April 2005 Archives

: "Polo Ralph Lauren Customers' Data Stolen Associated Press Thursday, April 14, 2005 NEW YORK - Data apparently stolen from the popular clothing retailer Polo Ralph Lauren Inc. is forcing banks and credit card issuers to notify thousands of consumers that their credit-card information may have been exposed. HSBC North America, a division of London-based HSBC Holdings PLC, has begun notifying holders of the HSBC-issued, General Motors-branded MasterCard that criminals may have obtained access to their credit card information and that the cards should be replaced. HSBC spokesman Stephen E. Cohen said Thursday that 'we began doing it last week, and we are continuing.' He said that about 180,000 GM-branded card holders are affected. Neither Cohen nor spokesmen for MasterCard International would identify the retailer by name. The security breach was reported in Thursday's editions of The Wall Street Journal, which quoted 'people with knowledge of the matter' as saying the data was stolen at Polo Ralph Lauren. Phone calls to Polo Ralph Lauren, which is headquartered in New York, were not immediately returned. It was unclear how many other cards might be at risk, but both Visa USA Inc. and MasterCard - the nation's largest credit card associations - were reported to be dealing with Polo Ralph Lauren on the matter. MasterCard said in a statement that it was informed of a possible security breach 'of transaction data associated with a U.S.-based retailer' in January 2005 and had launched an investigation immediately. The statement said banks that are members of the card association were notified. 'Investigations into this incident by MasterCard, law enforcement and other parties are ongoing,' the statement said. It was the latest in a series of data thefts that have increa"

MicroStrategy Announces First Quarter 2005 Financial Results: " Microstrategy announces today a 22% year-to-year increase in revenue, to $60 million last quarter. New deals and new projecs with existing customers has been impressive. The company provides direct access to SAP BW through an MDX / Dynamic sql layer. New Customers: New customers and new deals with existing customers in Q1 2005 included: American Healthways; American Institute for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters; AmerisourceBergen Corporation; Bank of the West; BI-LO, LLC; Brickstream; Cancer Care Ontario; Charming Shoppes; Chuck Latham Associates; Classic Residence by Hyatt; Communifax Corporation; Corporate Express; Dick's Sporting Goods; Finali Corporation; Finlay Enterprises; Forest Laboratories; Giorgio Armani Corporation; ImpactRX; Intel Corporation; Liquor Control Board of Ontario; Northwest Evaluation Association; Oakwood Homes; Payless ShoeSource, Inc.; Petco Animal Supplies, Inc.; Porsche Cars North America; Rewards Plus; RGA Reinsurance Company; Rheem Manufacturing; Rite-Hite Corporation; Scott & White Memorial Hospital; Solucient L.L.C.; Starbucks Corporation; Temple-Inland Corporation Services; Upsher-Smith Laboratories, Inc.; Verispan, LLC; Wells Fargo Home Mortgage; Wilton Industries, Inc."

Housing - Chicago Integrating google tools into web applications via open source API. The developer, Paul Rademacher, has integrated google's map search functionality with the home / apartment rental and for sale listings in http://craigslist.org. In one frame you see the push-pin google map with the locations, and on the other the names of the properties for rent or for sale. For those unfamiliar with Craig's List, despite the odd name, it's very active and effective "community based" on-line classified advertising website.

Are All Consultants Corrupt? | Printer-friendly version

SDN - eLearning Resources SAP has created much-improved online learning resources which are now accessed through the http://sdn.sap.com site (registration required). A few years ago, getting documentary information was a tedious task, or required going onsite for training - but SAP has improved learning resources dramatically in the past two years, and better yet, the content is free to registered users. Below are key links to the content and brief descriptions by SAP. SDN Pilot Areas eLearning Here you will find on-line materials and courses that teach you a variety of hands-on skills along with theoretical knowledge. Our eLearning offerings are designed to provide a learning experience that is valuable, interesting and enjoyable to you. eLearning Repository. Wherever you are within the eLearning Area, you can always jump to a different eLearning solution via the relevant homepage. The currently available eLearning catalogs are:

• SAP NetWeaver Platform
• SAP Enterprise Portal, Security
• SAP Knowledge Management
• SAP Business Information Warehouse,
• SAP Exchange Infrastructure
• SAP Web Application Server
• ABAP
• Web Services
• SAP xApps
• Technologies
• SAP Business One
• SAP Master Data Management

SAP-eClass * SAP-eClass is a self-paced online eLearning solution. It has an electronic classroom environment that offers a complete, modular and self-contained learning experience. eClasses integrate multiple educational media including streaming instructor video, synchronized animated presentations, exercise handbooks, interactive product demos and online quizzes - all served within a single intuitive navigation interface. SAP-eBook * SAP-eBooks are standalone self-paced presentations with audio, delivered by professional instructors and subject matter experts, which can include movies, interactive demos and quizzes. They teach a variety of product concepts and skills.

MSN search's WebLog : This site not only has useful information about the world of search engines and how they work, but serves as a great example of the value of this communication tool within an extended technical community.

Steelcase to close three facilities and cut 600 jobs over next two years: This news article from my former employer Steelcase is an example of the larger macroeconomic change that is transforming business models in the manufacturing industry. I've written previously of Tom Friedman's new book "The World is Flat", which gives a thorough review to to this transformation - driven by enabling technologies - in the ability of companies to manage manufacturing and the supply chain globally. I think of it as a shift in the liquidity of production resources. Companies can move factors of production globally with much greater flexibility these days. Unfortunately, but inevitably, this process can be devastating to local manufacturing economies. In 2002, executives at Steelcase realized the key role of technology in this transformation and brought in SAP for the first installation of the SRM / SCM suite in North America. I was responsible for the Business Intelligence analytics. Steelcase calls the implementation SupplySync. The Supplysync site contains functionality that handles all of the workflow for new supplier registration and qualification, then allows internal employees and external suppliers to share data and web services. On the SAP BW side, I created BW web reports published to the SAP Enterprise Portal with authorization variables. This allowed external suppliers to flexibly access a variety of BW queries giving them invoice status, product line production planning data, and product specifications, automatically filtering to only thier authorized data but sharing a single query with all other suppliers. I was a witness to the painful nature of these changes to my white- and blue-collar colleagues, as a survived the wrenching process of seven rounds of layoffs totalling over 10,000 employees in a three-year period. And, there have been two more rounds since then. Have you in your personal career, or your has your company, fully responded to the realities of a flat world? ------------------------------------------------------ Steelcase to close three facilities and cut 600 jobs over next two years (Grand Rapids, March 29, 2005, 9:40 a.m.) Steelcase announced Monday that it will close three manufacturing facilities in the Grand Rapids area over the next two years. Production will shift to other Steelcase manufacturing sites, some of which are in the West Michigan area. The losses go beyond jobs and sites. Kent County has lost 5,000 furniture manufacturing jobs in the last five years. Steelcase is the single largest taxpayer in the city, and when it quits production it will be the first time in company history it will not produce furniture in here. "We complain about not having enough space in Grand Rapids for new plants. Well, we've got lots of space now," said Mayor George Heartwell. Grand Rapids city officials are discussing the impact these job cuts will have the city's economy. The company's seating plant, systems plant, and the core steel plant will close, resulting in the loss of 100 salaried and 500 hourly positions. Thirty of those jobs will go to Mexico, while the rest will be moved to a plant in Atlanta, Georgia. Employees with less than 17 years of seniority could be looking for a new job. The company says the move will lead to annual pre-tax savings of $35 to $45 million. The announcement comes just one year after Steelcase president and CEO James Hackett said he was optimistic about the future of Steelcase locally. "I am very optimistic...the volume will pick up, in which case we're off the pressure of reductions of the employees," Hackett said in April 2004. On Monday, Steelcase spokesperson Jeanie Hill said this move was made to streamline the company's manufacturing process, putting production facilities closer to component facilities and suppliers. "The changes we're making today are not reflective of economic conditions. Or as you'll see on Wednesday when earnings come out, necessarily an impact to our company's profitability. What this is looking at is a plan to modernize and revolutionize our industrial system," adds Jeanine Hill. Steelcase says that it will explore options to sell or redevelop the facilities, which are valued at approximately $30 to $35 million. Despite the job cuts announced Monday, Hill says half of the company's manufacturing jobs will remain in West Michigan. Behind the 600 positions, another 300 jobs will be moved to facilities in Gaines Township and Kentwood. "It still pays the bills for at least another year or so. I guess that's one way to look at it," an employee who has worked for the company for 19 years told 24 Hour News 8. "They're going to be shutting down the chair plant, so even employees like me who are going to be staying, we don't really know what's going to happen to us," said another employee. The employees 24 Hour News 8 talked to say working at Steelcase the last couple of years has been tough, to say the least, because of layoffs, after layoffs, after layoffs. Many of them worried when the axe would fall on their position. For 600 of them, it happened Monday morning. "Very quiet. Everybody is just real quiet…hardly any talk going on at all," said one employee. "You can wish them well and stuff, but it's still a matter of there's not a lot of hope. "I think it's going to get a lot worse before they're actually done with it," said the 19-year veteran employee. Workers have three options - they can take an early retirement, a voluntary buyout, or accept an involuntary severance package.

Intelliseek's BlogPulse: 2004 Year in Review This listing shows the most popular blogs, part of what I feel is the best blog research in the world. As I understand the ranking, Intellisync / Blogpulse located the number of references to the site elsewhere on the web in order to derive the ranking. Some of the sites are silly or frivilous, but don't let that mislead you: the blog is here to stay as a powerful, community-based publishing and communication tool. To recruit the terminology of Thomas Friedman in his new book, "The World is Flat", blogs are a great flattener which essentially erase the economic barriers of entry to a variety of publishing venues. And with the speed of the internet, blogs have had a marked and well-publicized effect on the traditional news media. But less visible is the impact on corporations and how they project and defend their corporate image and identity, and that of their products and services. Has your company adapted to, and taken advantage of, the capabilities of blogs? If you are a technology company, do you monitor http://slashdot.org to reveal potentially damaging reviews about your product or service? Top Blogs - Rank, Name, Number of Citations. 1 BoingBoing 23836 2 DailyKos 21530 3 Instapundit 21391 4 The Drudge Report 19220 5 Slashdot 18901 6 AndrewSullivan.com 17174 7 Talking Points Memo 15127 8 Eschaton 14370 9 Washington Monthly 13193 10 Power Line 12059 11 Albino Blacksheep 10880 12 Little Green Footballs 10601 13 engadget 10436 14 The Smoking Gun 8487 15 MetaFilter 8263 16 Wonkette! 8068 17 Gizmodo 8024 18 The Command Post 7844 19 Captain's Quarters 6771 20 Wizbang! 6631 21 HughHewitt.com 6386 22 The Volokh Conspiracy 6182 23 Michele Malkin 6160 24 Penny Arcade 6142 25 Informed Comment 6137 26 J-Walk Blog 5787 27 Protein Wisdom 5458 28 Blogs for Bush 5391 29 Kottke.org 5360 30 Belmont Club 5081 31 Lileks.com 4974 32 Buzzmachine 4860 33 A Small Victory 4806 34 Dean's World 4605 35 Crooked Timber 4444 36 The Scepter of Angst 4414 37 Allah is in the House 4296 38 Scobleizer 4287 39 VoidStar 4182 40 INDC Journal 4172 41 Democratic Underground 4124 42 Outside the Beltway 4077 43 Gawker 3959 44 Pandagon.net 3754 45 Gothamist 3673 46 Tim Blair 3616 47 Roger L. Simon 3603 48 Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: a Weblog 3549 49 VodkaPundit 3372 50 TalkLeft 3300 51 Unconscious Mutterings 3293 52 Daniel D. Drezner 3180 53 Blackfive 3180 54 Mad Science News 3171 55 Oliver Willis 3161 56 Cox and Forkum Editorial Cartoons 3159 57 Matthew Yglesias 3150 58 This Blog is Full of Crap 3050 59 Windsofchange.net 3028 60 Taegan Goddard's Political Wire 3005 61 Billmon 2947 62 Joi Ito's Web 2928 63 Waxy.org 2917 64 Hullabaloo 2888 65 Jihad Watch 2827 66 Marginal Revolution 2807 67 Scripting News 2780 68 IMAO 2751 69 Iraq the Model 2718 70 The Official Kerry-Edwards Blog 2718 71 ScrappleFace 2692 72 MyDD 2595 73 This Modern World 2515 74 Defamer 2510 75 Lessig Blog 2474 76 Maud Newton 2457 77 Kuro5hin 2447 78 Questions and Observations 2420 79 The Blue Lemur 2395 80 techdirt 2370 81 Chrenkoff 2339 82 Right Wing News 2322 83 Rathergood.com 2318 84 Ace of Spades HQ 2318 85 Argghhh 2302 86 Dan Gillmor eJournal on SiliconValley.com 2296 87 Filling a Much-Needed Void 2279 88 USS Clueless 2276 89 Wil Wheaton dot Net 2266 90 Reason Online Hit and Run 2254 91 The American Prospect: Tapped 2240 92 The Truth Laid Bear 2233 93 Backcountry Conservative 2200 94 The Jawa Report 2192 95 Polipundit.com 2175 96 dooce 2163 97 The Politburo Diktat 2139 98 Baghdad Burning 2079 99 Jeremy Zawodny's blog 2070 100 Orcinus 2043

internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3447481 Oracle Rivals Circle the Wagons By Michael Singer December 14, 2004 The greatest impact of the Oracle/PeopleSoft merger may be its effect on other software companies -- not customers, analysts say. Large and small software providers must now learn how to best deal with an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) world dominated by market leader SAP (Quote, Chart) and the marriage of Oracle and PeopleSoft. SAP, Microsoft (Quote, Chart) and IBM (Quote, Chart) activated contingency plans even before the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust case was decided. Smaller players like Lawson, Fidelity Employer Services Company (FESCo), Accenture (Quote, Chart) and EDS (Quote, Chart) have also announced efforts to work with larger players and/or provide specialized services for the human Resources and financial services sectors. Still, analysts like Philip Fersht, who leads Yankee Group's Business Applications Group, expect additional mergers and acquisitions in technology markets with Siebel Systems (Quote, Chart) and BEA as probable targets. "I would expect to see IBM go into the apps game with a Siebel acquisition or BEA," he said. "I just don't think BEA can now stand up to Oracle if it acquires PeopleSoft. With IBM and BEA, they could focus on the integration space and middleware." The highest priority process area, according to fellow Yankee Group analyst Mike Dominy, will be a new breed of supply-chain management called "network supply management." "The overall market for technologies used inside the enterprise is mature," Dominy said. "With few exceptions, the opportunity to sell technology used solely within the four walls of a company has passed. Naturally, there will be exceptions by industry, such as health care and public sector, and sporadic technology spending driven by regulations or compliance initiatives, such as Sarbanes-Oxley." Network supply management also favors the larger players, according to Dominy, which have software, sales and support staff to pull off the complete offering. Fersht adds IBM is getting aggressive with its business process outsourcing, where the Armonk, N.Y.-based computer giant provided high level services around PeopleSoft software human capital management software. A perfect example of this is the joint $1 billion, five-year partnership that bundles WebSphere middleware in every future shipment of PeopleSoft products. Big Blue followed up with an additional five-year partnership with Siebel Systems to advance its vision of on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) and Business Intelligence software. "When we looked at what IBM wanted to do, all we could tell is that they want to sell WebSphere to more customers. The IBM partnership is more about controlling 70 percent of the Human Resource software market," Fersht told internetnews.com. Dominy notes that SAP is a winner, because even though it will compete more fiercely with fewer players, the battle between Oracle and PeopleSoft allowed SAP to quietly peel off more market share. The German-owned firm has kept a low profile for the most part with only the product release such as the latest version of SAP Business One for small and midsize businesses and the occasional customer win like its estimated $35 million contract to replace aging software at the U.S. Postal Service. SAP's success could also help Microsoft in its pursuits to grow beyond its mid-market presence, courtesy of its Great Plains platform. Beyond Microsoft's one-time plan to consider a merger with SAP, the two companies have applications that already compliment each other, including Microsoft's Biz Talk server with SAP's connectors as well as SAP's NetWeaver support for Microsoft .NET products and smart client technology. But Fersht also noted that Microsoft is the largest Web services provider hands down, which is of great interest to SAP.

Boston.com / Business / Technology / Tufts warns alumni on breach: "Tufts warns alumni on breach Tufts warns alumni on breach Computer attack exposed names, numbers to theft By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff | April 12, 2005 For the second time in a month, a Boston-area college is warning thousands of alumni that their personal information may have been stolen from a computer system used for fund-raising. Tufts University last week began sending letters to 106,000 alumni, warning of ''abnormal activity" on a computer that contained names, addresses, phone numbers, and, in some cases, Social Security and credit card numbers. ''We have no evidence that information was retrieved or misused," the letter said. But it urged alumni to notify their banks and check their credit reports for signs of illicit activity. The school also set up a website, www.tufts.edu/security, to provide alumni with more detailed information. Boston College took similar steps in mid-March, after a computer with files on 120,000 alumni was breached. Both Boston College and Tufts said that the affected computers were operated by an outside company that manages alumni fund-raising activities. RuffaloCODY, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, fund-raising firm, handles alumni fund-raising for Tufts. In an e-mail, Boston College spokesman Jack Dunn wouldn't identify the school's fund-raising firm ''for legal reasons." But RuffaloCODY has posted an advertisement on the Internet seeking Boston College students to work on the school's alumni fund-raising campaign. Mark Rasch, an attorney who formerly headed the US Justice Department's computer crime unit, said that if computer criminals have identified a weakness in RuffaloCODY's security practices, they could use the same method to attack other machines run by the company. ''Once a vulnerability is discovered in one of those processes," said Rasch, ''then everybody who uses that processor or that third party is affected." Rasch said that the information technology staff at Tufts should join forces with Boston College to determine whether an attacker is singling out RuffaloCODY, or college alumni databases in general. By comparing data logs from both computers, they might spot patterns that could help prevent future attacks. ''You pick up the phone, call the IT security director at Boston College, and say, 'Show us your logs, we'll show you ours,' " Rasch said. RuffaloCODY officials did not respond to repeated telephone calls. The company provides fund-raising services for many major nonprofit institutions, including Boston's Museum of Science, Iowa Public Television, Iowa State University, and the University of Georgia. Colleges and businesses routinely hire outside firms to provide specialized computing services. But these outside contractors can cause problems for clients if their computers are insecure. For instance, ApplyYourself Inc. of Fairfax, Va., manages admissions information for several of the nation's top schools, including Harvard Business School and the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. When over 200 students took advantage of a security breach last month to find out whether they'd been admitted, it forced the schools into an uncomfortable debate over whether to reject the applicants for unethical conduct. Some, like Harvard, rejected them; others, like Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, said it would decide on a case-by-case basis. Betsey Jay, Tufts's director of advancement communications and donor relations, said the problem at her school was detected late last fall, when campus computer managers noticed unusually large amounts of data moving through the machine. ''It was high volume, indicating distribution of large files," said Jay. ''Our initial indications were that somebody may have used the computer as a distribution point for off-loading entertainment media files." For example, someone could have used the computer as part of a ''darknet," a clandestine private network whose members swap illegally copied music and video files. Jay said there was no evidence that the computer break-in was an ''inside job" by a student, faculty member, or employee. Also, no data about current students or employees was exposed to the attackers. Computer administrators quickly plugged the security breach. ''There's been absolutely nothing untoward since Dec. 19," Jay said. At the time, Tufts officials saw no reason to warn alumni, as the school found no evidence that any personal data had been accessed. But then came news of the alumni computer breach at Boston College, as well as thefts of personal information at California State University, the University of California at Berkeley, Northwestern University, and the commercial database vendor ChoicePoint Inc. The spate of scary headlines made Tufts officials rethink their silence. ''We started seeing these across the country," said Jay. ''As we gathered more information on this, we decided it would be better to be super cautious." Jay estimated that the mailing would cost Tufts about $41,000. ''We certainly think that it's worth it," she said. Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.

One of the companies mentioned here, Harrah's, gobbled up my client Caesar's Entertainment in the largest acquisition in casino history.

Harrah's BI has been written about extensively elsewhere - but in a nutshell, superior returns did give them a crucial financial performance advantage in comparison to Caesar's, which in turn justified the takeover.

In merger related SEC filings and public discussions on record, Harrahs executives explicitly stated that their superior customer intelligence and predictive modeling (boy do they ever know how to pick a loser!) was directly assoicated with their financial performance advantage.

That competitive advantage was less than 1% on gross earnings - but against a $5.5 billion company (Caesar's), enough to pay for a huge acquisition.

The merger will be consummated this summer - and my friends at Caesar's hoping that the axe, when it falls will be to the left or to the right...

Executives See Business Intelligence Emerging as Crucial Competitive Advantage - CRM Today


Tuesday, 03 May 2005

Business intelligence capabilities and analytic prowess will play crucial roles in the most competitive sectors of the global economy, according to a new study by the director of research for Babson Executive Education (BEE) at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. But an organization's efforts to develop fact-based decision-making capabilities are likely to fail unless they are closely supported by top management, the survey showed.

"We have reached a critical juncture in the history of global competition," said Professor Tom Davenport, president's distinguished professor in the Information Technology Management Division of Babson. "After years of fitful progress, leading firms have begun basing their competitive strategies on the sophisticated analysis of business data."

Davenport cited progress at organizations such as Capital One, Harrah's Entertainment, Dreyfus, Marriott, Procter & Gamble, Verizon and the NFL's New England Patriots as clear signs of an accelerating trend toward greater reliance on analytic processes and technologies. The research study, which polled more than 40 C-level executives and directors at 25 globally competitive organizations, was conducted by Davenport's team over the first quarter of 2005. Each executive was asked 15 to 20 questions during a 45-minute interview.

Three conclusions emerged from the study data, Davenport said. First, leading organizations are focusing more attention on developing fact-based decision-making processes. Second, initiatives which are tightly focused on achieving key strategic objectives are the most likely to gain traction. Third, the support and involvement of champions at the C-level are absolutely critical to the success of enterprise business intelligence initiatives.

Davenport said the research study grew from his interest in learning more about how large organizations build analytic capabilities, convert data into knowledge and leverage business intelligence to create value. He said he was gratified by the level of engagement demonstrated by the executives.

"The net takeaway of the study is this: The ability to make business decisions based on tightly focused, fact-based analysis is emerging as a measurable competitive edge in the global economy," Davenport said. "Organizations that fail to invest in the proper analytic technologies will be unable to compete in a fact-based business environment."

The research survey was co-sponsored by SAS and Intel. The results of the survey were announced at the 30th annual SAS Users Group International (SUGI) conference.


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