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Monday, April 1
(updated: 11:30 am EST)
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Finally! Exchange Is Here
Shiva Travels With LANRover
Legato Boosts PC LAN Products
Vendors Tout Instant Power-Up
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Friday, March 29
DuPont Eyes "Creative Sourcing"
Cheyenne Plots New Course
Apple Bites The Bullet
Briefs: Quarterdeck, Dell
Thursday, March 28
Boeing Makes The Exchange
IBM To Test NetCommerce
Lotus InterNotes For Web
Briefs: EDS , IBM, CybercorpWednesday, March 27
Compaq Solidifies Net Strategy
Microsoft To Unveil SIPC Plans
D&B Takes Java To Intranet
Briefs: IBM, VirusesTuesday, March 26
Symantec Adds Win NT Tools
3Com Reports Record Sales
Access Gains HTML Support
Monday, April 1
Exchange Worth The Wait For Some
Users
Six years after Microsoft started developing Exchange, the company is finally pushing its next-generation messaging and groupware software out the door. To help support Microsoft's claim that Exchange is worth the delay, several large companies said they're betting big on the product.
Aircraft maker Boeing Co. will adopt Exchange as its messaging system worldwide (InformationWeek Online, March 27). During the next two years, Boeing will roll out Exchange to some 65,000 employees, replacing seven different E-mail systems, including IBM OfficeVision and Lotus cc:Mail. "This is a massive undertaking, but it would be more difficult for us to continue the way we're going than to make a massive change," said a spokesman for Boeing in Seattle.
Texaco Inc. plans to replace a dozen E-mail systems, including IBM Profs, Lotus Notes, and cc:Mail, with Exchange. The move is part of the oil company's construction of a global backbone around Microsoft's Windows NT Server platform. As Texaco moves 28,000 desktops to Exchange over the next two years, it will move 17,000 desktops to Windows 95 and NT Workstation.
Meanwhile, consulting firm Ernst & Young in New York is migrating thousands of additional users to Notes 4, while Microsoft chairman and CEO Bill Gates will invite a large Notes user (rumored to be Compaq) on stage at the NetW orld+Interop show in Las Vegas this week to proclaim the company's decision to switch to Exchange.
--John Swenson and --Stephanie Stahl
Shiva Negotiates New Terrain With
LANRover
Software developer Shiva Corp. is trying to move upscale in a big way. On April 2 at the NetWorld + Interop show in Las Vegas, Shiva will introduce its LANRover Access Switch, a remote networking platform targeting large enterprise customers and Internet service providers (ISPs).
The switch will combine the functions of Channel Service Units, communications servers, multiprotocol routers, and modems into a single box. It will support ISDN, T1 and leased lines for high- bandwidth LAN-to-LAN connections, and will be able to handle up to 100 simultaneous analog and ISDN calls. Bundled with the switch will be ShivOS 4.0, the recently upgraded operating system that includes tariff-management features that can help control network connection charges.
"So far, it looks pretty good," said Russ Lane, a systems integrator with Integrated Systems Solution Corp., which has been testing the switch for American Express Financial Advisors in Minneapolis. American Express currently uses several Shiva LANRover remote access servers to connect 1,700 workers to the host system. Lane says a single Access Switch could replace the group of servers, saving floor space and offering easier maintenance.
With the introduction of the switch, Shiva, in Burlington, Ma ss., is making a run at some well-established players, including Ascend Communications, Cisco Systems, and US Robotics. "There are plenty of competing products. The trick will be for Shiva to distinguish itself," said Virgina Brooks, an analyst with the Aberdeen Group, an information technology consulting firm in Boston.
The switches will ship in May and prices will range from $23,000 to $59,000, depending on the configuration.
Legato Improves PC LAN Products
Storage management provider Legato Systems Inc. tomorrow is expected to bring out NetWorker 4.0 for NetWare -- a new version of its NetWorker product that provides significantly increased performance and other much-needed features.
"Performance, ease of use, scalability, flexibility, and managability are the top characteristics administrators want in these products," said Michael Peterson, president of Strategic Research Corp. in Santa Barbara, Calif. "All have been addressed in thisi product."
According to Peterson, while Legato is not the leader in the PC LAN backup market, the company did hold a 5% share of the overall revenue market at the end of 1995. With primary competitor Cheyenne Software Inc. commanding a 47% stake, Legato has a long road ahead.
Hoping to narrow that gap, Legato also is planning to announce tomorrow a series of agreements and product ports. Legato will bring out an interface to SAP AG R/3 client-server applications, and also has made agreements with Tandem Computers In c. and Octopus Technologies for better fault-tolerant storage management both high-end massively parallel systems and Microsoft Windows NT servers, respectively.
NetWorker for Novell NetWare 4.0 is available now for prices ranging from $750 to $8,000; the Application Interface for SAP R/3 is also available now for $20,000.
Microsoft, Intel, Toshiba Tout Instant
Power-Up Feature
During his keynote address today at the Windows Hardware Engineering C onference (WinHec) in San Jose, Calif., Microsoft chairman and CEO Bill Gates will tout the concept of "On Now," a set of power-management technologies that will let users start their computers in several seconds rather than going through a long boot- up procedure.
As reported earlier, Microsoft, Intel, and other vendors will demonstrate technologies at WinHec aimed at recasting the PC as a much friendlier consumer device with faster, richer multimedia capabilities. As for On Now, Intel, Microsoft, and Toshiba will hold private briefings at WinHec to discuss a draft specification called Advanced Configuration Power Interface (ACPI), which an Intel spokesperson said is the enabling technology for On Now. She described ACPI as the hardware interface that will let original equipment manufacturers integrate the power management features needed for On Now into future PCs, laptops and servers.
Friday, March 29DuPont Seeks "Creative Sourcing"
Proposals
DuPont is issuing a request for proposals today to the major outsourcing vendors for what DuPont CIO Cinda Hallman calls a "creative sourcing alternative."
The creative sourcing alternative is part of what Hallman termed the next step in bringing more value to DuPont through information systems management and it could represent the beginning of a change in how large companies solicit outsourcing services. "It's very important that our business units have the opportunity to make choices on how they spend for technology so they can ramp down or up very rapidly," she noted.
The $39.3 billion company is not outsourcing, Hallman stressed, at least not in the sense that it's asking a vendor to assume management of its information systems. Instead, she said, DuPont is seeking a partnership--possibly a joint venture--that could include transfer of assets and would permit the partner or partners to draw upon DuPont resources as needed for other business.
Hallman added that DuPont wants "to match our gaps [in technology resources] with someone who has different gaps to form a partnership that will deliver higher value to us both." DuPont could leverage its strengths, such as in data center consolidation and SAP R/3 implementation, to benefit itself and its partner.
In return, DuPont would become more flexible in how its business units spend on IT. The company also would become more adaptable with information systems, particularly in the applications arena, by being able to grow or contract when and where it is needed for DuPont's business strategy.
The move may be part of a growing trend. Hallman said the approach she is taking is similar in some respects to the database administration and software development alliance crafted between Andersen Consulting and Dow Chemical Co., a partnership that expects to achieve 30% productivity gains, and similar to a type of outsourcing deal that J.P. Morgan is seeking. The brokerage is expected to award a contract to either EDS or Computer Sciences Corp. by the end of April.
Over the past four years, Hallman (InformationWeek's Chief of the Year in 1995) reduced DuPont's IS spending by 45% to an annual budget of $690 million, partly through extensive data center consolidations and other restructuring of IS resources.
Cheyenne Plots New Course Amid
Buyout Rumors
Amid rumors of a buyout by software giant Computer Associates and its own announcement of lower-than-expected earnings for the next fiscal quarter, Cheyenne Software Inc. is trying to forge ahead with a new strategy it plans to announce next week at NetWorld+InterOp in Las Vegas.
Cheyenne's Application Agent strategy will focus not on backing up files--as most storage management products do today--but on backing up applications instead. "There are no products available today that let you back up Lotus Notes on line," said Glenn Reyer, director of corporate marketing at Cheyenne in Roslyn Heights, N.Y. "Today, you need to take your application off line to back it up."
In addition to unveiling its strategy, Cheyenne will announce at the show the availability of Application Agents for backing up Lotus Notes in OS/2, Windows NT, and NetWare environments; Microsoft Exchange Server in Windows NT; and Datatool/Sybase in the Unix environment. Prices range from $995 to $7,995, depending on the agent.
Analysts applaud Cheyenne's effort, but point out that it's not the only company taking this route. IBM, for one, four months ago released Adstar Distributed Systems Manager, which does primarily the same thing. "This is absolutely the right thing to be doing now," said Michael Peterson, president of Peripheral Strategies Inc. in Santa Barbara, Calif. "The cost of downtime in distributed networking is about $80,000 per hour. Customers need the ability to protect these environments and recover from any failures rapidly."
Apple Bites The Bullet To Avoid
Taking One
Apple CEO Gil Amelio has administered the first dose of his turnaround plan for the ailing company by swallowing a large and bitter pill. Apple will report a $700 million loss for its quarter ended March 29, which, despite the enormous sum represents some clever business maneuvering by Amelio, analysts said.
The computer maker says a write-down of unsold inventory will account for more than $350 million of the loss. That will acknowledge some of Apple's biggest financial problems in a single quarter, which means future accounting statements won't reflect the surplus produ ction errors that were made under former CEO Michael Spindler, according to financial analysts.
Included in the sizable second-quarter loss, however, is a troubling $150 million or so that apparently is not related to restructuring attempts, such as inventory write-offs and layoff expenses, and indicates Apple continues to have trouble earning profits from its products. "The loss is much bigger than I dreamed it would be," said David Wu, an analyst with Chicago Corp. in New York.
Still, some large corporate Macintosh customers have faith in Amelio, who replaced Spindler in February. Robert Strickland, senior VP of information systems at Continental Cablevision, a $2 billion Boston company, likened Apple's opportunity to Compaq's successful recovery several years ago. "Compaq said stick with us because we'll turn around," says Strickland. "I have faith Apple will do the same. Part of the information technology business is seeing a company through the good times as well as the bad."
Apple says it wi ll provide more details of its restructuring by May. The company is expected to outsource more manufacturing and lay off more employees than the 1,300 it announced in January, industry analysts said. Some expect more drastic measures, including the sale of some units or even the division of the hardware and software business.
Quarterdeck Buys Into Collaboration
Market
Quarterdeck Corp. announced Thursday it has agreed to acquire two companies that make softwa re for communicating and collaborating online: Datastorm Technologies, maker of ProComm Plus, and Future Labs Inc., which creates programs to let two or more people work simultaneously over a network on the same document or application.
Quarterdeck CEO Gordon Bastiaens said he hopes to round out his company's line of Internet-related products with ProComm Plus. This top-selling communications package for the PC, which Datastorm released in late February, includes a set of applications for faxing, Internet access, World Wide Web browsing, and other Internet tasks.
Quarterdeck plans to use Future Labs' technology to improve the collaborative abilities of Quarterdeck WebTalk, its Web phone product.
Dell Computer Corp. is introducing two notebooks to its Latitude product line that will offer more processing muscle, bigger screens, and sharper graphics.
The Latitude XPi P133ST will be powered by a 133-MHz Pentium and come with 8 Mbytes of RAM, a 540-Mbyte hard drive, and an 11.3- inch active matrix screen. Available in late April, the machine will be priced at $3,999. The Latitude XPi P100SD, which will be priced at $2,999, will feature a 100-MHz Pentium, 8 Mbytes of RAM, a 540- Mbyte hard drive, and a 10.4-inch dual-scan screen. It will also be available in late April.
Dell took a different approach than most of its rivals with the 133- MHz Pentium chip, aiming not at the high-end of the market with souped-up multimed ia machines, but taking a more conservative approach, says Randy Giusto, manager of mobile computing research at International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass. "Dell is selling what mainstream corporate America is asking for," he said.
Thursday, March 28Boeing, Other Large Companies, Make
The Move To Exchange
Microsoft is showcasing some of its most prominent corporate customers as it tries to gather momentum for a splashy rollout of Exchange Se rver next Tuesday at Networld+Interop '96 in Las Vegas. The biggest announcement concerns The Boeing Co., which confirmed it has decided to adopt Exchange as the worldwide messaging system for all 65,000 of its employees with E-mail addresses.
The aerospace giant says Exchange will replace seven separate E- mail systems that often have trouble communicating with one another. Boeing says it will be well into 1997 before it is able to migrate its 35,000 HP OfficeVision users, 15,000 Lotus cc:Mail users and 15,000 employees with other E-mail systems to Exchange. "This is a massive undertaking, but it would be more difficult for us to continue the way we're going than to make a massive change," says a spokesman for Boeing's Information and Support Services group.
Microsoft CEO Bill Gates plans to focus his keynote speech at Networld+Interop on Exchange and the Internet. Microsoft says Gates will invite a large corporate Lotus Notes user on stage to proclaim a decision to switch to Exchange. Microsoft has already revealed this week that Texaco and EDS have chosen to adopt Exchange.
Microsoft also provided pricing for Exchange this week. Senior VP Jim Allchin says Exchange will cost less than Notes "in the majority of cases." Pricing will start at $54 per client and $529 per server for organizations buying at least 50 Exchange client and three Exchange Server packages, the minimum for volume pricing.
Microsoft will barely meet its self-imposed deadline of shipping Exchange by the end of the first quarter. The company sent Exchange to manufacturing on March 13 and started moving it into the distribution channel on March 23. Resellers should have Exchange by March 30, the company says.
IBM will begin beta testing the netCommerce (netC) system in April. NetC will allow companies to build "virtual storefronts" on the World Wide Web. The system, which runs on AIX or NT, will let companies display product information, take orders, and collect credit-card payments online.
Transactions are handled through a built-in DB2 database, and security is provided by IBM's Internet Connection Secure Server. Also included are market research tools that let companies track customer information.
Commercial availability and pricing has not been determined, but IBM executives say several large customers, who are interested in using netCommerce for selling their wares online, will take part in the rollout later this year.
New Version of Lotus InterNotes
Simplifies Web Publishing
Lotus announced InterNotes Web Publisher 4.0 on Tuesday. The product lets companies create and manage intranets and public Web sites using Lotus Notes 4, the latest version of the IBM's subsidiary's popular groupware software.
InterNotes automatically translates Notes documents and forms to HTML and publishes them on a Web server. Companies can use the collaborative authoring and workflow features in Notes to help consolidate We b content from multiple departments.
Bell Mobility, which offers cellular, paging and other services in Canada, is using Notes and InterNotes to collect and publish Web content from its marketing, communications, customer service, and other departments. The software eases the burden of putting content on the company's Web site without having to learn HTML.
"[Complex Web publishing] makes a lot of companies counter- productive," says Daniel Grant, manager of channel development for Bell Mobility in Etobicoke, Ontario. "We don't want to be in the Web business, we are in the business of selling phones."
Adds Grant, "Our dedicated resources for the site is one person. There is no way we'd be able to manage this without using Notes as a distributed means to publish content."
InterNotes Web Publisher 4.0 will be available for free from Lotus's Web site on March 29. It will be bundled with the next maintenance release of Notes, which is slated for April.
Industry analysts say they believe General Motors' board of directors will vote in favor of the proposed spin-off of EDS at its April 1 board meeting, which will then send the issue to GM shareholders for a final decision. The tax-free spin-off of the $12.4 billion computer services subsidiary, acquired by GM in 1985 for $2.5 billion, will create the world's largest independent computer services company, with the independence and equity-bearing stock it believes it needs to c ontinue its growth.
The stock may be critical to forming telecommunications partnerships and to successfully competing for some of the global, multibillion-dollar outsourcing deals currently up for grabs at companies such as Aetna and J.P. Morgan.
IBM Addresses Internet Security
Fears With Emergency Response Service
IBM added Internet security and management services on Tuesday to help companies combat growing threats to corporate Internet connection s. At the Internet & Electronic Commerce conference in New York, IBM announced a subscription-based Emergency Response Service, which includes incident management, electronic verification, alerts, and intrusion detection services. Under the service, IBM will remotely test subscribers' Internet connections and alert customers of any potential intrusions.
The service costs $75,000 per year for the first Internet connection and $15,000 for each additional connection.
IBM also announced Internet Connection Servers for AIX and OS/2 Warp. An NT Server will be available on March 29. The Connection servers provide users with the necessary tools for setting up Web sites. They are available for free on IBM's Web page.
With these announcements, IBM is addressing a growing fear in corporate America. Carnegie Mellon's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) had reports of nearly 3,000 Internet break-ins in 1995. According to an InformationWeek/Ernst & Young security survey, about half of the 1,290 respondents said they had lost valuable information on the Internet in the last two years. Twenty of those respondents said they lost information worth more than $1million.
Cybercorp: Next Stop For Some IT
Professionals?
Leading-edge CIOs might want to consider a new job category described at the Database & Client/Server World conference in Boston--the chief cybercorp architect.
In a keynote address on March 27, IT guru James Martin, chairman of James Martin and Co., laid ou t his vision of the corporation of tomorrow with a description of "the cybercorp." It's an environment in which high-tech professionals that can help their companies overhaul business processes make a greater impact on the corporation as a whole by taking advantage of new technologies. "You cannot design the cybercorp unless you have very good IT people," Martin told conference attendees.
Characteristics of a cybercorp described by Martin include the use of high-end packaged applications where possible, and custom, complex software where needed. Cybercorps monitor their operations continuously and react automatically. Cybercorps leverage the Internet to communicate with each other and to reach customers. Data warehouses and data mining tools will be critical for analyzing business trends and responding to them, he says.
Martin says companies around the world are in the early stages of a revolution that will take place over the next 20 years. "A corporation is a collection of value streams," says Marti n. "What IT should be doing is mapping out the corporation in terms of value streams." Martin's ideas will be presented in a book, "The Cybercorp," due in October.
Wednesday, March 27Compaq's Internetworking Strategy
Takes Shape
Showing the first fruits of last fall's purchase of network suppliers Thomas-Conrad and Networth, Compaq on Tuesday unveiled its Netelligent line of Compaq-branded networking products, which includes network interface cards, repeaters, and switches. Compaq officials want to broaden the company's appeal as a supplier of end- to-end computer solutions beyond the desktop.
"Networking is growing faster than the PC market, with even healthier gross margins," said Doug Pushard, VP of internetworking products at Compaq's systems division in Houston.
Pushard said Compaq will be able to compete against other network hardware suppliers by using its brand name and strong presence in the distribution channel. In addition, Pushard said Compaq will leverage its volume purchase of components common to PCs and network products to keep its pricing very aggressive. That bodes well for users, who can now benefit from low-cost, one-stop shopping from Compaq, Pushard added.
In addition to offering a number of rebranded Thomas-Conrad and Networth products, Compaq introduced a 100/100 Fast Ethernet Switch and three network interface cards for 10BaseT, 10/100Base TX, and token-ring networks. Compaq also reduced prices on the full range of re branded Netelligent network products from 10% to 51%, effective immediately. Compaq also reduced prices of Netelligent repeaters an average of 32% and prices of Netelligent Fast Ethernet repeaters and switches by an average of 35%.
Microsoft To Outline Simply
Interactive PC Strategy at WinHEC
Microsoft will unveil its Simply Interactive PC initiative at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in San Jose next week in an effort to spark industrywide interest in a PC ha rdware and software architecture to be developed over the next two years.
The Simply Interactive PC (SIPC), as Microsoft envisions it, will have a host of advantages over today's PCs, mainly in ease of use, price and expandability. Unlike Oracle and other companies developing inexpensive Net PC prototypes, Microsoft and its hardware partners don't plan to build their machines for some time.
"SIPC is a framework and a vision. There is no SIPC yet," said Bill Veghte, Microsoft's group manager of Windows hardware evangelism and strategy. SIPC machines will come in a variety of shapes and prices. Some models may cost less than $1,000, but unlike Net PCs, a SIPC will have a hard disk and store the full Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows NT operating system. Microsoft plans to release a list of PC makers at the show that have agreed to support the SIPC initiative.
Key SIPC features will include the ability to boot in seconds instead of minutes, support for the new Universal Serial Bus, and a sealed case so upgrades are done by hot-plugging new devices into the high- speed bus ports. Most SIPC features will be aimed at home users, but Veghte said, some like the USB will appeal to corporate customers since they promise to make PCs less expensive to upgrade and support.
Microsoft also plans to release a 220-page report at the conference listing detailed hardware recommendations for Windows PCs to be manufactured next year. The specification will be called PC 97.
IBM Endorses Third-Part
y Data Mining
Development Tool
New technologies for building, managing, and mining data warehouses were the primary focus at the March 26 opening of the Database & Client-Server World conference in Boston. IBM presaged its own data mining announcement, scheduled for April 2, by endorsing a data mining development environment created by Applied Parallel Technologies Inc., a startup in Cambridge, Mass.
APT's Orchestrate is an object-oriented programming environment designed to simplify the process of loading, handling, and analyzing high volumes of data stored on IBM's DB2 Parallel Edition or Oracle's Parallel Server databases running on massively parallel (MPP) RS/6000 SP systems.
"What we do is hide the complexity of programming [for MPP systems]," said Robert Utzschneiderfor CEO APT. Orchestrate is scheduled for availability by the end of the second quarter; pricing is not yet available.
Richard Winter, a database consultant in Cambridge, said Orchestrate should appeal to DB2 users building data warehouses. "There's all kinds of intricate, messy work that needs to be done," said Winter. "Orchestrate helps you with almost everything that goes on outside the database, and that's a lot."
IBM on April 2 is scheduled to announce new data mining products of its own. They will include a data mining toolkit and applications, as well as an analytical server, according to an IBM spokeswoman.
D&B To Offer Java-Based App For
Corporate Intranets
Dun & Brad street Software announced on Monday a plan to work with Sun Microsystems Inc. to build one of the first Java-based enterprise applications designed for use on Intranets, with a scheduled release date of May.
The initial application will allow local and remote users to download, fill out, and file purchase requisitions for the appropriate manager's approval. It will be followed later this year by a series of human resources applets designed to enable employees to check benefits, change exemptions, and adjust their 401(k) contributions on their own via their employer's Intranet.
Called the SmartStream Web Series, the Java-based applets may offer large enterprises a more economical alternative to costly client-server-based packaged software. "Rather than install a full- blown client, all a company will need is a browser, and the users can download the code from a Web page to their desktop and create their own purchase requisition," said Jeff Scherb, chief technology officer at D&B in Atlanta. "It will me an that you can make these applications accessible to a much larger group in the company.
"The economies of Web browser-based systems are going to be dramatically cheaper," Scherb added, with the big savings coming in ease of managing and maintaining the system.
Other enterprise client-server applications software companies have similar products in the works. For instance, Peoplesoft Inc. plans to modify all its applications to run on both the Internet and Intranets. "The companies that are successful with their Internet and Intranet strategies will be those that can integrate their business processes with the new technology," said Baer Tierkel, VP in charge of PeopleTools Products & Technology at the Pleasanton, Calif. software firm. "The goal will be to leverage that connectivity to the 80% of users in their organization who never touched the application before."
Virus Damages Expected to Top $5
Billion This Year, Report Says
A recent survey on computer viruses conducted by the National Computer Security Association estimates that viruses will cost North American businesses between $5 billion and $6 billion this year, up from $1 billion in 1995.
The survey of 300 large organizations, to be released April 1 at NCSA's computer virus conference in McLean, Va., noted that 98% of the companies surveyed have had their computers infected with some type of virus, and 90% encountered a virus during January and February of this year.
The d ollar losses stem from costs related to finding and eliminating the viruses, as well as computer down-time, said Peter Tippett, NCSA president. Tippett noted that at least half of the increase in losses from 1995 to this year is being caused by the new macro viruses that infect Microsoft Word documents.
Word macro viruses are spreading faster than any other type of computer virus, Tippett added. They can travel by E-mail and are often difficult to detect because most users don't scan documents for viruses.
Although only one or two of the macro viruses are known to exist "in the wild," other versions are emerging quickly. The survey showed that 50% of the companies encountered a macro virus in January and February. NCSA represents 30,000 members including end-user organizations and hardware and software suppliers.
Tuesday, March 26Symantec Adds Win NT Tools to
Repertoire
Windows NT users got a break from a surprising benefactor with the release yesterday of Symantec Corp.'s Norton NT Tools, the company's first set of utilities designed specifically for the NT environment. Symantec has made a name for itself selling its software utilities for Macintosh, MS-DOS, Windows, and even Windows 95 environments, but this is the first time the company has ported its software to NT.
One of the more important pieces in Norton NT Tools is anti-virus software. Although Windows NT does have the ability to prevent some viruses from spreading--unlike MS-DOS and Windows 95--it is by no means immune to viruses. The Norton NT Tools virus scanner provides virus detection, elimination, and repair for thousands of known PC-virus variants and is easy to customize for further antivirus protection.
Norton NT Tools also includes file management and system monitoring capabilities. The Norton NT File Manager lets users browse unmapped network resources, format and copy floppy disks, configure systems, and more, all from a central location. With the Norton System Doctor and System Information software pieces, administrators can monitor key information about the NT workstation, such as memory and network connections.
In addition, by letting the administrator set thresholds for system resources, the software can send a notification if any of the set parameters are reaching critical levels. Norton NT Tools is available now on CD-ROM for $49.95.
3Com Reports Record Sales and
Earnings
3Com Corp., one of the leading internetworking suppliers, yesterday reported record revenues and earnings for its third fiscal quarter ended February 29. Sales for the quarter increased to $606 million, 42% greater than the $425.7 million figure reported for the same quarter last year. Net income for the quarter increased to $74.6 million, compared with $48.5 million reported for the third quarter last year.
The results are important because 3Com is still often perceived as merely an adapter vendor. While not necessarily a misnomer--t he company currently holds up to 40% of the Ethernet adapter market, according to International Data Corp., a research firm in Framingham, Mass.--but 3Com also tops the Ethernet stackable-hub market with a 27% share and the Fast Ethernet hub market with a 44% stake. The company also has a 21% share of the fast-growing LAN switching market.
And these areas continue to grow. While sales of network adapters for this fiscal quarter increased 35% over the same quarter last year, sales of 3Com's system products, which includes its switch, hub, and other internetworking products, increased 48% to $336.1 million. With figures like that, 3Com is well-equipped to hold its market position against such competitors as Cisco Systems Inc., Bay Networks Inc., and Cabletron Corp.
Microsoft Access Gains HTML Support
Microsoft says it will release a free add-on next month for Access that converts files created in the desktop database to the HTML language of the Web. Internet Assistant for Microsoft Access converts Access tables, queries, forms and reports to fully formatted Web pages for posting to corporate intranets or the Internet.
Microsoft says Access users will be able to update database information on the Web simply by launching the add-on converter, which can refresh Web pages created with Access. The Access add- on will be available after April 8 on Microsoft's Web site, at http://www.microsoft.com/msaccess. Microsoft has already released HTML converters for Word, Exc el and PowerPoint, the other primary applications in its Office suite.
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CAREER NEWSAneesh Chopra is looking to other CIOs to advise him on fleshing out a more detailed agenda to best serve the president's IT agenda.IT spending is expected to decline by 3.8 percent in 2009 according to Gartner.
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