Benchmarks Last Week

December 10, 2007 (Computerworld) --

Novell Inc. postponed its fourth-quarter earnings report because of a review of its accounting practices by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Novell defended itself and said it delayed the results out of “an abundance of caution.” AT&T Inc. announced that it will phase out all of its public pay phones by the end of next year. The company said the growth of cell phone usage played a big role in its decision. 50 YEARS AGO: The first public air-to-ground telephone call was made from a commercial airliner.

Got a knack for network systems? You're in demand

Five IT jobs are among the "30 fastest-growing occupations" expected from 2006 through 2016 in a new forecast from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

SAP Unveils Web 2.0 Look for Its CRM Tool

Analysts said that SAPs updated CRM 2007 offering adds Web 2.0 support but is still harder to use than rival offerings from Microsoft, Oracle and Salesforce.com.

Microsoft, Testing Firm Bicker Over Benchmark

Microsoft and a performance testing firm are trading barbs over recent benchmarks showing that an unreleased upgrade for Windows XP runs an Office test suite faster than the upcoming Vista SP1 does.

It's Simply Politics

Frank Hayes observes that this year's crop of Premier 100 Leaders have learned that the best way to innovate is to keep IT projects simple by staying on top of them politically.

Microsoft uses new XBRL data tags in SEC filing

Microsoft is the first company to submit data to the SEC using a new taxonomy for XBRL, a financial reporting language.