Monday, September 23, 2002

Peregrine sells Remedy Peregrine Systems has filed Chapter 11.  They already sold Fleet Anywhere, our central fleet management system in Utah, to Maximus.  Now they are selling Remedy to BMC Software.  We have used Remedy for years for help desk applications.  The purchased Remedy for $1 billion a year ago and sold it for $350 million.  Not a very good return on investment.  It looks like quite a few state fleets are using Fleet Anywhere, including Georgia, Oregon, Texas, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. 1:36:52 PM

JNet as a model for homeland security In his comments to the press on homeland security, Governor Mike Leavitt suggested that Pennsylvania's JNet might be a model for integration across levels of government.  JNet is a solution being rolled out to state and local governments throughout Pennsylvania and already has hundreds of users.  It is similar to Utah's ICJIS system in that it helps all types of law enforcement exchange information about people moving through the criminal justice system.  According to one officer, “One of the biggest benefits that JNET provides law enforcement is the fact that you can enter information one time, and yet query a number of databases. For example, you may be interested in a certain individual. You enter that information and you can get the information that’s housed in the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, the Department of Corrections, Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, and records held by the State Police. And that really makes it easy to track individuals and it cuts down on the time required to find information on people." JNET Governance Model Federal agencies that access JNET include the FBI, DEA, IRS, ATF, US Marshall, US Postal Service, and INS.  JNet includes a notification / alert service that allows users to receive information regarding specific individuals by email or pager anytime such information shows up.  JNet uses J2EE standards including: The JavaServer PagesTM (JSPTM)specification The Java Servlets API The Enterprise JavaBeansTM (EJBTM) specification The Java Naming and Directory InterfaceTM (JNDI) The Java Database Connectivity (JDBCTM) API RMI 1:21:22 PM

Vaccinating Millions How do you vaccinate 288 million people in five days?  The CDC now has a plan to do exactly that.  The "Smallpox Vaccination Clinic Guide" has the details.  Obviously, this would be a huge logistical challenge and would require information systems to support planning and implementation.  Just one more thing to consider as we develop our enterprise homeland security project for the state. 11:25:29 AM

Salt Lake falls in city rankings (Brown University) In a companion study to an earlier report by Brown University on state websites, Salt Lake City was ranked 37th (lower half) among cities ranked in the survey.  This is a big drop from 5th where they were ranked last year. 10:47:08 AM

Public Safety Communications Back in June, Federal Computer Week quoted Steve Proctor (director of UCAN) saying, "My cellular phone has more functionality and costs a lot less than our radio systems."   If that is the case, then why do we have a separate public safety voice network.  Nextel, for example, could provide secure talk groups at less cost.  We need to understand what we really want in public safety communications and do the right thing, not just add to the complexity.  8:03:48 AM

© Copyright 2003 David Fletcher.