Outsourcing
The Wall Street Journal, 9/24/03: Outsourcing Gets Expanded Uses By Businesses
By PETER LOFTUS
NEW YORK -- Outsourcing isn't just for technology anymore.
Computer-services companies are jockeying to grab a share of the so-called business-process outsourcing, or BPO, market. It is a line of business in which a company takes over back-office functions, such as human resources, for another company or government customer.
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IT Management
eWeek, 9/24/03: NetIQ Rolls Out Exchange 2003 Support
By Paula Musich
NetIQ Corp. next week will try to get out ahead of the rollout of Microsoft Exchange 2003 with support across its portfolio of Exchange management products, and it will keep pace with new Web developments.
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Security
The New York Times, 9/24/03: State Department Computers Hit by Virus
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The State Department's electronic system for checking every visa applicant for terrorist or criminal history failed worldwide for several hours late Tuesday because of a computer virus, leaving the U.S. government briefly unable to issue visas.
The virus crippled the department's Consular Lookout and Support System, known as CLASS, which contains more than 12.8 million records from the FBI, the State Department and U.S. immigration, drug-enforcement and intelligence agencies. Among the names are those of at least 78,000 suspected terrorists.
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The Register, 9/24/03: Sophos buys ActiveState
By John Leyden
Sophos today announced the acquisition of anti-spam developer ActiveState in a $23 million all-cash deal.
The British antivirus firm says the deal will allow it to diversify its product portfolio to offer "consolidated protection against security threats such as viruses, spam and policy breaches". The deal is part of a more generalised push by major AV firms to seize control of the nascent, but already crowded, anti-spam market.
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Microsoft
Government Report via Jeremy Wagstaff Blog, 9/24/03: "Microsoft Is A Threat To National Security"
Some of the U.S.' main technology security experts -- including author Bruce Schneier -- today issued a report warning that computers and critical technological infrastructure worldwide are increasingly vulnerable to attack because of the security practices and dominance of Microsoft software in desktop computing. As a result of Microsoft's concerted effort to fortify and expand its monopolies by tightly integrating applications with its operating system, and its success in achieving near ubiquity in personal computing, our computer networks are now susceptible to massive, cascading failures, the report stated.
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C|net, 9/24/03: Behind Microsoft's latest PR blitz
By Jon Oltsik
Have you noticed that Microsoft is on the offensive? After countless months of reading press clippings about the pathetic state of Windows security, the folks in Redmond, Wash., have decided to fight back with one of their strongest weapons--public relations.
This communications-centric policy has always served the company well, so the Microsoft speechwriters and sound-bite coaches have added security to their "trendy topics" list.
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Fast Company, 10/03: Can Microsoft Finally Kill All The Bugs?
Viruses, flaws, and worms, oh my! With PCs crashing and the Internet wheezing, Gates & Co. are on the quality hot seat. We'll take you inside Microsoft's effort to get its software right, right from the start.
It was the worm that turned Microsoft. In early July 2001, a malicious piece of computer code squirmed into a Web server running on Microsoft's Internet Information Server software. It quickly propagated across the Internet and into at least a quarter million other servers, knocking an untold number of Web sites offline. The computer worm, dubbed Code Red, slowed Internet traffic to a crawl and cost companies billions in fixes and lost productivity. Some computer-security analysts called it the most damaging Web-server virus ever. As it turned out, its symptoms were fleeting; within a month, the fever had broken. But because it had exploited a known flaw in Microsoft's Internet server program, Code Red caused the Redmond, Washington, giant to turn red with embarrassment, especially when it was revealed that Microsoft's own MSN Hotmail servers were also infected.
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Future Focus
Dan Bricklin Weblog, 9/23/03: Esther Dyson interview at MIMC
Scott Kirsner interviewed Esther Dyson at the MIMC Fireside Chat on September 18, 2003, at the Harvard Faculty Club, sponsored by Novell and Hoovers Online. There was also an extensive Q&A session. This is a report of some of what she said to get an idea of what it was like. (My notes are incomplete and I couldn't read all my scribbles, but Esther commented on a draft and her additions fit with my memory of what she said...)
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