A year after Steve Kaufman and his staff at Goshen, Ind.-based health care insurer Mennonite Mutual Aid Association (MMAA) launched a massive enterprise application integration (EAI) project (see story), the results are in, and the news is mostly good. The company’s goal was to use tools from Vitria Technology Inc. in Sunnyvale, Calif., to integrate […]
Piecing It All Together Read More »
U.S. visa rules single out journalists with burdensome requirements In May, nine legitimate journalists were stopped while trying to enter a country. They were repeatedly questioned, fingerprinted, searched, handcuffed and held overnight in cells. Then they were deported to their countries of origin without being given a chance to appeal the decision, or even to
U.S. government expels legitimate reporters Read More »
Down economy spurs automation in collections
Down economy spurs automation in collections Read More »
A former war buff embarks on her own 12 step program My name is Maria, and I’m addicted to war. I had my first taste of combat shortly after I turned 23, in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. From then on, war was my constant companion, friend and spiritual adviser. Whenever I returned from
‘I’m addicted to war’ Read More »
In the mid 1990s I worked in the former Soviet Union, covering various republics as they disintegrated into civil war. And I occasionally came across war crimes and atrocities, which I tried to report to the best of my ability. But, more often, I found fake atrocities. And, occasionally, I reported those as well. Learning
How to spot a fake atrocity Read More »
Customer-relationship-management systems offer a wide variety of features.
But small steps are best when moving up this technology stairway
La Crême de la CRM Read More »
The Internet was a great big steel trap for a lot of companies–it sucked in resources, people and money and offered only vague pie-in-the-sky promises in return. Today’s technology users have learned from the mistakes of the first wave and have begun to use the new technologies to streamline operations, cut costs and increase revenues.
The second mouse gets the cheese Read More »
But competing systems work to snarl the flow of transactions.
Cost Savings and Collaboration Drive B2B E-Payments Read More »
Two years ago, International Playthings Inc. was doing business the old fashioned way–faxes, letters of credit, and a great deal of sitting around and waiting for various documents. There weren’t a lot of examples yet of companies that successfully moved their supply chain to the Internet. “It rook a Jot of faith to change the
Some companies using direct file transfers find they’re an advantage over web form-based systems, in that data is moved around automatically without employees having to go on the web and manually enter invoicing information. However, they can require some integration work, and this means a custom interface needs to be written. Web Services are already
Web services–on the horizon Read More »
News providers are finding ways to make their Web sites profitable The Internet boom brought with it a set of buzzwords for the online news industry — “page views,” “eyeballs,” “site visitors.” Back in those heady days of the year 2000, the goal was to get as many visitors as possible. Those publishers who thought
Looking for Online Dollars Read More »
For many journalists, public relations agents are the used car salesmen of the communications industry. They will do what it takes to get you to buy a story pitch — supply you with experts, find case studies, put you in touch with the company’s CEO. They’re friendly and kind, and some of them want to
Avoiding the Spin Cycle Read More »
The events of Sept. 11 hit the firm of Cantor Fitzgerald harder than any other company in the World Trade Center. Cantor lost some 730 of the 1,000 employees located on the top floors of the North Tower. Some 180 of those casualties belonged to eSpeed, Cantor Fitzgerald’s electronic trading subsidiary for fixed-income products. The
eSpeed charts road to recovery Read More »
A true financial supermarket has been a dream of firms in the financial services industry. But the dream has had myriad obstacles, ranging from regulation and legislation to plain old know-know. Some firms, expanding outside traditional niches, have found profitability to be a factor of expertise and the efficient application of systems, two competencies sometimes
Elusive Goal of Product Convergence Now Gets A Big Boost From Technology Read More »
Critics claim journalists go too far — and, sometimes, not far enough. Since Sept. 11, American journalists have been walking a fine ethical line. On the one hand, there are grim warnings about spilling military secrets, undermining national security and consorting with the enemy. Not to mention the fact that it’s pretty hard to criticize
