Akamai Technologies, a content distribution network best known for helping companies distribute Web sites and stream Webcasts on the public Internet, is readying plans to provide service for corporate intranets. Akamai joins a crowded field in offering services that make it possible for corporate networks to offload streaming traffic when
RealNetworks has to be better than free. RealNetworks typically charges corporations tens of thousands of dollars to license its streaming media servers and players for use in delivering audio and video on corporate networks. In contrast, rival Microsoft integrates its streaming technology into its operating systems at no extra cost.
To gain traction in the streaming media market, Microsoft Corp. is using a time-tested strategy: It’s bundling its technology into the operating system. Microsoft’s Windows Media platform is woven into the Windows operating system, creating an environment where companies looking to deploy online audio and video applications can do so
In 1936, when John Tyson hauled his first truckload of chickens from Arkansas to Chicago for a profit of $235, he could not have imagined that a network of machines communicating silently via electrical signals would move poultry to market. Or that, just after the turn of the century, his
The attached diagram (in PDF format) illustrates how a company might synchronize supply and demand with its vendors and trading partners through the business-process model known as collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR). In this example, a 300-store, $1.4 billion sporting goods retailer wants to share its sales planning and
What’s in a name? Not much, apparently, for companies dabbling with Web applications on their corporate networks. Although Sun Microsystems has spent the past 18 months rechristening the bulk of its Web software suite under the banner of its Sun ONE brand, the marketing message has not made everyone a
In 1998, things were looking bleak for Corporate Express. The world’s largest business-to-business office products company had gotten that way through hundreds of acquisitions. It had taken on too much debt. In November of that year, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the company’s credit rating to junk. Monty Sooter, Corporate Express’
What are they?Computer networks that manage themselves; sometimes described as “self-managed” or “self-healing.” The term derives from the vertebrate nervous system, which controls involuntary functions like breathing and digestion. Who came up with them?Everyone, and no one. Researchers have been investigating autonomic computing for years. Compaq, Intel and Cisco, for
If you worked in Sigma-Aldrich’s customer service group three or four years ago, you performed some ugly gyrations to fill the orders of online shoppers. Like a lot of companies, Sigma-Aldricha supplier of chemicals to research laboratoriesput up an electronic- commerce site in late 1998. At the time, the company
As the vice president of information systems for Toyota’s North American manufacturing operations, Jim Bolte spends his days figuring out how technology can be used to streamline operationsand thus manage costsat a mass-production business that turns out more than a million new cars each year. In an interview with Baseline,