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The article elaborates how Bill Gates got himself interested in computers in the U.S. He was first a user of small computers before he became a hobbyists programmer. Because of such love of programming, he drove Microsoft's focus toward developers tools and application foundation that tracked the evolving nature of the developer community. As the company continues to move forward into the ear of ubiquitous, always-on connection, its heritage of single-system thinking and Bill Gates eagerness to make things possible continues to impact the company and its customers.

The article revisits a series of articles on information technology security published by eWeek Labs entitled 'Five steps to enterprise security.' According to the series, the five elements of security are assessment, prevention, detection, response and vigilance. In the post-9/11 world, the National Security Agency (NSA) is being seen as a center for excellence for security technique and frameworks such as Infosec Assessment Methodology (IAM) are widely published and taught. The IAM guide suggests such relevant attributes as: accountability, nonrepudiation, authorization, audit and access control.

The article reports on National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) project. The project presents challenges that are recognizable to many enterprise information technology builders. ESDIS has a broad portfolio whose key tasks include project management, systems engineering and technical direction of systems that archive and distribute earth science data, along with the definition of high-level standard data products. NASA defined 12 different domains in which earth science information has beneficial applications: agricultural efficiency. Space-based computer systems also yield petabytes of data, pushing the state of the art in data visualization and creating both technical and managerial challenges. These different interests entail radically different combinations of urgency, complexity and security. Growing commercial application of earth sciences data has yielded a growing variety of commercial off-the-shelf software. ESDIS team was concerned that adopting any such commercial solution might not meet requirements for extensibility and evolution.

This article focuses on developments related to the field of information technology. Enterprise and academic systems are equally challenged by thickening jungles of system complexity and massive flows of data. Research facilities are also IT customers as well as innovators, with technical sophistication that often leads to early adoption and provides potential lessons learned that may benefit less aggressive sites. Mere continuation of the Moore's Law trend to greater physical density of devices is not an attractive option, even if it were physically possible. The Internet itself demonstrates this general approach as its packet-based communication relies on connection and transfer protocols, such as TCP/IP and Ethernet, that are designed to function "well enough" rather than requiring perfection to function at all. Enterprise buyers should be increasingly prepared to discuss their tolerance for error rates and variabilities in system performance, rather than expecting single-valued measures of performance in system specifications. Not merely in metaphor but also in direct application, biology and biochemistry may contribute to the creation of IT hardware.

This article reports that after years of striving to limit the damage of downsizing and contain the chaos of malware and spam, there is a sense in the enterprise information technology (IT) community that it's time to start moving forward once more. IT professionals are well positioned today to take advantage of ubiquitous broadband and wireless connections and to exploit the affordable integration opportunities of Web services. The current resurgence of corporate merger and acquisition activity is finding IT departments ready to roll in response to the resulting infrastructure integration demands, and even to convert those burdens into benefits. According to Glenn Evans, district manager for enterprise foundation architecture at AT&T Global Networking Technology Services, the company's IT strategy, which now faces acquisition by SBC Communications Inc., is to consolidate the redundant applications that large enterprises often find themselves hosting. IT departments that have invested during the last few years in standards-based technologies, such as Web services, and repurposable data formats, such as XML, will reap the rewards when their systems face similar demands for integration and auditability, whether those demands are due to mergers, to regulatory mandates or to continued desire for greater supply chain efficiencies.

The article informs that when information warfare experts want to set the proper base line for what's secure, they point out that the only completely protected machine is one that's disconnected from the network and preferably turned off. Application development security begins from an equally useless zero point: The only completely secure application is one that accepts no input from the outside and offers no access to data. Two factors intensify the hazards facing enterprise development professionals. First, the growing dominance of Web-enabled applications exposes developers' finished products to a vastly larger army of attackers. Second, the rapid development cycles of customer-facing or supply chain-partnering software mean that most new code is never really finished at all. Security must be built into applications from the lowest level upward, rather than applied as a hard outer shell, because a focus on perimeter security ignores the fact that many intruders are already on the inside.

The article focuses on the emerging technologies and developer strategies that enable an enterprise team not merely to survive but also to triumph against such challenges, without forgoing the opportunities that new database deployment options can provide. There are clear upsides to new database architectures, like, grid computing on high-bandwidth networks enables cost-effective and highly scalable analysis, while portable devices with wireless links give better support to decision makers in the field. These same technologies, however, also increase the number of places where an outside attacker might find vulnerability or where internal inconsistencies of data format or application development practice might rip apart a system from within. The agenda of the enterprise database developer is therefore readily defined. Without abandoning costly investments in servers, software and developer skills, the next-generation database must deliver greater analytic capability and rich-media versatility-even while serving users in remote locations who may have only limited bandwidth available to them via intermittent connections. Tomorrows database must be able to meet critical needs in more places, must be able to reach those destinations on shorter notice, and must better defend itself against the threats of both malice and misfortune.

This article reports that members of Corporate Partner Advisory Board of the periodical "e are eyeing the potential of new technologies and tools, but they’re also polishing their political skills to build momentum from business needs inward--not from technologies outward. These veterans of past vendor promises, and the disappointments that often follow, are very much drawing their own road maps rather than letting any vendor assume that role. Some of the members are Randy Dugger President Dugger & Associates Gary Gunnerson, IT architect Gannett Co. Inc.; Susan Nowicke, network manager U.S. Court for Eastern District of Michigan; Fran Rabuck, President of Rabuck Associates, etc. As part of a federal judiciary, a very small percentage of the federal budget is made. But even so, a lot of the budget resources are being redirected to homeland security, making even less and less available for the judiciary. Wilson says that upgrade desktop software in cycles, with integration testing of several updates at one time, and they are rolling SP in with some other updates that people are doing next year. There’ll be a lot of testing going on with it in November and December.

Highlights the third annual eWeek Excellence Awards in 2003 in high technology industry. Winners of the awards in various categories; Features of the products that won the award. INSET: The program in a nutshell.

Reports on the efforts of the U.S. government in implementing effective computer network security. Concern of private-sector information technology firms about the impact of government rules for network security; Problem threatening the effectiveness of all perimeter-focused security systems; Measures to combat internal and external threats to network security. INSET: A matter of trust.

Focuses on the exploration of open source software. Level of transitional applications; Improvement of software engineering tools; Development of the applications of open source platforms.

Focuses on the customer relationship management (CRM) in enterprise information technology systems in the U.S. Range of CRM products from foundation database and call center management systems; Issue on relationships in the strategic side of the organization; Connections between the data and top-line strategies. INSETS: CRM: Spreadsheet of the new millennium? by Peter Coffee;Best practices.

Highlights the Second Annual eWeek Excellence Awards program. Judges of the ceremony; Winners and finalists; Theme of the program.

Presents updates related to computer hardware and software in the United States as of December 2000. Selection of the proposed Advanced Encryption Standard algorithm called Rijndael; Importance of bandwidth management for companies adopting voice over Internet protocol; Advantages of using Java as a Web application development language.

The article reports on quality becoming the critical unit of measure in software development. Microsoft Corp. announced on November 29, 2005 that it would start releasing Vista previews based on meeting quality milestones rather than hewing to monthly dates. Quality includes not only accurate implementation of specifications but also the much broader need for satisfaction of user expectations in the field. The nature and scope quality assurance task are further broadening as organizations rely on purchased software and network-based services as components of line-of-business applications. Enterprise buyers state that software quality is not a mere question of containing the chaos but rather represents an important opportunity for competitive advantage with strong returns on investment. Companies are writing their own agendas for quality assurance technology and inviting vendors to contribute on the buyer's terms. They are not waiting for vendors to come to them with turnkey quality solutions.

The article reviews the database management software Visual Studio 2005 from Microsoft Corp.

This article reports that making data more directly accessible to developers, with greater freedom to use it in ways not anticipated when it was compiled, is the hottest fashion statement in development technology. With rapid refinement of tools for working with XML on data's supply side and with data manipulation becoming better integrated with mainstream code on the demand side, there's a trunk full of ways for developers to win. The business-suit sleekness of an enterprise application is today often marred by ugly seams, where a procedural language has been clumsily stitched to nonprocedural SQL statements manipulating relational data. Most programming languages depend on sequence and navigation in accessing arrays. The tables of relational databases have neither sequence nor hierarchy, and that's just the beginning of the differences that make it difficult to put together a unified look. Donald Chamberlin, an IBM fellow who co-invented SQL in the 1970s with colleague Raymond Boyce, observed that relational data tend to have a regular structure, which allows the descriptive metadata for these data to be stored in a separate catalog. XML data, in contrast, are often quite heterogeneous, and distribute their metadata throughout the document.

This article focuses on how enterprise application developers are squarely in the cross hairs of the next generation of information technology system attacks. As generic infrastructure security and user awareness issues are increasingly addressed, the most dangerous remaining and newly arising vulnerabilities are those in the applications that define any modern organization's procedures and controls. When perimeter security is lax, attackers will exploit promiscuous connectivity or weak password discipline; when users are careless and/or clueless, opportunistic attacks such as e-mail worms will have free rein. In the current environment, though, there are three reasons that line-of-business applications are ever-more-attractive targets. Supply chain pressures dictate that enterprise online presence, in the form of network-facing applications, must be accessible to the largest possible number of potential users and must meet aggressive targets for rapid development and deployment. Application developers thus find themselves under pressures that lead to the creation of systems with numerous and subtle flaws that are forbiddingly costly to fix. INSETS: Developers in the cross hairs;Where to look for application weakness.

The article informs that enterprise software strategists are struggling to address the expansion and intensification of collaborative development efforts. The growing mass of legacy IT systems, the spreading decentralization of global operations, the multiplying links among supply chain partners and the rising importance of specialized knowledge in crafting robust applications all demand better tools and practices for communicating software developers' goals and tracking their progress-despite impediments of time, distance and culture. A further demand on development managers is the need to engage the understanding and coordinate the involvement of a lengthening list of stakeholders and disciplinary experts. Applications face rising expectations for reliability, usability and accessibility. Unfortunately, these come at the same time that applications must withstand more adverse environments of network exposure (both to accident and to deliberate attack) and undergo greater scrutiny (by both internal auditors and outside regulators). A system that's designed to aid direct communication among team members may fail to achieve its goals when different cultures favor different degrees of directness. Building the tool set is therefore only the beginning of building a collaborative process. INSET: UML integration reaches impressive degree.

This article informs that pervasive public networks and the explosion of network-facing applications and Web services have dragged enterprise development out of the back room and into the showroom. Application testing is traveling down the same path that has lately been followed by IT security. A combination of heightened awareness and regulatory mandates has transformed security from a "why fix the roof when it's not raining?" cost to a recognized requirement of due diligence. Application testing efforts may likewise obtain improved access to human and technical resources, and development team leaders may encounter fewer arguments when they seek to acquire state-of-the-art tools as the costs of application failure grow. And these are merely the kinds of tests that ensure the application was constructed as intended and breaks no rules in the process. An application could survive rigorous review on these criteria, yet still be unsatisfactory. An application could, for example, correctly implement the wrong algorithm, calculating interest using beginning of period formulas when end of period formulas are needed, or computing year-to-date values based on a calendar year instead of an intended fiscal year.

This article advices on coping with data growth. Enterprise storage might look like a problem that's been solved in principle, requiring only continued refinement of proven technologies combined with the careful management that's needed to minimize costly data glut. IT system builders must look ahead, however, to the dead end on the path of hard disk evolution and start to think now about other pathways that can be explored as storage volumes inexorably grow. Improvement in any one of these attributes will often come at the expense of others. Emerging alternatives to magnetic disk have complementary strengths and weaknesses. Every enterprise needs its own carefully tailored portfolio, meeting not only volume requirements but also operational and even regulatory needs. To estimate future storage needs, by simple extrapolation of the exponential trend, is cause for amusement or despair. Sometime before 2100, one would conclude, the entire crust of Earth will be representing data at a density of one bit per atom. Parsimonious data retention policies, as well as aggressive rich-media compression algorithms, will have to be thrown at this problem, along with every possible improvement in storage technology.

This article presents information on fiber optic channels. Combined with the plummeting price and improving interoperability of midtier Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing (CWDM) hardware, dark fiber is a resource that offers high return on investment to the enterprise IT professional who's willing to explore new ways of buying and managing network capacity. The supply of fiber-optic bandwidth that's already installed, in a surprising variety of places, vastly exceeds demand at current prices. Industry estimates suggest, for example, that roughly seven-eighths of the city-to-city fiber in the United States and Europe has never been equipped with networking hardware at its endpoints. Gary Gunnerson, IT architect at USA Today publisher Gannett Co. Inc., gave an inside look at his company's emerging dark-fiber strategy to the periodical "EWeek." CWDM places a relatively small number of channels on a fiber pair--typically four to eight, compared with the tighter spectral packing is of DWDM technology.

This article presents information on service oriented architecture (SAO). Buyers want to spend money building SOAs, and vendors want to position themselves as being part of those plans. As is so often the case, it's enterprise developers who are on the grinding edge of the resulting phenomenon: It's the application development managers and teams that must find the sweet spot where enterprise desire intersects with vendor reality. The high-buzz enabling technologies of SOA--Web services, XML and multiple middleware initiatives--can be used to liberate enterprise IT from sluggish, brittle, costly systems. They can also be used to build the next generation of brittle, slow and costly systems. It's far from a novel idea to visualize enterprise IT as a dynamic confederacy of services rather than a welded-together structure of tightly coupled IT assets. What gets the SOA pot perking now is the confluence of cheap bandwidth, commodity processing power and violent agreement on nonproprietary standards on the technology side, combined with newly vigorous demand for an IT strategy that serves the business mission rather than forcing the business into the mold of the technology.

Libraries full of bleeding-edge research have paved grids' way, developing parallel processing schemes to solve exotic and high-value problems. Today's confluence of commodity components, burgeoning bandwidth and open-source systems software fills in the rest of the picture. Taken together, they make the enterprise case for grid computing, which is the connection of heterogeneous computing nodes using self-administering software that makes the nodes function as a single virtual system. Far from requiring a wave of underpaid graduate students to assemble over a period of months, a computer grid, can now be deployed on enterprise time scales with affordable human resources. INSET: What makes a grid?.

Web services have seen significant developments in standards, usage models and core technologies. Its the right technology for building a service-oriented architecture. Web services can lead to a forced relationship of service-oriented architecture only in the context of Web services. Web services are definitely prevalent for connectivity right now, and building reusable services to run in complex n-tier environments or in a grid environment will end up being a big benefit for the user. The technologies for virtually all of Web services are in existence, all the way up the stack. It's a matter of agreeing on which ones one is going to use. Oracle Corp., IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp., everyone will have a solution as quickly as possible, but they're not necessarily going to be compatible. INSET: ROUNDATABLE.

This article presents information on the computer software Changepoint 8.0. At a starting price of $300 for a basic user, and modular pricing options up to $1,500 for a full-function power user, many organizations will find the Changepoint Corp. application a tempting improvement over whatever time tracking and portfolio management tools they may already have in place. Changepoint 8.0, released this Summer, runs on Windows clients with Oracle Corp. or Microsoft Corp. databases on Windows 2000 or 2003 servers.

Project management tools and practices address only 10 percent of IT spending, according to IT economics consultant Paul Strassman, of Strassman Inc. Where this is the case, a 5 percent improvement in nonproject IT efficiencies would increase by 45 percent the available funds for new IT initiatives. That's a powerful multiplier at a time when companies are getting ready to reinvigorate their IT investment cycles after a few years of dormancy or even decline. But IT managers will find themselves subject to greater financial discipline after the perceived excesses of the dot-com boom.

Presents a summary of the roundtable discussion on the high technology industry. Investment cycle of technology companies; Alternatives to existing information technology providers.

Advanced models of application software development such as server-side code, distributed web services, and deployment of workplace functions to handheld and embedded devices, have left programmers clamoring for more code analysis and process integration capabilities in their old reliable tool, the text editor. Visual development environments are not the GUI workbench light-weights that they usedto be. They are adding low-level substance as well as high-level style to their graphical renditions of application structure and function. Computer software company Source Insight 3.5 Source Dynamics' Source Insight 3.5 gives developers unusually elegant and readable presentation of source code combined with powerful but unobtrusive analytic aids to clarify application structure and function.

Focuses on computer industry-related technology adoptions that took place in the year 2002. Improvements made to computer processors; Introduction of computer chips by various companies; Increased usage of wireless networks.

Examines challenges for device and application designers in the wake of continuous improvements in microprocessors, as discussed at 2002 Microprocessor Forum held at San Jose in California. Concerns of conference founder on the progress in computer science; Goal of Intel Corp. regarding mobile applications; Translator software developed by Transmeta Corp. that uses simplified core logic circuits. INSETS: Shopping for silicon;Data bandwidth: Memory should take 'pride of place'..

Reports the development of Visual Studio.Net of Microsoft Corp. in the U.S. Integration on several editions and features in the web services; Examination on the tools in building web services; Details on the applications and local resources services. INSET: Visual Studio .Net.

Part I. Discusses the need for information technology (IT) professionals, as well as Microsoft Corp., to fix Web security features. Microsoft's failure to acknowledge the vulnerability of its Outlook electronic mail client; Need for IT managers to understand security features of software; Call for vendors to promptly disclose security issues; Opportunities presented by open-source software. INSET: Best practices for secure integration..

Looks at Borland International Inc.'s Delphi 2.0, released in March 1996. Comparison with Version 1.0; Price range; Recommendation of the product for rapid development of many different types of software products; Application development competitors; Integer Tak speed; Comparison with Visual Basic 4.0 Enterprise Edition and Clarion for Windows 1.5; Contact information. INSETS: Other stars.;PCWeek online.;Test methodology..

Compares Borland International Inc.'s Delphi 1.0 and Blue Sky Software Corp.'s Winmaker Pro 6.0 to Microsoft Corp.'s Visual Basic 3.0. Performance; Development tools; Provision of an on-screen `blank canvas'; Database support; Platform support.

Presents a comparative review of GUI editors examined by `PC Week' Labs. Includes CompuWare Corp.'s Preditor/2 2.0.1; Mansfield Software Group Inc.'s KEdit for Windows 1.0; Microeged Inc.'s Visual SlickEdit 1.72a; Performance; Supported platforms; Editor programmability; Search options; Ease of installation; Warranty; Distribution channels; List price; Contact information; Technical support. INSETS: Test methodology.;Graphical editor boost programming, by P.C..

Evaluates Trinzic Corp.'s Aion Development System/PM 6.4 software. Tools; Applications; Object-programming support; Development and delivery platforms; Installation and support; Comparison with other software products.

Compares three recently releases desktop operating systems. OS/2 Warp Version 3 from International Business Machines Corp.; System 7.5 from Apple Computer Inc.; Windows NT Workstation 3.5 from Microsoft Corporation. INSET: Test methodology..

Discusses the security issue of computerized data on network. Different ways of data theft; Possible solutions; Vulnerability of security measures; Role of ISDN. INSET: Switched networks constitute new breed..

A list of 25 computer software application in the U.S. from 1976 to 2004 is presented. These include the 1976 formulated application of the Electric pencil, which is designed for people who still wants the perfect typewriter, the 1982 application of the AutoCAD, a proprietary drafting system, and the Firefox 1.0 software application in 2004.

The article offers tips on how vigilance, a critical element in computer security can be applied best in securing the safety of the computer system. First is to abide with the fundamentals of the system including the processing, connectivity and storage improvements that facilitate leaks and attacks of viruses. It is necessary to make a definition and management of authorized and relevant access. Next, provide an assurance that complexity or obscurity of data will be of adequate protection and use appropriate tools.

The article presents the first step to enterprise security that is the assessment. There was a firestorm of reaction to the accounting abuses revealed in the aftermath of the Enron bankruptcy in December, after the initial publication of the steps to enterprise security. The change in the Information Technology was due to the post-Enron impact of sweeping and pervasive legislation such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and of other enterprise governance mandates, along with public awareness of privacy threats and risks of identity theft. The environment now demands far more attention to external stakeholders and scrutineers. Moreover, specific organizations and missions may have other infosec attributes that must be achieved and preserved.

The article presents information on several new products related to the computer industry during the year 2006. Apple Computer Inc. released its Intel-based MacBook Pro laptop, which has the option of running Windows XP simultaneously with Mac OS X. ThinkPad X60 Tablet from Lenovo Inc. was the most popular laptop, which had wireless broadband and three screen options. SmartBPM 5.1 from Pegasystems Inc. is a business process management tool, that helps companies to build their human and automated process workflows. Server 1.0 from VMware Corp. can run on both, Linux and Windows hosts.

The article discusses the streamlining and integration of data collection tasks and related computations. Documents are not the end in itself because they provide insufficient guidance during data capture, instead, they are business process snapshots of the state of business information. Further, conventional applications cannot be accessed for improvement by business process experts. Documents need not be entirely of the user experience. At some level in a process, documents need to be created with electronic characteristics like encryption and signature.

The article discusses issues related to the integration of software applications. In the present environment of the information technology industry, technology providers focus on providing a high degree of standards-based interoperability. Adobe Systems Inc. has built a name among individual PC and Internet users with portable document technologies. According to Jeff Whatcott, an executive at the Enterprise and Developer Business, XML is being embraced for the integration of application. He also warned software developers not to focus solely on online integration. Comments of Doug Purdy, a program manager at Microsoft Corp., on the integration of application programs have been included.

The article reviews the Java Programming Language testing software Jtest 8 from Parasoft Corp.

The article presents an interview with Jack Blount, president and CEO of Alpha Bay concerning his offshore experience while working for the offshore branch of StarSoft Development Labs in the U.S. When asked on how did he get involved in an outsourcing agile development work in Russia, he admits that the called the CEO of Starsoft and volunteer for a foreign assignment. He explains that the reason he favors offshore outsource is the chance to reduce cost and the possibility of hiring experts.

The article evaluates the SQL Anywhere 10 database from the iAnywhere Solutions unit of Sybase.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "The Absolute Worst (So Far)" in the July 10, 2006 issue.

The article examines SOAtest 4.5 software developed by Parasoft Corp. which helps Web services development teams transfer inadequate testing to earn an Ivy-league degree in service oriented architecture governance. SOAtest workbench generates and executes tests confirming function, standards conformance, and scalable performance. Its single license price is 3,995 dollars. The author explores the features and key functions of the software, providing details on the aspects of software implementation.