Power plays 2003

IBM unveils three software modules designed to predict and respond to sudden increases in data center workloads.

Microsoft announces Dynamic Systems Initiative around self-managing data center software.

BMC Software lays out strategy for for integrated service management.

CA airs its on-demand computing strategy.

IBM announces storage virtualization products, software for pooling application servers, tools that make it easier to add servers to increase capacity and balance server load, and “pay-as-you-grow” offerings for storage and blade server systems.

Veritas Software jumps on bandwagon, saying it plans to move into the server management market in part via technologies gained in its acquisitions of Jareva Technologies and Precise Software.

HP maps out its “adaptive enterprise” strategy.

IBM grabs Think Dynamics, maker of automated server provisioning software.

Microsoft plans to open up its nascent system definition model architecture, for simplifying data center management, so servers running Linux and Unix can be part of a data center that employs the Microsoft technology.

IBM Tivoli unveils self-managing and -healing software for middleware servers and applications.

HP unveils more than 30 new and upgraded management products under its Adaptive Enterprise strategy.

CA delivers first network management software products aimed at supporting customers working toward an on-demand computing model.

HP, IBM and Sun back Tripwire, an effort to develop file signature data standards that could be important to auto-mated computing.

Oracle adds grid computing capabilities to a new version of its application server software, part of a broader effort to revamp its entire product line around the utility computing model.

HP acquires Talking Blocks, a maker of Web services management software, as part of Adaptive Enterprise strategy.

Oracle organizes a consortium to hammer out technology standards for grid computing in commercial environments; observers expect this group to butt heads with those already developing grid standards.

Sun provides outsourcing firm Affiliated Computer Services with pay-per-use server and storage resources.

Sun follows ACS deal with a similar arrangement with outsourcing firm SchlumbergerSema.

IBM teams with Cisco to develop standard ways of providing self-diagnostic and self-healing enterprise IT networks.

Electronic Data Systems and management software maker Opsware initiate work on Data Center Markup Language, a standard for describing various data-center components and interoperability.

Dell President and COO Kevin Rollins largely dismisses all the talk surrounding high-level autonomic computing initiatives.

As part of its Adaptive Enterprise vision, HP announces about 40 products and services for letting IT managers better integrate management data, assign user access rights, manage heterogeneous servers and start to implement service-oriented processes across their networks.

EMC buys VMware, leading virtualization software maker, for $635 million.

New WorldCom CEO Michael Capellas outlines a 100-day plan, saying the company much approach this time with “an outrageous, outrageous sense of urgency” focused on rolling out new products and forging alliances at the same time that it reorganizes and puts into place a plan to emerge from bankruptcy.

WorldCom slashs 5,000 jobs, most of them corporate and administrative positions, and lays out various other measures to cut $2.5 billion in costs as part of CEO Michael Capellas’ 100-day plan for emerging from bankruptcy.

Writes off $79.8 billion in goodwill and other assets.

WorldCom files three-year reorganization plan, which includes a corporate name change to MCI, with the bankruptcy court.

MCI confirms is has received around $300 million back in taxes paid when it was still called WorldCom and wildly overinflated its earnings.

WorldCom settles fraud charges with the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission, agreeing to pay a $500 million civil penalty; wins court approval for the settlement in August.

Two reports stemming from investigations into the WorldCom accounting pin much of the blame on CEO Bernard Ebbers and the culture he encouraged.

Sheds fixed wireless service assets in a $144 million deal with Nextel.

An angry WorldCom stockholder proposing a boycott of the telecommunications company receives more than 17,000 e-mail messages, including 7,000 in one week, from supporters.

Cuts revenue projections over the next three years by $4.2 billion, or $200 million for 2003, $1.2 billion for 2004 and $2.8 billion for 2005.

Critics of WorldCom, renamed MCI, blast the bankruptcy reorganization plan during a U.S. Senate committee, saying it neglects to punish the company for its past accounting fraud and puts competitors at a disadvantage in the marketplace.

AT&T files a second objection to MCI’s reorganization plan, alleging that MCI intentionally and fraudulently rerouted voice calls through Canada to avoid paying sometimes-hefty access fees to other service providers.

Richard Roscitt joins as president and COO. Most recently, he was CEO of ADC Telecommunications.

AT&T expands its claim that MCI is engaging in shady call-routing scheme with a civil suit against the carrier; MCI disputes the charges.

Creates new board, appointing five respected individuals from the investment, consulting, legal and network industry communities.

Reaches a settlement agreement with two principal creditors that had objected to the bankruptcy plan.

Appoints its first chief ethics officer, Nancy Higgins, longtime corporate ethics executive.

Judge approves reorganization plan, which will erase about $24 billion in debt, leaving $3.5 billion in net debt and $2.3 billion in cash.

Retains high-voltage attorney David Boies, former anti-trust Microsoft slayer, to look into possible violations of its Unix and Linux intellectual property.

Files $1 billion suit against IBM, charging code misappropriation.

Abandons Linux business and warns commercial Linux users they might be liable for intellectual property violations that, it alleges, exist in the Linux source code.

Begins showing analysts Linux source code it says was lifted illegally from Unix.

Terminates IBM’s right to sell AIX, and amends the original lawsuit by upping damages sought to more than $3 billion and asking for a permanent injunction to stop IBM from selling AIX Unix. IBM says nothing doing.

Registers Unix System V source code with the U.S. Copyright Office and says it will offer Linux users UnixWare licenses as protection against possible future copyright violations.

Red Hat, a leading Linux distributor, files a formal complaint against SCO in an effort to “hold SCO accountable for its unfair and deceptive actions” aimed at creating an “atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and doubt about Linux” in order to hurt the Linux market; company seeks a permanent injunction against SCO to keep it from making such allegations.

IBM countersues, saying that SCO is violating the general public license governing Linux use.

Terminates IBM Sequent license, acquired in 1999, because Big Blue refused to order almost 170,000 lines of Dynix/ptx source code removed from the Linux kernel.

Denial-of-service attacks shut down corporate site.

Readies invoices for corporate users to levy fees for Linux use.

Linux creator Linus Torvalds says SCO has not shown infringement of its intellectual property.

Files a motion to dismiss Red Hat’s lawsuit as baseless.

HP offers to indemnify customers that acquired Linux on an HP device by Oct. 1, 2003, against legal action from SCO.

Receives $50 million in private funding for use in part to enforce its intellectual property claims; pushes back the date for doubling the price of the intellectual property license for Linux; indefinitely delays plans to invoice Linux users.

Files papers asserting IBM doesn’t have the right to enforce the general public license governing Linux.

Cisco and IBM agree to combine their Fibre Channel SAN products to sell to customers, a move analysts say is the start of a new era in Fibre Channel.

Cisco files lawsuit against Chinese network equipment maker Huawei Technologies and its subsidiaries, claiming unlawful copying of Cisco’s intellectual property.

Microsoft‘s long-awaited CRM software hits the streets. Separately, the company acquires online Web conferencing service provider PlaceWare in a major shake-up of the conferencing market.

FCC issues unbundling rules, yet it does not clearly favor either the RBOCs or CLECs in the decision.

HP enters the IP storage market with an iSCSI storage router.

Sun unveils Orion, its strategy for delivering infrastructure software on a quarterly basis with the Solaris operating system; develops new class of multicore processors that the company hopes will give it a competitive edge.

The Liberty Alliance Project outlines its federated identity-management architecturefor helping companies resolve technical issues encountered when building the foundation for Web services.

Microsoft lays out broad Dynamic Systems Initiative around self-managing software.

Cisco acquires privately held home networker Linksys Group for $500 million in stock, and VoIP software maker SignalWorks, for $13.5 million in stock.

3Com jumps back into the large enterprise LAN core switch market, after a 2-year exodus, in a resale deal with Huawei Technologies. Meantime, Cisco presses its case against Huawei, and Huawei countersues.

The Liberty Alliance turns over part of its work to a standards group and releases two new draft specifications as part of its federated identity-management architecture

EMC and HP ready metered on-demand storage programs that for the first time automatically charge customers only for actual usage.

The W3C sets a formal policy that largely obliges participants in the standards development process to license key technologies, even if patented, on a royalty-free basis.

Cisco beats back wireless LAN switch upstarts with Aironet access point software that will allow centralized management across an enterprise WLAN.

Gartner security analyst Richard Stiennon issues a report saying IDS technology is a failure, will be obsolete by 2005, and advises IT organizations not to buy the devices. Aftershocks from the report ripple through year’s end.

EMC shakes up storage with the $1.3 billion purchase of Legato Systems, from which it gets backup and recovery capability, hierarchical storage management and e-mail and content archiving, among other technologies.

The Blaster worm appears, spreading rapidly throughout the week and wreaking havoc on Windows users around the world; one week later, the Sobig-F e-mail worm, by year end considered the most prolific virus of 2003, strikes.

The FCC releases its long-awaited final Triennial Review order, which removes the requirement that Bells offer discounted rates to competitors on fiber-based broadband lines, among other decisions.

AT&T plots $3 billion migration to an all-IP core.

VeriSign ignites industry and user ire when it launches SiteFinder, which directs erroneous .com or .net URLs to its search engine with paid advertisements; succumbs to pressure and turns the service off within weeks.

Cable & Wireless sends enterprise customers scrambling with official notice that it is discontinuing its ATM and frame-relay networks come Dec. 15.

Microsoft creates $5 million “bounty” fund it will use to pay for information that helps track down authors of the SoBig and Blaster viruses.

Cisco and Nortel shake up the SSL VPN market with plans to add SSL support to their VPN products.

Howard Schmidt, eBay chief information security officer, organizes a think tank of IT security experts from the private sector and state governments aimed at boosting security effectiveness.

Betsy Bernard, head of AT&T Business Services group, resigns while AT&T names William Hannigan, most recently CEO of Sabre Holdings and one-time SBC exec, as president.