FRAMINGHAM (10/03/2003) - A congressional cap on the number of foreign workers allowed into the U.S. on H-1B visas has fallen to pre-dot-com boom levels after Congress failed to reauthorize a higher limit before this week's deadline. But debate on the program is not over. Congress still could act to increase the number of H-1B visas even though the 2004 fiscal year has started with a cap of 65,000, some supporters and opponents of a higher cap say. Intel Corp. will continue to press for a higher cap and to have advanced-degreed engineers exempted from the cap, says Tracy Koon, a company spokeswoman. "It's clear when you look at U.S. graduation numbers, there's a shortage there." Even opponents of a higher H-1B cap acknowledge the fight isn't over although the congressional deadline passed. H-1B critic Norm Matloff, a computer science professor at the University of California at Davis, says he expects the issue to resurface early next year.
FRAMINGHAM (10/03/2003) - The average IT department will look radically different by 2010, full of relationship managers and "touchpoints" between the company and its outsourced suppliers, Gartner Inc. Vice President Ian Marriott said at a roundtable this week in London. He said the trend toward outsourcing, including outsourcing business processes and more standard IT services, would involve a complete change of mindset for the IT manager. "The IT department will need fewer technical skills and more business skills," he said. Persuading management of the need for outsourcing is going to be hard because a huge investment in staff is needed. "You won't be able to retrain everyone in the IT department, and so you'll need board commitment to spend the money upfront. You should be spending at least 5 percent of the value of the outsourcing deal on just managing that deal, or it just won't be good enough," he said.
FRAMINGHAM (10/03/2003) - Application-security appliance vendor Teros has announced Version 3.0 of its application firewall, adding protection against cross-site scripting attacks that let hackers steal computer users' desktop cookies. The software features new defenses against denial-of-service attacks and a "cloaking" mechanism to camouflage information about corporate domain naming. Teros 3.0 is available for US$25,000.
FRAMINGHAM (10/03/2003) - IBM Corp. last week introduced services that provide remote access to server computing resources. Aimed at companies that don't want to incur the expense of buying, managing and maintaining their own servers, Virtual Server Services lets companies buy server computing power from Big Blue. Customers then pay for what they use. IBM owns and manages the services and keeps them at its data centers. Computing power is delivered remotely to clients. After charging customers a one-time setup fee, IBM bills them according to usage every month. Customers can buy computing capacity on IBM's eServer xSeries machines based on Windows operating systems; eServer iSeries running OS/400; and eServer pSeries AIX-based Unix servers.
FRAMINGHAM (10/03/2003) - Candera Inc. last week announced a clustered storage controller that joins multiple heterogeneous storage-area networks into a single storage area network (SAN) with a common management interface. The SCE 510 Cluster includes two hardware nodes configured in an active-active configuration to protect from failure. With 16 Fibre Channel ports per cluster, they connect to SAN devices and host. The Candera Storage Manager software, which is used to manage the cluster, is a Java-based graphical user interface that runs on Microsoft, Solaris or Linux workstations. With the Candera Storage Manager, administrators can provision, adjust and migrate storage based on user-defined policies. The Candera SCE 510 Cluster is priced starting at US$120,000.
FRAMINGHAM (10/02/2003) - ADC Telecommunication Inc. (ADC) and Colubris Networks Inc. have signed an original equipment manufacturer agreement whereby ADC will offer Colubris' wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) hot-spot products to wireline carriers. Under the agreement, the companies are developing an integrated Wi-Fi/Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) access device for incumbent local exchange carriers. Support for Wi-Fi and DSL in one device would let carriers utilize their copper infrastructure and existing network assets as they extend broadband service to wireless networks, the companies say. Two regional Bell operating companies will begin lab trials of the new product later this year.
FRAMINGHAM (10/02/2003) - NaviSite Inc., which added hosted messaging services to its repertoire when it acquired Interliant earlier this year, offers a shared managed messaging service that the company says is designed to provide the reliability of its dedicated service but at a lower price. The fully managed, shared Microsoft Exchange 2003 hosting offer includes migration services to help companies upgrade from Exchange 5.5, Exchange 2000 or other platforms, NaviSite executives say. Users pay a monthly fee, which ranges from US$12 to $15 depending on customer configuration, and gain all of Exchange 2003's functionality.
FRAMINGHAM (10/02/2003) - Verizon Wireless last week launched a commercial data service in Washington, D.C., and San Diego that usually will deliver several times the speed of a dial-up connection. The services will offer average rates of 300K to 500K bit/sec, with burst rates up to 2M bit/sec. The service will cost US$80 per month for unlimited use.
FRAMINGHAM (09/26/2003) - Legislation intended to ban taxes unique to the Internet could end up exempting many telecommunications services from state and local taxes, costing states billions of dollars a year, according to a group representing 45 state governments. The Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives Sept. 17, was amended to define Internet access. The bill's authors intend to exempt Internet access from taxes, as well as telecom services offered over the Internet, which would include the growing trend of offering voice telephone services through packet switching technology, according to the Multistate Tax Commission. The Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act, which has not yet passed the Senate, would permanently replace a moratorium on Internet-only taxes that has been in place since 1998. The MTC released a study this week that said the bill could cause state and local governments to collectively lose between US$4 billion and $8.75 billion a year by 2006, rather than the $500 million projected when the bill was originally introduced.
FRAMINGHAM (09/26/2003) - Anti-virus vendor Sophos PLC this week acquired e-mail content-filtering software vendor ActiveState Corp. for US$23 million. Sophos indicated it made the acquisition to play a role in the anti-spam and e-mail content-filtering market. Among its future plans, Sophos says it intends to develop ActiveState's PureMessage product, which runs on Unix, for the Windows platform.
FRAMINGHAM (09/26/2003) - Symantec Corp. announced this week that it will acquire storage-management vendor PowerQuest Corp. for US$150 million to improve its server and desktop management and protection software. Symantec plans to integrate PowerQuest's disk imaging, provisioning and disaster-recovery technologies into its software for managing and protecting servers, desktop and laptop computers. PowerQuest also provides data migration and life cycle management software, which Symantec says it will add to its portfolio.
FRAMINGHAM (09/26/2003) - The Boeing Co. is about to lease space on a satellite above the Atlantic Ocean, filling a coverage gap in its Connexion by Boeing in-flight Internet service. The new leasing agreement is for two transponders on the Intelsat 907 satellite, which is stationed above the Atlantic Ocean at 27.5 degrees west, the company says. The Ku-band spot-beam coverage provided by the transponders encompasses Northern and Central Europe, Iceland and the eastern part of Greenland, and will be used by Connexion to service aircraft flying between Europe and North America. The Connexion service, which has yet to be commercially launched, offers a broadband Internet connection to passengers on aircraft on which the system has been installed. Transmission speeds vary with conditions, but maximum capacity is 20M bit/sec downstream to the aircraft and 1M bit/sec upstream from the aircraft.
FRAMINGHAM (09/26/2003) - Amazon.com Inc. is reportedly working to develop a Web search technology that will help it compete against Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. when it comes to directing consumers to merchandise online. The Internet retail giant has set up a subsidiary called A9.com Inc. in northern California to develop the search technology and is recruiting a host of software engineers from Silicon Valley, according to a report in the online edition of The Wall Street Journal. In addition to creating and using the search service, Amazon plans to market the A9 technology to other sites. Amazon declined to confirm or deny the report.
FRAMINGHAM (09/25/2003) - Expertcity Inc. recently announced partnerships with Aladdin Systems, Elibrium and Palo Alto Software to bundle a trial version of GoToMyPC 4.0 remote access software with their respective products, file compressor StuffIt, MySoftware applications and Business Plan Pro. The companies will offer a free trial of GoToMyPC 4.0, which provides users browser-based access to their desktop data and applications securely via dual passwords and 128-bit end-to-end user authentication.
FRAMINGHAM (09/25/2003) - Within four years, smart phones will be commonplace and camera phones ubiquitous, according to a new report from In-Stat/MDR called "Market for Smartphones and Camera Phones Heats Up." In the first quarter of 2003, 1.7 million smart phones and 7.8 million camera phones were sold, and In-Stat predicts a compound annual growth rate of 94.5 percent and 53.2 percent, respectively, through 2007. But high prices, technical glitches, bulkiness and inadequate network capacity plague smart phones, and camera phones need better image sensors, more onboard memory, longer battery life and network improvements, the report says.