CenterBeam
Yahoo News, 9/8/04: Cedar Petrochemicals Selects CenterBeam to Refine IT
Worldwide Chemical Trader Improves IT Performance and Reduces Costs
SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Cedar Petrochemicals, Inc., a global marketing and trading company specializing in commodity chemicals, has selected CenterBeam to manage its IT infrastructure worldwide. The company is headquartered in New York City and has offices in Brazil, Europe, Korea, the Middle East, Taiwan, China and India.
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"Cedar Petrochemicals excels in anticipating rapid changes in the global supply and demand for chemicals," said Amy Aiello, controller, Cedar Petrochemicals. "We serve our customers and suppliers by quickly meeting their needs through our worldwide network and infrastructure. Our market changes minute-by-minute and it's critical to stay connected to the global flow of information. Because CenterBeam is working around the clock to keep our IT systems online, we can confidently focus more time and resources on strategic business issues. The fact that CenterBeam can provide these services to us at an overall cost savings allows us to more effectively use our financial and human resources to grow our business."
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Offshoring
eWeek, 9/6/04: IT Labor Boomerangs Back Home
By Renee Boucher Ferguson
For all its promise of cost savings, enterprises disillusioned and dissatisfied with offshoring IT labor are starting to bring that work home.
Language barriers, time zone differences and even unscheduled overtime are just some of the issues causing some U.S.-based enterprises increased frustration and pushing them to not just reconsider their offshoring policies but scrap them outright.
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The Wall Street Journal, 9/8/04: IT Job Growth Is Seen Slowing For Rest of Year
By MICHAEL SCHROEDER
WASHINGTON -- Job-market growth in the information-technology sector is expected to shrink the rest of the year, according to a trade group.
Hiring managers said that they plan to fill about 230,000 jobs this year, compared with 500,000 jobs filled last year, according to a survey expected to be released today by the Information Technology Association of America, a trade group representing 350 companies in the U.S.
He added the managers are "remaining cautious" until there are more signs of a full recovery to increase hiring more aggressively. In the meantime, there will be more hiring of part-time and temporary workers.
The survey didn't ask managers about their plans for outsourcing work abroad, a contentious issue.
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Mobile
The Wall Street Journal, 9/8/04: New BlackBerry Combo Takes on Treo
Phone-Like Device Solves Problems of Earlier Models; Nokia Enters the Fray
In a quest to invent the perfect combination of a cellphone, pocket e-mail device and organizer, most companies have failed. Either their products were so big and bulky they didn't look or work like phones, or they were so small and phone-like they had no room for the keyboards needed to create lots of e-mail messages. Or, the hardware was creative, but they had lousy e-mail or phone software.
Only the palmOne Treo 600 has succeeded so far. It looks and feels like a phone, and yet it has a full keyboard and excellent e-mail and phone software. By contrast, Research In Motion, makers of the BlackBerry e-mail device popular in corporate circles, has failed to meld the phone with e-mail very well. Its BlackBerry models with built-in phones have been bulky, with a clumsy interface for phone calls.
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Microsoft
C|net, 9/8/04: Microsoft extends block to SP2 auto update
By Martin LaMonica
Microsoft is doubling the number of months that corporate customers can block automatic delivery of Windows XP Service Pack 2.
The company on Tuesday altered its policy for preventing automatic download of SP2 through Automatic Update or Windows Update, two services for automatically downloading important Windows updates to PCs via the Internet. Corporate customers now have about eight months--or until the middle of April--to prepare for the security-related update, which may require testing for compatibility with other business applications before installation.
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Collaborative Technologies
The New York Times, 9/6/04: An Online Pioneer Resists the Lure of Cashing In
By MATT RICHTEL
SAN FRANCISCO - When they write the history of the greatest Silicon Valley entrepreneur that never was, they should remember to mention his pedometer.
If anything symbolizes the efforts of Craig Newmark, founder and keeper of Craigslist (www.craigslist.org), a Web site used each month by millions of people to exchange goods, services and points of view, it is the gadget that measures how many steps he takes each day. It was given to Mr. Newmark by his nutritionist.
"She says I'm not walking enough," Mr. Newmark said.
No wonder. He does not get out much. It has been four years since Mr. Newmark, 51, took a day off from sitting at his computer admonishing spammers, scammers, ne'er-do-wells, meanies and others who would demean or pollute the community that bears his name.
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