IT's 'Hero Culture' Stunts Growth ...

Computerworld -

Erik Frieberg, vice president of marketing and strategy at Borland Corp.

... of mature application development processes. Many IT shops expect their top programmers to save the day on foundering app-dev projects, says Erik Frieberg, vice president of marketing and strategy at Borland Corp. in Scotts Valley, Calif. But that only shows how immature their software development processes are, Frieberg argues. He contends that an "IT hero culture" contributes to the continuing failure of projects in the eyes of end users because coding saviors often come late to a project and aren't immersed in the business requirements. His evidence? An annual report from The Standish Group International Inc. that says 66% of IT projects last year were perceived to have failed in some way. "Business users tend to remember the initial requirements, while IT recalls what was agreed to after the project was scaled back," Frieberg says. To help impose project discipline, IT should use application life-cycle management (ALM) technology, Frieberg suggests. Microsoft Corp. and IBM have such offerings, but Frieberg hopes you'll consider his company's wares. In next year's first quarter, Borland plans to update Core Analyst, one of its ALM tools. New features will include improved project storyboarding techniques designed to better show how data flows through a new application, as well as a refresh of rapid prototyping features.
Boost your WAN's pokey performance ...

Orbital 6800 speeds up WAN traffic.

... by installing data acceleration appliances. Richard Pierce, CEO of Orbital Data Corp. in San Mateo, Calif., says the "demand profile" for WAN optimization has changed from point-to-point needs to servicing numerous branch offices that access multiple data centers. That shift means WAN optimization technology has to account for the constant flux in network traffic, he says. Lucky for you, Pierce claims his company's new Orbital 6000 appliance family with automatic optimization software can detect specific compression and acceleration techniques needed by applications. For example, he says, Windows users bogged down by Microsoft's chatty Common Internet File System should get a performance lift from Orbital's predictive prefetching scheme, which grabs next-in-line data before the application requests it. Available this week, the Orbital 6800 handles data rates of up to 1Gbit/sec. and starts at $21,000; the 6500 works at up to 45Mbit/sec. and is priced from $5,000.

Endpoint security software ...
... checks up on PCs and other devices trying to get on a network. McAfee Inc. plans to release a beta of its Policy Enforcer software by the end of the month and ship the product early next year.