Stories about: Sterling Commerce

Maybe Gartner Vice President of Research Benoit Lheureux can't say, "I've seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked," but he did sound a bit like the poet Allen Ginsberg when -- speaking about VAN (value-added network) service providers -- he said, "I saw these guys sink into the morass of the IT hell hole, and they were bleeding revenue."

Juniper, IBM and Verizon will be among the big-name companies airing new products and services in the US this week at the RSA Conference, the annual security industry event that is expected to draw 17,000 attendees and 350 exhibitors.

Back when SOA first started getting traction, the goal was simply to make application functionality available as a shared service. Companies made up their architectures as they went along -- and of course, they're still doing that. The difference today is that, in the last couple of years, the business side has a better sense of the strategic value of IT, while IT has learned more about the competitive pressures business must endure. As a result, SOA now offers the possibility of greater alignment between IT and business than ever before.

Despite being one of the largest bookstore chains in the United States, Borders for several years has relied on Amazon to operate its entire online business.

Wal-Mart Stores is the only U.S. retailer that sells Mary-kateandashley One, a new fragrance branded by twin teenage entertainment moguls Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Behind the scenes, fragrance and cosmetics manufacturer Coty depends on a hybrid business-to-business system that combines new standards and old technology -- older than the Olsen twins, in fact -- to keep Wal-Mart's shelves adequately stocked with the fragrance.

Maintaining security on their networks is critical for all companies. One primary tool that every network needs is access control -- the ability to carefully define and enforce which users have what type of access to specific applications, data and devices.

In 2004, CIOs can expect to hear much more about a new standard to streamline supply chain technology: ebXML.

OASIS on Monday said it has formed an ebXML Business Process Technical Committee to further define the ebXML BPSS (e-business XML Business Process Specification Schema) model for business collaborations within and between enterprises.

In a bid to streamline business processes and reduce operational costs by expanding its data transaction capabilities, MM Electrical Merchandising is implementing an upgraded EDI gateway solution.

EDI lives and .Net cannot be ignored, said industry executives and audience members at a panel session on Monday.

Looking to capitalize on users' desire to trim EDI network charges and exploit emerging standards, EAI (enterprise application integration) vendors are increasingly touting their tools as a way to extend or replace existing EDI infrastructures.