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*****************************************************
Edupage is a service of EDUCAUSE, an international nonprofit
association dedicated to transforming education through
information technologies.
*****************************************************
TOP STORIES for October 18, 1999
SBC Communications to Offer High-Speed Internet Connections
D.C. Region Leads Nation in Net Access
California's Governor Signs Software Order
Supporters of Linux Worry That Commercialization Could Bring Chaos
ALSO
Enter the Electronic Employee
Increasingly Slow Internet Will Hurt E-Commerce
Bad News for Santa on PC Prices
SBC COMMUNICATIONS TO OFFER HIGH-SPEED INTERNET CONNECTIONS
SBC Communications today plans to announce that it will invest $6
billion over the next three years to roll out high-speed Internet
service, according to people familiar with the company. SBC
plans to offer DSL service to 80 percent of its subscribers in
three years. SBC is currently the top local phone company in the
United States, having completed its purchase of Ameritech. Local
telcos are now trying to catch up to cable-TV operators, which
already provide high-speed Internet access to over one million
U.S. residences. Although local phone companies provide DSL
service to less than 100,000 residences, Bell Atlantic has
started offering the service in New York City and SBC plans to
double its number of DSL subscribers. (New York Times 10/18/99)
D.C. REGION LEADS NATION IN NET ACCESS
Residents of the District of Columbia and its suburbs have
achieved the highest rate of Internet connectivity in the nation,
according to a recent poll by Scarborough Research. Nearly 60
percent of residents of the District of Columbia region,
including the surrounding areas of Virginia, Maryland, West
Virginia, and Pennsylvania, are wired to the Internet. In the
Washington, D.C., area, 36 percent of users 25 or older are
college educated, working in a white-collar position, and earning
an after-tax household income of $56,672. However, widespread
Net use does not spread to the actual District, where poverty
results in one of the nation's largest digital divides. San
Francisco, which includes Silicon Valley, ranks second to D.C.
in the survey with 56.1 percent of residents online, followed by
Austin (55.5 percent), Seattle (53.3 percent), and Salt Lake City
(50 percent). (Washington Post 10/17/99)
CALIFORNIA'S GOVERNOR SIGNS SOFTWARE ORDER
In a symbolic move aimed at stopping software piracy, California
Gov. Gray Davis signed an executive order on Friday requiring
state agencies to enforce copyright laws internally. Software
piracy has become so rampant that many agencies responsible for
protecting copyrights have been unknowingly using illegal
products themselves, Davis says. Although anti-piracy laws are
already in place, Davis says "a whole range of laws have not been
enforced as well as they should have been." Meanwhile, Microsoft
charged four California businesses with software piracy on
Friday, saying in its lawsuit that pirated software accounts for
30 percent of California's software sales. Pirated software
results in lost sales taxes and wages that cost $11 billion each
year globally and $2.8 billion in the United States. The
Internet facilitates copying and distributing software, and
therefore has made anti-piracy laws more difficult to enforce.
(Houston Chronicle 10/16/99)
SUPPORTERS OF LINUX WORRY THAT COMMERCIALIZATION COULD BRING CHAOS
Although supporters have touted Linux as a standard for the
open-source movement, concern is now rising that various
commercial versions of the software that are now emerging will
lead to fragmentation, as occurred in the past with Unix.
GNU/Linux software is now available from over 22 companies,
including Red Hat, Turbo Linux, Caldera Systems, and many others.
Silicon Graphics, VA Linux Systems, and O'Reilly & Company last
week announced plans to commercialize a version of Linux called
Debian. Different Linux vendors all package Linux with distinct
features, such as software for troubleshooting or maintaining
networks. As Linux vendors work to distinguish themselves from
one another, experts say fragmentation will occur. However,
Linux backers refute this belief. Currently, Linux distributors
disagree over which public domain tools should be included in
Linux packages. In order to resolve these differences, most
Linux vendors have joined the Linux Standard Base project, which
aims to encourage compatibility and to ensure that software works
on all compliant Linux systems. (New York Times 10/18/99)
=======================================
ENTER THE ELECTRONIC EMPLOYEE
Although e-business is often more efficient than conducting
manual processes, companies must be careful to consider costs
related to technology maintenance and labor. Online technology
cut $15.2 billion from corporate cost structures in the U.S. in
1998, while annual savings will reach $600 billion in 2002,
according to Giga Information Group. Yet the cost of maintaining
and supporting an extensive e-business site could top several
million dollars annually, eating for the first year or two into
the savings companies otherwise enjoy, says IBM's John Swainson.
A smooth transition to new technology and a comprehensive
strategy for unionized workers are necessary to gain from cost
savings. A switch to automated processes can often result in a
labor reduction, which can be costly for companies with unionized
workers. While a variety of methods can be used to reduce the
impact of labor reduction, a common option is to retrain existing
employees to perform jobs in different areas. (CFO 10/99)
INCREASINGLY SLOW INTERNET WILL HURT E-COMMERCE
E-commerce will be hampered by the slowness of the Internet,
which will most likely keep getting slower in coming years,
according to a recent study by Northeast Consulting Resources.
Another report by Zona Research shows evidence that long Web page
download times are costing companies billions of dollars. After
waiting eight seconds for downloading a Web page, Zona found that
over 33 percent of Internet consumers stop trying the download
and give up. Consulting firm Keynote measured the performance of
40 top e-commerce Web sites, starting in 1996. The results
showed that faster Web sites use content distribution services,
which increase the speed of downloading Web pages. These
services deliver Web pages from the nearest server to a
consumer's location, bypassing router hops.
(E-Commerce Times 10/14/99)
BAD NEWS FOR SANTA ON PC PRICES
Computer manufacturers are likely to raise PC prices
significantly this holiday season due to component shortages,
experts say. The recent earthquake in Taiwan, which produces 12
percent to 15 percent of the global supply of memory chips, will
contribute to a possible 20 percent jump in PC prices. Although
memory chips now account for only 5 percent to 7 percent of the
total price of a PC, the chips may contribute 10 percent to a
PC's cost this fall. Meanwhile, computer manufacturers have run
out of ways to reduce PC expenses and will have no choice but to
charge consumers more for the systems, analysts say. Further
complicating the situation, a shortfall of liquid crystal
displays, which is expected to last through next year, could
affect the pricing of notebooks. Already, Dell has cut back on
laptop shipments to some customers. Compaq also has announced
delays in shipping some of its products both this month and next
month. (Los Angeles Times 10/18/99)
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UPCOMING EDUCAUSE CONFERENCES AND MEETINGS:
EDUCAUSE '99
"Celebrating New Beginnings"
EDUCAUSE Annual Conference
October 26-29, 1999, Long Beach, California
http://www.educause.edu/conference/e99/
The EDUCAUSE '99 information technology conference promises to
be one of higher education's preeminent educational events. The
conference will shape and define the agenda for the
transformation of education through information technologies
for the 21st century.
For more information on EDUCAUSE '99, please visit the conference
Web site at http://www.educause.edu/conference/e99/,
or contact us at conf@educause.edu or 303-449-4430.
THE LEARNING MARKETPLACE: NEW RESOURCES FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING
Presented by the Leadership Forum of the Center for Academic
Transformation (An EDUCAUSE Affiliate)
November 11, 1999, Atlanta, Georgia
http://www.center.rpi.edu/LForum/LMWkshp.html
SC99: High Performance Networking and Computing Conference
November 13-19, 1999, Portland, Oregon
http://www.sc99.org/
For additional information on all EDUCAUSE conferences see
http://www.educause.edu/conference/conf.html
For information on other technology-related
educational conferences see
http://www.educause.edu/ir/events.html
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OTHER EDUCAUSE PUBLICATIONS
EDUCOM REVIEW is a bimonthly print magazine on information
technology and education. U.S. subscriptions are $18 a year.
CAUSE/EFFECT is a quarterly practitioner's journal about
managing and using information resources on college and
university campuses. U.S. subscriptions are $52 a year.
For additional information on these and other EDUCAUSE
publications see: http://www.educause.edu/pub/pubs.html
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Edupage Copyright 1999, EDUCAUSE
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EDUCAUSE, an international nonprofit association dedicated to
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