14-06-2004 • VOLUME 7 • NUMBER 23 • £2.60 WWW.ITWEEK.CO.UK 25 INTERNET Mail client wins plaudits for Opera browser 27 CLIENT A smaller, lighter smartphone 37 NETWORK Three leading SSL VPN systems reviewed CONTENTS ENTERPRISEWEEK Tools to guard server applications 15 Web services development kits 15 SAN package offers easy control 15 INTERNETWEEK Online retail sites put to the test 21 ISPs turn attention to spammers 22 CLIENTWEEK AMD plans new budget processor 27 Red Hat Fedora smartens Linux 28 Preparing disaster recovery plans 28 NETWORKWEEK How will DSL services develop? 31 Kit to analyse gigabit LAN traffic 31 How to design stronger networks 33 MANAGEMENTWEEK BI tools improve financial analysis 39 Blended attacks pose new threats 39 New e-government chief profiled 40 Merger moves gather pace Martin Veitch xperts are predicting a busy period of mergers and acquisitions among enterprise software vendors, which could greatly affect IT buyers’ options, after Microsoft admitted last week that it had been in merger talks with SAP. A Microsoft-SAP combination would have been the biggest-ever IT merger, dwarfing even HP’s capture of Compaq in 2002. It would also have marked a huge departure for Microsoft, which has never made an investment bigger than the approximately $1.4bn it paid for Navision in 2002. Even though the SAP talks broke down, they underline Microsoft’s appetite for growth and its ambitions in enterprise applications. Although the firm has built up its capabilities through internal efforts such as CRM and through the acquisitions of Navision and Great Plains Software, it has focused on the mid-market. The SAP talks indicate that large firms such as CRM pioneer Siebel Systems or UK accounting software giant Sage could now be in its sights. E In a research note last “Whenever we have sugRECENT IT MERGERS week, Steven Milunovich of gested that Microsoft purMarimba finance firm Merrill Lynch BMC chase Sage, we have been met suggested that HP should split with a barrage of reasons why Novadigm HP into computing and printing, this would never happen,” TruLogica HP or enterprise and consumer wrote Richard Holway of anaConsera HP organisations. This would alllyst Ovum Holway in a reNetscreen Juniper ow the computing or entersearch note. “We have been Eontec Siebel prise part to consider buying lulled into believing that Mic- Symantec Brightmail firms such as Sun, Unisys or rosoft would only ever do relatively small deals. Not any BearingPoint, formerly KPMG more. Apart from Microsoft buying IBM, we Consulting. Sun was last year linked with a now can’t think of a coupling where the term sale to IBM although watchers such as Gart‘impossible’ would still apply.” ner analyst Andy Butler have suggested FujitFinancial analysts said that an appetite su Siemens Computers could be a better fit. for mergers and acquisitions was returning. At a meeting with financial analysts last John Cromwell, managing director of investweek, HP chief executive Carly Fiorina said ment bank SVB Alliant, said, “There are the company would continue to invest in something like 740 public software firms and mergers and acquisitions in order to fill out you have to ask whether that’s necessary.” capabilities. HP has recently bought software Consolidation of larger firms could force firms Novadigm, TruLogica and Consera. the rest to focus on integrating with them – SAP said last week that although it was for example, via web services. It would also not attempting to sell itself, it remained cut the number of IT suppliers, but Cromopen-minded about merger possibilities. well said there would still be room for inno Comment, p5 Microsoft speech apps, p8 vation. “It won’t be an oligopoly,” he added. Microsoft and SAP, p10 Leader, p12 IBM PC cuts desk clutter BT plans next network IBM’s ThinkCentre S50 ultra small desktop, set to ship in August, packs a full Pentium 4 PC into a compact case the size of a telephone directory. The design is a response to re- The models have quests for small- up to 2GB memory er desktop systems, said IBM. Prices are expected to start below £500, excluding monitor. IBM slims down the desktop, p4 B Martin Courtney T will start to move all telephone services onto its next-generation 21st century converged voice/data network (21CN) in 2006, and expects most customers’ calls to be carried on the end-toend IP-based infrastructure by 2008. The carrier has also announced trials of fibre-optic services in the last mile to begin in October, with around 1,000 customers eligible to sign up in specific areas of London and Suffolk. Laying fibre closer, if not direct, to the home or office should provide workers with broadband connections able to carry voice, data and video services at much faster speeds than the DSL services currently available on the analogue public switched telephone network (PSTN), which is based on lower-capacity copper cabling. However, it is not yet clear how much of 21CN will be based on fibre and how much will be based on copper. Paul Reynolds, chief executive of BT Wholesale, stressed that the quality of voice calls made over 21CN will either be the Reynolds: no drop in quality Bluetooth goes faster Bluetooth is to get a boost from an update that pushes the wireless standard’s data rate up to 2.1Mbit/s. It will enable devices that can support higher-bandwidth applications, and hold simultaneous links to several other devices. It may also speed the convergence of fixed and mobile telephones. Bluetooth Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) was announced last week by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG). UK chipmaker Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR) has already said it will support the spec in its BlueCore4 chips, sampling now and due for volume shipments this autumn. Sales director Glenn Collinson said that BlueCore4 uses as little as one percent of the power needed for a wireless LAN chip, making it better suited to converged telephony handsets.“Converged phones will be a reality in the next few years,” he said. Bluetooth picks up speed, p27 same as or better than PSTN, and customers will not notice any difference in the way they dial. The migration from PSTN should also help reduce the average cost of phone calls, according to analysts. “BT has already indicated that the 21CN [migration] will result in operational cost savings in the long term, and providing the market remains healthily competitive these savings should be passed on to customers,” said Neil Rickard of analyst firm Gartner. The 21CN system should enable a wide range of new IP-based broadband services. One example is the Bluephone service, which will let staff use a single handset both for fixed and mobile calls at lower cost by connecting wirelessly to a broadband link. BT’s SDSL rollout, p4 Leader, p12 ADSL, p31 AT&T raises VoIP hopes, p31 NEWS INSIDE: HP Printers, p5 • ITANIUM Servers, p5 • OUTSOURCING Risks, p6 • SPAM Defence, p6 • MICROSOFT Speech apps, p8 • OPEN SOURCE Tips, p8