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News Snippets

September 2000 News

  • UNIX strikes back
  • No such thing as a free lunch
  • Corporate portals failing
  • Appliances gain ground

UNIX systems take on Mainframe muscle

Big UNIX iron is being rolled out during the next 18 months. In 2000 we will see HP Superdome (pity about the name), IBM RS/6000 S80 (Condor successor) and Sun Serengeti (good names must be getting rare) UltraSparc III. Whilst 2001 sees Compaq 1 GHz-plus EV68 AlphaServer, Intel Itanium, IBM Power4 RS/6000 and Compaq 64-CPU EV7 AlphaServer. They all bring clustering, dynamic portioning and multiple processors and Mainframe reliability. It must be true to say that "the Power is out there". The question must be whether there are applications out there that can exploit the platform capabilities and not just the muscle?

Free web access loses its gloss

AltaVista have abandoned their offering, as have LineOne, CallNet, Virgin Net and LibertySurf. This action fully supports the adage that there is no such thing as a free lunch. The main reason for stopping the service is that it is not economically viable because BT still charges for the line rental. This is also an example of differences between business models in the US and Europe. The consequence being that certain services cannot become truly global unless circumstances change.

Benefits not being delivered through portals

It is the lack of good integration of portals with the back-office multiple data sources that is causing them to fail. To do the job properly will cost money because the requirement was not identified when the back-office applications were being architected. Another issue is how will the portals really be used. Some say from mobile systems, others say it will be from wireless laptops and yet another prognosis is from thin clients - with this level of indecision it is no wonder that things are not looking too rosy.

Simplify life by using appliances

PC appliances are becoming increasingly attractive to corporations because they simplify life. They are also cheaper and less complex and easier to manage. Appliances often have reduced features - those that nobody really needs but look good in the manual - so configuration errors are reduced. Of course the real "techies" are not impressed because appliances have security features that reduce meddling or tweaking.

Shorties

  • Germany has the lead in installing a high-bandwidth Digital subscriber line (DSL) infrastructure. German customers with ISDN are being offered DSL as a smooth upgrade (on their ISDN lines).
  • Motorola gain biometrics and data management expertise by acquiring Printrak.
  • Novell are planning to enter the dangerous world of ASP by acting as service intermediary doing central billing and management tasks. An interesting change in business direction.
  • PGP versions 5.5 - 6.5.3 have a bug that fails to notice when an unauthorised key is added. Fixes are available BUT issues with key recovery are re-awakened.
  • Ticketmaster suffers from "M-Squad" graffiti attack which exploited a documented flaw in MS IIS versions 4.0 - 6a.
  • People's Lottery systems partners reveal serious problems that generated 1$M fine. This might make the GTech criticism look a little sick.
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