eWEEK EDITORS

Direct to Skies Rupert Murdochs plan to add U.S. satellite beamer DirecTV to his Sky Global empire is taking a slightly different path than some analysts expected, but the deal to buy owner Hughes Electronics from General Motors is moving ahead. While Murdochs News Corp. will not put any cash into the deal, Microsoft is […]

To those of you who may have been unconvinced by recent warnings about the security risks of PDAs, the situation is even worse than thought. According to some experts, security features built in to the Palm Operating System may provide so little protection that it may be possible to steal data from a PDA from […]

Pacific Gas and Electric, one of Californias embattled public utility providers, is trying to make nice with its customers. But the method of accessing information has us scratching our heads. A recent letter to consumers claims “… the states booming economy can be a mixed blessing … the Internet age has brought multiple electronic devices […]

Once again, it seems Microsofts misfortunes are to serve as an object lesson to the rest of the online world. In the wake of errors that left most online users unable to locate Microsofts main Web sites in late January, many businesses are scrambling to find defenses and response plans to ensure their Web sites […]

Earthlink, the second-largest Net service provider, may be No. 2 for a reason. The companys Atlanta servers go down more than occasionally, leaving DSL subscribers like me stranded. You can call customer service to report the problem, but that requires waiting on the phone, often for long periods. Theres a recording when you call that […]

Telecom equipment giant Alcatel is expected to announce plans to deploy Voice-over-Digital Subscriber Lines this week, likely giving the technology a jump-start. DSL is used to provide high-speed data access over copper telephone wires. With VoDSL, service providers can offer eight to 12 voice channels along with data over an individual telephone line. That makes […]

Iona Technologies Wanted a gigabit LAN that would allow it to easily relocate systems and add users without having to continually rerun cable. So Cisco reseller Dimension Data turned Ionas cubicle walls into wiring closets, linking 12-person workgroups with optical cabling that runs down the “spine” of a cubicle cluster. Iona says its saving 25 […]

We told you a while back that a tsunami was headed our way. Well, its here. Many vendors and analysts predict that converged data and PBX systems will take over the small to midsize business (SMB) market in just a few years. Integrators that dont have both oars—IP and voice expertise—in the water will be […]

F5 Networks Inc.s Big-IP HA controller load balancer makes Web farms of heterogeneous commodity servers a viable alternative to expensive big-iron servers and hard-to-manage clusters. However, budget-minded companies must figure in a trade-off: the manageability issues that can crop up on any server farm. The Big-IP HA Controller, which shipped last month, proved powerful, flexible […]

After five weeks of buying shares at bargain-basement prices, market bulls and value investors took a breather last week, pushing our index down 9 percent—its first weekly decline this year. Especially hard hit were Internet consulting companies. Businesses continue to reconsider their IT budgets amid the weak economy. “At the end of November, there were […]