Short takes from this week's news
Virgin Megastores to have single customer
view
Virgin Megastores has gone live with marketing communications
software to give the retailer a single view of customer activity
across its websites and enable better targeted marketing campaigns.
The music and entertainment retailer began using Neolane V4 in
August, taking data feeds from all the hosted transactional
databases supporting Virgin's website.
Bank accidentally throws out customer
details
JP Morgan Chase has admitted throwing out 2.6 million customer
account details with the rubbish. The bank's Chase Card Services
arm in the US was responsible for the latest data loss debacle to
hit corporate America when details of 2.6 million current and
former Circuit City credit card account holders held on tape were
mistakenly thrown out.
Antitrust rulings will hold up Vista, says
Microsoft
Microsoft has said its efforts to comply with European
Commission antitrust rulings could lead to delays in the European
launch of the Windows Vista operating system. The EC said the
software firm's comments were "misleading". Vista is due to be
launched in January.
Harrow Council uses ERP to streamline
services
Harrow Council has rolled out two SAP enterprise resource
planning systems to help improve accessibility to information and
streamline services. The council has used IT services firm Capita
to help develop and implement the systems, as part of an existing
10-year deal. The ERP systems will link together the council's
back-office support functions, such as HR, finance and property
services, onto a single platform.
Patch Tuesday brings three Microsoft fixes
Microsoft is due to release three patches today (12 September)
as part of its monthly update, including one designed to fix a
zero-day vulnerability in Office. It will also issue an update for
the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT). Of the three
security updates, two address "important" flaws in Windows, and the
Office bug is deemed "critical".
Tesco delays launch of non-food online service
Tesco has delayed the launch of Tesco Direct, its non-food web
ordering service, after suffering IT problems. It had been
scheduled to launch the service last week. No new go-live date has
been set. The problems are believed to be linked to the company's
existing web infrastructure but no details have been released by
the retailer.
IBM introduces paid-for support for Eclipse
users
IBM is ramping up its support for developers using the Eclipse
open source coding model by providing paid-for support. IBM
Rational Elite Support for Eclipse will provide technical
assistance to more than 2.3 million application developers using
Eclipse worldwide.
Airline bans use of Dell and Apple laptops
Korean Air has banned the use of Dell and Apple laptops on its
flights because of the possible fire risk their batteries pose.
Other airlines are believed to be making similar plans. Last month,
Dell recalled 4.1 million laptop batteries that were made on its
behalf by Sony. After a similar problem, Apple recalled 1.8 million
Sony batteries.
HSBC signs £50m deal for upgraded UK
network
HSBC has awarded telco Thus a five-year contract worth more than
£50m to implement a next-generation network for the bank's UK
operation. Thus has been given preferred supplier status for the
job of replacing the bank's legacy domestic national network. The
upgraded network will support full multimedia capabilities across
more than 2,200 HSBC sites.
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