eWEEK EDITORS

Money doesnt grow on glass anymore, so 2001 will be a year in which fiber-optic carriers that have already acquired rights of way, and the vendors ready to serve them, will be rewarded. But venture capitalists wont be handing out cash to carriers and vendors looking to catch up to competitors with Johnny-come-lately business plans. […]

Two of the nations three major long-distance carriers, AT&T and Sprint, have boosted the rate they charge consumers to recover their share of government fees to subsidize telephone and Internet services in rural areas. WorldCom is expected to follow suit. AT&T this month increased the Universal Service Fund surcharge on consumers long-distance bills from 8.6 […]

This is the year Telecom turns down, then turns around. Its the year that the matricidal mega-Bells begin sucking the life out of consumer long-distance, leaving AT&T, Sprint and WorldCom gasping for air. Its the year the long-distance companies begin shedding the body armor of their core business, running for cover toward data centers, cable […]

Dwindling Numbers Troubled fast Internet service provider Covad Communications has turned loose another 400 workers, dropping its payroll to about 2,300. The cuts follow the layoffs of 400 employees in November. The company also will close 10 percent of the 2,000 offices where it houses Digital Subscriber Line equipment. Covads stock has taken a beating, […]

Theres gold under them there oceans. the submarine optical market is expected to grow 40 percent per year — to $37 billion by 2004 — as carriers scramble to lay cable across the oceans to connect the continents with ever-faster optic fiber and become true global players. “The market is growing very fast. We see […]

The Linux operating system will be better able to support enterprise-level systems when an upgraded kernel is released by lead developer Linus Torvalds, perhaps in time for the opening of LinuxWorld on Jan. 30. The kernel is the base of the operating system (OS) and contains its core functionality. No instructions except those handed off […]

Web sites and a broad sweep of electronic databases are being targeted by the military for a vast surveillance project aimed at detecting incidents of bio-terrorism before its too late. The project is applauded by people toiling against bio-terrorism, but privacy advocates, while not condemnatory in this early stage of the research, warn against building […]

Sometimes, bad data can happen to good companies. As application service providers work to bring business intelligence to a wider market, many retailers and wholesalers are learning that their databases arent always stocked with the best information. “Data ages more quickly than retailers like to admit,” said Malcolm Fowler, vice president of business development for […]

Steve Poss used to shudder the week before the monthly board meeting. The corporate controller for Deloro Stellite Co. Inc., of St. Louis, would spend that week gathering faxes and e-mails from plant managers throughout Europe, Asia and North America. Poss would end up with a pile of statistics about transactions, inventories and profits for […]

PC maker Micron Electronics Inc. will transform its HostPro Inc. subsidiary into a full-fledged ASP later this year, a move that experts say may be a last-ditch effort to save the company. The move will make Micron the first mainstream computer manufacturer to become an application service provider. While larger players such as Dell Computer […]

If your company isnt a world-class technology user, it wont last long: Aggressive adoption and deployment of information systems, both computing and communications, are a minimum requirement for a sustained competitive role in todays economy. The paradox, though, is that even though technology matters more than ever, the world that surrounds that technology demands an […]

The application server market continues to bustle, with new releases on the horizon from BEA Systems Inc., Borland Software Corp. and IBM. BEA, of San Jose, Calif., late last month started shipping WebLogic Server 6.0, which company officials say is more powerful, yet easier to use, and meets the requirements of J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise […]