In This Issue:
1. Editor's Note: Seeding IT's Future
2. Today's Top Story: Apple
    - Apple Introduces Video IPod
    - Apple Revenue, Profit Soar On iPod Sales
    Related Story:
    - Palm Unveils New High-End, Low-End PDAs
3. Breaking News
    - Windows XP To Get Vista's 'Gadgets'
    - Analysis: Microsoft, Yahoo Alliance Takes Aim At IM Competition
    - Free Wi-Fi? What's Google Up To, Anyway?
    - Customers Shocked By Level 3's Internet Disruption
    - Litigation Skyrocketing Among Tech Companies
    - IBM, Novell To Offer Licensing For Linux On Blades
    - IBM Taking Rational Software Toward Open Source
    - IBM Boasts Strides In Virtualization
    - Oracle Upgrades Recently Acquired TimesTen In-Memory Database
    - India's Tata Enjoys Strong Second Quarter
    - AMD Smashed Estimates For 3Q
    - Yahoo To Bar Pedophile Chat Rooms
4. In Depth: Security
    - Exploit Already Out For New Windows 2000 Bug
    - Expect Bigger Attacks After Microsoft, Yahoo Connect IM Networks
    - Microsoft Updates Worm-Detection Tool
    - Security Firm Offers Free Win2K Vulnerability Sniffer
    - Corporate Users: IT Falls Short In Fighting Spyware
    - Blog: Spyware Proliferates As Feds Crack Down
5. Voice Of Authority: Secret CIO: How To Handle Blowhards
6. White Papers: Building A B-To-B Business Case
7. Get More Out Of InformationWeek
8. Manage Your Newsletter Subscription

My colleague Johanna Ambrosio brings up the very issue I've been mulling for a while--so what are we gonna do about it? She pitches some interesting ways of addressing pieces of the problem: offering telecommuting and rehiring retired baby boomers as consultants. InformationWeek's editorial director, Bob Evans, zeroed in on the role universities play in contributing to this problem and offered up some suggestions in terms of what he thinks they should be doing.

All good stuff, but I think we can go further. We need to, because it's not just the next generation of IT workers that employers need to be worried about. It's clear there are some very unhappy members within the existing base of IT workers. They aren't sure they're going to stay, and they certainly won't be encouraging anyone else to get in.

The people who really hold the key to addressing this problem are the very people who created much of it--the vendors and user companies that, for whatever reasons, put thousands of IT workers out on the street over the last decade. Downsizing, outsourcing, the advent of permatemps--whatever. The message came through loud and clear: You are not valued, and you are not needed (just take a look at the reader posts on the blog). Those workers lucky enough to keep their jobs feel massively overworked and underappreciated. And now that the chickens have come home to roost--job openings have picked up--we're seeing a lot of hand-wringing over this supposedly inexplicable shortage of IT workers.

What's astounding, really, is that these captains of industry can't see that they're reaping what they've sown. And universities can offer all the computer-science classes they want, but if it's not the right stuff, then it won't matter one whit at the end of the day.

Instead of mocking students who pragmatically abandon computer science for more promising job prospects, frustrated employers need to get off their duffs and do two things: get involved much earlier in the process of creating interest in IT as a career, and work with existing staff both to change their work environments for the better and to provide the incentives and career guidance they need to take a more positive view of their chosen field.

You can get a better idea of the specific actions I think companies can and should be doing to reverse the tide of uninterest by reading the rest of my blog entry. There's quite a lot that can be done.

Patricia Keefe
pkeefe@cmp.com
www.informationweek.com

Apple Revenue, Profit Soar On iPod Sales
Performance was driven by a 220% year-over-year increase in iPod sales, the 10th consecutive quarter of record sales for the devices.

Related Story:
Palm Unveils New High-End, Low-End PDAs
The company's high-end Palm TX includes built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, while the color Z22 is aimed at late technology adopters.

Analysis: Microsoft, Yahoo Alliance Takes Aim At IM Competition
Microsoft and Yahoo said they would provide customers in the second quarter of next year with the basic communication services of text communication, computer-to-computer voice calls, and presence, which is the ability to see who's available on the network.

Free Wi-Fi? What's Google Up To, Anyway?
Google appears to be trying to get into mobile and location-based search and advertising, a business it's been chipping away at for at least five years.

Customers Shocked By Level 3's Internet Disruption
Level 3 Communications said it warned partners before pulling the plug on some of the pieces of the Internet backbone that it controls. Although the connections are back on, temporarily, the company remains in a snit over shared bandwidth usage.

Litigation Skyrocketing Among Tech Companies
Electronic discovery, some of it using consumer search tools, is driving increases.

IBM, Novell To Offer Licensing For Linux On Blades
Under the new subscription model, users would pay one price for an entire BladeCenter Chassis, regardless of how many and what type of blades are in it.

IBM Taking Rational Software Toward Open Source
The company is donating the meta model for describing development processes, the tools for customizing and creating processes, and a portion of the Rational Unified Process.

IBM Boasts Strides In Virtualization
IBM details several products for server and storage virtualization, and provides a way for third-party vendors to test and validate their software in the mix.

Oracle Upgrades Recently Acquired TimesTen In-Memory Database
But TimesTen support for Oracle's PL/SQL language is still missing.

India's Tata Enjoys Strong Second Quarter
Tata Consultancy Services says revenue increased 10% and net profit jumped 20%, and that it added 5,600 employees.

AMD Smashed Estimates For 3Q
Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices reported sales of $1.523 billion and net income of $76 million for its record-breaking third quarter.

Yahoo To Bar Pedophile Chat Rooms
As part of an agreement with the New York and Nebraska state attorneys general, Yahoo also will bar people under 18 from participating in its chat rooms, although it's unclear how it will be able to enforce that provision.

All our latest news

Watch More News

Expect Bigger Attacks After Microsoft, Yahoo Connect IM Networks
IM attacks are already exploding, up a whopping 2,000% since last year. The bigger, combined Microsoft-Yahoo network will let attacks spread even further and faster.

Microsoft Updates Worm-Detection Tool
October's edition of the tool adds four new pieces of malware to the growing list of targets: Antiny, Gibe, Mywife, and Wukill. The tool runs on Windows 2000, XP, and Server 2003.

Security Firm Offers Free Win2K Vulnerability Sniffer
The vendor that discovered the most dangerous bug disclosed by Microsoft on Tuesday has offered companies a free tool for sniffing out the problem.

Corporate Users: IT Falls Short In Fighting Spyware
Almost 40% of the U.S. respondents said their IT departments are not doing enough to defend against the threat, and 53% said they need to be better educated.

Blog: Spyware Proliferates As Feds Crack Down
As the business of spyware proliferates and grows in complexity, companies are looking for ways to quickly rid their PCs of a problem that has evolved from a pesky problem that slows performance to an outright security threat for corporate data. Larry Greenemeier reports.

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