NewsScan Daily, 4 February 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 4 February 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
       The Outsourcing Debate
       Microsoft Ducks, Evades Assault by Vandals
       Who's Saying What to Whom: WebFountain Knows
       Oracle Ups Its Bid for PeopleSoft
       Spam Isn't Just a Pain: It Will Also Cost You Money

FEATURES
       Flash Card
       Honorary Subscriber: Andrew Maurois

THE OUTSOURCING DEBATE
     At a conference in Bombay organized by the Indian software and services
export industry, attendees were assured that the outsourcing of IT-related
jobs to developing countries will boost competitiveness and slash costs. Dan
Griswold of the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., said that more jobs in
developing countries will build "larger middle classes and create a larger
market for U.S. products in the future." In contrast (and as part of a
growing backlash against the "offshore outsourcing" trend), the U.S. Senate
recently passed a bill that, if it gets the President's approval, would
prohibit government contractors from shifting work overseas. (AP/New York
Times 4 Feb 2004)
http://partners.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-India-Outsourcing.html

MICROSOFT DUCKS, EVADES ASSAULT BY VANDALS
     Microsoft has rebuffed an attempted software virus attack aimed at
shutting down some of the company's Web sites yesterday -- two days after a
different version of the same "Mydoom" virus shut down the Web site of The
SCO Group in Utah. Microsoft says it will pay $250,000 to anyone who helps
authorities find and prosecute the author of the virus. A similar offer has
also been made by The SCO Group. (AP/Washington Post 3 Feb 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9129-2004Feb3.html

WHO'S SAYING WHAT TO WHOM: WEBFOUNTAIN KNOWS
     Hundreds of computer servers at IBM's Almaden Research Center in San
Jose, CA, each week gathers 250 million new Web pages and the data (512,000
gigabytes of it) to software called WebFountain designed to capture what
everybody is saying about something. IBM has begun licensing the WebFountain
technology to corporations to create "buzz reports" developed by scouring
every part of the Internet (Web logs, chat rooms, newspaper stories, and so
forth) to find out consumer reaction to some new product. In contrast to
standard search engines that just match patterns, WebFountain takes a
subject and does detailed analyses of what it finds, taking special note of
how often someone's name is associated with someone else's with reference to
a particular topic. (San Jose Mercury News 4 Feb 2004)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/7870991.htm

ORACLE UPS ITS BID FOR PEOPLESOFT
     Business software maker Oracle has raised its hostile takeover bid for
PeopleSoft by a third, in an all-cash offer valuing PeopleSoft at $9.4
billion. The sweetened price offer by Oracle may make a proxy fight
unnecessary, and may transform the hostile takeover of PeopleSoft by Oracle
into a friendly merger. (AP/USA Today 4 Feb 2004)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/techmergers/2004-02-04-oracle-swee
tens-bid_x.htm 

SPAM ISN'T JUST A PAIN: IT WILL ALSO COST YOU MONEY
     A majority of consumers surveyed by the Trans-Atlantic Consumer
Dialogue said they are shopping less on the Internet -- or not there at all
-- because they dislike receiving unsolicited junk e-mail. The report says,
"It is very clear that the majority of citizens are very troubled by
unsolicited commercial e-mails. It is also very clear that bona fide
businesses are losing money because the disreputable image of spam is making
consumers uneasy about engaging in e-commerce." Marc Rotenberg of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center concurs with the report's findings and
says: "If you continue at this pace, in five years from now I do not think
the Internet will be very popular." Peter Ferguson, chairman of the OECD
working group on information security and privacy, explains that most
governments now view the Internet as a key to the global economy, and he
warns: "Spam has certainly the capacity to interfere with that."
(Reuters/Los Angeles Times 3 Feb 2004)
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-spam3feb03,1,7003102.story?coll=la-h
eadlines-technology

*****

FLASH CARD
     "Nature is fine in its place, but for me that place is on the other
side of the window. I consider it best viewed from inside a house or a car."
(Joseph Epstein)

     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the French writer Emile Herzog
(1885-1967), who rose to literary prominence as a biographer, novelist and
essayist under the pseudonym "Andre Maurois." His 50-year literary career
included studies of English history that led him to write his romanticized
biographies of Shelley, Disraeli, and Byron. In mid career he wrote popular
biographies of George Sand, Victor Hugo, and Honore de Balzac.
     Maurois was born in Elbeuf, France, to a prosperous family of textile
manufacturers. He was educated at the Rouen lycee and Caen University. His
thinking was strongly influenced by one of his teachers, the philosopher
Alain (Emile Auguste Chartier). Maurois married twice, first in 1912 and
again in 1926, two years after the death of his first wife. Prior to World
War I he worked in his father's factory, an experience he later wrote about
in his 1927 novel, "Bernard Quesnay."
     Following his service as a volunteer with Allied forces in North
Africa, Maurois returned to Paris where he lived until his death in 1967.
His Memoirs were published posthumously in 1970.
     Maurois was a master of writing biography in a gripping narrative
style, a technique that has become popular with many biographers today.
Beyond that he has also been recognized for his penetrating analyses of the
character of his subjects. His many essays, particularly those about his
experiences in both World Wars, revealed him to be a discerning critic of
the wartime events he observed at first hand. Some sense of the writing
style that made Maurois popular may be found in this quote from his
biography of Shelley: "Modesty and unselfishness -- these are virtues which
men praise -- and pass by." And another quote that reveals his character is
this one: "If men could regard the events of their own lives with more open
minds, they would frequently discover that they did not really desire the
things they failed to obtain."
 
See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0766143503/newsscancom/ref=nos
im for the Maurois biography of Disraeli -- or look for it in your favorite
library. (We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult
literacy programs.)

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Copyright 2004. NewsScan Daily (R) is a publication of NewsScan Inc.
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