The itmWEB Information Technology Report

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http://mis.miningco.com
http://www.itmweb.com
http://www.montana.com/asc/

A monthly report featuring selected IT topics and time sensitive links.

Volume 2, Number 5, May 18, 1998

ISSN: 1099-8411

Welcome to the 17th distribution of the itmWEB Information Technology Report. This month's edition is being distributed worldwide to 954 IT professionals and associates. You are receiving this report because you either requested it from one of the sites above, or you have been referred to the email list as having a potential interest. itmWEB's policy is not to SPAM. The itmWEB report is a non-commercial, professional resource, and care is taken to only send the report to interested readers.

Please find instructions for unsubscribing at the end of this report.

Please send comments or contributions to: feedback@itmweb.com

CONTENTS:

1. The itmWEB Report
2. Product News
3. Jeff Gainer's Critical Path
4. IT Management Quickies
5. April Fool's Day Follow-up
6. News Submissions
7. Selected IT Resources

The itmWEB email accounts have been restored!

About 2 1/2 weeks ago my ISP for the itmWEB domain turned off all the email accounts for the domain. I usually receive about 50 - 75 emails per day, but until this afternoon, I have not been receiving any. Zip. Nada. I have not been able to send this report as well. A few hours ago, after many urgent requests to my ISP, the accounts were restored. It is already June, but I'm sending the May report anyway. I'll send the June report in a few more weeks. Very frustrating.

If you sent me an email during this period and it "bounced" back, can you please resend it now? Thanks.

At the beginning of June I was also very busy working with The Mining Company and Netscape to kick-off their new joint "Small Business Center". The Mining Company's MIS site now has several pages featured through these high profile links at Netscape!

Early in April, I also posted a feature entitled "Why you will upgrade to Windows 98", it was quickly showcased by The Mining Company on their homepage, and as the lead link in their email newsletter. I was also very honored when AT&T featured it on their home page, and in their web site's business section <http://www.att.net>. The feature has been read by over 40,000
people. If you are interested, you can still read it here:

http://mis.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa040498.htm

By now you already know that Microsoft, the U.S. Department of Justice, and 20 states will see each other in court. These actions are being taken to curtail Microsoft's alleged anti- competitive business practices. The issues highlighted within these lawsuits are complex and sensitive. My recent feature regarding these developments is listed below:

Microsoft Chooses the Courtroom

http://mis.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa051898.htm

Many people have asked me how I think this situation will be resolved. I believe that specific legal rules will be imposed on Microsoft regarding the nature of the contract terms they can undertake with the PC hardware manufacturers. These rules will insure that Microsoft's "gateway" computing product, Windows, will be open for the hardware manufacturers to showcase either Microsoft's products, or products by other software makers. The key will be that Microsoft will not be able to control this through restrictive contract terms.

I also believe that Microsoft may be required to put competing software products within the extra space on their installation CDs. The DOJ has already asked that Netscape Navigator be placed on the CD. You may think this sounds strange, but this practice is already common for companies like AOL and AT&T Worldnet, which are also Microsoft competitors.

Recently I attended Baan World 98. Some itmWEB readers may remember Jim Pierce who was an E&Y Partner in Houston. I ran into him at Baan World, and I have included a little about him and his company, PrimeSoure Techologies, in this two part feature. Most of the rest of the feature highlights Microsoft's new strategies for enterprise strength computing.

Bann World 98: Baan goes Mainstream

Part 1:
http://mis.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa051998.htm
Part 2:
http://mis.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa052098.htm

April marked my one year anniversary as the MIS Guide at the Mining Company. I have posted a feature which is my reflection of the experience over the last year. The Mining Company is now a top 40 destination on the internet. The site's hit count now regularly exceeds 3 million page hits per month.

Happy Birthday Mining Company!

http://mis.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa051898.htm

Have you checked in recently for an update of Jeff Gainer's new book "Lucid Code: Taming Software Development Chaos"? He is posting each chapter on the web, and you can follow his progress through this link:

http://www.montana.com/asc/lucid_code/lc_cover.html

Jeff has also included an important column in this month's itmWEB Report explaining the Capability Maturity Model. You can read it in Section 3.

Another kudo for the itmWEB site occurred this month when it was featured on the Computer Currents Interactive web site with a full review. Computer Currents Magazine is an IT specialized publication which is available in many cities all over the U.S.

THE UP FRONT LINKS

A collection of time sensitive links covering current IT issues.

Here are some more links which further explain the history of the Microsoft / DOJ lawsuit situation:

Gates meeting with Joel Klien at the DOJ:

http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2554039852-466

Twenty states decide to take action as well:

http://www.techweb.com/news/story/msftdoj/TWB19980430S0009
http://www.techweb.com/news/story/msftdoj/TWB19980430S0004

Republican senators cross swords on Microsoft:

http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2553963754-83c

Here is a prediction for later this year: Intel will become an even bigger story than Microsoft. Intel now has a 90% share of the world's microprocessor market, and the U.S. Department of Justice now has a similar team working on the Intel situation, just like it has for Microsoft. I believe that the other shoe will drop very soon. He is a little bit about these developments which has already been in the news:

http://www2.computerworld.com/home/print.nsf/CWFlash/9805044826

Amazing news of the month: The president and publisher of US News & World Report, Fast Company, and Atlantic Monthly, will become the CEO of GeoCities next month. Read about why Tom Evans has made the career change to the web at this link:

http://www.netinsider.com/profile/tevans/profile

Borland has a new name: Inprise! Will this help? Read here:

http://www2.computerworld.com/home/online9697.nsf/CWFlash/980430borland1EF9E

Is your company ready for the new Euro? The new European currency will hit the streets very soon:

http://www.cio.com/archive/enterprise/041598_euro.html

The U.S. Congress will add back the "Domain Registration" tax:

http://www2.computerworld.com/home/online9697.nsf/CWFlash/980504congress1F166

An IDC study reports that companies are now spending more on intranet technologies than on classic IT:

http://www2.computerworld.com/home/online9697.nsf/CWFlash/980415companies1E84E

IBM is announcing its new mainframe line called S/390 G5. The G5 stands for "fifth generation". The new machines will double the performance of old G4 models which came out in June of 1997. The S/390 G5 will clip along at 900 million instructions per second!

http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2554035782-441

If you have not see an IBM mainframe lately, you might just overlook it in the computer room. I did recently when I couldn't spot an S/390 G4 because it is so small. It was hiding next to the HP-9000s which were a bit larger. Amazing.

Do you want to watch TV on your PC? TV board maker Hauppauge is now offering three boards, priced from $80 to $130, that use the new TV support provided in Windows 98:

http://www.hauppauge.com/

Wondering about the new XML - Extensible Markup Language standard? Here is an overview:

http://www.zdnet.com/chkpt/pcma980501/www.pcmag.com/pctech/content/17/10/tf1710.001.html

John Dvorak takes a swing at Windows 98's high price tag:

http://www.zdnet.com/chkpt/pcma980501/www.pcmag.com/insites/dvorak/jd.htm

CNET reviews five all-purpose encryption clients suitable for the general public:

http://www.cnet.com/Content/Reviews/Compare/Crypto/?dd

CNET also lists 68 great tips for Windows NT 4.0:

http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Howto/NT4tips/?dd

Microsoft's Word 5.0 for DOS and Access 2.0 will not support the year 2000:

http://www2.computerworld.com/home/online9697.nsf/CWFlash/980416microsoft1E89A

You can also find a link to the full Micrososft product line-up with regards to year 2000 issues at this link:

http://mis.miningco.com/msub28.htm

Infoworld's Freeware Spotlight:

* OpenLinux Standard 1.2

http://www.infoworld.com/scoop/sc?980415rv2

* Apache Web Server

http://www.infoworld.com/scoop/sc?980415iv3

* Will freeware ever be taken seriously by corporate IT shops?

http://www.infoworld.com/scoop/sc?980415fm1

Process Improvement: The Capability Maturity Model

By Jeff Gainer

Last month in Critical Path, I outlined the principals behind the bottom-up concept of the "best practices" approach to software improvement. To recap, the "best practices" approach seeks to identify and preserve key elements of intellectual capital on a software development organization. By nature, "best practices" is informal. The Capability Maturity Model, however, is a far more prescriptive, structured approach.

Like best practices, the Capability Maturity Model was initially funded by military research, but its method of process improvement could not be more different. Where the best practices approach is "bottom up" and quite informal, the Capability Maturity Model is rigid, "top down," and prescriptive. The United States Air Force funded a study at the Carnegie-Mellon Software Engineering Institute to create a model for the military to use as an objective evaluation of software subcontractors. The result was the Capability Maturity Model, published as Managing the Software Process in 1989. The CMM has since been revised and updated; version 1.1 is now in print and the entire text is available on-line at the SEI's Web site.

The CMM ranks software development organizations in a hierarchy of five levels, each with a progressively greater capability of producing quality software. Each level is described as a level of maturity. Level One, the "Initial" level is, unfortunately and overwhelmingly, the most common. Currently an estimated 75% of software development organizations exist at this level, which can be best described as chaotic. At this level, there is little or no formalization, and processes, if any, are ad hoc. Project success depends on individual heroics and more often than not, sheer good fortune. But when the heroes leave the organization, their history of success leaves with them.

At the next, or "repeatable" level, at least basic project management activities are in place, such as configuration management and requirements management. Another step up the scale is the "defined" process level, where basic quality assurance and quality control activities are defined and practiced, such as defined standards, a defined process, structured walkthroughs and formal testing. Beyond this level, the population of software development organizations become more rarefied. At the "managed" level, there are fewer than 2% of software development organizations, those who have formalized processes for collecting and analyzing quality metrics. The highest level, the "Optimized" process, is characterized by self-optimized quality improvement.

Seeking formal assessment and improvement under this model can be time consuming and expensive, but the rewards in the quality of the software product and predictability of quality in future products are very real. Unfortunately, there is often significant resistance in some organizations to a formalized process, particularly in the "cowboy" cultures so common in the United States. Indeed, some organizations are so preoccupied with market and daily demands that a serious process improvement initiative is not only a fantasy, but positively laughable. Some pundits have designated these organizations as "Level Zero." Below these are those organizations which I call "Level Minus-1", those who deny the value of any process improvement on religious grounds.

Frequently I consult with managers at small and medium-sized organizations who genuinely want to improve their processes, but despair at being able to draw any time or resources from their existing operations. Unfortunately for them, formal process improvement requires time, dedication, and management oversight, things that too many managers are unwilling to commit, regardless of its obvious benefits. Additionally, many smaller organizations rightly view the CMM as designed for large shops, thus they cannot see its direct value to them. For these organizations, I recommend an "formal-informal" approach to process improvement. Management can actively take ownership of and responsibility for process improvement, using the CMM as a blueprint, that is, a guideline for their own plan. This way, they can actively improve their software process without the full demands and costs of formal assessment. It is very possible for an organization to apply sound project management principals on their own and bring an organization's efficiency to a Level 2 or even Level 3, albeit without a formal certification. But then, if the goal is to produce a better product, what does the certification matter, anyway?

Software Engineering Institute: <http://www.sei.cmu.edu/>

Next month in Critical Path:

I'll detail using the CMM as an informal model for smaller development shops. Also, I'll have a report from the Cutter Consortium Summit 97, including a few choice bits of useful Australian slang from the inimitable Rob Thomsett.

Copyright 1998, Jeff Gainer, All Rights Reserved

Jeff Gainer, known is some circles as "Jeff the Evangelist," is a software management consultant and traveling IT evangelist. He has preached software development sermons at a number of organizations in both the United States and Russia. The author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, Mr. Gainer's current focus is his forthcoming process management book Lucid Code: Taming Software Development Chaos. You can visit Jeff’s company and read some of his articles on the Web at:

http://www.montana.com/asc/

At CIO, you can view a video presentation of Tom Peters’ "CIO Manifesto" from the CIO Perspectives Conference in Orlando:

http://www.cio.com/conferences/perspectives/

CIO also showcases an overview of the plans law firms are making to capitalize on the year 2000 problem:

http://www.cio.com/archive/050198_y2k.html

Tips for handling customer service emails:

http://www.cio.com/archive/webbusiness/050198_customer.html

The head of the FBI's new cybercrime unit says companies need to rely on their IS departments as the first line of defense:

http://www2.computerworld.com/home/online9697.nsf/CWFlash/980326fbi1DF5E

The following press release had quite a few of us scratching our heads when it first came out (of course it turned out to be a April Fool's day joke):

Company Press Release

Cisco CEO John Chambers steps down; Steve Jobs interested

NEW YORK, April 1, 1998 (Reuters) -- In a surprise move, Cisco CEO John T. Chambers announced plans to resign. There was no immediate replacement. Chambers has agreed to stay on until the Board of Directors finds a new CEO. It was only a week ago when Intel CEO Andy Grove did the same thing but in that case, it was long known that Craig Barrett would eventually succeed Grove. Donald Reed, president and CEO of Cabletron Systems, a competitor of Cisco, resigned just two days ago.

Citing family considerations, the boyish Chambers, 48, will become the new Chairman replacing John P. Morgridge. Chambers joined Cisco in January 1991, became President and CEO in 1994, and turned Cisco from a $1.2 billion dollar company to the current run-rate of $8 billion dollars a year. "I am satisfied with the direction of Cisco and I believe it will continue to grow at a phenomenal thirty to fifty percent a year for the next few years."

In another twist of events, a source at Wall Street Journal said Steve Jobs may be interested in the position. Steven Lee, senior analyst for Prudential Securities said, "This is like a soap opera with a twist of Intel and Apple thrown in. Who's next to resign, Bill Gates?"

In other related news, Cisco announced their intention to acquire Lucent Technologies.

Submitted from CMPnet:

CMPnet Radio's <http://www.cmpnet.com/radio> "The Week in Review"
is a 15-minute weekly update, via Real Player 5.0, on the top news stories and topic surrounding the technology and Internet industries.

CMPnet Radio allows people to listen to the news as they work and not feel like they've missed out on the latest happenings in the industry.

CMPnet Radio's Web site highlights of the show's agenda:

Top Stories:
A summary of the week's top stories from TechWeb's reporters

NetRadio Spotlight:
In-depth look at the key story of the week

Roundtable:
Analysis of highs and lows of the week's big stories with CMP's editors

Perspective:
Guest commentary for Enterprise News listeners

--

Have an IT news submission? Send it to <news@itmweb.com>.

MIS Net Links:
http://mis.miningco.com/mlibrary.htm

MIS Benchmarks and Metrics Scoreboard: http://mis.miningco.com/blbench.htm

Job/Career Resource Center:
http://mis.miningco.com/msub31.htm

IT Forum:
http://mis.miningco.com/mpboards.htm

CASE Tools
http://www.geocities.com/~itmweb/case.htm

EVERSYS Corporation

http://www.eversys.com/

This company has created a rack mounted "server card" Approach f0r Consolidating traditional Network and Internet services. Great idea!

PrimeSource Technologies

http://www.primesourcetech.com/

Jim Pierce is CEO of this fast moving consulting firm - they currently specialize In Baan software implementations.

Please forward this newsletter to colleagues who may have an interest in these topics, or who may wish to subscribe.

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