Not to be confused with requirements management, Borland Software on Monday is introducing a requirements definition package as part of the company's application lifecycle management arsenal. …mehr
Lawson Software Inc. users last week expressed mixed feelings about upgrading to the company's next-generation Lawson 9 and Landmark applications, with some citing fears that the migration requires excessive technology changes. …mehr
The Loews Hotels Inc. hotel and resort chain can get detailed information on guest reservations at its 18 properties in the U.S. and Canada in an instant using its IT tools. But when it comes to tracking the food and beverages served in its hotels, the company still relies on paper reports and printed spreadsheets. …mehr
BEA Systems hopes to lure users of ColdFusion applications to BEA's WebLogic Server platform by licensing New Atlanta's (http://www.newatlanta.com/) BlueDragon software. …mehr
China pledges to help fight software piracy …mehr
Massachusetts CIO Louis Gutierrez said last week that he doesn't envision "a full-scale, completed implementation" of the state's controversial Open Document Format (ODF) policy by its January 2007 deadline. But in his first in-depth interview since Feb. 6, when he became CIO and director of the state's Information Technology Division (ITD) for the second time, Gutierrez told Computerworld that he also doesn't foresee the state taking a "wait position" with respect to the ODF policy, which applies to the government's executive branch. A status update on ODF is due by midyear, he noted. Excerpts from the interview follow: …mehr
Like other counties in Florida, Orange County is scrambling to comply with a state mandate that requires Social Security, bank account, and credit and debit card numbers to be removed by the start of 2007 from all online images of public records. …mehr
Following its call for tenders for business intelligence and performance management software last month, the South Australia Government's Centrelink scheme will also call soon for submissions to replace core software and data warehousing systems. …mehr
Redaction software works in much the same way that antispam tools do -- by using algorithms to look for specific phrases or words. But they analyze images, not e-mail. …mehr
At first, the reports from your supplier in China seem innocent enough: an assembly line worker has become very ill and is hospitalized with flu-like symptoms. Before you know it, workers are dying, the government has quarantined your factory and its contents, your supply chain is in ruins, and reporters are camped out at your company headquarters with a fleet of satellite news trucks. …mehr
Harry Debes, president and CEO of Lawson Software, has overseen development of the next-generation Landmark application set and the company's acquisition of Danderyd, Sweden-based ERP software vendor Intentia International AB, due to close this month. Debes spoke about the acquisition, Lawson's technology focus and the ERP business in an interview with Computerworld last week. …mehr
Sun high-end unit cuts 200 workers …mehr
Red Hat Inc.'s planned acquisition of application server vendor JBoss Inc. is its third attempt to move up the open-source software stack in a big way. And it's hoping that this time proves to be the charm. …mehr
It's time for real time... …mehr
Broward County, Fla., Fort Bend County, Texas, and Maricopa County, Ariz., have something in common: In recent years, they have made sensitive personal information about their residents, such as Social Security, driver's license and bank account numbers, available to anyone in the world with Internet access. …mehr
Its springtime, and technology too is ready to be reborn. Thanks in large part to Alan Greenspan's retirement from the Federal Reserve, and the departure of "irrational exuberance" along with him, we can officially declare the dot-com winter over. …mehr
Oracle buys billing software vendor …mehr
Everyone knows you can't do a good frac job without slurry. …mehr
Mucking up the best-laid security plans everywhere is the messy issue of how enterprises are supposed to cope with staggering amounts of unstructured data, some of it for internal eyes only, such as ad hoc files generated by e-mail and other applications. It's a huge problem that only the smallest of vendors right now are ready to tackle. …mehr
First, the bad news. Then, the worse news. We are years away from having a single security architecture to protect company information. That's because every area in IT has different technical hurdles to cross before security can be assured. And in each segment today, we are a long way from satisfactory protection. …mehr
Great Clips Inc. is about a year away from wrapping up a four-year effort to overhaul and automate its business processes. Officials say the project is a key reason why the company has already been able to increase new store openings from 200 per year to 300. …mehr
We secure information systems because the business would be brought to its knees if we didn't protect trade secrets, vital corporate networks and sensitive data. Yet the business would also be brought to its knees if we spent every last dime in the treasury on security. Yes, it's possible to overspend on security. The trick is to figure out how to reach what ex-CIO Doug Lewis calls "the prudent zone" of security investment. …mehr
When Computerworld's Jaikumar Vijayan broke the story last week about a Florida county that posts on its Web site documents with residents' personal information, we knew we'd snagged a big one. But it wasn't until Vijayan's pursuit of the story uncovered the extent to which the practice is carried out all over the country that we understood what we were on to . It was then that an expletive or two echoed through the newsroom. Rough translation: "Uh-oh." …mehr
Ameritrade Holding Corp. late last year finished rolling out technology to encrypt corporate data as it moves from servers to backup devices, just before its acquisition of TD Waterhouse Group Inc. closed in January. Jerry Bartlett, CIO of the combined firm, called TD Ameritrade Holding Corp., talked about extending the encryption technology to TD Waterhouse sites and other issues at the recent Storage Networking World conference. …mehr
Spam filter catches an outgoing e-mail message with language that would make a sailor blush, and IT pilot fish forwards it to HR, as required by company policy. Turns out there's an explanation -- sort of. "The employee said his home e-mail wasn't working, or so he thought," says fish. "So he drafted an expletive-filled missive at work and sent it to his home e-mail account. Not receiving it, he concluded that his home e-mail wasn't working and contacted his ISP. There really is no cure for stupid." …mehr
"How do you take a risk, have five people take a look at it and have a consistent measure of what it might cost the business?" asks Greg Avesian, vice president of enterprise IT security at Textron Inc. It's not a rhetorical question: The US$10 billion conglomerate, based in Providence, R.I., recently embraced the risk-based security model, and quantifying the potential damages of various threats is one of the discipline's major challenges. …mehr
The iAnywhere Solutions Inc. unit of Sybase Inc. Monday starts shipping a beta release of Version 10 of its SQL Anywhere embeddable database, which promises improved performance and new backup features. …mehr
It's the kind of breach that companies fear: workers giving out network log-in names or changing passwords when asked to by someone posing as an IT staffer. …mehr
The answer to the question of whether corporate IT departments would be ready to respond if an avian flu pandemic hit the U.S. is: Maybe. …mehr
A good friend who occupies a major position in a prominent global financial services firm is very concerned about the state of leadership in matters involving the management of personal information. To make this point come alive, my friend recently challenged a group of alpha executives attending a Value Studio at the IT Leadership Academy to explain what they would do in the following hypothetical situation: …mehr
Red Hat Inc.'s planned acquisition of open-source application server provider JBoss Inc. -- announced last week -- puts the Linux vendor on a 'collision course' with two of its most important partners, Oracle Corp. and IBM Corp., according to a Wall Street analyst report Monday. …mehr
It's useless trying to manage a battle when immersed in the fray. So generals have traditionally operated from a hilltop where they have an overview of the conflict below. Effective information security management requires that same type of visibility. …mehr
It's not hard to write the initials after the name of a networking professional: CCIE for Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert, or CNE for Certified Novell Engineer, among dozens of others. …mehr
The state of Texas is seeking proposals from outsourcers to consolidate 31 data centers that run 16 mainframes and 7,000 servers and employ more than 500 people. The move is part of an effort to cut costs and eliminate duplication. …mehr
Proliferating flash drives and other personal memory devices are causing corporate IT managers to rethink data security policies and enforcement. But the balance between corporate security and user convenience has never been more difficult to achieve, because ubiquitous thumb-size drives can hold gigabytes of corporate information. …mehr
EMC Corp. last week extended its professional services arm with the unveiling of an on-site support program to help IT officials manage large storage environments. …mehr
Offshore boom benefits Infosys …mehr
Risk is a fact of life these days. Financial services organizations have always grappled with credit- and market-related risk as an integral part of doing business. But today, the far-reaching threat of operational risks arising from potential breakdowns in internal controls and corporate governance -- breakdowns that could compromise business -- span vertical industries and business functions, including IT. …mehr
Many companies are using standards and frameworks to deal with certain aspects of information security. These models can help protect systems and data, but each plays a very different role in an overall security plan. …mehr
An incident in which an employee at Progressive Casualty Insurance Co. wrongfully accessed information about foreclosure properties she was interested in buying highlights the IT security dangers posed by corporate insiders -- and the need for tools that can help guard against misuse of data. …mehr
Xerox Corp. takes information security pretty seriously. It regularly conducts network vulnerability scans, as well as corporate audits of its risk mitigation efforts. A compliance program buoys employee awareness of its security processes -- as well as its disaster recovery, information privacy and Sarbanes-Oxley Act policies -- and an executive board champions adherence to them all. Meanwhile, the security budget at the Stamford, Conn.-based company is holding steady compared with last year, even as its other IT spending is down. …mehr
VersionOne is upgrading its platform for agile software development on Tuesday, adding improvements for managing defects and projects. …mehr
The television series CSI has given millions of viewers an appreciation of the role and importance of physical evidence in conducting criminal investigations. Each week, we see the confluence of fingerprints, DNA tests, autopsies, microscopic examinations and ballistic evidence used to solve a murder or explain the circumstances surrounding an unusual death. The drama lies less in the events that are portrayed than in the thinking that lies behind the collection, preservation and interpretation of the evidence needed to solve the case and support prosecution. …mehr
Call it the worst work-around ever. How else to describe the advice from Mike Danseglio, a Microsoft security guru, to wipe and reinstall Windows on any PC infected with an insidious malware known as a rootkit? Danseglio grabbed some headlines this month when he told an audience at the InfoSec World security conference that once a rootkit digs in, there's no sure way to get rid of it short of nuking Windows and starting from scratch. …mehr
Disaster recovery today is a little more challenging than it was in 1906 for Amadeo Giannini, who could load the Bank of Italy's gold in his horse cart and later use it to start the Bank of America. So California IT departments are using this week's 100th anniversary of the San Francisco earthquake as a reminder to brush up on their plans. …mehr
When was the last time that news from an IT vendor grabbed the attention of the enterprise IT community, let alone the broader business media? If you're like most, you have probably shrugged off Microsoft's Vista delays and the huge proposed mergers that would combine Lucent with Alcatel and AT&T with BellSouth. Compare this reaction with the frothy front-page coverage once given to Windows 95, the browser wars and Linux. …mehr
