Daily News Archive

Please note that The Daily News is publishing (hopefully) twice a week for the foreseeable future due to time constraints.

Tuesday, March 7th

"Our words do not describe things but our relationship to things. In this lies the heart of misunderstanding.” -- John Woods

 

The Picks of the Day

The CFOs' Days Are Gone

“The age of the rock star chief financial officer is over.  From 1998 to 2000, CFO magazine handed out 28 Excellence Awards to finance chiefs who had won praise from auditors, analysts and investors for innovative approaches to what had traditionally been a buttoned-down job. Many of the winners were public figures, regulars on CNBC and in newspaper business sections.  Nowadays, two of the winners -- WorldCom Inc.'s Scott D. Sullivan and Tyco International Ltd.'s Mark H. Swartz -- are in prison.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/02/AR2006030202078.html

[This article is very interesting – be sure to read it.]]

 

Compliance spending is expected to rise

“North American companies expect to spend $27.3 billion on regulatory compliance this year, with less than a quarter of that total attributable to the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley corporate governance law, according to a survey released Thursday.”

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/02/business/soxley.php

http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?type=fundsNews2&storyid=URI:urn:newsml:reuters.com:20060302:MTFH98347_2006-03-02_15-09-00_N02262502:1

 

GAO Cites Material Weaknesses

“Officials at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) said that for the ninth straight year it is unable to provide an opinion as to whether the consolidated financial statements of the U.S. government are fairly stated and conforms with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). GAO cites material weaknesses in internal control and selected accounting and financial reporting practices as the reason for the qualified opinion.”

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/5591768/c_5590364?f=TodayInFinance_Inside

 

IT Process Improvement

OGC Successful Delivery Pocketbook

“This Pocketbook explains how to plan for successful delivery.  It describes the steps that need to be taken to initiate effective programmes and projects. Guidance from HM Treasury, the Delivery Unit and other central bodies describes what is required in a delivery plan.”

http://www.ogc.gov.uk/embedded_object.asp?docid=1004580

 

Projects in Controlled Environments v2 (PRINCE2)

This is the home page for the OGC’s PRINCE 2 efforts.

http://www.ogc.gov.uk/prince2/

 

So, What Do You Offer?

“When compared to an outsourcer, internal IT (IIT) is at a disadvantage because the outsourcer can readily present management a list of services that are available, descriptions of each, available service level plans and their associated costs.   More often than not, IIT is not prepared to list all of the services offered and their costs. As a result, management, which often is befuddled about benefits relative to costs when it comes to IT in general, may lean toward the outsourcer as they can more readily understand the cost-benefit scenarios the outsourcer sets forth.”

http://www.itsmwatch.com/tech/article.php/3587911

 

Legal and Regulatory Compliance

SEC can partly roll back Sarbanes-Oxley: Oxley

“U.S. Rep. Michael Oxley, an author of the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate reform law passed after Enron and other corporate scandals, said federal regulators have the legal authority to roll back key provisions for smaller U.S. public companies, according to a letter released on Friday.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/03/AR2006030301124.html

 

Sarbanes-Oxley Changes Take Root

“Restatements of financial results by public companies soared in 2005 as auditors drilled deeper into corporate accounts, in part because of a sharper focus on requirements laid out by the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate-governance act, according to research firm Glass Lewis & Co.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114135577334088374.html?mod=djemEMU

http://www.cfocom/article.cfm/5591688?f=alerts

 

Compliance costing insurers $100m

“Compliance issues are now costing general insurers more than $100 million a year, according to the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA).”

http://finance.news.com.au/story/0,10166,18334542-31037,00.html

 

Security and Risk Management

New Scrutiny for Intel Reform

“Reforming U.S. intelligence operations is a work in progress. The overlapping jurisdictions, disputed priorities, and feuding bureaucracies of the fifteen agencies that officially make up the American intelligence community became tragically apparent on September 11, 2001.”

http://www.cfr.org/publication/9967/new_scrutiny_for_intel_reform.html

 

Failure to Encrypt E-Mail Jeopardizes The Privilege and Work-Product Doctrine: Protect or Perish

“This article will rivet home, regardless of what has been told to attorneys and professionals in the past that makes them feel warm and cozy with the concept that encryption of e-mail is not necessary because e-mail carries with it the reasonable expectation of privacy, that the known technological vulnerabilities of unencrypted e-mail make this presumption an old wives’ tale at best.”

http://www.securedemail.com/download/us/doc/sem_in_media/2006.02.01_Jack_Seward_ABI_Journal_Article_2-06_2.pdf

Jack has a link to the group featured in the article if you’d like to try the application:  www.securedemail.com/jackseward

 

Human Error / Safety

Navy to ground all aircraft for safety review

“Plagued by a series of helicopter and jet crashes in recent months, the Navy said Friday it will ground all its aircraft for half a day next week for an internal safety review.”

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/03/navy.aircraft.grounded.ap/index.html

 

China reports ninth human death from bird flu

“Officials say 32-year-old victim had visited poultry slaughtering area”

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11289965/

 

Outsourcing / Globalization

Monitoring China Supply-chain Risk

“Directly or indirectly, many companies rely on components from China; Sun Microsystems takes a statistical approach to evaluating the risks.”

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/5572829/c_5590364?f=alerts

 

India eyes outsourcing, calls for opening up of service markets

“India has submitted requests for opening up of markets in computer services, health services, energy and architecture & engineering services in the first round of the on-going plurilateral negotiations in services at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva.”

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=119705

 

UN considers outsourcing

“U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan wants the United Nations to consider outsourcing some of its administrative services, according to a summary of a report on management overhaul to be delivered on Tuesday.  If the U.N. General Assembly approves, this could include translation, payroll or other services moved to Asia or elsewhere out of the United States, according to U.N. sources. They said China was lobbying to provide translation services.”

http://www.swisspolitics.org/en/news/index.php?section=int&page=news_inhalt&news_id=6527732

 

Economics / Business / Misc.

Stanford Will Establish Center To Study Corporate Governance

“Stanford University is setting up a research center to focus on the emerging academic discipline of corporate governance, funded with $10 million from legendary Silicon Valley venture capitalist Arthur Rock and his wife.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114160549262689961.html?mod=djemTECH

 

Thursday, March 9th

"Objectives are not fate; they are direction. They are not commands; they are commitments. They do not determine the future; they are a means to mobilize resources and energies of the business for the making of the future.” – Peter F. Drucker

 

The Picks of the Day

'Computer terrorist' teaches anti-hacking

“He can find George Bush senior's social security number and Leonardo DiCaprio's mother's maiden name in under 15 seconds, and led the FBI on a three-year manhunt as he hacked his way into the world's biggest firms.”

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/03/08/tech.hacking.reut/index.html

 

An Ounce of Prevention: Have You Had A Data Center Health Check-up Recently?

“To ensure your optimal personal health, it just makes sense to visit your doctor on a regular basis.  The same wisdom applies to Data Center management: you need to regularly test the multiple factors impacting overall DC performance and diagnose and remedy any problem areas that are found.”

http://news.tmcnet.com/news/2006/02/28/1414799.htm

 

Sarbanes-Oxley Just a Fraction of Compliance Spending – AMR

“Less than a quarter of corporate spending on compliance in 2006 will be devoted to meeting the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, with companies focusing on broader compliance issues as they continue to contend with government regulations and tighter governance and risk policies, according to a new report from Boston-based technology consultancy AMR Research.”

http://www.sdcexec.com/article_arch.asp?article_id=8361

 

IT Process Improvement

The OGC’s Own “ITIL Pocket Guide”

“ITIL provides a framework of ‘best practice’ guidance for IT Service Management and is the most widely used and accepted approach to IT Service Management in the world. This pocket guide has been designed as an introductory overview for anyone who has an interest or need to understand more about the objectives, content and coverage of ITIL. Whilst this guide provides an overview, full details can be found in the actual ITIL publications themselves.”

http://www.ogc.gov.uk/sdtoolkit/deliveryteam/briefings/ITIL/index.html

 

An Introduction Overview of ITIL

“ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) provides a framework of ‘best practice’ guidance for IT Service Management and is the most widely used and accepted approach to IT Service Management in the world.”

http://www.ogc.gov.uk/sdtoolkit/reference/ogc_library/itbusinesschange/ITILIntroduction.pdf

 

Legal and Regulatory Compliance

BlackBerry Case Could Spur Patent-Revision Efforts

“The $612.5 million settlement by BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. with NTP Inc. appears to end the long-running patent fight, but the case will continue to spur efforts to revise the U.S. patent-system, according to legal experts and technology executives.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114160263279289921.html?mod=djemTECH

 

GPL 3 Good For SOX?

“The GPL open source license does not increase legal risk to companies that are governed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), according to the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC). In fact, the GPL may well be on track to actually improving its applicability for usage concerning SOX compliance, thanks to proposed new additions in the draft of the GPL version 3 license.”

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3590186

 

Under Patriot Act, Feds Could Bug Boards

“The new amendments will enable prosecutors to use electronic surveillance of executives suspected to be involved in such misdeeds as price fixing and bid rigging. Intellectual property could also be at risk.”

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/5600289?f=alerts

 

Security and Risk Management

Debit card thieves get around PIN obstacle

“Criminals have stolen bank account data from a third-party company, several banks have said, and then used the data to steal money from related accounts using counterfeit cards at ATM machines.”

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11731365/

 

Eight reasons to plan out your security testing

“Security is always an urgent matter and the urge with testing is to get to it right away to find and fix vulnerabilities. But if you're going to do things right, you absolutely, positively have to plan out your security testing strategies and work in a methodical fashion.”

http://searchwindowssecurity.techtarget.com/tip/1,289483,sid45_gci1170019,00.html

 

Top 15 security tools for testing Windows

“So, you're thinking about testing your own Windows systems for security vulnerabilities? Doing so is actually pretty interesting work -- that is, if you have the right tools.”

http://searchwindowssecurity.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid45_gci1162879,00.html

[This is dated January 2006 – I missed it when it came out originally.]

 

Human Error / Safety

Cat death prompts bird flu advice

“Cat owners in countries hit by bird flu should keep their pets indoors, two UN agencies involved in co-ordinating the fight against the virus have said.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4787234.stm

 

Flu panic hits cats, dogs - and Disney

“Disneyland Paris was accused yesterday of hiding a dead swan as panic over bird flu spread across Europe.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2076346,00.html

 

Outsourcing / Globalization

Chaos in Manila to benefit India

“The declaration of a state of emergency on February 25 by Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has affected business sentiments in the country, according to a poll by outsourcing advisory firm NeoIT. The situation may give India an upper hand in BPO over Philippines, which was giving tough competition for voice-based business.”

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=119866

 

Outsourcing Health IT: Should Doctors Cut the Cord?

“In an era of rising costs and dwindling access to experts, IT is untethering doctors from patients' physical presence. Already, health care organizations are turning to distant practitioners to interpret radiographs and even to monitor intensive care units.”

http://www.extremenano.com/article/Outsourcing+Health+IT+Should+Doctors+Cut+the+Cord/172871_1.aspx

 

Study: US Outsourcing Fears Greatly Exaggerated

“The study concluded that dire predictions of job losses from shifting high-technology work to lower-wage countries with strong education systems, like India and China, were greatly exaggerated.”

http://www.crmbuyer.com/story/SaNq1yXw9S3Iqt/Study-US-Outsourcing-Fears-Greatly-Exaggerated.xhtml

 

Women and IT: Perfectly matched

“The winds of globalization and outsourcing in India have ushered in changes not just for the economy but have also thrown open numerous opportunities for women. In fact, India has stolen a march over the US in terms of the number of women entering the IT industry.”

http://www.ciol.com/content/search/showarticle1.asp?artid=81448

 

Economics / Business / Misc.

The U.S. and China's savings problem

“The two major players in the global economy, the U.S. and China, are operating at opposite ends of the saving spectrum. Thrifty Chinese have taken saving to excess, while profligate Americans have spent their way into debt.  Neither of these trends is sustainable -- they lead to destabilizing economic and political developments for both nations -- and a better balance must be struck. China needs to convert excess saving into consumption, while the U.S. needs to end its buying binge and rediscover the art of saving.”

http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/03/news/international/chinasaving_fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes

 

Help Needed for Small Exporters: GAO

“A new report from the Government Accountability Office has questioned the reliability of data from the Export-Import Bank of the United States on how well the bank is supporting small-business exporters.”

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/5599610/c_5599882?f=alerts