Mark Hall

What if everything went wrong?nnThat's the possibility security experts confronted here Tuesday at Computerworld's Premier 100 conference as panelists with real-world experience in government, software development, Internet service and corporate IT security worked their way through an unfolding fictional scenario of a massive cyberattack on critical U.S. infrastructure after an invasion of Iraq by U.S. and allied forces.

Listeners praised Microsoft Corp.'s recent efforts to improve product security and patch management after hearing them described in detail by Scott Charney, the company's chief security strategist. But they agreed that Microsoft has not yet shown it can reach its own security goals.

A cartoon in a recent issue of The New Yorker depicts the classic scene of a father sitting in a chair, looking over the report card his young son has handed him. The father says, "They may be your grades, but they're the return on my investment." CIOs are hearing similar sentiments when they face their CEOs, perusing a list of corporate IT projects.

Teradata steals Oracle's data mart users

Database giants scoff at open-source invader MySQL AB, not unlike how operating system behemoths once laughed off the Linux phenomenon. But Marten Mickos, CEO of the Uppsala, Sweden-based company, thinks 2003 may be the year the popular open-source database, MySQL, sneaks into the enterprise.

Collaborate or die. That's the unspoken motto at Johnson Controls Inc. It permeates nearly everything from product design to delivery within the company's automotive supply division.

Though IT professionals are now alert to the threat of terrorism, that threat generally hasn't pushed IT organizations to radically revamp their business continuity or data security plans, according to the results of an exclusive Computerworld online survey.

Collaborate or die. That's the unspoken motto at Johnson Controls Inc. It permeates nearly everything from product design to delivery within the company's automotive supply division. So it comes as no surprise that Johnson Controls (JCI) is well along in an application integration project that has turned collaboration into something far more than a motto.