Baseline articles from September 2006

Baseline archives from September 2006

Baseline's Look Ahead, Week of Sept. 4.
September 1, 2006... CONFERENCES THIS WEEK Sept. 6-13: International Manufacturing Technology Show 2006, at McCormick Place in Chicago. Scheduled to include a pavilion on computer-aided design (CAD) systems. Sept. 6-7: Roth Capital Partners New York...

EMC, HP Race for External Disk Storage Market Lead.
September 1, 2006... Data storage hardware and software maker EMC maintains a narrow overall lead in the worldwide external disk storage systems market, but Hewlett-Packard has caught up and the two are almost tied for No. 1 in market share, according to...

Spam Numbers Rise, Although Porn Is Down.
September 1, 2006... A survey released on Friday shows that while emails pushing porn are down, overall spam emails--and phishing attempts--are growing significantly. The survey was conducted by Ipswitch, a vendor of SMB security software. It found that 70...

Layoffs Loom at Intel.
September 1, 2006... Intel is expected to announce internally the results of its efficiency review on Sept. 5, a move that could result in thousands of layoffs. The chip maker, which has already made a series of sweeping moves as part of the review, could cap...

Sandia's Red Teams: On the Hunt for Security Holes.(Sandia National Laboratories)(Brief article)
September 3, 2006... Is it possible for a cyber-terrorist to hack into a city's water distribution system and poison thousands? Or disrupt air traffic communications to cause two airplanes to collide? Or create a surge in the power grid that would leave millions of...

Report: DHS Had "Significant" I.T. Security Weaknesses.(Department of Homeland Security)(Brief article)
September 4, 2006... The Department of Homeland Security, which melded together 22 federal departments in 2002, had "significant information security weaknesses" that limited its ability to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of internal information as of...

Microsoft Research Builds 'BrowserShield'.
September 4, 2006... Microsoft researchers are experimenting with an automatic code zapper for the company's Internet Explorer Web browser. Researchers at the Redmond, Wash., company have completed work on a prototype framework called BrowserShield that...

Matsushita Recalls 6,000 Notebook Batteries.
September 5, 2006... TOKYO, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. said on Tuesday it had started recalling 6,000 PC batteries as they could overheat when subjected to a strong impact--the latest battery recall involving Japanese electronics...

Report: I.T. Sector Had Most Job Cuts in August.(Challenger, Gray & Christmas report)(Brief article)
September 5, 2006... Computer companies led the layoff pack in August with 17,371 announced job cuts, according to recruiting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Still, the industry is off 2005's pace. Total job cuts announced by companies in all sectors spiked...

Microsoft Sets Pricing for Windows Vista.
September 5, 2006... SEATTLE (Reuters)--Microsoft Corp. announced on Tuesday U.S. prices for Windows Vista, the long-awaited new version of the operating system that sits on more than 90 percent of the world's personal computers. Microsoft, the world's biggest...

Intel to Lay Off 10% of Work Force.
September 5, 2006... Intel on Sept. 5 announced that it will lay off about 10 percent of its work force, following the conclusion of a sweeping internal review. The chip maker, which has already made several moves as part of the review, will cut 10,500 jobs by...

Microsoft Confirms New Word Zero-Day Attack.
September 5, 2006... There's another Microsoft Word zero-day attack under way. Microsoft on Sept. 5 confirmed that malicious attackers are exploiting a new, undocumented flaw in Word 2000 to load back-door Trojans on Windows machines. The acknowledgment...

What Should You Be: Strategic or Tactical?
September 6, 2006... There are times for CIOs to plan strategically, looking at the big picture to improve overall business effectiveness. And there are times for CIOs to concentrate on tactical matters, such as improving the performance of I.T. and cutting costs...

Cisco and SAP Team on Governance, Risk and Compliance.
September 6, 2006... SAP and Cisco Systems on Sept. 6 teamed up to help enterprises more holistically manage governance, risk and compliance. The two companies announced a joint marketing agreement to help enterprises implement IT controls that span the network...

How to Calculate ROI.
September 6, 2006... If you're a technology executive or project manager, at some point or another you're going to have to calculate your return on a particular investment. To determine the return on investment for a project, you need to add up one-time and...

Proving I.T.'s Value to the Executive Suite.(SunTrust Banks Inc.'s marketing strategy)(Editorial)
September 6, 2006... For more years than anybody cares to remember, people have been talking about the need to bridge the great divide between information technology and business. But when it comes to making specific recommendations to achieve that, everybody tends...

New IBM Supercomputer Aiming for Petaflop.
September 6, 2006... WASHINGTON (Reuters)--IBM will build a next-generation supercomputer for the U.S. Energy Department with the potential to achieve a sustained speed of 1,000 trillion calculations per second, or one petaflop, the department said on Wednesday....

Few IT Pros Prepared for a Pandemic.
September 6, 2006... Though 69 percent of senior IT and business professionals believe that there is a likelihood that a disaster or crisis will interrupt their business workflow over the next two years, 60 percent have not increased their budgets in preparation,...

RIM to Launch Multimedia Device for Consumers.
September 7, 2006... NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters)--Research In Motion Ltd., the maker of Blackberry e-mail devices popular among executives, said on Thursday it is pushing into a wider consumer market with the Pearl, its first phone with a camera and music player. ...

Intel Says vPro Tames Business PC Management.
September 7, 2006... Intel is promising to smooth PC management with the introduction of vPro, a new chip platform for business desktops. Intel unveiled the collection of chips in a news release Sept. 7. The lineup, as expected, includes its recently introduced...

Another 'Critical' MS Office Patch on Tap.
September 7, 2006... Microsoft is on the verge of shipping another "critical" bulletin to cover holes in its Microsoft Office productivity suite. The world's largest software maker plans to include the Office bulletin in a batch of three updates in this month's...

Blade Servers: Does Smaller Mean Better?
September 7, 2006... They sound great on paper: smaller, faster, cheaper. But do blade servers--systems of thin circuit boards with processors and memory and enclosures with shared network and power connections--live up to their billing? Many users say the smaller,...

Windows Vista May Be Delayed in Europe.
September 7, 2006... Windows Vista may not ship in the European Union at the same time that it is released in the United States as a result of possible issues with European competition law, Microsoft acknowledged on Sept. 7. The problem from Microsoft's...

Credit Card Brokers Launch Security Effort.
September 8, 2006... A handful of the planet's largest credit card companies have come together to create a new effort aimed at promoting common data security standards. Backed by American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB, MasterCard Worldwide and...

Baseline's Look Ahead, Week of Sept. 11.
September 8, 2006... CONFERENCES THIS WEEK Sept. 10-13: Data Center World 2006, Orlando, Fla. Produced by AFCOM, an association for data center professionals. Keynote on Monday at 8:30 a.m. to be delivered by Kevin Knox, vice president of AMD's worldwide...

Gateway Names 30-Year Tech Veteran as CEO.
September 8, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)--Gateway Inc. on Thursday named 30-year technology industry veteran J. Edward Coleman to lead the computer maker as it seeks to win back market share from larger rivals Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. Coleman, 54,...

IBM Builds on 50 Years of Spinning Disk Storage.
September 8, 2006... SAN JOSE, Calif.--IBM, that oh-so-straight-laced bastion of research, development and commercial success, is kicking back a little to celebrate an anniversary this month and reflect upon how far technology has come since the days of...

HP Board Agrees to Reconvene Late Monday.
September 11, 2006... LOS ANGELES, (Reuters)--Hewlett-Packard Co.'s board met on Sunday and plans to meet again on Monday, leaving open the question of chairman Patricia Dunn's fate as she comes under fire for her role in ordering a controversial board investigation...

EU Widens Intel Antitrust Probe.
September 11, 2006... BRUSSELS, Sept 11 (Reuters)--The European Commission has widened an antitrust review of Intel to see if it convinced an electronics retailer to exclude rival Advanced Micro Devices, a Commission spokesman said on Monday. The investigation...

WebMethods Acquires Infravio for SOA Boost.(service-oriented architecture)(Brief article)
September 11, 2006... WebMethods, which develops process integration software, announced Sept. 11 its intentions to acquire Infravio, a company best known for its service-oriented architecture governance repository and its tireless work with SOA standards-setting...

Social Networking Stars in Disaster Drill.
September 11, 2006... At Strong Angel III, a sort of humanitarian war games held last month in San Diego, wireless networks, open-source software, mapping systems and technology mashups were pitted against the chaos caused by a pandemic outbreak and a breakdown of...

McAfee: Malware Hides Behind Legitimate Companies.
September 11, 2006... Individuals responsible for spreading nefarious adware and spyware programs are increasingly using legitimate Web sites to deliver their work to unsuspecting users, according to new research published by McAfee. According to a report...

Just-in-Time: Has Its Time Passed?
September 11, 2006... For years, other companies have been trying to imitate the just-in-time (JIT) supply chain practices exemplified by Toyota. But the basic assumptions behind JIT itself may need to be reexamined in a changing economy. One assumption is that...

September 2006 Online Extras.
September 11, 2006... BASELINE ONLINE *How to Calculate ROI Figure out how to calculate the return on your investment for a technology project. *Chopping Software Maintenance Fees Companies are turning to third-party maintenance providers to support...

SAP's Business Process Expert Community to Support SOA.
September 11, 2006... At the launch of its annual TechEd conference in Las Vegas Sept. 12, SAP will announce a new community to support the IT industry's move toward service-oriented architectures. The community will stress process integration. SAP's Business...

William Ziff Jr., Technology Publishing Pioneer, Dies at 76.(Obituary)
September 11, 2006... William Ziff, Jr., who took over his father's publishing company in the 1950s and led it through period of growth that followed the varying tastes of the American middle class from cars to the personal computer, died at his Pawling, N.Y., home...

AT&T to Buy USinternetworking for $300M.(Company overview)
September 12, 2006... AT&T, padding its software-as-a-service portfolio, on Tuesday announced plans to acquire privately held application service provider USinternetworking for about $300 million in cash and assumed debt. USi, founded in 1998, provides software...

Wal-Mart Plans to Add RFID to 500 More Stores.
September 12, 2006... Wal-Mart Stores on Tuesday said it plans to bring another 500 stores online with its radio-frequency identification (RFID) initiative by the end of January 2007. That will bring the total number of its retail locations using RFID to more...

Symantec and Juniper Detail New Security Partnership.
September 12, 2006... Security software market leader Symantec and networking giant Juniper Networks announced a new strategic partnership on Sept. 12 aimed at tapping into the two massive companies' respective capabilities in defending corporate networks from...

3 Expert Tips for Blade Server Planning.
September 12, 2006... Blade servers can be an effective solution for conserving data center space and adding more processing power to your rack. Gartner research director Jane Wright offers these tips for technology managers to get the most bang for their buck. ...

Police Say Schwarzenegger Computer May Have Been Hacked.
September 12, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)--California police are probing if computer hackers illegally downloaded a private taped conversation of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger from state computers, a spokesman said on Monday. In the remarks, California's...

Northrop Wins $500M NYC Wireless Contract.
September 12, 2006... Northrop Grumman has won a showdown with Motorola for a $500 million contract to build a wireless broadband public-safety network for New York City. The contract, billed as the most comprehensive network of its kind, will provide the...

Dell Extends EMC Storage Deal for 5 Years.
September 12, 2006... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Computer maker Dell Inc. on Tuesday said it is extending through 2011 a multibillion dollar deal with the world's biggest data storage maker, EMC Corp. The announcement was made during Dell's technology day in New York,...

Microsoft Promises Not to Sue Over Web Services Specs.
September 12, 2006... Microsoft is promising not to take any legal action against developers or customers who use any of 35 Web Service specifications. The software maker, based in Redmond, Wash., issued a new "Open Specification Promise" on its Interoperability...

Hackers Jailed for Zotob Worm Attack.
September 13, 2006... Two Moroccan hackers have been jailed for creating and distributing the Zotob worm that squirmed through Windows 2000 networks in August 2005. According to reports out of Morocco, Farid Essebar, the 19-year-old hacker who wrote the worm...

SAP Promises Stable Road Map for MySAP ERP.
September 13, 2006... LAS VEGAS--The big take-away for users at this year's annual TechEd conference Sept. 12-15 here is the fact that SAP is "stabilizing" its next-generation ERP suite--for the next five years. Any upgrades to the MySAP ERP (enterprise...

Sun CEO: We're Ready to Grow in the 'Participation Age'.
September 13, 2006... With back-to-back solid quarterly financial results in the bank, Sun Microsystems President and CEO Jonathan Schwartz stepped on stage Sept. 13 and tried to convince Wall Street that the company has landed solidly on the comeback trail. ...

Simulated IT Attacks Reveal Response Flaws.(Department of Homeland Security issued cyber threat report)(Brief article)
September 13, 2006... The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued the results of its Cyber Storm exercise on Sept. 13, highlighting areas where the government and private organizations must improve their responsiveness to emerging IT-related threats. The...

Salaries, Satisfaction Up Among Microsoft I.T. Pros.
September 13, 2006... Average overall salary is up for Microsoft IT professionals, according to Redmond Magazine's 2006 Salary Survey, released Sept. 12. Salaries showed an increase of 3.3 percent from the 2005 survey. While this year's numbers are a downturn...

Exploit Posted for New IE Zero-Day.
September 14, 2006... Security researchers in China have published detailed exploit code for a new zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft's dominant Internet Explorer browser. The exploit, which was posted to XSec.org and Milw0rm.com Web sites, could be easily...

Sun, IBM Clash in New Tape Storage, Encryption War.
September 14, 2006... Suddenly, tape in old-fashioned cassettes--technology that is, um, 55 years old--has become the new turf in the latest war between two very progressive IT giants. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sun Microsystems made a special trip to New York...

10 Programming Languages You Should Learn Right Now.
September 15, 2006... "One of my mentors once told me that a programming language is just a programming language. It doesn't matter if you're a good programmer, it the syntax that matters," Tim Huckaby, CEO of San Diego-based software engineering firm, CEO...

Cybercrime Becoming More Organized.
September 15, 2006... LONDON (Reuters)--Cyber scams are increasingly being committed by organized crime syndicates out to profit from sophisticated ruses rather than hackers keen to make an online name for themselves, according to a top U.S. official. ...

Nikon Customer Data Leaks Onto Web.
September 15, 2006... Nikon, the $6 billion camera and imaging products manufacturer, on Thursday said that data on 3,235 customers inadvertently became accessible on the Web site of Nikon World, its quarterly customer magazine. During a nine-hour period, data...

Wall Street Watches Oracle for Further Applications Growth.(Company overview)
September 15, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)--Oracle Corp. posts quarterly results next week with investors watching for signs of further strength in its business applications software as it chases industry leader SAP AG. Shares of Oracle, the world's biggest...

Baseline's Look Ahead, Week of Sept. 18.
September 15, 2006... EARNINGS ANNOUNCEMENTS Sept. 19: Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) to report results for its fiscal first quarter 2007, at 5 p.m. Eastern. Sept. 21: 3Com (Nasdaq: COMS) to report results for its fiscal first quarter 2007, at 5 p.m. Eastern. ...

Freddie Mac Appoints CIO.
September 15, 2006... Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage-financing corporation, on Friday announced that it has named James D. Hughes senior vice president and chief information officer effective September 25. Hughes was previously CIO of National...

IBM Expands Grid Offerings.
September 15, 2006... WASHINGTON--IBM has announced new software and business programs to advance the adoption of grid computing. At the GridWorld conference here, which ran from Sept. 11 to 15, IBM announced new software that enables users to migrate their...

Hacker Discovers Adobe PDF Back Doors.
September 15, 2006... A British security researcher has figured out a way to manipulate legitimate features in Adobe PDF files to open back doors for computer attacks. David Kierznowski, a penetration testing expert specializing in Web application testing, has...

BEA Leads App Server Study.
September 18, 2006... Evans Data is expected to release soon a study on application servers that shows that developers chose BEA Systems' WebLogic server as the No. 1 application server on the market. BEA is expected to play the study result prominently at its...

Microsoft's Allchin Tells Developers to Get Ready for Vista.
September 18, 2006... Jim Allchin, co-president of Microsoft's Platforms and Services Division, has sent an open letter to developers citing the "tremendous opportunity" that Windows Vista gives them, adding that the time is now to get ready for the operating...

App Integration: Easy as Plugging in a Box?
September 18, 2006... Sometimes simple beats sophisticated. Harminder Tunwar, an I.T. project leader at Emerson Climate Technologies, used sophisticated integration technology from SeeBeyond for the first of several manufacturing floor to back office integration...

With New ATMs, Who Needs Bank Tellers?
September 18, 2006... Several financial institutions are rolling out new electronic banking machines that allow consumers to access more services without seeing a teller--and soon, they'll even be dispensing movie tickets. Michigan First Credit Union, based in...

Intel Lights Up Laser Chip.
September 18, 2006... Researchers at Intel and the University of California Santa Barbara say they have made another step toward integrating silicon chips and lasers, which could someday speed up computers with high-bandwidth chip-to-chip interconnects. The...

EMC to Buy Network Intelligence for $175 Million.
September 18, 2006... Storage giant EMC announced Sept. 18 that it has agreed to purchase Network Intelligence for $175 million, and it has also completed its $2.1 billion acquisition of RSA Security. Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC, now the sixth largest software...

CIOs: 2007 Looking Up.
September 18, 2006... More than 50 percent of CIOs plan on spending more on technology in 2007 than in 2006, according to a survey released by the Society for Information Management on Sept. 18. To be specific, 51.8 percent of those surveyed said 2007 IT budgets...

Q&A: Tom Noonan, President and CEO of ISS.(Interview)(Company overview)
September 18, 2006... Tom Noonan, president and CEO of Internet Security Systems, says he never imagined the day would come when he'd sell the company--or, as he puts it, "walk my baby daughter down the aisle." But that's what Noonan is doing, with a pending...

Zero-Day IE Attacks Spotted in Wild.
September 18, 2006... Security researchers at Sunbelt Software have discovered an active malware attack against fully patched versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. The exploit has been seeded at several porn sites hosted in Russia and is being used...

DHS Names Cyber-Security Chief.
September 18, 2006... The Department of Homeland Security has picked a new cyber-security czar. After a yearlong search, the federal government named former ITAA (Information Technology Association of America) vice president Gregory Garcia to be its overseer...

HP to Open More SOA Centers.
September 18, 2006... HOUSTON--Hewlett-Packard is opening up three more competency centers around the world to help customers looking to implement service-oriented architectures. The SOA centers--in Bangalore, India, Singapore and Cupertino, Calif.--are part of...

Toshiba to Replace 340,000 Sony-Made Batteries.
September 19, 2006... TOKYO (Reuters)--Toshiba Corp. said on Tuesday it would replace about 340,000 laptop computer batteries worldwide, the third recall of faulty batteries made by Sony Corp. in less than 40 days. The batteries, used in Dynabook and Dynabook...

Motorola to Buy Symbol Technologies for $3.9 Billion.
September 19, 2006... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Motorola Inc. on Tuesday said it had agreed to buy Symbol Technologies Inc., a maker of bar code and inventory scanning technology, for about $3.9 billion in cash to expand its opportunities with corporate customers. ...

Oracle Q1 Profit Tops Wall Street Forecasts.
September 19, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)--Business software maker Oracle Corp. posted an increased quarterly profit on Tuesday, helped by sales of new licenses for applications that drove revenue higher. Net income for the fiscal first quarter rose to $670...

Study: Web Services Lead Growing IT Investment.
September 19, 2006... DALLAS--Web services have come out of nowhere to emerge as the top technology for 2006, according to a survey of senior IT execs. In a poll of 139 members of the Society of Information Management conducted in May 2006, the respondents...

JC Penney Hires Southwest Airlines' CIO.
September 19, 2006... Retailer JC Penney has hired Thomas M. Nealon as its executive vice president and chief information officer, effective Oct. 2. Nealon, 45, will oversee the Plano, Texas-based company's information technology, including the design and...

Citing Business Growth, CIOs to Hire in Q4.(Robert Half Technology's survey)
September 20, 2006... Thirteen percent of CIOs plan to increase their IT staff in the fourth quarter of 2006, according to a survey released Sept. 20 by Robert Half Technology, a provider of IT professional services. Three percent of CIOs anticipate cutbacks,...

Federated Department Stores to Cut 290 IT Jobs.
September 20, 2006... Federated Department Stores, the parent company of the popular Macy's and Bloomingdale's department stores, announced Sept. 20 that it will cut 290 IT jobs and consolidated data centers in two Midwestern cities. Federated, which is based...

Many U.S. Workers Favor E-Mail Monitoring, Research Shows.
September 20, 2006... Despite the implied submission of personal privacy, most workers at U.S.-based companies believe that their employers should be allowed to monitor electronic communications to help protect against misuse of sensitive data. According to a...

IBM Goes After Dell, HP Blade Customers.
September 20, 2006... IBM is planning to use a combination of services and incentives to entice customers currently using rival blade servers onto its BladeCenter platform. IBM's Blade Migration Center, introduced Sept. 20, is designed to steal away business...

Aberdeen Group Acquired by Marketing Firm.
September 20, 2006... Harte-Hanks, a direct marketing firm, on Monday announced plans to acquire privately held tech market research firm Aberdeen Group. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Harte-Hanks, based in San Antonio, Texas, said the deal is...

AMD Opens Opteron Servers to New Chips.
September 21, 2006... Advanced Micro Devices wants to help computers based on its processors to get new jobs. The chip maker announced on Sept. 21 an expansion of its "Torrenza" initiative to spur the deployment of co-processors for systems using its chips....

SAP Says Oracle's Claims Are Way Off Base.
September 21, 2006... SAP says Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's statements--which he made in announcing his company's better-than-expected earnings on Tuesday--about its products and strategy are "a complete misrepresentation." In a statement SAP released Tuesday...

Novell's Nasdaq Headaches.
September 21, 2006... When it rains, it pours. Novell announced on Sept. 20 that it had received a staff determination notice from the Nasdaq Stock Market stating that the Linux common stock is in danger of being delisted from the market. Nasdaq is...

Report: HP Chief Approved 'Sting' on Journalist.
September 21, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)--Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Chief Executive Mark Hurd had approved a "sting" operation on a reporter to investigate boardroom media leaks, The Washington Post reported, and embattled Chairman Patricia Dunn said she looked...