15th April 2003 Archive

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PwC boosts IBM's coffers

Services up, hardware down

IBM's massive services business carried the company in its first fiscal quarter of 2003, off-setting losses in hardware sales. IBM generated $1.4 billion in net earnings for the quarter, which is an 8 percent increase over the same period a year ago. This gain came on $20.1 billion in revenue -- an 11 percent rise year-on-year …

Business 15 Apr 2003, 00:30
How do you start a small business in the UK?

Be inspired, be very inspired

How do you start a small business in New Zealand. Answer: Buy a big business and wait An old joke, admittedly, and Australian propaganda, surely (it also plays in Ireland). For more practical advice on how to start and run a small business, check out the UK's first ever national Small Business Week. Backed by the DTI, the …

Small Biz 15 Apr 2003, 07:42
UK ecommerce adoption rate falls -report

SMEs get the hang of making money

The rate of ecommerce adoption among UK SMEs has fallen from 26 per cent to 21 per cent, according to a new survey. Is this a statistical quirk, or a lot of companies switching off their etail businesses? Ecommerce survivors - most of them, at any rate, - 71 per cent of UK e-biz sites run by SMEs are profitable, according to …

Small Biz 15 Apr 2003, 08:10
Wacky email addys: Don't go there

How not to apply for a job

Surprise, surprise, a job application sent from a wacky email address could see your job application going straight to Delete. So you send a job application from your work addy? Think again, a survey of 200 UK Human Resources (HR) managers reveals that 36 per cent say that "emailing your job application from work will harm your …

Music and Media 15 Apr 2003, 08:46
Google founder wanted phones banned from HQ

While planning Google spaceflights

Google co-founder Sergey Brinn left the Soviet Union when he was five years old, but was able to communicate something of the Stakhanovite work ethic to his co-founder US-born Larry Page. Page wanted no telephones to be installed near the employees, lest they waste valuable company time making phone calls. This, and more, we …

Music and Media 15 Apr 2003, 08:58
Cash'n'Carrion spearheads e-commerce assault on Iraq

Reg foray into lucrative post-war markets

British fears that US companies would reap the greatest financial benefits from a post-Saddam Iraq appear to be unfounded as Reg electronic emporium Cash'n'Carrion announces its first order from Baghdad. Yup, no sooner had the dust settled than one Iraqi celebrated his country's incorporation into the happy family of …

Bootnotes 15 Apr 2003, 09:01
CNT snaps up Inrange

Fibre Channel giant

CNT, a storage networking company specialising in remote storage mirroring, replication and IP storage solutions, has reached agreement with SPX Corporation to acquire Inrange Technologies, best known for its high-availability Fibre Channel switching, enterprise connectivity and storage networking products. The terms of the …

Storage 15 Apr 2003, 09:01
Super-DMCA not so bad

Opinion 'Crux of what should be prohibited'

The latest version of the controversial law could be a valuable weapon against thieves and pirates, writes SecurityFocus columnist Mark Rasch. As the litigation over the DMCA continues -- with a 20-something Virginian sentenced to five months in jail for operating a website that sold mod chips, and a Harvard student's efforts …

Security 15 Apr 2003, 09:23
Aussie court crackers on crackers

Hacker is scot-free

Lawyers and security firms have condemned a decision by an Australian court to release without punishment a man who admitted to breaking into ISP OptusNet's network. Stephen Craig Dendtler, 22, of Bankstown, New South Wales, escaped either a conviction or fine last week even though he admitted gaining access to thousands of …

Security 15 Apr 2003, 11:08
DMCA threats gag security researchers

Cease and desist

Threats of DMCA-inspired lawsuits have been used to gag a pair of security researchers due to give a talk on the shortcomings of smartcard technology at the Interz0ne.com conference last weekend. Blackboard Inc. found out security researchers Billy Hoffman (AKA Acidus) and Virgil Griffith (Virgil) were about to present a paper …

Security 15 Apr 2003, 14:51
HDS adds NAS gateway by NetApp

Says single point of management is key

Hitachi Data Systems is adding NAS gateways to its storage line-up. The 940 and 960 gateways were developed for HDS by Network Appliance, and use the same technology as NetApp's own FAS940 and FAS960 filers, allowing NAS and SAN volumes to be allocated from the same storage pool. "Both companies have been under pressure to …

Storage 15 Apr 2003, 14:53
Xbox modded – without a mod chip

Insert compulsory mods vs. rockers gag here

Following on from the news that it's possible to run unsigned applications on the Xbox by using a loophole in EA's Agent Under Fire, crackers have discovered how to mod the system without a physical modchip. The new system breaks open the Xbox for running third-party applications (including the Linux operating system) or …

Personal 15 Apr 2003, 15:37
MS relieves patching ‘pain point’

Trustworthy Computing phase II

Microsoft yesterday outlined plans to simplify patch management, which even Redmond admits has been a long-term "pain point" for its customers. In a keynote address this week's RSA Conference 2003, Mike Nash, corporate vice president of the Security Business Unit at Microsoft, outlined the next steps in the company's high- …

Anti-Virus 15 Apr 2003, 15:43
Intel pitches Pentium M at embedded arena

Banias for routers, not just notebooks

It's official: Intel's Pentium M processor, codenamed Banias and the heart of the company's Centrino platform, is an embedded chip. Intel today relaunched the part as a processor for communications applications, targeting routers, switches and telecoms gear - a long way from the mobile computing world Intel launch the part at …

Channel 15 Apr 2003, 15:48
Microsoft is crawling toward trustworthy code – experts

Ten years to go

A panel of security experts have faith in Microsoft's ability to produce trusted code. The problem is that they think it will take Redmond a decade to learn how to do it. Famed phreaker Kevin Mitnick headlined a Churchill Club event here on Monday night, joining fellow security gurus from Oracle, ZoneLabs and Black Hat. This …

Hardware 15 Apr 2003, 17:21
BT sets trigger level for 200 more exchanges

Things are rolling

BT today revealed today the levels of broadband demand required to upgrade a further 200 exchanges (PDF list), setting the framework to bring ADSL broadband within reach of 85 per cent of UK homes and businesses. Cost drives and technical changes, including linking exchanges to share "backhaul" connections to BT's core network …

Telecoms 15 Apr 2003, 18:20
Sun preps intrusion detection appliance

Symantec to help the hunt

Sun Microsystems and Symantec held hands at this week's RSA security conference with the introduction of a new intrusion detection server appliance. The system aptly named the iForce Intrusion Detection Appliance is based on Sun's LX50 server and Symantec's ManHunt software. In an interesting move, the two companies are only …

Hardware 15 Apr 2003, 18:47
Turner, Case, Barksdale named in AOL fraud suit

Billion dollar brains

AOL Time Warner inflated its revenues by $1.7 billion, a suit filed yesterday alleges. It's one of a pair filed on behalf of shareholders, who also allege that former leading executives including Steve Case, Ted Turner and Jim Barksdale profited heavily from insider dealing. The suit filed in California represents two …

Business 15 Apr 2003, 20:03
EMC grabs Astrum Software

No SRM company is safe

EMC is trying to prove that a hardware company can buy its way into being a software franchise. The storage giant has acquired Astrum Software -- a maker of storage resource management (SRM) applications. This is the latest in a long string of buys made by EMC to try and build out a large storage software portfolio. The …

Software 15 Apr 2003, 21:35
HP's modular storage baby

10 cents a Meg ain't bad, but will SMEs bite?

HP is pushing its Enterprise Virtual Array towards the SME market, with the launch of the eva3000. This low-end member of the family kicks off at half a terabyte for $52,000 and scales up to 8TB, though HP says that 4.5TB is a more realistic upper limit. The company has also upgraded the data replication software on the new …

Small Biz 15 Apr 2003, 23:58