Computerworld 2002-01-07: Vol 36 Iss 2

61 Pages·25.4 MB·English

COMPUTERWORLD
THE NEWSPSAPERE FORC IT ULEADERRS I=» WWWT.COMYPUTE RWORLD.COM JANUARY 7 2¢ 2@ VOL. 36 8 NO. 2 #8 S5 COPY
CHALLENGES
TAKE TOLL
Windows XP still
Threat will be high
under scrutiny | in 2002, experts say
BY CAROL SLIWA BY JAIKUMAR VIJAYAN
Differences of opinion contin- The increased use of video- yond Bleak
ue to swirl over a potentially | conferencing and Internet col-
problematic Universal laboration technolo-
Plug and Play service in gies, the rush toward
Microsoft Corp.’s Win- Web services, and an
dows XP operating system. | emerging class of malicious
The FBI's National Infra- | code that blends virus and
structure Protection Center wormlike capabilities repre-
last week revised a recent se- | sent some of the biggest secu-
coumrmietyn dbautllieotinn , trhaetm osvyisntge msa raedc-- criotryd incgh altlo eanngaelsy stsf.o r 2002, ac- More layoffs. Fewer hires. Disappearing perks and bonuses. The first ina
ministrators consider dis- | As was the case last year, According to our annual hiring forecast, IT workers and series of articles
aWbilnidngo wst heX P.U PnP service in | usshearrsp ciannc reaalsseo eixnp etchte tnou msbeee r a| job seekers can expect even more bad hiring news in 2002 ohnir ehdo, wo rt os tgaeyt
After “careful review” of of macro and script viruses that as companies brace for continued staff reductions. And employed, in
technical materials, the FBI | emerge. But major antivirus don’t expect relief anytime soon, as the debate today’s turbulent
Windows XP, page 16 | Security Threat, page 16 IT job market.
Way rages over whether this is the worst IT job
market in a decade, or ever. On a more uplifting note, IT man-
UCITA CHANGES | on some of its key provisions,
agers will maintain current salary levels and invest in training.
| including recommending a ban
FAIL TO APPEASE } On remote system shut-offs Part one of this series begins on page 30.
| by software vendors. But the
| changes don’t appear to go far
| enough to win support from TT HITH ARDI NE UROC URRENCY SHIFT
But opponents welcome
| businesses fighting state-by- | chines and debit card with-
ban on remote disabling state adoption of the measure. | drawals hit record levels in the
“These changes are not | first 24 hours after the euro’s
BY PATRICK THIBODEAU | meaningful. They are more System resources take a | rency swap in 12 of the 15 mem- | release.
TWhASeH IdNrGaTfOtNe rs of the controver- swuibnsdtoanwc e,”d ressasiidn g Eltahianne Mreca-l || beating; key tests ahead | Ubenri onn atiboengsa n of Jatnh. e 1.E uDreosppeiatne EurEolepcatyr onwiecr e auutph o3r0i%za toivoenrs tbhey
sial UCITA software licensing Donald, an attorney at Princi- | | years of planning, the scale of | same period last year; two-
law have done an about-face UCITA, page 53 | BY LUCAS MEARIAN | the final switch to a single cur- | thirds of those transactions
European Union banks said | rency stressed the IT systems | were ATM withdrawals. Some
| they were pleased with the 12- | behind the conversion. | ATM systems ran out of
VebotMMNe Dccrbabacnsentkbeatessteceleeldeclhesa ll | nation conversion to the new Europay Internation- money. And in Austria, 2,600
SBXBBIFTS SeeSeeeREEESS-DIGIT 48106 } euro currency last week. But al in Waterloo, ATMs shut down for an
S48 106P0G134PBOGS8 OCT 91 881 7456 experts suggested that the real Belgium, the hour due to a sys-
PROGUEST INFORMATION & LRNG 86 | test remains ahead for ac- leading Euro- tem overload.
NEWSPPAPEERRI ODICALS ACQUISITIONS cbaosuenst,i nsgp reaadppslhieceattsi onasn,d odtahtear- || pieca-np aymeelencttsr on- ; roBpuaty, sasipdo keEsu--
PO BOX 1346 85-8
business systems. group, said auto- \ woman Cheryl-
ANN ARBOR MI 48186-1346 The long-anticipated cur- | mated teller ma- §™ Euro, page 53
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ANTICIPARALLELISM
Most computers are idle most
RECESSION?
of the time, but in this week’s
Future Watch, we learn that WHAT RECESSION?
CA researchers are finding ways to
harness that wasted power and
anticipate users’ needs. PAGE 43 In spite of all the talk about an
economic downturn, the Inter-
net is revolutionizing companies’
supply chains and improving
industrial productivity, argues
PricewaterhouseCoopers’
OMPUTERWORLD| Grady Means. PAGE 37
Ort hak Mae ae
NEWS 6 BUSINESS = 29 TECHNOLOGY 39 OPINIONS © 22
6 Major banks back technology 25 Paul A. Strassmann contends 39 Network computing will see 2 Patricia Keefe says businesses
that promises to enable the clear- that [T-to-revenue benchmarks an upsurge in 2002, especially from can make great gains in their on-
ing of payments in one day instead aren’t necessarily the best ap- IBM and Sun, predicts columnist line channels by investing in cus-
of the three needed now. proach to gauging the effective- Nicholas Petreiey. tomer service.
7 Public-access wireless LAN ness of your tech spending vs. the
competition’s, since correspond- 40 Instant messaging in the 22 Pimm Fox writes that some IT
aSvpariilnatbi-lbiatcyk egde tss taa rbto-uops.t from a ing financial and employment workplace gets mixed reviews. Is is mission-critical, but most isn’t.
structures are often different. it a quick, useful communication That means most technology
8 Security experts warn that both tool that improves efficiency or an should be judged on price and
the public and private sectors need 28 Real options reasoning, a annoying distraction? performance.
to do more to prevent a cyber- methodology used by the oil and
attack on the nation’s critical gas industry to predict capital 42 QuickStudy: Perl is an open- 23 David Foote says it’s not all
infrastructure. equipment costs for new drilling, source scripting language whose doom and gloom for IT profession-
10 The WorldWide Retail Ex- can help managers gauge potential syntax is similar to that of C. Learn als as the new year begins. There
returns on IT investments. more about it in this week’s tutorial are plenty of trends and new devel-
change raises eyebrows with an
integration strategy that calls for 34 Helping customers figure out 44 Security Journal: When an opments that could yield bona fide
two vendors to share the work. what they need is better than just operations manager chooses to long-term career opportunities.
12 Home Depot undertakes a giving them what they want, argues ignore security vulnerabilities, se- i Frank Hayes proactively offers
massive remote desktop-manage- Anthony W. Ulwick, who wrote curity manager Mathias Thurman some clarifications and corrections
ment project to centralize control an article on the subject in this must decide whether to confront regarding his yet-to-be-published
month’s Harvard Business Review. the manager or let the matter drop.
of its retail-floor terminals. columns on timely IT news items.
38 Career Adviser Fran Quittel 46 Emerging Companies: Fine-
For breaking news. offers advice to a laid-off business Ground’s Condenser speeds dy- Editorial/Letters 22, 23
updated twice daily, analyst who’s considering return namic Web page loading by trans- How to Contact CW 52
visit Computerworld.com ing to college to complete his four- mitting to users’ browsers only the Company Index 52
www.computerworld.com/q?q4000 year degree. page changes since previous views. Shark Tank 54
WWW.COMPUTERWORLD.COM
SHE'D RATHER HAVE COPING WITH NEWSLETTERS FOR ‘02
HER PAPER PLANNER THE DOWNTURN
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Community member Karen Black fell us how the current job market on IT in manufacturing? Retail?
explains why she wants to lose her is affecting your career, and read Finance? Government? These
LOOKING FOR FRAUD personal digital assistant and find what others have to say in our are just a few of the topics we're
a pencil and paper. careers discussion forum: considering for 2002. Cast your
Jeff King, product management www.computerworld.com/wireless www.computerworld.com/q?a1420 vote at the bottom of our subscrip
director at CyberSource Corp. in tion page:
Mountain View, Calif, offers tips on www.computerworld.com/q?a1430
spotting potential online fraud.
www.computerworld.com/ecommerce
NEWS
COMPUTERWORLD January 7, 2002
Banks’ Project to Speed
|| heavy investments in an STP
standard because a single pay-
ment and clearing standard
| Payment Processing would simplify conversion to
DowS igns EDS to ||| local currencies and adherence
to local regulations. That’s be-
Expand IP Network cause transaction rules would
greater control of cash flow. be built into software by in-
Piano, Texas-based Electronic Data More than a dozen institutions backing We'll be able to do transactions country vendors or banks.
Systems Corp. announced as ix- what could become an industry standard online without having to go off- “The point is that current-
year contract to expand an integrat- line for payment initiation,” she ly, over-the-Internet compa-
ed voice, video and data network said. “I think it would change nies first [make a sale] and
it’s building for The Dow Chemical | BY LUCAS MEARIAN | that integration would cost his things dramatically for our cus- then go off-line to close the
Co. in Midland, Mich. The deal calls OME OF THE WORLD'S | bank less than $10 million. tomers, particularly those do- deal and do the clearance us-
for EDS to extend the IP-based largest banks are “Eleanor will offer risk manage- ing international transactions.” ing their respective software,”
DowNet network to facilities that backing a proposed ment, timely information and According to Needham, Landsmann said. “You have
Dow bought last year as part of two industry standard integration into back-end sys- Mass.-based TowerGroup, the two work streams: the pur-
acquisitions. that promises to se- tems, thereby streamlining pro- global securities industry will chasing work stream ... and a
cure business-to-business pay- | cesses,” he added. spend $19.2 billion on STP payment work stream. With
Vendor Group Starts || bmoelnsttse r ovsetrr aitghhet -tIhnrtoeurgnhet parnod- | Agent of Change | p20r0o4j.e ctGsl obable tbwaenekns arneo wm akianngd | iElneoanneo r,p roalcle sosf .t”Dh i s can happen
Piracy Grace Period cessing (STP), or the ability to Wells Fargo has already in- ion ta
| clear payments in a single day stalled Project Eleanor’s soft-
Project Eleanor’s Global Supporters
| instead of the three days need- ware from Sun Microsystems |
The Business Software Alliance, a | ed now. | Inc.’s iPlanet E-Commerce So-
Washington-based antipiracy group Dubbed Project Eleanor, the | lutions on independent servers. Pacific Rim: Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.,
organized by Microsoft Corp. and | proposed standard and its soft- | The bank plans to begin a six- Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Ltd., Industrial Bank of Japan Ltd.,
other vendors, announced a month- ware for linking back-end sys- month pilot next month. National Australia Bank Ltd. and Sanwa Bank/UF]
long grace period that gives compa- | tems would establish online | Jane Hennessy, a senior vice
nies in seven metropolitan areas a | authentication methods for president at Wells Fargo, said Europe: ABN Amro Bank NV, Barclays Bank PLC, BNP
chance to pay for unlicensed soft- banks and vendors and create | that what attracted her compa- Paribas, Banco Santander Central Hispano, HSBC Holdings
ware they’re using without being | standard database fields for ny to the project was that pay- PLC, HypoVereinsbank, Royal Bank of Scotland/Natwest and
charged penalties. The locales being computer-to-computer trans- ment terms can be built into Societe Generale Group
targeted include the San Francisco actions. It’s expected to be in | the software and it has identifi-
Bay area, Houston and Orlando. | place by mid-2002. cation authentication from North America: canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and
Identrus LLC, a New York- | Identrus. Wells Fargo & Co.
VeriSign Proposes based vendor formed by a con- “This could result in much
| sortium of banks that has been |
Domain Waiting List building a public-key-infra- |
structure-based global system, AIM Vulnerability Highlights nerability as “fairly difficult to
| has assumed ownership of Proj- exploit.” But its implications
Mountain View, Calif.-based | ect Eleanor, which was origi- are huge “and leave the door
VeriSign Inc. said it’s working with nally a joint venture of several Risk of Rushing Features wide open for a worm not un-
SnapNames.com Inc. in Portland, financial institutions. like those that Microsoft Out-
Ore., to develop a waiting list ser- ABN Amro Bank NV in Am- | look, IIS, et al. have all had,”
vice that would let companies line | sterdam, HypoVereinsbank in | | wO0w00 cautioned.
up to grab .com and .net domain | Munich, Germany, Sanwa | developed a patch that ad- | Conover said that all Win-
names that aren't renewed by their | Bank/UF] in Tokyo and Wells | Flaw fixed but has dressed the problem. dows AIM users were vulnera-
current owners. VeriSign sent a pro- | Fargo & Co. in San Francisco | The vulnerability involved a ble. Since the flaw wasn’t relat-
posal for the service to domain | are conducting in-house pilots | major implications | feature of AIM Version 4.7 that | ed to the chat features, no prior
name registrars last month. | of Project Eleanor. There’s also lets users invite other AOL conversation or authorization
| a second wave of financial in- | BY JAIKUMAR VIJAYAN | members to play online games was required to exploit it, he
AMD Readies Faster stitutions that are planning to The buffer overflow vulnera- | with them, said Matt Conover, noted.
| join the pilot program during | bility discovered last week in a founding member of wOOw00 The incident points to the
Athlon Processor | the first half of the year. | the latest version of America | Security Development, the on- problems that can arise when
Peter Landsmann, director Online Inc.’s popular AOL In- | line security research group companies rush to add new
of electronic banking services | stant Messenger (AIM) chat that discovered the flaw. functionality without fully
Sources said Advanced Micro De- | at HypoVereinsbank, said the software shows how the rush The vulnerability was the re- | testing it, said John Pescatore,
vices Inc. in Sunnyvale, Calif., plans | major costs associated with to add new functionality to sult of an overflow in the code | an analyst at Stamford, Conn.-
to announce a new high-end version | Eleanor will involve integration | products continues to compro- | that handles a game request, based Gartner Inc.
of its Athlon XP microprocessor to- | with older back-end systems. | mise security, analysts said. | according to Conover. An at- Within the past few months,
day, the same day Intel Corp. is ex- But it will be worth it, he said. Dulles, Va.-based AOL scram- tacker could exploit the weak- almost every major vendor has
pected to unveil a faster Pentium 4 “This will mean more | bled to fix a flaw in its AIM ness to take control of a vic- had to acknowledge buffer
chip (see related item, page 10). straight-through processing for software that could let mali- tim’s system and then down- overflow problems, which are
The 1.67-GHz Athlon XP 2000+ wili | all the different participants: cious attackers take remote load and execute a malicious often the result of basic pro-
be AMD's fastest processor for use buyers, sellers and banks,” said control of a victim’s system. file from the Internet. | gramming errors, according to
in desktop PCs. Landsmann, who estimated Late last week, the company Conover described the vul- Pescatore. D
NEWS
COMPUTERWORLD Januar7y ,2 002
Start-up Advances Public Access Wireless LAN Prospects its single service and pricing
model providing access to a
growing number of service
providers (see box).
Boingo intends to sign up A beta version of Boingo’s
Hopes to boost Wi-Fi interest nationwide | ATA GLANCE other Wi-Fi public access op- software is available as a free
About Boingo
erators to its service as they download at www.boingo.com.
| emerge, eventually establish- It’s due for final release later
BY BOB BREWIN as hotels and airports, to the | w Start up has signed agreements with ser- ing a nationwide footprint, this month.
In the past year, Sky Dayton, | company’s cellular network, vice providers offering 10M bit/sec. Wi-Fi ; Dayton said. He added that Alan Reiter, an analyst at
founder of EarthLink Inc., has which will eventually offer| service at 750 public access points across | Boingo could serve as a stimu- Wireless Internet & Mobile
been looking for what he calls 144M bit/sec. of throughput to the country | lus for the nascent market by Computing in Chevy Chase,
“the next frontier of the Inter- mobile users. w Boingo software automatically “sniffs driving traffic — and hence Md., called the founding of
net.” Now he thinks he has Sprint PCS isn’t the first cel- | out” public access networks and offers | revenue — to its partners. Boingo a “significant develop-
found it in the development of lular carrier to dip into the ation for multiple providers Boingo offers users one-stop ment” in the public access
what he says will be the first public access wireless LAN § Software also features a built-in virtual shopping for wireless LAN wireless LAN _ marketplace.
company to offer easy access | market. VoiceStream Wireless | private network. | service through software that The company could replace to-
and subscriptions to public ac- Corp. in Bellevue, Wash., last sniffs out public access net- day’s “hodgepodge of net-
cess wireless LAN networks | week was nearing completion @ Pricing ranges from $7.95 for one 24 works, including the free Wi-Fi works with a shaky financial
around the country. of an agreement it submitted hour session to $74.95 per month for | networks that have started to structure” and offer the kind of
Dayton, who serves as chair- | to a bankruptcy court to pur- | unlimited access | pop up in major cities. truly national service needed
man of Atlanta-based Earth- | chase Richardson, Texas-based amalgamator of services Boingo’s software handles all to attract the interest and dol-
Link, last month launched MobileStar Network Corp. | ready offered by companies | authentication on disparate lars of market professionals,
Boingo Wireless Inc. in Santa such as Wayport Inc. in Austin, | public networks and features a said Reiter. D
Monica, Calif. He said the new A Blend of Services Texas, which provides airport built-in virtual private network . °
company will serve as a single | Boingo doesn’t own or oper- public access networks, or Surf | client, a key requirement for Wy *k For more news and
point of contact and service for ate any public access wireless | and Sip Inc. in San Francisco, | corporate users. It eliminates |I nnic ‘ OQ Mroesboiulrec esa,n d vWisiirt elOeusr s
the fragmented public access LAN networks. Instead, Day- | which offers Wi-Fi service for | the need to subscribe to myriad Knowledge Center
wireless LAN market, much as | ton said, it will serve as an independent coffee shops. public access networks, with www.computerworld.com/q?ki000
EarthLink replaced the frag-
mented Internet service pro- |
vider model of five years ago PacifiCare Outsources IT | be shifted to IBM. However, | Keane’s payroll won't have to
with a nationwide footprint. Keane spokesman Larry Vale | relocate from the facilities
Dayton also said the mobile said that between 250 and 275 where they now work.
data networks of the future Operations to IBM, Keane PacifiCare workers are expect- Miller wouldn’t provide fur-
will be a combination of high- | ed to transfer to his firm, ther specifics on the outsourc-
speed wireless LANs and which will assume manage- ing plans. Howard Phanstiel,
medium-speed wide-area cel- | | ment of the HMO’s applica- PacifiCare’s president and
lular networks. Cellular opera- | members and provides man- tion maintenance and develop- CEO, said in a statement that
tor Sprint PCS Group has | 600-plus IT workers | aged health care services for ment work. the restructuring and out-
bought into this idea, making will transfer from |c orporate insurance plans and PacifiCare currently has an | sourcing program “furthers
an undisclosed investment in | Medicare beneficiaries in eight agreement in principle with our efforts to operate as a sin-
Boingo. HMO to vendors | Western states and Guam. The | Keane. Vale estimated that the gle company under a uniform
Bill Blessing, senior vice company said the outsourcing final deal will have a value of | business model and technolo-
president for business devel- | move is part of a wider cost- | $450 million to $500 million gy platform and reduces our
opment at Kansas City, Mo.- BY BOB BREWIN cutting program that includes and said that the PacifiCare | cost of doing business.”
based Sprint PCS, said his | Medical services provider | the elimination of about 1,300 employees who will be put on But Mark Anderson, a health
company wants to offer “data | PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. | jobs, or 15% of its workforce. care IT analyst at Anderson
to mobile users wherever they | last week announced plans to | IBM will manage Pacifi- Consulting Group Inc. in
are, and in some places, that | outsource its IT operations to | Care’s IT infrastructure in a Spring, Texas, said he’s skepti-
will be through wireless IBM and software consulting | deal that’s expected to be cal about whether PacifiCare
LANs.” Blessing said Sprint firm Keane Inc. in separate 10- | worth more than $761 million, can get the full cost savings it
PCS views its investment in year deals valued at a com- according to IBM _ spokes- envisions from the outsourc-
Boingo as a chance to extend | bined total of about $1.2 billion. woman Nancy Kaplan, who ing deals.
high-speed data services to | PacifiCare said it expects to | said she couldn’t disclose de- » The HMO has signed a pair of The IT budgets of most
users over Wi-Fi (802.11b) data | save between $380 million and ails on the functions that IBM 10-year contracts, expected to be health care organizations and
networks and considers public $400 million in IT costs over | will handle for PacifiCare. But, worth a total of about $1.2 billion, hospitals “are a little high for
access wireless LANs as a| the life of the outsourcing con- | she added, “in a typical out- with IBM and Keane. the amount of work they get
“great stimulant” to mobile || tracts. The agreements include | sourcing contract, we take done,” Anderson said. Howev-
data usage. a planned transfer of 600-plus | over data center operations, > IBM will manage PacifiCare’s er, he added that he has “never
Blessing said Sprint PCS is | IT workers from the Santa manage the voice and data net- iT infrastructure, and Keane will seen an outsourcing agree-
also exploring the develop-| Ana, Calif.-based health main- | work and provide help desk take over application development ment save a lot of money for
ment of a dual-mode data card | tenance organization to IBM | services and PC support ser- and maintenance. an IT department” in the
that would let users easily | and Boston-based Keane, ac- vices.” > More than 600 PacifiCare !1 health care industry.
switch from Wi-Fi networks, | cording PacifiCare spokesman | Kaplan also declined to workers will be shifted to the two PacifiCare said the deals
which offer 10M bit/sec. of Dan Miller. } comment on how many of outsourcing vendors. will result in a fourth-quarter
throughput in locations such | PacifiCare has 3.6 million PacifiCare’s IT staffers will pretax charge of $60 million. D
~ NEWS
COMPUTERWORLD January 7, 2002
Critical Infrastructure Systems
| will coordinate with regional
| emergency management offices.
Face Threat of Cyberattacks || nitSyt ill,t o thef iwx ingdloawri ngo f ospepcourrtiut-y
|
holes in the nation’s defenses
| is rapidly closing, said Frank
Cilluffo, an analyst at the Cen-
many of the generators that Morris. Moreover, PNWER | ter for Strategic and Interna-
Officials: Security holes need to be fixed
produce the nation’s electricity. | plans to deploy software devel- tional Studies in Washington.
“The reality is that some | oped by the Argonne National “Bits, bytes, bugs and gas
BY DAN VERTON events of Sept. 11 should be companies didn’t even have a Laboratory in Argonne, Illi- will never replace bullets and
5 THE four-month enough to make every state | security officer on staff before | nois, that would alert state offi- | bombs as the terrorist weapon
anniversary of the | government and private busi- | Sept. ll,” he said. “It would cials to infrastructure failures of choice,” Cilluffo told the
most devastating | ness begin to think about the have been far worse ifa cyber- in Canada and predict the im- Senate Government Affairs
surprise attack vulnerability of the computer attack had occurred.” Such a | pact on U.S. systems. Committee a month after the
on the U.S. since | systems and networks that sup- disruption at power plants in | In addition, the states and terrorist attacks. However,
Pearl Harbor approaches, na- port critical infrastructures. | the Canadian province of Al- | companies involved in PNWER “while [Osama] bin Laden may
tional security experts are be- The nation’s electric power | berta, for example, could have plan to form a limited liability have his finger on the trigger,
ginning to piece together a grid, telecommunications net- created a ripple effect through- | corporation to facilitate security his grandson may have his fin-
puzzle that nobody wants to works, gas and oil pipelines, out the U.S., making Sept. ll a | data sharing. The corporation ger on the mouse.” D
see completed. and emergency services “were bicoastal emergency.
Had _ the terrorists that built by the private sector for | Canada supplies most of the
struck on Sept. 11 been able to | efficiency, not redundancy,” | natural gas and a large percent- | Cylink Chief Backs GovNet Proposal
launch a simultaneous cyber- said Morris, who is also presi- | age of the electricity consumed |
attack against the nation’s crit- | dent of the Pacific Northwest in the U.S. The loss of one spe- |
ical private-sector infrastruc- | Economic Region (PNWER), a | cific core switching station, the When Richard Clarke, the newly these critical things onto the Inter-
ture, the ripple effect of the ini- partnership formed between identity of which can’t be dis- | appointed chairman of President |n et has been arrested as a bad
tial attacks could have been far the governments and business- closed for security reasons, | Bush's Critical Infrastructure Pro- |id ea.”
more devastating, experts said. es of five U.S. states and three could severely impact the flow tection Board, first proposed cre- Multinational corporations and
The attacks “could have been | Canadian provinces. of natural gas in the U.S., said ating a separate intranet for critical | large financial institutions are al-
a lot harder on the nation’s Matt Morrison, vice president government services and e-com- |re ady moving in this direction, said
eaccocnoommpya niedh adt heam ,” cyBbilelr aCtrtoawc-k || ACaAlllt htoou Agcht iomna ny large compa- | ofofr PpNowWeErR .p laTnthse ins atmhee Qiuse btreuce | cmaelrlceed, thmea npyl ani n itmhper acItTi icnadl.u strCyri tics Chriogwhe-lslp.e eIdt' s cao nmnaetctteirv iotfy butihlatd incga n
said there was no possibility that survive in the event of a catastro-
ell, CEO of Santa Clara, Calif.- | nies have been “fairly respon- | area, which provide critical ser- | private companies would walk phe and is more difficult for attack-
based Cylink Corp., said last | sive” to the effort to protect vices to the northeastern U.S. away from the Internet. ers to break into, he
week. Crowell, a former deputy | key systems, others, such as The PNWER plans to hold a | That was last May, said.
director of the National Securi- | some small telecommunica- | second infrastructure protec- four months before High-speed Asyn-
ty Agency, added, “We were tions firms, are just now open- | tion planning conference in | Sept. 11 demonstrated chronous Transfer
just lucky that these guys were ing their eyes, said Morris. “It | Seattle in March, following one how vulnerable to dis- Mode networks that
so focused on this one gigantic, never occurred to them that held in November. The goal ruption corporate data use link encryption
horrible event.” the power grid might fail be- is to create a list of the most could be. Now, the are one example of
Jeff Morris, a member of the cause there’s no natural gas,” important systems and the im- Bush administration's such technology. Link
Washington State House of said Morris, referring to the pact on the region if they were plan to disconnect crit- encryption, some-
Representatives, said the fact that natural gas powers to fail due to an attack, said | ical government ser- times called link layer
vices from the public CROWELL: Core encryption, is the
Internet, known as operations should process of encrypting
The Grim Reality GovNet, has a new ally be on private nets. information at the data
in Silicon Valley: Bill link level as it is trans-
Crowell, CEO of Santa Clara, Calif.- mitted between two points within
The vulnerability of critical infrastructure has been demonstrated repeatedly in recent years. based Cylink Corp. and a former a network. “There's no place to
deputy director of the National get into the network,” said Crowell.
A Swedish man, working A teenager whose name is withheld Terrorist attacks bring down the World Security Agency. “It's much harder for an attacker
from his home in Goteburg, by authorities is charged with hacking Trade Center towers in New York, killing Crowell is the first high-profile to get through all of that switching
disables portions of the U.S into an FAA control tower at Massa- thousands, knocking out critical financial CEO from the IT industry to pledge fabric, as opposed to the router
seomuetrhgeernnc yF lo9r1i1d as ystem in rcuhputsientgt s’v itWalo rscyesstteemrs Afiorrp osritx haonudr s.d is- otrvaenrslaocatdi oonf tnheet wtoerlkesc oamnmdu nciacuastiinogn sa n grid efuvlel ns ugpoponret sfoo rf aGro avsN etto. caHlle fhora st he fabrTihce.”r e are also economic advan-
arctan | private sector to create similar pri- tages to GovNet-like networks,
vate networks. he said. “Most companies have
“The GovNet idea has triggered been living in the T1 world and are
IRA terrorists try to An NSA team of 35 The California energy crisis
bomb six National Grid hackers conducts a forces rolling blackouts through- an interesting rethinking of net- hoping to move to the T3 world,”
Group substations, Classified exercise out the state, raising concerns works,” Crowell said last week. said Crowell. “We can aggregate
which would have cut off called Eligible Receiver that multiple cyberdisruptions “Core operations, such as human [network capacity]. T3 has been
all power to London to demonstrate their could cause cascading outages resources and finance, should getting a lot cheaper than an equal
Had the plot succeeded, ability to shut down the be on private networks and fully number of Tis. If you move to the
it would have crippled U.S. electric power grid protected. That gives you defense large pipes, you can get to prices
transportation, emer- and portions of the Pen- in-depth on mission-critical opera- below ISP costs.”
gency services and vital tagon’s command and tions. The mad rush to put all of - Dan Verton
computer links control network.
Oracle vs IBM
Java Development
«Bring To Front
Send To Back
Oracle iB
Online auction application Online auction application
zero lines of handwritten code 166 lines of handwritten code
Source: IBM Web Site
ORACLE
Source: http://www-4.ibm.com/software/webservers/studio/preregister.html oracle.com/javacode
Products tested: Oracle9; JDeveloper Release Candidate, WebSphere Studio 800.633.1072
Application Developer for Windows Preview.
NEWS
COMPUTERWORLD January 7, 2002
Retail Exchange ‘Taps IBM,
WebMethods for Integration
dudge to Consider Bid |
For Microsoft Delay
Tsohfet jCuodrgpe. parnteistirduisntg coavseer stchhe edMuiclreod- Rival tools to be offered to members, but B28 ToolB ox cseulstss wfoourl dd ifyfieerledn t difmfeemrbeentr s,r”e-
a hearing for today on a request by analysts say overlap may cause problems he said.
the company to delay behavioral The WWRE has used the Officials at webMethods and
remedy proceedings. The nine following technologies: IBM acknowledged that they
ssteatttelse mtehnatt phravoep osreedfu sbeyd Mtioc rsoisgonf ta BY CAROL SLIWHAE WORLDWIDE wWoWrlRd’Es bloaarsgetsst soremtea ileorfs thaes > Negotiations calol mpceotmee idn oswonm e toa reeaxse.c u“tIit owni,l”l
and the U.S. Department of Justice Retail Exchange members, including Albert- _ and auctions: Ariba Inc. said Patrick Condon, senior
urged Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly LLC (WWRE) an- son’s Inc., Best Buy Co., CVS . » Collaborative plan- manager of product marketing
troe mdeednyy thheea rrienqgu essett ftoor pMoasrtcpho.n e a nmoounntche d thalta te IlBaMst CCoo.r,p ., KmGaarpt ICnoc.r,p .,J .C.R itPee nnAeiyd < * nr"nieonplgol,ge inefsio srthehmcc,ea nstt:i ngi 2 aTencdh - awta ntsw ebtMo etthalokd sa.b out “Ebvuesriynoenses
| and webMethods Inc. will pro- Corp., Royal Ahold NV, Safe- process management and inte-
Health Insurer, Perot vide integration technology way Inc., Target Corp. and - » Supply chain gration, and there’s only a few
that its 59 members may need Walgreen Co. of us who can really do it.”
Extend Outsourcing einl ecotrrdoenri c tmo arpkaerttpilcaicpaet.e in its wilBl othp roIvBiMd e andt ecwhenboMleogtyh odst o - »Oin2 l(iRnieg Works), Existing Relationship
Although analysts said the support the internal applica- »>Product design The WWRE already has a
Wellesley, Mass.-based medical in- move showed ongoing prog- tion-to-application integration relationship with IBM, which
surer Harvard Pilgrim Health Care | ress for the WWRE at the close of the exchange’s core product | hosts the exchange’s applica-
Inc. signed a two-year extension of of a year in which many busi- and services platform, as well _ +H osting: IBM tions and did the systems inte-
an IT and claims services outsourc- ness-to-business exchanges as business-to-business inte- gration work necessary to get
ing deal with Perot Systems Corp. in | struggled, it also raised some gration between the ex- the exchange up and running.
Dallas. The two companies said the eyebrows, because products change’s applications and its | Boston-based AMR Research But Norman said the WWRE is
extension is expected to add $110 from IBM and Fairfax, Va.- members’ internal systems, ac- Inc., said the selection of an in- currently in the final stages of
million in value to the 10-year, $700 based webMethods offer some cording toa WWRE statement. tegration vendor signals prog- transitioning out of that sys-
million outsourcing contract that of the same functionality. The rival software products ress. “It’s not that selecting a tems integration contract.
they agreed to in late 1999. “Most organizations would also offer business process vendor is a guarantee of suc- “The WWRE is managing its
not pick two integration ven- management capabilities. cess. But if you’re not doing own systems integration ef-
Intel Set to Launch dcoormsp,l icastinecse thei t tassik gnoiff iicmapntlley- | Simplified Integration tvhaantc e at toa llt,h et hneenx t yolue velc ano’ft saedr-- tfohret s,p aarntdn erIs BMw hwoi ll wiblel obnee ion-f
New Pentium 4 Chip | mentation,” said Ken Vollmer, The WWRE said that by de- vices,” Covill said. volved in that effort,” he said.
| an analyst at Cambridge, | ploying webMethods and IBM The dual vendor selection, Jan Jackman, vice president
Mass.-based Giga Information | products, it hopes to lower in | however, has Vollmer con- of strategic business develop-
Sources said Intel Corp. today plans Group Inc. Citing an example tegration and implementation cerned about “the potential for ment for IBM’s software group
to release a 2.2-GHz version of its of the possible consequences, costs, improve collaboration key business processes to be said her company will promote
Pentium 4 microprocessor that is he said insiders told him that among trading partners, sim- modeled inconsistently in the open-standard interfaces be-
also the company’s first chip to be Oracle Corp. and Commerce plify integration and accom- | two different products.” That tween the WWRE’s trading
made using a new manufacturing One Inc. “were tripping over | modate disparate applications “could lead to a very undesir- partners, as opposed to the
process based on 0.13-micron tech- each other” working on the au- that its global members use. able situation where the execu- “proprietary protocols” that
nology. That process is expected to tomobile industry’s Covisint Randy Covill, an analyst at tion of a single business pro- webMethods uses. D
let Intel reduce the size of the chip exchange until divisions of la-
while increasing its built-in second- bor were established. Pentagon Integrates Procurement Data
ary cache. Intel confirmed that the WWRE CIO Don Norman multipie online catalogs, he added.
2.2-GHz chip is due out this month. said the retail exchange want- Online aerospace exchanges,
ed to give its members a choice The WWRE isn't the only big orga- Network. WebMethods was tapped such as Reston, Va.-based Exostar
Short Takes | of integration technologies. “I nization that's turning to webMeth- to integrate data between Ariba’s LLC and Irving, Texas-based Aero-
think competition’s healthy,” ods for business-to-business inte- network and the DOD's internal xchange Ltd., are due to be added
he said. “It brings out the best gration help. The U.S. Department marketplace and procurement sys- to the EMall system in the summer,
The Bush administration said it’s | in everybody that’s competing, of Defense (DOD) last week said it tem, called Electronic Mall (EMail). again via the webMethods soft-
easing restrictions on exporting and it’s to the benefit of the will use the software vendor's tools Don O'Brien, EMal! program ware. In all cases, O’Brien said,
computers to countries such as WWRE and its members.” to blend product catalogs from on- manager at the Defense Logistics data will be boiled down to provide
Russia, China, India and Pakistan. Norman also noted that IBM line exchanges with ones from sup- Agency, said DOD workers will be easy access for end users.
... Southfield, Mich.-based online | has global presence among the pliers that are already plugged into able to search for goods using key- “Our main requirement was that
exchange COVISINT LLC said it’s | exchange’s members, many of its Web-based procurement system. words, manufacturer names or uni- it has to be absolutely seamless,”
By early next month, Pentagon versal product code numbers. The he said. “Otherwise, people won't
adopting some of the XML stan- which “are very committed to
employees are due to get access to webMethods technology will let be able to use it.” The DOD is pay-
dards developed by the ebXML an IBM architectural strategy,” more than 30,000 new suppliers them see all relevant product infor- ing webMethods $275,000 for a
initiative and Atlanta-based OPEN whereas webMethods is still through Sunnyvale, Calif.-based mation on a single screen instead two-year license, O’Brien said.
APPLICATIONS GROUP INC. but will “reaching to be global.” Ariba Inc.'s Commerce Services of having to separately look through - Michael Meehan
wait for others to mature. The Alexandria, Va.-based