could fail never crossed my mind until Oct. 21, 2002. As acting CIO of NASA, I was informed that a computer at the Ames Research Center in California, operating as one of 13 global Internet domain name root-name...

Business Intelligence: Power Boost for Mining the Enterprise.
November 22, 2006... Today, business intelligence involves more than just fancy reporting tools used by corporate analysts. A new wave of workers--from sales to logistics--are using software applications to analyze business trends and make decisions faster. ...

Black Friday Turns Servers Dark at Wal-Mart, Macy's.
November 25, 2006... Two key e-commerce leaders--Wal-Mart and Macy's--found themselves shut out of the online portion of the holiday sales rush for much of Friday, as their sites slowed to a crawl starting at about 4 .m. EST. This was especially troubling as...

Gartner: $2 Billion in E-Commerce Sales Lost Because of Security Fears.
November 27, 2006... In 2006 alone, retailers lost almost $2 billion because of consumer security fears, with about one-half of those losses ($913 million) coming from people who avoided sites that seemed to be less secure and the rest (about $1 billion) came from...

E-Commerce More Secure than Brick and Mortars.
November 27, 2006... Despite consumer--and even some IT executive--beliefs that e-commerce poses a much greater security risk than store-based point-of-sale systems, a new Gartner report concludes that the opposite is true. Gartner is reporting that by 2008...

Inside the Mind of a Hacker.
November 28, 2006... It may sound contradictory, but the hacker behind the Month of Kernel Bugs, or MOKB, project actually said he believes in responsible disclosure. Throughout November, the man known as LMH has been releasing daily exploits for unpatched...

Dell to Simplify Approach to Systems Management.
November 28, 2006... Dell announced on Nov. 28 a number of initiatives aimed at streamlining the process of managing and administering an enterprise's IT infrastructure. One part of this announcement involves the Round Rock, Texas, company extending its...

Sun Announces Hospital Infrastructure Deals.
November 28, 2006... Rush University Medical Center is scrapping its 20 legacy IT systems in favor of software from Epic Systems Corporation, and as part of the transition, the Chicago-based center will deploy infrastructure from Sun Microsystems. Sun...

Experts Weigh In on 2007 IT Trends.(Brief article)
November 28, 2006... As expected, our report on the Top 30 IT Trends for 2007 generated quite a stir among readers. The study, culled from the 13 surveys CIO Insight conducted in 2006, broke down the largest upcoming trends in IT strategy, management, security, and...

IBM to Buy Privately Held Software Maker Vallent.
November 28, 2006... BOSTON (Reuters)--International Business Machines Corp. said on Tuesday that it agreed to buy privately held software maker Vallent Corp. to boost its line of software offerings. IBM did not disclose financial terms of the deal, which it...

Novell Joins Growing VM Management Chorus.
November 28, 2006... Novell trailed into the market for managing virtual machine and grid computing systems in the data center on Nov. 28 when it launched four new ZENworks offerings. At the Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas, Novell introduced its...

Apple Mega-patch Fixes 22 Flaws.
November 28, 2006... Apple Computer has shipped a monster security update to correct a total of 22 vulnerabilities in its Mac OS X operating system. The Cupertino, Calif, company's patch batch includes a fix for a critical Wi-Fi flaw affecting eMac, iBook,...

HP Offers Different Approach to Data Center Cooling.
November 29, 2006... Hewlett-Packard is looking to bridge the gap between a company's IT and facilities departments, while offering a new way to monitor and control heating and cooling costs in the data center. The Palo Alto, Calif., OEM announced Nov. 29 that...

HP Pumps Up Identity Management Suite.
November 29, 2006... One year after its latest identity management acquisition, Hewlett-Packard will launch a major upgrade to its identity management suite on Nov. 30. Almost a year to the date after announcing its acquisition of Trustgenix, HP will introduce...

Symantec Adds New Automation Features to Server Foundation.
November 29, 2006... Data security and storage provider Symantec continued its concerted push into the data center automation space Nov. 29 by introducing two key new features to augment its Veritas Server Foundation product--an application director and a patch...

No Enterprise Rush to Newest Microsoft Products.
November 29, 2006... As Microsoft prepares for the official business launch of Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 on Nov. 30, customer upgrades and partner solution rollouts based on the new technologies may not happen as quickly as Redmond would...

Oracle Spearheads Data Management Standards Effort.
November 29, 2006... Oracle is aiming to help companies improve their ability to manage and protect sensitive customer information with a new initiative that encourages businesses to isolate such data outside of individual IT applications. The company...

JobServe.com Acquires ComputerJobs.com.
November 29, 2006... Atlanta-based ComputerJobs.com announced Nov. 29 that it was acquired by JobServe.com, an Essex, England-based Internet recruiting site. ComputerJobs.com was founded in 1995 "by and for information technology professionals," according to...

Can IT Use Open Source To Develop Internal Apps?
November 29, 2006... DTE Energy in Detroit, a diversified $9 billion energy company that includes Detroit Edison, Michigan Consolidated Gas Company and other energy companies, is undertaking an experiment: Its software developers are using open source techniques to...

Password Theft, Video Files Top List of Security Threats.
November 29, 2006... McAfee's Avert Labs research group on Nov. 29 released its annual report on the Top 10 security threats likely to grow in severity during the coming year, highlighting expectations for continued professionalism among malware code writers and a...

Are Technology Budgets Realistic?
November 30, 2006... It's no surprise that most big information-technology projects come in over budget. But a new survey shows just how resigned information-technology managers have become to the likelihood of cost overruns, at least in the public sector. ...

Symantec Readies Significant SAAS Push.
November 30, 2006... Security applications market leader Symantec is preparing to launch a range of hosted security products in an effort to tap into the growing demand for software delivered as a service. Symantec said it believes that its customers are ready...