Edupage, 23 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 23, 1999
E-World Fuels U.S. Economy, Report Says
AOL Joins Forces With Satellite Firm
Few Managers Say They Expect Year 2000 Glitches
Microsoft to Require Privacy Pacts
ALSO
Unext.com Signs Course Deal With Four More Universities
Heavy Hitters Plan 8-Way Servers
Lagging on Year 2000 Bug, Russia Starts Major Effort
Environmental Group Calls for Computer Recycling
E-WORLD FUELS U.S. ECONOMY, REPORT SAYS
The information technology industry is driving U.S. economic
growth, according to a report by the Commerce Department.
Although the industry is small, only comprising 8 percent of the
nation's total economic output from 1995 to 1998, it is
responsible for more than one-third of U.S. economic growth. It
has also steadied the inflation rate, with the rising quality and
decreasing prices of technological products lowering the
inflation rate by 0.7 percent in both 1996 and 1997. The
industry has contributed significantly to the recent investment
boom, with investments in computers and communications
responsible for more than half of the growth of business
equipment spending from 1993 to 1998. Salaries have increased as
well, with information technology workers earning 78 percent more
than other workers in 1997. The report, "The Emerging Digital
Economy II," concludes that by 2006, almost half of U.S. workers
will be employed in the information technology industry or in a
field that uses technology heavily. (USA Today 06/22/99)
AOL JOINS FORCES WITH SATELLITE FIRM
In a deal that will allow it to compete with AT&T and other
communications companies in the high-speed Internet access
market, America Online yesterday announced that it has reached a
$1.5 billion agreement with General Motors' Hughes Electronics to
develop Internet access via satellite television signals. AOL
Chairman Steve Case says AOL is still considering cable for
high-speed data transfers that are up to 40 times faster than
conventional phone technology. Comparably, satellite television
technology offers Internet connections that are up to 14 times
faster. By early next year AOL now plans to offer AOL-Plus, a
high-speed upgrade for users that also will be possible via DSL
lines from regional bells SBC Communications and Bell Atlantic.
Case says the satellite service would be part of a "broadband
tapestry" that would offer users various ways to connect to AOL
services. (Washington Post 06/22/99)
FEW MANAGERS SAY THEY EXPECT YEAR 2000 GLITCHES
Eighty-three percent of executives surveyed in a CIO Magazine
poll released Monday said they are confident that Y2K glitches
will have little to no impact on their business. Nearly 42
percent of respondents said they had become more optimistic in
the past three months, while only 4.2 percent said they had
become more pessimistic. The survey was conducted in conjunction
with the Information Systems Audit and Control Association and a
Y2K clearinghouse run by Deutsche Bank Securities chief economist
Edward Yardeni. Both Yardeni and CIO editor Gary Beach are known
for being Y2K pessimists who believe companies are
underestimating the problem. Yardeni noted that the poll's
optimistic tone may have been slanted by the fact that the
majority of the companies polled were in the financial industry,
which is further along than most in their Y2K preparations.
(New York Times 06/21/99)
MICROSOFT TO REQUIRE PRIVACY PACTS
Microsoft on Wednesday is expected to announce that it will no
longer buy ads on Webs sites that fail to provide sufficent
privacy safeguards for consumers. Microsoft, the leading Web
advertiser, is following the lead of IBM, the Web's second
largest advertiser, which less than three months ago made a
similar announcement. Microsoft has lobbied against federal
privacy legislation, and offers a free toolkit for users designed
to limit the amount of information Web sites collect.
Microsoft's new privacy policy will take effect beginning next
year; the company spent about $30 million last year on Web ads,
still a small fraction of the $2 billion that was spent overall
on Web ads. Although recent surveys show a major improvement in
the privacy practices of Web sites, the FTC is studying what
recommendations it plans to make to Congress regarding new
privacy laws. (Associated Press 06/22/99)
=======================================
UNEXT.COM SIGNS COURSE DEAL WITH FOUR MORE UNIVERSITIES
UNext.com has announced new partnerships with the University of
Chicago, Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University, and the
London School of Economics and Political Science to deliver
graduate courses over the Internet. The schools will help
develop course materials that make it possible for business
professionals to quickly learn advanced material, including
economics, accounting, and finance. UNext.com, backed by Michael
Miliken, had already announced a partnership with Columbia
University's business school. Ultimately, UNext.com wants to
gain accreditation as an online business school with the
authority to grant MBA degrees. UNext.com will compete with
Caliber Learning Network, a company with similar goals and that
has already signed up the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton
School and Johns Hopkins University. IBM is UNext.com's first
Cardean online business education customer. As a Cardean
customer, employees will be able to take courses online from
remote locations. The courses will be delivered to employees
using Lotus' LearningSpace. (Wall Street Journal 06/23/99)
HEAVY HITTERS PLAN 8-WAY SERVERS
This week's PC Expo will be a launching point for a new round of
processor wars, as heavyweight vendors Compaq, Dell,
Hewlett-Packard, and IBM will demonstrate beta versions of their
eight-way Intel-based servers. The vendors will also be
explaining the benefits of eight-way to IT managers, trying to
dispel myths such as the common perception that NT doesn't scale.
"The problem was never the operating system," says Compaq's Tim
Golden. "It was that there was never an architecture underneath
that would allow it to scale." Golden says Compaq's Profusion
architecture will convince IT managers of this, as the company
already has a variety of benchmarks that show 50 percent
performance gains on eight-way servers for current applications.
The Profusion architecture does much more than adding more
processors, Golden says. "It has increased access bandwidth,
increased memory bandwidth, increased I/O bandwidth, so different
applications can take advantage of different advances," he says.
(InfoWorld.com 06/22/99)
LAGGING ON YEAR 2000 BUG, RUSSIA STARTS MAJOR EFFORT
Russia has begun a major effort to become Y2K-compliant after a
slow awakening to the dangers of the computer bug. Initially,
much of the nation avoided repairs due to extreme financial
difficulties and at times because of the misguided belief that
the bug would pose no threat to Russian computer systems. Yet in
time, government-ordered technology inspections found that major
repairs totaling $1 billion to $3 billion are needed, comprising
nearly one-seventh of the country's already tight budget.
Furthermore, many repairs cannot be made; while two-thirds of
desktop computers need repair, many manufacturers have gone out
of business or lack the sales records to notify the owners. Many
software programs for personal or small business use are
bootlegged, while military and industrial tasks often rely on
programs written decades ago by technicians that have since left
the country. (New York Times 06/23/99)
ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP CALLS FOR COMPUTER RECYCLING
Silicon Valley environmental group Campaign for Responsible
Technology is calling for mandatory recycling of old computers
and related products to deal with the growing "mountains of
obsolete computer junk." The group wants PC manufacturers to be
required to recycle their own products, and is also calling for
several toxic chemicals used in PC production to be phased out.
Group coordinator Ted Smith said that the rate of computer
recycling has fallen in recent years because of a lack of proper
systems or policies. The current methods of PC disposal include
dumping them in landfills, incinerating them, or sending them to
China to be disassembled and burned. Each method, Smith says,
releases toxic substances into the environment. The group adds
that the PC industry's frequent introductions of new and upgraded
products threatens to make the problem worse. Similar
environmental initiatives are being called for in Europe.
(Reuters 06/22/99)
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Edie Clark, Editor
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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/
For additional information on these conferences see
http://www.educause.edu/conference/conf.html
For information on other technology related
educational conferences see
http://www.educause.edu/ir/events.html
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News abstracts Copyright 1999, Information Inc., Bethesda, MD
Edupage Copyright 1999, EDUCAUSE
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EDUCAUSE, an international nonprofit association dedicated to
transforming education through information technologies