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To kick off its big JavaOne party for its software developers in San Francisco this week, Sun Microsystems made a flurry of announcements aimed at rekindling enthusiasm for the once high-flying company's future prospects. But some critics of the Santa Clara, California enterprise remained unimpressed by the festivities "At the moment, Sun is sort o...

There is a classic scene in the movie "Casablanca" where Claude Raines attempts to close down Rick's Cafe. When Humphrey Bogart demands to know why, Raines says, "I'm shocked! Shocked to think that gambling is going on in this establishment!" Meanwhile, the casino employee walks up and hands him his winnings I'm reminded of that scene every time I ...

In 1997, Keith Raffel founded UpShot Corporation, the first company to offer Web-based, hosted sales-force automation and CRM. UpShot launched its initial product two years later. By 2003 its products included UpShot for small and midsize businesses and UpShot XE for larger organizations As UpShot was considering growth strategies -- private financ...

On Monday, VeriSign announced the rollout of a new anti-phishing service. Called "Email Security Services," the new offering is designed to dovetail with the VeriSign Intelligence and Control Services to help businesses combat spam, e-mail viruses and phishing, a type of online scam that has become increasingly popular over the past year Phishing a...

Red Hat and Novell announced Monday that they will start bundling RealNetwork's Helix Player with their operating system products. The companies also noted that they will offer upgrades to RealPlayer 10 for Linux when that application is launched later this year Helix is a free, open-source media player developed by the Helix Community, a nonprofit...

Fujitsu and Microsoft have announced a collaborative agreement to develop Fujitsu's next-generation, Itanium-based server, which will be optimized for Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 and next-gen Longhorn server. The deal -- a new Memorandum of Understanding announced in Japan that builds on the two companies' existing partnership -- gives Fujitsu...

An unusual Web virus that was spread to user computers through infected Web site servers might be a Trojan capable of sending financial information back to the attacker. Microsoft said it helped law enforcement agencies identify and shut down the Russia-based site where the attacking code -- known as "Scob," "Download.Ject" or "Toofer" -- was emerging...

To anyone who runs a small company, raising capital might seem like an overwhelming task. Venture capital companies usually want a big piece of your pie if they are to invest in your business. Often, this means that you have to give up control of the business you worked so hard to start. Financial institutions also are not particularly friendly to...

As a guest of AMD, I went to Indianapolis to watch the top Ferrari team once again whomp the other nine teams in what remains one of the most expensive sports in the world. This racing team has been winning for so long and is so dominant in this sport that I often wonder why anyone watches these races anymore. The outcome often seems preordained Th...

Spyware is fast becoming the next generation of spam. It is software that installs onto a computer or local network, monitors computing habits and delivers the information to third parties. Usually, the user is unaware that the software exists on his or her computer Much like spam, spyware is becoming more than just a nuisance; it's raising major r...

Oil prices marked their largest one-week price drop in three months after a work stoppage at key Norwegian oil fields was resolved on Friday. Crude prices fell 41 cents a barrel to US$37.52 on the New York Mercantile Exchange and fell nearly 4 percent for the week. Oil was trading for $42 a barrel, a three-decade high, less than three weeks ago....

Computer and Internet security experts were closely watching the development of a mysterious outbreak that appears to have used a new tactic against an old vulnerability to infect thousands, possibly millions, of Web servers, Internet sites and Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser users The widespread attacks began as early as June 20th, but secur...

Two astronauts working outside the international space station hit a snag Thursday when an oxygen leak in one of their space suits forced them to abort their mission The head of the International Space Station's Russian sector said engineers are currently looking into why oxygen leaked out of astronaut Michael Fincke's space suit....

Hitachi and NEC announced Friday that they are joining forces to develop routers and switches for networks of telecommunications carriers, government and public sectors, and large enterprises. The joint venture will be formally established in October The router market is currently dominated by Cisco and Juniper Networks. In March, Cisco rolled out ...

Last week, the FTC rejected the idea of a national "do-not-e-mail" registry, and this week a coalition of ISPs released a set of technical guidelines to help in the fight against spam. Both these actions point the way toward the real solution. But first, a host of bad ideas needs to be canned The first bad idea is that laws alone can stop spam from...

Let's face it: CRM continues to be the Rodney Dangerfield of enterprise applications. It doesn't get nearly the respect it deserves. Despite many research firms' take on the aggressive growth of customer-based initiatives inside manufacturing and services companies alike, CRM itself continues to go through a slow and painful metamorphosis today. L...

Wednesday's salesforce.com IPO offered a rare opportunity for smaller CRM companies to elbow their way into the media spotlight Many of these competitors claimed that they were taking customers away from the now-public company's customer entourage. Because the IPO quiet period extends 25 days past the IPO date, a salesforce.com spokesperson said th...

Last summer, Microsoft began testing an inexpensive version of Windows in Thailand, and on Wednesday confirmed that its official name is now "Windows XP Starter Edition." The Starter Edition is included in a cheap Windows bundle that is partly designed to combat Linux in Thailand, say some analysts Microsoft has noted that the edition will be part ...

Salesforce.com soared on its first day of public trading Wednesday as the second-most hotly anticipated technology IPO of the year -- behind only Google's still-to-come initial public offering -- gained 56 percent and valued the company at US$1.7 billion. Salesforce.com's strong first-day gains came despite two last-minute increases in the offerin...

While event organizers have called it a postponement and vowed to bring it back stronger and better in 2005, the cancellation of the Comdex IT trade show in Las Vegas this November marks the official end to an era MediaLive -- which bought what was the premier trade show in IT last year despite sagging attendance by vendors, buyers and others -- sa...