FRAMINGHAM (10/17/2003) - CRM market leader Siebel Systems Inc. announced two acquisitions this week aimed at rounding out its product portfolio. The company is acquiring hosted CRM services company UpShot Corp. in a deal valued between US$50 million and $70 million. Siebel has been paying a lot of attention to the hosted CRM market lately - earlier this month it joined forces with IBM to announce Siebel CRM OnDemand, Siebel's first hosted CRM service since the demise of its Sales.com spinoff in 2001. Siebel also said it has acquired incentive management software maker Motiva Inc. for an undisclosed sum. Siebel plans to use Motiva's technology to enhance its own compensation- and commission-tracking product.
FRAMINGHAM (10/17/2003) - IBM Corp. plans to add 10,000 new jobs next year, according to CEO Sam Palmisano. The new positions will be in key skill areas that include services, middleware technologies, Linux and open-standards-based hardware and software, Palmisano said in a statement that announced the company's third-quarter earnings. Carried by growth in its software and global services businesses, IBM reported revenue of US$21.5 billion, 9 percent higher than last year's $19.8 billion third-quarter total.
FRAMINGHAM (10/17/2003) - VeriSign Inc. is selling 85 percent of its Network Solutions business, which provides .com and .net Internet domain name registrations, to Pivotal Private Equity for approximately US$100 million. VeriSign gained Network Solutions' registrar and registry businesses when it purchased the company in 2000 for $16 billion. The company will retain full ownership of the master databases for .com and .net, including the controversial SiteFinder search service that it recently agreed under pressure to temporarily suspend.
FRAMINGHAM (10/17/2003) - MCI this week appointed Nancy Higgins as the company's first chief ethics officer. The company has been searching for an executive for this newly created position for months. Before accepting this position Higgins served as vice president of ethics and business conduct at Lockheed Martin Corp. Higgins served as a senior corporate attorney with Boeing before her stint at Lockheed. Higgins will report to MCI Chairman and CEO Michael Capellas.
FRAMINGHAM (10/16/2003) - IBM Corp. this week agreed to buy CrossAccess Corp., an integration software developer whose technology IBM plans to incorporate into its DB2 Information Integrator product. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. IBM and CrossAccess already were working together, and CrossAccess' eXadas technology is certified for use with IBM's DB2 Information Integrator. EXadas is intended to help companies link databases stored on mainframes with modern applications, allowing access to legacy information. IBM will continue selling and supporting eXadas as it decides how best to combine the technology with its own data integration software, the company says. CrossAccess' software and personnel will become part of IBM's Data Management Software group, led by General Manager Janet Perna.
FRAMINGHAM (10/16/2003) - Infonet Services Corp. corporate customers will be able to access more than 5,000 broadband wireless hot spots managed globally by Boingo Wireless Inc. under an agreement announced last week. The partnership extends the coverage of Infonet's wireless MobileXpress service. Infonet provides communication services to more than 2.5 million users.
FRAMINGHAM (10/16/2003) - Avici Systems Inc. last week unveiled software designed to reduce the time its routers take to recover from a network disruption. The software feature is called Reliable Alternate Paths for Internet Destinations (RAPID), and it is included in Avici's IPriori 6.0 routing code. RAPID is intended to improve the convergence times of networks built with its Internet routers. RAPID also lets carriers offer higher margin "premium" Internet Protocol services and better support real-time applications such as voice and video, Avici says. The technology also can help carriers reduce operational costs by minimizing service disruptions and the associated customer service and maintenance activities, the company says.
Calling Microsoft's most-recent software security crisis a defining moment, CEO Steve Ballmer last week reiterated the company's vow to fix what is broken. Ballmer repeated promises to improve patching tools, including a single site to download patches, fewer installer technologies and smaller patches with fewer reboots. The improvements will come in mid-2004 along with an upgrade to Microsoft's Software Update Services 2.0, which will include platforms other than Windows, including Exchange, Office and SQL Server. Microsoft also will extend to next June security-patch support for Windows 2000 Service Pack 2 and Windows NT 4.0 and Workstation Service Pack 6a. Ballmer also said the network perimeter would be secured, starting with Windows XP Service Pack 2. That service pack is expected to ship by next September and reduce buffer-overrun and other vulnerabilities. Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, due later this year, will inspect clients for malicious code before allowing them to connect to the network. Microsoft has been focusing on its Trustworthy Computing initiative since early last year, but bugs continue to plague the company's software.
FRAMINGHAM (10/14/2003) - Contrary to popular belief, not every telecom service provider is in the dumps, according to this year's Deloitte Technology Fast 500 ranking.
FRAMINGHAM (10/14/2003) - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last week issued an order on wireless number portability rules that says wireless service providers must port a customer's wireless telephone number to the carrier of their choice even if they have an outstanding bill. Wireless service providers, including Alltel Corp., AT&T Wireless Services Inc., Cingular Wireless LLC, Nextel Communications Inc. and Sprint Corp., were behind an effort to hold hostage phone numbers belonging to users with outstanding bills. The industry was up in arms over the suggestion that a business customer with a legitimate billing gripe would be forced to stay with a carrier until that billing dispute was resolved. The order also says that wireless carriers are not required to have direct network interconnections within specific areas in order to port a customer's wireless phone number. If wireless service providers "cannot reach an agreement on the terms and conditions of porting, they must port numbers upon receipt of a valid request, with no conditions," the FCC says.
FRAMINGHAM (10/14/2003) - Fibre Channel host bus adapter vendor Emulex Corp. last week acquired Vixel Corp., a maker of Fibre Channel switches, for US$310 million. Vixel's embedded switching products will be added to Emulex's host bus adapter business. Vixel was one of the early switch manufacturers, but fell behind Brocade Communications Systems Inc. and McData Corp. Earlier this year there also was consolidation of the Fibre Channel switching industry when Broadcom Corp. acquired Gadzoox Networks Inc.
A California lawyer is trying to organise a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft, saying the company is engaging in unfair business practices in violation of state law because it has failed to secure its software against worms and viruses. The suit was filed in Los Angeles on behalf of a woman who is seeking undisclosed damages and an order requiring Microsoft to improve its security notification system, which has been a constant target of criticism from end users. The woman says her name and Social Security number were stolen and used fraudulently by someone who hacked into her computer. Dana Taschner, a Newport Beach, California, lawyer who filed the suit, wants to expand it into a class-action case against Microsoft. Traditionally, software makers have been shielded from such legal actions because of licensing agreements that software users sign. Microsoft said it is reviewing the complaint.
Neoteris last week improved its software access-management controls and released a host of new features to secure content accessed via a browser. With Version 3.3 of its Instant Virtual Extranet (IVE) platform, Neoteris has added single sign-on capabilities, integration with password management software and tools to check processes running on remote devices. IVE 3.3 software will be included in the Neoteris Access Series and Meeting Series products. The new Host Checker Agent 2.0 looks for software compliance and monitors the executable processes running on a target machine to ensure it is not malicious. The agent can shut down a session if it detects something out of the ordinary. Neoteris also has added a Cache Cleaner Agent, which cleans out temporary files and cookies stored on a browser. Also new is In-Transit Data Protection, which allows non-cacheable Hypertext Markup Language rendering to ensure data is not left behind on the client software. The company has added native single sign-on technology to IVE, including form- and header-based exchange of user name, credentials and other attributes. The Access Series, which includes IVE 3.3, starts at $10,000. The Meeting Series upgrade to the software costs $US2000.
FRAMINGHAM (10/03/2003) - Two user groups for storage professionals debuted this week. The Association of Storage Networking Professionals, sponsored by a for-profit company, and StorageNetworking.Org, headed by the vendor-neutral Storage Networking Industry Association and the Information Storage Industry Center at the University of California, San Diego will provide members with educational opportunities and the information to make knowledgeable storage acquisitions. The ASNP will have membership rates of US$190 per year; StorageNetworking.Org will be free.
FRAMINGHAM (10/03/2003) - Silicon Graphics Inc. is the latest technology company to be dragged into The SCO Group's dispute over the Linux operating system. In an Aug. 13 letter addressed to SGI's legal department and released to the media this week, SCO CEO Darl McBride said SGI's contributions to Linux put it in breach of its 1986 Unix licensing agreement, originally signed with AT&T Corp. but subsequently transferred to SCO. "SGI flagrantly permitted the copying and use of our proprietary information without any knowledge of the identities of the recipients" and "subjected our source code to unrestricted disclosure, unauthorized transfer and disposition, and unauthorized use and copying," McBride said in the letter. The letter threatens to terminate SGI's Unix license as of Oct. 14 should SGI fail to "remedy all violations." SGI responded to SCO's letter in early September with a letter saying SCO's allegations were without merit, SGI spokeswoman Marty Coleman says.