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• GE Services Reorganizes in E-commerce Push

  General Electric, Thomas Edison's 20th century company that brought electricity to America, now wants to bring e-commerce to the world. With that in mind, General Electric Information Services (GEIS) announced here Monday that the organization will split into two new companies: GE Systems Services and GE Global Exchange Services.

  Written by Mark Leon • 06 March 00 12:01

• E-business looks to wireless for rollout

  I'll get you, you wascally wabbit! I haven't really lost the "R"s in my vocabulary - only temporarily misplaced them. The reason I'm feeling rather Elmer Fudd-ish is that I've been examining WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) and how it might affect those rolling out e-business initiatives. Thoughts of wireless strategies that include WAP and WML (Wireless Markup Language) have me just swimming in the Ws this week.

  Written by Maggie Biggs • 06 March 00 12:01

• Window Manager

  For several weeks, my columns have dealt with security threats from Trojan horses and moles, Web attacks using distributed denial-of-service tools, and so forth. This week, let's have some fun and look at tips you have sent in. I asked for Windows 2000 tips, and they're starting to pour in. Keep 'em coming.

  Written by Brian Livingston • 06 March 00 12:01

• Net Prophet

  Does your company play well with others? It's a lesson kindergartners must learn, but not something businesses excel in. But in the emerging world of business-to-business Internet exchanges, it's a lesson every company must learn.

  Written by Sean M. Dugan • 06 March 00 12:01

• Alcatel's acquisition seals Newbridge's fate

  Alcatel has cemented its position among the top-tier networking vendors worldwide with the recent $11.5 billion ($US7.1 billion) acquisition of struggling Newbridge Networks, and the move is likely to prove especially beneficial for Australian users.

  Written by Naomi Jackson and Martyn Williams • 06 March 00 12:01

• Carnival in Brazil Goes Online

  Can't make it to Brazil for Carnival this year? By going online, you can see how much fun people are having at the country's most popular and world-renowned party, and get some cultural background on the event -- thanks to some major Web sites in the country.

  Written by Ricardo P. Cesar • 06 March 00 12:01

• Electronic Whiteboard Kits on the Go

  How many times have you looked back on a meeting and wished you'd taken better notes? Electronic whiteboards can help by recording the scribbling of you and your colleagues, but they're expensive (more than $2500 for a 4-by-6-foot board) and too heavy to tote from room to room. Virtual Ink Corp.'s Mimio and Electronics for Imaging's EBeam address both of these issues: Each unit costs about $500, fits inside a briefcase, and attaches to any Conventional whiteboard with dimensions up to 4 by 8 feet.

  Written by Eric Dahl • 06 March 00 12:01

• Corporate Security Begins at Home

  One of the fallouts from last month's wave of distributed denial-of-service attacks has been a surge in the use of personal firewalls to secure home PCs accessing corporate networks and to track invaders who seek to use them in attacks.

  Written by Ann Harrison • 06 March 00 12:01

• Sol 6 stops spending binge, sets up shop

  Just one week after posting losses for the last half-year, spendthrift accountancy software company Solution 6 has finally set up a traditional internet shopfront.

  Written by Byron Kaye • 06 March 00 12:01

• Don't Be Duped Into a Denial-of-Service Attack

  There is no defense against a denial-of-service attack. Just ask your security staff. They'll hem and haw and mention some products you can buy. But then you'll start hearing terms right out of the Vietnam War: "mitigate losses" and "acceptable casualty rate." If you're connected to a public network like the Internet, some bad guy will be able to devise a way to deny you service. Distributed denial-of-service attacks, in which hackers use hundreds or thousands of unwitting third-party systems to do their dirty work, are just a further iteration in the battles.

  Written by Joel Snyder • 06 March 00 12:01

• To Buy or Not to Buy: Points to Consider

  Evaluating an IT purchase is a type of due diligence referred to as risk management. The big accounting firms and IT consultancies such as Compass America Inc. in Reston, Va., and Quantitative Software Management Inc. in McLean, Va., tackle technology risk management.

  Written by Lee Copeland • 06 March 00 12:01

• Four Ways to Do VoIP

  If you want to get started today on a transition to voice over IP, there are four options: gateways, IP PBXs, converged appliances, and other.

  Written by Peter Clegg • 06 March 00 12:01

• Tektronix's Speedy, Thrifty Color Printer

  Tektronix Inc.'s newest laser, the Phaser 850, really tears through color documents: For graphics, we clocked it at 2.4 pages per minute--double the average for current color lasers, and 14 percent faster than the speed champ on our latest laser chart. But it loses its lead when printing plain text: At 6.8 ppm, it's a half-page per minute slower than the average color laser.

  Written by Dan Littman • 06 March 00 12:01

• Telefónica Subsidiary Launches Free ISP in México

  The spread of free Internet access offers throughout Latin America continued today with the announcement that Terra Networks SA plans to give away access in México.

  Written by Juan Carlos Pérez • 06 March 00 12:01

• Overcoming Earth, Wind and Water To Keep Data Safe

  Word came early in the evening on May 3, 1999: An F5-level tornado - the deadliest kind, with winds that exceeded 260 miles per hour - had hit Oklahoma City. Kevin McDonald, director of information services at Tontitown, Ark.-based PAM Transportation Services Inc., feared the worst. Oklahoma City housed PAM's truck terminal and the dispatch center for the company's subsidiary, Choctaw Express Inc. McDonald had to keep that center up and running.

  Written by David Essex • 06 March 00 12:01

• Recovery fuels Asia-Pacific server sales

  Sales of server hardware in the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan) rose 36 per cent in 1999 over the previous year's figure to a record value of $7.6 billion ($US4.67 billion), according to IDC.

  Written by David Legard • 06 March 00 12:01

• BRIEFS

  SAP and Telstra join forces online, Intel invests $403m in Infineon, Ecorp strikes wireless alliance

  Written by IDG staff • 06 March 00 12:01

• The Open Source

  It seems that someone writes at least once a week to tell me why Linux can never succeed on the desktop. Invariably, the proof they offer is in the form of a list of the problems they had installing and running Linux or Linux applications.

  Written by Nicholas Petreley • 06 March 00 12:01

• Intel to Match AMD at 1GHz Wednesday, Source Says

  Intel Corp. will launch a 1GHz Pentium III processor on Wednesday, a source close to the company said today, two days after arch-rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) released an Athlon processor running at the same speed.

  Written by James Niccolai • 06 March 00 12:01

• BT-LookSmart Directory JV to Serve U.K. Too

  British Telecommunications PLC (BT) and the search and directory service provider LookSmart Ltd. have extended their joint venture to include the U.K., the companies announced today.

  Written by Laura Rohde • 06 March 00 12:01