Edupage, 28 June 1999
EDUCAUSE
Edupage is a service of EDUCAUSE, an international nonprofit
association dedicated to transforming education through
information technologies.
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TOP STORIES for June 28, 1999
Three Week Delay in Opening up Internet Name Registration
PC Week Labs' Tests Show What Path Linux Must Take
D.C. Plans to Mobilize Workers for Y2K Backup
Storage Technology to Begin Selling Data Storage on Pay-as-You-Go Basis
ALSO
Music on the Web Promises C-Notes for Entrepreneurs
ACLU Targets Michigan Net Content Law
E-Commerce Report
Big Names Jump on Applications Rental Bandwagon
THREE WEEK DELAY IN OPENING UP INTERNET NAME REGISTRATION
The process to open the registration of Internet domain names to
competition has been delayed three weeks due to continued
tensions between the Clinton administration, monopoly-holder
Network Solutions, and would-be overseer ICANN. Many have
accused ICANN of abusing its power, particularly by holding
closed meetings and by assigning a $1 annual fee to every domain
name registered. Many were also angered by ICANN's threat to
terminate Network Solutions' authority to register new Internet
addresses, although ICANN has since admitted that only the
Commerce Department holds that authority. Government officials
such as Virginia's Representative Thomas J. Bliley and Governor
James Gilmore, as well as lobbyists on behalf of Network
Solutions, have demanded investigations into the process of
choosing board members and ICANN's authority to charge the $1
fee. Other major issues to be resolved include the question of
ownership regarding Network Solutions' user database, the terms
of ICANN's authority, and the prices that businesses must pay
Network Systems to administer the central registry.
(New York Times 06/28/99)
PC WEEK LABS' TESTS SHOW WHAT PATH LINUX MUST TAKE
PC Week Labs performed a benchmark test comparing the performance
of Linux and Windows NT, and found that NT is substantially
faster than the open-source operating system. In five days of
tests by experts at Microsoft, Red Hat, and Mindcraft, Windows NT
4.0 beat Linux using the Apache Web server and Samba in every
performance category. Further, the benchmark isolated Linux's
shortcomings and made suggestions as to where the operating
system needs improvement. One problem with Linux was traced back
to a lack of a multithreaded IP stack in the networking
subsystem, which caused a performance plateau in the operating
system. The next version of the Linux kernel will have a patch
for this problem, however. (PC Week Online 06/25/99)
D.C. PLANS TO MOBILIZE WORKERS FOR Y2K BACKUP
The government of Washington, D.C., has acknowledged that it may
not complete its Y2K fixes in time and is planning a massive
mobilization of emergency personnel and other staff on New Year's
Eve to ensure there are no interruptions in critical city
services due to the Y2K bug. The city is stationing police at
120 locations across the city to take walk-in requests for
emergency services, and is establishing 21 "warming centers"
supplied with food, water, and cots. School crossing guards will
be on call to replace traffic lights at major intersections,
while the hospital will have as many as 175 extra staff members
on site. Many more contingencies are planned for New Year's as
the government admits that it is so far behind on its Y2K fixes
that it may have to rely on "turn-around" techniques. D.C. Chief
Technology Officer Suzanne J. Peck said that "a handful" of city
systems "may fail temporarily." D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams
added that the intent is not to alarm people, but to assure them
that the city will have things under control.
(Washington Post 06/28/99)
STORAGE TECHNOLOGY TO BEGIN SELLING DATA STORAGE ON PAY-AS-YOU-GO BASIS
Storage Technology is expected to announce today a pay-as-you-go
data storage plan in an effort to increase revenue. While
companies have traditionally been forced to buy entire data
storage systems, Storage Technology users will pay for data
storage by the megabyte, a system that resembles payment for
electricity or natural gas. The company may also announce a
contract with telecommunications provider Frontier to offer data
backup and recovery services for Frontier's major Internet
customers. Storage Technology is the top vendor of computer
storage via computer tape, but it has been overtaken by rivals in
the more lucrative disk drive-based storage market, particularly
due to a decrease in disk drive purchases from its largest
client, IBM. The sales approach may particularly attract
fast-growing Internet companies with heavy data storage needs.
(Wall Street Journal 06/28/99)
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MUSIC ON THE WEB PROMISES C-NOTES FOR ENTREPRENEURS
MP3, an audio file format with relatively small file size but
high quality sound, has supplanted "sex" as the most popular
term entered into Internet search engines. Last year marked
the first decline in record sales to the 14-to-24 demographic
group, according to the Recording Industry Association of
America. The association blames the waning sales on Internet
music downloads. Fifteen digital music listening devices were
featured at the MP3 computer music summit held in San Diego this
month. The summit drew a mixture of artists and entrepreneurs
looking to grab a piece of the $38 billion recorded music market.
Keynote speaker John Perry Barlow, a former lyricist for the
Grateful Dead, said the band would allow its fans to download
thousands of previously recorded concerts from the Web. Barlow
criticized major record labels for trying to control the way music
is distributed, prompting a terse exchange with a lawyer who
followed him to the platform.
(Washington Post--Washington Business 06/28/99)
ACLU TARGETS MICHIGAN NET CONTENT LAW
The ACLU is legally challenging a new Michigan law that aims to
protect minors from "harmful" Internet content. The law, signed
by Michigan Gov. John Engler earlier in June, prohibits the
online dissemination or display of "sexually explicit matter" to
minors and punishes those who break its terms with up to two
years in jail and $10,000 in fines. Michael Steinberg of the
ACLU of Michigan says the law would restrict the free exchange of
ideas on the Internet. "The law would reduce the level of
discourse on the Internet to that which is appropriate to a
7-year-old," he said. Further, "inconsistent state laws" hinder
the Internet's capacity as a vessel of interstate commerce, says
Andrew Nickelhoff, an attorney working on the case. The ACLU is
representing ten plaintiffs, including the AIDS Partnership of
Michigan and SexEd.org, in the case. Enforcement of the law is
slated to begin in August. (C|Net 06/24/99)
E-COMMERCE REPORT
Electronic commerce companies are adding real people to their
customer service offerings, using such technologies as live chats
and Internet telephony to avoid repeating the service snafus that
marked last holiday season. During last year's holiday season,
online retailers were unprepared for the sudden growth in sales
and used electronic customer service systems that failed to
answer customers' e-mail messages when products were not
delivered on time. To win back customers during the coming
holiday season, companies are hiring live customer service
representatives to answer questions, solve problems, and
upgrade sales. These companies, including 911Gifts.com, eToys,
CBS Sportsline, Furniture.com, Lands' End, Hewlett-Packard,
and 1-800-Flowers.com, maintain that the high cost of the live
service is worth the potential revenue from selling pricier items
to customers as well as adding repeat customers. Furthermore,
companies can often afford to dedicate live service to
complicated transactions because the existing electronic systems
to handle routine transactions cost little. The trend towards
live customer service has resulted in growth among the companies
that sell customer service applications. (New York Times 06/28/99)
BIG NAMES JUMP ON APPLICATIONS RENTAL BANDWAGON
Hardware vendors, ISPs, telecommunications companies, and
application hosting services are all starting to offer rentable
applications. For instance, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and
Hewlett-Packard are all offering products and services that let
service providers rent applications such as e-mail, Web hosting,
network management, and enterprise application hosting, over the
Internet. A Goldhirsh Group study notes that outsourced hosting
and e-commerce management applications are currently the most
popular services. "Third parties have the skills and products,
but most important, the bandwidth and the monitoring services,"
explains Inc.com vice president of technology Matthew Berk. In
addition, Summit Strategies President Thomas Kucharvy says that
renting applications can help businesses keep operation costs
low. However, Kucharvy also notes that few companies are aware
of the advantages that hosted application services can provide.
(Computerworld 06/21/99)
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UPCOMING EDUCAUSE CONFERENCES AND MEETINGS:
Seminars on Academic Computing (SAC)
Strategy, Technology, Organization, Relationships, and Mission (STORM!)
August 6-11, 1999, Snowmass Village, Colorado
http://www.educause.edu/sac/sac99/sac99.html
CAUDIT-EDUCAUSE Institute
August 8-12, 1999, Port Stephens, NSW, Australia
http://www.caudit.edu.au/caudit/institute/index.html
EDUCAUSE '99
"Celebrating New Beginnings"
EDUCAUSE Annual Conference
October 26-29, 1999, Long Beach, California
http://www.educause.edu/conference/e99/
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For information on other technology related
educational conferences see
http://www.educause.edu/ir/events.html
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Edupage Copyright 1999, EDUCAUSE
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EDUCAUSE, an international nonprofit association dedicated to
transforming education through information technologies