familiar times - winter

Dear Colleague

Welcome to familiar's explosive winter edition of 'times'!

The question we're all asking at the moment is, 'What happened?', one minute business is bigger, busier & brighter than history can recall - the next a dark cloud has moved so fast over the world that we can't see day for night.

Do you shrug & assume it's natural after such a long period of growth & prosperity? But it is? What really happened to cause the Dot-Com Bomb? What can you do to lessen the impact? And how are others coping? ...

We searched, we read and we digested what the world thinks, so please have a read, enjoy the articles, and be sure to let us know what you think.

Included this issue:

• This months SPOTLIGHT on the Dot-Com Bomb

• Up to the minute inside industry HEADLINES and news

• Features, news & articles on BUSINESS topics

• Information about the newest TECHNOLOGY and trends

Visit us at: www.familiar.co.uk

BIG BROTHER: IT WAS 'IT' WOT WON IT! Brian's not the only winner

IBM TO REINVENT THE INTERNET: It's like the Internet, only it's a grid...

BT CUTS SEE BROADBAND PRICES FALL: It's still more expensive than cable though...

THE GADGET SHOWDOWN: Palmtop's go Fisticuffs

NICE LEGS SHAME ABOUT THE ROUTERS: Cisco staff wear shorts as cost-cutting hits office air-con!

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THE DOT-COM BOMB
Why have so many dot-coms bombed? The answer has little to do with technology, and everything to do with bad business practice... period. An Ernst and Young publication put it well. "A well-run business is a well-run business, regardless of its medium of customer access and delivery - traditional or electronic".
Want to read the entire story? Find it here.

WARNING SIGNS: DO IT RESULTS SPELL UK RECESSION?
Have we been living in a bubble for 10 years?
Want to read the whole article? Find it Here

SURVIVE IT BUDGET CUTS
Economic cycles bring alternating waves of funding and budget cuts, creating an atmosphere of ecstasy and tragedy. In this atmosphere, IT managers must be prepared to defend the value of their organisation to the business, or they risk disabling cuts. How can IT managers prepare themselves for budget battles? What tactics can they employ to survive and still function effectively?
Want to read the whole article? Find it Here

STRATEGIC PLANNING 101: WHY TECH FIRMS BLEW IT
We all know what has happened to the tech sector in the last year, but do we understand why it happened? Read this analysis of lessons learned the hard way.
Want to read the entire story? Find it here.

E-BUSINESS CRITICAL TO LONG-TERM SUCCESS
According to the Cutter Business Technology Council "Companies that view the dot-com failures as the failure of e-business in general -- and stop funding e-business projects and plans -- will not be competitive in the long term."
Want to read the entire story? Find it here.

VIRGIN GOES HEAD TO HEAD WITH BT OVER DSL

INTEL UNVEILS 'BETTER BREED' OF CHIPS

CAR INDUSTRY PUTS BRAKES ON B2B

EXPEDIA.COM GOES B2B

FORD'S COVISINT BOASTS NOT ALL THEY APPEAR

SAP RIDES THE B2B ELEVATOR DOWN

OH LORD, WON'T YOU BUY ME A MERCEDES-BENZ (ONLINE!)

PIRELLI AND BENETTON GRAB TELECOM ITALIA

PALM TO SPIN OFF OS DIVISION

McDONALD'S TAKE AWAY CALDERA OPENSERVER

OPEN SOURCE
Why giving it away free is good business [ask any crack dealer]. Red Hat has delivered a profit and generated positive cash flows for the first time. Good news for Red Hat - and better news for the Open Source concept. Linux is fast becoming a better option for the savvy buyer than Unix. Other Open Source solutions are following the same route, we hope to make our own JERID™ product "open source" within the year.
Want to find out more? Find it Here

TEN TECHNOLOGY IMPERATIVES FOR BUILDING A REAL-TIME ENTERPRISE
Gartner has identified 10 new technology projects that it sees as critical for businesses, including smarter networks and better knowledge management. Find out why these are your most critical imperatives for the coming year.
Want to find out more? Find it Here

EIGHT MANTRAS FOR A SUCCESSFUL SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION
Working with a team that's implementing high-level software in your organisation? What's the best way to organise your group and make the most of everyone's talents? This excerpt from gantthead tells you how.
Want to find out more? Find it Here

COLLABORATE TO DRIVE E-COMMERCE
Displaying XML information on the Web requires Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) or Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). This article describes the difference when using each and gives links to XML development tools.
Want to read the article? Find it Here

INNOVATION APPEARS ON THE CORPORATE RADAR
A 'Trendsetter Barometer' survey commissioned by PricewaterhouseCoopers shows that innovation features highly among fast growth companies. The survey was conducted among over 400 companies identified as the fastest growing US companies over the last five years. Three quarters of CEOs in these companies say that innovation is a priority. Innovation is in the three big I's:

Internet - innovators expect revenues from this source to increase three-fold over the next 12 months
Investments - in IT, new product development and R&D
International - nearly twice as many innovators are doing business abroad.

Want to find out more? Click Here

NAIL DOWN REQUIREMENTS FOR PROJECT SUCCESS
A crucial step towards reaching a project's business goals is making sure that both the project team and the business process owner agree on the requirements. Read one project manager's advice on how requirements definition should work.
Want to read the article? Find it Here

APPLYING TECHNOLOGY LAWS TO THE EMERGING WEB SERVICES MARKET
Are you wondering where the Web services market is headed? Columnist Tim Landgrave uses familiar rules to analyse the future of the market and project a new forecast of technological growth.
Want to find out more? Find it Here

GET THE MOST FROM OUTSOURCING
Want to outsource some of your business functions but not sure where to start? Here's how to determine the functions to outsource and the steps to make sure your relationship is productive
Want to find out more? Find it Here

HOW DO YOU EVALUATE AN IT CONSULTANT?
Do you have a form or checklist for evaluating IT consultants? Why not share it with your peers? E-mail us your form, and if we use it, we'll send you a coffee mug! Don't worry: Any identifying logos or names will be removed before we publish it.

ANALYSE YOUR STAFF
Conducting a SWOT analysis to determine employee strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is a common planning strategy. We offer a new look at an old strategy and include a spreadsheet you can download to make it work.
Want to find out more? Find it Here

Other Features
For other features, visit familiar.

E-PAPER - IMAGINE NO MORE
Or I-paper (depending who you ask) has a long and glorious fictional history. A sheet of paper whose content changes on demand; which can "read" your handwriting and turn it into type on the page. Input device and output device in one. Thin, flexible, portable and as crisply readable as paper.
Want to learn more? Find it here

FROM RAPID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT TO EXTREME PROGRAMMING
Tim Landgrave explains the 12 principles of eXtreme Programming and sheds some light on how they can be selectively incorporated into your existing developer methodology. Interestingly this is similar to familiar's own software development process JERID.
Want to find out more? Find it Here

DATA CUBES OFFER A NEW DIMENSION FOR ANALYSING INFORMATION
CRM is about knowing your customers. And knowing your customers can come from knowing data. Whether you're able to spot relationships in that data all depends upon how you view it, and data cubes provide an illuminating perspective.
Want to find out more? Find it Here

JAVA DATA MINING
Download this excerpt from DATA MINING: PRACTICAL MACHINE LEARNING TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES WITH JAVA IMPLEMENTATIONS, published by Morgan- Kauffmann, for a look at strategies for closing the gap between generating information and understanding it.
Want to find out more? Find it Here

WHEN MOORE'S LAW EXPIRES
The importance of ever faster chips is not to be underestimated. Reaching a limit to chip performance would result in a top-to-bottom shake up of the IT market (for a start - you wouldn't need to update your OS if there were no new chips). One day - when we're using single electrons and using their "spin" to represent ones and zeros - we reach the limits of what electronic chips can do. A good day to divest Intel stock…
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XML & ASP INTEGRATION
The problem with using XML and XSL on the Web is that only Internet Explorer 5 and above can display it. What if you want to make the same content available for Netscape or handheld users? Here's a way to make it work.
Want to find out more? Find it Here

WHAT'S IN A (NET) NAME?
The first new competitors to .com internet domains are to be activated, marking a key next step in internet expansion. The internet's policy making body, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has authorised the introduction of seven new top level domains in all. The other domains, ".name", ".pro", ".aero", ".coop", and ".museum", will be restricted to particular organisations but ".biz" and ".info" will be open to any company or individual.
Want to find out more? Find it Here

XML & XSL INTEGRATION
Displaying XML information on the Web requires Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) or Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). This article describes the difference when using each and gives links to XML development tools.
Want read the article? Find it Here

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