CenterBeam
Inc., 9/04: Cell Phone Madness
At first glance, it seems like a bad deal, a kind of techno demotion. But Gregg Davis, CIO of Webcor Building, a San Mateo, Calif., construction company, is making the pitch anyway: You give me your notebook computer, he's telling his employees, and I'll give you a new cell phone.
Of course, these are no ordinary phones. They're more like hot rods, supercharged beyond recognition. Packed with 32 megabytes of memory, a 144-megahertz processor, a thumb keyboard, and a 1.8-inch color screen, the slick-looking devices come loaded with Palm organizer software and a Blazer Web browser, and can run Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, and other core business applications. Users can read and send e-mail, view PDFs, inspect and make changes to documents, review change orders, and even pull up drawings to inspect with architects at construction sites. They can also call the office to check voice mail. "I feel more connected than I did with my notebook," says Webcor CFO Tim J. Lutz.
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Making all this technology work together can still cause migraines, particularly for smaller companies that lack in-house tech talent. Fortunately, there are outsourced services from companies like CenterBeam, based in San Jose, and LAN Logic, based in Livermore, Calif., that will handle the heavy-duty network back-end and server software, so that smaller businesses can start using superphones without having to maintain the software. This is of particular use because it's still a challenge to get the software and hardware to work well together over cellular networks.
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IT Management
Computerworld, 8/25/04: Microsoft wraps up MOM 2005 management tool
It also touted a cheaper product for monitoring four and 10 servers
News Story by Joris Evers
AUGUST 25, 2004 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - Microsoft Corp. today said it has finished work on Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, a major update to its MOM 2000 performance management software.
Along with MOM 2005, Microsoft also announced MOM 2005 Workgroup Edition, previously called MOM 2005 Express. This new addition to the Microsoft management product lineup was announced in March and is pitched as a less expensive product for organizations with between four and 10 servers, requiring only simple monitoring of Microsoft Windows Server environments.
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Security
Computerworld, 8/25/04: Old computers: An IT department liability that's costing more
Resellers now want money to sanitize hard drives
News Story by Lucas Mearian
AUGUST 25, 2004 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Resellers of old computer equipment say they will no longer accept used equipment without charging for erasing hard drives to ensure they aren't held liable for exposing sensitive data.
Marc Sherman, chairman and CEO of WindsorTech Inc. in Highstown, N.J., a used IT equipment reseller, charges companies a flat $8.75 fee for performing a basic audit of used computer equipment and $10 to $30 for erasing disk arrays, depending on the disk's size.
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Collaborative Technologies
The Wall Street Journal, 8/26/04: The Day the E-Mail Dies
How One Company Learned Shutting Down the PC In Box Is Easier Said Than Done
By MARLON A. WALKER
Some people dream of a world without war or disease. Jeremy Burton dreams of a world without e-mail.
Like most office workers who sit in front of a computer all day, Mr. Burton noticed recently that he was spending more and more time simply going through his e-mail. But as a vice president of marketing at a big Silicon Valley company, Mr. Burton was in a position to do something about it.
And what he did, others just dream of doing.
Two months ago, he decreed that Fridays in his department would henceforth be e-mail free. The 240 people who work for Mr. Burton got the word: If they wanted to get a message to a colleague in the department on a Friday, they'd have to pick up the phone and call him or her, or, better yet, go over and chat in person.
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