eWEEK EDITORS

As chief information officer of The Mens Wearhouse, Jeff Marshall manages the IT operations for 600 brick-and-mortar stores in the U.S. and Canada, and is also in charge of the companys Web initiatives. He spoke with Senior Writer Robert Bryce. What is your biggest challenge these days? Our challenge right now is trying to stay […]

RLX Technologies this month fired the first salvo in what is shaping up to be a serious battle in the blade server market, when it formally shipped its groundbreaking new RLX System 324 Web server. Built around RLXs ServerBlade technology, the System 324 server is eight times as dense, 10 times more power efficient and […]

Open Mouth, Insert Foot Just two weeks after Microsoft exec Craig Mundie blasted open source operating systems as bad for business, the Transaction Processing Performance Council — which does benchmark testing — said IBMs upcoming DB2 7.2 database release, which runs on the Linux 2.4.3 open source OS, outperforms Microsofts SQL Server 2000 database, which […]

BEA Systems WebLogic E-Business Platform The software bundle is built on the WebLogic Commerce Server, a Java 2 Enterprise Edition application server; Tuxedo, a transaction management system; e-Link real-time application integration software; and the WebGain tools, the former Visual Cafe Java tool acquired from Symantec. Microsofts .Net Windows 2000 operating system; Visual Studio development environment, […]

Pornography and other Internet content that company bosses find objectionable is increasingly getting blocked on corporate networks. Systems that prevent employees from visiting sites that a company deems off-limits are fast becoming a standard part of business networks. In fact, IDC estimates the market will be worth $636 million by 2004. The newest entry in […]

For some high-tech workers, it is certainly the worst of times. Companies that have recently cut jobs include 3Com, Cisco Systems, Dell Computer, Exodus Communications, Intel — the list goes on and on. Last month alone, Internet, computer and telecommunications companies laid off more than 57,000 people, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. […]

The battlefield is Earth, the weapons are all-optical switches and the combatants are Broadwing with Corvis gear vs. Global Crossing with Lucent Technologies gear. Every other major communications carrier is watching to see if the two greenfield projects get the claimed 25 percent to 75 percent savings over networks with traditional part-optic, part-electronic transporting and […]

Urban options Creating a new option for IP networking in metropolitan areas, Cisco Systems Inc. next month plans to roll out its ONS 15540 Extended Services Platform for IP routing and optical networking systems. Based on Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing technology, the system is built for both enterprises and carriers in urban areas. It enables […]

These days, point-to-point videoconferencing has become, well, a commodity. There are lots of products available that transmit video between two sites. But for the operation thats spread out all over the place and needs to confer among multiple sites simultaneously, the list of potential solutions rapidly dwindles. There are fewer products available, and successful solution […]

When all else fails, kill off the competition by providing customers with better service. That seems to be the mantra among vendors and service providers alike these days in markets where their offerings are relatively indistinguishable from one another. And quite frankly, its not a bad strategy. In many respects, the technology we all use […]

The IP multipoint units we tested here work fine for up to four attendees, but if your client needs more than one videoconference simultaneously or you plan on selling a videoconferencing service, youll need to purchase a separate MCU, some of which can support up to 400 conferencing ports. These server-based units from companies such […]

About this time last year, I was telling a colleague that trying to hire and retain top IT talent was making me crazy. In the midst of dot-com mania and corporate IT growth, the market supply of IT technical experts was unbelievably low, costs for consultants had skyrocketed and my IT staff was always—politely—wondering what […]