Stories about: Crystallize

It's been three months since Padmasree Warrior left Motorola to become Cisco's CTO. Since then, she's not been available for interviews -- until now. Jim Duffy caught up with her at the Cisco Live! customer conference in the US.

Industry observers nodded in agreement last week at the conclusions of a scathing internal assessment that has come to be called the "peanut butter" memo.

IBM later this month will demonstrate Project Cinnamon, the company's content management technology designed to ease document management and storage through XML tagging.

Most any conversation about instant messaging inevitably turns to the lack of product interoperability that continues to exert a drag on enterprise adoption and bedevil those who see no choice but to dive in anyway. Such was the case at last week's Instant Messaging Planet conference in Boston, where vendor speakers tripped over one another - and their tongues - in an attempt to assure attendees that IM's time is now even though interoperability still can't find the party.

IBM Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sam Palmisano stood before several hundred of his company's top executives and customers last October and gave the speech that launched a thousand marketing campaigns.

IBM revealed that it is working on a componentized version of WebSphere, code-named Vela, which the company said represents the next generation of application servers.

Alcatel believes it has a way for service providers to introduce Ethernet data services without disrupting revenue they generate from frame relay.

Microsoft's .Net initiative began to crystallize in the late 1990s. It was designed to solve several widespread Windows-generated exasperations: DLL (dynamic link library) hell, the complexity of installing and uninstalling software, and the fragility of proprietary configuration. To eliminate these problems, Redmond decided to add another layer of indirection while implementing interoperability through XML (Extensible Markup Language). According to Dick Hardt, founder of the ActiveState Tool Corporation, Microsoft has scripted the indirection and data transparency well enough that ".Net removes all the configuration issues and complexity with ActiveX and COM [Component Object Model]." At the same time, .Net has better performance than COM.

Procurement software can streamline ordering and help you find bargains--but it's still in its infancy

A more refined concept of the role of application service providers (ASP) may crystallize this year, according to a study released last week by Cahners In-Stat Group in Scottsdale, Arizona.

AFTER STANDING by while upstarts scoop up clients and industry mind share, major telecom providers are pushing their way into the ASP (application service provider) market by vying to be the platform of choice for application outsourcers.