Businesses’ reasons for investing in data management infrastructure are shifting from back-office, cost-reduction objectives to customer-oriented, revenue-generating goals, according to a study conduced by the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) International and Gartner Group Inc.
The survey found that the fastest-growing niche of the enterprise applications market is customer relationship management, which is currently showing 26 per cent annual expansion. The enterprise applications market also includes enterprise resource planning, records management and archiving (RM/A), accounts payable and accounts receivable, and human resource management, under Gartner’s definition. Totaling those five areas, Gartner estimates that the market will grow from around $11 billion in 2000 to $22.5 billion in 2004.
Spearhead minds the gap to create network security
Spearhead Security Technologies Inc. has announced a product that it said will provide new levels of protection against network intrusions and denial-of-service attacks.
The product, called NetGAP, physically disconnects the corporate network from the larger Internet and forces traffic destined for the network to be routed through a NetGAP security device, thus ensuring that only secure, desired data is sent to the corporate network, according to Spearhead.
Microsoft pumping up directory for Web use
The next version of Microsoft Corp.’s Active Directory will include new features that begin to position the directory for use on the Web, but observers say the additions are only the first steps on a difficult path.
Microsoft bills the move as a major advancement for Active Directory, which today is geared for use within organizations as an internal network operating system directory. Microsoft wants to extend the directory’s role to include managing users who are outside of an organization’s firewall, such as, e-commerce customers and other Web site visitors. First Microsoft must break down barriers that include Active Directory’s proprietary interfaces, which hamper effective integration with the open environment of the Internet.
