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Business applications

• July 19, 2007 19 Jul'07

  Anti-terror police CCTV could cost £1.75bn

  Anti-terrorist police could face a massive bill for storing up to five years of data from London's congestion charge cameras and automatic number plate recognition system.

• July 19, 2007 19 Jul'07

  BT chooses Optim to manage data

  BT has implemented Optim software from data management company Princeton Softech to cope with spiralling data volumes generated by thousands of daily support calls.

• July 19, 2007 19 Jul'07

  Gartner: MS subscription licence may become ‘mandatory’

  Microsoft is likely to make changes to the way its products are licensed that could, in effect, make its Software Assurance subscription licensing programme mandatory by 2009, analyst firm Gartner has predicted.

• July 19, 2007 19 Jul'07

  Hot skills: Java FX Mobile offers opportunities

  JavaFX Mobile promises to ease app development

• July 19, 2007 19 Jul'07

  Gigabit wireless to get rid of desk and data centre wires

  New gigabit wireless research at the Georgia Institute of Technology could soon make tangles of wires under desks and even in datacentres a thing of the past.

• July 19, 2007 19 Jul'07

  Housing association uses Microsoft Sharepoint Server to improve efficiency

  Two housing associations have used Microsoft SharePoint Server to manage their internal and external internet sites and improve information flow.

• July 19, 2007 19 Jul'07

  SOA extends life of mainframe apps

  IT departments are turning to service oriented architectures (SOA) and web services to extend the life of their mainframe applications, according to a study by Aberdeen Group.

• July 19, 2007 19 Jul'07

  Critical Firefox security flaws addressed by Mozilla

  Mozilla has attended to eight flaws in Firefox, fixing three critical and two high-impact vulnerabilities

• July 18, 2007 18 Jul'07

  For Boeing, data security, network access still hazy

  Boeing is trying to reshape its network security architecture to better protect sensitive systems from threats without degrading employee productivity.

• July 18, 2007 18 Jul'07

  Colgate extends SAP relationship

  Colgate-Palmolive has deployed almost the entire SAP suite, according to SAP's latest results report for the second quarter ending 30 June.

• July 18, 2007 18 Jul'07

  Google voted most significant e-commerce development

  Google has been voted the most significant e-commerce development of the past decade in a poll carried out by the Software and Information Industry Association (SIAA).

• July 18, 2007 18 Jul'07

  Banks to charge for Faster Payments

  Certain banks plan to charge customers for using Faster Payment services, according to a survey of six of the banks involved.

• July 18, 2007 18 Jul'07

  VoIP security vulnerabilities tackled by researchers

  VoIP vulnerabilities can present a serious security threat, but one company makes its living by doing research and alerting manufacturers, vendors and users to potential problems.

• July 18, 2007 18 Jul'07

  Security threat to AOL, Yahoo and Trillian IM applications

  Vulnerability researchers say attackers could exploit flaws in AOL Instant Messenger, Trillian and Yahoo Messenger to run malicious code or cause a denial of service.

• July 18, 2007 18 Jul'07

  Storage disc arrays updated by EMC

  Now that last year's acquisition tear appears to be settling down, EMC disk arrays across the board are getting some attention in the form of hardware and software improvements.

• July 17, 2007 17 Jul'07

  Job ads used to hack US Department of Transport PCs

  Hackers managed to steal information from the US Department of Transportation and several firms by using fake job listings for employees, reports Reuters.

• July 17, 2007 17 Jul'07

  CDP platform purchase considerations

  Busy IT organizations are employing continuous data protection (CDP) technologies to guard data on the fly, essentially eliminating the backup window and allowing granular file and system restoration -- sometimes down to the individual disk write ...

• July 17, 2007 17 Jul'07

  Durham council uses Ordnance Survey to optimise transport services

  Durham County Council is using transport data from Ordnance Survey to boost the efficiency of a range of transport services.

• July 17, 2007 17 Jul'07

  Admiral chooses Metastorm for helpdesk software

  Admiral insurance is using helpdesk management software to support its progress to meet Information Technology information library (ITIL) compliance.

• July 17, 2007 17 Jul'07

  Anti-terrorist police to use congestion charge cameras

  Anti-terrorist police will be able to use London's congestion charge cameras and automatic number-plate recognition system routinely and in real-time to track suspect vehicles throughout the city centre.

• July 17, 2007 17 Jul'07

  Spammers tweak Storm worm to push PDF spam

  Spammers that target enterprises are switching from image spam to emails containing PDF attachments that could eventually perform denial of service attacks and spread bot code.

• July 17, 2007 17 Jul'07

  Oracle plans 46 security updates for database, software

  Attackers could tamper with database servers and host operating systems by exploiting flaws across Oracle's product line.

• July 16, 2007 16 Jul'07

  Lingerie firm has supply chain covered with SAP

  Online lingerie firm figleaves.com is seeking a full view of its supply chain with an SAP business software deployment.

• July 16, 2007 16 Jul'07

  Cisco unified comms systems allow denial of service attacks

  Cisco’s unified communications management platforms have been hit by various security vulnerabilities which allow buffer overflow attacks and unauthorised access.

• July 16, 2007 16 Jul'07

  CRM investment continues despite dissatisfaction

  Many companies believe their investments in customer relationship management (CRM) systems are not delivering business value, but few have any metrics in place a study by PMP Research shows.

• July 16, 2007 16 Jul'07

  Oracle's July 2007 CPU has 45 security fixes

  Oracle stuffed 45 security updates into its July 2007 CPU, fixing flaws across its product line attackers could exploit remotely to compromise corporate databases.

• July 16, 2007 16 Jul'07

  PKF implements service management software

  Accountancy firm PKF has implemented software and services from Fox IT to improve its IT services to its 1800 employees.

• July 16, 2007 16 Jul'07

  Plug-and-play kit builds phishing site in two seconds

  The latest RSA Monthly Fraud Report has warned of a new "kit" that can create a phishing site in two seconds when a user double-clicks an infected file.

• July 16, 2007 16 Jul'07

  IBM acquires DataMirror to improve information management offering

  IBM is acquiring Canadian data-capture firm DataMirror for £85m to improve its information management offering to customers.

• July 16, 2007 16 Jul'07

  North Wales Police upgrades to IP comms with Affiniti

  North Wales Police is to upgrading its network to an IP communications infrastructure to improve services and cut costs.

• July 15, 2007 15 Jul'07

  Microsoft Software Assurance deals questioned by IT chiefs

  One in four companies that bought into Microsoft’s Software Assurance licensing programme in 2004 are being deterred from renewing the three-year deal because they perceive it to be poor value, a study by Forrester Research has revealed.

• July 15, 2007 15 Jul'07

  Focus on business goals to succeed, CIOs urged

  IT managers must improve their business skills to help companies move forward, delegates at this month's CIO Strategic Forum were told.

• July 15, 2007 15 Jul'07

  Harrods links tills to SAP system for targeted sales

  Harrods is using a £1.5m electronic point of sale system to help it target customers with promotions, discounts and services.

• July 13, 2007 13 Jul'07

  Open up a mobile career with Embedded Linux

  Hot skills Intel and Motorola back Linux OS for mobile apps

• July 13, 2007 13 Jul'07

  The benefits of RFID will soon be realised

  IT needs to be aware of the requirements of RFID

• July 13, 2007 13 Jul'07

  Patch Tuesday turns up six aggregate security problems

  Of the six July patches, the worst of the bunch are targeted at Active Directory and the .NET Framework.

• July 13, 2007 13 Jul'07

  Antispyware legislation gets tepid reviews

  Congress is debating three different bills that would punish spyware pushers, but some IT professionals have their doubts about legislation as a solution to the problem.

• July 12, 2007 12 Jul'07

  Local government software market dominated by six firms

  Six companies dominate the local government software market, says the Society of IT Management (Socitm).

• July 12, 2007 12 Jul'07

  Slow e-mail responses may lose customers, study says

  A slow response to customer-service e-mails could be extremely damaging to UK businesses, according to a survey commissioned by Fasthosts...

• July 12, 2007 12 Jul'07

  Red Hat releases JBoss Enterprise Platform 4.2

  Red Hat has released JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 4.2 to allow companies to more easily migrate legacy applications to an open source architecture.

• July 12, 2007 12 Jul'07

  Adobe patches three Flash security flaws

  Three critical vulnerabilities have been identified in Adobe Flash Player that potentially allow attackers to take control of users' systems.

• July 12, 2007 12 Jul'07

  Government outlines ID-card security measures

  The government outlined measures it will take to ensure the privacy of ID-card holders at a Westminster eForum seminar on Thursday.

• July 12, 2007 12 Jul'07

  Server 2008 beta to improve security, say analysts

  This promises to be a big year for Microsoft. It started 2007 with the consumer roll-out of its new client operating system, and it will see the year out by shipping the long-awaited Windows 2008 Server.

• July 12, 2007 12 Jul'07

  IBM washes hands of IceCube storage project

  IBM is spinning out its long overdue next-generation storage system, code-named IceCube, and is seeking $15 million in funding to commercialize the product.

• July 12, 2007 12 Jul'07

  Zero-day auction site highlights ethical debate

  A new auction site plans to cash in on flaw research. Executive Editor Dennis Fisher explores if it's a viable business model and if research should be sold to the highest bidder.

• July 12, 2007 12 Jul'07

  Governance to fore as Verizon completes Cybertrust deal

  Verizon Business claims managed security services leadership with completion of Cybertrust deal

• July 12, 2007 12 Jul'07

  Victory Challenge set sail with virtualisation

  The Victory Challenge team competing in the 33rd America's Cup sailing tournament next year will use virtualisation technology for disaster recovery of its key navigation and weather forecasting systems.

• July 12, 2007 12 Jul'07

  Argyll and Bute council uses VoIP to create virtual contact centre

  Argyll and Bute council has turned to voice over IP (VoIP) technology to power a new "virtual" contact centre for citizens.

• July 12, 2007 12 Jul'07

  Harrods looks to integrate its online and in-store operations

  Harrods, the world's most famous department store, is using a new £1.5m electronic point of sale system to allow it to target customer promotions, discounts and services, and integrate its growing on-line sales operation with the rest of the ...

• July 12, 2007 12 Jul'07

  Open source database makes a date with singles site

  A major UK dating site is using the open source MySQL database server to power its fast-growing site.

• July 12, 2007 12 Jul'07

  Big increase in unified communications take-up as sales reach £191m

  More businesses are buying unified communications products. Worldwide sales have increased by 21% between 2005 and 2006, to £191m, according to analyst Infonetics Research.

• July 11, 2007 11 Jul'07

  Mobility could hold the key to broader UC adoption

  Unified communications (UC) and unified messaging are on the verge of launching a mobile platform. Learn more about mobile UC from Yankee Group's Zeus Kerravala.

• July 11, 2007 11 Jul'07

  Chevron deploys Avena portal for floating Nigerian gas site

  Chevron has selected Avena to provide and implement a critical-information web portal to support its Agbami oil operation in Nigeria.

• July 11, 2007 11 Jul'07

  Microsoft puts date on launch of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008

  Microsoft said it will launch Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 together on 27 February next year.

• July 11, 2007 11 Jul'07

  E-mail archiving still uncommon in corporate world

  E-mail archiving is still in its infancy, according to a survey commissioned by enterprise e-mail archiving supplier C2C.

• July 11, 2007 11 Jul'07

  Oracle launches Database 11g

  Oracle has launched Oracle Database 11g, the next version of its main database platform.

• July 10, 2007 10 Jul'07

  Stena Bulk chooses Neverfail to protect communications

  Global petroleum shipping company Stena Bulk has fortified its tape backup and off-site storage systems with Neverfail software to protect its Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server environments.

• July 10, 2007 10 Jul'07

  Microsoft Software Assurance renewals in doubt

  Users are still seeing little value in Microsoft's Software Assurance (SA) subscription licence programme, a new report from Forrester Research suggests.

• July 10, 2007 10 Jul'07

  SPI mobilises with Cognito

  Field service organisation SPI has chosen Cognito's mobile workforce management system to mobilise its 500-strong workforce.

• July 10, 2007 10 Jul'07

  BT uses Blue Coat to accelerate NHS broadband

  BT is attempting to optimise the performance of the NHS broadband network by deploying network acceleration devices from Blue Coat.

• July 10, 2007 10 Jul'07

  IT heavyweights launch government data security initiative

  Cisco, EMC and Microsoft have formed an alliance to supply multi-vsupplier architectures to help secure and share government data.

• July 10, 2007 10 Jul'07

  Arla Foods selects Norman Network Protection

  Lurpak butter producer Arla is protecting its production networks with the help of Norman Network Protection.

• July 10, 2007 10 Jul'07

  Google promises expansion after security vendor purchase

  Search engine giant Google says it will use its acquisition of security and compliance vendor Postini to expand its hosted applications for businesses.

• July 10, 2007 10 Jul'07

  CommVault revamps data storage backup software

  CommVault's Galaxy Version 7.0 data backup software adds performance improvements, file-level single-instancing, data classification and support for end-user restores.

• July 10, 2007 10 Jul'07

  Standard Life Bank rolls out CRM software to up sales calls

  Standard Life Bank has increased the number of sales calls account managers are able to make by 20% after installing CRM software to improve the organisation of thousands of customer contact details.

• July 09, 2007 09 Jul'07

  Microsoft July updates for critical Excel, Windows and .NET flaws

  Of the six security updates Microsoft released Tuesday, experts expressed the most concern about a critical glitch in the .NET Framework that could leave client machines and Web servers open to attack.

• July 09, 2007 09 Jul'07

  Mobile payments increase

  Mobile payments will generate transactions worth around £11.6bn by 2011, says analyst Juniper Research.

• July 09, 2007 09 Jul'07

  Google buy shakes up email archiving

  Google's acquisition of Postini will boost adoption of Gmail, pushing email archiving players to add support for hosted applications.

• July 09, 2007 09 Jul'07

  Standard Life chooses VMware for hot-desking

  Life assurance company Standard Life is using VMware to support hot-desking within the IT department, as it reduces the number of offices it operates.

• July 09, 2007 09 Jul'07

  VMware holds largest UK conference

  VMware's largest UK user conference, Symposia 2007, was attended by almost 900 users at the Brewery in London.

• July 09, 2007 09 Jul'07

  Croydon extends Northgate deal

  The London Borough of Croydon has strengthened its partnership with Northgate Information Solutions by selecting it to deliver a £4.5m managed support service for its revenues and benefits department.

• July 09, 2007 09 Jul'07

  Firefox 3.0 beta delayed

  The first beta of the Firefox 3.0 open source web browser has been delayed by around six weeks, as developer Mozilla concentrates on improving its quality.

• July 09, 2007 09 Jul'07

  Firms aim to modernise legacy systems rather than replace them

  Firms aim to modernise legacy systems rather than replace them, a survey by Software AG reports.

• July 09, 2007 09 Jul'07

  University of Wolverhampton launches data security degree

  A degree aimed at helping to reduce the number of cyber crimes and personal data thefts has been developed by the University of Wolverhampton.

• July 09, 2007 09 Jul'07

  Embrace consumer technologies, says Gartner

  IT managers should find ways of using consumer technology, such as instant messaging, which is entering the workplace to increase worker productivity rather than banning them outright, according to research from Gartner.

• July 09, 2007 09 Jul'07

  More Trojan threats unleashed

  A new wave of Trojan attacks are being unleashed from thousands of new Hotmail and Yahoo e-mail accounts.

• July 09, 2007 09 Jul'07

  IT professionals need to break glass ceiling

  Beyond the geeky image, IT is driving business

• July 09, 2007 09 Jul'07

  Hotel chain ups guest satisfaction and revenue with call monitoring

  The Omni Hotels group has improved customer satisfaction levels and increased revenue with a contact centre product from Autonomy.

• July 09, 2007 09 Jul'07

  IT companies find it tough to get the business skills from technical people

  Employee management software company Infobasis said it is difficult to find experienced staff with the right skills.

• July 09, 2007 09 Jul'07

  Business intelligence beneficial but costs too high

  BI benefits apparent but challenge is to communicate these to firms

• July 08, 2007 08 Jul'07

  Cisco launch Linksys One range for SMBs

  Cisco has launched a range of routers designed to provide small businesses with packaged routing and switching for voice and wireless applications.

• July 08, 2007 08 Jul'07

  Bodycare deploys BT secure payments system

  The Bodycare toiletry chain is deploying an all-in-one secure payments, CRM and staff training system from BT.

• July 08, 2007 08 Jul'07

  Google to boost hosted software with Postini acquisition

  Google is to acquire Postini, a specialist provider of e-mail archiving systems for regulatory compliance.

• July 06, 2007 06 Jul'07

  Security researchers offered bounty portal

  Security researchers are being offered a sales portal to maximise the bounties they receive for discovering software vulnerabilities.

• July 06, 2007 06 Jul'07

  Business Objects completes Inxight acquisition

  Business Objects has closed the acquisition of privately-held Inxight Software, a provider of software solutions for unstructured information discovery, including text analytics, federated search, and data visualisation.

• July 06, 2007 06 Jul'07

  Secure Computing to announce mobile two-factor security solution

  Secure Computing will next week release a software authenticator that allows remote users access to virtual private networks and applications via one-time pass codes.

• July 06, 2007 06 Jul'07

  Credit firm insists insider selling customer data is no security concern

  A database administrator at Fidelity National Information Services was fired for stealing and selling up to 2.3 million customer bank and credit card records.

• July 06, 2007 06 Jul'07

  Microsoft preps six security updates for Windows, Office

  Microsoft will release six security updates on Tuesday 10 July to address flaws attackers could exploit to launch malicious code and access sensitive information on victims' machines.

• July 05, 2007 05 Jul'07

  Mobile ERP slashes order process time for Rentokil

  Rentokil Initial is considering giving its worldwide sales staff remote access to enterprise resource planning systems from wireless laptops after a UK pilot showed the technology could cut the time taken to process orders from 15 days to three.

• July 05, 2007 05 Jul'07

  Make systems accessible to all, CIOs urged

  IT directors should take a lead in ensuring their systems are flexible enough to be accessible to staff and customers with disabilities.

• July 05, 2007 05 Jul'07

  Application performance problems cost firms £2m a year

  Application performance problems are costing large UK firms an average of more than £500,000 a year as a result of reduced productivity, lost sales and diminished customer confidence.

• July 05, 2007 05 Jul'07

  Start-up success: a guide

  Not since the dotcom boom has there been a better time to start up a UK IT business. Cath Jennings finds out about the three elements necessary to establish a start-up company: innovation, capital and a top team

• July 05, 2007 05 Jul'07

  IBM's Cheetah database server gets primed management tools

  IBM and AGS have launched new management products for IBM’s Informix Dynamic Server (IDS).

• July 05, 2007 05 Jul'07

  Zero-day auction site opened by Swiss lab

  Swiss start-up WabiSabiLabi is offering zero-day findings for qualified buyers. The site could fuel new debate over flaw disclosure.

• July 05, 2007 05 Jul'07

  COA offers financial management products

  COA is shipping a range of new financial management software solutions covering procurement, invoicing and billing.

• July 05, 2007 05 Jul'07

  Wimbledon gets network upgrade

  The Wimbledon Tennis Championships has overhauled its network to provide improved services for players, the media and spectators.

• July 05, 2007 05 Jul'07

  BASF improves database performance through standardisation

  BASF has consolidated and harmonised its Oracle databases to cut costs and improve operations at its European businesses.

• July 05, 2007 05 Jul'07

  FSA calls for strengthened access control to prevent insider trading

  The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has warned businesses to tighten up their IT security to stamp out the misuse of inside information during public takeovers.

• July 04, 2007 04 Jul'07

  Leeds deploys improved call centre customer feedback platform

  Leeds City Council is deploying a new contact centre feedback application to help improve its services to citizens.

• July 04, 2007 04 Jul'07

  Managing traffic: Keeping your content where it belongs

  In this Messaging Security School lesson, messaging expert Mike Rothman will outline today's top concerns regarding outbound content security, detail product options on the market today and offer advice in terms of establishing sound business ...